Are there any aspects in which you think CiV surpasses CIV?

[Jolly Rogerer]

But... It's not actually an advantage. It might seem that way because you're moving two directions at once, but you're still moving one tile on a uniform grid. I mean, moving six spaces up is the exact same distance as moving six spaces diagonally. You're just on a vertical line instead of a diagonal line.

Nope, you move further on the diagonal. Note that on a grid map like in Civ4 you can explore more territory by moving a unit NE, then SE rather than simply moving it 2 tiles east (which is the same move in terms of end point and movement cost).

Hexes also work better for ZOC, in that there isn't any adjacency that is more effective in pinning a unit than any other. With a grid system diagonal adjacency threatens significantly fewer tiles adjacent to the enemy unit than cardinal (NSEW) adjacency.

These are the reasons that square tiles disappeared from wargames almost completely in the 1960s, only to be reintroduced in the early 1990s in Civ1 for some reason.

 

[eric_]

Except the combat system: Hexes, territory around cities growing one tile at a time, city states, more clear tech tree (no "hidden" connections or units/buildings that need more than one tech), quantitative strategic resources, building upkeep costs, road upkeep costs (no more "spaghetti"), unique civ abilities...

I also like some other aspects (like the global happiness, policies and removal of sliders), but they are very controversial so I didn't include them in the main list.

This pretty much covers it for me.

To flesh out why I prefer the combat system, I feel like warring is much more intuitive now. Basic tactics that you'd expect to work in the real world work well due to 1upt, etc. It's now somewhat feasible (based on strategic placement and maneuvering, rather than just mathematical odds) to defeat a numerically superior, technologically equal (more or less) army if you deploy your troops wisely.

 

[eviltypeguy]

Title says it all
I know many are gonna say "Combat System", but is there anything else?

This is all my personal opinion:

* The simpler interface and the fact that you aren't "taken out of" the main game area to do things.
* The elimination of what I believe were some of the overly complex or poorly implemented aspects of Civilization IV, like espionage.
* The mod system so far has been more pleasant to use.
* The graphics (except rivers) are much better.
* Global happiness, social policies, and the removal of sliders.
* Culture model for territory seems better.
* The music and sound (except for the new narrator; where's Nimoy dang it!).
* The change to not require roads for resources.

 

[eric_]

New narrator reminds me of Ian McShane, which works for me

* The change to not require roads for resources.

Good one.

 

[vandyr]

These are some of the things I find better with CiV than CIV
-hex tiles
-1UPT
-global happiness
-no sliders
-cities having combat value
-wonders being less powerful discourages cheese
-new great generals makes more sense
-less important tile differences makes starting locations more balanced
-better cultural border expansion
-terrain actually making a difference in combat (it matters in CIV too, but far from in the same way. A river can really turn a battle completely around in CiV)
-limited number of roads

One of the things I like the most about CiV is that combat is a bit more like Starcraft combat. If I have a slight combat advantage I can harass the enemy while in CIV you wanted your wars to be as short as possible and not attack before you had a big military advantage. If you tried to harass in CIV, the war weariness would often be much larger penalty than what you would get out of it.

While I enjoyed CIV a lot and played it countless of hours, I thought it was a far from perfect game with many flaws, which might be one of the reasons why I like to many of the changes.

All of this plus no tech trading and no religion

 

[Rystic]

Nope, you move further on the diagonal. Note that on a grid map like in Civ4 you can explore more territory by moving a unit NE, then SE rather than simply moving it 2 tiles east (which is the same move in terms of end point and movement cost).

It reveals more because you displace your unit in two directions, but you don't move further. Moving two tiles east is not the same in movement terms as moving one tile diagonally (though it would be if units only moved in four directions). It's easy to think that diagonal is faster than straight line, but in both cases your unit is still exactly one tile away from where it was. The straight line/diagonal is just a choice on whether to move along the X-axis, the Y-axis, or both.

Good example, you have two units, and there's a city eight tiles north of them. One travels on diagonals, one travels in a straight line. Who's going to get there first?

Hexes also work better for ZOC, in that there isn't any adjacency that is more effective in pinning a unit than any other. With a grid system diagonal adjacency threatens significantly fewer tiles adjacent to the enemy unit than cardinal (NSEW) adjacency.

I'm confused to what you're saying.

 

[mercury529]

It reveals more because you displace your unit in two directions, but you don't move further. Moving two tiles east is not the same in movement terms as moving one tile diagonally (though it would be if units only moved in four directions). It's easy to think that diagonal is faster than straight line, but in both cases your unit is still exactly one tile away from where it was. The straight line/diagonal is just a choice on whether to move along the X-axis, the Y-axis, or both.

Good example, you have two units, and there's a city eight tiles north of them. One travels on diagonals, one travels in a straight line. Who's going to get there first?

You have picked the only example where straight line movement is not suboptimal. Provided your destination isn't completely in one cardinal direction, traveling solely in cardinal directions will be suboptimal. That means diagonal movement is always as good as movement in a cardinal direction (unless you are one tile away from your destination) and most often superior.

 

[Rystic]

You have picked the only example where straight line movement is not suboptimal. Provided your destination isn't completely in one cardinal direction, traveling solely in cardinal directions will be suboptimal. That means diagonal movement is always as good as movement in a cardinal direction (unless you are one tile away from your destination) and most often superior.

Then when is it suboptimal? Also, I'm not advocating moving like a Rook (instead of going diagonal, going north 8 and 8 east). That's why I said two moves east isn't equal to one move diagonal. Civ units move like Queens, so examples should treat them as such. This situation I described above happens all the time. If you're 10 tiles away north, and 2 away east, move two diagonal NE, and then the rest is a straight line.

