Civ4 or Civ5?

[muhtesem insan]

I can't even think of going back to SoD.

 

[jtb1127]

I can't even think of going back to carpets of doom.

 

[chazzycat]

It's a matter of personal opinion, play both and make up for yourself. Personally I prefer civ 5. Tactical combat is more fun for me than the stacks of death approach.

 

[chazzycat]

I can't even think of going back to SoD.

yeah this is probably my single biggest thing. SoD is just so....ridiculous in every way. Which makes more sense and sounds more fun:

1) The entire army moves as one conglomerate, with little meaningful choices to make, just put all your strongest units in the stack. Suicide attack with your catapults and mop up with infantry. Build more catapults...rinse and repeat.
2) The army moves like a front. Ranged units fire on targets from a distance safely, protected by ground troops in front of them. Unit placement and terrain are key factors. Siege units can gain experience because they're not being thrown away all the time.

I'll take carpets of doom any day.

 

[spider1]

yeah this is probably my single biggest thing. SoD is just so....ridiculous in every way. Which makes more sense and sounds more fun:

1) The entire army moves as one conglomerate, with little meaningful choices to make, just put all your strongest units in the stack. Suicide attack with your catapults and mop up with infantry. Build more catapults...rinse and repeat.
2) The army moves like a front. Ranged units fire on targets from a distance safely, protected by ground troops in front of them. Unit placement and terrain are key factors. Siege units can gain experience because they're not being thrown away all the time.

I'll take carpets of doom any day.

Couldn't agree more with this post. While flawed (like the diplomacy system) the combat system in Civ V is more fun. You actually get to make use of the different type of units meaningfully. Actual ranged units, city defenses, 1UPT, and policies all combine to make combat more interesting for me.

 

[SemperFi2382]

Well, to follow up with my earlier comment about finishing a game of CivIV with my wife and then moving on to CiV with Hotseat as a viable option and I enjoyed the new mechanics.

My wife and I were playing Hotseat and religion was just wrecking the game. Between the Apostolic Palace and the fact that each continent in a rare form had their own religion, it was pretty much one continent versus the others. I started on a different continent than my wife and despite good relations, once wars started breaking out, it was all downhill. She simply did not have the votes to be in charge of the Palace, and I was a heathen, so trading with one another tanked our diplomacy with other civs on our continent despite both of us going for peaceful wins.

Unfortunately for my wife, she got into a nasty 2 front war which Russia had sent a SoD into her western territory while she was dealing with a war with Sumeria who declared war on her earlier on her eastern front. (Sumeria was Taoist and from my continent, so I took a huge diplo hit when I declined to join the war and subsequently embargoed him.

Needless to say, despite a technologically superior military, on far superior terrain, and even with most units at 3-4 promotions (and at least 3 great generals because she was getting them almost every other turn the wars were so bad) to further various advantages, the Russian SoD just bulldozed her forces with over 30 cannons and around 20 grenadiers in a single stack. Then to top it off, the Apostolic Palace forced her into a war with me, which ejected my supporting forces (in my own seriously OP SoD) from the continent.

Of course there were some choices made that she might have prevented it, but it was rather unlikely as she kept getting forced into wars she did not want/need because of the religion mechanic. She severely lost that game and she was visibly upset that she went from doing very well to losing very badly because of the SoDs and the Apostolic Palace. Defying the resolutions in prior attempts tanked her population's happiness, crippling her economy until the next voting.

I had a strong navy, so any attempts to invade were quickly beat down. I mean, Galleons versus Destroyers (and the odd transport lol) was no match. Which, as a result may have contributed to the obscene number of troops on her continent at the start of her second war.

Needless to say, I do not think I will be going back to CivIV for a while. The lack of religion (and subsequently the Apostolic Palace) is a much needed relief and after seeing just how overpowered a SoD really is when not in control of the winning one is just absurd.

I will miss some of the mechanics from CivIV, but it certainly will not overcome my distaste of the SoD.

TL;DR version = Civ5 > Civ4 because the wife and I are done with SoD and some of the other mechanics.

 

[manu-fan]

I used to think I was going to miss Civ 4 a lot. But, guess what? I don't.

I really am enjoying Civ 5 and have no intention of playing Civ 4 ever again.

Cheers.

 

[Maktaka]

I can't even think of going back to carpets of doom.

