Advice for Civ5

[Toon Link]

Okay, so I already have CivIII, but I want to get something a bit more sophisticated for Christmas. I need advice on whether Civ5/Civ4 is a good choice for me or not. Also, I'd like to know what's a good choice for a new computer (not too higly priced) to run one of these games.

Thanks!

 

[alexanderswang]

Civ games have really low requirements for computers, it's also true for Civ 5. I'm a new comer in Civ world, without going through Civ 3 or Civ 4 I directly began Civ 5 days ago, I played through all tutorials and found that it's the very kind of strategy games I'd been looking for for years.

Civ 5 GOTY is highly recommended, but you still need to buy 2 extra DLCs to totally own all Civ 5 contents. Enjoy.

 

[The_Quasar]

Go for Civ5, as Civ4 is looking a bit dated now, and Civ5's 1upt is much better than Civ4's stacks of doom.

Enjoy

 

[aatami]

Civ 5 is the way to go, most players tend to enjoy and like it more than 4 nowadays, even though it had a horrible launch.

 

[Ruler]

Civ 4 is not that good, Civ is 5 is not that bad, go for newest. Both are good games.

 

[nokmirt]

If you want a very simple game go with CiV. The AI and diplomacy have problems which have not been addressed, but the game is less complicated and easy to learn and play.

CiIV to me is dated although it is much more in depth than V, which always struck me as odd, but oh well. If you want a turn based game with more depth try the Total War series.

 

[Bad Brett]

If your highest priority is pretty graphics and/or your favourite game of all times is Panzer General: Civ V

Otherwise: Civ IV

 

[bcaiko]

I played Civ3 quite a bit, but skipped Civ4. I've played IV and V at this point and have to say, I took much better to V. Particularly with one unit per turn, the unique units and abilities of the Civilations, cities that can defend themselves...I've enjoyed the game quite a bit.

 

[Kerosene31]

I'm not down on Civ V like some, but you should not skip Civ IV. It is simply one of the most fantastic games ever made. Plus, you should be able to get it very cheap with the expansions. Steam usually puts the bundle on sale for a few dollars around the holidays.

 

[PhilBowles]

Civ games have really low requirements for computers, it's also true for Civ 5.

It's true that it will run with low requirements, but it will do so much more slowly than Civ IV, at least to launch - it's more processor-intensive than RTS or Total War games of the same age on my machine.

If you want a very simple game go with CiV. The AI and diplomacy have problems which have not been addressed, but the game is less complicated and easy to learn and play.

CiIV to me is dated although it is much more in depth than V, which always struck me as odd, but oh well. If you want a turn based game with more depth try the Total War series.

Surely most of the Total War games' depth is in the wargame aspect? The diplomacy is more sophisticated than in Civ V, but then it's more sophisticated than in Civ IV too. By contast city management is heavily simplified, at least in Shogun 2, where you can't build settlements, there's only one resource - wealth - and happiness is controlled merely by changing the tax rate, like a simplified version of the classical Civ system. The main strategic consideration is imposed by the limit on building construction slots in each city.

I played Civ3 quite a bit, but skipped Civ4. I've played IV and V at this point and have to say, I took much better to V. Particularly with one unit per turn, the unique units and abilities of the Civilations, cities that can defend themselves...I've enjoyed the game quite a bit.

I think a weakness of Civ IV was its generic mix-and-match Civ abilities - I can't remember most of the new civs it introduced by name, since civs and leaders were included in Civ IV merely to fill a quota, i.e. to ensure that each X/Y trait combination was represented. It lost a lot (okay, practically all) of the character of playing France rather than Korea, for instance. Civ V definitely has the edge in that regard.

 

[n00bxqb]

Both have pros and cons. I like Civ 4 a little more, but I've been playing Civ 5 a lot.

 

[nokmirt]

It's true that it will run with low requirements, but it will do so much more slowly than Civ IV, at least to launch - it's more processor-intensive than RTS or Total War games of the same age on my machine.



Surely most of the Total War games' depth is in the wargame aspect? The diplomacy is more sophisticated than in Civ V, but then it's more sophisticated than in Civ IV too. By contast city management is heavily simplified, at least in Shogun 2, where you can't build settlements, there's only one resource - wealth - and happiness is controlled merely by changing the tax rate, like a simplified version of the classical Civ system. The main strategic consideration is imposed by the limit on building construction slots in each city.

