Revisiting Civ IV: The two things that Civ V really needs to add

[EmpireOfCats]

So I revisit Civ IV to see how it feels like after all this Civ V. Some obvious stuff: Squares seem wrong after hexes, the old combat system is ugly, the landscape is not exactly a thing of beauty, my good friend Catharine is not some overdressed posh hag (maybe I have this thing for women in riding boots). There are, however, two things I found I really, really missed like an old friend:

OMG: Religion. If I go back to Civ IV, it will be because of religion. Right off the bat having to decide if I'm going to go for a religion, how can I spread it, etc. adds so much to the game. I think religion would be awesome with Civ V because of the city states, too. After a trip with the time machine, I'm firmly in the camp that says that taking it out completely was a major mistake. This so needs to be reintroduced.

Wow, just look at that wonder! In Civ IV, wonders actually mean something. They're not only big buildings, they are important, and I find myself saying things the mods won't let me write here when the bad guys beat me to one. It's not only another eight culture. Wonders need to be more than just a slightly larger building with a nice building animation again, they have to be powerful and seriously expensive.

Strangely, a lot of the other stuff was simply different, but then I'm actually enjoying Civ V in its own way. Except for those two points.

 

[CPCMaxwell]

Search the asset folder in your installation directory for "religion" and you'll see it might not be that far away (265 hits in 37 files)...

File: CIV5GameTextInfos.xml

        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_BUDDHISM">
            <Text>Buddhism</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_CHRISTIANITY">
            <Text>Christianity</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_HINDUISM">
            <Text>Hinduism</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_ISLAM">
            <Text>Islam</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_POLYTHEISM">
            <Text>Polytheism</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_SHINTOISM">
            <Text>Shintoism</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_SPIRITUALISM">
            <Text>Spiritualism</Text>
        </Row>
        <Row Tag="TXT_KEY_RELIGION_ZOROASTRIANISM">
            <Text>Zoroastrianism</Text>
        </Row>

 

[Tee Kay]

I expect a DLC which will "unlock" the Religion feature will be announced shortly...

 

[Fistalis]

I expect a DLC which will "unlock" the Religion feature will be announced shortly...

For the low price of 20$ and your first born son, they were gonna ask for your soul but the conversion rate for souls to US$ is rather low these days

 

[mike_cf]

I still don't get it why the hexes are so magical? What purpose do they have gameplay wise?

 

[Fistalis]

I still don't get it why the hexes are so magical? What purpose do they have gameplay wise?

Reduce movment directions by 2. Gameplay thats the only difference. A square you had 8 directions you could move hex =6. Does make the graphics prettier though.

 

[Tee Kay]

I still don't get it why the hexes are so magical? What purpose do they have gameplay wise?

This is why:

Each hex is equidistant from each adjacent hex. With squares, the squares directly up, down, left and right (i.e. the ones that share an edge) are closer to the square you're standing on than the ones that are at diagonals (i.e. that share a corner). With hexes, the centre of each adjacent hex is the same distance as the centre of any other adjacent hex, so you don't get any directional bias when you move round the map.

Much more fluent movement. In squares if you go diagnal you move farther without expending any extra movement points. Blockades are easier, in CivIV they were almost impossible, which makes strategy more important or something. I like the hexes.

 

[mike_cf]

So how's that influencing my gameplay? About blockading... well i just destroy the offenders, hexes, squares or triangles doesn't matter.

 

[Lebowski89]

I'm as Atheist as they come but obviously religion certainly has a place in a game about civilization. No one can deny its place in history. Still, no big loss for me.

 

[Teperi Blaze]

Religion should be in, but the hate between opposite religions should be diminished.

Maybe trade and coops would be harder with different religions, but outright hate doesnt make it.

I even thought of me being in a different religion, but spreading my opponents faith to my own cities as well, would put me at a pleased state towards that civ.

I'm Juda, you're Hindu, but lets trade.

It's how it should've been implemented.

 

[mihaifx]

Search the asset folder in your installation directory for "religion" and you'll see it might not be that far away (265 hits in 37 files)...

Awesome...I wonder if we can unlock it ourselves somehow.

 

[Ahriman]

Wow, just look at that wonder! In Civ IV, wonders actually mean something. They're not only big buildings, they are important, and I find myself saying things the mods won't let me write here when the bad guys beat me to one. It's not only another eight culture. Wonders need to be more than just a slightly larger building with a nice building animation again, they have to be powerful and seriously expensive.

Wonders on average are much more powerful in Civ5 than Civ4.
Some are weak, to be sure, but most are much stronger.
Chichen Itza, Statue of Liberty, great library, Forbidden palace, are fantastically powerful.
And Pyramids, stonehenge, oracle, Angkor Wat, Sistine Chapel, Himeji Castle, big ben, Pentagon are all solid.

