I did and it doesn't matter. So they were given a tight budget and deadline? Is that MY problem? No , its a reason to be angry at the Executives, thats all. At the end of the day what happens behind the scenes doesn't affect me in the least bit , its the product i purchase i care about .
What is the difference between Civ 5 and Civ 4
- Thread starter pennjersey83
- Start date
I did and it doesn't matter. So they were given a tight budget and deadline? Is that MY problem? No , its a reason to be angry at the Executives, thats all. At the end of the day what happens behind the scenes doesn't affect me in the least bit , its the product i purchase i care about .
And thats why there are demo's.
Did you play the demo?
Did you make a judgement call after playing the demo?
If you didn't play the demo it's your own fault, and as the executives would say "Not my problem, we put out the demo."
So true. I'm probably one of the few here who actually played the demo before ordering.
Preorders are a joke most of the time, IMO.
Same here, i wassn't even sure if it would run on my computer and am quite pleased how well it runs actually.
Played the demo and loved it.
As for pre-orders, totally agree, first i'd like to see the games aspects and if possible play a demo.
Buying a game blindly isn't how things work and you 90% of the time endup regretting it.
falconne
meep
Well maybe you're right and they did start from scratch and intend to trickle in the features. If this is how they plan to continue development in the series, I think those of us who are disappointed will not bother to pre-order the games, since it will take 2 years for new versions to reach the quality of the previous one - and by that time the games will be at bargain prices.
I don't think this would be a good business model for Firaxis to choose.
In response to the OP:
The following is based on only limited time playing CivV. I have experimented while staying at a friends house for a couple of days.
1) A lot of bells and whistles have been removed, e.g:
- espionage
- religion
- corporations
- vassal states
- random events
These are features that you could pay only a small amount of attention to while play through a game of CivIV, or you could base your game plan on them. The advanced start up menu even allowed you to switch off these game elements.
2) Elements of basic game play that were present in the Civ series as far back as CivII, if not earlier, have received significant overhauls.
- empire happiness has replaced the happiness of individual cities.
- hexes have replaced squares, and the fat city cross is gone.
- In previous games each of your cities' income was divided into science, gold, and luxuries/culture. The split was determined by a single empire-wide ratio determined by the player.
- only one unit can occupy any given tile. Previously there was no limit.
While these have all taken away options that were standard throughout the last few iterations of Civ, I'm not yet convinced that the amount of strategy has been reduced significantly, or at all.
3) CivIV BTS had, thanks in no small part to the customisability of CivIV that also exists in CivV, a rather good AI. CivV does not.
My own opinion is that, ignoring some bugs representing obviously poor behaviour, this is as a result of:
a) changes to core rules. As more and more people put in more game hours of CivV, best strategies can be determined and the AI can be adjusted to adopt these strategies.
b) the BetterAI mod began life as an attempt by a player to improve the CivIV AI. It dramatically improved the AI, so much so, that the first official patch for the Warlords AI incorporated an early version of this mod. CivV has not existed long enough for such advances to have been made.
The following is based on only limited time playing CivV. I have experimented while staying at a friends house for a couple of days.
1) A lot of bells and whistles have been removed, e.g:
- espionage
- religion
- corporations
- vassal states
- random events
These are features that you could pay only a small amount of attention to while play through a game of CivIV, or you could base your game plan on them. The advanced start up menu even allowed you to switch off these game elements.
2) Elements of basic game play that were present in the Civ series as far back as CivII, if not earlier, have received significant overhauls.
- empire happiness has replaced the happiness of individual cities.
- hexes have replaced squares, and the fat city cross is gone.
- In previous games each of your cities' income was divided into science, gold, and luxuries/culture. The split was determined by a single empire-wide ratio determined by the player.
- only one unit can occupy any given tile. Previously there was no limit.
While these have all taken away options that were standard throughout the last few iterations of Civ, I'm not yet convinced that the amount of strategy has been reduced significantly, or at all.
