gather Ye rose buds...if only.

[Oneluv]

Is there anything that CiV does or has that is better than Civ 4?

Not potential to be better, mind you, but actually better on the ground, today?

More fun, easier to use, more immersive. Anything?

Not meant as a rant. I'm honestly curious. After 9 mos. It's not helpful that I'm still this peeved and I need an attitude adjustment.

Focusing on the good stuff always helps but I'm having a hard time trying to find a place to hang my hat. Please help.

Every time I "play" CiV I get irritated. I used to love this game but now it just leaves me frusterated and scratching my head in wonder and bemusement.

I feel like the game should have been named: "IF ONLY..." It's what I say all the time while playing. "If only the game could do this." "If only the game could do that."

I get the sense that some people actually/really like this game. For those out there that do..., please help.

What am I missing?


Oh,btw...If you read something you don't like or disagree with...Please feel free to vent...elsewhere. Do it on your own dime, the O.P has a dark enough attitude already.

Have a nice week. One love/Shmack-daddy.

 

[aatami]

Much more human-like diplomatical AI, civilizations much more unique, immensely more immersive... I only wish we had random events.

BTW, it seems using mods would help your problem a lot.

 

[Morningcalm]

Just a few things:
-Resources are simplified and easier to use. No health to worry about, it's been replaced with food.

-Declarations of war, peace agreements, etc have more drama because of the animated leaders speaking their languages and stomping up to you etc. It's movie-like!

-Cities don't need units in them to defend themselves (Godsend).

-Cultural borders grow naturally, instead of awkward fat crosses all the time. You can purchase land to grow out borders if you so wish (you don't need culture or war to grab vast swathes of land now, in IV you were limited to culture or war).

-War is simplified, I guess (but requires far more micromanagement).

I don't *really* like the game, but I do find that one in every five games I play of it turn out to be fun (usually Emperor difficulty).

 

[VirginiaRounder]

I believe that, while maybe not perfect, the economic system is much more realistic in V than in IV. No more endless spamming of workers, units and roads everywhere in the mid and late game; you have to plan and grow much more carefully now.

 

[cccv]

This isn't the only thing, but what comes to mind the most is the hexes. I cannot look at the pug-fugly Civ IV maps anymore. The way every landmass is square and every river has only 90 degree angles. Ugh. If there were honestly no redeeming value to V aside from this, I still couldn't go back to IV because it's just hard to look at now.

 

[Dermo]

1.Hexes (though not necessarily how the AI navigates them, more because of the look of the maps)
2. Cities Defend themselves
3. Natural and logical border growth

 

[seasnake]

Combat is infinitely better. Now it is important to do things like cut roads (because there are fewer), defending coasts is viable, battle lines matter, Great Generals rock, hex grid, etc.

Combat AI needs work, however. But the combat mechanics are incredible.

Every wonder is useful now, which is nice.

City States are a lot of fun.

Social policy tree is excellent.

 

[Bob1475]

I decided to go back and play Civ IV for a while. Bottom line - it ain't as great as we remember.

Having to keep units to defend cities is a major headache. Those SODs do not require much planning - 1UPT is much more challenging.

 

[eris]

Personally, if you can't already find some little thing you like, I don't understand how someone else telling you something they like is going to do anything for you. You either like or don't. That's your choice to make, not ours.

As one answer to your question, I like the differentation between Civs the most. Playing the UAs changes enough of my playstyle to make the games more different than I found Civ 4 to be between Civs.

Also, I love hexes. I am not convinced that the AI is ready for them, but they make a big difference to me.

 

[Beef Hammer]

Like many people have already said, the difference between the civs is bigger, better factor. I would personally like to see a UB for every civ rather than some having 2 UU, but that probably wont happen.

I would like to see more things to worry about. Health, religion, spies, random events, that kinda stuff. (Likely used for an expansion) I also think the tech tree still needs a lot of tweaking as the eras seems all messed up to me.

 

[JohnnyW]

immensely more immersive...

LOL, this is entirely subjective and absolutely the opposite for me. There is no way you can state this generally.

I'll spare you all of the things civ5 does worse than 4 because I'm sure you already know them.

The things it does better: strategic resources, hexes, cities aren't defenseless. That's all I can think of ATM. And "resources and war are simplified" are not improvements to me. I prefer my strategy games to be complex - and last I remember the Civilization series was supposed to be about strategy.

