A veteran going back to Civ4?

Civilization IV is a complete game. I have played it to death, and still love it. Yes, I also play Civ V some, but here is what I have found over the course of 10+ years....

I originally bought Civ II in the $10 bin at Best Buy. Looked interesting. Started playing it and fell head over heels. Then after learning the general mechanics of the game, I bought Civ III....

And I have never played a Civ II game since. I will hopefully someday play one, since it's a cool game too. But Civ III had it going on! Oh, and the warrior grunts after taking over a barbarian encampment! You know you loved it. Played it for 3-4 years, then I bought Civ IV....

And I have only played one Civ III game since (this summer, for nostalgia sake, and it's STILL a great game!). Upon purchasing Civ IV, I never went back to III. I have probably played 7000 hours minimum of Civ IV Vanilla. 38 days in the hospital, played it nonstop. Never got bored. VANILLA even. Then, in December 2010, I bought Civ V....

And after a month of playing, I purchased the expansion packs for Civ IV off of Steam (it was an offer I couldn't refuse -- even bought Civ III complete again for like the price of a quarter pounder) and started playing them....

Do I still play V? Yes, sometimes. When I need a mental break. When I don't want to "think" too much. This is when I play Civ V it seems.

But the bottom line is this. Upon playing a newer version of Civ, I have never gone back to the previous version, starting with Civ II....

Until now. Take it for what it's worth.
 
Maybe I'll just join the rest of the gaming world, buy a console and play mindless FPS games.

Never!

Someone asked about Civ4 and Win64: works like a charm. I run it on Win Pro x64, perfectly. You can run big mods like RoM AND without MAFs too.
 
Civilization IV is a complete game. I have played it to death, and still love it. Yes, I also play Civ V some, but here is what I have found over the course of 10+ years....

In a complete game, ALL of the listed control options actually work.

Tactical AI is so bad in civ V and it doesn't have the benefit of SoD, so the real draw would be MP...except that has its own issues (such as only working after a year and questionable balance).
 
+1 for Civ-4 on Win-7 64 bit. I have 16G memory and run ROM-AND-C2C with gigantic maps and no MAFs. For me, the ultimate gaming experience.

But when I get tired of the micrcomanagement of Civ-4 (That's spelled 'M-I-C-R-O-M-A-N-A-G-E-M-E-N-T') , I play Civ-5. Nothing wrong with playing both! Just think of them as different games.
 
To be honest, Civ 4 was a bit bland for my taste prior to the release of BTS. I am hopeful that they release a sizable upgrade for CiV in the form of a sweeping DLC or an official expansion.

IMHO, I think that an expansion would be nice (available as DLC on Steam or purchased in the store) and it should include all previous DLC to catch up Vanilla players with GOTY and DLC players and have single point to move forward with future DLC.
 
IMHO, I think that an expansion would be nice (available as DLC on Steam or purchased in the store) and it should include all previous DLC to catch up Vanilla players with GOTY and DLC players and have single point to move forward with future DLC.

It's slightly off topic but...

I'd echo this as something players are hanging out for. I bought Civ5 close to release but then lost interest for a period as it wasn't what I was hoping for at the time. Now I've revisited it I'm enjoying it much more and I would like to try out the various DLC leaders.

However buying all of the DLC packs which feature leaders, ignoring the map packs, would be 28 USD. I could just about buy the complete edition of Civ4 for that price (30 USD). To make Civ5 more appealing and make it feel like more of a complete game to stop people going back to Civ4 I'd recommend they revise their distribution method for Civ5 content.
 
I'm playing Civilization IV a lot more lately, though I'm unsure whether it is because it's better or because it's different. In the end, I enjoy CivV for 1UPT and the hexes and there are several other small things I like about it. The mods for the game are starting to take shape and do new things

However, CivIV has the lead on mods. Not REALLY fair but that's how it is. The reason CivIV+BTS looks better is because it had years to be patched (and honestly, the game is still broken in a few areas).
 
I went back to CIV IV, after about 3 months of playing CIV V and getting annoyed by its many flaws.

I still think CIV V is a good game.. its just not as good as CIV IV!
 
