New to Civ 5: Learn the core game or skip to Vox Populi?

[ConquestCola]

I'm a long time Civ 4 player, who has played only the Realism Invictus mod for the past year or so. I recently bought Civ 5 Complete from Steam, and I have yet to try it out. (Maybe it was on sale or something, as it was under $15.) I have never played Civ 5 at all, though I did buy Civ 6 and a few expansions and it never particularly clicked with me. I've played thousands of hours of Civ 4 and maybe about 100-200 or so of Civ 6. (I used to play a lot of Civ 3, and even bought all the expansions, but I bought it not long before Civ 4 was released, so I never ended up playing it as much.)

I have no particular attachment to Civ 5 whatsoever. But I'm looking for the best possible gameplay experience. Civ 4 shined brightest with the Realism Invictus mod, in my opinion, and I was wondering if the same thing could be said for Civ 5 and Vox Populi. Is there any particular reason why I should not just skip over conventional Civ 5 and just jump straight into the VP mod? Again--I have no attachment to Civ 5 and since I don't plan to spend countless hours on the game, I am tempted just to go with what is widely considered to be the superior game experience. Honestly, my biggest concern is the learning curve. I'd probably move on to VP regardless but given that I'm only willing to spend limited time on the game I'd rather not have to unlearn suboptimal strategies from the core game when moving to VP.

If you're an experienced player, what are your thoughts on the matter? I know it sounds like my mind is mostly made up, but I'm honestly a bit clueless about Civ 5 and if skipping to VP would be a serious mistake in your eyes, I'd like to hear the resasoning. Thanks in advance for your input

Moderator Action: Moved to Vox Populi forum. - Recursive

 

[pineappledan]

I would simply jump into VP.

Some of the mechanics introduced into VP that aren't in the base civ 5 game are actually civ 4 mechanics, so it might actually feel more familiar to you. Also, playing base civ 5 first will probably create bad habits you have to break. Happiness, the expansion control mechanic, is completely different in VP and you would only have to relearn it, for example.

 

[msw1]

I agree, pretty much everything is redone in VP so might as well just start there.

 

[CppMaster]

Yep, I agree with that too

 

[Trumtram]

I played vanilla Civ 5 for some time but as soon as I learned about VP I never looked back. From its mechanics, additions and (most importantly) its AI this is a no contest. Vanilla Civ 5 feels like an inferior experience in pretty much every way to me. I wouldn't have clocked 1.000+ hours if this mod didn't exist. Also VP has a nice amount of depth but is not overwhelming. Give it a couple of games and you might (should!) be in love.

Just one thing: I don't know how up-to-date the VP wiki is, so finding info on some mechanics might be a bit difficult. Try the Civclopedia in-game first and if you can't find your desired info in there go for the wiki and after that just ask over here . Have fun!

 

[hokath]

Due to Happiness changes, I would go straight to VP.

I understand VP feels very different to Realism Invictus in terms of philosophy, but then if you're looking for a change that's probably a good thing.

 

[usadefcon1]

Core game is approximately equal to an iPhone 8 where as Vox Populi is equivalent to an iPhone 15.

Both technically work, but why would you use old technology when you can use the new stuff?

 

[Stalker0]

I would 100% go VP. I think Civ V VP is a bit closer to Civ IV in style than Vanilla is, and frankly your going to come to VP might as well throw yourself into the pool

 

[CppMaster]

Also there are plenty of viable strategies in VP, while in vanilla it's just 4 city tradition into science victory.

 

[Cebrudras]

If you want a straightforward first VP game I recommend Arabia. Whenever a choice seems overwhelming, you can just pick the option that synergizes most with the UA. The result won't be optimal every time, but it will be super wrong.

 

[ConquestCola]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'll probably give Vox Populi a try this weekend....

 

[mofab16084]

In my opinion, Vox Populi took a wrong turn a long time ago. Unfortunately, everything looks more and more like a monolith, losing the advantage of modularity.

 

[N.Core]

In my opinion, Vox Populi took a wrong turn a long time ago. Unfortunately, everything looks more and more like a monolith, losing the advantage of modularity.

The reason why Vox Populi became the monolith it is now is to make development/maintenance easier. Making components modular caused updating headaches as you have to figure out the right folder/file to change stuff.

