I can't say much about the comparison of the three games, because I haven't played Civ IV, and I got to Civ V when all the DLCs and expansions were released, so I can't judge how good/bad it was in Vanilla. But if I can say anything, Civ V music* and leaderscreens beat the other two very easily, IMO
*Except for opening themes. Terra Novum is leagues below Rise and Fall, Sogno di Volare and Baba Yetu.
Civ V was a horrific pile of dog droppings on release. And that sentiment is shared by a rather large share of the Civ-gamer population.
It became marginally better after the first expansion.
It became functional after the final expansion.
It became a decent game after the release of the complete modding tools and the modding community rebuilt the game to not suck. The people that say that CivV is great almost ALWAYS are referring to Civ V with Vox Populi mod installed, because Civ V out of the box is still not as polished as Civ6 was at release, much less post-RF.
I understand why you say this, but I think this is just perception based on the order in which we experienced these releases. To me, Civ IV BTS had some elements that are missing from V and VI and were far more advanced. I recognize there were some game balance issues with IV, especially the stacks of doom. But is it clear that what we've seen is progress as opposed to something different? Certainly technology allows for more sophisticated graphics, animation and audio as we move forward, but has the game really gotten better with time? If the order had been VI, V and IV and the sophistication of the programming and design work had been consistent, I guarantee that people would be talking about V resolving all the problems with VI and IV fixing all the problems with V as a total revamp, while introducing some new challenges to game play.
This isn't really the thread to re-hash Civ 4 vs Civ 5 debates, but since people seem to want to do so, yes, Civ 5 is a much better game than Civ 4. Civ 4 was a much different game than Civ 5. I understand lots of people loved Civ 4 and didn't like the direction taken by Civ 5, but Civ 5 was, and is, a lot more fun to play.
Mind you, I've played all the Civ iterations since Civ 1, and I'd rate Civ 4 the worst of the lot of them, so I've never been able to understand why so many people like Civ 4. I'm a Civ 1 and Civ 2 guy. Civ 3 started to go off the rails and Civ 4 was a car crash to me, with none of the fun of the earlier games. Civ 5 saved the series for me.
The people that say that CivV is great almost ALWAYS are referring to Civ V with Vox Populi mod installed, because Civ V out of the box is still not as polished as Civ6 was at release, much less post-RF.
I'm not talking about Vox Populi, because I don't play it. And I couldn't disagree more that Civ 6 is more polished than Civ 5. Civ 5 is a fun and challenging game. Civ 6 is, at this stage, a bunch of neat ideas poorly implemented, where the AI can't pose a serious threat to an experienced player of even modest skill.
This is just me speculating. But I think it’s likely R&F and the next expansion have been developed in parallel / tandem. If that’s right, my guess is that the reason some R&F mechanics are a bit flavourless and or undercooked is because they’re being expanded on in the next expansion, or FXS didn’t want to tweak them too much until they’d locked the mechancis for the next expansion.
I think that might also explain some delay with balancing, because it’s just not a priority to do that while you’re still locking in key / core mechanics.
That’s also why I’m hopeful England will finally get revamped, so it fits better with any (I’m hoping) expansion on colonial expansion and or industrial era mechanics.
That would be sort of consistent with Civ 5’s history with expansions.
This isn't really the thread to re-hash Civ 4 vs Civ 5 debates, but since people seem to want to do so, yes, Civ 5 is a much better game than Civ 4. Civ 4 was a much different game than Civ 5. I understand lots of people loved Civ 4 and didn't like the direction taken by Civ 5, but Civ 5 was, and is, a lot more fun to play.
Mind you, I've played all the Civ iterations since Civ 1, and I'd rate Civ 4 the worst of the lot of them, so I've never been able to understand why so many people like Civ 4. I'm a Civ 1 and Civ 2 guy. Civ 3 started to go off the rails and Civ 4 was a car crash to me, with none of the fun of the earlier games. Civ 5 saved the series for me.
I don't have any experience with Civ 1 and Civ 3, nor do I have recent experience with Civ 2, but I do have significant recent experience with the last three releases, and I can confidently say that from the moment I started playing other Civs (I purchased Civ 4 like two weeks before Civ 6 release because I was annoyed by Civ 5 but wanted to play Civ because hype), I have not touched Civ 5 anymore, while I have some 150 hours or so put into Civ 4 (and like 450 hours into Civ 6).
