Civ X or Civ 6 ?

[Bruhmoment]

What about it? What's so bad about 5 that deters you from the game? It has miles better graphics than civ 4, and civ 4's UI looks like a 30 year old game, that's just old.
Sure, the happiness system wasn't great and it forced you to play tall - but that's also a positive point - it made you play tall, which to some - was a new play style considering in both 4 and 6 playing tall wasn't viable.
It also has a modding community, maybe not as passionate as 4's but you'll still find some gems on there.
The giant stacks of doom were fun but tactically speaking, they were pretty bad. You could just spam a crap ton of units and good luck managing that. Can't forget the - you leave the city undefended, it dies rule.
Atleast in 5 & 6 you weren't forced to make crappy units just to defend a city

 

[Abegweit]

What about it? What's so bad about 5 that deters you from the game? It has miles better graphics than civ 4, and civ 4's UI looks like a 30 year old game, that's just old.
Sure, the happiness system wasn't great and it forced you to play tall - but that's also a positive point - it made you play tall, which to some - was a new play style considering in both 4 and 6 playing tall wasn't viable.
It also has a modding community, maybe not as passionate as 4's but you'll still find some gems on there.
The giant stacks of doom were fun but tactically speaking, they were pretty bad. You could just spam a crap ton of units and good luck managing that. Can't forget the - you leave the city undefended, it dies rule.
Atleast in 5 & 6 you weren't forced to make crappy units just to defend a city

Put lipstick on a Pig and it's still a Pig. The horrible Civ5 notion of "tall vs wide" is just that - horrible. The fact that most of the map is still empty at the end of the game is an insult to the concept of Civ. As for modding, I don't know about Civ5, but I do know that Civ2 had better modding tools than Civ6. And Civ4 is simply unparalleled in this department.

 

[need my speed]

All of that, plus how do you even think that the UI of Civilization V is anywhere remotely good, let alone better than IV? I haven't seen any Civilization game that comes even close to the UI of Civilization IV. V and VI are utterly horribly terrible in this regard.

Same with the AI.

 

[lymond]

I like 4 graphics better than V's actually, and the UI is far better.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Those UI buttons are like for a old man, why they so large for?
Since we're on it already, the A.I is only good in 4 since they can spam whatever amount of units they desire and trade techs with each other. Imagine civ 5 A.I as civ 4 A.I but without their advantages.
Graphics we don't argue - civ 6 is cartoonish, and civ 4 is just plain. In both 6 and 4 I usually see the map being completely filled up with improvements completely ruining the aesthetic. Civ 5 on the other hand makes the improvements more subtle than completely covering up a tile (excluding some improvements, of course).
The tall vs. wide scandal you could argue - not being able to play wide is a big detriment, but oh wait - you can play wide if you do it right in 5. Even then, in 4 when I played it, it only looked like it was filled up because of the culture borders, I never saw that many cities. It isn't viable for the player either to play super wide in 4 - the insane commerce penalties really punish you.
To not make it seem biased, here are the bad things in 5:
The happiness system
Not being able to play wide
Game being too easy
Other than those 3 points, I don't see anything else wrong

 

[drewisfat]

Being too easy is really the only downside you need for a single player game to be worthless.
And yes, it's easy primarily because the simple AI code can't play the 1UPT non-resolving combat style.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Being too easy is really the only downside you need for a single player game to be worthless.
And yes, it's easy primarily because the simple AI code can't play the 1UPT non-resolving combat style.

Civ 6 has the same flaws but no one talks about that. Even then - you can just install difficulty altering mods

 

[Fippy]

And your point is..?
Convincing peoples to play something you like better but others don't?

 

[Bruhmoment]

And your point is..?
Convincing peoples to play something you like better but others don't?

Not at all - people talk smack about civ V but the only point they have is "oh it's too easy" "happiness system sucks", when really both future and previous iterations also have their mistakes. What makes this game exceptional from the others that it deserves the rank of "worst civ game"? I can bring up bad points about all three games - civ 4, civ 5, civ 6 and they'd roughly have the same amount of discrepancies.