The majority prefer that way so the ship has already been sailed.

 

[bryanw1995]

I'm a long time Civ 4 player, who has played only the Realism Invictus mod for the past year or so. I recently bought Civ 5 Complete from Steam, and I have yet to try it out. (Maybe it was on sale or something, as it was under $15.) I have never played Civ 5 at all, though I did buy Civ 6 and a few expansions and it never particularly clicked with me. I've played thousands of hours of Civ 4 and maybe about 100-200 or so of Civ 6. (I used to play a lot of Civ 3, and even bought all the expansions, but I bought it not long before Civ 4 was released, so I never ended up playing it as much.)

I have no particular attachment to Civ 5 whatsoever. But I'm looking for the best possible gameplay experience. Civ 4 shined brightest with the Realism Invictus mod, in my opinion, and I was wondering if the same thing could be said for Civ 5 and Vox Populi. Is there any particular reason why I should not just skip over conventional Civ 5 and just jump straight into the VP mod? Again--I have no attachment to Civ 5 and since I don't plan to spend countless hours on the game, I am tempted just to go with what is widely considered to be the superior game experience. Honestly, my biggest concern is the learning curve. I'd probably move on to VP regardless but given that I'm only willing to spend limited time on the game I'd rather not have to unlearn suboptimal strategies from the core game when moving to VP.

If you're an experienced player, what are your thoughts on the matter? I know it sounds like my mind is mostly made up, but I'm honestly a bit clueless about Civ 5 and if skipping to VP would be a serious mistake in your eyes, I'd like to hear the resasoning. Thanks in advance for your input

Moderator Action: Moved to Vox Populi forum. - Recursive

I have 6500 hours in civ 5 according to Steam, and I've played Civ 2/3/4 each for thousands of hours over the decades. I've played over a thousand hours of Jon Shafer's Final Frontier (+) mod but almost nothing else in Civ 4 in a decade, and no time at all in earlier versions. I played some Civ 1 in college, but I had to steal time here and there on other people's computers, so not so much. I also played Alpha Centauri a lot, but probably only a couple thousand hours. Like you, my Civ 6 time is limited, only 179 hours total. I played about 4k hours of Civ 5, mostly in the first 4 years, then another ~ 2500 hours in Vox Populi, all in the past 3 years. That 7 year gap for me from 2014-2021 almost had me convinced that I would never return to Civ, but Vox Populi brought me back. Here's what I think I would do if I'd never played Civ 5 but had everything else the same:

Install Civ 5 complete, full version, no mods at all. Play it until I had the basic game mechanics down and a good understanding feel for the happiness changes and 1upt. Crank up difficulty into Immortal and Deity. Once those got old, I'd install VP and start on the 2nd or 3rd easiest difficulty, then do a crapton of reading about all the game mechanics changes.

VP isn't just a mod for Civ 5, not really, it's essentially a whole new Civ game that's built upon the foundation of Civ 5, not unlike how Civ 4 built and expanded significantly upon Civ 3. You could have jumped stragiht from Civ 2 to Civ 4, but that fundamental understanding of basic mechanics wouldn't be there, and you probably wouldn't enjoy it as much. It's the same for VP, if it makes it easier than just view it as Civ 5.5.

I'm not sure what the VP devs would say is the exact breakdown, but VP to me feels like a synthesis of many of the best aspects of Civ 4/5/6, with some additional fun tacked on. As a standalone game it's one of the greatest games of all time, and the fact that so many enthusiastic players are still improving it boggles the mind.

 

[CppMaster]

I agree except for this:

Install Civ 5 complete, full version, no mods at all. Play it until I had the basic game mechanics down and a good understanding feel for the happiness changes and 1upt. Crank up difficulty into Immortal and Deity.

I wouldn't wait that long with VP, since it's so different anyway. What's the point? 2, 3 games should be enough.

 

[civVpSimp]

The more I had played vanilla, the more I love VP.

Thus, if I want to feel VP to its greatest, I will play vanilla for a long time.

 

[Tekamthi]

There's something special about learning to exploit vanilla the first few times, plus if you wanna play MP you're gonna probably wanna know your way around. VP is way better experience vs AI, but civ 5 vanilla still highly successful/fun. You won't appreciate all the "why" of VP design choices without vanilla knowledge but it's still where you'll end up regardless