Please present a game not involving Firetuner where a carpet of doom has ever occurred. Unlike in CIV, infinite troop spam is financially unsupportable by the player in CiV, and the AI doesn't build infinite troops unless they are using them, which means they die, which means no carpets of doom.

 

[Roxlimn]

Thormodr:

When CivIV was released, the war AI was so bad that it wouldn't always even make SoDs, so you made an SoD and bulldozed everything. It still doesn't really know how to leverage Great General units, and it's still as stupid as a brick, marching cannon fodder to your door for XP even when it's clear that that's what you're doing. At the very release of the game, the AI didn't even know how to make proper stacks, so manhandling it was even easier than it is now.

At release, and for a significant time afterwards, CivIV's economic AI didn't know how to leverage its terrain sensibly (and it was painfully obvious), and it made just awful economic decisions. The AI wasn't any more transparent than Civ V is now (so it appeared just as psychopathic), and the entire late game, well, game was an insipid mess.

Even in BTS, late game balance is a problem given that you can take over nearly an entire civ in one turn without having to face down its SoD.

Granted, combat AI in Civ V isn't brilliant, either, but it's not as obviously stone dead.

 

[PasturedCow]

Honestly it is extremely hard to have an out of the box game that's really well balanced. So all this talk about Civ4 is more balanced that Civ5 isn't really applicable. There were problems out of the box with Civ5, no doubt. I remember lots of problems with Civ4, too.

I think somewhere between Civ4 and Civ5 is the ideal. Civ4 had a lot of very annoying micromanagement issues. Civ5 has eliminted them but dumbed everything else down. Bring back the features but leave out the nitty-gritty aspects of them and I'd be delighted.

 

[Joe Steel]

Give it up dude Civ4 was good but had its flaws Civ5 is good in a different way but also has its flaws but we tire of trolls trying to get over the fact that civ has moved on and civ 4 is yesterday's news.Why dont you troll on over to the Civ4 forum with your nonsense and leave us civ V folks alone.

Moderator Action: This sort of comment is considered trolling. Do not accuse others of trolling, as it is considered trolling in itself. People are welcome to their opinions, so long as they are contributive to discussion. Attacking others is not contributive to discussion.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[logintime]

Give it up dude Civ4 was good but had its flaws Civ5 is good in a different way but also has its flaws but we tire of trolls trying to get over the fact that civ has moved on and civ 4 is yesterday's news.Why dont you troll on over to the Civ4 forum with your nonsense and leave us civ V folks alone.

Saying that both had flaws means nothing. Yes, Civ4 had flaws. But Civ5 has far greater ones, and it is not trolling to point out that the gameplay issues it has are unacceptable. On the contrary, as Thormodr has pointed out, it is the duty of any person who is a fan of the series to expect better.

As for your "if you don't like it, leave" argument, that is a logical fallacy. Those of us who dislike the game have as much a right to be here as you do. If you don't like it, explain why you prefer 5. Don't tell people to go away.

 

[spider1]

Saying that both had flaws means nothing. Yes, Civ4 had flaws. But Civ5 has far greater ones, and it is not trolling to point out that the gameplay issues it has are unacceptable. On the contrary, as Thormodr has pointed out, it is the duty of any person who is a fan of the series to expect better.

As for your "if you don't like it, leave" argument, that is a logical fallacy. Those of us who dislike the game have as much a right to be here as you do. If you don't like it, explain why you prefer 5. Don't tell people to go away.

Unacceptable issues? To who? To you? Not to me. I can make the exact same statement with a few different words showing how much better V is than IV. It's called an opinion which is why there are so many different types of games for different people. I think 1st person shooters are the most stupid and time wasting games ever marketed, but sales would prove otherwise as lots of folks like stuff I don't. That logic applies to everyone.

As to folks hating on the game and constantly posting stuff we V fans don't really like to read, well, it's the internet. I agree with your point on that one.

 

[Shurdus]

Saying that both had flaws means nothing. Yes, Civ4 had flaws. But Civ5 has far greater ones, and it is not trolling to point out that the gameplay issues it has are unacceptable. On the contrary, as Thormodr has pointed out, it is the duty of any person who is a fan of the series to expect better.

As for your "if you don't like it, leave" argument, that is a logical fallacy. Those of us who dislike the game have as much a right to be here as you do. If you don't like it, explain why you prefer 5. Don't tell people to go away.

