I'm new to the ''Civ'' series. What is the best in all the aspects? Civ4 or Civ5?

[urborror]

Civ 4 represents a 1/million occasion where game design was so insanely solid it hadn't even been that radically modified from Civ 1. There's one other video game like that, basically: Super Mario Brothers. Nintendo can still sell a new Super Mario at $50. The dynamics of such games should not be altered lightly.

I'd be playing the new Simcity if it properly inherited its forebears features, but they messed that up, as well. You could say "Dune 2" was a game design that became "real time strategy," a genre, sure.

Whatever mojo Civ 4 evolved from Civ 1 is somewhat diminished in Civ 5. Buildings feel like they make half the impact in double the turns. Building military feels feeble because of the 1UPT combat system (they're all in line awkwardly for getting into action?) Maybe people liked "tall" empires, but I never did--I always won Civ through domination variants, and it's probably 90% of the players. Rewarding the "tall" is a sad bid to fix the broken combat system because 40 units are a dull nightmare to manage in Civ 5, worse than stacks ever were.

You can argue intellectually that Civ 5 is great, but to me it's lacking a certain bedrock addictive quality that's made Civilization one of the only game designs to endure.

 

[eternalblue]

Civ 4 represents a 1/million occasion where game design was so insanely solid it hadn't even been that radically modified from Civ 1. There's one other video game like that, basically: Super Mario Brothers. Nintendo can still sell a new Super Mario at $50. The dynamics of such games should not be altered lightly.

I'd be playing the new Simcity if it properly inherited its forebears features, but they messed that up, as well. You could say "Dune 2" was a game design that became "real time strategy," a genre, sure.

Whatever mojo Civ 4 evolved from Civ 1 is somewhat diminished in Civ 5. Buildings feel like they make half the impact in double the turns. Building military feels feeble because of the 1UPT combat system (they're all in line awkwardly for getting into action?) Maybe people liked "tall" empires, but I never did--I always won Civ through domination variants, and it's probably 90% of the players. Rewarding the "tall" is a sad bid to fix the broken combat system because 40 units are a dull nightmare to manage in Civ 5, worse than stacks ever were.

You can argue intellectually that Civ 5 is great, but to me it's lacking a certain bedrock addictive quality that's made Civilization one of the only game designs to endure.

oky thanx urborror so much for your oppinion , and I think yes your point of view is very trusting like others... there is a lot solid content in civ 4 I agree very much with that... like others are saying civ5 is more light, more ''arcadeish'' . the big problem for a lot of people when playing civ4 is the old ugly interface in menus, techtree, animation in movement of units or combat, the black fog of war and the dated graphics, sound and music are great... If they can made a civ4 with graphics of civ5 or better , this can greatest.. with all resources and city states with more wonders, natural wonders... but sweet dreams... we don't know... that we can have for the moment is a civ4 that lacks in graphics and old combat ''sod'' but with a lot of good content , and a civ5 with good graphics and something new things changing something in good way but that contain some boring parts later that can frustrate you when you have a lot of cities in empire constructing buildings just to do something, and when you don't have more to construct you just construct units and can't utilize them just because you don't wanna go to war costing maintanance and losing a lot of time just because you need to control, manage every unit in every f***ing turn !!! but that we have for the moment... no? and we can appreciate because we have something instead nothing.
and about the diplomacy..... there are a lot of people criticing the diplomacy in civ3, others a little in civ4 and the most of them in civ5..... i just tell something: for programing the diplomacy to make it work is a very very very hard job to do an AI to think like an human and take decision with imprevisiblity in a logical way... you just wanna put an AI to think like a human and that is near imposibble... so all the people that saying that diplomacy is broken in civ games are ******** or I don't know... diplomacy is near perfect in comparation with other games... inc civ 5 was a little problem with that when the original game comes out but fixed with the expansions...
I just wanna see a solid civ4 with some great things from civ5 with graphics of civ5 or better no? in civ6?

