Civilization 5, is it worth playing?

[Ginman]

My answer to you is easy and powerful: you need to go "back" to the last true version of Civilization. Everything you mention is answered by "Number Four". You won't be dissapointed.

My answer ist even more powerful: Are you bored of civ4 and civ5 can not satisfy your wish of a civ4 part II then call 555-2345 and ask for ricardojahns.

... this is also my answer to the threadopeners question. Don`t expect a newer version of civ4!

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[Bamboocha]

My answer to you is easy and powerful: you need to go "back" to the last true version of Civilization. Everything you mention is answered by "Number Four". You won't be dissapointed.

Go back to number four? It's kind of a shame that the older version is better than the newer... Very well, I'll try to pick it up if I can find it on discount somewhere and see if I like it better.

I've heard that it has its fair share of problems too, though: all the tiles are squares instead of hexagons, making maps and movement awkwkard, and you can create a "stack of doom", ie put a of tanks, soldiers, rocket launchers etc. on a single tile.

 

[chazzycat]

Go back to number four? It's kind of a shame that the older version is better than the newer... Very well, I'll try to pick it up if I can find it on discount somewhere and see if I like it better.

I've heard that it has its fair share of problems too, though: all the tiles are squares instead of hexagons, making maps and movement awkwkard, and you can create a "stack of doom", ie put a of tanks, soldiers, rocket launchers etc. on a single tile.

Which game is better is an opinion, don't accept this as fact. Haters are very vocal on these boards, but there are plenty of people who prefer civ 5 too. Sales & Steam statistics show that this is a pretty popular game.

And yes for me the "stack of doom" is one of the reasons why I prefer civ 5. In that system this is how combat goes:

1) put all of your strongest units in a stack and send it at the enemy
2) suicide attack the opponent's stack with all of your siege units, causing splash damage to the stack.
3) Clean up with your other units
4) Build more siege units to replace the suicides
5) Rinse and repeat

Makes sense right? I prefer having the catapults launch from a distance, while infantry protects them in front. Tactical combat is the biggest difference between civ 4 and 5 - some people love it and some people hate it.

Don't get me wrong, civ 4 is a wonderful game. But there are valid reasons why some people prefer the new one.

 

[anandus]

Go back to number four? It's kind of a shame that the older version is better than the newer...

It's not perse 'better', it's different.
Better is subjective in this case.

 

[Bamboocha]

I see, I'll give it a go then. Is the game in itself already full and complete or does it also have DLC's and/or expansion packs?

 

[anandus]

I see, I'll give it a go then. Is the game in itself already full and complete or does it also have DLC's and/or expansion packs?

Civ 4 has 2 expansion packs, Warlords and Beyond the Sword, although only the latter is necessary as it also contains the Warlords-content (but not the scenarios or something, I can't remember).
But the easiest way is just to buy 'Civilization 4 complete'.
You can get Civ4 Complete for a handful of dollars. Just saw it for 4 euro five minutes ago.

 

[jbevermore]

Which game is better is an opinion, don't accept this as fact. Haters are very vocal on these boards, but there are plenty of people who prefer civ 5 too. Sales & Steam statistics show that this is a pretty popular game.

And yes for me the "stack of doom" is one of the reasons why I prefer civ 5. In that system this is how combat goes:

1) put all of your strongest units in a stack and send it at the enemy
2) suicide attack the opponent's stack with all of your siege units, causing splash damage to the stack.
3) Clean up with your other units
4) Build more siege units to replace the suicides
5) Rinse and repeat

Makes sense right? I prefer having the catapults launch from a distance, while infantry protects them in front. Tactical combat is the biggest difference between civ 4 and 5 - some people love it and some people hate it.

Don't get me wrong, civ 4 is a wonderful game. But there are valid reasons why some people prefer the new one.

This right here. Every Civ version had something that made it special. Civ 3 still has the best music in my opinion, Civ 4 is still the best for multiplayer. But bang for buck I'd still say Civ 5 is the most fun.

The internet tends to swing to extremes, everything is the best ever or the worst thing since the black plague.

 

[Bamboocha]

Hmm, in that case, are there any AI mods that make the CPU players at least somewhat logical (ie. they dont denounce you after you've joined a war they begged you to join)?

 

[dexters]

This right here. Every Civ version had something that made it special. Civ 3 still has the best music in my opinion, Civ 4 is still the best for multiplayer. But bang for buck I'd still say Civ 5 is the most fun.

