What do you miss about/from previous CIV games?

[NASAROG]

See my post just above yours for a bit more elaboration. If you want the full dtails, I'm sure someone can point you to a thread that gives this.

Oh, I have never seen it happen in my games. I play on a high enough difficulty, maybe that's the barrier.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

WHoa, how did I miss this one. Can you explain this please?

You'd almost never see it above king. Your influence has to be pretty high, they also need to be extremely unhappy. I think it does need to be neg 20. Been a long time since I flipped a city. I don't like what cities it picks either. I think it goes by the one producing the most unhappiness. That means it's either a big high pop city or one with very few or no local happiness buildings. Last time I got one to flip it was the Zulu's second city. He had built a couple wonders in it including the Louvre. It actually felt like cheating getting that city.

 

[PhilBowles]

The custom palace for fun.
Global view
Atack and defense stats where you can build offensive melee for attacking and defensive spearman for defending, especially citys.
Random events
Vassals and colonials
local map trade, tech trade.
The tech map being more free and complex to choose from. Now its pretty restrictive and shallow. You could really push for certain wonders or units faster by going with a certain branch. I would like in a future civ, the tech-map to be wider with more possibilities before you enter a new age.

Agreed with most of these, especially the palace and attack/defence stats - also the tech tree structure, but it was only really Civ IV that had a more complex one. Civ V has about the right number of techs, but I'm not a fan of the tech structure and it has produced a few balance issues, such as the perceived weakness of the 'iron working path' (a major conceptual problem given how fundamental metalworking techs were in reality).

The remainder would, I think, warrant reworking before being brought back. Perhaps a Great Merchant ability could be to establish a colony, which would act like a Freitoria for 'neutral' resources with its own small territorial radius? The Conquistador could replace its settlement ability with a colony.

Vassals weren't well-handled in Civ IV, and in fairness aren't well-handled in most games of this type; vassalage is almost always by military domination, when it will only be accepted by a loser you could conquer anyway, and as all Civ games suffer from rather static balance of power (i.e. dominant civs tend to remain dominant, weak civs to remain weak), vassalage is basically irreversible within the system. However, it did help allow Civ IV AIs to play domination more capably than Civ V ones.

Tech trade was abusable in the past (selling the same tech to everyone for multiple techs in exchange); I'd rather see a modification to the research agreement system, whereby two civs agree to jointly research a specific tech that neither possesses, as long as at least one of them has the ability to do so.

Random events were always part of Civ, but IV killed them with balance problems - bringing them back in much less drastic form, and being less common, would be welcome.

Other things I miss:

- Barbarian huts. The risk of triggering barbarian spawns when exploring tribal villages (I also miss them actually being tribal villages, which among other things makes a lot more sense than stone ruins in 4000 BC) added an element of trepidation to exploration which was lost when Civ IV removed the system.

- Resources spawning when land is modified. Coal that can appear when you build a mine, or grassland resources when you clear a forest, etc.

- Civil wars and the spawning of new civs when they occur (Civs I & II, can't recall if in III).

Problem with Civ 5.. there's is barely any penalties. everything you have is a bonus.

That's more of a systematic design issue than something specific missed from previous games, and the series has been moving in that direction at least since Civ IV (free bonuses from researching techs, only goodies from tribal huts with no risk of barbarian spawns, health bonuses for settling in desirable terrain/connecting desirable resources, removal of corruption, free bonuses just for having religion, and for each religion in the city, free accumulation of 'espionage points' rather than having to spend hard-earned gold, free diplo bonuses for open borders and trade with no downside etc. etc.). Civ IV had opportunity costs from civic selection and - like previous games - from the slider that are reduced in Civ V, but it offered few penalties and one of the few that it did - pollution - has already been mentioned.

You'd almost never see it above king. Your influence has to be pretty high, they also need to be extremely unhappy. I think it does need to be neg 20. Been a long time since I flipped a city. I don't like what cities it picks either. I think it goes by the one producing the most unhappiness. That means it's either a big high pop city or one with very few or no local happiness buildings. Last time I got one to flip it was the Zulu's second city. He had built a couple wonders in it including the Louvre. It actually felt like cheating getting that city.

I've only played on Emperor and Immortal post-BNW and I've seen it a few times, though was only the beneficiary once. Frankly I find it the weakest feature of BNW; it seems an illogical "because it was in Civ IV" add-on but with none of the utility it had there. Moreover I feel it misses the point: in Civ IV you weren't interested in city-flipping so much as tile-flipping to get useful territory, and you had direct control over where to focus your efforts in order to get the most from your cultural output. It also gave an importance to local (i.e. city-level) culture that's missing in Civ V. In Civ V, you have no direct say in which city will flip (or even which civ it will flip from, which you can but influence by maximising tourism), and you're racing against other civs with your ideology to flip it to you instead of to one of them.

 

[DarthSheldonPhD]

strange thing happened...i thought after the post in thread i would play civ iv just to experience all the things i think were better in or missing from civ v. and i didnt have any fun ? its just not as fun somehow as civ v
i dont know how that happened

Similar experience here. It's because Civ1 is like a 1991 Mercedes 500SL, luxurious and ahead of its time, and Civ5 is like a 2013 Corolla, commonplace and blaze'. But with technological advances, you'd still rather drive today's baseline model than a luxury car from 20 years ago.

What I miss from previous editions of civ are EMPIRES!!!! I understand that they wanted to add the option in CIV5 to have a small, efficient empire be a strategic choice, but they WAY overshot that goal to the point where building a massive, sun-never-sets-on empire is NOT a strategic choice. It's like saying that America would be a more dominant superpower today if Washington, Jefferson and Adams decided, "Well, we got New York, Boston, and Philly... Better stop expanding here..." Or, if the Soviets stopped at three or four cities. Or the Roman Empire. Almost every superpower throughout history gained that status through expansion.