 

[joyous_gard]

I like hexes (but the map feels smaller with the hexes), 1upt (would rather some flexibility for movement on roads, maybe cities. coupling with workers, naval escorts, etc). I like the music (I liked Civ IV music). Social policies are OK (would have preferred it to be in addition to civics, but it's OK). The battle animations are pretty cool.

I like the battle odds better than IV.

The map graphics would be good for me if the world felt more diverse. I don't get the feeling of moving into a tropical zone. I do get the feeling of moving up in elevation though, which I never felt with Civ IV.

So I am trying to be a good sport. It's a good looking product.

Edit: Golden age based on excess of happiness

 

[Ikael]

Well, things to like about Civilization V:

- The whole combat system. Much, much more fun than any other civ since possibly civilization II. 1 UPT forever!

- Embarked units and cities defending theirselves. Now THAT'S proper streamlining

- Golden age based on excess of global happiness


Things that will be awesome once they are tweaked:

- City states. Right now there's way too much imbalance regarding the maritime CS

- Social policies. Yep, the concept is quite awesome: make interesting, non turning back decisions... once every 18 turns? Really? Half the time of adoption of social policies, double their number and then we will be talking business


Things to dislike:

- Total lack of playstyle. Every single playtrought is the same: expand like crazy on an Infinite City Spree, be a warmonger whetever you like it or not, go for patronage and honor, spam trading posts, rinse, repeat. This is, IMHO, the worst offense of this game

- Pretty much the whole builder / empire building aspect of the game, as it is practically non existant. They should have named the game "barbarism", as it have little do with civilization itself

- AI, and thus, Diplomacy, and generally talking the agression and human player gang ban tendency of the computer

- Impossibility to create other thing than a sprawling land empire. Maritime superpowers? Few yet concentrated cities? Cultured civ? You can create that, but it is not going to work, period.

- Specialist economy? LOL

- Happiness mechanic completely ineffective in order to deter city proliferation

- Bland, similar terrain leading to extremely similar games and cities

- Lack of any ounce of historic realism.

- No goverment or any replacing system for granting flexibility to your strategy

- Lack of proper modding SDK

- No religion, no health, no proper traderoutes, no corporations, worst of all, nothing to replace these systems or adding depth to the experience

 

[Vordeo]

Almost forgot to add...

-Has a bigger number!

Also, CiV is a better nickname than CivIV. 'CIV' isn't distinctive enough, IMO.

 

[Vordeo]

- Embarked units and cities defending theirselves. Now THAT'S proper streamlining

Uh, not unless you're the Songhai.

- Total lack of playstyle. Every single playtrought is the same: expand like crazy on an Infinite City Spree, be a warmonger whetever you like it or not, go for patronage and honor, spam trading posts, rinse, repeat. This is, IMHO, the worst offense of this game

I'd change that things that'll improved once tweaked, personally. If anything, the UAs encourage you to play each civ differently.

- Impossibility to create other thing than a sprawling land empire. Maritime superpowers? Few yet concentrated cities? Cultured civ? You can create that, but it is not going to work, period.

Er... I've done all of those.

- Specialist economy? LOL

Not necessarily a bad thing, just because it was in the last game doesn't mean it has to be in every single game.

- Lack of any ounce of historic realism.

What? It's for more than CivIV had, by far.

Heck, just the leaderheads alone...

- Lack of proper modding SDK

This I'm not bothered about yet, as they've bigger problems to fix atm. If in a few months it's still not out then yeah. That said, I do like the mod browser immensely.

 

[Flavorable]

Hexes, combat, navy, civics/sp, economy and MODDABILITY.

thats in its current state, once patched, I think it could easily succeed Civ 4.

 

[Roxlimn]

Ikael:

You don't have to employ ICS if you don't want to. It's still possible to play and *gasp* win in Civ V without using war, and without using ICS.

Unthinkable, I know. It's like there's this whole new game in this here game.

 

[Uniform Sierra]

My CiV challenge to myself is "is it possible to handicap myself enough to lose?" so far, nada.

Stop playing on "Beginner" as China with legendary start and you might have some more issues to worry about.

 

[Geddy]

Are there any aspects in which you think CiV surpasses CIV?

No. No.

 

[Anony1200]

I'd like the advanced diplomacy war if the AI would stop hating you for the most rediculous reasons.

"Thanks for taking out that idiot before he could expand,cut off,and consume my territory.But you killed someone who needed to die so now I hate you."

 

[zarakand]

Conceptually Civ V is much better than Civ IV...1UPT, Hex, Ranged Bombardment, City-States.

The things that are killing it for me is the diplomacy and bad tactical AI. If those two things get fixed, I don't see myself looking back at all.

 

[Varanid]

it runs on my system, albiet slowly. For some reason Civ IV never would go more than maybe 30-50 minutes without crashing. I didn't even buy the game until it'd been out a year either and d/l'd all the patches first

EDIT: I actually try to avoid ICS myself. I prefer a smaller (8-10 cities or less) empire. It's entirely doable at least on the first 3 difficulties. i don't know about higher ones though, you might be SOL on some vital resource and have the AI decide you're therefore easy pickings.

 

[Peregrine]

The short answer to the OP's query; None. Its retrogression and simplification are the results of a poor design theory. Its brokeness the result of rushing the product out prior to sufficient testing. The reasons are listed like burning wreckage all over this forum, but the presence of ICS alone is unforgivable, if not quite laughable.