3) CivIV BTS had, thanks in no small part to the customisability of CivIV that also exists in CivV, a rather good AI. CivV does not.
My own opinion is that, ignoring some bugs representing obviously poor behaviour, this is as a result of:
a) changes to core rules. As more and more people put in more game hours of CivV, best strategies can be determined and the AI can be adjusted to adopt these strategies.
b) the BetterAI mod began life as an attempt by a player to improve the CivIV AI. It dramatically improved the AI, so much so, that the first official patch for the Warlords AI incorporated an early version of this mod. CivV has not existed long enough for such advances to have been made.
I played the demo . BUT the demo offers me 100 turns. Barely enough to explore 50% of what civ is about . Sure the stupid AI and diplomacy were apparent but that is fixable. I believed the full version would actually offer me more. I didn't know a full length game would have been as bland as 100 turns . If it would have allowed me to finish an entire game i would have told myself to wait until it would be cheaper and patched.
And also look at all these posts saying you have to play more before judging Civ V and that you will discover more things and so on . The amount of things you can discover in 100 turn games is very limited . And so i thought the full version would give me a much better experience . And lets add to that i was a hardcore Civ Fan and fell victim to the hype . I was literally like "oh my god Civ V is going to be released, droooool" hence why i feel so betrayed .
And i would also like to add on top of that my discontent rose after every hour i played as every aspect lacking in the game became more and more apparent .
lonemessiah
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2010
- Messages
- 35
Actually when i think about it another big difference is what sort of genre the games fit into
Civ4 is a strategy/rpg game
Civ5 is a strategy/war game
Again to clarify
In Civ 4 the leaders were there to enhance you game. They would play roles such as villans and friends helping to flesh out your experience. Therefore, you could also choose to roleplay a part in the scheme. The leaders wouldn't actually pursue victory though, although quite often they would stumble upon it. They would happily see you win as long as they could continue to play the roles you had built for them.
In Civ 5 the leaders couldn't give a damn if you are enjoying yourself. They play to win, and that means they don't play fair. If you are weak they will attack you. If you get too strong, they will get their friends and attack you. If you join them in attacking someone else they are likely to take advantage of this too and.. attack you. It is not all black and white. You can build lasting friendships in the game (for example if you form a pact of secrecy against the french, don't then make a deal with the french, they don't like that), but when it comes down to the crunch if they think you are gaining a distinct advantage over them again they will try and destroy you. This somwhat goes back to Civ 5 being more about empires and less about cities but is probably worth noting.
( and yes we know they are not very good at attacking, or even defending atm but we are talking mechanics and not critisizing the games here)
Civ4 is a strategy/rpg game
Civ5 is a strategy/war game
Again to clarify
In Civ 4 the leaders were there to enhance you game. They would play roles such as villans and friends helping to flesh out your experience. Therefore, you could also choose to roleplay a part in the scheme. The leaders wouldn't actually pursue victory though, although quite often they would stumble upon it. They would happily see you win as long as they could continue to play the roles you had built for them.
In Civ 5 the leaders couldn't give a damn if you are enjoying yourself. They play to win, and that means they don't play fair. If you are weak they will attack you. If you get too strong, they will get their friends and attack you. If you join them in attacking someone else they are likely to take advantage of this too and.. attack you. It is not all black and white. You can build lasting friendships in the game (for example if you form a pact of secrecy against the french, don't then make a deal with the french, they don't like that), but when it comes down to the crunch if they think you are gaining a distinct advantage over them again they will try and destroy you. This somwhat goes back to Civ 5 being more about empires and less about cities but is probably worth noting.
( and yes we know they are not very good at attacking, or even defending atm but we are talking mechanics and not critisizing the games here)
I totally agree here. And i think its mainly because the AI focuses on Domination victory while in Civ IV depending on the leader they could achieve other victories , Ghandi for instance was one of those AI's i ended up being forced to obliterate because he was a science freak and often got too close to achieve science victory.
