Civ IV got very old very quickly. Lots of detail but quite easy to beat.
Try again on a harder difficulty

And you never played multiplayer obviously. I, for one, am not "quite easy to beat".
Civ IV got very old very quickly. Lots of detail but quite easy to beat.
For example, you can't see how many turns a worker has been building an improvement and you can't see what kind of improvements
I don't think Civ V is that bad
Try again on a harder difficulty
And you never played multiplayer obviously. I, for one, am not "quite easy to beat".
I don't understand the complaint about social policies having no downside, Civics really didn't have much of a downside.
Of course they did. In Civic Category A, you could only pick Civic 1, 2, or 3. They were mutually exclusive If you picked Civic 1, it meant you were deciding to forgo the bonuses from Civics 2 and 3. If you just discovered a tech for Civic 2, then taking Civic 2 meant you gave up the bonus from Civic 1. That's the downside - for example, going from Monarchy to Republic might increase your unit maintenance costs a lot.
Now, there's no downside to new taking new Social Policies. Taking a new available one doesn't mean giving up any existing value. It's a pure upgrade - you're simply choosing between permanent upgrades.
Before, it was possible to make a really damaging choice that would cripple your civilization, or to be caught with the wrong civics and need to change them which meant 1-2 turns of civil disorder, which matters in a crisis. Or to need to change them for diplomatic reasons.
Those were learning moments when you learned something about strategy and planning. Now, all you can do is choose a somewhat less efficient upgrade than before. There's obviously a "best" way to play, but there's no real moment of learning this, nor can you experiment as much in the same play-through. Choices are permanent and less flexible.
So overall, the current social policies are inferior to Civics and governments.
This game is an utter disappointment and I can't believe I shelled out $49.99 for it. I want my money and I want my Civ 4 back. It's not that this game is awful. It's ok... JUST ok, but when it's supposed to be a sequel to Civ 4 then there's a VERY high bar set.
Let's face it... nothing was added to this game. It's a reduction of all the Civ 4 concepts and it feels like Civ 4 For Kids. What exactly is new here besides additional restrictions? You can move in fewer directions; you can't stack; you can't build as many units because you can't stack; they removed religion. Oh, so they added city states. I like the "Independents" in Rhye's and Fall much better. The city states just end up being conquered... eventually.
The Great Wonders? Not wonderful... actually pretty boring with little overall gameplay effect. The interface is absolutely terrible to manage all the numbers and metrics with your civ because they hide all the buttons and numbers that were in Civ 4. Really though... aren't all the numbers and readouts all part of the fun of this game?? There's so little thought or strategy needed to play this. Every unit is it's own transport, so the ocean is just one big highway for all your units since most can move faster (or as fast) over water.
There's no sliders to shift funds from the treasury to research. Expansion simply causes unhappiness, which is easily fixed and it slows down your social progress... snore!
I've seen people on here comment that "oh, everyone said this about Civ 4." No, actually, I didn't. Civ 4 was far, far superior to Civ 3 and I never felt like Civ 4 overly simplified the core experience of playing a Civ game. The expansions did add a lot to it, but it was a great game right out of the box. I love Civ games and must say I was obsessed with playing Civ 4 for years now. I could never look at Civ 5 again and not look back.
What a disappointment! An utter disappointment. I've been waiting 5 years for this? Civ For Kids? Really??![]()
There is a downside to picking a social policy, you have to choose to have one and go without the others until you get more culture. In old civ you could flip flop around everytime you felt like it (go to war - theocracy/vassalage/etc, peace - all the top picks).
Now you have to actually decide what path to choose and stick with it. Some paths are also exclusive, so you really need to think ahead. The implications change the whole character of your civilization so have to think it out in advance.
It has a great side effect of giving civs actual personality instead of everyone just having the same government. Admit it, there was very little thought with civics involved once you played through a few times.
The thought process we want to promote is "What cool new effect do I want?" rather than the feeling of needing to perform detailed analysis to determine if switching is a good idea."
Between the simplification/ruining of civ itself, the unnecessary and frankly offensive requirement to use 3rd party bloatware for no practical reason whatsoever, and the completely ridiculous, amateurish errors in the demo, this is obviously not a franchise that is being taken seriously anymore. It's just an easy cash cow every 4 or 5 years. Even if only 75% of the previous users buy it, it's still money in the bank.
I'll be throwing it away, and spending more of my time at the animal rescue I run, working in my local town council, and putting more work into my short films. In other words, no loss to me whatsoever.
Social policies are more like unit upgrades than they are civics.