Civ V => Civ IV

[cman2010]

i've played civ4 for years while i've got boring with civ5 after a few months.
now i've returned to civ4 again.
btw its graphics maybe not that good looking but civ4 world looks much more vivid and detailed. in civ5 its just lifeless.

also i recommend legends of revolutions mod, i wish civ5 was LoR

this sums it up for me as well, except I got board for civ 5 in two months.

 

[aatami]

I honestly have never read anyone type civics were stupid until just now.

Maybe you haven't read enough posts about IV. I for one, find policies better than civics.

 

[Eskel]

Maybe you haven't read enough posts about IV. I for one, find policies better than civics.

It is just your opinion.

If anyone wonders which game version choose to start with, you can compare user average scores and polls (CFC, amazon, metacritic) to determine on statistic basis which one will satisfy your needs with higher dose of probability.
(and THAT is a fact).

 

[Sonereal]

You win the Total Opposition Prize of the Day


you are totally against everything I said .. tell me if there is one single thing that we can agree on about what was cool in Civ4 BTS.

I dont say that Civ4 BTS was perfect but it was a lot of fun, so at least everyone who like the series have to try it.

Edit: didnt see the last sentence .. so you are saying that BTS is nothing without mods? it could be but I didnt try those mods myself to tell.

Whoa whoa whoa. I agreed with you on a lot still. I liked victory movies. And the way diplomacy worked in Civ4? Much better.

And to be honest, I liked city maintenance, happiness, and unhealthiness far more than the stupid happiness bull of Civ5.

Another problem I had with Civ4 was that silly globe bull it had. Seriously? It didn't even show political borders. It was worst than useless. The strategic view is so much better but I'm still irked it doesn't show the whole map but at least I don't have to worry about the edges of the map CURVING AWAY FROM SIGHT when I'm taking screenshots.

Not true.

I'm glad there's someone to invalidate my opinion.

Obviously civ4 could not include every minor difference in every religion ever thought of. This is an argument based on content, not gameplay, and therefore is pretty useless within the context of this discussion.

No it isn't. The fact that you had 5-7 generic religions and no schisms smells of laziness and was half-hearted. I was against the inclusion of religions because of the way they were implemented anyway. Lemmy and Binky are working on a religion mod for Civ5 that is something I think is much better and I would be happy if it was included in some way in Civ4.

I never went for diplomatic victory in civ4 (oddly enough I preferred winning by conquest, which I now hate with the new "tactical" civ), but civ5's diplomacy victory is the offensive punchline to a bad joke.

So was Civ4's. Civ5's is an economic victory while Civ4 actually encouraged warmongering and a pre-vote nuclear holocaust.

I honestly have never read anyone type civics were stupid until just now. It's true that their effects could have been done differently to make them seem more realistic, and to perhaps balance the various civics out more (but later ones must still provide some clear benefit over older ones, else why get them?), but I feel like they got the system more right than wrong, and I definitely HATE that civics are gone entirely. A reworking would have been better.

I don't see why not combine the two. If social policies are supposed to mark the way your civilization developed while civics reflects what kind of government your nation is running, why couldn't they both work together? I hated Civ4: BTS vanilla's civics. I liked them a lot better in mods that gave drawbacks to many of them.

Also, a lot of people have posted on this board at some point that the civics were stupid. Civic system? Probably not but the civics themselves? Most certainly.

So I have to disagree that civ4 without BTS is "complete garbage." Some of your points have validity though. I mostly responded to what I disagreed with above.

I like a lot of stuff they changed for Civ5 like hexes, 1UPT, city-states, etc. But if there are two things that are terrible in this game is diplomacy and happiness. I think Firaxis needs to stop whatever they're doing, go look back into Civ4 files or better yet, one of the mods for Civ4 AI, and copy and paste everything related to diplomacy.

If they want a challenging diplomatic AI still, simple. Just ask Afforess for the Ruthless AI stuff. That AI seems like what Firaxis was aiming for. It didn't play to win per say but it responded to things much better than the AI in Civ5 does. The AI, for instance, can diplomatically kill you but knew when it can't win. It also knew how to dogpile correctly.

