civ 4 or civ 5 and where to buy

[brown040613]

I will start civ 5 tomight finally. I will see how like it before deciding to buy civ 4 or not

 

[beetle]

I will see how like it before deciding to buy civ 4 or not

Just curious, but what scenario would have you buying civ4 at this point?

If you like civ5, it should keep you well entertained until civ6 comes out and gets patched.

If you don’t like civ5, would you then spend good money after bad on civ4 to give Firaxis another try to entertain you?

(Fortunately, they are both pretty inexpensive at this point.)

 

[MightySpice]

Italy on a huge Earth map is less than four tiles.

And if you build a city on it, it's full. Not a small country, but at best a city state. Could we agree that 'a few tiles' is not a small country on any map?

 

[Akbarthegreat]

You stated that a few tiles represented a small country. 100+ tiles is not a few.

And if you build a city on it, it's full. Not a small country, but at best a city state. Could we agree that 'a few tiles' is not a small country on any map?

I don't get what you are trying to argue about. Italy is a (relatively) small country. Italy is four ('a few') tiles on a huge civ 5 map.

If you want 4 cities and a 100+ tiles to represent a small country, don't play a large map.

 

[MightySpice]

Why bring italy in this debate?
Try Venice. How many tiles is Venice? Imagine the US placed its entire army next to Venice. In Civ 4 this is possible, but not very realistic.
You argue that a few tiles represents a small country. It's not even a city state.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

Why bring italy in this debate?
Try Venice. How many tiles is Venice? Imagine the US placed its entire army next to Venice. In Civ 4 this is possible, but not very realistic.
You argue that a few tiles represents a small country. It's not even a city state.

Which Venice? Venice the city, one tile. The historical Venetian empire? I have no idea.
Edit: I realised you probably meant the city state:

Spoiler :

Ignore the colonies. I fail to see how the region surrounding Venice is that map is more than 'a few tiles' on a huge Earth map.
Why is the entire US army next to Venice not realistic? I'm assuming you mean the tile next to venice, and like I said previously on a big-sized earth map one tile occupies a lot of land, more than enough for a massive military force.

 

[MightySpice]

One tile on any map represents a small part of one city. One city contains to begin with more than a few tiles (i didn't count but isn't it 7)? If you fail to see that the earth map is non realistic to begin with, that's your problem. If you fail to see that the entire US army next to Venice is not realistic (1 tile is just a small portion of the land surrounding Venice), that's also your problem. It would give a traffic jam beyond imagine. If you count air and sea forces it would probably not fit. Not to mantion that it would take a while to get them there.

bye.

PS: the larger the map, the smaller one tile is (relative to each other offcourse)

 

[Akbarthegreat]

One tile on any map represents a small part of one city. One city contains to begin with more than a few tiles (i didn't count but isn't it 7)? If you fail to see that the earth map is non realistic to begin with, that's your problem.

No. A city is always one tile. The land surrounding the city is not part of the city.

The Earth map is realistic enough . If for you a realistic map means you want to have 5-10 cities in (for example) Italy, you aren't going to get it in any Civilization game.

If you fail to see that the entire US army next to Venice is not realistic (1 tile is just a small portion of the land surrounding Venice), that's also your problem. It would give a traffic jam beyond imagine. If you count air and sea forces it would probably not fit. Not to mantion that it would take a while to get them there.

You fail to see that 'next to Venice' doesn't mean on the outskirts of the city itself. And no, one tile is by no means 'a small portion' of land.
It would be inconvenient? Absolutely. But possible? Yes.

bye.

PS: the larger the map, the smaller one tile is (relative to each other offcourse)

Again, that depends on what sense you mean 'larger'. It can mean both zooming into a spcific region of a map, or increasing the size of the map itself (like standard to huge etc.).

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

No. A city is always one tile. The land surrounding the city is not part of the city.

The Earth map is realistic enough . If for you a realistic map means you want to have 5-10 cities in (for example) Italy, you aren't going to get it in any Civilization game.



You fail to see that 'next to Venice' doesn't mean on the outskirts of the city itself. And no, one tile is by no means 'a small portion' of land.
It would be inconvenient? Absolutely. But possible? Yes.







Again, that depends on what sense you mean 'larger'. It can mean both zooming into a spcific region of a map, or increasing the size of the map itself (like standard to huge etc.).

Generally speaking, from what I understood of relative sizing, if a map is supposed to represent a planet for example Earth... then a small map means each tile represents a larger chunk of that planet. So if you're playing a tiny map that's supposed to represent the same size planet as a huge map, then each tile represents a much larger piece of that planet.

However, I think the other side of this argument is that they aren't the same size planets. That tiny map represents a tiny planet like Mercury and that a huge map represents a large planet like Jupiter. In that case we can say that each tile has the equivalent size in square mileage or kilometers or whatever. In other words the argument can go either way depending on your perspective of what map size means.