No, the game is all around more sophisticated and has more depth than in Civ V. That goes for all total war games. The thing I like about Civ though, what I have always liked about it was the fact that it covers all of history, not just one era as in total war.

The Total war games have much, much, more fun immersion, there is so much more there than what this current CiV offers. At least IMO. They should have kept more things from civ 4 and applied them in a workable format to fit civ 5.

 

[joncnunn]

Well, when Civ IV first came out even new notebooks had trouble running it (it got released about six months before manufacturers of notebooks started realizing it would be a good idea to have decent graphics cards on them), but the first few patches really helped out those machines. Running Civ IV won't be an issue on any machine built in the past couple of years you get unless it's a tablet.

Civ V: If the machine is new, then it should be able to run Direct X 11 version. If a few years old, you may want to run the Direct X 9 version. (Both versions are included)

 

[mutant-enemy]

Personally, I think cIV is great - but only with mods (such as Fall from Heaven II). When it comes to vanilla, I like ciV best AND there is much mod development as well.

-> go for V.

 

[PhilBowles]

No, the game is all around more sophisticated and has more depth than in Civ V. That goes for all total war games. The thing I like about Civ though, what I have always liked about it was the fact that it covers all of history, not just one era as in total war.

The Total war games have much, much, more fun immersion, there is so much more there than what this current CiV offers. At least IMO. They should have kept more things from civ 4 and applied them in a workable format to fit civ 5.

Admittedly I'm fairly new to Shogun 2, but my experience so far is that it provides a wealth of very detailed stats that are interesting and make the game look complex, but over which you have very little direct control. Only military/agent buildings take up exclusive slots, so you're free to max up on food and wealth production as economy allows, leaving only the slider to worry about. And since the major part of your income is produced from farms (which are provided by default and whose wealth generation can only be influenced by essentially compulsory upgrades as techs become available), rather than taxation in any case, the slider is more important for controlling public order than wealth generation.

The trade screen is another example; lots of detail, and in principle it's welcome that supply and demand purportedly affects prices - however I've so far seen little influence of that on pricing, and as the Chosokabe I can trade horses with the Soto, still have horses left over to trade with the Miyoshi, and have infinite horses left to trade with anyone else and/or supply my cavalry. It offers greater realism than Civ's age-old "oh no, I've traded the last horse I'll ever own, and for some reason horses never breed", but in strategy game terms it doesn't offer decision-making or any significant trade-offs.

I'd agree it offers "full immersion" in a way that Civ games don't, but that's an atmosphere thing, not an issue of strategic depth.

Well, when Civ IV first came out even new notebooks had trouble running it (it got released about six months before manufacturers of notebooks started realizing it would be a good idea to have decent graphics cards on them), but the first few patches really helped out those machines. Running Civ IV won't be an issue on any machine built in the past couple of years you get unless it's a tablet.

Civ V: If the machine is new, then it should be able to run Direct X 11 version. If a few years old, you may want to run the Direct X 9 version. (Both versions are included)

My laptop was new at the beginning of the year and insists on hanging up on the DX 10-11 version.

 

[TPQ]

If you've never played Civ4, you're in for a treat if you buy all the expansions with it. There's bound to be a "gold" or "goty" edition with all the content floating around somewhere, so go for that. It'll be cheaper than Civ5 with all content and if you're not keen on Steam, you'll be able to avoid it.

Civ5 is pretty good, but it still has a lot a flaws imo, so if you're just coming from Civ3, you'd be wise to chose Civ4. Civ4 is pretty undemanding on PC hardware by today's standards as well, so you'll be able to run it on a budget more effectively.

Civ4 offers, potentially, thousands of hours of gameplay, so by the time you start to get bored of it, Civ5 might well have been perfected, be cheap and be ready for you to play without all of the bugs and flaws early adopters suffered and continue to suffer.

 

[Davor]

Did you try the demos? There is a demo for CIV and CiV. Try them and see what apeals to you.

CIV is cheaper, than CiV, but CiV basic is pretty cheap now.

All I can say in the long run, CIV had more play time for me than CiV, but CiV is newer and while it does look prettier, it's not that much prettier than CIV. Only some aspects of CiV is prettier than CIV. You zoom in alot in CiV, you can see it actually looks worse than CIV.