The Happiness system in Civ5, combined with the terrible diplomacy, made me go back to RAND. The lack of religions, corporations, and espionage I could care less about.

But the happiness.

And the diplomacy.

Are terrible.

 

[Bandobras Took]

You can tell that Civ 4 was just loaded with Diverse options because of the large numbers of people who espoused Protective as a good trait, told you that going Engineering first was a great move, didn't go Bronze Working early on, and felt that founding an early religion was a good and competitive move.

Oh, wait . . .

Many of the flaws in Civ 5 are actually there in Civ 4. People just see them where they want to see them and not where they don't.

 

[JohnnyW]

No it isn't. The fact that you had 5-7 generic religions and no schisms smells of laziness and was half-hearted.

It was the first time they ever tried such a mechanic. Clearly it could have been improved upon, but it felt immersive to me and I never had a problem with it. And yes, I am eagerly awaiting DUCKS mod.

I don't see why not combine the two. If social policies are supposed to mark the way your civilization developed while civics reflects what kind of government your nation is running, why couldn't they both work together? I hated Civ4: BTS vanilla's civics. I liked them a lot better in mods that gave drawbacks to many of them.

Yes, I completely agree with you on this. I think there should be some sort of permanance to building up a culture. I really loved the policy system because it gave meaning to culture, though I feel they gaffed in how they structured and implemented the tree and costs. I think if they left some sort of civics in as well as having SPs I'd dislike the tree less as I'd be able to change my empire's focus if I needed to. This is one thing I really want to address in my mod, if I ever get knowledgeable enough to work on such a change.

I like a lot of stuff they changed for Civ5 like hexes, 1UPT, city-states, etc. But if there are two things that are terrible in this game is diplomacy and happiness. I think Firaxis needs to stop whatever they're doing, go look back into Civ4 files or better yet, one of the mods for Civ4 AI, and copy and paste everything related to diplomacy.

I also like hexes and the idea of 1upt. I'm not a fan of city-states though, as interactions with them don't make much sense or seem fun to me. I mean, a martime CS can give me more food than it provides for itself. A cultural CS can provide me more culture than it does for itself. A military civ can gift me units even if it has none and is at war. Resources to the highest bidder also seem silly. The fact that they are civs, but not really just seems silly (why not just add more civs that go passive and don't expand, like the AI does sometimes currently?). I also don't like unrazable cities. Sorry...this is turning into a rant.

We do seem to agree on more than I thought at first though: hexes and 1upt are good, there should be some permanance to cultural decisions, and that diplomacy a global happiness are a mess in this game.

 

[Sonereal]

It was the first time they ever tried such a mechanic. Clearly it could have been improved upon, but it felt immersive to me and I never had a problem with it. And yes, I am eagerly awaiting DUCKS mod.

I guess.

Yes, I completely agree with you on this. I think there should be some sort of permanance to building up a culture. I really loved the policy system because it gave meaning to culture, though I feel they gaffed in how they structured and implemented the tree and costs. I think if they left some sort of civics in as well as having SPs I'd dislike the tree less as I'd be able to change my empire's focus if I needed to. This is one thing I really want to address in my mod, if I ever get knowledgeable enough to work on such a change.

I really like culture in this game now. I didn't care for it in Civ4 because I hate the culture border wars. Personally, I think they should get rid of the UAs if they make it so that cultural paths matter more. Wouldn't the Bushido trait look great at the end of a expanded "warrior" tree. I feel like some UAs automatically corner civilizations into some kind of victory path. I also don't love the leaders but that's because the leaders feel more important than the civilization themselves. After all, the UA is tied to the leader, not the civilization and in diplomacy, its usually "Napoleon declared war on Bismark" than "France declared war on Germany."

I also like hexes and the idea of 1upt. I'm not a fan of city-states though, as interactions with them don't make much sense or seem fun to me. I mean, a martime CS can give me more food than it provides for itself. A cultural CS can provide me more culture than it does for itself. A military civ can gift me units even if it has none and is at war. Resources to the highest bidder also seem silly. The fact that they are civs, but not really just seems silly (why not just add more civs that go passive and don't expand, like the AI does sometimes currently?). I also don't like unrazable cities. Sorry...this is turning into a rant.