Aless133
Chieftain
Usually (Civ 1-2-3-4) game take weeks. Yesterday I went to 1000AD for ~6 hours. Nuff said.
While this may have been true of the CivIV Vanilla and Warlords, I'm fairly certain the AI was improved to the point where the AI could pursue victories and actively try to prevent you from achieving your own.
They do? In my last game I went for a science victory and had an army of maybe 7 units, total. Catherine and I were the only Civs left with our capitals, and her army was at least triple the size of mine. Did she try to stop me while I built spaceship parts?
Nope! In fact she went around with that huge army attacking civs that had already lost their capitals and just had one or two cities left, and were totally harmless. She completely ignored me while I won the game, when taking my capital was the only thing she had to do to win, and she had the army to do it (AI suckiness at combat notwithstanding).
If the AI in Civ 5 is trying win, then it's even more pathetic then I previously thought.
falconne
meep
Well we'll come back to that when the AI's improved, because right now its "play to win strategy" involves suicide. By then I think my arguments of the game not having enough mechanics and stuff going on will be even more relevant. Because there's so little empire building you have to attend to, playing at war is pretty much all there is to do in the game. Playing a drawn out game of battle chess won't hold many players' interest for long.
r_rolo1
King of myself
@PoM
I must add to the above the complete boxing of most of the diplo intel. Ok, in civ IV things might be a little too explicit in terms of knowing what a AI thinks of you and others, but in civ V we don't even know that a Pact of X ( replace X with secrecy or cooperation ) actually does, we don't know how two civs that we know feel about each other and we don't have the slightest clue of why a AI reacts the way it does. In resume , we have almost as much control over diplo as in my civ III mobile version ( for those who don't know, Civ III mobile doesn't have diplo at all
), simply because they boxed it all under the hood.
Like i said first, civ Iv showed maybe too much of it, but definitely civ V shows too little ... and worse, it only encourages the few players that have the technical skills to dwell in the code to know the awnsers that the game should had given ( some stuff is simply inexcusable ... not saying even in civlopedia what pacts do and not having the advisor showing some actual diplomatic info is excruciatingly stupid ... and the worse is that what we have is already a rushed out improvement due to the reactions they got when they showed their betas to the world in the expos )
I must add to the above the complete boxing of most of the diplo intel. Ok, in civ IV things might be a little too explicit in terms of knowing what a AI thinks of you and others, but in civ V we don't even know that a Pact of X ( replace X with secrecy or cooperation ) actually does, we don't know how two civs that we know feel about each other and we don't have the slightest clue of why a AI reacts the way it does. In resume , we have almost as much control over diplo as in my civ III mobile version ( for those who don't know, Civ III mobile doesn't have diplo at all
), simply because they boxed it all under the hood. Like i said first, civ Iv showed maybe too much of it, but definitely civ V shows too little ... and worse, it only encourages the few players that have the technical skills to dwell in the code to know the awnsers that the game should had given ( some stuff is simply inexcusable ... not saying even in civlopedia what pacts do and not having the advisor showing some actual diplomatic info is excruciatingly stupid ... and the worse is that what we have is already a rushed out improvement due to the reactions they got when they showed their betas to the world in the expos )
Civ 4 is more empire building focused. You spend most of your time building cities, building improvements, finding resources, connecting trade routes, trading for luxuries and health improving resources, spreading religion (or trying not to spread religion), using spies, and dealing with the AI. While it does have combat, the stack of death style of combat makes it less time consuming and it's really not the focus of the game. You can manage your production of science/culture/espionage/gold because they're all derived from one resource (gold) and the sliders direct them. So it really feels like you have more control over what you're building. Plus there's a single tech tree (the science one).
