Why Civ V is more complex than Civ IV

[mrt144]

I can't believe someone said that happiness doesn't matter in Civ 4. It was one of the MOST important things to manage in the game because it was a cap on growth, commerce, and production.

 

[Celevin]

This is 100% wrong. Civ 4 has city maintenance based on distance-to-capital and number of cities. Civ 3 had corruption, as did Civ 1. I don't remember what Civilization 2 had. These were definitely effective checks on ridiculous expansion. It also influenced your choice in civics. You can't expand too fast early in Civ 4, or too far away from your capital, because it'll cripple your gold.

It's hard to take you seriously when you post arguments that are just flat-out, completely and unarguably WRONG.

City maintenance in Civ4 wasn't a problem at all. Seriously, there were so many ways around it that it made it a benefit to build a new city even if all it did was sit there and produce wealth. They weren't "effective checks" at all.

Civ3 was even worse.

 

[jihe]

Take for instance civics. Individual civics had little to no effect on how you actually played the game, unless maybe you wanted to pursue a very specific tactic, like building workshops all over the place, but beyond that they did nothing. The benefits from social policies are weighty and immediate.

Do you actually play civ 4? Civics have huge effects. Seriously you play the same way under slavery and caste? same way under bureaucracy and nationalism???

 

[mrt144]

City maintenance in Civ4 wasn't a problem at all. Seriously, there were so many ways around it that it made it a benefit to build a new city even if all it did was sit there and produce wealth. They weren't "effective checks" at all.

Civ3 was even worse.

Not true at all unless you were playing well below noble.

 

[jihe]

City maintenance in Civ4 wasn't a problem at all. Seriously, there were so many ways around it that it made it a benefit to build a new city even if all it did was sit there and produce wealth. They weren't "effective checks" at all.

Civ3 was even worse.

It cannot sit there and produce wealth until currency, which is a milestone for rexing. By the time you get to currency most land is settled anyway. Never played as Roman and collapsed under your own prat conquest?

 

[mrt144]

Do you actually play civ 4? Civics have huge effects. Seriously you play the same way under slavery and caste? same way under bureaucracy and nationalism???

And that you can just switch civics willy nilly without any planning. Caste system without workshops isn't maximizing the effectiveness of the civic at all.

 

[zonk]

I can't believe someone said that happiness doesn't matter in Civ 4. It was one of the MOST important things to manage in the game because it was a cap on growth, commerce, and production.

I really have to think - and I hate to generalize, but it's the only way I can see it - is that those who paid no attention to happiness and health were the quecha/axeman/horse rush types... If you play Civ for conquest, I could see that perspective -- because once you built your army, unhappiness could be ignored... If your stack(s) are running around killing everyone, whether you're suffering growth limits, production limits -- even commerce, most likely -- since you're looting from city capture and probably pillaging as you go, it probably didn't matter.

If you played more dovishly or even down the middle -- then I agree... It 'mattered' a great deal - it just wasn't a gamebreaker/fix it immediately or else.

Like I said earlier, too -- the revolutions mod included in AND made this supremely true. I always paid attention to happiness and tried to rectify it, but my first game with revolutions enabled, by turn 200 -- I had a partisan problem I just could not lick, TWO separate nations break off from me and I eventually got deposed and had to wait out an AI ruler.

 

[Vertico]

This is in response to the numerous polls and suggestions that Civ V is "dumbed down" or less complex than Civ IV. I do not mean to suggest that Civ V is perfect in its current state (it needs obvious bug fixes and ai improvements, probably a little building rebalancing also). What I do suggest, is that Civ V is certainly more complex in its basic mechanics than Civ IV. To wit:

Building maintenance- Civ IV had no building maintenance costs. This made the decision of what buildings to build, and where to build them far simpler, a step backwards in complexity from even Civ I and II. In IV you could spam every building everywhere in your empire, without regards to min/maxing or whether it would be worth it or not. Try that in Civ V, you will bankrupt your empire.

Now it is even simpler than in Civ IV - you don't need to built anything at all. In Civ IV, you would suffer being underdeveloped, here no problem - better to train another archer or horsemen Beside, every captured city, you can set as a puppet - so they will create what they want, when they want. That is a great simplification.

