Who has come back to Civ IV after playing Civ V?

[dhaniell]

I rediscovered Civ IV after testing V which got uninstalled after 2 days, and although I've played it to death and always held it as one of my favourite games it is now I fully realize just how perfect IV is. The bad thing is that I have played it to death.

The good thing is that Civ have a fantastic modding community with a few talented induviduals who have done some truly remarkable achivements that makes V obsolete for me.

 

[Ataxerxes]

I rediscovered Civ IV after testing V which got uninstalled after 2 days, and although I've played it to death and always held it as one of my favourite games it is now I fully realize just how perfect IV is. The bad thing is that I have played it to death.

The good thing is that Civ have a fantastic modding community with a few talented induviduals who have done some truly remarkable achivements that makes V obsolete for me.

I agree. We owe thanks to the modders who keep CivIV from being boring by just one game type. And BUG, BAT, etc.

Shows the value of individuals. Some people here design a mod that's better than what Firaxis did with a large company (CivV).

 

[Countmonte8242]

I will get back to Civ IV when I eventually feel like Civing again. V was just such a huuuuge disappointment. I did play a game of Civ 2 since I stopped playing 5 though lol, and yes it was more fun.

I haven't played a game of 5 in over a month now (maybe played it near 100 hours), but lets see if I can reiterate the problems I had with it:

-1 UPT makes things too tedious, slows the game down too much
-Really dislike global happiness as an artificial means of curtailing expansion (and any mass happiness-building strategies that leads to)
-Resources giving smaller bonuses stinks, makes the game less interesting (was going to mod this or look into mods, but I decided it just wasn't worth it)
-Great people more one-dimensional (not worth settling)
-Removal of sliders made the game less fun to me, not more. I don't get the need, it seems like a change made just for the sake of having a change.
-Embarkation as implemented is horrible all the way around. Makes exploring islands too easy early on, and protecting valuable embarked units is too difficult since the defenders can't stack on them.
-Hate the way the happiness system encourages you to grow your empire.
-Trade-agreements are overpowered, make gold much more powerful than lightbulbs, make research go too fast overall.
-Don't really care much for cities defending themselves. I prefer the tried and true having to post troops in a city.
-I miss the "first milestone" bonuses. First to lib, first around the world, first to econ, etc.
-Diplomacy stinks
-Overall the game just isn't interesting, lacks life. All those improved graphics did nothing to make the gameplay feel more alive.

Just too many changes that seem to be there for the sake of making changes, that don't make the game more fun but less.

 

[Mazer Rackham]

This is the second time I've come back to BtS, and overall it is so much more fun than V. I think it comes down to the fact that there are actually decisions to make in BtS. Deciding where and when to settle, who to ally with (yes, you can actually make allies in BtS!), your tech order, slider position, civics, etc. There just isn't enough to do in V. Build times are so slow and if I'm not in war or preparing for war, I'm bored. I put in about 200 hours and mostly used the CCMAT mod which made things more bearable, but it's just not a good game yet.

I didn't get BtS until about 6 months ago, so I haven't played as much as most. I still find that I have a hard time putting up the laptop at night and my thoughts often wander to my current game situation at work or other times during the day. I never had that with V - again, I think it's the lack of decisions available to you.

There are a few things I like in V - the hexes and 1upt make combat more fun and army management less tedious in my opinion. In BtS, I've sometimes dreaded late conflicts because of all the unit / city management. City States are ok. I like air warfare.

I think that's about it on the positives, though. Diplomacy is so awful and ruins the immersion experience for me. The lame bonuses for resources mean there is no real advantage to settling one tile over another. Arguably the best long-term strategy is ICS which makes the game even more boring. Ugh. There are just numerous problems. I agree with the previous poster also in missing excitement in being the 1st to certain techs and the wonders in V for the most part aren't very wonderful for how long they take to build.

I have hope for V and will keep playing occasionally, but I'm glad I still haven't warn out my copy of BtS yet because it is clearly the superior game right now.

 

[Castimirr]

I don't really belong in this thread, having never played 5. As details started being released, the more I heard, the less interested I became. I still haven't heard anything that really makes me want to try it. I've only recently discovered FFHII and it's delicious enough I don't really see me needing a new game any time soon. The work the modding community has done for IV is really amazing. Still, I'm going to keep one eye on 5. If it looks like they've worked out the issues with it, I'll give it a spin, but for now, I don't see a reason.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I agree. We owe thanks to the modders who keep CivIV from being boring by just one game type. And BUG, BAT, etc.