 

[Drakarska]

Interesting. So for you, you need to have top of the line graphics, sound, etc for a TBS game to be great? I'm merely curious.

TBH, I was rather offended when 2k lied about system specs required in order to get my sons Civ V to run properly. Since when did a 4x game need a NASA super computer in order to run in optimized mode?

As for large amounts of cities. I rather like that aspect of Civ IV. I mean it is supposed to be an empire building game right? I really don't get that particular immersion of the game when I'm playing civ v, especially when I'm playing huge maps (really? i'm playing Rome and I can't take over the world?).

I dunno. I just really can't get into civ v, as it seem boring to me. Maybe it's just because I only have base game and haven't been interested in getting G&K (my son's undecided as well)anytime soon.

 

[eternalblue]

Interesting. So for you, you need to have top of the line graphics, sound, etc for a TBS game to be great? I'm merely curious.

TBH, I was rather offended when 2k lied about system specs required in order to get my sons Civ V to run properly. Since when did a 4x game need a NASA super computer in order to run in optimized mode?
.

drakarska, don't tell me that you don't like the graphics from civ5.... and about the requirements, don't need so much like you said... I was playing in my fathers old laptop and without problem... yes if you play 1900x1200 resolution at x8 is your problem... the game don't require too much and graphicaly is kicking civ4 ... there are just a few games with that poor menu like civ4... and yes if you have gods and kings and brave new world the game changes too much, every single aspect... if civ5 is a little failure in some things , civ5 bnw have too much content... and like I said civ4 is a very solid game with great things, but you can't say civ5 bnw is bad because is a lie... is very good like civ4... because complete a lot of things that civ4 hasn't.... so?

 

[civvver]

Civ 4 represents a 1/million occasion where game design was so insanely solid it hadn't even been that radically modified from Civ 1. There's one other video game like that, basically: Super Mario Brothers. Nintendo can still sell a new Super Mario at $50. The dynamics of such games should not be altered lightly.

I'd be playing the new Simcity if it properly inherited its forebears features, but they messed that up, as well. You could say "Dune 2" was a game design that became "real time strategy," a genre, sure.

Whatever mojo Civ 4 evolved from Civ 1 is somewhat diminished in Civ 5. Buildings feel like they make half the impact in double the turns. Building military feels feeble because of the 1UPT combat system (they're all in line awkwardly for getting into action?) Maybe people liked "tall" empires, but I never did--I always won Civ through domination variants, and it's probably 90% of the players. Rewarding the "tall" is a sad bid to fix the broken combat system because 40 units are a dull nightmare to manage in Civ 5, worse than stacks ever were.

You can argue intellectually that Civ 5 is great, but to me it's lacking a certain bedrock addictive quality that's made Civilization one of the only game designs to endure.

I disagree here. Civ3 and 4 are drastically different from the first too, at least as much as civ5 is different than civ4. 4 appears similar to 3 but in reality plays very differently so even those I would argue are massively different games. Look, civ5 made three big, fundamental changes from 4, changing the economic model away from commerce and sliders into separation of gold and science, replacing maintenance with global happiness and hex squares with 1upt. But civ4 made pretty much the same fundamental changes to 3- they removed corruption and building costs and added maintenance, they drastically changed combat with promotions, unit counters and having one combat value vs separate attack and defend values, and stacks and collateral damage. Civ4 completely removed government types and replaced them with civics.

So I disagree saying 5 is the outlier here. I do agree it's missing that civ spark, the one more turn quality that keeps you addicted. But honestly I think it's because it runs so sluggishly. I think the technical aspects of 5 hold it back more than anything else now. I add emphasis to now because at release the game sucked lol.

 

[Drakarska]

drakarska, don't tell me that you don't like the graphics from civ5.... and about the requirements, don't need so much like you said... I was playing in my fathers old laptop and without problem... yes if you play 1900x1200 resolution at x8 is your problem... the game don't require too much and graphicaly is kicking civ4 ... there are just a few games with that poor menu like civ4... and yes if you have gods and kings and brave new world the game changes too much, every single aspect... if civ5 is a little failure in some things , civ5 bnw have too much content... and like I said civ4 is a very solid game with great things, but you can't say civ5 bnw is bad because is a lie... is very good like civ4... because complete a lot of things that civ4 hasn't.... so?

