Give me 6 reasons why you are playing Civ6 and not Civ4?

[Leyrann]

Which is important if you're trying to accurately simulate real-world geography at a low level, which Civ 6 is not.

The distance in a game world is exactly what it is, no matter whether you use hexes, tiles, or some other arrangement. And when you don't need to approximate real-world geometry, squares are a superior interface to hexes in nearly every way.

Incidentally, if we are using hexes to approximate real-world geometry, horizontal movement is 15% longer than vertical movement. (as the hexes are arranged in Civ)

I agree that the shape of the big fat cross is weird, but that has nothing to do with squares vs hexes -- it would be simpler and more sensible if the game instead used a 2 tile radius. (i.e. a 5x5 square centered on the city)

The distance in a game world is not exactly what it is, no matter wheter you use hexes, tiles or some other arrangement, no matter how weird it may sound. If you want to move 4 tiles in a straight, horizontal or vertical line, there are 17 ways to do that with 4 movement points. If you want to move 4 hexes in a straight line, however, there is only one way to do that with four movement points. That's the essential difference between hexes and tiles. On tiles, if you want to move to another tile which is exactly into one direction of the grid, you can avoid forest or hills in that same direction by using diagonal movement. On hexes, if you want to move to another tile exactly into one direction of the grid, you will need more movement points if you want to avoid that forest or hill.

Oh, on the "some other arrangement", the only other regular shape that fits perfectly in a grid is a triangle.

 

[Leyrann]

I still play PBEM Civ4 (since there is NO PBEM in civ 5 or 6) but some things about the game drove me crazy, like doomstacks and building a city and getting a popup for a hundred turns that I should give my city to someone else. I could never go back to Civ 4 for SP.

Both 5 and 6 DO have PBEM, as a matter of fact.

 

[ltccone]

Both 5 and 6 DO have PBEM, as a matter of fact.

Where? I haven't seen an option for it.

 

[Ashbery76]

Civ4 is overated in my opinion mainly because it was the first Civ for many players and have that nostalgia that Civ2 does for me.It is not a special game like AplhaCentauri was.Civ5 was better and Cvi6 will be after a few expansions.

 

[Disgustipated]

Hmmm, good question. Although for me it's why am I playing this game and not another game (like the game of Xcom 2 I recently started).

1. I'm a bit bored of Civ4. I'm not done with it of course. I still play SMAC about once a year, and I'll probably average once a year on Civ4.

2. Graphics. I hate to be one of those people, but the game does look sharper.

3. Improvements such as districts.

4. Hexes, they do offer more interesting situations.

That's all I can think of at the moment. A post above said it best. Civ6 is newer. Civ4 is still the superior game. But I've played the hell out of it. There's something about Civ6 I find enjoyable even if it's on the easy side (for the difficulty level I play at least). In fact, after my frustrating time playing Xcom 2 (just got it on a Steam sale last week), it's nice to relax playing a game, rather than be all stressed out like I am playing Xcom2. Civ6 is a relaxing builder game. Can't say it's much of a war game, even with 1 upt. But I'm happy enough with it.

Civ4 is overated in my opinion mainly because it was the first Civ for many players and have that nostalgia that Civ2 does for me.It is not a special game like AplhaCentauri was.Civ5 was better and Cvi6 will be after a few expansions.

I started the series with Civ2, and I still feel Civ4 is the best. SMAC was a bit overrated as well. I didn't care for the dark colors of SMAC, and thought factions like the Believers were a bit silly (let's be honest, there's only one religion that has a significant number of hardcore violent extremists, but I can't name that religion because of politically correct reasons). Of course like I said above, I still play SMAC on average once a year. It still holds a special place in my heart. I mostly prefer vanilla SMAC, the expansion seems to ruin the balance and feel of the original 7 factions.

 

[CPWimmer]

I still play PBEM Civ4 (since there is NO PBEM in civ 5 or 6) but some things about the game drove me crazy, like doomstacks and building a city and getting a popup for a hundred turns that I should give my city to someone else. I could never go back to Civ 4 for SP.

Both 5 and 6 DO have PBEM, as a matter of fact.

Where? I haven't seen an option for it.

I have played a lot of PBEM in 4, 5 and 6. Currently I have two active Civ 6 PBEM games. Basically you just play a Hot Seat game and when the next user's password screen pops up you choose the "save game" option that is immediately presented to you and manually email that save file.