Shows the value of individuals. Some people here design a mod that's better than what Firaxis did with a large company (CivV).

EmperorFool for President in 2012!!

 

[Vonreuter]

Me, me, me!

I tried the demo for Civ5 and it just didn't have that effect on me. I was hitting End Turn waiting for something interesting to happen. In CivIV I'm constantly thinking: "Wow, one/two/three more turn(s) and I'll get this or that technology, capture this or that city or see this or that resource."

In Civ5... Bleh. It felt like a mobile game I could play on my cell phone.

 

[Leifmk]

I never left, there are way too many mods and so on that I haven't properly explored yet.

I've not given up on Civ5, far from it; it's an interesting variation on the Civ series and with time (expansions, patches, mods) it may yet become every bit as great as Civ4/BTS. Although I suspect it's more likely that we'll see Civ6 come along in a few years and do to Civ5 what Civ4 did to Civ3.

 

[man-erg]

Me too! Although to be fair, I haven't played much Civ4 since giving up on Civ5 after around 30 or 40 hours. Got hooked on the cheapo re-releases of Planescape Torment and Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 that all together still cost less than Civ5 and are so much better value for money. They alone will probably cover my next 6 months gaming - and with NWN Platinum, MOO2 also in the pipleline, why waste time with the seriously dodgy Civ5? At some point my destiny will be to return to Civ4, though.

I have wanted to like Civ5, most of the time spent playing the game was not spent actually enjpying it. But *waiting* for the enjoyment that might happen soon, maybe in a few turns or so. It never happened.

Off the top of my head, some specific annoyances with Civ5:
Tedious micromanagement, totally unrealistic scale and embarrasingly uber-simple wargame attempt of 1upt.

City states. What were they thinking? If these really do add any interesting strategic challenges to the game, then that naked emperor really was wearing the finest clothes ever seen They are housekeeping chore and are too easily exploitable.

Pretty graphics, but worse at conveying the imortant information

Return of ICS as the most efficient strategy. Yukk.

The interface. Again, it looks nice, but it's not effective. Too many clicks and moves from one corner of the screen to the other to achieve basic commands. Removal of progress graphs etc etc

The agonisingly slow speed of turns. Spend probably 10-20% of every game waiting for the UI to respond. With time being so valuable, that is not acceptable.

Invisible diplomacy. Seems that the AI's attitide is just random.

In general, it looks like Civ5 has been "radically consolized", similar to Fallout, The Elder Scrolls etc. The designers will never openly admit it, and those examples easily outsold the previous "better crafted" releases. So it appears good for business. Lucky for us that Civ4 is so deep that even after 4 or 5 years, I still find it enjoyable to play. And with there being so many tried, tested, patched and modded old classics cheaply available, my only regret is that I paid in advance for Civ5, trusting the 'brand name' of Civ. Never again.

 

[Uberskurk]

Davor,
which mods are you playing?

My story is exactly the same as yours described in your first post, except that im back to playing bts and not mods.
Everyone says to play Rise of mankind (havent tried yet) , but I hate huge maps and believe less is sometimes more.

So could you name some of these wonderful mods for me?

 

[Aristos]

Coming back???

I never left.

And yes, I tried that horrible Shafer's creature... the very definition of mediocrity in all it's "glory".

 

[Aristos]

I agree. We owe thanks to the modders who keep CivIV from being boring by just one game type. And BUG, BAT, etc.

Shows the value of individuals. Some people here design a mod that's better than what Firaxis did with a large company (CivV).

Completely true. They do it on their own time, and without pay, and they do it FAR BETTER than the new clowns led by Shafer.

In my opinion, if that boy had some dignity, he should have resigned by now from the shame. Yes, he should be ashamed that modders without pay make better products than his troop.

So, yes: EF for President!

And: Shafer, resign!!!!

 

[phungus420]

Shafer was a modder, and CivV has been getting great reviews, especially from folks new to the series. I haven't tried it yet, and probably wol't until after the expansion pack and it's source code is released, as I plan on getting directly into actually moding in new concepts directly into the game core (as can be done now with BtS). Also the AI is going to be crappy as hell at this stage, it should significantly improve with the release of the expansion pack and source code as we modders can begin looking at and improving the AI code. This is why the AI for BtS is so good, Firaxis hired the modder here on CivFanatics to redo the AI code, utilizing most of his code from his mod for Warlords.