 

[Fippy]

Talk to those people then maybe, i still don't see what you can achieve here with this post.
IV has received universal acclaim for good reasons..talking smack about it here has no purpose.
But i suspect you know all that and just feel like stiring up something.

 

[Bruhmoment]

Talk to those people then maybe, i still don't see what you can achieve here with this post.
IV has received universal acclaim for good reasons..talking smack about it here has no purpose.
But i suspect you know all that and just feel like stiring up something.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but civ 4 has it's flaws. They just don't talk about it to make it seem like it's the best game of all time. Your second point would also mean that talking smack about civ 5 also has no purpose? Interesting message you're trying to send here

 

[drewisfat]

I'd buy that 6 is worse than 5, since the AI in 6 can't even economy, nonetheless war. Granted it's an opinion out of ignorance. The last time I played civ 5 the meta was infinite city sprawl, not tall-meming. The worst part of civ 6 though is that Firaxis didn't allow HoF support, even when pressed on the issue. That's devastating - even in an easy game you can compete against other human records for a challenge. It's absolutely damning that they thumbed their nose at the community and the history of the franchise in such a way.
You're free to come up with some mega civ 4 flaws, but opening with "graphics" and "stacks of doom" isn't a great start. Graphics are subjective and don't matter. Stack of doom has always been a complaint out of either ignorance or frustration when the AI attacks you with a big army. The real flaw with the combat is the suicide siege initiative (which makes 1 big stack backfire on defense).

 

[The Snug]

The Stacks-of-doom problem is fixed with DCM. If you create tons of archer units (and yes, you can make modern units with the 'archer' class), then you can stop an SOD in its tracks by smashing it with dozens of archer-class units.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Those UI buttons are like for a old man, why they so large for?

This might come as a surprise for you but CIV is a franchise that is many decades old and quite a lot of us fans appreciate large buttons and easily readable text.
Just look up the many threads in the modification forum trying to get the UI to be even larger if you need proof of that.

That's just the baggage of a franchise that's been going for 31 years.

Since we're on it already, the A.I is only good in 4 since they can spam whatever amount of units they desire and trade techs with each other. Imagine civ 5 A.I as civ 4 A.I but without their advantages.

Which is exactly the problem. After so many, many years of waiting we expected CIV5 to have AI at least equal to that of 4. And really it should have been better. There is no excuse for it not to be given how much technology has advanced since then. And I speak of that from a position of authority as a software engineer my self. Not that you need to be a computer scientists to figure that out given that over the years CIV4 modders have done a fantastic job of making the AI much better.

I mean, I know you are probably still young so you don't remember the good old days when games came out finished and with quality control. But a lot of us still remember and believe in a world where there is simply no excuse for a rich company with paid software engineers on their side to be outdone by a bunch of modders working in their spare time.

Other than those 3 points, I don't see anything else wrong

What's wrong with 5 and 6 is that they are games that play and feel different than that established by the franchise. This is especially true for CIV6 but 5 with it's many changes did as well.

Imagine if you went in to watch say an Ironman movie. You know what to expect. There have been like 4-5 or how ever many of those already. You know what to expect by now. Now, imagine you saw an add for another one. So you go to the theater and you buy your ticket expecting it to be another fun action movie. But than it turns out it's a romantic comedy instead. I think you can see why, no matter how good the romantic comedy is, quite a lot of the fans of the old franchise who bought tickets expecting more of what they like might be outraged and walk out.

It's the same here. 6 and to a lesser extent 5 failed to do what we wanted. That being to take the existing CIV formula, modernize it for current hardware and add iterative improvements to gameplay. Instead they tried to reinvent the franchise and as a result lost quite a lot of us old fans.

If you want another good example of this sort of thing look up Dawn of War 3.

 

[Bruhmoment]

This might come as a surprise for you but CIV is a franchise that is many decades old and quite a lot of us fans appreciate large buttons and easily readable text.
Just look up the many threads in the modification forum trying to get the UI to be even larger if you need proof of that.

That's just the baggage of a franchise that's been going for 31 years.