Ultimately though, either way, I think if we are looking at tiles as portions of a planet, you could easily fit more than one unit's worth on a single tile but not an infinite amount and certainly more than one civilian unit on each tile. But in the end isn't this all about game balance and mechanics anyway? So it's all a matter of taste whether or not one unit per tile is good or stacking is better. Some game mechanics require us to suspend realism in the interest of the game. If you are a fan of stacks then you like that suspension of realism that you could fit an infinite number of troops on a single tile. If you prefer the tactics of one unit per tile, then you like that particular suspension of realism that you can only fit one unit on a large piece of a planet.

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[Akbarthegreat]

Generally speaking, from what I understood of relative sizing, if a map is supposed to represent a planet for example Earth... then a small map means each tile represents a larger chunk of that planet. So if you're playing a tiny map that's supposed to represent the same size planet as a huge map, then each tile represents a much larger piece of that planet.

However, I think the other side of this argument is that they aren't the same size planets. That tiny map represents a tiny planet like Mercury and that a huge map represents a large planet like Jupiter. In that case we can say that each tile has the equivalent size in square mileage or kilometers or whatever. In other words the argument can go either way depending on your perspective of what map size means.

Ultimately though, either way, I think if we are looking at tiles as portions of a planet, you could easily fit more than one unit's worth on a single tile but not an infinite amount and certainly more than one civilian unit on each tile. But in the end isn't this all about game balance and mechanics anyway? So it's all a matter of taste whether or not one unit per tile is good or stacking is better. Some game mechanics require us to suspend realism in the interest of the game. If you are a fan of stacks then you like that suspension of realism that you could fit an infinite number of troops on a single tile. If you prefer the tactics of one unit per tile, then you like that particular suspension of realism that you can only fit one unit on a large piece of a planet.

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Well fair enough

What's interesting is we could possibly have a combination of both these viewpoints if civ had the ability to combine weaker troops into larger armies. That way 1upt would be maintained, but not all units would be the same. Sulla had touched on this in an article (somewhat) recently, but I can't seem to find it.

 

[brown040613]

Got say first go thru with civ 5 and I'd much prefer 4. Give it another go but 4 to me seems better.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Got say first go thru with civ 5 and I'd much prefer 4. Give it another go but 4 to me seems better.

I'll be straight-up honest with you man, I absolutely did not like 5 at first. With Brave New World it was better but I still returned to Civ 4 after a couple games . I love 4 and played for many years after I probably should have been lol. But it got to the point where, at the higher levels at least, I started doing very very similar things to win almost every game. The early game always was unique at least to a degree... But once I got to the mid-game it was generally one of three strategies I would always use in order to actually win. Granted, the path to those 3 strategies required a great deal of attention and some games I would take a few minutes for every turn to make sure I got to Lib first. But that can get tedious IMO.

With Civ 5 I almost feel it's the opposite. The early game strategy is generally one of three things. Once you get to even the early-mid game just about the entire game is opened up to do different things. There's so much going on it's almost guaranteed to be different every game. And even the early game, when going for one of the three openers, the land is generally different enough to make most games feel quite unique. I really think that Civ 5 is easier when compared to Civ 4. There's a lot less micromanagement needed. You may spend a few minutes on a particular turn here or there, but you won't spend huge amounts of time on every turn trying to micromanage every move to a specific point. For example it took me a year or 2 to get up to Immortal on Civ 4 but I'm already on Immortal in Civ 5 and I've only been playing it for like 3 months. Deity looks a lot easier on 5 than 4 but I'm not there yet. I suppose that could be a negative for some people but I'm not as serious a gamer as some.

I'll always have a great deal of nostalgia for Civ4 and even return to it for a game here and there once in a while. But these days, most of my Civ needs are now fulfilled with Civ 5. All that being said, if you haven't played Civ 4 for very much and haven't gotten to the stage of knowing those midgame canned strategies at higher levels, I always found it to be a bit more exciting as the risks/returns are steeper.

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[Acken]

Civ games never triedd to be realistic.

 

[MightySpice]

'Never'?

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Civ games never triedd to be realistic.

On the contrary I think that Sid Meier's and the development teams over the years did their best to try to create a realistic progression of civilization from its early Beginnings through to modernity. And they tried to do so while building games that were both fun and challenging. So while the main goal may not have been to create a realistic simulator of civilization... I do think they were trying to achieve a certain degree of realism without sacrificing good gameplay to that realism.

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[Primacide]

Those are fair points and I agree. I think acken is saying that the developers wanted a solid game first, and didn't really worry about relative map size and all that.

 

[Acken]

On the contrary I think that Sid Meier's and the development teams over the years did their best to try to create a realistic progression of civilization from its early Beginnings through to modernity. And they tried to do so while building games that were both fun and challenging. So while the main goal may not have been to create a realistic simulator of civilization... I do think they were trying to achieve a certain degree of realism without sacrificing good gameplay to that realism.

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I disagree. History has always been a theme. With some mechanics being inspired by rather than trying to simulate. Like for the 7 wonders boardgame or through the ages. Thats mostly why its so easy to make civ like game in other settings with little gameplay changes.

My view on this is mostly why i feel the argument of realism for design in civ is often a pointless one. That said when you can meet both good gameplay and realism it is always more interesting.

Im surprised you take the progression of a civilization through time as your example though when in my opinion it is one of the aspects where civ is the least realistic.