Where to start?

[Suliz]

Hello.

Back in September 2012, there must have been a steam sale for CIV 4 and its expansions, because I bought it. I was playing CIV 5 at the time, and i never got around to starting up 4. Now I am thinking it is time to take the plunge.

I skimmed the FAQ and started to look at the quick newbie questions thread, until I realized there might be 20,000 posts, which seem to be very definition of an appropriate time for the TLDR acronym.

What I would really like to find is a list of major changes from 5 to 4 (I have about 860 hours logged into 5). It seems relatively overwhelming to be start from scratch again.

Any suggestions?

 

[Seraiel]

To get that list, you imo. should ask in the CIV5 forum, because the players here play CIV4 and don't have any intentions to start on 5, because 4 is simply plain better in any circumstances. Ask for a player that played CIV4 before and ask him friendly (maybe per PM) , if he would maybe be so kind to tell you about the most important major differences between 4 and 5, you'd have tons of experience with 5 and would only to try to get a stlightly easier and better start, currently 4 would overwhelm you (last sentence not perfectly forumlated, use your own words there) . Many players here are very helpful and the people that play 5 often were players of 4, so if you're kind and don't use expressions like "plz tell me everything and better be excact, because I don't read anything longer than 1 sentence anyway" your chances will be good to find someone like that there. Don't forget to give back yourself, so maybe help a newbie find his way into 5, or help newbies once you've the same experience as with 5 and have noticed, that what I wrote about 4 being the better game in every discipline was the truth .

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Approach 4 as a new game, not as a derivation of 5.

Don't seek to import your knowledge of 5 upon 4.

4 has been more than a mere upgrade on 5 ; it has been real evolution : a revolution.

There are more parallels to be drawn between 4 and 2 (double is a straight line) than there are between 5 and 4 (quarter of a ratio is an awkward piece of mess).


hth

 

[lymond]

What BiC said. 4 is very different from 5 and far more complex and satisfying

And, yes, I did play some 5, as I wasted 50+ bucks on it at release, so figured I ought to play it some, but long ago retired that game. Sad Sad

Newbie question thread is probably not the best place to read up on IV, but rather just use as a tool if you do have a quick question about something.

Best place to start reading is in the Strategy & Tips ->>Strategy Articles sub-forum, as well as the Strategy & Tips forum itself, which you can peruse around and get familiar with. Join in the fun of the Noble's Club game...folks will help you with your game. In particular, Sisiutil's Begginer's guide is a good place to start for the very basic stuff...it is not perfect, but does do a good job getting one acclimated.

Play BTS, of course, and get the BUG/BULL and/or BAT mods. Tool around with the game for a bit to just get a feel for things, then post a shadow/learner game over in Strategy & Tips to get a really focused learning experience - really the best way to learn

Your knowledge/experience with V will have little to no impact are your success with IV

Some key differences though:

1) In V, Happiness was used a very simplistic global modifier to prevent expansion. In IV, the main driver is maintenance costs, which has various factors. Happiness is important in cities, but there are quite a few ways to manage it.
2) V is 1 unit per tile. IV allows for stacking units. 1UPT was viewed by many as a failure of V, but that is subjective, of course, as many V fans do like it. Stacking though makes troop movement far less tedious while also getting benefits of stack defense - for and against.
3) In IV, troops don't magically swim across oceans. You gotta load them in a ship.
4) V has Social Policies. IV has Civics. Social Policies are opened by Eras. Civics are opened by Technologies, and in some cases certain wonders give access to Civics. SPs were interesting. Civics though are more dynamic in my opinion as you are not stuck with them. You can use them situationally, switch back and forth as needed. Incurs anarchy if you don't have the Spiritual Trait or Golden age, but allows for unique and interesting strategies. In other words, in V you basically choose a path almost from the start, while with Civ you have more options to change things up as the game progresses, and as needed.
5) V has uniques for each civilization. IV has uniques for each civilization and their leader(s) [emphasis on the 's' there]. Each leader has 2 traits that give certain bonuses to your game, some being more powerful than others. Each civ has a unique unit and unique building, different combination of starting techs.
6) Big one is Diplomacy. In IV, Diplomacy is more transparent and logical. It has a wide variety of factors that an experienced player has more capabilities of controlling, one way or another. Diplomacy was probably the #1 thing I disliked most about V. It is just plain wonkers.
7) While a late game Civic does allow for rush-buying with gold, that mechanic is not a big factor in IV. Instead, you have the most powerful civic in the game - Slavery - which is something you have access to very early.
8) You can circumnavigate the world on most standard maps and get a bonus for it.
9) Some similarities with respect to specialists and great people, but you have excess to them earlier in IV. In IV, GPs don't create tile improvements. You can settle them in cities for bonues. Most use them for bulbing or special actions
10) V has some interesting religion stuff. IV religion stuff is nice to, but works different in many ways. There are some parallels there though
11) No cities states.
12) Barbarians have a bigger impact in IV..they can take your cities and really destroy your game if you don't know how to handle them. They also generate their own cities, which you can capture. On the other hand, barb ships are just as annoying in IV as in V ..ha

