Do folk still play Civ IV?

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks

I've had some experience of this great mod, and it truly makes Civilisation V shine! Which is an impressive feat, since I do not enjoy the base game at all. That said, I am still a huge fan of Civilization IV and play it regularly. I feel Civ IV has a much better city specialisation feature, better AI personalities and, you may think me heretical, I am not a fan of 1UPT at all. Does anyone else still like to go back to the older game? If so, why? Or why not? Interested to hear your thoughts.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[Stalker0]

Hello folks

I've had some experience of this great mod, and it truly makes Civilisation V shine! Which is an impressive feat, since I do not enjoy the base game at all. That said, I am still a huge fan of Civilization IV and play it regularly. I feel Civ IV has a much better city specialisation feature, better AI personalities and, you may think me heretical, I am not a fan of 1UPT at all. Does anyone else still like to go back to the older game? If so, why? Or why not? Interested to hear your thoughts.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

I go back once in blue moon. I still think Civ IV economic system is the best of the series, and I personally like the "big boom" borders as opposed to the little stutter step growth. But ultimately Civ V's combat is a lot more engaging, and with all the work of this mod, its the gold standard for me now.

 

[Grassland Farm]

I used to be a big 4missile before finding out about VP... Now I can't really go back to it. I love a lot of things about 4 but just having your units instantly die on a dice roll makes me pull my hair off now.

 

[CyberPhy]

I don't like IV or VI, V with VP is perfection
Oh and I hate SOD so much.

 

[jdevo]

City specialization is the one thing I wish Vox Populi brought over from CivIV. Something about building every building in every city doesn't sit right with me, but I only play King so I may be playing incorrectly. I was originally against one unit per tile but this mod proves that it can work. The only downside is moving tons of units, but that's a UI issue that Firaxis has yet to fix.

 

[Zuizgond]

I also still prefer Civ4 to 5 or 6, mostly because I am not a fan of 1upt and also dislike how religion is handled in 5 or 6. The corporations concept is also more interesting in 4, in my opinion.

 

[andersw]

Hello folks

I've had some experience of this great mod, and it truly makes Civilisation V shine! Which is an impressive feat, since I do not enjoy the base game at all. That said, I am still a huge fan of Civilization IV and play it regularly. I feel Civ IV has a much better city specialisation feature, better AI personalities and, you may think me heretical, I am not a fan of 1UPT at all. Does anyone else still like to go back to the older game? If so, why? Or why not? Interested to hear your thoughts.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

I felt I was sort of done with Civ4, its good and I watch Absolute Zero when he streams it.
Vp solves some of the things I disliked with 5, 1UPT now does NOT include civilians, you can do soo much stupid things in BNW like full blocking opponents capitals with stationary missionaries for example.
I had no issues with SOD, I like the increased use of worker micro in VP and while BNW city spec was mostly about science I dont think its worse in VP.

 

[Stalker0]

City specialization is the one thing I wish Vox Populi brought over from CivIV. Something about building every building in every city doesn't sit right with me, but I only play King so I may be playing incorrectly.

In general, yes its expected in VP that you build almost every building, at least for a good portion the game. There are exceptions, some buildings like the Hotel are for specific niches and are not needed every game. In the later game, you often get to a point where building a new building isn't truly worth it (as there aren't even turns left in the game to pay its investment), so at that point you can set the city to a process, stop its growth, and just let it sit back and do its thing. The closest standard thing to city spec is the "Guild City", a city with a really high food focus that can support 2-3 guilds, aka a "culture focused city".

In theory the way to do city spec for science in VP would be to get your civ to a moderate amount of pop (like 8 or so), stabilize the happiness with basic buildings, turn on stop growth, turn on the research process....and then focus council + library + university + 2 science specialists. At that point the lack of infrastructure won't affect your happiness, and the city could just sit.

There are generally two issues with that:

1) Several of the early science buildings use "growth" as a driver (aka Council and University), and then the public school is partially based on population. I'm honestly not sure how much science that ultimately contributes, but it does mean that stopping growth generates less science.

2) VP is designed to make all yields very valuable. If you focus on science and "stop", then your culture will suffer, and eventually that will have repercussions.


Hmm...I wonder if something like that would work for Poland, who doesn't normally need to focus on culture as much. Ok I may have to try this now

 

[Melchizedek]

I still break it out now and again. I think it is the most interesting and well developed entry in the series. It also feels a little more like a sim than a board game, since the diplomacy AI steered more toward realism than victory strategy.

 

[SLGray]

What do you mean by building each building in each city? That is how it was in IV, unless I misunderastood what you mean by that.

 

[jdevo]

What do you mean by building each building in each city? That is how it was in IV, unless I misunderastood what you mean by that.

In CivIV you would have specialized cities where you would only have buildings related to that goal. So a science city, production city, specialist city, etc. For example, some cities would never produce units, so there would be no need for barracks in those cities. If I remember correctly, one of the few buildings that would be in every city was the monument. But it's been a couple years since I played so I could be wrong.

 

[Stalker0]

In CivIV you would have specialized cities where you would only have buildings related to that goal. So a science city, production city, specialist city, etc. For example, some cities would never produce units, so there would be no need for barracks in those cities. If I remember correctly, one of the few buildings that would be in every city was the monument. But it's been a couple years since I played so I could be wrong.

In honor of your question I've actually run a game to see how well I can make a little ICS with science specialization actually work. I'm nearing the end, so far I've been pleasantly surprised but I'll have the full report when I'm done.

That said, there is SOME city specialization in the game. For example, I generally will make the following focuses for cities:

1) guild city
2) Diplomat building city
3) Unit building city

Now most of those cities still get all of the buildings at some point or another, but I'll adjust their priority based on what I need.

 

[SLGray]

You can do that in V, too. You can set it in the top right corner of the city view screen.

 

[Akbarthegreat]

I do play civ4 every now and then, but mostly just to play the mods- RFC and Fall from Heaven (and associated modmods). It's sad that neither of these has been ported to civ5 or 6 :/

 

[Der_Zorn_gottes]

http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/

Here is a still quite active CIV community. They even launch multiplayer matches at a regular base.

 

[InkAxis]

I do play civ4 every now and then, but mostly just to play the mods- RFC and Fall from Heaven (and associated modmods). It's sad that neither of these has been ported to civ5 or 6 :/

You probably already know about this, but:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rhyes-catapult.657017/

 

[Stalker0]

You probably already know about this, but:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/rhyes-catapult.657017/

I knew about it but now I'm curious, can you play Rhye's map with VP? Or does it include changes that prevent it from working.

 

[black213]

I do have to say that I ultimately prefer IV over VP, just because of RFC-DOC though, I don't nowadays play IV in any other form.
Despite that, I have enjoyed VP from time-to-time for possibly a decade by now (if we consider Thal's mods, and later Communitas, as proto-forms of VP ), VP has its scratches for those certain itches, and vice versa for RFC-DOC.

 

[Milae]

Tbh it wouldn't need that much effort to add in quite a bit of city specialization to VP.

If the national wonders gave more % increases rather than flat you would be incentivised to push each city towards a specific goal more.

For example if heroic epic gave +25% unit production, best play would probably involve building most military units in that city.

 

[vyyt]

Tbh it wouldn't need that much effort to add in quite a bit of city specialization to VP.

If the national wonders gave more % increases rather than flat you would be incentivised to push each city towards a specific goal more.

For example if heroic epic gave +25% unit production, best play would probably involve building most military units in that city.

Wouldn't it mean that you'd try to concentrate all of them in your capital even more than now?