To all the people who say Civ 5 is too easy compared to Civ 4...

[ds61514]

What was it about Civ 4 that you found so difficult?

My Civ 4 difficulty went from:

* Vanilla: Prince--> Monarch (x2)--> Emperor--> Deity (1 win, SUPER cheesy)

* BTS: Emperor-->Immortal (a lot...)--> Deity (a couple wins, but let's not talk about win rate here )

* Civ 5: Immortal (x2) --> Deity (I'm 1 for 2!)

In my experience, Civ 5 Deity is a little harder than Civ 4 BTS immortal, at least if you want to get a domination/diplomatic victory. Yet I hear people talk about how they can't win in Civ 4 Prince but can dominate in Civ 5 Deity.

* Are your Civ 5 Deity wins on all "standard" settings? It was pretty easy to get a Civ 4 Deity win, if you a) use a duel size map b) rushed your opponent (Vanilla) or won using AP (BTS).

* What were your strategies in Civ4? Isn't the Civ 5 horse rush = Civ 4 axe rush/war chariot rush? In Vanilla a good portion of my Emperor wins consisted of rushing down one civ with axes, another civ with elepults or cavalry, and then turtling to space. In BTS rushing was toned down, so the default strategy was six-cities--> mass Cavalry whip--> stomp on AI longbows. How is this so different from Civ5?

*What was the most challenging part of Civ 4 that you find dumbed-down in Civ 5? Is it the diplomacy? The city building? The tech path?

 

[Horizons]

Civ5 is very difficult It is a man's game and it will put hairs on your chest.

 

[Jerrymander]

Civ5 is very difficult It is a man's game and it will put hairs on your chest.

What if you already have hairs?

I just think the AI is weaker in combat, making the same level as Civ4 (ie: C4 Imm vs C5 Imm) easier.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

I have to agree with Jerrymander.

 

[sesaMe]

as someone who struggled to beat immortal in civ4, ive spent a fraction of the time learning civ5 and already immortal seems impossible to lose to

 

[ds61514]

People really think the Civ 4 AI was better at combat? We're talking about AIs that beeline Scientific Method or Democracy and thus has longbows versus cavalry. And this is on Deity.

I do think that Civ 5 is easier at equivalent levels than Civ 4, but Civ 5 difficulties levels are more compressed (8 vs. 9), so Civ 5 immortal is like Civ 4 BTS emperor+, which seems about right.

But really, I just see a ton of rose-tinted glasses here. What makes Civ 4 so hard?

 

[Zechnophobe]

Civ 5 has bigger AI cheats on the top 3 difficulties to make up for its terrible AI. This may (i'm not sure yet) make the game harder than civ 4 AI at those last two levels... but if you look at the whole of the difficulty curve I think you'll find it pretty slumping towards 'easy'.

Besides, you don't want to compare the hardest difficulties only, compare each similarly tiered one to the other, and see how many are just soo much easier in 5.

 

[ds61514]

Besides, you don't want to compare the hardest difficulties only, compare each similarly tiered one to the other, and see how many are just soo much easier in 5.

While this is true, it isn't exactly my point.

I know Civ 5 is easier than Civ 4 at equivalent difficulty, just like BTS was easier than Vanilla.

But was Civ 4 really that hard on prince level? Or Monarch? What made it so hard? What was so great about the Civ 4 AI that people had trouble with it? Someone tell me .

 

[Generals3]

I'm playing with the same settings i used to play in Civ IV : Epic speed, large map . (often continents) . And i must say this game is easier . I used to have hard time in Monarch in Civ IV now King is piss easy and Emperor is kind of hard but thats merely because i didn't adapt my tactics and still tend to expand to much and with the nerd-raging AI i tend to get declared upon by multiple civs early in game .

 

[Mac2411]

I found Civ IV easier. My main problem so far has been maintaining happiness once I get just a little big. For those that say it can (and should) be ignored, I'm not seeing it. My production shuts down and my units become virtually ineffective, which pretty much puts the kibosh on offensive action.

 

[sesaMe]

to answer the op's question, i think what made civ4 hard was that you had to use serverel different stratagies (from a list of a dozen or so) to be able to elbow out a win. for example you had to

1/ beat the ai to the copper node
2/ make a sucessful axeman rush to get a 2nd capiotal
3/ setup a sience city to slingshot an undiscovered tech and stay in the trading circle untill renaicance
4/ setup a food/globe/draft city to stay in the renaicance game
5/ transition to caste/stateprop/workshops to fuel an industrial conquest

it was fun and compelling to try different things in different sequences to try and come out ontop

in contrast civ5 is simple. you steal gold from stupid ai and spend it on units which invairably kill the stupid ai units. im quite sure there are fun/technical stratagies that can be used but who cares when you can kill everything with a horsie

 

[ds61514]

1/ beat the ai to the copper node
2/ make a sucessful axeman rush to get a 2nd capiotal
3/ setup a sience city to slingshot an undiscovered tech and stay in the trading circle untill renaicance
4/ setup a food/globe/draft city to stay in the renaicance game
5/ transition to caste/stateprop/workshops to fuel an industrial conquest

1) How hard is it to find a copper node? You research bronze working and..voila!