Let me start by saying that I don't want this thread to be yet another 'Civ5 sux because...', or 'Civ5 rules because....'. There are a thousand other threads covering that, and this shouldn't be one more of them.

So, I'm a civver since Civ1. Played them all, loved them all. I just love the idea of Civ, and hope I'm still around when Civ20 comes out (not likely at 1 release every 4 years, but I can hope). For me, Civ is what computer games were invented for.

Now, it's been a while, but I have some very very fond memories of Civ4-BTS-BUG/BAT... etc. Damn but that felt like one sophisticated and polished game.Years later I can still remember particular games and how they unfolded.

I bought Civ5, and all the DLC to date, as I will buy any other Civ thing that comes along (except civrev and civworld because those are for kids). Because I work and am a dad etc, I don't play quite as much I used to, but I still manage to finish a good solid game every few months or so. For the record, I play lots of other games too.

I haven't played Civ4 since Civ5 was released. I have mixed feelings on Civ5.

Ditto, although I've been reflecting on exactly what is worse and what better between these incarnations recently.

At first I loved it: 1UPT fantastic improvement, city states brilliant idea.

Agreed on both.

Then after a few games I felt like it had been dumbed down and 'console-ised'. I really missed religion

I come across this a lot, and it's a friend's biggest issue with the game. But reflecting on it, religion was a great idea in Civ IV that didn't really pan out very well. It could be bad for gameplay - the early game became a rush to try and get the religions first, due to the importance of religious buildings, and the late game was heavily dictated by who won that rush or had the random chance to have someone else's religion 'invade' their territory.

The exclusive nature of each religion was awkward conceptually: hey, I've researched polytheism! Yet somehow none of my people follow any religion or know how to build temples because someone else got Hinduism first; it's a bit like having the first person to reach Currency being the only one to know how to build a market. Yes, there have always been elements of this in Civ (first to get to Philosophy gets a free tech), but at least conceptually a civ that gets Philosophy first still gets philosophers; a civ that gets religious techs but no religion is a glaring oddity in a game that was moving ever closer to being a simulation.

The specific benefits religion provided were certainly well thought-out, but I think that overall randomness of spread was unwelcome (religion only transmitted through missionaries would have been better mechanically), and there needed to be a system to render religions non-exclusive to avoid all of the above. It was definitely something I feel should have been tweaked rather than removed altogether, but far from feeling polished religion (and corporations, the equivalent late-game feature no one seems to want back) felt experimental in Civ 4, at least to me.

, espionage,

Definitely agree with this. Espionage has been in Civ since day 1, and while there's precedent for leaving it out of the base set and then reintroducing it, I think it should be restored in one form or another.

leaders with personalities, and the technology tree/race just seems, well, less important somehow. Wind the clock forward a bit, and despite all the criticisms, I am starting to feel this is actually quite a nice game.

I think there's a lot to be said for Civ V, although I miss some other elements as well (decision-making is, I feel, oversimplified now that cities can work so many more tiles and science/luxury production is no longer tied to trade income; plus although I generally welcome the removal of random elements, I miss random events).

The tech tree may not be as good as a simulation, but a lot of the techs are more sensibly placed in terms of their game effect (granary giving extra food is much more useful early game than acting as a food store).

I think the game now encourages a greater variety of strategies. Other than culture victories, all the victory conditions in previous games rewarded basically the same format of 'expand as much as possible, build up army, win' - conquest victories that relied on large numbers of cities producing troops, science victories that relied on large numbers of cities producing research, diplomatic victories that relied on swarming the map and overwhelming everyone else with your population size. Mechanics in Civ V force different play styles to secure different victory conditions - Diplomatic victories can no longer be won on the strength of population alone but actually require diplomacy, and most economic output is linked to population size rather than number of cities (you get as much research from an extra citizen in your capital as you do by founding a new city, for instance), although obviously the more cities you have the more tech buildings.

Health was never a very useful game mechanic, I feel, and all it really did was force you to build a specific suite of buildings to keep everyone healthy - although it did at least allow the option of poisoning enemies' water...