Combat- Stack combat was a gross oversimplification. Build some melee or gunpowder units, a bunch of seige, group together and click go-to button next to enemy capital. Not exactly rocket science. Now, in Civ V, one unit per tile is infinitely more complex. So complex, in fact, that the ai has not mastered it (one of the actually legitimate criticisms of Civ V). However, I appreciate the more rewarding and complex new mechanic, and look forward to vastly more exciting and complex multiplayer action, and single player games after ai improvements.

Yes and no. In Civ IV, it was not easy to capture a city - you usually needed to level down its defences first. Beside, every city taken usually mean some casualties. Now you have no casualties and with few units you can conquer the world.
The only change made is that "monster stacks" were replaced by "monster units" - so if fact it simplified everything even more. Just make 2 Horsemen and go and take half of the world - even playing against human player, as it seems horses incredibly well climb up the ladders when besieging cities.

Government- In Civilization 4, your choice of civics had zero long term repercussions. You could easily change Civics after a short period of anarchy, even that easily mitigated by golden ages or religious trait. While admittedly slightly less simple than the likes of Civ 2 (where you could run democracy, then pop into monarchy for a couple turns to declare and fight a war, then pop back into democracy) even Civ IV’s civics system is very simplistic. By contrast, in Civ V, you have to consider several things when adopting a social policy- the short term versus long term benefits not only of the current policy choice, but of all other policies farther down the tree. You really have to plan ahead with a grand strategy, making social policies in Civ V much more complex for the player than its predecessors.

Before, you were forced to think, which solution is best for you in a given time - now you don't need to thing - every your choice is good and you don't need to worry you chose something incorrectly, soon you will be able to choose the bonus you need.

Expansion- Prior civ games had no effective check on expansion. Founding an additional city was nearly always advisable, bigger was always better. In Civ V there is a very real cost to reckless expansionism. There are benefits too, and therin lies the essence of complexity. A larger empire will generate more hammers and gold, but it will be difficult to keep happy. Founding a city to gain an additional resource may help with happiness or military power, but detract from your ability to accumulate social policies. There are all kinds of tradeoffs, and the optimal strategy may very depending on your situation and what victory condition you are aiming at.

Not likely, because of maintenance costs such as distance to palace and number of cities. Now you can found a city of a different continent and it will act exactly the same as 3 hexes from capital. And happiness? Before it made a difference -because it damaged city production. How it just makes people to have less sex (shouldn't be opposite?)
To be honest I stopped paying attention to happiness - in fact it doesn't change anything. Even this -33% fight modifier can easily be levelled by super upgraded unit or just more units.

Happiness- Civ IV had the easiest and most simplistic happiness system in the series. Not only did your cities only have localized happiness, but they didn't even experience revolt or civil disorder, merely an unproductive citizen. You could effectively ignore all of those angry faces in Civ 4, until you got around to dealing with them. With Civ V global happiness, you ignore happiness at your peril. Reduced empire wide growth, lack of golden age accumulation, loss of rationalism science bonus, penalty to combat, etc. (I am aware of the existence "ignore happiness" strats, but these are mainly for specialized late game situations. Further, I believe they are something akin to an exploit which will be fixed by increasing the "very unhappy" penalty in future patches).

As above. I played a whole game with average happiness -15 and that didn't change anything for me. I was still able to conquer city after city and didn't bother about such details. In Civ IV, you had to look in every city, what are the reasons behind unhappiness as there could be different. Now, you don't need to bother - if you have enough puppet cities, you can be sure, some of them will finally build some colosseums, to solve the problem on the other side of the continent.
This is a simple approach

 

[MajKira]

I found my first great civ5 campaign rather simpler than civ4 and in the endoutcome more enjoyable
the worst thing was having only only nowadays lowended comp parts otherwise I would rather play it dx11 but screen has to support higher resolution too
so there would be much to buy first

in civ5 even troopmanagement is simpler than in civ4 and to get into game is easier than the more complicated civ4
and on prince level, which is stated in civ5 as standard level AI is not hard at all
in civ4 the prince level was harder to overcome for win

civ4 was too complex and civ5 is not complex, its more fun
so I dont think civ5 is more complex than civ4, the other way round

 

[TheDisco]

All these people beating on diety are just exploiting horseman rush on pangea, most likely small pangea at that. Congratulations you have proven there is a game imbalance/AI issue that will most likely be patched soon (there are already MANY mods available to fix this).

