Anything that makes it worthwhile for a Civ vet?

[Xanthippus]

So I bought CiV the moment it hit Steam and was bitterly disappointed with the empty shell of a game. To be fair, I also went straight back to CIIIv when CIV hit and didn't really get into the latter until Beyond the Sword, so I am sure that CiV will grow into its own, but I am short on time these days and I almost can't bare to waste time on discovering if this is the case yet. So... are there any vets who similarly turned away from CiV on release but have found G&K worthwhile? What is it that got you in? Are there any must have mods?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Matthew.]

Perhaps it would be useful to specify what makes it an empty shell of a game so people could respond whether they know of mods that could fix said issues.

I'm not a Civ "vet" and got into the series with 5, but I will say that much of my time spent playing these days is with mods, which IMO greatly enhance the overall enjoyment for me.

I've heard the game has improved significantly since vanilla release, but I don't see too many claiming it to be superior to Civ 4 beyond the sword yet.

 

[Heretiv]

Well I started with Civ 2, toyed with 3, missed 4 altogether, sank time into Alpha Centaurai, and can happily say Civ5 really scratches my Civ spot very nicely.

Persevere. try it more. you may well like it.

 

[anandus]

I've poured thousands of hours in Civ/Civ2/Civ3/Civ4/AlphaCentauri/etc and I must say I really like Civ5.
It's a bit different than other Civs, it has more a boardgame-feel than a simulation-feel, but it is really worthwhile.
I haven't played as many hours as most people (only 606 hours) as I don't have much time nowadays, but it does scratch my Civ5 itch.
And with G&K it feels a lot more complete (especially religion, I don't care much about espionage).

There are some good mods, but I don't use them, mostly because I very often play multiplayer.

 

[Xanthippus]

I've never really played Civ as a simulation... always seen it as more of a board game. Or at least a simulation with game like rules. I started with The original Civ, and I-IV I found to be satisfying because they continually built on the previous title. Now by the time we get to Civ IV: BTS, we have changeable government policies, religion, a huge variety of units and buildings and mods that add even more to that depth and complexity.

Sure, there are other games (such as the Europa or Crusader Kings series) for greater depth, and I play other series, but I feel as though rather than continuing on that path of going deeper, CiV veered upwards and is now skimming the surface. The mechanics seem overly simplified, you can't stack units, there's no religion, gone are changeable policies, instead replaced with policies that stay with you for all time (which is ludicrous, no nation ever makes a decision that is then utterly unchangeable forever), so on and so forth. I tried a few mods but didn't find anything that gave me that oompf that kept me playing turn after turn with other Civ titles.

So I guess that's what I'm looking for... it's hard to describe other than saying depth and complexity, but I know that there are quite a few people who, like me, complained that CiV was a dumbed down version of the previous titles. Which is just my (or our) humble opinion, not saying it is definitive, but I guess I'm wondering if anyone felt this but now feel that with G&K and/or mods that CiV is now worth the time investment.

 

[DrunkenRine]

i played all the civs including colonization, alpha centauri and civ-4-colonization. i feel that with all the add ons civ-4 came to a point where it didnt look clean and well programmed anymore. it felt like a too much modded and customized game to me. one of the big things that bothered me was the stack-of-doom combat and the way culture worked. i hated the situation where i had a beloved stronghold that i had founded ages ago and while defending it (in multiplayer) i also had to worry about loosing it by the pure wonder spamming of my neighbour, or by his "culture bombs" (of course if the russians had played a good polka near berlin in world war 2, the city might well have surrenderd without a fight).
another thing that i found stupid: i conquer the brittish empire, but when im finnished, i dont own the territory, because while the cities were in uproar, the whole land was invaded by the culture of the other neighbour with whom im not at war. now the english cities are all starving down to 4 population because they dont have any space to work anymore. also the expansion of cultural borders, which was just in a circular radius around the city led to always the same circular patterns of territories.

i love civ-5 in this aspect. now territory expans along valuable tiles, like in real history and leads to naturally formed provinces around each city. i love the feeling of conquering an enemy province by province and also trading newly conquered territory with allies in the same manner. all this seems so much more stable and clean to me, than civ-4, which had many mechanics that seemed like a bug to me. (airports for example were so op in lategame).

the whole polished feeling of UI, game mechanics and drawn grafics is what makes civ 5 a nice mixture of features from all civ games. not perfect of course, but the fewer complexity compared to civ4 is actually a plus in my opinion.

 

[TM Moot]

Xanthippus, i'm like you, an old time civ player (I to IV BTS).

civ5 was a major disappointment on release but following numerous patches, DLC and most importantly Gods+Kings XP, is now worth wasting away a few precious hours again.

The games not perfect (AI is still dumb, diplomacy is crude, 1upt can be frustrating) but they are some really good features now (post G+K) like City States, Social Policies, Religion.

Don't think of it as an Empire building game like previous civs, more of a smaller scale board game, as mentioned above.

 

[Heretiv]

Did you try Victoria since you played Europa - I can heartily recommend that for deep and complex play.