Well, I sunk the armada even though I wasn't REALLY prepared for it, and a few more of them after that (playing on Immortal, but usually on emperor). The 'potential' is a niced idea, but it remains just that. The trouble I find is that the 'magic moments' are too far between. I can still walk away from the PC and ponder: now if I shaft Arabia, what will China do... and given the advantages and disadvantages I currently have, what strategy should I take now to really leverage my strengths? But it kind of boils down to something like: I'm going for a tech victory (have been since the start of this game), so I should keep trying to increase my population and build some more science buildings (none left, oh well, build some culture buildings then). Hmmm. A little boring perhaps?

To be honest, I think a lot of this just comes down to the fact that the AI diplomacy in Civ 5 is noticeably inferior to that in earlier games in the series, and has less to do with the mechanics.

Phil
 
I've been playing since Civ 1 and have never been able to look back at old versions. However, now for the first time I am considering it for the following reasons:

1) I play multiplayer LAN games heavily against the AI. (usually team based coop) However, the latest patch broke that as a player gets booted out after a few turns automatically.

2) There is absolutely no challenge to combat. Give me a Cannon and a rifleman and I can destroy an attacking army of 10 units with ease. Give me 3 cannons and 3 rifleman and I can easily take every city in the game. If I go up some skill levels then the cheating by the AI is so extreme that I just get mad everytime I play. Why should I play a game that makes me mad??? I used to have a challenging, enjoyable game on Prince in Civ 4. And yes, I know Civ 4 cheated on Prince but it was mild and for some reason didn't bother me like it does in Civ 5. I play on King.
 
I actualyl bash a lot obout civ 5 and how bad it is and nobody should buy it.

But to be honest I actualyl thinx civilization 5 has a better gameplay then civilization 4 especialy the combat and generally the empire management is way easier then it was in civ 4. When i first played civ 4 I only played one game and I quit because it took so much time and effort to learn this game. And I hadn''t the time I was studying accountancy.

I am a casual player and I only play a game a few hours and i dont want to spend hours only to learn the game

eventually after playing a few civ 4 games I knew how everything worked I enjoyed it... However that took a few weeks

YOu probably wondering why I kept playing the game even that i dont like spending hours of learning the game it was because of the concept "diplomacy"

I never played a game where there was actualy diplomacy involved you could have great allies and worst enemies amazing!!! It was like i was interacting with real leaders. This is the reason why i kept playing the game even i am not a big fan of turn based strategy games.


When civilization 5 came out I enjoyed it a lot the game was so easy to pick up even my brother start playing it it wasn't to hard to figure things out.. Huge improvement

However after a few games I got tired of the wierd AI and the diplomacy. I was used to play civ 4 where you actually can get allies and you're actions really ment something here it doesn't!!! I had friendly civs who went to hostile in a few turns and so on its seams so random to random!!!


After a few months my computer crashed so i have to renisntall civilization 5
However I didn't reinstalled the game because i became tired of it especialy the diplomacy the thing that made me play a civilization game

Yep I still have steam and the install buttom hmmm I wonder should i Click it maybe one day if firaxis release a patch that fix diplomacy
 
I actualyl bash a lot obout civ 5 and how bad it is and nobody should buy it.

But to be honest I actualyl thinx civilization 5 has a better gameplay then civilization 4 especialy the combat and generally the empire management is way easier then it was in civ 4.

I read one review of Civ V that summed up its approach by describing it as having been designed by someone with an obvious love of European board games. I think there's a lot of truth to this - like a board game Civ 5 plays very smoothly, it's eliminated a lot of the randomness of past incarnations (especially in the 'lucky roll = Horseman beats Tank' combat system those games favoured), and it's focused very much more on strategy than on management or simulation. If anyone's ever played the Avalon Hill board game Civilization was originally based on (not the Fantasy Flight board game that was itself based on the computer game), it feels like that style of play. By the same token I think it loses a lot of what people feel made Civ a great computer game - the reasons four gaming generations forgave such obvious flaws as the combat system for 20 years. I hear a lot of people claim this game doesn't feel 'epic' in the same way - the board game doesn't either, but it's still a good game. As others have said, it's just a different game.

And yes, I think the bad AI is the number one thing that turns people against Civ V.