Play diety on standard or large continents and get a science victory or a culture victory or a diplomacy victory. How about on immortal or even emperor standard continent maps without doing the domination victory?

Keep saying how easy it is simply because there is a simple domination exploit. You rock!

 

[zonk]

All these people beating on diety are just exploiting horseman rush on pangea, most likely small pangea at that. Congratulations you have proven there is a game imbalance/AI issue that will most likely be patched soon (there are already MANY mods available to fix this).

Play diety on standard or large continents and get a science victory or a culture victory or a diplomacy victory. How about on immortal or even emperor standard continent maps without doing the domination victory?

Keep saying how easy it is simply because there is a simple domination exploit. You rock!

Actually - this is generally how I play... and I'm in the "V sucks club" (we have T-shirts now). I am most definitely not a warmonger and the "X rushes" have never been for me.

Diplomatic victories - on any level - are nothing more than gold hoarder games. I beat the AI on deity via diplomatic victory. Just hoard your gold, survive till the UN -- then buy off all the City States. Heck, with the patronage tree totally unlocked - you don't even really need all that much gold. Be sure to wait until the turn before the vote, though -- the 'balance' is that when the AI sees you've allied too many CSs, they all DoW on you and them. There's no coddling necessary -- CS I'd never spoken with or met any of their quests... just gave 'em 250 gold, and voila...

I ONLY play large maps, usually continents -- and in ~80 hours of play thus far, I have DoW on the AI exactly one time.

The problem isn't that you can rush dominate.

The problem is the game.

 

[TheDisco]

I ONLY play large maps, usually continents -- and in ~80 hours of play thus far, I have DoW on the AI exactly one time.

You don't play that way on diety and win without first steamrolling most of the civs down to a couple cities. What level are you playing on when you are getting a diplo victory on large continents without first whittling down the other civs cities?

 

[zonk]

You don't play that way on diety and win without first steamrolling most of the civs down to a couple cities. What level are you playing on when you are getting a diplo victory on large continents without first whittling down the other civs cities?

I steamroll the ones that attack me -- I didn't say I don't respond to DoWs, just that I don't go looking for a fight.

My diplo win was on large, continents, deity.... Started on the same continent with Monty. He came after right after I built the pyramids. Fortunately, I was allied with 2 militaristic CS - and the CS gift units plus my own original pikeman (upgraded via 2 ruins) were enough to flatten his army that was easily 6-7 times me. He wasted 5 jags alone fruitlessly coming after my pikeman with a terrain bonus on a forested hill - yes - there was definitely some luck, as the odds probably had me losing the last 1 or 2, but I didn't.

Steamrolled him once his army was gone, puppeted my way through the unhappines, focused on money making SPs in order later annex, then spent the rest of the game simply clicking next turn and occasionally buddying up to CS in our area.

Rome had actually steamrolled its much larger continent by the time I met them - and they were almost an era ahead - but my gold was fine, the AI cannot sail to save its life, and I had some luxuries that Rome wanted.

Research Treaties with ALL the other AIs until they went broke.

Didn't really bother with any buildings beyond those which the puppets built - though I did build wonders.

Once I got the UN -- Rome never DoWed me -- I simply sold everything I could, then, together with the patronage endtree (minimum 20 CS relations), allied every remaining CS.

 

[TheDisco]

I ONLY play large maps, usually continents -- and in ~80 hours of play thus far, I have DoW on the AI exactly one time.

Interesting you claim not to have DoWed when here is your post from another thread discussing your domination exploits. Credibility = ZERO when you are caught in a lie... And of course if you steamroll after they DoW thats no different. It is easy to get them to DoW on you end then steamroll...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9725146&postcount=51

----

Well, to be honest - the first deity domination took 2 tries... Initially, I always start as a wonder seeker (masonry - calendar - philosophy). This went horribly wrong, as I was stuck on a continent with Monty and Bismark - and they both DoWed me the turn after I finished the pyramids - and given my wonder focus, I was relatively easy pickings.

