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

[user746383]

I had a great time with IV (playing it all the way up to when the download started for V). I played V for a couple weeks, getting most of the achievements - including winning on diety, something I've never even come close to doing on IV - and found myself completely bored like most of you.

That said, I still think that IV is a masterpiece of a game and I don't feel like I'm missing anything by playing it instead of V. I've still got tons of learn to master it, there are tons of fun mods out there (I definitely need to revisit FFH), and I still feel like there are new strategies and approaches out there waiting to be discovered.

 

[kudlaty]

I went back and I love Civ IV even more right now!

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I went so far as to remove the Lua development environment, and the "Unprecedented Modding Tools! (TM - I'm sure )" that came with Civ5. I was thinking of doing some modding for it. That will never happen from me, and I don't even know if the rest of the BUG team is even interested in modding Civ5, so I'm uncertain if there will ever be a BAT-like Mod for it. It would be nice, but if it does, it will be without my involvement. I'm going to continue refining BAT for Civ4 for those of us who are disappointed castaways.

My feeling is, if I can't stay awake to play Civ5, how can I stay awake to mod it?

 

[Countmonte8242]

My feeling is, if I can't stay awake to play Civ5, how can I stay awake to mod it?

Lol, such a funny and sad point at the same time. Literally the first ever Civ game that didn't have the long term power to keep me up late into the night with one more turn.

 

[LeHam]

I feel like Civ V was good in its own way, but failed in some respects.

Good:

1) The Social Policy Tree. I love this, because it makes me feel like I'm really running an empire. I never actually "see" how it affects my society but I can imagine how society changes. Now I actually get to create a socialist society instead of enacting "state property" or some other civic.

2) Graphics are an improvement over the 3D but incredibly ugly graphics of Civ IV.

3) The Modbuddy and worldbuilder are great for people like me who have trouble with modding. My one complaint is that I can't zoom out to see the whole map in the Worldbuilder.

Bad:

1) HORRIBLE Diplomacy system. I feel like it would have been a lot better to keep the one Civ IV had . Especially atrocious is the AI which almost always declares war on you the moment you start settling too close to them. I can understand the modifier "Our close border spark tensions" in Civ IV, but COME ON . . . Also Open Borders lasts for only 45 turns, so you have to keep renewing it--a real pain in the putt.

2) Production is WAY too slow compared to research. I have cities at 1600 AD that have barely any buildings in them because it takes wayyy to long to build them. Sure I can build a windmill to increase production by 15%, but that's nothing compared to how long the Windmill itself costs to produce. Mods have been able to fix this to an extent, but really it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place.

3) The world doesn't fill up properly. By the Modern Age even on Huge Maps the world should be almost completely filled up.

4) The game runs too slowly. This may be due in part to the graphics, but I would really like the game to not slow down and crash on Huge maps once the Modern Age begins. There are other games like GalCiv II that are comparable to Civ V yet they run just fine on my computer.

So, yes, Civ V does have a few admirable qualities but overall it's lacking compared to Civ IV. But we will see what Firaxis is able to do with it.

EDIT: I should mention my only beef with the Social Policy system is the fact that in order to actually get anywhere with it you have to not expand a lot which is not fun. Also, I can't change my policies when I'm done with them, and use the ones I got rid of to buy myself some others.

However, I should add that Civ V's hexagonal tiles are VASTLY superior to Civ IV's square tiles.

 

[Bloodstone]

My feeling is, if I can't stay awake to play Civ5, how can I stay awake to mod it?

Lemon,
And there are those of us who can't have the latest and greatest machine that will always be indebted to you and the rest of the awesome Mod Community that makes IV the Black Albumof it's day

A million thanks to you all!

 

[Lemon Merchant]

Lemon,
And there are those of us who can't have the latest and greatest machine that will always be indebted to you and the rest of the awesome Mod Community that makes IV the Black Albumof it's day

A million thanks to you all!

It doesn't matter how wonderful your machine is. If you find the game dull and un-fun, no amount of horsepower will help. I have an absolute byte molester, and my machine chokes on Civ5. I can't imagine how painful it would be on my dual core laptop.

And you're right. There are a whole bunch of fantastic mods out there for Civ4/BTS. I'm still hoping that maybe the modding community can make something out of the mess that Firaxis has wrought with 5, but I'm skeptical that even with all of those efforts, the game will still be boring. I had high hopes, too.

 

[Dirk1302]

Ftm i'm done with ciV. I'm not back as of yet but my next civ game is 99% more likely to be a deity civ4 game with better AI (never tried that) than any further ciV nonsense atm.

 

[PushM]

Since Civ5 forum closes threads and calls for audience to be mature, I'm moving back here Most of us here a pretty mature. I belive if they make a poll, the average age will be 30 something. When we say the game sucks, it simply means it does. There's no teenager's maximalism behind it.

