Transitioning from Civ4 to Civ5

[spindaslayer]

I've been playing Civ4 since October, and have really been enjoying it. I still really love the game, and I don't see myself ever putting it down for good.

I'm looking to take a small break from it though, and wanted to try out Civ5. I've played a couple games on Civ5, but almost always ended up quitting after about 30 min. Apparently it's supposed to be a simpler game, but I'm really quite baffled at the new system. People have said it's much easier to pick up, but I'm having trouble getting into it. Any advice from players who made the same transition?

 

[DrCron]

Well, just consider it's a completely different game, don't try to use Civ 4 strategies here. Some basic stuff:

1) First build is always a scout, never a worker.
2) Worker stealing is easier and doesn't have consequences, especially if you steal from a CS.
3) Forget about barbs, they can't take your cities. Use their camps for free experience for your ranged units.
4) Library quick, and National College before turn 100. Which means you probably don't want more than 4 cities before then.
5) First Social Policy should be Tradition. When you complete it, get 1-2 policies from a "filler" (usually Patronage) until you can get Rationalism. Then fill Rationalism. The alternative is starting with Liberty instead of Tradition, but leave that for when you know the game a bit better.
6) Develop with just a few cities (usually 4). You can actually win the game with no more than that.
7) If you go for domination, war is very easy. In the early days you want 3 melee units and 6 ranged (usually crossbows) behind them. The melee units should take the bombardment from the city and heal (pillaging heals units) while the ranged units lower the health points of the city. If there are enemy units around the city, before you attack the city destroy them by luring them away with a worker. Let them catch the worker (who should be in range of your crossbows) then kill their unit (and re-capture the worker), and repeat until all enemy units are gone.
8) Your next warmonger strategy is a b-line to gunpowder. Artillery is a completely broken unit that should let you win any domination game.
9) Education is very important, use it to get research agreements.
10) Build your cities next to luxuries. You need many individual luxuries because the game has "global happiness" which need to be countered.

And I think that's it for the basics. Don't worry, if you got IV you'll get V. Winning V on Deity is easier than winning IV on Emperor.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Having played it for a month now, I think it's definitely easier than Civ4. Both intuitively, and literally. Prince on Civ4 I could win ~50% of the time, my first game on Prince on Civ5 and I'm steamrolling everyone.

It also feels like more of a game, whereas Civ4 was more like a giant mathematical puzzle, especially once you started going up the levels.

City combat is very different, and has taken the most getting used to for me.

 

[Socratatus]

I could never win many battles in civ 4 but find it a lot easier to do in Civ 5. I also prefer the more realistic leaders.

However, I feel Civ 4 did everything else better.

 

[beetle]

I don't think I would characterize V as simpler than IV. I think it is more approachable, and easier to learn, because each game builds slowly enough.

And I think that's it for the basics. Don't worry, if you got IV you'll get V. Winning V on Deity is easier than winning IV on Emperor.

That is a good list!

One other early stumbling block is that roads are unexpectedly different in V than IV. Roads are not required for hooking up luxuries and strategic resources. Luxes and strategics need to improved (by a worker) and inside your cultural borders for the benefit. Roads cost maintenance, but also provide benefits, so try for single straight lines between cities.

Also, the lame slider for balancing money, science, and happiness is gone. But that is problem for later as thirty minutes is just not much time. V takes longer for each game than IV. Try and press on for a full hour. If you play at a low level, the AI is extremely passive. But that much time should at least be enough for you to figure out what is going on with the basic UI mechanics.

Stick with standard map size and standard pace and standard number of AIs and CS and such until you have played several many games.

However, I feel Civ 4 did everything else better.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved IV. But outside of modding, I would be hard pressed to name anything else that I think IV does better than V!

 

[omnimutant]

I've been playing CIV IV on and off since BTS came out. Just saw CIV V complete(?) on Steam really cheap last week. Got everything all at once.

My Initial reaction was, well it looks nice but meh. The more I play it the more I'm growing to like it.

The load time sucks and there are a few minor things that annoy the crap out of me link no stacking, but otherwise I think it's more fun over all. A little less micro managing, and a lot more options to really unique out your CIV IMO. Some of the maps are pretty bad though and I'm a have to look for something to replace the Full of resources mod from IV I think.

I've played 5 Civs so far and they just naturally play totally different largely based on the leaders special power. Monte and Kamehameha are hands down my favorite thus far!

The one thing I still reaaaaaaaly struggle on is taking down cities. I'm hoping by the weekend I'll have that figured out.

Also the AI difficulty I think was nerfed to make horsehockyy players feel better. I've yet to be attacked at all with any Ai outside of Barbs and even they were a piece of cake.

 

[SYKOJAK]

I would say the biggest change from Civ4 to Civ5, has to be the approach to combat. In Civ4, you had stacks of doom that could just pile on a city and take it out no problem. In Civ5, it is more of a tactical nature, where each individual unit takes up a tile and threatens all the adjacent tiles around it. Plus with the main difference between Ranged units and Melee units, coming up with a winning Grand Tactical Strategy of having the combination of units with the right promotions, adds yet another layer to the combat of the Civ5 game.