The internet tends to swing to extremes, everything is the best ever or the worst thing since the black plague.

cIV4'S classical suite is pretty unbeatable it introduced me to more than a few composers. Also Baba Yetu is still amazing.
But I really like Civ5's original compositions. They're much more dynamic than the looping feeling of Civ4's tracks.

Civ3 is unique, it was the first Civ game to use mp3s, but track selection is limited - the modern kenny G tune from vanilla drove me insane. Though there were a few memorable tunes ; most tracks were from Mark Cromer which was/is Firaxis's inhouse composer. I believe there was a native american track with a flute instrument of some sort in Civ3 that was brought over to Civ4 and it usually plays during the medieval era. That one is by far my most liked Civ3 track.

 

[chazzycat]

the AIs do generally follow logic of some sorts, it just takes some time to understand how they "think".

Your example of denouncing after joining the war is often thrown out here as a demonstration of how bad the AI is, but this misses the point.

Say during WW2 the US just decided to keep France afterwords. England, despite begging us to join the war, would not have been too happy about that. A civ begging you into war only wants you to help them win the war, not actually gain an upper hand on them by taking a bunch of cities. They are trying to win the game...so if they see the balance of power shifting, it's in their best interests to re-align against the stronger player.

 

[Aristos]

Hmm, in that case, are there any AI mods that make the CPU players at least somewhat logical (ie. they dont denounce you after you've joined a war they begged you to join)?

Yes, big yes. As others pointed, get Civ4 Complete for a few dollars, and that one was truly complete (no DLC bullcrap). Then, get the BUG mod for a masterpiece of UI excellence, and add to that the BetterAI mod for a good AI challenge. In fact, the two mods have been combined by Fuyu into the BetterBUGAI mod, look for it in the Civ4 forums.

As for the fans of Civ5, don't listen too much to them. Some are very rational and present their points in a debatable form, most are just desperate for justifying their bad purchase(s) including the stupid DLC's.

Try Civ4, and make up your own mind. Then come back and tell us, I for one would love to hear your conclusions. (and yes, "Four" has its problems, but they are nothing compared to the latest dumbed down iteration...)

 

[chazzycat]

(no DLC bullcrap).

As for the fans of Civ5, don't listen too much to them

dumbed down iteration...)

Tell us how you really feel...

 

[Aristos]

Tell us how you really feel...

Always.

In all honesty, I can't. I would be banned from the forums if I did.

 

[Bamboocha]

Yes, big yes. As others pointed, get Civ4 Complete for a few dollars, and that one was truly complete (no DLC bullcrap). Then, get the BUG mod for a masterpiece of UI excellence, and add to that the BetterAI mod for a good AI challenge. In fact, the two mods have been combined by Fuyu into the BetterBUGAI mod, look for it in the Civ4 forums.

As for the fans of Civ5, don't listen too much to them. Some are very rational and present their points in a debatable form, most are just desperate for justifying their bad purchase(s) including the stupid DLC's.

Try Civ4, and make up your own mind. Then come back and tell us, I for one would love to hear your conclusions. (and yes, "Four" has its problems, but they are nothing compared to the latest dumbed down iteration...)

You've made me very curious, and since another person told me the complete pack is available for only 4 euros, I have no reason not to pick it up. The only thing that worries me is the stack of doom, and you seem to be an avid defender of Civ IV, so I want to ask you this: don't you think the fact that Civ V improved that stacking issue makes it worth playing?

 

[Aristos]

You've made me very curious, and since another person told me the complete pack is available for only 4 euros, I have no reason not to pick it up. The only thing that worries me is the stack of doom, and you seem to be an avid defender of Civ IV, so I want to ask you this: don't you think the fact that Civ V improved that stacking issue makes it worth playing?

Yes, SoD are probably the weakest point in Civ4. I have always maintained that posture, way back in 2004-ish when the combat model for civ4 was being discussed-speculated. I have always defended the "for-me" best solution, the Call to Power model where you could have unit holders ("armies") that combined their power and abilities in a little "combat simulator" window (look for Call to Power for more details). For the scope of a true Civ game, that solution is the middle ground and probably the "closest to perfection" given the constraints and the "spirit" of a true Civ game.

1UPT is a romantic idea, it sounds exciting and may even be fun, but it does not scale with what a Civ game should be. Civilization is not, should not, and never was before, a tactical game. 1UPT is a tactician's heaven, and it has its place... in WARGAMES.