 

[vonSharma]

Xanthippus,

I didn't immediately buy Civ5 just to feel out the reviews and after hearing them, I stayed away until this week. I couldn't stand being horribly disappointed.. all I really care about is strong AI so I can have a challenging game in all eras (I generally play Emperor). So with low expectations I got the Mac version pre-G K patch. I can say that it may have been a mistake.. because I have had two nights of only 3 hours of sleep before work.. and I'm a freaking doctor. That one more turn took over me again. I actually liked civ3 more than civ4 because I play to create an empire.. not so much rack up points and I agree with you that civ4 got a bit unwieldy with the massive amount of units at the end of the game. Because of the penalties and incentives, there is a lot more thought that goes into constructing units and really, even cities. I also really like the nuance of the social policy trees. You can really affect your civilization from the get go.. it's really becomes your baby.

I heard a lot of complaints about diplomacy and i actually was pretty impressed by it. City-states are a great addition and I quickly succumbed and got the G&K and I really like how religion is changed this go around. Not to mention, the graphics are beautiful.. much better than civ4. Maybe I had low expectations but I really don't feel civ5 is an empty shell of a game and I really cannot find the faults against it that were so scathingly laid out on its initial release.

Give it a shot, man.

 

[Karmah]

I ve been playing since civ the very first one (25 years ago was it ?) and i enjoy GnK a lot.

 

[compwiz1202]

I ve been playing since civ the very first one (25 years ago was it ?) and i enjoy GnK a lot.

CIv was 1992. We used to play in computer club in community college.

 

[bixbeiderbaby]

Xanthippus,

.. because I have had two nights of only 3 hours of sleep before work.. and I'm a freaking doctor.

Haha, I definitely have been there!

I've been playing off-and-on since Civ II, and I feel that this Civ is satisfying. I personally disliked corporations, the lack of infrastructure costs, and excessive stacking in Civ iV. I think espionage and diplomacy could be vamped in the current iteration, personally.

 

[vorlon_mi]

I've never really played Civ as a simulation... always seen it as more of a board game. Or at least a simulation with game like rules. I started with The original Civ, and I-IV I found to be satisfying because they continually built on the previous title. Now by the time we get to Civ IV: BTS, we have changeable government policies, religion, a huge variety of units and buildings and mods that add even more to that depth and complexity.

Sure, there are other games (such as the Europa or Crusader Kings series) for greater depth, and I play other series, but I feel as though rather than continuing on that path of going deeper, CiV veered upwards and is now skimming the surface. The mechanics seem overly simplified, you can't stack units, there's no religion, gone are changeable policies, instead replaced with policies that stay with you for all time (which is ludicrous, no nation ever makes a decision that is then utterly unchangeable forever), so on and so forth. I tried a few mods but didn't find anything that gave me that oompf that kept me playing turn after turn with other Civ titles.

So I guess that's what I'm looking for... it's hard to describe other than saying depth and complexity, but I know that there are quite a few people who, like me, complained that CiV was a dumbed down version of the previous titles. Which is just my (or our) humble opinion, not saying it is definitive, but I guess I'm wondering if anyone felt this but now feel that with G&K and/or mods that CiV is now worth the time investment.

I played II, III, and IV -- didn't purchase V until a month or so ago. I've also got the G+K expansion, but haven't loaded it yet.

It's a different game. I agree with you about the "ratchet" nature of the social policies, where you adopt them once and keep them for 3000 years or so. I would much rather have the flexibility to change civics or governments as my empire grows. There is subtlety and strategy about which policies to adopt, in what order, and how you pace your expansion to avoid running up the cost of social policies too quickly.
How much did you micromanage your citizens in Civ3 or Civ4? How much did you manipulate the sliders? If those features were important or fun for you, their role is greatly diminished in Civ5. Because building certain small/national wonders require you to build a certain building in *all* your cities -- as opposed to (say) Civ3 Wall Street with 5 stock exchanges -- one must throttle the rate of city founding, or end up building those wonders much, much later. A single empire-wide happiness metric, and a fixed rate of commerce conversion into science are losses in flexibility that I miss from the other civ titles.
On the other hand, I just love that units can swim. Exploring the map is much more fun and flexible. I like that archers are a mixture of offense and defense now, rather than pure defense as in Civ4. I like that I can convert gold into land, rather than waiting 10s of turns for cultural expansion. I like city states, that have some of the characteristics of a small civ, but are not trying to win the game. Influencing them is a fun aspect of diplomacy. I like that cities can defend themselves.

Compared with Civ3 or Civ4, the armies in Civ5 are much smaller, numerically. You will likely have fewer cities to manage. If managing a big empire was attractive for you, Civ5 will have a lot less of that.

 

[Thorrez]

Civ4>Civ2>Civ1>AC>CivV>CivIII

Still, I do play V instead of IV when I do play.

It might be my computer (i7 quad and 6GB RAM but on a laptop, lowest graphics of course) but I just think the game is to slow to play. I can see computer power creating lag between turns in the late game but for the first 100 turns I want to be able to pretty much not have to wait at all (less than half a second).

As is it now I just feels it takes to long before I actually get to make any game decisions that mater. And as that is with the minimum of MM needed it is just to slow to play for me to do it in more than like once a month.

Granted, I have no updates, they might help.