 

[shaglio]

My 6 reason's would be:

1) 1UPT!
2) Hexes!
3) Goodbye Slider
4) Civ 4's horrible Espionage (that I just turned off after the first couple games)
5) Civ 4's dull Religion
6) Civ 4's generic graphics.

I actually tried to play a game of Civ 4 recently when Steam automatically added it to my library and I didn't even make it through the first turn before I shut it off.

 

[ltccone]

I have played a lot of PBEM in 4, 5 and 6. Currently I have two active Civ 6 PBEM games. Basically you just play a Hot Seat game and when the next user's password screen pops up you choose the "save game" option that is immediately presented to you and manually email that save file.

Thanks! I'll try that.

 

[TomKQT]

Which is important if you're trying to accurately simulate real-world geography at a low level, which Civ 6 is not.

The distance in a game world is exactly what it is, no matter whether you use hexes, tiles, or some other arrangement. And when you don't need to approximate real-world geometry, squares are a superior interface to hexes in near6ly every way.

Superior? Square tiles allow you to "cheat" movement. Lets say you stand just left of a 1 tile large hill and you want to move over it to the right side. If you mive right 2times in a straight line, you pay the extra movement cost of entering a hill. But you can cheat it by moving diagonally top of the hill and then back down. You end behind the hill and you made just 2 movements. Was it natural? You in fact went around the hill and traveled much longer distance. Still just 2 moves because of the squares, though...
Another case, which I remember as being quite annoying, because it was useful to use and at the same time tedious - when you move over unexplored ocean in a straight line in a search of another continent. You really should move not left or right but in a dialogal pattern /\/\/\/\. You will reach the end at the same time while uncovering more tiles above and below your path. How is this superior to hexes? It is almost like an exploit, because you pay no additional cost and receive some bonus for it, and the process feels strange and unrealistic.

I agree that the shape of the big fat cross is weird, but that has nothing to do with squares vs hexes -- it would be simpler and more sensible if the game instead used a 2 tile radius. (i.e. a 5x5 square centered on the city)

So the solution is to be forced to change game mechanics and have to rebalance the game just because squares dont provide any good looking area around a city larger than 2 tiles?

Of course it has a lot to do with squares. Hexes allow very nice almost circular areas around something (city, unit etc). Squares can form only rectangular areas which are not really good when you need to visualize certain radius around something.

 

[blackcatatonic]

1. 1UPT.
2. Hexes.
3. Religion in V and VI is far improved over the primitive version in IV.
4. The government/civic system in VI is about the best it's ever been IMO.
5. Day/night cycle! I have wanted this in Civ for literally years.
6. Districts and city planning - I still haven't entirely figured out optimal city planning but I really love the depth it adds to the game.

 

[TehJumpingJawa]

Not playing civ3, 2 or 1, because they were made obsolete by civ4.
Not playing civ4 'cos it's almost 12 years old; been there, done that, etc etc.
Not playing civ5 'cos (for various reasons) it's worse than civ4.
Not playing civ6 'cos (for various reasons) it's worse than civ5.

I play CK2 from time to time, and I watch EU4 streams but tbh there hasn't really been a great 4x or grand strategy game released in quite some time.
I had high hopes for Stellaris, but that was rather a let down.

Endless Legend, Endless Space, Sins, Star Ruler 2, StarDrive; played them all, found aspects in each that I liked, but ultimately they never had enough to elevate them to greatness.

SOTS on the other hand, awesome! It had strong theme, simple & intuitive interface, satisfying battles, and tech mechanics that gave huge replayability.
I honestly never missed the absence of diplomacy; better to skip it entirely, than have a bad system like those found in nearly every other strategy game.
Shame the expansions damaged it so badly; the added mechanics introduced excessive micro & complexity without actually expanding the strategic envelope very much.
The less said about the sequel, the better.

 

[Depravo]

One HUGE problem with every instalment after IV is the seeming inability to pull off Rhye's mod or something similar using current mechanics.

 

[isau]

Civ IV had its place, but I just can't go back to it now.

Like Civ V, Civ VI's main weakness is balance. With each patch we get closer to a competitive game. I don't think it will ever be perfect. But it will be really good, and we can tweak the rest.

Civ 6's actual systems are far superior to 4 in most cases:

• Hexes
• Religions
• Trade routes
• Districts
• Placeable wonders

What I miss about 4:

• Superior Domination victory mechanics that the AI could realistically win (working on a mod to restore this to Civ 6 eventually, already got partially designed)
• I liked the culture competition for tiles
• More dangerous/higher sense that you could get wiped out at any time. But this is somewhat replicable in 6 as well by changing some of the rules.

