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!