Disclaimer :I've never played 5 myself, only watched a couple hours my father playing it when it came out, and more recently a friend and some yt videos.
WAR :
The absence of SoD was a big downer for me and one of the main reason I did not try it when it came out (an other being my father being relunctant letting me play it after treacherously beating him at 4).
Among other things, no SoD implies army are really limited in size. SoD has a lot of issues, but none which can't be solved. "the whole stack dies when defending" was a harsh, but functional mechanic in 2. Collateral damages, artillery flanking, air bombing and nukes sounds like very convoluted solution, but they are working surprisingly well in Civ 4 (esp. BtS). I'd say
Civ 4 is an example of perfectly successful SoD (as opposed to Civ 3 whose combat mechanics are not bad at all, but favors tech and production over tactic and experience much more) combat. Last but not least, Civ 4 AI has a decent grasp of the mechanics.
During the last years, I've came to appreciate no stacking mechanism, and
Civ5 combat looks decently well implemented, but from what I've heard and read,
the AI is utterly incompetent, in that area at least. If I had to guess, I would say a
competent AIs are much easier to code for SoD mechanisms.
If I want something that's not SoD, I think a hybrid system like in Civ Call to Power would suit me best (C2P is close to the SoD side with a limit of 12, and most battle being decisive, but something closer to the carpet side with civ 5/6 mechanisms and being allowed to stack up to 4 while making the stack more vulnerable to range could be intereseting).
Economy :
Civ 4 wins hands down.
Civ 4 brings a lot of unnecessary yet interesting new features compared to its predecessors, and they are not broken (gpp, civcs, religion).
It
manages to give a lot of power to small countries through constant boosts like bureaucracy, gpp, shrines...
While still supporting linear growth, where more land = more power (even more so than in 3 because maintenance vs corruption).
In civ 3, you had one ideal size (two or three cores centered around palace/FP and Kremelin) and you had no interest in aiming below, and aiming above was mostly, if not solely, to destroy others. In civ 4 almost any size can be aimed at with the right strategy supporting it, from OCC to global domination (a not too fast global domination approach will usually beat any other approach, but it is not always available, and all approaches feel optimized).
Civ 5 looks really bad on that aspect, with a lot things made from linear to constant. The main example is happiness, which is global (so as far as happiness is concerned, you can only support a constant pop, as opposed to a pop growing linearly with your number of cities).
So it looks like it brings back a single ideal size. Slowly growing, but even more limiting than the despised corruption/waste mechanism.
To that regard, civ 4 really feels like a competitive 4X game, while civ 5 looks like a family board game with rules designed so that little Timmy can play along his big brothers with incentive for the later to avoid just grabing the riches of the former right away.
Religion :
Civ 5 wins, though it's a completely uninformed choice.
Civ 4 religion are decent, but I love the idea of generic customized religions.
Among other things,
the number of noteworthy religion per game is more realistic and probably better gameplay wise in civ 5 than civ 4 :
- duel map : civ 4, 7 religions, civ 5 1-2 religions
- standard 8 player maps : civ 4 7 religions, civ 5 3-5 religions
- Huge 18 players map : civ 4 7 religions, civ 5 7-12 religions
IMO nothing more needs to be said.
Barb :
Civ 4 wins
Barb mechanics seem really interesting in civ 5, but don't seem to matter much. Barb towns and barb teching up to riflemen at least is a more generic approach but not necessarilly a bad one. And
barb are more relevant in civ 4.
City State :
Tie?
Again, a unique mechanism which fits more Timmy family board game than a 4X. It can be refreshing and amusing, I can see it being annoying as well.
Again, civ 4 approach is more generic and not necessarily worse, with mechanisms like bureaucraty and tech trading allowing small factions to thrive through the ages (and you can even play as one!).
), so especially early when they are still unorganized and in settling mode you can see some leaving the cities. But also later, those without city_defense might leave yup.
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