Not really. I don't like that you can't raze the capital of a captured city. They should just bring back the old Domination victory and Conquest victory.

As for city-states, it really is much better if you use the City State Diplomacy mod. It makes the bribes much more costly, making the use of messengers, ambassadors, etc. more useful. It makes diplomacy feel like diplomacy instead of an economic victory.

We do seem to agree on more than I thought at first though: hexes and 1upt are good, there should be some permanance to cultural decisions, and that diplomacy a global happiness are a mess in this game.

I just think they should bring back distance maintenance. No need for city maintenance really since buildings are pretty much that. The global happiness should maybe be replaced and renovated to something like the RevIndex from the Revolution mod since, at the negative end of it, it spawns rebels. Local happiness should play into that. Unhealthiness? I wouldn't mind if they brought it back but local happiness/stability is something that should be brought back.

They should also fix the way luxury and bonus resources work. Ideally, if they're going to be gung-ho about the happiness part, they should make each luxury resource different from another! On one end, luxury resources give little happiness but a lot of gold (therefore making them highly valued) while on the other end, there would resources that give a lot of happiness but little value in and of itself.

Bonus resources should work like strategic resources and give a food bonus. Can probably handwave it and so that this one area is better for growing wheat than that one over there.

Oh, and the effects of luxury resources (if they use the different values idea) should stack since it would be silly not to.

 

[aatami]

Many of the flaws in Civ 5 are actually there in Civ 4. People just see them where they want to see them and not where they don't.

So true, so true.

 

[JohnnyW]

Oh, and the effects of luxury resources (if they use the different values idea) should stack since it would be silly not to.

I actually wanted to change this when I looked into GlobalDefines.xml and saw this was moddable. I was thinking 2-3 average happiness for luxuries (maybe some 1s or some 4s) and allow stacking.

 

[Solo4114]

Yes, I completely agree with you on this. I think there should be some sort of permanance to building up a culture. I really loved the policy system because it gave meaning to culture, though I feel they gaffed in how they structured and implemented the tree and costs. I think if they left some sort of civics in as well as having SPs I'd dislike the tree less as I'd be able to change my empire's focus if I needed to. This is one thing I really want to address in my mod, if I ever get knowledgeable enough to work on such a change.

Yeah, I think some middle ground between "Permanent social policies" and "flexible civics" is the better approach. The way to do this is probably some kind of penalty. Perhaps a gradually increasing penalty, the longer your civics were in place. Realistically speaking, radical shifts DID happen throughout history, as well as long slow development. I think the Civ 4 civics approach models the radical shifts well, but Civ 5 social policies models the longer-term development well. Neither is a perfect system, although I personally prefer Civ 4 as a gaming mechanism, since it allows for a more flexible and dynamic game experience.

That said, when revolutions or great social upheavals did occur, they usually occurred amid quite a bit of unrest, unless other factors were there to quell or otherwise ameliorate the unrest. So, Rome goes from a Republic to an Empire, for example. NOT a peaceful transition. In fact, you have a (second) civil war about it! America changes "civics" from "slavery" to "representation." Another civil war. On the other hand, after the U.S. civil war, you see a gradual increasing centralization of power in the Federal (rather than States) government, and while there is unrest at times, you don't get the kind of civil warfare you had earlier. Hey, maybe because they selected "Legalistic" or whatever as a social policy.

Anyway, there are ways to handle all of those things. I may not prefer the social policies in Civ 5, but again, that's more as a gaming mechanic and not liking having my choices so restricted. Other games handle this stuff differently, for example, limiting the speed with which you can change your policies based on something like "number of turns" rather than culture or just willy-nilly shifts. (I know! We'll be a free-trading universal emancipation free religion democracy....right up until I declare on the AI, when we'll become a feudal theocracy! Hey, it's only a few turns of lost production.)

