Hello, so as the title says I have only played Civ 6 before and just bought Civ 5. So what things would I have learned to do in civ 6 that will be detrimental or a strategy that works in one and needs to be avoided in the other. Thanks!
And I have both G&K and BNW.
Too many things to list them all, as they are quite different games even if they look very similar on the surface.
I'll list a few major ones though:
- Openers. You "need" certain specific build orders in the early game in 5, that are unlike civ 6. Early monument being a big one, unless you happen to get early culture from a ruin. You almost never open monument in 6, but its near mandatory in 5. This because of the early culture, which bring me to...
- Policies. They are nothing alike civ 6, as they are set in stone once you invest into them. This forces you to plan out your game early, and unfortunately 5 has some rather unbalanced early choices which makes Tradition 9/10 times the best choice to open over Liberty and Honour. In 6 you can go whatever for the first government, and just swap cards around as needed. And since Tradition in 5 is so much better than the other choices...
- You get shoehorned into playing tall, over playing wide. Forget about settling 20 cities, 4 cities is often the gold standard as you open tradition. Settling too many cities causes a plethora of problems, the big ones being: Increased science/culture costs and....
- Happiness, gold and inability to build national wonders. 5 will have you struggle hard for happiness and gold income, and if you dont pay attention to it you will have riots and run bankrupt frequently. Global happiness is a real showstopper if you settle too many cities, but Tradition boosts happiness for tall play. Civ 6 amenities are essentially a non-factor in how inconsequential they are, and gold ceases to be an issue once you get your first comm hub(s) up. Another benefit of tall play with few cities is that national wonders become available to build, which are very important especially on the higher difficulties.
As you see, the "problems" of civ 5 are all related in that they follow from a core design difference in the game.
It can be viewed as a good thing as well though, as it changes up the game a lot from civ 6, and makes the race against the AI more of a struggle than it currently is in civ 6, especially if you want to experiment with other policy choices like Liberty and Honour (which essentially is like adding 1-2 difficulty levels).
The civ 5 AI is also a lot more bloodthirsty, and having a single AI completely wipe out all his neighbours (including you) is common, which creates for some really interesting late games where your existence is threatened at all times.
In civ 6 you tend to snowball past the AI and just get exponentially stronger as the AI tends to plateau somewhere around the late Renaissance/early Industrial era, and unfortunately this really creates for some stale late game in civ 6 where you can essentially do whatever you want.
In my current game on Deity in civ 6 for example, I have about 2300 science, 1500 culture, 2300 gold per turn and 1700 faith per turn, while the AIs are stuck between 50-500 science and 50-180 culture each, and is obviously super boring to play at this stage.
This will essentially never be a thing in civ 5.
All in all, I'd sum it up as civ 6 having the superior early game with plenty of viable playstyles that allow you to catch up to the AI, whereas civ 5 has the superior late game.
The AI is a real threat at all stages of the game, and diplomacy similarly becomes a big part of the game to try to navigate these treacherous waters.