Most of the stuff that's not so great about 6 tends to just be that the systems aren't quite tuned right,. For example, Pantheons. But the base, underlying system created by Firaxis is pretty great, and I've tweaked the game's values to match up to what I'd want to see. That just wouldn't be possible in IV without tons of grunt work to bring up its inferior systems up to par.

 

[CivCube]

More dangerous/higher sense that you could get wiped out at any time. But this is somewhat replicable in 6 as well by changing some of the rules.

I feel this has largely been missing from the series to start but it would be incredible to bring more of the "test of time" to the table.

 

[MyOtherName]

If you want to move 4 tiles in a straight, horizontal or vertical line, there are 17 ways to do that with 4 movement points.

So what? But, to follow along for fun:

(I will continue discussing 8-way movement on a square grid, but be aware there is also the option of 4-way movement)

There is only one way to move 4 tiles in a diagonal line.

If you want to move 4 hexes in a straight line, however, there is only one way to do that with four movement points.

There are only six directions where that's true. Other directions -- such as due North and due South -- there are six different ways to travel four tiles in four moves.

That's the essential difference between hexes and tiles. On tiles, if you want to move to another tile which is exactly into one direction of the grid, you can avoid forest or hills in that same direction by using diagonal movement.

So if the essential difference between hexes and tiles is an irrelevant one, you have no grounds for saying hexes are better.

If I move to a different tile than the one exactly one direction of the grid, then I haven't moved to the tile that is exactly one direction of the grid.

And, incidentally, one cannot go round obstacles when moving along the diagonals without increasing the number of tiles traveled.

Oh, on the "some other arrangement", the only other regular shape that fits perfectly in a grid is a triangle.

Lots of games aren't on grids.

 

[rschissler]

1. I like the districts, wonders, neighborhoods on different tiles, but I don't like that the districts are so restrictive based on population.
2. I like the civics cards, as it's different and more flexible, but there are way too many of them that never get used.
3. I like the better graphics, except the holdover silhouette icons from Civ V for each unit, since it is so difficult to identify units without them. Sure, Civ IV units were bigger and thus not close to scale, but it was a brainless exercise discerning units.
4. Can't be 1UPT since it creates logjams and the AI can't handle it, and it can't be unit movement since it is a boring slog, and it can't be embarkation because the naval game is nonexistent compared to Civ IV, and it can't be diplomacy since the Ai would rather denounce you than be friends, and it can't be trading with the AI since the only trades you can fairly make are excess luxuries for gold, and it can't be the expanding cultural borders because there hardly are any, so I guess I can't come up with anything more than about three...

 

[Leyrann]

So what? But, to follow along for fun:

(I will continue discussing 8-way movement on a square grid, but be aware there is also the option of 4-way movement)

There is only one way to move 4 tiles in a diagonal line.


There are only six directions where that's true. Other directions -- such as due North and due South -- there are six different ways to travel four tiles in four moves.


So if the essential difference between hexes and tiles is an irrelevant one, you have no grounds for saying hexes are better.

If I move to a different tile than the one exactly one direction of the grid, then I haven't moved to the tile that is exactly one direction of the grid.

And, incidentally, one cannot go round obstacles when moving along the diagonals without increasing the number of tiles traveled.


Lots of games aren't on grids.

Indeed, if you move diagonally, then there is only one way on a tile. I suppose that, with your beliefs in regards to tiles vs hexes, I should have addressed that immediately. While there's indeed for both grids directions where there's multiple paths to take, there are two reasons why hexes are superior. Firstly, the difference between "straight line" and "taking a route from center of hex to center of hex" is smaller than with tiles, even if you take the north or south direction. Secondly, one unit of movement always moves you the same distance, because all centers of hexes are equal distance to all their neighbors. If you use tiles, then moving a diagonal tile lets you move 1.415 times as far from center to center as when moving a horizontal tile - at the same movement cost.

Also, with the some other arrangement... I assumed grids. Indeed, if you use coördinates, there's many more options.

 

[TomKQT]

So what? But, to follow along for fun:

(I will continue discussing 8-way movement on a square grid, but be aware there is also the option of 4-way movement)

There is only one way to move 4 tiles in a diagonal line.