I'm not a fan of city-states though, as interactions with them don't make much sense or seem fun to me. I mean, a martime CS can give me more food than it provides for itself. A cultural CS can provide me more culture than it does for itself. A military civ can gift me units even if it has none and is at war. Resources to the highest bidder also seem silly. The fact that they are civs, but not really just seems silly (why not just add more civs that go passive and don't expand, like the AI does sometimes currently?).

What I have a problem with is how limited your diplomatic options are. You can kill barbarians, kill other cities, or pay gold. The end. Or at least, that's what I've discovered. I get bored and irritated by the game (for a variety of reasons) after about 1 hour of play. There's nothing about bringing them into your sphere of influence, making an actual alliance with them SEPARATE from paying gold (what if they just want you as a friend because you're the toughest kid on the block?), nothing about varied resources that they offer, etc. They have no real character to them. So, Fiorenze is no different from Copenhagen or Stockholm. They're just robotic gold sinks that give bonuses. Later in the game I hear they can be somewhat important for diplomacy, but again, it's still about bribery via gold. I can understand adding "minor" civilizations to the game, but the execution of this just seems...lazy.

 

[MkLh]

You can tell that Civ 4 was just loaded with Diverse options because of the large numbers of people who espoused Protective as a good trait, told you that going Engineering first was a great move, didn't go Bronze Working early on, and felt that founding an early religion was a good and competitive move.

Oh, wait . . .

Many of the flaws in Civ 5 are actually there in Civ 4. People just see them where they want to see them and not where they don't.

I can't see your list of bad options any way proving wrong the fact that there were much more valid options in CivIV than there is in Civ5. Besides Writing before BW wasn't always a bad move.

 

[Deep_Blue]

Bonus resources should work like strategic resources and give a food bonus. Can probably handwave it and so that this one area is better for growing wheat than that one over there.

like in this mod?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=405052

 

[Ben-09]

I find Civics far better than polices because you can change them depending on your situation, like if you're about to declare war you can change your civics accordingly. On the other hand, policies are permanent and can't be changed around.

 

[Fabien]

I can't see your list of bad options any way proving wrong the fact that there were much more valid options in CivIV than there is in Civ5. Besides Writing before BW wasn't always a bad move.

Actually, if you've played Civ 4 on the higher difficulties, such a list isn't that hard, is it. Founding a Religion is a no go. Researching anything else but Bronze Working for the first few techs is a no go, not getting liberalism is a no go. Not stealing a worker in the beginning is a no go. Of course you could potentially start the game with nearly every opener, but most of them were not really choices that were good due to game mechanics.

Bandobras Took is absolutely right in his assessment that most of the diverse strategies people here ponder about are actually not very useful in Civ4. Protective is a terrible trait (unless you're abuse chopping woods for walls anyway, but no fair player would do that anyway...), yet there were always people who still said that X and Y was useful, when they clearly weren't. Of course you had the choice between many things, but most of them were not meaningful. In most of the games you'd cottage spam, maybe once in a while you'd get a start (without regenerating) where a specialist economy was worth it, but there was little diversity in the end, atleast in my games. I'd rather have fewer, meaningful choices instead of an abundace of choices just for the sake of diversity.

 

[Fabien]

I find Civics far better than polices because you can change them depending on your situation, like if you're about to declare war you can change your civics accordingly. On the other hand, policies are permanent and can't be changed around.

Well, this is a gameplay element. When we argue that way I'd also like to have my "+200" gold button as well .

 

[trueblue]

"+200" gold button as well .

this.

slightly off topic, too many folks want it too easy so that they can play the little dictator to their taste. if its not challanging its not fun.



i never played Civ4

Civ5 is, however, a good game. people need to stop complaining and start playing.

 

[MkLh]

Actually, if you've played Civ 4 on the higher difficulties, such a list isn't that hard, is it. Founding a Religion is a no go. Researching anything else but Bronze Working for the first few techs is a no go, not getting liberalism is a no go. Not stealing a worker in the beginning is a no go. Of course you could potentially start the game with nearly every opener, but most of them were not really choices that were good due to game mechanics.

Of course there are a lot of options that are just bad (although your list isn't too accurate - stealing a worker is usually a silly tactic on Deity etc.). Every game has. But there are still much much more valid openings and ways to play the game in CiV4 than in Civ5.

