What has improved since Civ 4?

[Optimizer]

Note: I would like the current release of Civ 5 compared to the final release of non-expanded Civ 4, without Warlords and Beyond The Sword.

 

[fantsu]

graphics.

 

[NCC81701]

1) 1upt and Hex
Pros:
- More defense options by making it easier to blocking opponent's Army
- Less units to manage
- Placement is as important as unit type and numbers now making combat more strategic
Cons:
- Broken AI
Overall:
- Improvement

2) City States
Pros:
- Actual states that will work with you to achieve a diplomatic victory
- More diplomatic choices, and benefits to using diplomacy
Cons:
- Broken Diplomacy throughout the game
- CS are control purely by influence points and influence points takes no account of pass history with your civ
- Influence decays way too fast to build a lasting relationship
- Meaningless Diplomatic victory. Save 8K gold, build UN, payoff 8 CS, gg you've won. Next to no diplomatic effort for a diplomatic win.
Overall:
- Not an improvement until patched/fixed

3) Social Policy/Culture
Pros:
- Build your own Civic combination
- 1 Tile expansion at a time makes city expansion more natural
- able to guide city expansion
Cons:
- Unable to change Social policy except switching from polar opposite policies
- Do not get policy points back when making such a switch
- Use of gold for city expansion instead of culture points generated by city
Overall:
- Not an improvement until patched/fixed

 

[Optimizer]

Here is my verdict:

Technical performance: Had some problem with the demo, but the retail version is remarkably stable for a newly-released game.
Menu and Startup interface: I miss Baba Yetu, but the opening video is good enough for the first time.
Gameplay interface: Well, you should expect an improvement after six years of technical development. Miss the globe view, though.
Sound and soundtrack: The symphony soundtrack of mid-game Civ 4 was great, (though the modern soundtrack was painful, and burdened the game with royalty costs). Civ 5 is a step backwards when it comes to music.
In-game effects: Askia posing in front of a burning castle is more bad-ass than ever in Civ.
Civilizations and Leaders: The lowered number of leaders is not that bad of a loss. But Inca, Spain and Mongolia seem more deserving than Iroquois, Ottomans and Siam.
Unique abilities. I have always had issues against these features. Not only that they are racist, they also challenge balancing, and are simply non-adaptive (since you choose nation without any gameplay information).
City-states: I agree that they are broken now, but that is a balance issue easily solved by a patch. And I just love when they all go to Permanent War against an evil conqueror.
Hex map: Instant success.
Included units: So far I haven't played a modern war. But modern and sci-fi weaponry should preferrably wait for an expansion pack.
Land combat system: There are some strange things (Archers shooting further than modern infantry), but in general it is refreshing.
Naval: Embarkment is a great feature, and should have been included in Civ 4 (as Rise of Nations introduced the concept back in 2003).
Air: Haven't fought an air war yet.
Resources: In Civ 3 & 4, a large civ had the opportunity to use one single source of Oil for its entire army, dooming small civs. Not all resource issues are solved, but at least they are less broken now.
Cities, Buildings and Wonders: Lots and lots of buildings are needed now, and micro-management is apparent.
Roads, Rail and Terrain improvement: I want to road every tile, and railroad at least the industrial tiles, and make a profit from there. That opportunity has been stolen from me. They have also missed the opportunity to merge the Worker with the Workboat by using Embarkment.
National happiness: Reduced micromanagement is good. It also lays a burden on large empires.
Economic system: Has gone backwards to Civ 3. We don't even get the tax slider.
Research: No tech trading, a dumbed-down tech tree with very arbitrary connection.
Social policies: Broken right now. I don't think Firaxis patching is enough, modding is required.
Diplomacy: Where are my spies?
Culture: Well, the Civ 4 Religion system was a bit too complex, but they didn't need to trash all of it. Couldn't we get to keep something?
Victory conditions: Doesn't seem to be anything new here. Domination victory conditions seem unnecessarily complex.
Multiplayer: Haven't tried yet.
Other features: I think I included all.

In all, this was 14 major changes that were not to the better. That is disappointing.

 

[Stormbolt]

Voted for:

Technical performance (crashes, glitches etc)
Gameplay interface
In-game effects (Diplomacy screens, Wonder splashes etc)
Civs, leaders: Iroq/Ottoman/Songhai/Siam in, Inca/Mali/Mong/Spain out
Unique civilization abilities (and in some cases buildings), instead of Leader traits
City-states, instead of minor civilizations
Hexagonal map
Included units (Paratrooper, AT Gun, AA Gun, Death Robot etc)
Combat system (bombardment, city hitpoints, no stacking)
Naval movement & combat (embarking, bombardment)
Air, missile and nuclear warfare
Roads, Railroads and Terrain improvements
National happiness
Economic system (Building maintenance, no city maintenance etc)
Research (Slimmed Tech tree, Research pacts instead of Tech trading)
Social policies, instead of Civics
Culture (No Religions)

 

[sgrig]

I voted for hex map and air combat. These are the only things in my opinion that are very good in Civ5, and are a major improvement over Civ4. Everything else (including 1upt) has various issues and needs much more work.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Does this mean that the features below 50% are failures? If that is correct, then the only features that Civ V got right are:

Unique Civ Abilities, City States, Hex Map, Combat System and Naval Combat.

