What IS better about Civ V?

[bosstone]

The focus in this forum has been mainly about bashing Civ V.

I hate Civ V but I'm generally an optimistic person so I feel compelled to at least ask why others might think this is a step forward for the franchise.

Here's what I can come up with:

1. Multi-core utilization. At least makes me hope that later stage games will run faster, although I have a top of the line Alienware desktop and it doesn't seem to make that much of a difference. Nothing can make Civ IV run faster late game, or keep it stable for that matter.

2. Integrated Mods. This was a nice touch. I think the mods for Civ IV have basically transformed the game, but tracking them down and dealing with one-off installation routines is a pain. Making them directly available through the Civ UI was smart.

3. Ranged Bombardment. It makes sense that ranged units would actually be able to shoot farther than melee units and makes their strategic advantage more obvious.

4. Field-level combat. It's true, in Civ IV all of the combat was centered on the stacks of death and cities. The idea of making strategic decisions in the field using an array of units and environments is inspiring. In practice though, it doesn't seem that exciting. I'm not 100% sure why yet, but I'd like to see this style of combat refined.

5. Simplified Combat Math. There have been times where I've actually been tempted to break out a calculator to figure out if I could win a battle in Civ IV. I liked the complexity, but that was just a little too much. I like that the probability behind combat is more open, although now it almost feels like you will win or lose before you even enter combat.

That's all I could come up with, and that was a stretch. I think if we rallied around elements we like in the game, we might be able to move it toward a more positive direction, like the mod community did in Civ IV.

 

[digitalcraft]

The hex tiles are way better. I know a lot of people pan it, but I like the new styling and interface, it's just very clean, which I like. The combat is 'better', but the haphazard transition from a very good medieval tactical combat to what should be ranged units suddenly having no range in industrial periods has counterbalanced that improvement for me. I do like the fact that a good military is made up of much less units now. If there was any complexity to the empire management game, I would absolutely love that you can get away with having a much smaller army.

 

[PieceOfMind]

5. Simplified Combat Math. There have been times where I've actually been tempted to break out a calculator to figure out if I could win a battle in Civ IV.

What do you mean? Computing combat odds in civ4 was reasonably difficult to do on a calculator unless it was a programmable one or you happened to use pen and paper as well.

I liked the complexity, but that was just a little too much. I like that the probability behind combat is more open, although now it almost feels like you will win or lose before you even enter combat.

Again, what do you mean when you say "more open"? From what I've seen, actually there seems to be still quite a bit of random variability around the predicted result. In fact I find it harder to use the combat odds display as effectively as I did with the civ4 one because in civ5 there is nothing indicating how likely you are to lose your own unit or to kill the enemy unit.

It's not even clear how the "expected outcomes" that are displayed are worked out... Are they averages?

 

[ruskyandrei]

I like how the nations feel more diverse, beyond just having a different colour and a +1 bonus to culture or something.

I like how having a huge empire doesn't automatically win you (or your opponent) the game anymore.

I like how naval units are actually useful now.

I like how, for some reason, i can now play through the late stages of the game and actually finish games as opposed to getting bored after renaissance.

 

[digitalcraft]

I find naval units about the same amount of usefulness as Civ 4. They can't do as much damage to land based units in Civ 4 but they were probably more useful in sinking transports and pillaging costal improvements.


That is another 'better' though, units being able to transport themselves is really nice, though I think they should have made it so your units can only embark from cities. It is a little weird how they can just plop in the water from anywhere they want.

 

[kooboo]

I find naval units about the same amount of usefulness as Civ 4. They can't do as much damage to land based units in Civ 4 but they were probably more useful in sinking transports and pillaging costal improvements.

Nah, navy in Civ 5 is much more useful imo. It's greatest strenght lies in them being (very) mobile artillery. Ships now can make siege of coastal (and near coastal) cities quite quick - opposed to what you can achieve with conventional archers/catapults/cannons etc. Even if their power isn't as big as conventional siege machinery it's still very decent and ships are not afraid of melee combat. Sometimes even better - you can have Caravelles and Frigates pretty quickly while still using Knights and Crossbowman.