Yes, Civ5 is a dud. Yes, 50 bucks wasted. I'm thinking of sending the disk back to Firaxis. This is the lowest rating of all games I've played. Strategy or not. And yes, like everyone else saying the game is simply boring.

To the defenders of Civ5: I didn't need to wait for the expansion packs or patches to like Civ4. I loved it right out of the box. Game kept me occupied for MONTHS. Frankly, looking back, i don't recall any games, strategy or not, keeping me busy for that long. Not WoW, not Halo, nothing even close.

 

[ezwip]

I love Civ IV. Not a fan of V.

 

[Morningcalm]

Yeap, I'm finding Civ 4 has many more interesting decisions per turn, infrastructure makes more sense and is less punishing, diplomacy more intricate and rewarding (Cyrus LIKES me even though he declared war on me many years ago! Such friendship among nations is heartening!)....oh yes, and it's much, much more stable.

At the moment I'm finding Civ 4 a tricky game to master, which I also like. In Civ 5 I steamroll everyone and click "End Turn". While waiting for it to take effect (i.e. actually get to the next turn), I read a book.

 

[Asterix Rage]

Civ 0.5 is a joke. A bad joke

Back to Civ4 +Mods of course

 

[Zydor]

Civ V does well what its aimed at - the mass market, its not made for a traditional Civ Gamer. That makes me angry as I have, like many others, loyally shelled out cash pre-release to support a phenominal Franchise - up to that point .....

Then they used that cash to release this mass market pap. "Caviat Emptor" I guess. Unless they make drastic changes, which I highly doubt they intend to, its over .... sad.

Sooo - on a brighter note, back to Civ IV as an interim until I find a Strat game to add to it, and I am now digging into the Civ IV mod world, as I used to stay mainstream, so I guess there is a lot of variety lurking out there curtesy of modders that I am about to discover. Lets hope so ...

Regards
Zy

 

[AFS]

Today I gave Civ V another shot... again... but nah, is way too boring. I really want to like the game but simply I can't.

Too bad I don't have the time to get back to Civ IV, I really want to play it.

However, I should add that Civ V's hexagonal tiles are VASTLY superior to Civ IV's square tiles.

In my opinion the hexes didn't make a damn difference.

 

[gilmore606]

Today I gave Civ V another shot... again... but nah, is way too boring. I really want to like the game but simply I can't.

Too bad I don't have the time to get back to Civ IV, I really want to play it.



In my opinion the hexes didn't make a damn difference.

In theory hexes make a lot more sense.

In practice...I really enjoy the little charge of "me so smart!" when I move my scout diagonally to reveal some extra fog.

 

[CivFanaticMan]

waiting for Fraxis to fix Civ 5. Then I might buy it. There is still so much that needs to be added though for it to be sold to me. Civ4 and Starcraft 2 will be my games until then. Maybe the price will even drop a bit.

 

[Ronb65]

Played Civ V for a few weeks, got a new laptop and so far haven't bothered installing it. I did decide not to carry any civ IV stats over either, so I'm currently having fun trying for all the trophies again in fall from heaven. soooooo much better.

anyone wanna buy my civ v? Oh no, we can't sell it, can we? so much for the second-hand market and recycling.

 

[Aristophanes]

Civ5 is like Oprah- sluggish, bloated and unmarried to me. So I've meandered back to civ4- sexy slinky deadly, the couger of PC gaming

 

[CivFanaticMan]

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.

Your right, the 1UPT needs to be rethought. But I actually somewhat like the Social Policies system. It gives you a bigger use for culture other than expanding borders or having great people. My main problem with SP's is that it isn't flexible and they seam linear in the sense that you pick them based upon your victory condition, and not your current situation.

City starts are great i think. Yes, i agree they are very formulaic and i would rather have them be more like mini civs with a proper diplo screen, but they create something to think about. They should be changed a bit though.

My main problem with Civ5 is the AI is out to win. In previous civ games the AI seemed to be there as a obstacle and something to aid you. The AI in previous civ games seemed to not have its goal be to win, but to survive. I think the old AI system worked better because the AI doesn't backstab and take advantage of you all the time. A AI that wants to win plays like a human, you can never trust them. In Civ4 i could trust my allies.

Another problem is happiness. Civ4 got it right, expanding took money. In civ5 expanding takes happiness.(?). I really think that the old economy system should be brought back. It seems like I always will have to build colosseums if i want to expand.

To me it seems like Fraxis got it wrong. They made a game where winning is the only way to get that high. When I play civ winning is usually a secondary thing. I play civ to have a good time playing the game, not winning.

 

[Red Dwarf Devil]

Back to Civ 4, BTS with LOR mod, after a week of Civ 5 just could not take it anymore.

The catch phase " Just one more turn" took a whole new meaning while playing 5.

Current game on BTS, (LOR) is what I was expecting out of the box of 5.


My biggest gripe was after reading all the hype from testers, reviews and mags and then playing it, Man they must have been on some serious drugs, or drunk.