 

[Charvel1]

Does this mean that the features below 50% are failures? If that is correct, then the only features that Civ V got right are:

Unique Civ Abilities, City States, Hex Map, Combat System and Naval Combat.

No, it means that they are ALL successes (with the exception of Multiplayer). Who said anything about 50%?

 

[Optimizer]

Maybe I should have asked whether anything has actually become worse.

IMO, the soundtrack, the selection of civilizations, terrain improvements, research, diplomacy and culture are worse in Civ 5 than in Civ 4.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Everyone voted as to which features improved upon Civ IV. You could vote for as many as you wanted to, so each vote was a boolean (yes/no) as to whether the feature worked. The five features that I mentioned are the only ones where over half the people voting thought they were improvements to Civ IV, which is the baseline for this game (the previous version)

 

[jeffreyac]

wow...

After looking at your list, it seems the only thing I can find that I really like better are the hexes...

 

[Agent327]

Only thing that comes to mind is ranged attack - I love it!

Other than that this must have been the worst release since any Civ; it´s way too buggy for an official release. (Just check out the bug thread(s).)

 

[Bluetooth]

City-States and Combat system and to some extent the Economic system, that's 2,5 out of 25? I don't know anything about Multiplayer though, so I can't tell if it's better than in Civ 4.

 

[AdamMorva]

Shamelessly stealing the format from Optimizer. (sue me, mate)

Technical performance: Civ4 had more technical issues when it launched. There are issues with memory leaks (pathetic coders) and seemingly some multithreading problems. But the game's performance is not bad. Probably thanks to the 1UPT and the incredibly stupid AI.
Menu, Startup UI, opening video: These Civ5 features are not bad, but Civ4 Baba Yetu and the old menu was just awesome. The opening video was quite good, but has no rewatch value at all.
Gameplay interface: I loved how easy it must be for new players to learn the game thanks to some great new features, but I really miss a lot of old UI features that made the game great and more detailed. I miss Civ4's diplomacy figure, economy, military advisor details, clock, etc.
Sound and soundtrack: I'm quite indifferent on this. Civ4's soundtrack was incredible. Civ5 OST is great, but I don't know if I'll be humming it along after a few dozen games like I hummed along Hungarian Dances or Baba Yetu, etc.
In-game effects (Diplomacy screens, Wonder splashes etc)
Civs, leaders
Unique civilization abilities: Civ4's traits were better. With unique civ abilities you ought to choose what kind of game you want to play at the very beginning.
City-states: Their requests are annoying and costly. Usually it's better if you just gun them down. After a lot of improvement this feature could be interesting.
Hexagonal map
Included units: Too few units.
Combat system: The major feature change Civ5 got right.
Naval movement & combat: Building transports for Civ4 units were sometimes tedious and annoying. The embarking thing feels a bit surreal and odd though. I didn't make up my mind on this.
Air, missile and nuclear warfare: It's very annoying that you can't scout with planes.. Just plain stupid.
Resource system: The new strategic resource system is a good idea, however, I usually have waaaaaay too much strat resources. Solution: make the worker improvement upgradeable, so the basic mine would give you 1 iron, to get 2 iron you would have to issue your worker to upgrade that mine. The non-strategic resources are really bad though. They need a revamp.
Cities, Buildings and Wonders: Wonders are stupid, buildings take waay too much time to build, some are completely useless, have too little benefits or cost way too much maintenance.
Roads, Railroads and Terrain improvements
Research: I dislike the Slimmed Tech tree, I dislike that you can't adjust money spent on your empire's scientific efforts (slider) Research pacts are better instead of Tech trading though.
Social policies, instead of Civics: Oh no, hell NO! Terrible, terrible idea. I do not want to decide at world generation what kind of gameplay I will force down my own throat during the whole game. The current system lacks flexibility and sucks balls.
Diplomacy (Pacts, Puppet states, No spies) Espionage wasn't well carried out. Instead of making it enjoyable Firaxis scrapped the whole thing. Pacts currently make little sense (except for research pact, that's good)
Culture (No Religions): Religions are a must have, it should've been a default feature, big mistake eliminating it from the game.
Victory conditions
Multiplayer

 

[mike_cf]

I really don't get it WHY we should forget about the improvements civ 4 expansions brought, is a law or something: Compare only to last vanilla version, all the expansions and mods are heresy?!