This is a video game. It is no one's duty to point out anything, and anyone claiming anything of the sort should ask himself if he is maybe overreacting a bit...

Sure all civs have had problems. CIv5 however does not deserve most of the complaints it gets. It is a different game than any civ that has gone before. Only because it carries the civ name it is judged as a BtS successor, while in fact it aims to be something different.

The focus of the civ5 game is more geared towards making big decisions overall and less about beancounting and micro-managing. For the controll freaks who liked to be able to control every little detail this may be disappointing, but to me it feels like a relieve. Sure civ5 misses some of the civ charm, but I feel we are a just a few more patches away from a very decent game.

 

[jtb1127]

Please present a game not involving Firetuner where a carpet of doom has ever occurred. Unlike in CIV, infinite troop spam is financially unsupportable by the player in CiV, and the AI doesn't build infinite troops unless they are using them, which means they die, which means no carpets of doom.

I'll present you a game. It's called civ V also known as Carpets of Doom I. The game involves AI and players both spamming troops but because the troops can't cross the same tiles there are huge traffic jams just trying to get to war.

 

[Akka]

yeah this is probably my single biggest thing. SoD is just so....ridiculous in every way. Which makes more sense and sounds more fun:

1) The entire army moves as one conglomerate, with little meaningful choices to make, just put all your strongest units in the stack. Suicide attack with your catapults and mop up with infantry. Build more catapults...rinse and repeat.
2) The army moves like a front. Ranged units fire on targets from a distance safely, protected by ground troops in front of them. Unit placement and terrain are key factors. Siege units can gain experience because they're not being thrown away all the time.

I'll take carpets of doom any day.

Having armies covering the whole surface of the world and completely block each other, yeah that just make so much more sense !

SoD were overboard, but they represented concentration of forces and allowed for fluid movements. Carpet of Doom is not only ridiculous and repulsive to look at, but it also hampers every movements to a crawl and make micromanagement a pain.

I wanted to mean that as a man living in 2011 i try to drive a car up-to-date, have an up-to-date hardware, with up-to-date drivers, and an up-to-date Civ release that goes well with ... I don't criticize people who taste things differently . ..
I thought the question was Civ IV or V, and to me it's quite natural playing the last release ... that's all I wanted to say ...
Well, i's beginning really hard, being my 4th post only ...!

"last" doesn't mean "best", particularly in Civ5 case. Civ4 is FAR superior in everything (save for graphics, and even this is debatable), despite being much older.

 

[chazzycat]

Having armies covering the whole surface of the world and completely block each other, yeah that just make so much more sense !

SoD were overboard, but they represented concentration of forces and allowed for fluid movements. Carpet of Doom is not only ridiculous and repulsive to look at, but it also hampers every movements to a crawl and make micromanagement a pain.

Honestly, how often does that happen? It's not really financially feasible to cover the map with units. Even the AI on the higher levels rarely gets so many units as to cause the problems you describe.

I understand that SoDs were a representation of a combined arms forces. I guess it's just my preference that I see the different units visually on the map moving about individually, instead of simulating the combined arms in a stack battle. I just find it more immersive, less gamey.

There's not really a right or wrong answer IMO, just what people prefer.

 

[Thormodr]

For those who criticize SODs, I agree that they were not perfect. Slight modification was needed in my opinion. Limited stacks would have been a suitable compromise.
Perhaps Great general units could have a certain amount of command points in order to limit the size of stacks as well as terrain playing a factor in how much you could forage to sustain a stack. (That is until armies started using regular supply chains) There are many ways to make them work better. However, to throw that all out and go to the extreme with 1UPT was an unwise decision as it compromised large portions of the game and in my opinion ruined it.

Also, it is laughable to not be able to have a great artist and a space ship part in the same tile as they are both considered civilian units. Yet you can still stack infinite air units in a city. Common sense seems to have eluded the developers unfortunately.

 

[Roxlimn]

Thormodr:

What exactly, is the gameplay effect of not being able to have a great artist and a space ship part in the same tile? None. It's an extraneous nonissue.

 

[Unionfield]

I basically refuse to play Civilization V. I appreciate that Firaxis tried to make the game more approachable, but when you replace an entire game mechanic (diplomacy) to do so, hard core fans of the series are going to be turned off. Every once in a while, I'll re-install it, play it for about 45 minutes, realize that Civilization IV is still the gold standard for 4x games, and then go play that instead.