Civ 5 Vs. Civ 4 BTS+ RoM:AnD - a final conclusion

[poncratias]

Since I knew Civ 5 was coming, I didn't touch Civ 4 a single time anymore. I was just too excited for the new stuff, Civ 4 looked too "old" since I knew what was coming.

Then the release:
Like many others I was really disappointed with Civ 5, I was really pissed.
But I tried my best to get used to it.

I started modding it, but I soon had to accept that modding is strongly restricted here.
Besides changing some values like strenght of units or food from tiles, there is not much one can do.
(I'l put a personal prophecy here: You will soon see the number of new mods decreasing, because at one point, everything that can be modded will already be modded. There really isn't much possible in Civ5.)



So what I did is I went back now and tried Civ 4 again, with the newest version of the mod "Rise of Mankind: A new Dawn".

And now let me tell you something:
It doesn't feel "older"!
It is SO much better!!!
It is SO much more fun!!!

This mod really takes Civ4 to a level far ahead of Civ5, I would say it is "the real Civ V"!!

To be honest, the only thing that Civ 5 is better in, is the graphics+hexes!
Nothing else!
In fact even in the graphics Civ 4 is sometimes better then Civ 5!
Swaying trees, animated terrain improvements, more beautiful and realistic rivers etc.etc..

And besides that, graphics really don't matter that much, at least not in a game like Civ. After all a lot of people are playing Civ 5 in "strategic view".
I for one can live perfectly with Civ 4's graphic and therefor have a 1000-times better gameplay.

And also 1UPT: for those of you who really need that, RoM:AnD has it!
It's even better: It's xUPT. You can set how much units are allowed per tile yourself!

And I love the tons of options, even vanilla Civ4 had more menu options then Civ V, but this mod really makes everything customizeable! You can even choose the color of your Civ Ingame!



For those of you who don't know RoM or AnD, a brief introduction:

"Rise of Mankind (RoM)" is a mod that added LOTs of stuff to the game, not only new units, techs, buildings etc, but also tons of new gameplay mechanics (like revolutions), game elements, features etc.

"A new Dawn (AnD)" builds up on the latest version of RoM , and even enhances it way further, with again a lot of stuff, tweaks , balances and even faster turn times.
You don't even need RoM installed anymore, AnD is now fully standalone and inherits all changes.


Civ IV BTS+ RoM:AnD is doing a far better job then Civ V does it.
I can never understand why fireaxis didn't take what we already got, and that is Civ4 BTS + RoM:AnD !
They just had to add some pretty graphics, hexes, and trimm it here and there, but the main code was already there!
They knew what we were expecting!
In Civ 5, they didn't add anything, the only thing they did was removing stuff!

So my conclusion here is: There is no real reason to play Civ V anymore.


Civ IV BTS + RoM:AnD is the better new version of Civilization.

 

[Azazell]

How the AI in ROM? I was playing in some version and there AI wasn`t good. But then arrived AI Better 1.0 which I not tested

 

[Haig]

Rise of Mankind is excellent, actually my favorite mod at the moment for Civ IV is RevolutionDCM, which is part of RoM too.

I like Civ IV:Beyond the Sword so much that I actually dont need ALL the stuff RoM has.
But yeah it's good.

 

[PieceOfMind]

poncratias, I can understand you are impressed with RoM (EDIT... wait, just realised you're part of the team), but I think you are passing judgement on civ5's modding possibilities a little early. We don't have the c++ sdk yet (just as we didn't for, what, 6 months or so with civ4 either). As I understand it, the devs wait til the codebase is fairly stable before releasing the proper sdk to the modders.

The simplest thing I want to mod at the moment - changing the trade route calculation - can't even be modded yet. That doesn't mean it will never be possible. Just I have to wait.

 

[Teodosio]

And also 1UPT: for those of you who really need that, RoM:AnD has it!
It's even better: It's xUPT. You can set how much units are allowed per tile yourself!

Yes AND has xUPT and I enjoyed it a lot too since I hate the SoD. But unfortunately it just doesn't work well with Civ4.