Great Wall will be powerful once they fix it.

And it takes more turns on average to build a wonder in Civ5 than Civ4.

 

[ChaplainDMK]

Reduce movment directions by 2. Gameplay thats the only difference. A square you had 8 directions you could move hex =6. Does make the graphics prettier though.

The movement is alot cleaner, and terrain doesen't have the wierd artifacts that squares make, especialy on diagonal terrain.
And like the other guy said, in squares if you move 2 squares diagonaly, you will move alot further then if you move 2 up/down or left/right

 

[mattavich]

So I revisit Civ IV to see how it feels like after all this Civ V. Some obvious stuff: Squares seem wrong after hexes, the old combat system is ugly, the landscape is not exactly a thing of beauty, my good friend Catharine is not some overdressed posh hag (maybe I have this thing for women in riding boots). There are, however, two things I found I really, really missed like an old friend:

OMG: Religion. If I go back to Civ IV, it will be because of religion. Right off the bat having to decide if I'm going to go for a religion, how can I spread it, etc. adds so much to the game. I think religion would be awesome with Civ V because of the city states, too. After a trip with the time machine, I'm firmly in the camp that says that taking it out completely was a major mistake. This so needs to be reintroduced.

Wow, just look at that wonder! In Civ IV, wonders actually mean something. They're not only big buildings, they are important, and I find myself saying things the mods won't let me write here when the bad guys beat me to one. It's not only another eight culture. Wonders need to be more than just a slightly larger building with a nice building animation again, they have to be powerful and seriously expensive.

Strangely, a lot of the other stuff was simply different, but then I'm actually enjoying Civ V in its own way. Except for those two points.

In my opinion, Civ5 does not need religion. It is just an addition, not a requirement for it to be awesome.

The wonders. Well, Civ5 is a differently balanced game. I dont think civ4 wonders would work well in civ5.

 

[SomethingWitty]

I don't get why people liked religion so much. I only found it useful for two things. Getting cash from the holy city (and that was only really necessary to cover up Civ IV's broken system for penalizing your civ financially for having too many cities too far away. And for quantitatively micromanaging diplomacy. Which is dumb IMO, because diplomacy is not something that should really be either quantitative or micromanageable.

 

[sarah_aus]

well you cant really compare the graphics because technology wise, they will always get better and more realistic, but everything else i agree apon.
im also upset to hear they no longer give you the charts and specs when you win a game. that sucks because i would use those statistics to make my game better next time.

 

[shadowplay]

As much as I think religion deserves to be in the game, they've proven they're unwilling to implement it in anything other than an extremely PC fashion in which everything about the religions is the same except for the logo and missionary. Whoopity doo. If they could actually make it so that each religion had it's benefits or drawbacks, that might actually be interesting. Like maybe Islam could come with a scientific bonus in the medieval era, or the Christians in the medieval era could get a military bonus to reflect he crudsades.

 

[ZimbuTheMonkey]

I expect a DLC which will "unlock" the Religion feature will be announced shortly...

Nope.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I think it would be interesting if religion was present in the game, but worked like the policies do now. Instead of offending people with using real world religions, assume that every civilization has it's own unique primitive religion. You can spend culture to upgrade your religion, but there would be no negative to your original protoreligion dying out when you encounter a neighbor with a more advanced religion, though of course you could take steps to preserve it (perhaps have a low-level religious policy that makes your religion protected from complete eradication at the expense of not being able to try and spread it). You could even model how religions incorporate older beliefs and modify them to make them new faiths - you could adopt a foreign religion, then spend points adding different policies to it. You could have the Romans adopt the Greek religion, then spend culture to add policies that incorporate a deification of the emperor and added festivals. Once you added enough points you could rename the religion, until then it could be described as "Roman-Whatever the Greek player named their religion". You could even allow the player to rename other religions to their liking if they see similarities to one from real life.

Essentially, it would be a new policy branch that you can share with other people, at the cost that you are giving them something you paid for, and they could create a heresy and you'll have a competing religion based on your own.

 

[Lord Monkey]

When the game first came out, I was prepared for people to compare it to Civ4, as it's logically the closest relative to the game that exists. But even a week later, there are still three new threads a day complaining about the things that have been removed since Civ4. Some people like religion, stacks of doom, squares (why?), AI that lets you know a thousand years in advance if they're starting to get upset with you.. And while OP provided a bit of reason behind his points, I've seen most people just say things like "I think we all agree they should bring back SoD!" and "Hexes are stupid" without giving much thought or explanation as to why.

Also, if they put in everything that was going to eventually be in the game, how are they going to make any money off the expansions? That's just how the gaming industry is working nowadays, unfortunately. Be patient and I can almost guarantee they're going to release new content that seems to be "missing" now.