TBH, I think they went overboard with the graphics instead of focusing on core mechanics. I don't dislike the graphics, but I wouldn't say I actively like them either. In all fairness though, my vision (I wear bifocals) isn't the greatest, so this may be a contributing factor.

As for the sys req's, try telling a 14yr old that he can't have all options going for a video game despite what the req's state, and see how far that gets you . Especially since one of the game's main selling points is the graphics.

G&K supposedly fixed a number of issues, and from what I have read may decide to go ahead and get it. That is unless the kid uses his allowance and buys it first, lol. As for BNW, I've read of too many issues with it to concern myself with potentially investing in it at this time.

For clarification, I didn't state that Civ 5 BNW lied. I stated that 2K lied, huge difference. My main point being that it is a matter of personal preference on what I and my family consider fun and entertaining, and at this point in time I just really don't consider Civ 5 falling into that category of "just one more turn". It speaks volumes to me when my significant other can ask me "are you coming to bed?" while I'm playing Civ 5 and I'll respond by shutting everything off after I save. As opposed to when I was playing Civ 4 and asked her to give me 10 more minutes, which wound up being several hours later.

I'm glad for you that you enjoy civ 5 and all of it's components, that's what being a civver is all about. But there is all types of civvers, and all of them have their personal preferances on what their ideal Civ should be. That's what makes Civ Fanatics so interesting as a forum, everyone voicing their viewpoints to the community.

 

[eternalblue]

I disagree here. Civ3 and 4 are drastically different from the first too, at least as much as civ5 is different than civ4. 4 appears similar to 3 but in reality plays very differently so even those I would argue are massively different games. Look, civ5 made three big, fundamental changes from 4, changing the economic model away from commerce and sliders into separation of gold and science, replacing maintenance with global happiness and hex squares with 1upt. But civ4 made pretty much the same fundamental changes to 3- they removed corruption and building costs and added maintenance, they drastically changed combat with promotions, unit counters and having one combat value vs separate attack and defend values, and stacks and collateral damage. Civ4 completely removed government types and replaced them with civics.

So I disagree saying 5 is the outlier here. I do agree it's missing that civ spark, the one more turn quality that keeps you addicted. But honestly I think it's because it runs so sluggishly. I think the technical aspects of 5 hold it back more than anything else now. I add emphasis to now because at release the game sucked lol.

... that's a very good analisys civvver, from first two civ games on 3 or 4 and then changing the way civ5 plays.... yes is interesting that you say, because many people just are saying that civ was changed just from civ4 on civ5... wrong... and is very relevant that acros years civ combine the same base mechanics with something new... but finaly I think is not a bad change... is just a civ game playing on a bit different rules, some people liked them and others don't... but the core essence is the same...

 

[eternalblue]

TBH, I think they went overboard with the graphics instead of focusing on core mechanics. I don't dislike the graphics, but I wouldn't say I actively like them either. In all fairness though, my vision (I wear bifocals) isn't the greatest, so this may be a contributing factor.

As for the sys req's, try telling a 14yr old that he can't have all options going for a video game despite what the req's state, and see how far that gets you . Especially since one of the game's main selling points is the graphics.

G&K supposedly fixed a number of issues, and from what I have read may decide to go ahead and get it. That is unless the kid uses his allowance and buys it first, lol. As for BNW, I've read of too many issues with it to concern myself with potentially investing in it at this time.

For clarification, I didn't state that Civ 5 BNW lied. I stated that 2K lied, huge difference. My main point being that it is a matter of personal preference on what I and my family consider fun and entertaining, and at this point in time I just really don't consider Civ 5 falling into that category of "just one more turn". It speaks volumes to me when my significant other can ask me "are you coming to bed?" while I'm playing Civ 5 and I'll respond by shutting everything off after I save. As opposed to when I was playing Civ 4 and asked her to give me 10 more minutes, which wound up being several hours later.