I played AND with 2UPT for example and it was just a mess. The main problem is that the Civ4 AI is programmed to use stacks and it doesn't understand xUPT; furthermore, low upkeep costs make for really large armies in Civ4. In short when you reach industrial age there are so many troops around that block each other movement and the AI has no idea how to arrange them. In short, AI turns become so long you cannot keep playing anymore.

I hate so much the SoD that since I discovered Civ5 I could not go back.

P.S. I didn't play with 2UPT because I prefer it, instead I prefer 1UPT by far. But if you enable 1UPT with AND you will see that the AI becomes almost blocked since it has so many troops around that it cannot move them anymore.

 

[Jharii]

Wait. A fully patched, expansion packed, and mod conversioned Civ4 is better than Civ5 vanilla?

Revolutionary!

Yeah, my Jeep Wrangler I bought 5 years ago, installed a Hemi, lifted it 3", threw on new wheels and 35" tires, installed a new light package and an exterior package, and countless other things including 2 recalls that Jeep had to fix... is better than a Jeep Wrangler fresh off the lot. It doesn't mean that that new Jeep Wrangler isn't damn fun to drive and won't be made better than the one I drive now.

Great, I am glad you love Civ4+RoM. Sorry you don't love Civ5 as much. Glad you gave up on it so quickly. Enjoy.

 

[Akka]

This mod really takes Civ4 to a level far ahead of Civ5

On the other hand, Civ4 doesn't need any mod to be at a level far ahead of Civ5...

 

[Toady]

Wait. A fully patched, expansion packed, and mod conversioned Civ4 is better than Civ5 vanilla?

Revolutionary!

Yeah, my Jeep Wrangler I bought 5 years ago, installed a Hemi, lifted it 3", threw on new wheels and 35" tires, installed a new light package and an exterior package, and countless other things including 2 recalls that Jeep had to fix... is better than a Jeep Wrangler fresh off the lot. It doesn't mean that that new Jeep Wrangler isn't damn fun to drive and won't be made better than the one I drive now.

Great, I am glad you love Civ4+RoM. Sorry you don't love Civ5 as much. Glad you gave up on it so quickly. Enjoy.

I see you didn't touch the engine on that Wrangler. Given it's the Civ 4 equivelant in your paradigm that was was smart thinking. Take a good thing build around it.

For the CiV Wrangler the things that need to be done are:

1) Open the Hood
2) Unscrew the engine block
3) Toss it out
4) Trade off the fancy rims, expensive stereo system, disfunctional GPS,
5) Use the cash to buy a working engine... maybe get a nice deal out of a used Civ IV Wrangler?

 

[poncratias]

Wait. A fully patched, expansion packed, and mod conversioned Civ4 is better than Civ5 vanilla?

Revolutionary!

aaargh... I expected this to come.


All this "You have to compare Civ 5 with Civ 4 vanilla not with expansions" is complete NONSENSE.

Why? Because Civ BTS is the last status of developmenet!
It's not like they forgot everything they build from civ4 vanilla to BTS !
They already HAVE this things worked out, they don't have to re-invent them!

And also they knew about RoM,which even went further, and brought Civ4 to where Civ5 should be!
They knew it's code, and they knew what the community wants, which mods the community plays.

 

[Jharii]

aaargh... I expected this to come.


All this "You have to compare Civ 5 with Civ 4 vanilla not with expansions" is complete NONSENSE.

Why? Because Civ BTS is the last status of developmenet!
It's not like they forgot everything they build from civ4 vanilla to BTS !
They already HAVE this things worked out, they don't have to re-invent them!

And also they knew about RoM,which even went further, and brought Civ4 to where Civ5 should be!
They knew it's code, and they knew what the community wants, which mods the community plays.

Thank you Nostradamus.

And I knew this was coming as well.

Those are YOUR expectations of Civ5. Not mine. Civ4 vanilla had less features than fully modded and expanded Civ3. Civ5 is a new game. It is not Civ4.5.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Are there people who like Civ4, but dislike RoM? Where are they? Surely there are people who dislike the "more" philosophy of its design?

