is VP fundamentally the same game as vanilla, or is it really a completely different game?

[Tradlib]

I am new to V and civ in general although I played IV for a bit a couple years ago, and have heard so many good things about VP (particularly AI and leader balance as well as extra features), but as far as I know virtually everything has been overhauled in the mod other than aesthetics. I would like to try it, but since I am new and not bored yet I also want to keep having a faithfully "Civ V" experience, not play basically an entirely new game reskinned to look like Civ V. And a lot of the people in the VP community seem to actually dislike the vanilla game and want to move away from it and do their own thing rather than just improving on an already good game (no offense intended), which is fine, but it tells me if I just want a "better version" of the same game I am looking in the wrong place. Should I just stick with CPO for now?

 

[zeofig]

Personally I played only a few games of vanilla but played VP for some hundreds of hours. I'd say they're fundamentally the same in many ways, but what was important to me is that VP is much more intuitive. The thing about vanilla is that most stuff (policies, buildings, beliefs etc) just SUCKS. Most choices are absolute traps, with a few OP options and many useless ones. Although VP raises the complexity in some ways, I think it's a lot more fun to dive into because most options are actually good. Deciding which option is optimal is often impossible, but if you choose something that seems good for your situation, it's probably gonna work for you.

Edit: As per Tradlib's comment, I was probably too harsh on vanilla. I didn't play it much so I should probably keep my mouth shut

 

[Tradlib]

The thing about vanilla is that most stuff (policies, buildings, beliefs etc) just SUCKS.

I'll agree to disagree. For policies trad and rationality are definitely stronger than the others, but there aren't really any "useless" policies. Even piety is useful if you want to pursue a religious victory. Other than filling out trad and rationality the other two or three or four (Poland) trees you take are up to your discretion.

Also not really sure what you mean with buildings. Some are universally good while others are more geared to certain playstyles (like aqueducts for tall cities), but I can't think of a building choice in BNW that is useless.

Beliefs yes. There's not much point in founding a religion after someone else takes Tithing.

I guess what I mean to say is that while Civ V's systems are simple, the core mechanics work. Which is good. The main problem is that Firaxis didn't do balance very well.

 

[Deljade]

Played a lot of vanilla and a lot of VP. I feel like I face a way higher number of interesting decisions during the course of the game than I did in vanilla. From small things like how to move a unit, which building to prioritise, MANY meaningful tech and policy choices that are all legitimate (in vanilla if you weren't going for certain techs and policies you were accepting suboptimal choices in 95% of cases). Another thing are the civs and leaders which are waaaaaay more defined with game-changing UAs and highly impactful UUs UBs and UIs on EVERY leader, as opposed to the original civ leaders, most of which felt quite samey, every game with different leader will be a totally different mindset required to utilise their kit to the fullest.
In the end, VP and the original civ 5 have fundamentally the same gameplay; create and grow cities, build buildings and wonders, advance in tech, fight wars, advance your culture and religion. Vox populi however will feel more rewarding to those that value interesting decisions, more variety in gameplay and interesting details, I think so at least.

 

[youngsteve]

The whole game seems much better with VP than vanilla. Everything means something & can be used to your advantage depending what way you want to play. The biggest & best change to me was changing the happiness system, which was ridiculous & biased towards the AI in vanilla, making little sense. That is not to say it can infuriate me on occasions if I have overstretched myself.

 

[vyyt]

I played the vanilla game a lot and enjoyed it, then switched to the Communitas Expansion Pack, which made the game more balanced and added some nice features and would have never gone back to vanilla. Then Firaxis released the source code of the core DLL and Vox Populi was born (under a different name) and started improving the AI greatly and adding even more nice features and again, I'd never go back to CEP (not meant as a criticism, that mod was great, but made before access to DLL, so not much could be done about AI).

If you are new to the game, I think you can have fun with vanilla game for a while. After a while, you will start seeing patterns and find out that certain strategies are always better than others which becomes repetitive and a bit boring. Also, you will learn how to exploit the AI and notice silly things which could be labeled as bugs (AI units unable to move and shoot in the same turn, embarking a unit in front of the guns of your battleships instead of staying safely in a city and defending it, etc.). At this point, you can fix most of the things by installing only CPO, which only fixes the silly bugs and dramatically improves AI. Then if you start finding your games a bit repetitive and not imbalanced, you can jump into full Vox Populi.

... or you can skip vanilla/CPO and start with VP right away. But one thing can be tricky. VP looks almost the same as vanilla on the outside and on the first sight (adds just a few buildings and units, nothing major, right? Oh, and the policies seem to be reworked, and a couple of more new features and game mechanics. Can't be that different, eh? Wrong, it can), but plays quite differently from vanilla. So you will have to unlearn and relearn a lot of things. It gives you much more freedom as there is no one best approach (which improves replayability greatly), but it is also more subtle and more punishing as the AI really understands what it's doing and they know how to position their units, etc. Also, unlike in vanilla where on higher difficulties, AIs get a huge bonus in the start and you need to catch up, in VP the bonuses are spread more evenly throughout the whole game, so the AIs can come back at you even when you think you are cruising to an easy victory.