I'm glad for you that you enjoy civ 5 and all of it's components, that's what being a civver is all about. But there is all types of civvers, and all of them have their personal preferances on what their ideal Civ should be. That's what makes Civ Fanatics so interesting as a forum, everyone voicing their viewpoints to the community.

yes drakarska, for example you are a very old civ fan.. and is natural that you love more the old structure with more micromanagement in the cities health and other things, the stack of doom and etc... that's the difference you are old in the series and I am new (5 months)... so when I was playing the both games... I was addicted very much with civ5 more than civ4 ... was more friendly to me, more simple and introduced me in the series like a casual gamer that wanna play or just see how is this type of game... and ''one more turn'' was working on me a lot... I was playing civ5 g&k to much a lot of nights without sleep so it has a big effect on me... and now the second expansion... I like very much the tactical combat in strategy games and the production and I was playing very much a lot of real time strategy games, and I think this turn based strategy game was more friendly to me than the others 4 that I didn't understand... but now I know the difference because I was playing civ4 some games, and yes I like it ... but ... I don't know something give me more fun with this tactical combat and the new structure of the cities like how it grows the empire expand and a lot of things... is like more new, fresh to me than civ4...
and yes I thank you because of your oppinions and enjoy more the civ4 like I am enjoying civ5... and I like very much because a lot of people sharing different oppinions and talking about civ series in this tread... Thanx

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The "minimum" and "recommended" system specs on civ V vanilla release were a travesty and not defensible in anyway whatsoever.

Running on either, a substantial portion of the game's content is unavailable or functionally unavailable to the player. Drakarska was correct in pointing out that Firaxis/2k misled the consumer base in that regard.

Honest companies would put MINIMUM specifications that allow you to play any game mode offered, provided you turn all of your quality settings down in favor of performance. Recommended specs, therefore, should be running very well at absolute minimum graphical settings. That's not how civ V rolls.

Making money is a good thing for game companies, but lying/misleading the consumer base is not.

Civ V has a lot of good features and some excellent steps forward in the series. The only way it's truly objectively worse than IV is in its technical ability to run and its user interface efficiency which is freaking awful (it was bad in IV too, but not quite as bad...Firaxis needs somebody...anybody...who has been around a competent user interface. Not a single civ game has *ever* has had a competent UI relative to other good games of its time). In terms of features, player options, civ variety, etc it's every bit as good or better than IV, depending on what one's preferences are.

 

[eternalblue]

The "minimum" and "recommended" system specs on civ V vanilla release were a travesty and not defensible in anyway whatsoever.

Running on either, a substantial portion of the game's content is unavailable or functionally unavailable to the player. Drakarska was correct in pointing out that Firaxis/2k misled the consumer base in that regard.

Honest companies would put MINIMUM specifications that allow you to play any game mode offered, provided you turn all of your quality settings down in favor of performance. Recommended specs, therefore, should be running very well at absolute minimum graphical settings. That's not how civ V rolls.

Making money is a good thing for game companies, but lying/misleading the consumer base is not.

Civ V has a lot of good features and some excellent steps forward in the series. The only way it's truly objectively worse than IV is in its technical ability to run and its user interface efficiency which is freaking awful (it was bad in IV too, but not quite as bad...Firaxis needs somebody...anybody...who has been around a competent user interface. Not a single civ game has *ever* has had a competent UI relative to other good games of its time). In terms of features, player options, civ variety, etc it's every bit as good or better than IV, depending on what one's preferences are.

in comparation of content and variety of course civ5 smash civ4... 43 nations with different bonuses and abilities to every leader, a lot more wonders and natural wonders, including a lot of city states that can change a lot the game, the beautifull form that you can play with religion and espionage, the way can play culture now with more options, the way can play the trades and diplomacy, variety in music and sounds... there is a huge mass of people that enjoy all the content that offers from the two expansions. is a very good game to play...