 

[Jharii]

I see you didn't touch the engine on that Wrangler. Given it's the Civ 4 equivelant in your paradigm that was was smart thinking. Take a good thing build around it.

For the CiV Wrangler the things that need to be done are:

1) Open the Hood
2) Unscrew the engine block
3) Toss it out
4) Trade off the fancy rims, expensive stereo system, disfunctional GPS,
5) Use the cash to buy a working engine... maybe get a nice deal out of a used Civ IV Wrangler?

You missed the part about the Hemi, did you? Hemi is an engine, rook.

And the new Jeep Wrangler is perfectly fine. It can be as good if not better than mine. It's just pointless to compare the two at this stage.

This exact same thread, in all its various incarnations, litter this forum. Civ4 vs. Civ5 topics never lead to anything productive, only Civ4 vs. Civ5 flame wars. It's old.

 

[Sonereal]

Comparing Civ5 with any sizable mod from Civ4 isn't really fair. A New Dawn was better than Civ4 is every possible area. It doesn't even make sense to compare a "kitchen sink modmod of a kitchen sink mod" to any game in the series.

 

[lietkynes]

Civ IV BTS + RoM:AnD is the better new version of Civilization.

How is the AI handling 1upt compared to Civ5 ?

How are the loading times ? Last time I tried RoM a single turn would take up to 3-4 MINUTES.

 

[ono-neko]

Are there people who like Civ4, but dislike RoM? Where are they? Surely there are people who dislike the "more" philosophy of its design?

I haven't played Civ5, not because I don't want to, but can't since I cannot get a hold of a copy of it legally from where I am located.

In any case, I guess I am one of the few who dislike RoM. It's okay, it's not bad, but for me it seems... "Heavy", I think that's the word I am looking for. Too much addition makes it too complex (remember the quote when you discover "Engineering"?). It's like playing chess, but you add some shougi pieces in it. Thus, if I have to choose, I prefer regular Civ4BtS over RoM, though personally, I play themed based mod (medieval, ancient, or fantasy).

 

[Sonereal]

How is the AI handling 1upt compared to Civ5 ?

How are the loading times ? Last time I tried RoM a single turn would take up to 3-4 MINUTES.

Load times for AND are much shorter but by Industrial, turn times are pretty hefty compared to Civ5.

It's a great mod but there's a reason why the main series doesn't get close to the complexity of AND.

 

[Tutkarz]

Does AnD fix a problem i had with combat so units dont fight until one die like its in civ 5? i dont really care if its 1upt or sod but fighting until one side dies is no-no for me. If its fixed i could consider giving civ IV some more hours to play.

 

[Sonereal]

Does AnD fix a problem i had with combat so units dont fight until one die like its in civ 5? i dont really care if its 1upt or sod but fighting until one side dies is no-no for me. If its fixed i could consider giving civ IV some more hours to play.

Ironically, AND even has 1UPT...and 2UPT....and all the way up to infinity. The thing is is to do that, you have to give the units health bars. There's something called "Defender Retreat" in which case if the defender has a chance to withdraw from battle depending on its withdraw percentage.

Of course, most units don't have that.

And given that you can easily have hundreds upon hundreds of units in AND, there's no reason to having health.

 

[Psyringe]

How is the AI handling 1upt compared to Civ5 ?

It doesn't. When planning its moves, the AI has no idea that there is an xUPT limit, and therefore cannot assign units to stacks smartly. Last time I checked, using the option was not recommended because of this.

How are the loading times ? Last time I tried RoM a single turn would take up to 3-4 MINUTES.

Loading times vary hugely depending on the machine it's run on, I've seen all kinds of reports. Afforess had put a focus on making the game run quicker for a while during development, and there were many improvements compared to older versions of RoM, but if you have a slow machine, optimization can only do so much.

 

[wapamingo]

Those are YOUR expectations of Civ5. Not mine. Civ4 vanilla had less features than fully modded and expanded Civ3. Civ5 is a new game. It is not Civ4.5.

Why are your expectations so low? Civ5 is a new game in a SERIES or CHAIN of games. Why throw out all the learning of previous incarnations? Success builds on success.