Just admit it, you are very much in the minority saying Civ 5 is better than either 4 or 6, particularly 4.
I don’t want to be argumentative but I don’t see any hard data here about whether people on the whole like (liked) Civ 4 more than Civ 5. But, okay, either you’re right or wrong about the relative popularity of Civ 4 or Civ 5. Either way though, right or wrong, why does TC have to “admit” anything?
And what has that got to do with the force of his points anyway? His opinion is that Civ 5 is better. If a lot of people disagree, so what? That’s still his opinion and - wisdom of the crowd notwithstanding - he may we’ll be right. Lots of people at one point think x is better than y, and then years later views change, and y is now this benchmark of artisitic merit.
CT makes great comments on this thread. I don’t agree with all of them, but if CT says Civ 5 is better than Civ 4 then, well, I might agree or disagree, but my starting point is that there is something of merit to that view even if I do ultimately disagree.
Civ 3 surprised me with resources. At first I didn't like it, but it grew on me, sieging was a lot of fun (better than 4 I think). Combat in 3 was exciting and the game overall was a lot of fun.
Civ 4 was good, it had an interesting late game and approach to the series as a whole. I liked it, but I liked the combat in 3 more. It feels like it's the most complex iteration so far.
Civ 5 drove me away at release instantly with the new global happiness model and 1 UPT. Those two features felt like big steps for the series to take, and I think should've been planned out more. Unit carpets clutter up the map. My major issue was that settling was punished so heavily by the happiness mechanic. I did have fun with it overall, and the late game giant death robot added some comedy and was kind of refreshing in a way.
Civ 6 is fun, districts and city-planning is cool. What I think is bringing it down right now is the number of disparate systems. Tourism isn't strongly linked to culture, loyalty isn't strongly linked to anything other than food and population (amenities too, but not nearly as much as I thought it would be), they added religion to it as well but why isn't it connected to culture as it probably should be? Civ 3 had tiles show ownership percentage based on cultural influence, seems to me that should be a big part of loyalty. Nothing drive me away at release, but the weakness of the AI was apparent and didn't have a positive effect.
I think the next expansion should focus on tying together some of these systems and enhancing the late game.
I don’t want to be argumentative but I don’t see any hard data here about whether people on the whole like (liked) Civ 4 more than Civ 5. But, okay, either you’re right or wrong about the relative popularity of Civ 4 or Civ 5. Either way though, right or wrong, why does TC have to “admit” anything?
I've been around on these forums for about a year and a half now, and I can say with confidence that Civ IV is held in much higher regard than Civ V, at least here.
For me, I'd say that V>VI (until complete, I expect)>IV
I agree that VI would benefit from adding integration of the various systems, improved AI personalities (I miss V's table), missing civs, some more diplomatic options, a UN/World Congress mechanic, unit line balancing, fleshing out the tech tree, and some industrial systems (for example railroads, corporations, and better late game production changes- admittedly that last one is a bit of an odd duck, but production costs still feel wrong to me).
I've been around on these forums for about a year and a half now, and I can say with confidence that Civ IV is held in much higher regard than Civ V, at least here.
No, CT’s opinion is that Civ 5 is better than Civ 4. True, CT didn’t say “in my opinion, Civ 5 is better than Civ 4”. But it’s still CT’s opinion. It’s okay to express opinions unequivocally. Not everyone needs the caveats spelled out. It doesn’t mean CT’s positing his opinion as a fact.
I don’t know if Civ 4 is “held on higher” regard than Civ 5. No doubt it is by some people. But who? How many? Even if it’s held on higher regard by the lovely intelligent people on this forum, that’s not really representative or any real cross section. And it doesn’t invalidate CT’s opinion even if everyone else does like Civ 4 better than Civ 5.
Sorry. I’m not trying to be argumentative. I just didn’t like the demand that somebody should have to “admit” something. You disagree with CT’s view, and perhaps many more here agree with you than CT (I don’t really know, but people who post on this topic here “generally liking Civ 4 more” is consistently with what I’ve seen, I guess). That’s fine. But CT’s view is equally valid and doesn’t require any “admissions”.
I'm replaying Civ V a bit at the moment, been a while since I last played it. It's pretty fun and I still adore the aesthetic of it. But oh boy, stuff like the global happiness really puts a damper on my enjoyment of it.
