New to Civ IV (and the civ series)

[Raven-sb]

Hi Everyone,

I've just picked up a copy of Civ IV Complete, and I'm loving it. Completely overwhelmed at times, but loving it. I was wondering about the earlier games (pre BTS). Would it be worthwhile for a new player such as myself to get their feet wet by playing Civ IV, then moving on to WL and finally to BTS or should I just bite the bullet and go with BTS from the get go?

Lastly, I just want to thank the article writers for their strategy guides, I've found them to be extremely useful.

Regards,

Raven

 

[G-Max]

Start with Civ II and work your way up from there.

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

I'd suggest starting with Vanilla (No expansion packs) Civ 4, getting used to it, then moving straight up to BtS.

 

[Pangaea]

Is there a big difference from vanilla to BTS? I went straight to BTS as I figured there would be fewer bugs and such. And I always want to play the most bugfree version.

I'm sort of in your position too btw. Not played an awful lot of Civ in the past, but am wetting my feet on 4 now (and didn't like the 5 demo).

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Is there a big difference from vanilla to BTS? I went straight to BTS as I figured there would be fewer bugs and such. And I always want to play the most bugfree version.

I'm sort of in your position too btw. Not played an awful lot of Civ in the past, but am wetting my feet on 4 now (and didn't like the 5 demo).

BtS adds Corporations, Espionage, and many other features. Warlords adds Great Generals and Vassals.

Vanilla is just plain.

 

[May Day 10]

I would just start on BtS. I played Vanilla for a long time. For some reason BtS sat there. There is a lot of difference, enough to make the game difficult. If your intent is to play BtS, just start with that. Its the "enhanced version" anyway.

 

[Psyringe]

Would it be worthwhile for a new player such as myself to get their feet wet by playing Civ IV, then moving on to WL and finally to BTS or should I just bite the bullet and go with BTS from the get go?

Personally I'd recommend to start withBTS, for the reasons you mentioned in your post. As for getting your feet wet, thats what difficulty levels are for. Civ is a complex game - as a newcomer, you can't understand everything at once anyway. There's not really an advantage in playing Civ4 at a low level and gradually learning things (and switch to BtS when feeling confident) to playing BtS at a low level and gradually learning things. So you might as well start on BtS, especially since you give the impression that you eventually want to play the full package anyway.

Note: Civ4 does have a tutorial while BtS doesn't. You may want to give it a shot, though it isn't very well done and may malfunction if you're unlucky. The guides collected here (and that you already seem to have) are probably a better tutorial than the one provided with the game.

 

[God-Emperor]

There are probably only two good reasons to play anything other than BtS:
1) There is a Tutorial that you can play in regular non-expansions Civ that could be good to play as the very first game you play since it explains some of the basics.
2) Scenarios. The pre-BtS versions have some scenarios you might want to try, if you like playing scenarios. They are only available in the version they were made for (well, a couple scenarios may have newer versions of the scenarios in the newer versions of Civ, l but I don't remember for sure).

 

[G-Max]

There are probably only two good reasons to play anything other than BtS:
1) There is a Tutorial that you can play in regular non-expansions Civ that could be good to play as the very first game you play since it explains some of the basics.
2) Scenarios. The pre-BtS versions have some scenarios you might want to try, if you like playing scenarios. They are only available in the version they were made for (well, a couple scenarios may have newer versions of the scenarios in the newer versions of Civ, l but I don't remember for sure).

You forgot...

3) It's much easier to learn the base game and then learn the changes that were made in Warlords and BtS than to try to learn everything at once.
4) The voiceovers for Aesthetics and Military Science were NOT done by Leonard Nimoy, and they stick out horribly.

I'd argue that there are only two good reasons to play BtS:

1) Babylonians
2) Maya

 

[tragamm]

Im new to the civ games the only one ive played is the one for DS so im looking for some help if u can or want to help me my name is tragamm

 

[Jarlaxe Baenre]

Im new to the civ games the only one ive played is the one for DS so im looking for some help if u can or want to help me my name is tragamm

You need to ask a definite question first.

 

[bob_d]

I would go with the advice to play the BTS version and skip vanilla. I also recommend you play with the Better BTS AI mod, which makes the AI even SMARTER! (A smarter AI is always more fun, no matter what the difficulty level--you definitely want to move to the better AI once you've beaten the game at Noble level.)