 

[Lexicus]

In V science comes directly from population. In IV science comes from commerce, with the slider determining how much commerce goes into research. IV also gives you the whip, which enables conversion of food to hammers.

The lack of 1-upt means that diplomacy and avoiding war is more important, because you can no longer easily hold off the entire AI army with two composite bowmen and a city.

Empire management (building the right number and composition of units) is as important to war in IV as the actual direction of units.

I agree with the others posting here that IV is far more complex and satisfying than V (rather unsurprising as we are all in the IV forums for a reason ). I played V and its expansions for about two years, but I just haven't wanted to play it enough to actually load it up since 2013, while I've been playing IV consistently since it came out (in 2005!!!!)

 

[lymond]

Oh, thank Lex for mentioning the one thing I most wanted to mention...commerce. Yeah, the whole system of empire management and teching is just far more complex and nuanced.

 

[Lexicus]

Oh, thank Lex for mentioning the one thing I most wanted to mention...commerce. Yeah, the whole system of empire management and teching is just far more complex and nuanced.

Well, that's what I think. It's two basically different models. Civ IV has various conversions between the different outputs, whereas in Civ V you're really using the different outputs to fill up separate bins and there is not much conversion between them.

1-upt has been focused on in these forums as the major difference between V and IV but I think the respective empire management systems are a much more important difference. IV's system makes me feel like I'm actually managing an empire; I have to keep an eye on things and my intervention at any point (cracking the whip, changing the slider) can have a real effect on what's going on in my empire. V just feels like waiting for bins to fill up so I can fill up the next bin.

The population-->science mechanic in Civ V is what really screws the pooch IMO. It makes every strategy and every victory condition feel fundamentally undifferentiated.

The big exception is BNW's culture victory, which I feel is the only area of gameplay where Civ V represents a significant advancement over its Civ IV counterpart (though V's social policies sadly turn government into a bin-filling exercise).

But as I have never played for a culture victory in any Civ game this is not enough to make me want to play Civ V, sadly.

1-upt is less engaging than stack combat because it is so mind-numbingly easy. The Advanced Wars 2 AI offers me more of a challenge than the Civ V combat AI, and Advanced Wars 2 is a GBA game that came out two years before Civ IV did!

 

[Tuscarora87]

After 30 minutes of playing CiV5, I suddenly realized absence of sliders in the game. It was enough to quit. No sliders, no depth.

 

[rschissler]

Whereas Civ V has global happiness, each city in Civ IV has to provide it's own happiness, so you have to build the buildings that affect happiness in each city. Also, you have health, which acts similarly, but with the affect on food supply instead of happiness. Getting resources for happiness and health are key.

Civ IV has cottages that upgrade as the turns increase to hamlets, villages, and towns. This affects the amount of gold you have. You should get your cottages going as soon as possible, especially on grassland and flood plains.

Some buildings have multiple benefits. Such as, forges for production and happiness, marketplaces for gold and happiness, and grocers for health and gold.

No more embarkation that Civ V had. So, you have to build ships to transport troops, etc. across water. If planning a war across the ocean, you have to think ahead about building the ships and sailed to the point of attack.

Also, when starting out, don't build too many cities too fast. Or, you will soon find your research slider near the 0% mark.

May have been mentioned before, but for conquest you have to capture all the AI cities, not just the capitol.

 

[Ambidexter]

One drawback to CivV's 1UPT is that in CivIV early game I like to pair two workers to improve tiles and resources twice as fast as one worker does.