Since I put Civ5 on my computer, I find it to be a far better game than Civ4.

 

[beetle]

Also the AI difficulty I think was nerfed to make [snip] players feel better. I've yet to be attacked at all with any Ai outside of Barbs and even they were a piece of cake.

Barbs are not a problem. AI will probably not really threaten your cities until you work up to Immortal. For some reason, the AI in GnK seems to be more aggressive than the AI in BNW.

 

[NebulousJaguar]

I was always interested Civilization games, but didn't start playing until Civ4 BTS. I enjoyed it but I was always annoyed by the stacks of doom... and the square map tesselation. I eventually left the game alone because I was never as efficient with military and war as the AI was (I would often see enemy stacks of doom with numerous promotions on the units, while my stacks were smaller and much less experienced).

I was intrigued by Civ5 when I saw the hexagon tiles. I totally prefer hexagons over squares. Then I found that unit stacking was not a thing anymore and I was sold.
So these are my favorite changes, hexagons and 1UPT.

I actually prefer social policies and ideologies over civics as well.

I appreciate the more realistic look to the animations in CIV5. The leaders look like humans instead of cartoons. I saw the leader screens from CIV6 and I am kinda repulsed by their cartoonish, goofy appearance.

There is usually a logically-most-efficient way to win in any videogame, and CIV5 seems to be most effectively won by following the 10 steps previously posted, but I enjoy trying out other policy paths and seeing what happens. I generally have more fun with CIV5 than I had with CIV4, especially because of hexagons and 1UPT.

 

[Alleria]

I've been playing Civ4 since October, and have really been enjoying it. I still really love the game, and I don't see myself ever putting it down for good.

I'm looking to take a small break from it though, and wanted to try out Civ5. I've played a couple games on Civ5, but almost always ended up quitting after about 30 min. Apparently it's supposed to be a simpler game, but I'm really quite baffled at the new system. People have said it's much easier to pick up, but I'm having trouble getting into it. Any advice from players who made the same transition?

Hey there. I also had a lot of troubles when transitionning from Civ IV BTS to Civ V BWN. Though people gave you strong advices on how to play Civ V, I will try to really point the things that you have to unlearn from Civ IV as this was my biggest burden. Though this was now some years ago, so my memory is not that great on this, but on the top of my head:

1. Science comes from growth. I don't remember how you built science in Civ IV, I only remember the slider and that it dit not come from growth. Here, it does. Grow your cities as big as possible, not only because of the food which directly translates into science, but also because you will be able to work more tiles / specialists.
2. Forget about city specialization. All your cities will need the same basic buildings (granary, monument, etc.). Maybe later (around turn ~150-200) you'll think "hey, this city really has no growth but big production, maybe I could specialize it in units" or "hey, this city in the middle of the jungle has insane food and science, but 0 production, maybe I will stick to science/gold buildings", but appart from that, cities are not specialized.
3. You can't steal land with culture anymore.
4. Remember how useless were archers in Civ IV, and how siege engines were good mixed with melee units? Well, now it's the other way round, archers are great (untill you get dynamite and artillery)
5. Unhappyness is global, not local. Build a new city and you get -4 global unhappyness. However, happyness is mainly local, e.g. collosseum only counters the unhapyness generated by the city you built the collosseum in. Among the rare sources of global happyness, you have luxuries.
6. Don't build roads everywhere. Only connect your cities, best between turns ~50-100.
7. Cottages growth is gone. Cottages are only good on jungles.
8. Social policies are all changed. Now, the basic strategy is to take tradition, finish the tree, transition to Rationalism at the renaissance (with maybe 1 or 2 filler policies which can be put in commerce, or the tree to ally city states), and then take an Ideology in the modern era (whichever suits you best). When you get more experienced, feel free to try other social policies (I love liberty), but they really are sub-par (ok maybe liberty is not subpar to tradition, but definitly harder to play for a novice; however, piety / honor definitly are sub par).

Welp, these are just the ones I remember, but I hope this will help!

 

[omnimutant]

3. You can't steal land with culture anymore.
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7. Cottages growth is gone. Cottages are only good on jungles.

These two are things I'm really missing. It seems like there are massive penalties for trying to expand huge empires, and quite frankly it used to be my favorite thing to do. I loved over growing people and spreading my culture like a virus winning domination not only with the sword but with massive growth.

 

[beetle]

Don’t get me wrong, I loved IV. But outside of modding, I would be hard pressed to name anything else that I think IV does better than V!

I loved over growing people and spreading my culture like a virus winning domination not only with the sword but with massive growth.

Thanks for reminding me about that! The territory borders being dynamic is certainly something I miss.

In Civ5, you can occasionally get whole cities to flip to you. With a spy, you can see the rebels spawning in your opponent territory, and that is fun too. But I liked how tiles flipped one at a time with Civ4.