Yep, because diagonal lines already are much better (faster movement for the same cost) than horizontal/vertical. So if you want to move diagonally, you really should move diagonaly. The sad point of squares is that if you want to move vertically you in fact should move horizontally, because that will cost you nothing more but can give you advantages (more tiles discovered, you can avoid obstacles for free, you can choose a lot of paths to get to the same destination while still making only the minimal number of moves).

So if the essential difference between hexes and tiles is an irrelevant one, you have no grounds for saying hexes are better.

Irrelevant maybe for you You can easily see in this thread how many people consider hexes to be one of the better features in Civ5/6. And did you read my previous post (reaction to yours previous one)?

And, incidentally, one cannot go round obstacles when moving along the diagonals without increasing the number of tiles traveled.

You are right, you cannot do it when moving diagonally. But don't you think that it is very important to notice that you can do it when moving vertically/horizontally? Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you cannot. With hexes you cannot do it anytime - if you want to move around an obstacle, you ALWAYS will have to make more moves. I think this is 100 % fair

Some games on square tiles (I don't remember where I saw it, but I'm sure I did see it) deal with this problem by making diagonal moves cost 1.4 movement point and vertical/horizontal moves cost 1 movement point. This makes it fair, but complicates the game a lot, because it is not clear and easy to guess how far will your unit with 4 movement points go (plus add some rought terrain to the equation...).
On hexes, the distance between any two adjacent hexes is exactly the same.

 

[MyOtherName]

Some games on square tiles (I don't remember where I saw it, but I'm sure I did see it) deal with this problem by making diagonal moves cost 1.4 movement point and vertical/horizontal moves cost 1 movement point. This makes it fair, but complicates the game [a lot, because it is not clear and easy to guess how far will your unit with 4 movement points go (plus add some rought terrain to the equation...).
On hexes, the distance between any two adjacent hexes is exactly the same.

It doesn't make it fair; it merely makes it different. Maybe a better approximation to Euclidean geometry, but once again, the point of having a map isn't to be a geometry simulator.

Hexes became popular for strategy games, because Avalon Hill was once the big name in tactical wargaming... and Avalon Hill made an industry out of replicating real world battlefields, so approximating real world geometry was important.

But they didn't slavishly adhere to it. Tactics II on fictional terrain used a square grid. Civilization didn't have any sort of regular pattern at all; terrain is just blobs.

Any sort of terrain organization will do; all that matters is that it can be reasonably presented to the player and plays fine.

It's silly to lament that some lone mountain doesn't get in the way of travel. If it's not in the way, it's simply not an obstacle; don't worry about it. Making a big deal that it interrupts travel along one of the six special directions of a hex grid is silly, because it's rare that some unit will want to make that exact journey. It's even sillier in 1UPT, because even if individual units can go around the mountain, it still puts a kink in the motion of a group of units.

The point of squares is the interface they provide. Human eyes are naturally good at scanning horizontally and vertically. Keyboard input fits naturally with square grids. We're educated in a variety of contexts to understand things relative to an orthogonal pair of coordinates. It's easier to determine exact distance in a square grid. Physically manipulating pieces on small square grids is much easier than small hex grids (although that's not relevant for computer games).

Hexes lose at basically everything that doesn't ultimately boil down to "I wish the terrain more closely resembled Euclidean geometry". And I've seen very, very few arguments (this thread included) that actually try to argue why more closely resembling Euclidean geometry is better, rather than just different.

As an aside, I think a large part of the feeling of the significance of the gameplay difference between hexes and squares (with 8-way movement) is because the 'special' directions on the square grid are the four diagonals -- but those aren't the directions people compare to the hex grid's six 'special' directions.

Instead, people make the completely opposite comparison -- they compare the hex grid's special directions to the square grid's in-between directions (i.e. N/S/E/W).

I.e. North on a square grid vs. North on a civ 6 map is a better comparison than East on a square grid vs. East on a civ 6 map.

If you want to compare East on a civ 6 map to something, compare it to Northeasterly travel on a square grid.

 

[TomKQT]

It doesn't make it fair; it merely makes it different. Maybe a better approximation to Euclidean geometry, but once again, the point of having a map isn't to be a geometry simulator.

When talking about correlation between game movement points utilized and actual distance travelled, then the word fair is IMHO appropriate.

It's silly to lament that some lone mountain doesn't get in the way of travel. If it's not in the way, it's simply not an obstacle; don't worry about it.