In Civ 5, combat is the star of the show. The "empire building" parts are all either simplified or removed entirely. There's no espionage, no health, no religion, global happiness, etc. While gold is now more useful, you have less control over what you generate because you can't directly decide how much gold to spend on science/culture. The best you do instead is spend maintenance on buildings to boost those things, but the feel isn't the same. There's now also two tech trees (science and culture for social policies), and they don't really interact that well. Global happiness feels punishing to large empires because each luxury gives 5 no matter if you have one city or 20 cities. Diplomacy still exists, but it doesn't matter very much and sometimes seems downright random in what's happening (allies suddenly attack you for no reason, then offer you free cities for peace 4 turns later after you've dismantled their entire army). Diplomatic victory is juts about liberating people now and is thus combat oriented rather then trying to keep people happy diplomatically through deals/civics/religions.
Combat is more important and a lot more advanced now. Unfortunately the AI is still bad at it. While in Civ 4 the AI being bad at it was covered over by the AI having stacks of death and a production bonus, only having 1 unit per tile means a bad combat AI can't as easily beat you with numbers. So it makes conquest really, REALLY easy compared to previous Civ versions, and that seems to be the dominant way to win the game if you want to do it quickly (especially since if you try to stay small, one AI will beat up every other AI and then come after you with endless unit spam).
That's the biggest difference really. Civ 5 needs a strong combat AI more then previous games because combat got more attention then the other mechanics, and the AI is really bad at it.
jjkrause84
King
Why does no one accuse Civ4 of being 'Civ3.5'? They were pretty similar in MOST of their core mechanics (especially at the beginning).
This is less applicable to Civ 2 > 3 but to a certain extent the argument still holds.
This is less applicable to Civ 2 > 3 but to a certain extent the argument still holds.
Civ 5 pretty much spoon feeds you what you have to do.
I hardly have to think to beat it. Look at happy icon, look at costs per turn, trade new happy resource or buy happy building up to say circus. Can city make more gold than cost of happy etc.
Culture icon, do I need more culture faster for policy etc = pay city state, or some simple calcs with respect to maintenance and culture.
Its just like driving a car in a straight line, as soon as anything veers off too much (which the icons at the top show you) you just correct it. There are a few basic ways to improve happiness, money, culture.
Deal with CS
Make Building
Policy
Trade
There's not much to the game from what I can see. Anyway, I beat it already on highest level, so I'm already bored with it. Checking out mods like FFH2 for Civ4 or I may even pick up Colonization, I hear its hard, has fun mods and is now on steam!
As an aside, I think the UI is more appropriate for a console, and the graphics are poor from a gameplay point. It's hard to tell from the map what *era* you are in, there's no animation on tiles, to see what your working on. The music is generic from the start with no era music.
I hardly have to think to beat it. Look at happy icon, look at costs per turn, trade new happy resource or buy happy building up to say circus. Can city make more gold than cost of happy etc.
Culture icon, do I need more culture faster for policy etc = pay city state, or some simple calcs with respect to maintenance and culture.
Its just like driving a car in a straight line, as soon as anything veers off too much (which the icons at the top show you) you just correct it. There are a few basic ways to improve happiness, money, culture.
Deal with CS
Make Building
Policy
Trade
There's not much to the game from what I can see. Anyway, I beat it already on highest level, so I'm already bored with it. Checking out mods like FFH2 for Civ4 or I may even pick up Colonization, I hear its hard, has fun mods and is now on steam!
As an aside, I think the UI is more appropriate for a console, and the graphics are poor from a gameplay point. It's hard to tell from the map what *era* you are in, there's no animation on tiles, to see what your working on. The music is generic from the start with no era music.
LordByron
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2010
- Messages
- 65
Quite easy....
When u buy CIv4 is BTS and Warlord in there too?
NO they are not.
U should learn the differences between patches and expansions.
it does not seems to me so difficult to understand....
I as i said hated some features of the expansions and despite having them played mostly civ4.
And i wonder....since some of you continue to tell how civ5 is dumb and easy...did you win a game at deity yet?
r_rolo1
King of myself
No, i haven't , but just because i got bored of killing units, not because it was chalenging in any degree, even compared with civ IV deity ( that also had a boatload of bonuses )