I used to like Civ V quite a bit but it's without a doubt the one that is the most difficult for me to play at this moment in time of the three recent Civ releases. IV is still a game I adore and it sucks me right in whenever I play it. It's much more difficult for me to get around some of the Civ V design decisions.
VI is in a weird state for me. It's come a long way since release and I though R&F introduced a *lot* of good things to the game. I enjoy playing it a lot but at the same time there are problems with it where I am just amazed that they still exist at this point in the game's timeline. It's a really frustrating game to play at times. But when it works, it's superfun.
I can’t say Civ VI is worse after R&F. Clearly it is “better”. But Civ VI was actually feeling quite polished just before R&F after the various patches. After R&F, the game feels much less polished again and quite bland in places. I’m really hoping the next expansion really brings things together
I've been around on these forums for about a year and a half now, and I can say with confidence that Civ IV is held in much higher regard than Civ V, at least here.
The narrative that concerns me is the "Civ 4 was the pinnacle of the series and we all agree Civ 5 was a step backwards" one that continues to get stated frequently here, because it does a disservice to new people checking out the Civ series.
Civ 4 and Civ 5 are very different games. Lots of people love Civ 4. Lots of other people love Civ 5. But that latter fact is rarely acknowledged by the Civ 5 haters, who instead focus on arguing that a majority of civfanatics agree with them. Which may or may not be true, but misses the point: you can dislike Civ 4 and love Civ 5.
My concern is that people interested in checking out the series will buy into that narrative, check out Civ 4, find it boring, and not even bother trying out Civ 5, because, hey, Civ 4 was supposed to be the good one, so if I don't like it, why would I try Civ 5?
My own statements were made too strongly, but I get so tired of hearing people argue that Civ 5 isn't worth playing without mods, it frustrates me, because that is completely contrary to my own experience.
I'd be happy never to discuss this topic again if we could shift the narrative to "Civ 4 and Civ 5 are very different games. Both have been modded extensively to cater to different player preferences and both appeal to different segments of the community. I prefer [X] for [reasons ...]"
Yes, sure. With some caveats, though. Imo it requires more time to get into, more time per game session to make something of sense... And you must accept that every now and then, when a new DLC drops, you may have to relearn how to play again. But it definitely scratches some itches
This question gets asked a lot, I know. And I don’t really want to be one of those “is this right for me?” posters. But since England got nerfed, and with the silly Government Plaza and Governors, Civ is just not doing a good job of scratching the “Civ” itch. Is EU4 a good substitute?
I remember some game reviewer claiming that EU series is something to get into when you graduate from Civ
I would not necessarily agree with that or call it a "substitute", because it is rather not. They work on some parallel planes and offer a bit different kind of experience. I'd say you can use EU to take a breather from Civ and vice versa.
5) FFS, bring back a simplified world builder... Maybe I'm a niche audience, but as a general "turtler" - it's just hella annoying when a good starting position is screwed over by the lack of a resource or an annoying mountain the way or whatever. No, I'm not going to spend hours learning how to play with GD firetuner... and playing your custom maps is an exercise in futile hell. It really should not be as hard as it is to quickly edit yourself some silly stone or whatnot.
I use FT for testing but after initial setup, it takes 5 seconds to fire up, 5 seconds to click on the worldbuilder tab, 10 seconds to find the lux/resources you need and 5 more to click on the map where you want it. Never used it in a game myself but I know those that do. It’s a little quirky at times but just deploying a lux/resource is simple... you cannot deploy hills/mountains though.. anything that changes land shape.
The Xcom 2 expansion wasn't announced at the PC Gaming Show, which probably mean a PAX reveal in late August. Considering that it's unlikely Firaxis will release the two expansions too close to each other, that probably mean the Civ VI expansion won't come out as soon as I thought it would be.
The Xcom 2 expansion wasn't announced at the PC Gaming Show, which probably mean a PAX reveal in late August. Considering that it's unlikely Firaxis will release the two expansions too close to each other, that probably mean the Civ VI expansion won't come out as soon as I thought it would be.
Rise and Fall came out really quick after its announcement.
E3 was a big disappointment for me. No xcom 2 or AOW4 news at all.
Cant be to hyped for an elder scrolls 6 announcement for 2021 and most other news was already known or anticipated
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