If Civ IV and Civ V were both released today, which one would you be playing?

Which Civ would you be playing?

  • Civ IV

    Votes: 139 85.8%

  • Civ V

    Votes: 23 14.2%
  • Total voters
    162
D

DarkSchneider

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Messages
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Here is a fun thought experiment, if vanilla Civ IV and Civ V were both released today, which one would you be playing? For this experiment also assume they were both released without any major bugs, and released under different, but equally reputable game studios.
 
Neither, since neither had an OSX port at release.

Aren't we through yet with the "wah Civ 5 sucks!" stuff yet?

Anyway, for those voting, consider that Civ 4 has had many years to make refinements to the base game. Civ 5 hasn't even been out a month yet. I know the OP said that they should both be considered to be bug-free, but I honestly doubt y'all are capable of removing that bias from your minds. I know I'm not. Most of you have hundreds of hours invested in Civ 4; of course you're going to like it more than Civ 5. Hell, even if Civ 5 didn't have bugs and bad AI, you'd be complaining because it's different, therefore it sucks.

I'm not saying you're stupid, just that you're human. Most people don't take change well, especially when they've invested a lot in the way things used to work.
 
Derakon said:
Neither, since neither had an OSX port at release.

Aren't we through yet with the "wah Civ 5 sucks!" stuff yet?

Anyway, for those voting, consider that Civ 4 has had many years to make refinements to the base game. Civ 5 hasn't even been out a month yet. I know the OP said that they should both be considered to be bug-free, but I honestly doubt y'all are capable of removing that bias from your minds. I know I'm not. Most of you have hundreds of hours invested in Civ 4; of course you're going to like it more than Civ 5. Hell, even if Civ 5 didn't have bugs and bad AI, you'd be complaining because it's different, therefore it sucks.

I'm not saying you're stupid, just that you're human. Most people don't take change well, especially when they've invested a lot in the way things used to work.
Click to expand...

The issue with CIV V is not the bugs; CIV 4 had plenty of those when it came out too. The problem is the playability. No one was beating Deity on CIV IV in its first week. After a couple of months, AcidSatyr and a couple of other people started taking on Immortal. That was it.

Immortal on CIV V is easy. The AI is atrocious at war. On top of that, the game has serious balance issues. There are all kinds of exploits that you can use to get far ahead. The Vanilla CS slingshot was nothing compared to what you can do in this game. Someone posted a strat to get Riflemen in 1000BC!

And too much of the time, you do nothing but click enter. Which wouldn't be so bad, except that the inter-turns are slow. That, at least, may get better. After all, they fixed CIV IV's memory issues.
 
G-Max said:
The what?
Click to expand...

When CIV IV was first released, it was easy to take Civil Service off the Oracle because the only pre-req was Code of Laws. Basically you researched Priesthood and then CoL while building the Oracle and there you have it. At some point they added Math as a pre-req, making it much harder.

There were other balance issues too. Chopping was ridiculously powerful because you got full value for a chop anywhere on the map. Worker-stealing was much easier because the worker could move as soon as you grabbed it.

Undoubtedly, they'll fix some of the problems with CIV V but they seem to be much more fundamental. Great Scientists are completely broken for example.
 
The butchered interface alone was enough to put me off. Then there's the fact I need steam just to play the game, which means I'm not sure I will ever buy it. Maybe if it is an actual Civ game in 2-3 years time. Right now it isn't. Some nice things were introduced, but why remove the complexity and depth? I'll let the others beta test the game, and see what it may result in far down the line. But if we'll still need Steam to play it, it's probably a no-go for me. Civ 4 is much better anyway. Though I'm sure Civ 5 will improve with time (and heavy modding).
 
IV

I remember being captivated with IV as I was with the previous Civ games (II and III). I really enjoyed it and only recently started playing BtS.

I dont enjoy Civ V at all despite how much I was looking forward to it.
 
The time lag between turns is a killer for me, plus the PC requirements that I can't meet on a laptop.

I will reserve my final judgement on V though, as there are a lot of talented people out there who will give me mods (thanks, by the way).
 
yeah, thats how I feel. It runs on my (very good) laptop, but not at a very high level and it lags. Seeing static leaders and the bad AI is pretty damaging to the experience as well.

I also do think there is potential with some expansions/mods and some changes to settings.

Right now though, Im very cool with Civ IV. I really havent gotten to in depth with it, but recently coming here a lot in the build-up to Civ V, I have learned a whole lot about how awesome IV is. Plus for some reason I never broke out the expansions until now.


But at the base of the thread, I was definitely more satisfied/immersed with IV when it came out, and still am.
 
Even disregarding my computer's performance issues, game mods and patches...


Civ 4
by a long shot.
 
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