I liked the map, though - so I restarted and instead, went immediately for all military. This actually worked out perfectly -- Bismark actually built the pyramids AND stonehenge, while Monty built the lighthouse for some reason. I took them out one at a time, and it was pretty much clear sailing.... I puppeted their cities to start, annexing only when happiness allowed. By the end of medieval - I controlled the best continent and had my choice of 8-10 CS allies to pick and choose from.

From there, it was just a matter of working through the "unit on every tile" AI approach, which really just involved a lot of careful naval positioning.... I had a tech lead by the time I attacked (Research Treaty exploit), so it was relatively easy to get through the spam with superior units (thank YOU, CS militaristic allies). I also got rather lucky with an archipelago chain that had 3 scattered ruins -- each of which popped techs (techs I had largely bypassed - I guess in retrospect, getting a 3 turn tech isn't really that big of a deal).

 

[mrt144]

Actually - this is generally how I play... and I'm in the "V sucks club" (we have T-shirts now). I am most definitely not a warmonger and the "X rushes" have never been for me.

Diplomatic victories - on any level - are nothing more than gold hoarder games. I beat the AI on deity via diplomatic victory. Just hoard your gold, survive till the UN -- then buy off all the City States. Heck, with the patronage tree totally unlocked - you don't even really need all that much gold. Be sure to wait until the turn before the vote, though -- the 'balance' is that when the AI sees you've allied too many CSs, they all DoW on you and them. There's no coddling necessary -- CS I'd never spoken with or met any of their quests... just gave 'em 250 gold, and voila...

I ONLY play large maps, usually continents -- and in ~80 hours of play thus far, I have DoW on the AI exactly one time.

The problem isn't that you can rush dominate.

The problem is the game.

This is how I've been playing; Immortal, Continents and relatively peaceful and it's been kind of interesting that I'm more intrigued with what went wrong design wise rather than playing the game. Civ 4 I usually played peaceful games and loved going into the modern era and never had any house rules like not abusing certain exploits.

 

[Vertico]

All these people beating on diety are just exploiting horseman rush on pangea, most likely small pangea at that. Congratulations you have proven there is a game imbalance/AI issue that will most likely be patched soon (there are already MANY mods available to fix this).

Play diety on standard or large continents and get a science victory or a culture victory or a diplomacy victory. How about on immortal or even emperor standard continent maps without doing the domination victory?

Keep saying how easy it is simply because there is a simple domination exploit. You rock!

I think you misplaced word "simple" and "easy".
Civ 5 is very simple, but not everything is easy.

Besides, you don't necessarily need horsemen - archers and swordsmen will be good enough. The point is you don't need a siege weapon to easily take a city, especially that with city walls.

 

[mrt144]

Interesting you claim not to have DoWed when here is your post from another thread discussing your domination exploits. Credibility = ZERO when you are caught in a lie... And of course if you steamroll after they DoW thats no different. It is easy to get them to DoW on you end then steamroll...

So you're telling him he needs to institute a house rule on diety that he doesn't counter attack the AI? Oh CMON.

 

[TheDisco]

And do those complaining about the rush exploits claim that Civ4, Civ3, Civ2, and Civ didn't have any rush exploits? Just curious because I seemed to be able to rush victory in those versions as well...

 

[TheDisco]

So you're telling him he needs to institute a house rule on diety that he doesn't counter attack the AI? Oh CMON.

What I'm saying is the game just came out, and there are some rush exploits and AI issues. They are known by EVERYBODY and will be patched. So what I am saying is don't ignore the parts of the game are working and just focus on exploiting the current imbalances. That cannot possibly be fun or challenging or impressive in the least...

And yes in recent games I have implemented my own house rule that I only defend from attacks, I don't counterattack. This way I get to see how the rest of the game and victory conditions work. I find this more fun then constanty rushing to win. Yeah!

 

[charon2112]

And do those complaining about the rush exploits claim that Civ4, Civ3, Civ2, and Civ didn't have any rush exploits? Just curious because I seemed to be able to rush victory in those versions as well...

No, they all had rush exploits. The point is that this isn't exclusive to V and shouldn't be used as an excuse for Civ V being a bad game.