 

[Montov]

- Hexes
- 1UPT, no stack of dooms
- Culture/borders: no fat cross but 1 tile at a time; more naturually and without the stupid borderflipping; bigger borders
- Social policies: gradual and growing benefits. Also good mechanim to use culture for that
- City states
- Natural wonders
- Defending cities
- Ranged attack
- Embarkation
- No more spaghetti roads
- Limited strategic resources
- Tile improvements from Great People
- National Wonders which requires all cities to have the prerequisite
- Puppets instead of vassals
- RA's instead of Tech trading
- The mod browser; really easy and modular
- More unique abilities from civs
- More predicable battles; no more battle to the death
- No research/gold-slider

Things civ4 I miss:
- Wildlife
- Cottage -> Hamlet -> Village -> Town
- pbem / good multiplayer
- UN Resolutions

 

[danieladler]

There are many things still that needs to be taken care of in CiV, but what i do think of as real improvements are the following: the 1 upt and that you dont need to build a million units, the combat system, the graphics, the nukeblast animation, citystates, embarking units with no need for tedious transport-boats, the ingame music, and ofc hexes instead of squares as i saw someone mention in the thread.

 

[Amylion]

[game being immensely more immersive]

LOL, this is entirely subjective and absolutely the opposite for me. There is no way you can state this generally.

Hi Johnny,

I think you're wrong. It can be logically proven that hexagons are generally more immersive. You may be an exception but that's like being sick; generally a human being is sane and only sometimes sick; someone being sick doesn't negate that at all.

The outstanding role of hexagons in geometry can be seen in the molecular structure of minerals like graphite and whatever, and in biology in the hydrophobiness of Lotus making their leaves holy to Buddhism.

When talking about immersiveness we have to take into account the human psyche. And there you can see the big problem with squares which disrupt you from believing in the representation of a fictional idea on the computer screen: You can move into 8 directions but obviously 4 of these movements are from a totally different kind than the other 4. Oops! System failure! A black cat ran through the scene twice.

Sure, some minds - like yours e.g. - may be able to blind out this horrible inconsistency.
But yet the fact remains that in a hexagonal geometry you will never see this effect on an immediate level. (It reappears only if you travel more than 3 tiles, because now you have 12 directions where to go, with 6 directions being disproportional.)

Yours,
Amylion.

Moderator Action: You can make your point without resorting to trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Morningcalm]

Hexes may make the game more immersive, but the horrible diplomacy does not, and it breaks the illusion that we're talking to real leaders in their animated screens (esp. since you often come across a situation where an AI randomly denounces you when they were "Friendly").

I do like how they got rid of tech trading, but I do wish RAs would give you the suckiest tech less often. I could tell you how many times tech trading granted me a free tech that would normally have only taken 1-4 turns to research. But I won't. You'd get bored.

 

[Beef Hammer]

Things civ4 I miss:
- Wildlife
- Cottage -> Hamlet -> Village -> Town
- pbem / good multiplayer
- UN Resolutions

Made me remember something when the game wasn't out yet. I had thought/hoped that cottages and their ability to grow would play a big part in expanding your empire, like your own CS now i guess.

 

[Shurdus]

I decided to go back and play Civ IV for a while. Bottom line - it ain't as great as we remember.

Having to keep units to defend cities is a major headache. Those SODs do not require much planning - 1UPT is much more challenging.

I could not disagree more. I played the first few games of BtS this weekend after being away for months, and I think BtS it's a lot better still. Having to defend cities is not so much a pain, since it is a very natural way of slowing down the building of infrastructure. Also you pretty much calculate these things in, so it is not a headache but a mere and very much needed necessity.

Sods did require a lot of planning, finding yourself with a poor stack composition can be very much a war-stopping mistake. Sure the taking of cities and the sieging of cities was straight forward, but that was not due to a lack of the need for planning.

 

[roguepro92]

like : being able to use RANGED units as RANGED units.
forcing people to PLAN roads and network not just automate spam everywhere.
you wont lose on turn 15 due to single barbarian warrior running into your main.

dislike : the AI is still backward in war...
martimer CS too powerful when you're ICSing

 

[Save_Ferris]

What CIV got better:
Multiplayer
Slightly more technologies
Easier diplomacy

What CiV got better:
City defense
No SoDs
SPs vs. Civics
City-states
Cultural victories expanded from waiting for borders to expand every 100 turns
No religion, it felt gamey and unnecessary
Embarking

 

[Morningcalm]

Personally I really loved Civ IV's religion system, because it added another layer of strategy to diplomacy and such. It's true that some AI would unfairly hate you for picking a religion, but you could always turn around and choose a different one to ease diplomacy. In Civ V the AI hate you just because you're winning (i.e. "You built wonders that this AI coveted!" "This AI covets your lands!" "The AI thinks you're trying to win the game in a similar manner to them, and they don't like it!")

I mean, come ON. Religion was far better diplomacy-wise than that random load of stupid AI-stated reasons.