 

[Suliz]

Thanks for the feedback folks.

I think my basic plan is to skim the manual and then to run a single game on settler difficulty, where the manual suggests there are a fair number of tips to be had. From there I will just keep ramping up the difficulty and trying different victory methods until I encounter resistance.

 

[lindsay40k]

I play both a lot. Maybe we should get a sticky made for others going old school.

Economy: instead of population generating science and tiles generating gold, tiles generate commerce that you use your sliders to allocate to science (which gets multiplied by certain buildings), gold (ditto), etc. If you can't afford more than 40% on science, look at improving your raw commerce and gold multiplication. When you can allocate to culture, every 10% improves each city's happiness by +1, regardless of the actual culture it generates.

Espionage: buildings and commerce allocation generates Espionage Points, which you can direct against specific rivals. Spy units are deployed in the field (and unlocked by Alphabet), and have a lot of missions available.

Resources: need to be connected to your network via Roads (which are free). You can build any number of dependent units and they're not affected by losing your supply.

Trading Posts: instead of these, you can build Cottages (with Pottery) that gradually improve as your cities work them. Cottage spam is popular and powerful.

Technologies: you can trade them. Alphabet enables this, and can usually be traded for a load of other techs. Some of them will obsolete certain Wonders.

National Wonders: require a set number of prereq buildings, not one in each city.

Wonders: Failgold is a really good source of money, especially if you have a resource that speeds up production. (Marble is no longer universal - check the specific Wonder.)

Religion: founded by researching certain techs, not generating Faith (not present). Once it's in a city, it's there for good. It's a useful early source of happiness, culture and international goodwill (and discord). A Great Prophet can build a Shrine in a Holy City, generating 1GPT per city with the faith.

Social Policies: known as Civics, and unlocked by researching techs. You can change them whenever you like, incurring a few turns of anarchy.

Border growth: you can't pay for it, just let your culture accumulate. You can out-culture rivals and nick their tiles (and even cities). A Great Artist can culture bomb a city and pop its borders fast.

Unit deployment: as many as you like in a singe tile. You can group units in a stack. They can do pathfinding. They'll ask for new orders if passing a hostile.

Combat: no ranged except for air units and guided missiles. If you attack, you'll both fight to the death, unless one side has (unreliable) Withdraw capability. (Mostly mounted and siege units). Strong emphasis on rock-paper-scissors: Spear kills Chariot, Chariot kills Axe, Axe kills Spear. Archery units are city and hilltop defenders, and upgrade to gunpowder units. Siege units inflict damage on multiple stacked units; use a few of them as disposable suicide attackers. Mounted units that attack and survive will Outflank and damage enemy siege units.

Sieges: Cities cannot fight. They improve the defence of units inside based on the city's cultural levels (think of this as a 'patriotism' effect) and buildings. Siege units can temporarily level defences.

Barbarians: can spawn in the field as well as in their settlements. Settlements cannot spawn within 2 tiles of a 'civilised' unit.

Great People: all except for Spies and Generals can bulb. Academies are made in cities, and it's really important to get one in the Capital. Great Generals are settled as instructors or attached to a unit as an XP boost and promotion unlocker.

Promotions: Drill gives first strikes, which basically improve chances of winning unhurt if you're at an advantage. Medic has a lv 3 version only available to Great Generals. It can stack with Woodsman III (on the same unit) for a super-healer. (Woodsman is only available to Gunpowder and Melee.)

Trade routes, city connections: automatically generated. You need Open Borders (Writing) for international routes. Buildings enhance them.

World Congress: replaced by two Wonders - the Apostolic Palace and United Nations. Both have a 'Win The Game' motion. AP is a religious in-club that presents all manner of dirty tricks, UN is more predictable. They can both be active concurrently.

ICBMs: you can build an SDI to shoot 3/4 of them down. Shorter ranged Tactical Nukes fly under the defences.

Internet: useless, do not bother

Happiness: no global issue, just local city-level. Monarchy, luxuries and some buildings sort it out. Micromanaging to prevent overpopulation is common.

Health: your cities produce smoke and poop. Without clean water, a varied diet and medical care, your population growth will be diminished by clouds of guff. Fill the world with smog and cut down the forests and climate change will turn your towns into deserts.