Which is exactly the problem. After so many, many years of waiting we expected CIV5 to have AI at least equal to that of 4. And really it should have been better. There is no excuse for it not to be given how much technology has advanced since then. And I speak of that from a position of authority as a software engineer my self. Not that you need to be a computer scientists to figure that out given that over the years CIV4 modders have done a fantastic job of making the AI much better.

I mean, I know you are probably still young so you don't remember the good old days when games came out finished and with quality control. But a lot of us still remember and believe in a world where there is simply no excuse for a rich company with paid software engineers on their side to be outdone by a bunch of modders working in their spare time.


What's wrong with 5 and 6 is that they are games that play and feel different than that established by the franchise. This is especially true for CIV6 but 5 with it's many changes did as well.

Imagine if you went in to watch say an Ironman movie. You know what to expect. There have been like 4-5 or how ever many of those already. You know what to expect by now. Now, imagine you saw an add for another one. So you go to the theater and you buy your ticket expecting it to be another fun action movie. But than it turns out it's a romantic comedy instead. I think you can see why, no matter how good the romantic comedy is, quite a lot of the fans of the old franchise who bought tickets expecting more of what they like might be outraged and walk out.

It's the same here. 6 and to a lesser extent 5 failed to do what we wanted. That being to take the existing CIV formula, modernize it for current hardware and add iterative improvements to gameplay. Instead they tried to reinvent the franchise and as a result lost quite a lot of us old fans.

If you want another good example of this sort of thing look up Dawn of War 3.

As you know, games have to modernize and change. If 5 and 6 followed the steps of 4, then slowly but surely we would start to lose our playerbase. Even if it's at the cost of removing fan-favorite features, it had to be done.
After all - it hasn't completely changed. Both 5 and 6 still have some similarities to it's predecessor - 4
From what I can see right now, civ 6 is going it's own steps but still has inherited some features from 5. As I said - if you gave civ 5 A.I the same bonuses as 4's (tech trade, SoD's, and so on), they would play the same. More bonuses =/= better A.I.
Right now the newest iterations of civ are focusing more on the younger audience (from what I can see, atleast) which is more beneficial than, say - an older playerbase. You can't really say anything about mods if 4 can also be made better just with mods. They are a core fundamental of the Civilization games.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

As you know, games have to modernize and change. If 5 and 6 followed the steps of 4, then slowly but surely we would start to lose our playerbase. Even if it's at the cost of removing fan-favorite features, it had to be done.
After all - it hasn't completely changed. Both 5 and 6 still have some similarities to it's predecessor - 4
From what I can see right now, civ 6 is going it's own steps but still has inherited some features from 5. As I said - if you gave civ 5 A.I the same bonuses as 4's (tech trade, SoD's, and so on), they would play the same. More bonuses =/= better A.I.
Right now the newest iterations of civ are focusing more on the younger audience (from what I can see, atleast) which is more beneficial than, say - an older playerbase. You can't really say anything about mods if 4 can also be made better just with mods. They are a core fundamental of the Civilization games.

You mean how 2 lost players moving on from 1 or how 3 and 4 lost even more players until there was almost no one left?

Oh wait. That's not what happened is it?


Games are inherently a niche product. Especially strategy games. There are newer going to be billions of people lining up to play CIV like they do counterstrike or LOL. And that's just how it is.

Games like these have to make their mark and profit by catering to a specific subsection of the gaming market that likes them for the specific gameplay feel that they bring to the table. And if they start changing things up in pursuit of the mythical wider audience that newer ends well.

 

[Bruhmoment]

I never said make it completely popular - I meant for it to have a slightly larger NEWER fanbase. After all - if we only make appeal to the original, older audience then it will never go beyond it's indigenous population.

 

[Civinator]

Before posting here something about my point of view about the development of the Civ series:
The title of this thread is Civ X or Civ 6 ? In this thread with over 130 posts I found no link to Civ X. What is Civ X ?

 

[lymond]

What is Civ X ?

OP is referring to a hypothetical crowd-funded version of Civilization.

 

[The Snug]

I played Civ's 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

I would rank them thusly:
1. Civ IV
2. Civ III
3. Civ II
4. Civ
5. Civ V
(never even tried 6 because of 5.

The point is that each iteration of civ got better until 5.