You still fail to understand that our problem with square tiles is the inconsistency in this.
The X represents an obstacle, o is your position and T is the destination. In both the following situations you want (for whatever reason, this really is irrelevant now) to move from the starting position to the target destination. In both cases it is two tiles away with the obstacle being exactly in the middle. The situation is exactly the same. But in the first case you have to spend 3 moves, in the second case only 2 moves. In order to get 2 tiles away behind the very same obstacle. The only difference is that you approached in from a different direction - and this only difference is in fact caused by the properties of squares, because squares have this inconsistency.

+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| T | . | . | | . | . | . |
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| . | X | . | | T | X | o |
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+
| . | . | o | | . | . | . |
+---+---+---+ +---+---+---+

And let me draw you something more, something I already talked about. Let's say you have a boat with 1-tile visibility range and want to quickly go west to find another continent. In sounds natural to move in a straight line (getting somewhere fastest = move in a straight line, that's common sense for everybody). And you expect do uncover a 3-tiles wide line because of the 1-tile visibility. On the next picture * represents positions of the boat and circles represent uncovered tiles. In both cases you spent the same moves, but in the second case you travelled much longer distance and uncovered considerably more tiles, for no additional cost (well, micromanagement is a good point, but strictly speaking the cost is not quantifiable).

+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ . . . +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . . . | O | O | O | . | O | O | O | . | . |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ . . . +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| O | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | . . . | O | * | O | O | O | * | O | O | O |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ . . . +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | * | . . . | * | O | * | O | * | O | * | O | * |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ . . . +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| O | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | O | . . . | O | O | O | * | O | O | O | * | O |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ . . . +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . . . | . | . | O | O | O | . | O | O | O |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ . . . +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

Making a big deal that it interrupts travel along one of the six special directions of a hex grid is silly, because it's rare that some unit will want to make that exact journey. It's even sillier in 1UPT, because even if individual units can go around the mountain, it still puts a kink in the motion of a group of units.

You still repeat that a problem is not a problem if it doesn't appear all the time. I cannot agree with it. Hexes are consistent and such problems don't appear at all. On squares this problem exists.
If your car sometimes starts and sometimes not, it's not a problem?

Human eyes are naturally good at scanning horizontally and vertically.

In fact not. Orthogonal structures and objects are related ONLY to human-made objects and only quite recently (compared to how long have people existed on this planet). Around us in nature, where can you find anything square? There are much more natural shapes like spheres. And how do bees make their constructions? Why are they using hexes which are in your eyes much more complicated, and not squares with all their advantages?

Keyboard input fits naturally with square grids.

I agree on this particular point. I don't even know whether you can move the units in Civ5/6 using keyboard, but it would be very unintuitive anyway. And I used keys in Civ1 (didn't even have mouse back then) and Civ4 (sometimes).
But Civ4 uses perspective camera and you can even rotate the view (if I remember correctly - please forgive me if I'm wrong). How's the keyboard movement so much natural then, when up isn't exactly up?
And what about a very typical axonometric view, for example in Civ3? Shall the diagonal keys (1, 3, 7, 9) on numpad represent diagonal movement on the grid (which would sound logical) or the orthogonal movement which physically better represents the directions? I remember I always had problems in such games and used mouse all the time instead.

We're educated in a variety of contexts to understand things relative to an orthogonal pair of coordinates.

Because it's great for mathematics and geometry. That however doesn't mean that it is the best choice for everything.
I however agree that hexes feel strange at the beginning, because we aren't used to them so much. But there are many advantages to them and you get used to them very quickly. And the world looks more natural, because land and nation borders modelled on squares look too artificial. Look on a real map - coast will be straight with orthogonal angles only on very short distances (luck). And even national borders are orthogonal and straight mostly only in the USA and at some places in Africa - because these borders were artifically drawn by people in an office on a blank map after some deal. Typical borders copy rivers, mountains, villages, represent thousands of years of battles etc.

It's easier to determine exact distance in a square grid.

No, it's the exact opposite Distance in a square grid has a very abstract meaning. You can count tiles between two tiles. But distance is different horizontally and diagonally.

As an aside, I think a large part of the feeling of the significance of the gameplay difference between hexes and squares (with 8-way movement) is because the 'special' directions on the square grid are the four diagonals -- but those aren't the directions people compare to the hex grid's six 'special' directions.

If hexes have 6 directions in total, how can these 6 directions be special? That's the problem, all 6 directions on hexes are the same. If all people are blonde then nobody with blonde hair is special (because of his hair).
However, 4 directions on squares are "natural" and 4 directions are "special" or "different", because they have very different mechanics.