Basically CivV is doing fine, you may not like it, but it's doing fine from the Company's perspective, and also many new fans of the serries. It's also in an early stage, BtS, especially with it's mods have simply had tens of thousands of extra man hours and development time put into it, comparing CivV now doesn't make sense, you'd need to compare it to Vanilla CivIV right after the first patch (at which stage for CivIV there were many of the same complaints directed against it, as are being levied now against CivV).

 

[phungus420]

Davor,
which mods are you playing?

My story is exactly the same as yours described in your first post, except that im back to playing bts and not mods.
Everyone says to play Rise of mankind (haven't tried yet) , but I hate huge maps and believe less is sometimes more.

So could you name some of these wonderful mods for me?

Try Legends of Revolution, it's an easy to use mod that is built much like an expansion pack. I'm not just recommending it because it's my mod, it really is exactly what you are looking for. To this day LoR is the only mod with a 3D title screen, and this type of attention to detail goes through the whole mod, every new unit makes sense and helps the flow of the game (like Ironclad cruisers so you don't go from 16th century wooden ships to WWII destroyers as in base BtS), and has a purpose. It really is the same amount of new content as BtS added to Vanilla civ; it doesn't go overboard with more stuff at all. The Rise of Mankind mod you mention is a good mod, don't get me wrong, but it's philosophy is completely different, as it literally adds 100s of new units and techs, and dozens of new mod components, so it's entirely a mega mod design.

 

[Bloodstone]

I think a big part of this picture boils down to Companies trying to reach a different (read as younger) client base. We have seen major moves in most gaming genre's over the last several years where the depth of PC games have been "dumbed down" so to speak to reach the Xbox and PS crowd. We've seen it with other Sid games, i.e. Railroad Tycoon, also with games like Madden and Master of Orion.

I think ultimately they know that they can put out a base model, and that some rather ingenious folks with strong PC skills will go pretty far in making the product into something the rest of us truly enjoy. Take a look at Madden Football. It was a PC stalwart for the better part of 20 years, and then all of a sudden in 2008 they decided that they just weren't going to make PC versions anymore. All of the PC fans of my day were lucky to have a very strong modding community that picked up the pieces and have kept the game alive for the PC crowd.

Long story short. As we get older, they are going to continue to cater to a younger base, and if they can keep putting out a basic model and let creative individuals clean it up and make it better that's just the marketing they are going to pursue. Doesn't make it happy, but it's what we have. Me, as I did with IV, I'll let V roll around through it's first expansion before I go out and start spending silly money on new equipment just to play a new game. And I'll continue to say many thanks to the incredible community here that has turned this into one of the most playable games of all time, outside of the Baldur's Gate Series, this is truly #1 all time.

 

[man-erg]

Shafer was a modder, and CivV has been getting great reviews, especially from folks new to the series.

This is true. I don't think Shafer is directly responsible for the CiV as released. I'm a developer too and generally developers/designers want their creations to be perfect. The problem is that finances are limited and the money owners will not allow infinite time to develop a project to anywhere near perfection. Basically, the devs will be well aware of the failings, they will have had to cut loads of their original ideas out to make the release date. They will also be forbidden from talking publicly of those failings until it is safe to do so and this is all ancient history many years from now.

Basically CivV is doing fine, you may not like it, but it's doing fine from the Company's perspective, and also many new fans of the serries. It's also in an early stage, BtS, especially with it's mods have simply had tens of thousands of extra man hours and development time put into it, comparing CivV now doesn't make sense, you'd need to compare it to Vanilla CivIV right after the first patch (at which stage for CivIV there were many of the same complaints directed against it, as are being levied now against CivV).

Yes, it has just had a dramatic marketing shift, not 2nd rate development. And this shift is probably going to win it a sack load of awards going for 2010. It is dismaying to me, that putting so much effort into appearance and so little into the substance is what the market wants. Still, back to this topic, many of us have not finished with Civ4 yet! If anything 5, may have created renewed interest in 4.

I disagree that 4 on release had the *same* complaints as 5. It had many complaints, but these were mostly performance related issues that were soon patched. The fundamental design was not criticised anywhere near as much as 5.

I'm intrigued by how you people react to Civ4, after a while trying 5. For me, what first surprised me was just how *fast* it plays - and how much more enjoyable this is! Turns going like lightening compared to 5, where even at the start and on a reasonable PC, it's a grind. Also, how much better the interface is for 4, how clear the information is displayed and is easily accessable. It was only be going back to 4, that I really realised how "unclear" the city screen is in 5. And this is such a vital part of the game.

Also, having to actually make research 'decisions'. In 5, there's usually 3 or 4 items at most and they pretty much select themselves. Back to 4, there could be over 10, and I like having to weigh each one up and ponder the different direction it will take my civ. In 5, there appears to be none of these choices, it's more 'on rails'.