There is absolutely no challenge to combat. Give me a Cannon and a rifleman and I can destroy an attacking army of 10 units with ease. Give me 3 cannons and 3 rifleman and I can easily take every city in the game.

I suspect this too is a consequence of the 'board game' mentality. Combat should be deterministic rather than random: if the same unit combination works the same way every time, that's a sign the developers have got it right. Combat in these kinds of games is usually not the objective, but if it occurs at all is done to obtain a strategic advantage. It was rarely useful in board game Civ, and in games like Tigris & Euphrates its only function is to delay an enemy's play; in that game it's not actually possible to eliminate an opponent.
 
I suspect this too is a consequence of the 'board game' mentality. Combat should be deterministic rather than random: if the same unit combination works the same way every time, that's a sign the developers have got it right. Combat in these kinds of games is usually not the objective, but if it occurs at all is done to obtain a strategic advantage. It was rarely useful in board game Civ, and in games like Tigris & Euphrates its only function is to delay an enemy's play; in that game it's not actually possible to eliminate an opponent.

I actually prefer some "weighted" randomness but in truth I could live with either system. It doesn't bother me that a Spearmen could take out a Tank but I just hope it is very, very rare.

I think the real issue is just the dumb AI. If they would at least keep their units out of the range of my city, line them all up, then rush my city as a surprise to take it they would have more success. As it is, bringing in 1/2/3 units at a time to attack is ridiculous.
 
I actually prefer some "weighted" randomness but in truth I could live with either system. It doesn't bother me that a Spearmen could take out a Tank but I just hope it is very, very rare.

I think the real issue is just the dumb AI. If they would at least keep their units out of the range of my city, line them all up, then rush my city as a surprise to take it they would have more success. As it is, bringing in 1/2/3 units at a time to attack is ridiculous.

Having some regard to tech level would help as well - would a general really (as the Babylonians recently did against one of my cities) use a Bowman and a couple of Warriors to attack a city defended by Pikemen? You would at least expect them to compensate with a larger army than they'd need at a higher tech level, but the AI seems to just decide it needs X units to launch an attack regardless of those units' identity. Later in the same game Babylonian Pikemen were just sitting around instead of engaging my nearby cavalry. etc. etc.
 
Runs nicely on Win7 Ultimate with 16GB of RAM. You can run Civ III or Civ II (Under emulation) if you want to. If you're really old school, you can run the original Civ (Or most other DOS games) under DOSBox.
 
I haven't gotten bored with CiV enough to install Civ4 yet, but it's good to know I can if the situation should arise, I doubt it will ever happen though. I don't get to play CiV often enough that I can simply wear it out (which is a great thing, I can milk 1 game for a LOT longer, saving me $$).
 
Having some regard to tech level would help as well - would a general really (as the Babylonians recently did against one of my cities) use a Bowman and a couple of Warriors to attack a city defended by Pikemen? You would at least expect them to compensate with a larger army than they'd need at a higher tech level, but the AI seems to just decide it needs X units to launch an attack regardless of those units' identity. Later in the same game Babylonian Pikemen were just sitting around instead of engaging my nearby cavalry. etc. etc.

Yes. I am playing a game now and the AI keeps attacking my rifleman/cannon with archers/pikeman/swordsman. It is not that I am far ahead of the most advanced AI in terms of technology. This particular AI (Egypt) is just that far behind...
 
Yes. I am playing a game now and the AI keeps attacking my rifleman/cannon with archers/pikeman/swordsman. It is not that I am far ahead of the most advanced AI in terms of technology. This particular AI (Egypt) is just that far behind...

I'm not even sure Babylon was *that* far behind - certainly it was behind, but it's now got equivalent units to mine (more or less - still using trebuchet while I'm attacking with cannon, and they haven't got gunpowder infantry yet). It just doesn't upgrade what it has and won't preferentially attack with its more advanced units.

Also, I think something in the AI code prompts each AI Civ to produce its special units where possible, even if their tech has advanced well beyond that - so my Babylonian rivals will stubbornly use bowmen instead of crossbowmen, even if they've got Machinery, and in the past I've run across late-game Jaguar Warriors and Samurai long after those units should have been retired.
 
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