To make things worse, the AI has no idea of how to use 1UPT in Civ5. That gives the illusion of "brilliance" to some players (easily defeating the AI in a tactical battleground), but sooner than later it becomes clear that the AI cannot handle it at all, and that the challenge is not there.

Some optimists say that AI could be made better, but I doubt it, simply because the 1UPT model does not fit the "grand strategy" scope of a Civilization game.

SoD are closer to the other extreme, but saying that "you put all units in one big stack rinse and repeat" is an over exageration, to say the least. There is some thinking to be made when dealing with the stacks, and it is not true that One big stack defeats everything; but the best is that the AI can at least handle it, and the BetterAI is a nasty user (and does not necessarily put everything in one big stack).

You have to try it. As I said, SoD are probably the biggest weakness of "Four", but you will find so many more strong points in it, that you may "forgive" the SoD model...

Try it.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: Please everyone, keep the discussion civil[ized], this includes discussing each other's posts and not discussing/attacking each other's persons.

 

[ohioastronomy]

You've made me very curious, and since another person told me the complete pack is available for only 4 euros, I have no reason not to pick it up. The only thing that worries me is the stack of doom, and you seem to be an avid defender of Civ IV, so I want to ask you this: don't you think the fact that Civ V improved that stacking issue makes it worth playing?

The absence of stacking is the central flaw that crippled Civ 5. The computer isn't very good at it, and it creates a whole series of other problems tied to the need to slow production down.

Global happiness is another bad decision - if your cities grow over an arbitrary global cap then everything seizes up. The local method in earlier games was much better.

Then there is diplomacy - which was actually possible in earlier versions of Civ. It's just awful in Civ . The young designer wanted to bring a multiplayer feel to the single player game, at the cost of any plausible simulation aspects.

There are also competing games (Galactic Civilizations, or Europa Universalis) which treat diplomacy and trade far better than the Civ series, especially Civ 5.

Civ 4 had its own issues, of course, but the base game is much more flexible and I like it better. (It does drag painfully at the end, like all Civ games.) I also really like some of the mods that give it a lot of life - for example, Fall From Heaven 2 is a blast (elves and dwarves and vampires and pirates!)

 

[WuphonsReach]

Civ4 + BtS + BUG + BetterAI is far better then Civ5, even with the SoD issue and the square tiles.

- 1UPT could have worked, if there were a lot more tiles on the game board or if they allowed a limited amount of stacking. In order for a hex board to work, you need enough room to move around and the Civ5 maps are just too small to pull that off. With smaller tiles, they could have made it so that early units have trouble projecting power but modern units might be able to project power in a 3 tile radius.

- Scale was far better in Civ4 as a result. If they could increase the number of tiles on the Civ5 maps, it would start to feel as epic as huge / marathon maps did in Civ4.

- Global happiness was a really bad idea. Happiness needs to go back to a city-level metric, possibly with minor global implications if you have too high a percentage of your population unhappy.

- A lot of what was good about Civ4 was completely tossed out in Civ5, rather then iterated upon and improved (religion, corporations, diplomacy). Combat and a lot of game mechanics were overly simplified making it a shallow game compared to what had gone before.

- The designer was too wound up on "making his mark" on the franchise to be humble enough to take what was good from Civ4 and improve upon it.

Frankly, I'm amazed that there are still so many people playing Civ5. (I refuse to buy ever again from that company, like I did with the Civ5 pre-order.)

 

[Vladesch]

I disagree.
If you get fed up with backstabbing, turn down the difficulty level or use obvious handicaps such as Polynesia on Tiny Islands maps and such to make things easier.

The "backstabbing" makes the game easier, unless you're playing on very high difficulty and it happens very early.
It lets you fight an AI without getting the hit for declaring war, and you get to easily clean up a load of cities once it has kamazi'd the bulk or its army on your (ranged) defenders.

Just be prepared for it to happen.

 

[Aristos]

The designer was too wound up on "making his mark" on the franchise to be humble enough to take what was good from Civ4 and improve upon it.

Everything you said was spot on, but the above sums up the whole debacle. THAT is the core issue with the game. "Fatal arrogance", as an old school economist called it.

Edit: Now that I think of it, it may have been plain and simple incompetence... yes, I go with that. The "experiment" at Stardock will prove me right, or wrong.