 

[Fredric Drum]

Two huge annoyances from Civ 4 which seem to have been fixed:


Cultural border mechanics: Conquer a city, and it goes SPROING when the borders disappear and your neighbor who had no part in the conflict whatsoever grabs half the land you conquered, maybe with the resources you were after. Then you declare war on him too and raze a couple of his cities just to get the land you earned in the first place.

Kamikaze catapults: Need I say more?

 

[mattavich]

Just a hint, but much more to talk about that i can type;

in CIV4 you would build basically everything in your cities
in CIV5 you have to make careful long term decisions on what to build and when otherwise you cripple your gold income and possibly you're whole economy

in CIV4 happiness only affected specific cities and didn't cause much disruption
in CIV5 unhappiness affects your whole empire and if poorly managed will cripple your production empire wide

in CIV4 you pick the same old civics every time ignoring most of the rest going in a pattern like A -> C -> Z
in CIV5 you have to make careful choices on which social policies you unlock and also when you unlock them because they have big long term effects on your empire

in CIV4 you spammed stacks and collateral units
in CIV5 you need a decent front line with ranged units and artillery/siege units to form a tactical invasion

in CIV4 1 resource supplied infinity units
in CIV5 your entire army is capped and you get limited units per resource making resource improvement destruction and resource capture strategically important for the first time ever in CIV

in CIV4 losing all your oil would have no effect on your units even if they require/use oil
in CIV5 losing all your oil massively impedes the combat effectiveness of units requiring oil

in CIV4 you could camp stacks outside every single border and coastal city of another civ and it would never notice, mobilise for war or contact you diplomatically about it
in CIV5 if you send units to a civs border they know you're going to invade and contact you diplomatically asking if you're going to declare war and i believe they also start mobilising units from their cities and changing their production

 

[PieceOfMind]

Just a hint, but much more to talk about that i can type;

in CIV4 you would build basically everything in your cities

No you didn't. If you were, you must have been playing below your difficulty. City specialisation was an important part of civ4 gameplay. The dynamic is a bit different in civ5, yes, but in civ4 some buildings were still very expensive and making the decision was not a light one - it wasn't as if you could build every building instantly and not be overrun by Shaka or Monty.

in CIV4 happiness only affected specific cities and didn't cause much disruption

Again, at higher difficulties the free in each city was lower and happiness was actually the main limiter to city size for large parts of the game, particularly the BCs and early ADs. In each city you needed to make decisions about whether to try and increase the population of your city by increasing the happy cap or whether to build something with a more direct economic or military benefit like a library or axeman.

in CIV5 unhappiness affects your whole empire and if poorly managed will cripple your production empire wide

Exactly, so they've just transformed city distance and maintenance costs from civ4 into happiness in civ5. It's supposed to achieve a similar result - only in civ5 it's a bit more complicated, with golden ages and military morale and growth rates being affected too.

in CIV4 you pick the same old civics every time ignoring most of the rest going in a pattern like A -> C -> Z

Playing below your difficulty you might have been able to do that.

in CIV5 you have to make careful choices on which social policies you unlock and also when you unlock them because they have big long term effects on your empire

It seems the decisions you make about which social policies to unlock are fairly similar to civ4's civic choices. If you were able to pick the same series of civics every game in civ4, I'm sure you'd end up doing exactly the same thing in civ5 with social policies - you'll find favourites and then start doing a similar path every game.

in CIV4 you spammed stacks and collateral units
in CIV5 you need a decent front line with ranged units and artillery/siege units to form a tactical invasion

Tactical combat is one area where I'll give you that civ5 has probably made an improvement (or at least has more potential) from civ4. Sounds like the AI is not so good at handling the new combat system though, so we may have to wait to be the judge of this. Combat in civ4 was indeed fairly stack-centric, but it wasn't quite a case of simply spamming units. Having the right mix of units was still important, and that mix would depend on the sort of war you were fighting and what sort of units your opponent had.

in CIV4 1 resource supplied infinity units
in CIV5 your entire army is capped and you get limited units per resource making resource improvement destruction and resource capture strategically important for the first time ever in CIV

Probably a better thing in civ5, yes. However I'm hearing that there is scaling issues with larger mapsizes. It's something that may need some fine-tuning.