I would personally jump right into VP, but there is nothing wrong with playing vanilla first if you enjoy it.

 

[Tradlib]

In the end, VP and the original civ 5 have fundamentally the same gameplay; create and grow cities, build buildings and wonders, advance in tech, fight wars, advance your culture and religion.

Point taken, but in that regard every Civilization game has been fundamentally the same, except for religion which was only added in 4.

 

[vyyt]

Point taken, but in that regard every Civilization game has been fundamentally the same, except for religion which was only added in 4.

I think there were even bigger changes than religions. The biggest IMO is the 1UPT, then unit promotions, social policies, etc. But yeah, they are all civ games

 

[Necamijat]

I'll agree to disagree. For policies trad and rationality are definitely stronger than the others, but there aren't really any "useless" policies. Even piety is useful if you want to pursue a religious victory. Other than filling out trad and rationality the other two or three or four (Poland) trees you take are up to your discretion.

Also not really sure what you mean with buildings. Some are universally good while others are more geared to certain playstyles (like aqueducts for tall cities), but I can't think of a building choice in BNW that is useless.

Beliefs yes. There's not much point in founding a religion after someone else takes Tithing.

I guess what I mean to say is that while Civ V's systems are simple, the core mechanics work. Which is good. The main problem is that Firaxis didn't do balance very well.

Policies: Saying that one early game tree is essentially mandatory to fill, therefore meaning that your first 6 policies are basically locked in from the start, doesn't seem like a very good state of the game in my mind. Liberty was fine, but the unhappiness penalties were hindering it too much. Honor was... ugh, hit or miss, as it depended on how many barbarians you had nearby. It also didn't help your infrastructure at all. Piety didn't have a way to generate culture until the tree was complete, so it had a very weird gameplan where you needed a culture pantheon but relied on getting a religion.
Buildings: Science buildings are definitely the core. The game literally revolved around stacking the % bonuses of science buildings.
Leaders: I felt that in vanilla, some leaders were more or less unplayable due to just how dull they were. We obviously knew Korea and Babylon were the best, since science is king in vanilla. But Byzantine literally didn't get an ability if the AI got every religion (which can easily happen since there are basically 3 Pantheons that are faith producing). The Dutch were more or less begging to get a Marsh/Floodplains for a Polder, since their UA was... questionable. Indonesia worked on very specific maps only, and their unique unit could actually be weaker than a regular one, making it a seriously weird experience. The Iroquous UA sometimes failed to work and their UB was worse than the generic building due to a lack of a % bonus you relied on.
Gameplay: Higher difficulties were made by catapulting the AI forward from the start and playing 'try to catch up and not get overrun'. In VP, the AI starts with much lower bonuses, but catches up to the player instead. Spawning near someone like Attila means you had about 40 turns to prepare for the inevitable war. Which the AI sucked at, bust quantity can sometimes beat quality.

The core mechanics worked, sure, but the gameplay didn't differ between one game and the other enough to matter. It mostly boiled down to turtling the first 100-150 turns until you caught up and got ahead of the AI, then rushed every % science boost you had. Playing wide was challenging at best, infuriating at worst (Oh, I lost a point of happiness and now none of my cities work, cool). You either filled Tradition, or you tried to cheese Honor on the Aztecs (which was fun, but ineffective).

In the end, VP feels like a more complete and enjoyable game with more varied gamestyles and choices due to how those gamestyles have meaningful decisions and are not completely overshadowed by the shallow mechanics.

 

[Tiberiu]

I hope Tradlib would not mind if I ask something about VP myself in his thread, I thought it's worth asking here instead making new thread. I am BNW player myself, curious about this VP. I would like to know mainly one thing, from players who played BNW Deity with success. Is VP Deity harder or easier than BNW? Can the AI actually use all the new features that are introduced by this overhaul?

 

[Necamijat]

I hope Tradlib would not mind if I ask something about VP myself in his thread, I thought it's worth asking here instead making new thread. I am BNW player myself, curious about this VP. I would like to know mainly one thing, from players who played BNW Deity with success. Is VP Deity harder or easier than BNW? Can the AI actually use all the new features that are introduced by this overhaul?

The AI knows how to use armies, and knows how to plan to win or stop an enemy from trying to win, yes.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Not speaking for anyone but myself here.
I played vanilla for a while but it was always install the game play for a few days then uninstall cuz bored, don't get me wrong it's a fun game but after a few matches you will start figuring out patterns and it becomes a solved game like an XO, go top part of the tech tree get writing then build libraries play catch up game in science and win from there.
The vanilla happiness system is just terrible, it's hindering in a ridiculous way that forces you to stop growing your cities or building new ones because luxuries are pretty much the sole source of happiness and it's fixed number.
Leaders in vanilla game look so boring compared to VP, everything is fun sized.
Don't get me started on the AI and how aweful it is at waging war or defending it self let alone catching up or actually competing.
The modmods for VP which are by them selves a compelling enough reason to play VP, 3rd and 4th unique components, enhanced naval warfare, enlightenment era are just so good that adds a lot of content that further defines each leader.
Why am i saying this ? Because -at least for me- the transition from vanilla to VP was a one way trip ...... It's the same game but better in every way that there is no reason to play the inferior version.
Sure techs, policies, unit costs, strengths,numbers , etc are overhauled but it's the same game at it's core; you build cities, research techs, acquire policies, build military and interact with other players.
In my opinion it's better to experience vanilla BNW before playing VP to get a hang of the core concepts of civ then switch to VP because it can be a little overwhelming if you are new to the game.