Anyway, civ 5 brings 2 improvements IMO: buy tile and order queue. I'm neutral about hexes, it is not like unit facing matters.

 

[jagdtigerciv]

Here is my verdict:

Economic system: Has gone backwards to Civ 3. We don't even get the tax slider.

Civ 3 had sliders and it was outdated then just like it was outdated in Civ 4.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

Technical performance (crashes, glitches etc) Steam sucks can't go offline and takes minutes to start. Slow down from memory leacks and have to restart computer from time to time.
Menu & startup interface, opening video Smallish ugly icons. Not as readible as in Civ4 shiny colorfull ones.
Gameplay interface Not enought info table (resources, inter leader war status, unit maintenance info,....
Sound and soundtrack No
In-game effects (Diplomacy screens, Wonder splashes etc) Comparing static screen with Gilgamish grabing your head for a deal he didn't like Civ5 is a bust!
Civs, leaders: Iroq/Ottoman/Songhai/Siam in, Inca/Mali/Mong/Spain out Not balanced. Othman sucks.
Unique civilization abilities (and in some cases buildings), instead of Leader traits Undecided
City-states, instead of minor civilizations Great idea. But need more balancing out. maritime 2 powerfull.
Hexagonal map My favorite improvment. 5 movement choice much more tactical.
Included units (Paratrooper, AT Gun, AA Gun, Death Robot etc) I usually end my game @turn 140 when I conquer the whole continent (Emperor). So undecided. Immortal starts getting interseting though....
Combat system (bombardment, city hitpoints, no stacking) Good system on paper. But AI lacks.....
Naval movement & combat (embarking, bombardment) I hated transport.
Air, missile and nuclear warfare See Paratrooper answer
Resource system LOVE limited iron and horses and .....
Cities, Buildings and Wonders Undecided
Roads, Railroads and Terrain improvements Undecided
National happiness I like, less micro managment needed.
Economic system (Building maintenance, no city maintenance etc) Building maintenace is great. Not be able to raze building is Very bad.
Research (Slimmed Tech tree, Research pacts instead of Tech trading) Tech trading was so entertaining. RP and tech trading are not mutual exclusive and I want both!
Social policies, instead of Civics Culture is more important now so its great (like having another tech tree). But I also like to have choices. Undecided. I would love having both though
Diplomacy (Pacts, Puppet states, No spies) 2 many features left out.
Culture (No Religions) Culture more exciting now. but they could have fixed religion and added it as well!
Victory conditions: Spaceship, UN, Culture, Conquest, Domination Culture is flawed. no end game movie WTH?
Multiplayer Never tried it. But I hate steam already.
Other features not mentioned here War is best strategy in all games. Much dumber city placement strategies (just put a city where you can grab most happiness resources and start selling them for outrageous early game GPT). So many info not accessible...... I end using same strategies in all my games unlike Civ4. No slider is nice change.

 

[Falk]

I voted hex tiles, combat system and naval movement.

Some other things I find just as good as they were in Civ4 (national happiness for instance), but many things I think are much worse than before.

Btw, "resource system" could mean many things. For instance I love the limited units allowed by the strategic resources, but I dislike food resources not giving any meaningful bonus as well as the lack of luxury resources on many maps (in my current game I managed to grab 5 luxuries which is cool, but in the games before I couldn't get more than 3 or even 2 of them in my empire).

 

[edu83st]

I think Firaxis should have pay more attention to the new icons (drawings) designs in research, buildings and units? They are cool if you need to paint a wall with them but in this tiny size you dont know what are them about.
Examples:
Researsh icons: Refrigeration, Steam Power, Flight, Laser, Ecology, Robotics, Advanced balistic, AGRICULTURE??? Come on... what is that green thing???? Ohh Ok... A farmer
Building icons: Arsenal, Bank, Hospital, Hydro plant, Library, Stable, Temple...
Unit icons: Mechanized Infantry vs Mobile SAM (too similar) , Paratrooper (where is the parachute??)

Another thing I dont like are the units promotions icons cause they are not representative. You have to place the mouse over all of them to know what do they mean.
Example:There is a "leave" that means "Indirect Fire" confused, or a "triangle" to say that your unit has 33% of power against barbarians, Embarkation, and a few stuff... (I think a "strong arm" or "boat" fits better)

By the way this game is way batter than the previous ones because you can easily recognize the enemy approach to your empire. And the tactic map really rocks !!!

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Not that I would take that option, but, to be fair, you'd have to add the "Nothing" option to your thread. After all, some people demanded it from the guy who was asking what they missed.