 

[Fabien]

Of course there are a lot of options that are just bad (although your list isn't too accurate - stealing a worker is usually a silly tactic on Deity etc.). Every game has. But there are still much much more valid openings and ways to play the game in CiV4 than in Civ5.

Stealing a worker in the beginning was usually highly beneficial since there were nearly no diplomatic repercussions anyway, so I beg to differ . I personally didn't experience much variance in the tacics since military + something else was usually a safe build. Of course you could potentially get away with many things in Civ 4 if you were lucky, but the general all purpose strategy for Immortal++ was war until you became big enough and won the game one way or another.

I can't think of many standard openers in Civ4 that are that different from the stuff I do in Civ 5.

 

[MkLh]

Stealing a worker in the beginning was usually highly beneficial since there were nearly no diplomatic repercussions anyway, so I beg to differ .

An extra worker for a cost of an early war against a deity AI is hardly a good deal. On immortal it was doable, but I never found it something that I must do nor even very strong opening in most starts.

I personally didn't experience much variance in the tacics since military + something else was usually a safe build. Of course you could potentially get away with many things in Civ 4 if you were lucky, but the general all purpose strategy for Immortal++ was war until you became big enough and won the game one way or another.

Somewhere on the forum there are Deity space win with 6 cities. There are also a Deity wins without winning or even trying to win Liberalism.

I can't think of many standard openers in Civ4 that are that different from the stuff I do in Civ 5.

If we look only in early wonders, Stonehenge, The Great Wall, Pyramids, Oracle, The Great Lighthouse and Temple of Artemis were all strong in certain situations even in higher levels. What useful early wonders have we in Civ5? Generally the big difference between games is that most things in Civ4 (buildings, wonders, especially nat. wonders, civics) are useful in some situations, depending in your overall strategy. In Civ5 most things are like Serdfom or Chicken Itza in Civilization4 - never worth building or choosing.

 

[Fabien]

An extra worker for a cost of an early war against a deity AI is hardly a good deal. On immortal it was doable, but I never found it something that I must do nor even very strong opening in most starts.

Yes, but it was a Worker for free and since they get them anyway and that early, you don't have to build one. This basically had no downside since most AIs would forgive you and make peace. I see no reason not to do it and it can help you very much. If I have the choice between a free worker and having to build one myself, well there is not much choice. Of course you shouldn't pick someone very close or someone who wouldn't forget.

Somewhere on the forum there are Deity space win with 6 cities. There are also a Deity wins without winning or even trying to win Liberalism.

Of course, this can work, but this does not make the game easier. Sure I've been beaten in the Lib race as well and still won the game, but again this is a very moot Point because liberalism gives you something for free (-> tech trading lib around was also quite nice ). There is nearly no point in arguing about those two exampels.


Most of the wins on the higher difficulties are military victories (not the victory condition but the style of play) (Sisiutl ALC etc) but of course you can get very lucky and have no wars in Deity game and win a space Race that way. But this is not possible in every game, military conquest however is very viable in almost every scenario. (War is not a specific strategy in Civ, it's a general Mechanism to grow).

If we look only in early wonders, Stonehenge, The Great Wall, Pyramids, Oracle, The Great Lighthouse and Temple of Artemis were all strong in certain situations even in higher levels. What useful early wonders have we in Civ5? Generally the big difference between games is that most things in Civ4 (buildings, wonders, especially nat. wonders, civics) are useful in some situations, depending in your overall strategy. In Civ5 most things are like Serdfom or Chicken Itza in Civilization4 - never worth building or choosing.

Yes, the early Wonders in Civ 5 are almost never worth building (okay, the late ones suck as well), you're right about that, while some of the Wonders in Civ 4 did indeed make sense on a regular basis. Still, this can probably be fixed or tweaked in some way or another without too much work. Production Buildings are also largely useless in Civ 5 as are military buildings, culutural buildings work simply because you need to get your culture one way or another. You're porbably right in your assessment that there are less buildings that are worth building, but even in Civ4 I'd still build many military units as well even if I went for an early wonder (You kind of have to) so it's not that much different to Civ 5.