Upkeep: buildings are free but cities cost you. Each city makes every city a little more expensive, and distances & oceans really add it up. You can't burn your own cities, so if you're financially treading water don't march across Asia to settle some Iron. You can grant your overseas colonies semi-independence.

Conquest: if you have Feudalism, you can make a battered opponent Capitulate. They're your vassal, have no independent foreign policy, and add to your score. They can break out but the AI isn't competent enough to do it properly. Sometimes they'll beg to be your vassal. Saying yes will declare war on everyone at war with them.

Corporations: they're similar to religions. Work best in a wide empire with loads of resources. Foreign corporations will drain your economy; Banking and Communism provide civics that shut them down.

Tokugawa: the grumpy Japanese leader will not open his borders unless his attitude is at least +4. Gifting him Alphabet will often be enough.

Catherine: the capricious Russian leader is prepared to declare war on you even if she is Friendly.

Sitting Bull: this nasty neighbour will poison your water supply more than all your rivals put together.

 

[Suliz]

Thanks Lindsay, that is a lot of very specific information.

Sadly, I have hit a wall in my attempt to switch over to Civ 4. As far as I can tell, Mac's are ineligible for both the HOF and game of the month competitions. I do have a PC, but it is pretty old (plus, whenever I hook it up I am drawn to Heroes of Might and Magic 3 like a month to a flame.)

However, maybe I will try a couple of games and see if my enthusiasm is sufficient to switch computers for awhile.

 

[Pangaea]

Don't have a Mac myself, but the GOTM provide Mac-saves so you should be able to play those. Same with the HoF I would assume. You need a mod called BUFFY to play these types of games. It basically checks that you aren't doing anything naughty while playing, like reloading after unfortunate events.

 

[lindsay40k]

Mac user, myself. I have had a lot of difficulty in getting HOF stuff up and running. Working out how to do it is on my 2016 things-to-do list. PS I forgot to mention the most important thing:

Slavery: unlocked by being able to make chains. Intended by the developers as a last resort, it's a population-production converter that, as long as you have a Granary, don't overdo it, and are building things smaller than an aircraft carrier or Cristo Redentor, makes a food surplus way, way more productive than a manufacturing base. It pretty much remains viable until a global civil rights movement demands Emancipation.

Getting the hang of the Slavery pump is what draws a lot of players in to Civ 4. It's a compulsive cost-benefit system, if one can set aside morality and enter the spirit of the period.

 

[alex15]

I played almost Civ games (there is like 11 of them) i find Civ4 best. My first Civ games was Civ1 and Civ2.

What makes Civ4 special compare to Civ5? At Civ4 you can play Huge maps with 18+ civs on old pcs without waiting long "end turns" and Civ4 is best for roleplaying because in Civ4 you can build huge army with hundreds of unit, and control like 50-60 citys.

And it does mean that it takes much more time because you can Automate some citys or use building order for units/buildings in some of them.

Im not big fan of Civ5 but i suggest starting from both like playing Civ5 for an hour one day and than playing Civ4 for an hour another day.

 

[Ancientecks]

Check out Sulla's Willem of the Dutch series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm1CQxACekg

It's geared towards teaching new players/people who want to move up in difficulty. He goes into a lot of detail of whats going on and he's fun to watch.

 

[Lennier]

Mac user, myself. I have had a lot of difficulty in getting HOF stuff up and running.

I thought the HOF mod is a doo-based mod, and is therefore not compatible with Macs.

 

[Lennier]

Sorry, double post.

 

[s.bernbaum]

Thanks Lindsay, that is a lot of very specific information.

Sadly, I have hit a wall in my attempt to switch over to Civ 4. As far as I can tell, Mac's are ineligible for both the HOF and game of the month competitions. I do have a PC, but it is pretty old (plus, whenever I hook it up I am drawn to Heroes of Might and Magic 3 like a month to a flame.)

However, maybe I will try a couple of games and see if my enthusiasm is sufficient to switch computers for awhile.

Macs can play HOF games and GOTM games. You need to install MacBuffy. Have a look at the thread entitled "MacBuffy" in the Macintosh forum. You can also PM AlanH. He is the Mac Forum moderator and the Mac member of the HOF and GOTM staffs.