How I learned to stop worrying and love "Civ War"

[Naokaukodem]

The fact is that war is not enough rewarding; it's just a matter of reaching the core end of the game. If, say, the benefits of a new city were high, and the wars harder to fight, then it would worth it. Oh, and add some stuff to do in peace times. And also, not to forget, rebellions en masse so that we would still have an aim accasionnally, either it to recover our land by war, or not loosing it.

 

[Shoryn]

What are the better turn-based war games out there?

Total war series

 

[Sonereal]

Total war series

Total War uses an RTT system for battles though. It's hardly turn-based in that regard.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

So this is another thread about how a player has noticed that Civ5 isn't Civ4?

No this is another thread about how a player has noticed that Civ5 isn't a true Civ, and is more like Civ Rev 2.

 

[Morningcalm]

Militarily the AI still sucks. Even with huge numbers of troops they seem unable to defeat my army units, let alone take my cities.

Maybe it'd help if the AI made more ranged units (i.e. artillery) and used them more often. These days I consider myself lucky if they make more than 1 such ranged siege unit for attacking.

 

[Buccaneer]

I found Civ4, from 5 years of playing, to be the ultimate Civ War game, slightly moreso than Civ5. SoD does that to you.

 

[bpheater]

Civilization V isn't ALL ABOUT war, but the warmongering aspect of the game is much more enjoyable than in previous Civ games. The removal of unit stacking has made conquest WAY harder, especially if you don't have very much iron in the pre-gunpowder times... It's also made everything way less tedious. I remember some games from Civ IV where there would be huge stacks of combat units waiting in every city.

Culture victory still seems easy to me as well. I always have to go for more cities and pay more maintenance for happiness buildings but it's still definitely doable.

Space race is cake, rush a National College in your capital, keep your cities defended and go for the production policies so you can build the parts faster.

I haven't attmepted a dimplomacy victory yet so I'll have to get back with you on that .

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

Total War uses an RTT system for battles though. It's hardly turn-based in that regard.

You can auto-calc all the battles rather than fighting them out tactically which has the dual advantages of being much faster and much more difficult, as most humans get a massive advantage from the tactical battles vs the AI. I often play them with a house rule that only allows me to fight battles in which my King is present on the tactical map, and auto-calc the rest.

 

[Jolly Rogerer]

As for actual wargames that are good, I have to agree with Ohioastronomy in that almost all wargames are better than any of the Civ series. I like the Total War series (haven't played the gunpowder era series though), any of the Paradox games (which typically aren't only wargames, and are real time, but nonetheless are significantly better warfare simulations than Civ and more fun to boot), any of Gary Grigsby's games (War in the Pacific for those who like massive games, and Gary Grigsby's World at War for those who prefer a more beer and pretzels experience).

Why did I ever play Civ? Because no other games had the sweep of history with the empire building aspects so neglected in the latest version. Warfare was a sideshow for me in these games, and something that was a distraction to the fun bits, and therefore largely avoided.

 

[Islet]

Civilization V isn't ALL ABOUT war, but the warmongering aspect of the game is much more enjoyable than in previous Civ games. The removal of unit stacking has made conquest WAY harder, especially if you don't have very much iron in the pre-gunpowder times... It's also made everything way less tedious. I remember some games from Civ IV where there would be huge stacks of combat units waiting in every city.

Culture victory still seems easy to me as well. I always have to go for more cities and pay more maintenance for happiness buildings but it's still definitely doable.

Space race is cake, rush a National College in your capital, keep your cities defended and go for the production policies so you can build the parts faster.

I haven't attmepted a dimplomacy victory yet so I'll have to get back with you on that .

Pre-patch, conquest was a piece of cake (4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse anyone?), due to terrible AI positioning of units. Tactics-wise, I won't comment.

Post-patch, cities buff, zero maintenance of defense structures and unit nerfs, cities are way harder to capture, AI is better at unit positioning but the tactics remain the same, just camp outside your walls, taking bombardment after bombardment. Except now, they die a lot quicker. Ranged AI just seems to be coded to "trail" melee units, once these melee units are destroyed, they are rerouted back to base. So the invasion ends.

They didn't make the game better at the other victory options, they just simply made war a whole lot more difficult, almost to the point that Ancient to Medieval era is useless for war, thus giving the illusion of more peaceful games.

At it's core, CiV is still mainly about warmongering.

 

[the343danny]

IMO peaceful times were boring both in Civ 4 and 5. However it was interesting to see your nation boom after years of being in the bottom after being tortured by revolutions (Revmod) to suddenly jump to the very very top. But it wasnt so much interesting peace but interesting after-effects of a series of wars that made me large and regained lost territory from revolting cities maybe a 1000 years back. IMO what makes peacetime interesting is seeing what is happening all around you. In Civ 4, I spent more time looking at the other countries and and its history than playing the actual game, but that was because of the revolution mod the mod I used had (LoR) and the really immersive mapscript (PerfectWorld2) and the world builder (once I got in a position where it wont matter if I see everything Id look at the AI countries using WB mode, then maybe buff some just for fun).

What Civ 5 really needs for it to have better peacetime for me would be if the AI didnt ICS (as of latest patch), settled cities in non annoying places (ie a hex away from river/ocean, settling 50000 miles away right next to where you were planning to put a city even though they have ample space right next to their capital), some mechanic that allowed greater historical immersion (ie revolutions). With PerfectWorld3 out for Civ 5 the maps are fine, and now the game automatically updates your view of AI territories rather than needing to trade maps every few turns.

 

[CornPlanter]

What are the better turn-based war games out there?

I'm more RTS player so I don't really know turn based war games, especially if we talk "realistic" ones (i.e. not fantasy or sci-fi = no HOMM, AoW2, etc.). However if you are right and Civ5 is the best turn based war game there is, turn-based world is really sad.

 

[ohioastronomy]

It's interesting to see the different perspectives that people have on this game; I suspect that's what kept it so popular for so long. One important thing to keep in mind is that your particular perspective will not be universal, so I'll give mine as background.

My favorite difficulty level in prior Civs was Emperor. I could win at Immortal, but found it too limiting (in the sense that it was tough to get "firsts" such as Wonders and founding religions), and also that the AI advantages seemed too heavy-handed. I could occasionally win at Deity but felt that I was gaming the system rather than playing a game. In essence, when you stack the AI deck against the player too much you transform the game into something different. I'd feel different if high difficulty = clever AI rather than high difficulty = AI cheats, but that hasn't been the Civ series norm. (If you really prefer Immortal+ in prior versions, isn't this go around trivial for you? Because from a mechanical point of view the difficulty level seems quite a bit lower.)

I preferred to try out different things (winning with unusual approaches, or beating prior records for a particular victory condition, or hall of fame contests.) At Emperor you didn't need to war if you didn't want to. Really, and that's my personal experience from a lot of games. You also didn't need to "abuse" religions - you had a lot of tools for a builder-style win if you wanted to. To be truthful, I've always found that avoiding warfare tends to make Civ games harder, not easier.

So, against that background, the newest Civ game removes a lot of interesting choices for pure builders - and brings the (lacking) wargame to the forefront. I'd rate even the Paradox games as better wargames than Civ - and the tactical puzzles in RTS games, or role-playing games, are better brain-teasers for me. If the new approach leaves a lot of fans behind, then that's a problem even if the wargamers are fond of it.