 

[andersw]

So you have some misconceptions that they somehow made a new game.
This is a dll mod (or rather a collection of dll mods), a lot can be done with a dll mod but not a new game.

but as far as I know virtually everything has been overhauled in the mod other than aesthetics.

Yes, well the core concept of tech tree, policys, religion, cities and armies are still there.

And a lot of the people in the VP community seem to actually dislike the vanilla game

Yes, because it had so many options but most were a horrible trap with very poor AI coding, to be fair this is true of AI in 99% of the games out there.

rather than just improving on an already good game (no offense intended), which is fine,

You misunderstand improving on the game is precisely what this mod did, just that its a LOT of improvements.

if I just want a "better version" of the same game I am looking in the wrong place.

You will have to decide for your own if you consider it a "better version" or "a new game"
but I doubt any long time civ player would call it a new game because it is the same engine with dll mods.

Should I just stick with CPO for now?

How on earth could we know what you like?

 

[Recursive]

I hope Tradlib would not mind if I ask something about VP myself in his thread, I thought it's worth asking here instead making new thread. I am BNW player myself, curious about this VP. I would like to know mainly one thing, from players who played BNW Deity with success. Is VP Deity harder or easier than BNW? Can the AI actually use all the new features that are introduced by this overhaul?

Difficulty in VP is higher. On my second time ever playing VP, I got crushed on Prince difficulty. That was a few years back.

It's commonly advised to play two difficulties below where you played in BNW, but if you're new to Civ 5 entirely (as Tradlib is) you might want to play on the lowest difficulties. I played my first game ever on Chieftain.

One thing worth noting is the cause of the difficulty spike. AI bonuses are lowered from vanilla because the AI is far more competent at playing the game. It has flaws here and there but you're playing against opponents that can actually pose a challenge on their own. On higher difficulties their advantages (which increase as the game goes on) are definitely noticeable, though.

If you want a full breakdown of difficulty bonuses see here: https://civ-5cbp.fandom.com/wiki/AI_and_Difficulty

And yes, AI players are trained to use all the new features introduced by VP.

 

[Tradlib]

Tbh now I'm wondering why some of you didn't make a whole new IP indie 4x game. It obviously wouldn't look as good without Civ assets, but could make quite a bit of money with this concept of a 4x game with smart AI

 

[Recursive]

Tbh now I'm wondering why some of you didn't make a whole new IP indie 4x game. It obviously wouldn't look as good without Civ assets, but could make quite a bit of money with this concept of a 4x game with smart AI

Ha. Lack of time - everyone has their own lives and obligations. Also lack of startup money - I can't find any information on how much it cost to produce Civ 5, but Wikipedia says there was a team of 56 people and it took 3 years to make, so we can assume a budget in the millions at least, and keep in mind it'd need to replace full time job income for several people. And I don't think everyone would be interested anyways.

Sure, an indie game could cut back on costs and we could hypothetically use the smart AI work from the mod to some degree, but it would still require a lot of money to make.

You know, I'd honestly be down if Gazebo and ilteroi were on board, but although I haven't asked, I don't think they'd be able to even if they were interested.

 

[Tradlib]

To my knowledge most of Firaxis's money went to the graphical aspects. So it wouldn't hold a candle in that regard. But hell, Dwarf Fortress is popular, there are many people who appreciate minimalistic indie games.

Many of you have said that Firaxis is incompetent at programming and you could easily do better and have with VP, even without money. Their template is not necessary, and if you can do better, why not do better? Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way.

 

[saamohod]

Is VP Deity harder or easier than BNW?

It definitely is harder because unlike vanilla, VP AI actually works.

 

[Deljade]

I do like the shell of civ 5 as a vehicle for VP, it's pleasant to play on, usually. As talented as the people that have worked on the mod have been, I don't think it's possible to build a better one without the funds and time and some serious sacrifices.

 

[andersw]

To my knowledge most of Firaxis's money went to the graphical aspects. So it wouldn't hold a candle in that regard. But hell, Dwarf Fortress is popular, there are many people who appreciate minimalistic indie games.

Many of you have said that Firaxis is incompetent at programming and you could easily do better and have with VP, even without money. Their template is not necessary, and if you can do better, why not do better? Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way.

Dwarf fortress have been in dev for almost 20 years, I would assume it took some time until it was decent.
There is a difference between finding bad code and improving it vs making something from scratch.
I'm sure there is/have been competetent programmers at Firaxis but its also a matter of time and resources, just because your good doesn't mean you're given the time it requires to produce good code.