I know it's big game and it will take you a long time to figure out what's going on, but you will eventually get it.

 

[Paw]

I'd also vote to just start with BTS.

Nothing like jumping right into the fire!

 

[Ataxerxes]

I'd also vote to just start with BTS.

Nothing like jumping right into the fire!

I'd also recommend just jumping in with BTS. I agree with God-Emperor's two reasons as being the only ones. I'm not that crazy about Warlord's scenarios (give me Earth18 or Earth1000 instead).

 

[TheWilltoAct]

BTS! You can handle it.

 

[Raven-sb]

Thanks for the responces everyone. I'm having a blast with Civ IV at the moment. After careful consideration my goals is this. Play Vanilla Civ IV to noble difficulty. Then play through the scenarios in WL and beat WL on Noble (note I wont be lowering the difficulty once I've beaten Civ IV on noble). Once I've beaten WL on noble and I've completed the scenarios I'll move over to BTS and run through it's scenarios and work on improving my game play by increasing the difficulty levels.

So far I've been the game on setter difficulty in timed, conquest and culteral. I'm working dipolmatic and space ship victories atm and I'm having a lot of fun. Actually I've been going to bed at nights dreaming about Civ IV, so I'm kinda addicted.

Cheers,

Raven

 

[fathertuck]

Hi Everyone,

I've just picked up a copy of Civ IV Complete, and I'm loving it. Completely overwhelmed at times, but loving it. I was wondering about the earlier games (pre BTS). Would it be worthwhile for a new player such as myself to get their feet wet by playing Civ IV, then moving on to WL and finally to BTS or should I just bite the bullet and go with BTS from the get go?

Lastly, I just want to thank the article writers for their strategy guides, I've found them to be extremely useful.

Regards,

Raven

I don't see any reason why you should work through WL to get to BTS. I picked up the complete edition myself and I like to think of it this way; BTS is the final version of civ4, where all the good parts combines. BTS is the version you want to play so jump right to it and start out on a difficulty that suits your needs.

 

[Paw]

I wouldn't play through all the warlords scenario's, but that's just me. I've had warlords for a couple years now and I think I only ever played through one of them.

 

[G-Max]

I like to think of it this way; BTS is the final version of civ4, where all the good parts combines. BTS is the version you want to play

Not necessarily. Corporations and espionage are obnoxious and intrusive. Hearing someone other that Leonard Nimoy speak when you discover Aesthetics or Military Science is jarring. Most of the civs in both Warlords and BtS are unworthy of being in the game. The fact that Great Generals are generated in a completely different manner from other Great People is a bit awkward. The whole experience just feels off, because Civ4 was complete as originally released and the expansions were tacked-on afterthoughts, unlike most modern games, where the expansions are pre-planned and the game isn't really complete without them.

 

[Psyringe]

Not necessarily. Corporations and espionage are obnoxious and intrusive.

And you assume that everyone who asks for advice shares this opinion?

Hearing someone other that Leonard Nimoy speak when you discover Aesthetics or Military Science is jarring.

It's certainly very important to hear LEONARD NIMOY read the tech quotes, despite the fact that he obviously had no clue about some of them, and apparently got no help from the sound director. I do agree that Sid's "voice acting" is even worse though. But how such an insignificant thing as the the uniformity of the tech quote voice acting can even come up in a discussion of the merits of BTS vs vanilla is beyond me. That's like saying "You should play BTS because it has a cool animation for the paratroopers."

Most of the civs in both Warlords and BtS are unworthy of being in the game.

And that's a reason for not playing BTS? Even if adding more civilizations really made the game worse and even if there were actual standards to judge a "worthiness" of a civilization, how about playing BTS games with the civilizations you consider "worthy"?

The fact that Great Generals are generated in a completely different manner from other Great People is a bit awkward.

And that's a reason to start with Civ4, so you have to learn a mechanic that gets discarded afterwards and you have to unlearn it again?

Civ4 was complete as originally released and the expansions were tacked-on afterthoughts, unlike most modern games, where the expansions are pre-planned and the game isn't really complete without them.

Since such a statement is impossible to make without having insights in Firaxis' development process, could you please name or link your sources?