 

[Ataxerxes]

From discussions on this thread, I'm a pessimist about improvement. Consistent with the fact that I'm older.

Fanatics like CivIV for it's complexity, variety and decision-making. But the Civ series, more and more, will be trying to reach a mass market with emphasis on graphics and a simpler game.

My only addition to this discussion is: with the current trends, I don't have high hopes for CivV improving to anything near CivIV and I have no hope for CivVI.

I really do appreciate the independent work done and the reviewers here who saved me $50 and 100 hours of frustration.

Then again, I like the film noirs from the 40's and 50's (before my time, I'm not THAT old) better than 90% of today's movies, so I'm probably a minority member in a lot of my views. But then, a lot of the fanatics are minority members here who are discriminated against by Firaxis.

 

[Eskel]

I hope there will be improvement.
First of all, devs want to make money from their product, and surely are not happy when customers aren't.

I think they have perceived Civ4 as a game simpler nad more streamlined than its predecessors (e.g. ranged combat, corruption, population cost for units). Then, I guess they thought: if going towards playability stands behind that great success of Civ4, then let's repeat it with Civ5.
So , they "streamlined" their game, sacrificing many core rules to the idea. Forgetting in the meanwhile, that these ideas could be canonical and were the very reason of Civ games popularity.
In other words, its like changing chess rules, because pawn moves are too limited...

I suppose that forum rant and whining won't change dev's minds. However, when they'll se negative impact on sales, it is quite probable that appropriate steps will be taken.
If not in Civ5 expacks, then maybe in Civ6.

 

[cman2010]

While that may be one criticism, I don't think it's the biggest criticism. I think the problem with Civ5 is that they've changed things in a way that makes the game worse rather than better.

To give a couple of examples:

1. The one-unit-per-tile rule. That was something that I think many civ4 people - including myself had been asking for for a long time, so superficially it was to be welcomed. But then when Civ5 actually arrived it turned out that Firaxis had apparently not thought through how to implement the change. I'm sure for example that almost noone who asked for that change intended that you'd be prevented from improving a tile because a civ you've got open borders with has a unit there. Or that Firaxis wouldn't make the effort to program an AI intelligent enough to fight with the new rules. If Firaxis had considered these types of issues I imagine Civ5 wouldn't have been so unpopular.

2. The new way of changing 'civics' with culture seems nonsensical. In Civ4 it worked quite well, and - importantly - it was slightly realistic. It made some sense that you couldn't swap to a new civic until you'd discovered the knowledge for it. In Civ5 they've changed from a system that worked to a new system that is no better, and is actually less realistic to boot: How can the amount of culture you've acquired so fundamentally determine which civics you can use? It makes almost no sense. So why make the change?

3. City states. Great innovative idea. But ruined by the fact that it's so formulaic. For example, you give the state a prescribed amount of gold, you get certain benefits for a fixed number of turns. The whole dealing with city states thing is not much more than manipulating a simple (and boring) mathematical formula. Admitted parts of Civ4 are a little formulaic but -on the whole - nowhere near that bad.

Those are the kinds of things that put me off, and I get the impression from the forums I'm not in a minority

If I was to summarize, I'd say that the problem with Civ5 isn't so much that they've changed Civ4, it's that they've changed things that there was no need to change And even where there was a need to change something, they didn't think it through. Civ4, when it was released, gave the impression that Civ had been changed to make it better. To me, Civ5 gives the impression that they've changed Civ for no other reason than for the sake of changing things.

Contrast with Civ4 where they changed loads of things from Civ3, but in almost every case, you could see a good reason why the new system was better: More realistic, more exciting or subtle gameplay, etc.

This is one of the things that bothers me most about civ 5, in civ 3 if I got a diplo victory I felt like I had to realy work for it the whole game, with civ 5 its just give city states gold or do a easy quest for them ex kill barbs, or hookup a road and bam I got them. Gold is so easy to come by in civ 5 that this makes diplo victory one of the easyest victorys in the game when it used to be alot of work.

 

[MSGT John Drew]

I really liked the hexification, though. Just that. I've always wondered why the Civ series opted for square grids.

I'm having the same symptoms as most of you guys - reading the CiV forums much more than actual CiV time; wanting to express an unnamed frustration; disbelieving what CiVfans see in it; and wishing all of them would just wake up and see it for what it really is. I'm torn between wanting to see it fail big, or giving it a second chance.

Back on BTS for me as well.