 

[Jerman]

Honest companies would put MINIMUM specifications that allow you to play any game mode offered, provided you turn all of your quality settings down in favor of performance. Recommended specs, therefore, should be running very well at absolute minimum graphical settings. That's not how civ V rolls.

Welcome to 2013 were games have good graphics. Its not the games fault if you don't have a good enough computer to run it.

 

[Drakarska]

Welcome to 2013 were games have good graphics. Its not the games fault if you don't have a good enough computer to run it.

Apparently you missed the main point of both TMIT's and my posts. I believe I'll let TMIT give you the clarification of our statements since his articulate style is much more suited towards your somewhat patronizing comment.

 

[civvver]

I built a new pc just to play civ5! My old pc was minimum specs but it ran awful.

 

[Civking5]

In my opinion, to enjoy civ5 to its full potential, one needs a system way more than minimum requirements, and minimum requirements are just not enough. For example, here is a picture of my current game (playing as Morocco, immortal, standard speed). This is a large size earth map, and I pumped up number of civs from 12 to 22, and number of CSs from 20 to 30.

Spoiler :

and I have to admit that this type of setting are a lot more enjoyable for me than playing a small or standard map with 6 or 8 civs. Now I have a relative good new gaming desktop with liquid cooling and what not, but still i am not sure if i should try a huge size map because I am afraid that turn times become long in mid/late game ( and i have no patience at all).

 

[civvver]

In my opinion, to enjoy civ5 to its full potential, one needs a system way more than minimum requirements, and minimum requirements are just not enough. For example, here is a picture of my current game (playing as Morocco, immortal, standard speed). This is a large size earth map, and I pumped up number of civs from 12 to 22, and number of CSs from 20 to 30.

Spoiler :

and I have to admit that this type of setting are a lot more enjoyable for me than playing a small or standard map with 6 or 8 civs. Now I have a relative good new gaming desktop with liquid cooling and what not, but still i am not sure if i should try a huge size map because I am afraid that turn times become long in mid/late game ( and i have no patience at all).

Where did you get that map? I need to try an earth map.

 

[Civking5]

This is the in game map that you can pick from game setting. Unfortunately, civs start from random location not their true starting location.

 

[Drakarska]

There's several TSL's in the workshop that I would actually rate as excellent for play purposes.

As a side note, does anyone know what the max civ limit is on a giant map? I'm not talking CS's, just civs. There's several civ's that my son has been creating and wants to try on a Huge + map, but we always seem to run into problems when we try to play test.

 

[eternalblue]

There's several TSL's in the workshop that I would actually rate as excellent for play purposes.

As a side note, does anyone know what the max civ limit is on a giant map? I'm not talking CS's, just civs. There's several civ's that my son has been creating and wants to try on a Huge + map, but we always seem to run into problems when we try to play test.

I think on giant map you can allow 22 civs to play from the total of 43 civs, and 48 city states I gues... and yes Is a lot more fun to play on earth map... a lot to play... more AI you need to beat more fune you will have...

so a question: what is the difference from "terra" map and "earth" map... is like the same? or terra is like the world but changes radomly?

 

[Drakarska]

Terra is similar to "Earth like conditions" with terrain changes. Earth map is almost like Earth, but modified in the continents, basically tweeks to the continents. I much prefer the TSL maps from the workshop, especially the Huge +. The level of detail is rather impressive.

Hmnn. Only 22 civs allowed on a giant? I wonder if that can be modded by removing some of the CS's. My thx EB, appreciate the info.

 

[Rusty Edge]

I'm asking ( not debating or bashing ) here to see what has changed in V with patches and expansions.

If the game has changed along with the lead designers, it could be time to change my sigline and try it again.

1) Does V still require STEAM?

2) Is it the best version for multiplayer?

3) Is it the most moddable Civ ever?

4) Are you able to change the type of victory condition you are pursuing mid game and still win?