 

[Teproc]

You'd almost never see it above king. Your influence has to be pretty high, they also need to be extremely unhappy. I think it does need to be neg 20. Been a long time since I flipped a city. I don't like what cities it picks either. I think it goes by the one producing the most unhappiness. That means it's either a big high pop city or one with very few or no local happiness buildings. Last time I got one to flip it was the Zulu's second city. He had built a couple wonders in it including the Louvre. It actually felt like cheating getting that city.

I've seen it happen on Deity, I think it was Japan who got cities flipped to Siam or something. They went Autocracy while literally everyone else went Order so they had massive civil resistance.

 

[WhoGnu]

Leodard Nimoy!

I can't believe no one has mentioned this. ( Possible I missed it)

Also winner and loser movies. Agree with the above poster that the end is anticlimactic. Lame.

Lack of global view makes my list too. Worst is large maps.

 

[andreafin]

leonard nimoy...
two minds on that one. some things yes they felt profound, others you felt almost insulted on his behalf (beep...beep...beep). but the novelty wore off for me on most of them and i wished i could turn him (with great respect and love!)...off.

civil wars and civs splitting as a result, yes i would love to see this in civ again. and massive empires, yes. the small random events, and vassals only if they are more realistic. i forget who it was but early in a game of civ iv i had 2 or 3 civs become vassals (they asked me to protect them, despite me never even threatening them and being generous to them). one later became far larger (with my and my other allies and vassals backing them), yet never even approached me to negotiate an alliance as equals and i never saw an option to release them from being vassals despite having many more cities than me. i may have had a more advanced army not sure if it was still bigger tho. in the end i won the space race anyway.

 

[Eskel]

Mine primary options are:
-civics
-health
-sliders (macroeconomy management)
-initial city maintenance cost

These were essential strategic features. Without them, game is bland.

Secondary choices - adds some flavour, but are not necessary:
- random events
- corporations (but with less micromanagement)
- vassals, permanent alliances
- limited stacking (2-5 units per tile)
- sea transports

 

[Krajzen]

Health and epidemies (fortunately there is awesome mod for it), Random Events (I am working on mod which adds them ), Rhye's Rise and Fall (though again - Yet Another Map Pack + historical spawn dates recreate part of it), civil wars (Revolution mod).

 

[Bulldog Bats]

Trading technologies. I don't remember which version had it, but it would prevent both tech runaways and laggers. Either trade tech for tech, or $$$ (don't remember if you could do that, but it would be cool.

 

[Fabio1701]

Not really civ, but kinda is... what I miss from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri which is not future specific and could be in a civ game:

Cool nukes

SMAC didn't just have nukes, they had crap-your-pants, cry-on-your-keyboard, game changing world destroying planet crackers. There were four different yields (which I think could be useful in civ) the smallest would just damage your city and kill units surrounding it, may the strongest units might survive. The strongest nuke would change the landscape itself. I remember the first time getting hit by one of those. My second biggest city and main production center didn't just vanish, there was a crater of ocean water the size of the ENTIRE CITY RADIUS. On that day I learned fear. The AI wasn't a p**** about using them either. In civ5 when I get hit by a nuke, yeah its bad but nothing I can't fix with lots of money. And I might get hit by one or two nukes in a heavy war. Nothing to be afraid of. In SMAC you did your best not to start down this path, because MAD did really exist and a cold war would give you the chills.

edit: here's what it looks like for the uninitiated: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJjQEoFF5Q8
as you can see, several cities taken out in one go.

 

[Basspower]

-Health
-War weariness
-canals
-Resources having to be connected by roads
-Borders that changed by cultural pressure
-Circumnavigation bonus
-Some degree of unit stacking
-Transport ships
-Ships being able to risk the ocean before astronomy
-Above all Baba yetu

 

[Fabio1701]

Baba yetu rocks

 

[reddishrecue]

I miss the ability that helicopters used to have when they used to hover over the ocean and sea in exchange for a bit of unhealthiness in civilization 2.

 

[Bulldog Bats]

It doesn't mae sense to charge for roads/tile, if you require roads from resources.

 

[1980ajw]

Never played Civ II or Civ IV, but I can state what I DON'T miss from Civ III: cleaning up masses of pollution due to over-crowding, in that period before Mass Transit arrives.

 

[TheMadFiddler]

strange thing happened...i thought after the post in thread i would play civ iv just to experience all the things i think were better in or missing from civ v. and i didnt have any fun ? its just not as fun somehow as civ v
i dont know how that happened

Oddly, I had the opposite experience. Civ IV just flowed a lot more smoothly. I feel like I spend a lot of Civ V just sitting around. Still, am I back at Civ V to give it another shot.

As for the thread- Leonard Nimoy [or at least a better voice actor] and large civilizations. I understand the culture penalty [bigger, more spread out populace means more effort to give them an identity], but the science one baffles me.

 

[Drakarska]

The advisers. There was nothing more fun than have your War Adviser come stumbling into your throne room stinking drunk during a war and stating" all is well Sire", and then staggering off while singing. Truly epic.

 

[bcaiko]

1. War weariness - better that what we have now at stopping protracted wars
2. Colonies - A way to get a resource a long way away without a new city.

1. I understand the desire for No. 1, especially given how idiotically stubborn the AI can be, but given that 1UPT makes wars go much, much longer...I can't say I'm ultimately in favor.

2. I'd settle for an advanced settler (a "Colonist") that could only found on another continent, but would give an advanced start-up with extra population and certain building pre-loaded into the city. A trade off could be that the city could potentially revolt if neglected.

 

[Wodan]

FFH and SMAC