2) It's hard to make an axe army? Double-whips + chops made it pretty easy.

3) Setup a science city? In Civ 4, that was called..."the capital." I think 90% of my games I never move my palace.

4) Was setting up the draft city so hard? 2 food specials, farm up, whip infrastructure+overflow to Globe, grow to max, then draft/whip like crazy.

5) State Property gives bonuses to watermills and workshops. Therefore, to get a state property economy...build watermills & workshops. This is harder?

Reading this strengthens my thought about Civ 4 vs. Civ 5: Civ 4 isn't necessarily harder than Civ 5, it's just that Civ 5 is more accessible to the average gamer.

in contrast civ5 is simple. you steal gold from stupid ai and spend it on units which invairably kill the stupid ai units. im quite sure there are fun/technical stratagies that can be used but who cares when you can kill everything with a horsie

You never sold education to an AI for gold and then immediately attacked him?

 

[Drakken]

I think your comparison is silly. If the AI in CIV 5 got the same bonuses as civ 4 on the same levels it might be a valid discussion.

CIV 5 is harder simply because on higher levels they allow the AI to have so many units it no longer needs to think at all and just has units on every hex. The AI in CIV 5 is a total joke.

I lost over 50% of my games on Deity on CiV 4. In those games the AI got a jumpstart on me and a decent production, gold, and research bonus but it didn't get stacks of units on every space in the game.

 

[_hero_]

I think your comparison is silly. If the AI in CIV 5 got the same bonuses as civ 4 on the same levels it might be a valid discussion.

CIV 5 is harder simply because on higher levels they allow the AI to have so many units it no longer needs to think at all and just has units on every hex. The AI in CIV 5 is a total joke.

I lost over 50% of my games on Deity on CiV 4. In those games the AI got a jumpstart on me and a decent production, gold, and research bonus but it didn't get stacks of units on every space in the game.

Guess you never saw a 50+ unit stack of doom like I did? Only reason Civ 4 AI didn't have units in every tile is because Civ 4 wasn't one unit per tile.

 

[ds61514]

I think your comparison is silly. If the AI in CIV 5 got the same bonuses as civ 4 on the same levels it might be a valid discussion.

FYI, Civ 5 Deity bonuses are much less than Civ 4 Vanilla Deity bonuses. As an example, Civ 5 Deity has 50% upgrade cost reduction, while Civ 4 Vanilla Deity has 95% upgrade cost reduction.

The Civ 5 bonuses are actually equivalent to Civ 4 BTS Deity bonuses, but because of the different game mechanics, the bonuses are IMO much more reduced in Civ5.

CIV 5 is harder simply because on higher levels they allow the AI to have so many units it no longer needs to think at all and just has units on every hex. The AI in CIV 5 is a total joke.

Doesn't this apply to Civ 4? Just imagine if Civ 4 didn't have suicide siege....

But anyways you're missing the point of my post. What I'm asking is: Why is Civ4 so challenging to people, yet those same people are not challenged by Civ 5?

 

[Ayt]

The answer to your question is that Civ4 is more complicated than Civ5. Plus, exploits are much more apparent in Civ5 than they were in Civ4.

 

[ds61514]

The answer to your question is that Civ4 is more complicated than Civ5.

People can repeat this all they want, but this tells me nothing. I think Civ 5 is more complicated than Civ4, but Civ 4 requires a tad more counting + memorization of certain things (WFYABTA thresholds, leaders' peaceweights, various other tricks). Is that more complicated? I'm not sure.

Plus, exploits are much more apparent in Civ5 than they were in Civ4.

This I can agree with. But once again, this has to do with accessibility of the brokenness, not whether the brokenness exists in the first place.

 

[Venereus]

1) How hard is it to find a copper node? You research bronze working and..voila!

2) It's hard to make an axe army? Double-whips + chops made it pretty easy.

3) Setup a science city? In Civ 4, that was called..."the capital." I think 90% of my games I never move my palace.

4) Was setting up the draft city so hard? 2 food specials, farm up, whip infrastructure+overflow to Globe, grow to max, then draft/whip like crazy.

5) State Property gives bonuses to watermills and workshops. Therefore, to get a state property economy...build watermills & workshops. This is harder?

Reading this strengthens my thought about Civ 4 vs. Civ 5: Civ 4 isn't necessarily harder than Civ 5, it's just that Civ 5 is more accessible to the average gamer.

You never sold education to an AI for gold and then immediately attacked him?

You still didn't counter his point. In Civ IV you had options. In Civ V, Domination is so easy that any other strategy is necessarily suboptimal.

 

[qyll]

I think Civ 5 is much easier because the AI is so bad at combat. In Civ 4, your military was all about economy and how many and what type of units you could pump out to invade. In Civ 5, you have to consider tactics (and the AI really doesn't). Even if the AI has a great economy and generates twice as many units as you do. You can still beat the AI based on pure tactics alone. You couldn't do that in Civ 4.

 

[Murky]

The AI gets to cheat in a big way on Deity level in Civ V. You simply cannot match it's production bonuses so you have to fight off endless waves of units. Sure, it's tough, but is it fun?