Why I probably won't buy Civ V.

[Akkon888]

Ah not the realism stuff again...

I like the one unit per tile idea for the sole reason that it is like chess. You have your specialized pieces, you conquer the opponent, and you protect your king (a city). I do not enjoy amassing a great pile of units. If the fewer units we have in Civ5 are more important, then it will be a game I enjoy.

 

[Grawss]

Hopefully there is a trial version. The features look amazing and I love the stack of doom removal, but these are all incredibly risky and could easily make the game boring.

I imagine you'll be allowed something like two to three units per city, so if you have five cities you can have fifteen units. It makes sense, considering a single city civilization isn't about to have 20,000 warriors. They might have a couple thousand, depending on the size of the city. Maybe it will be based on population?

 

[weltraeumer]

Hopefully there is a trial version. The features look amazing and I love the stack of doom removal, but these are all incredibly risky and could easily make the game boring.

I imagine you'll be allowed something like two to three units per city, so if you have five cities you can have fifteen units. It makes sense, considering a single city civilization isn't about to have 20,000 warriors. They might have a couple thousand, depending on the size of the city. Maybe it will be based on population?

difficult to find a logic behind troop limits. based on population sounds reasonable, but with late empires and 50 million people, what does this mean? maybe it´s based on food production, every unit takes away one bread? so there´s a top limit where cities can´t grow anymore even starve if you´re in trouble. You would have to find a balance between military size and economic growth.
Or maybe it depends on the buildings: barracks +1 units, granary +1, harbor +2 sea units, airport +3,....
Or it´s just abstract, every city in ancient times can support 2 units, in medevial times 4, modern times 8,...
Or as we heard resource based, every corn, sheep, cow can support 2 warriors/archers; every copper can support 2 spearman/axemen; ...

I guess I like the last one best. you don´t fight for cities anymore, you fight for resources... capturing or losing a resource would deal quite a big blow

 

[Dale]

No offense intended by this thread. I'm sure Civ V will be a great game, will sell a million copies in its first month, then expansions will follow along with Civ VI. For me, there is nothing I find in Civ IV that warrants a switch.

Some things in Civ III (which I also loved) that I couldn't stand:
1. Minimum research of 4 turns.
2. Losing research of an unfinished tech when switching techs to research.
3. Useless corruption filled cities. (What's the point of expanding if your city is useless?)

All of these were fixed or changed in Civ IV, making the game so much better.

Civ IV skeptical changes which grew on me.

1. Customized governments. (I liked the preset governments from Civ III but grew to like the choices in government aspects in Civ IV.)
2. Attack/Defense numbers in Civ III removed. (Unit promotion made this an easy aspect to accept.)

Civ IV major changes that I love.

1. Religion (Didn't do much but don't take it away.)
2. Espionage (Didn't use it much but glad it's there. Same for Spies.)
3. Multiple Tile improves. (Much better than just Farm or Mine.)
4. Superfluous resources. (Hey, I like meticulous details.)
5. Unit promotions. (One swordsman can be different from the next.)

As for graphics/sound and eye candy, if it doesn't change the way the game is played then what's the point.

Conclusion: Civ IV had everything I want in a TBS game. Everything was fixed that I hated in Civ III and improved in Civ IV. There is actually nothing about Civ IV that I do not like. Taking anything from a game other than something that made the game less fun is a big no, no for me. (Like when the last patch of Civ III removed the radio tech. Why? What's the point?) Removing corruption: Good. Removing religion or another added aspect of the game which made not difference: Bad. As I said, I like meticulous details.

Good luck to Civ V and hope it is a huge success. As for me. I am perfectly content with Civ IV.

Good luck with Civ4, it's a very enjoyable game.

If you do make the switch to Civ5, buzz me and we'll have a game.

 

[Gliese 581]

I love cIV but I think it definitely has some issues.

The AI could be improved, it gets tedious fighting against ridiculous handicaps and still coming out on top more often than not due to exploiting the AI.

The endgame still suffers from micro-hell, especially domination victories. This has been true of all civ games for me, perhaps with fewer units and more interesting combat overall ciV will remedy this to an extent.

Various mechanics could be significantly improved like vassals, religion, espionage.

Not to mention that it's always interesting to try out a new and different approach to the franchise. Been there done that applies to cIV more than any other game for me.

 

[Hypernova]

This argument really gets my goat. Until recently in the world, SoDs were realistic.

No, this isn't true at all. There were no frontlines before the modern age but one-unit-per-tile is still more realistic. Stacks of doom trek from city to city and then individual units from the stack have one-on-one fights to the death with a nominee from the city (who is always the perfect defender). It's like a ritual war. You may say that's just an abstraction, but that is how the mechanics work, and it doesn't simulate war, from any part of history, very well at all. In real life conquests were decided by battles in the field, cities were normally sieged or simply sacked.

In no era of history was the strategy, when under attack, to gather a great army into the cities and wait for the attackers there. It was always to meet them where there was room to manoeuvre the best defenders into position. Unlike in Civ IV, where you are safe in the knowledge that the best defender will always be chosen. The only thing unrealistic about one-unit-per-tile in ancient and medieval eras is scale.

 

[Thormodr]

If someone doesn't want to buy ciV because they are comparing an excellent game (cIV) with one that still won't be released for 6 months and we still know relatively little information about (ciV) then that's their choice.

I think it's jumping the gun a bit. To each his/her own though.

 

[Legionarius]

"I don't like change"

 

[mechaerik]

No, this isn't true at all. There were no frontlines before the modern age but one-unit-per-tile is still more realistic. Stacks of doom trek from city to city and then individual units from the stack have one-on-one fights to the death with a nominee from the city (who is always the perfect defender). It's like a ritual war. You may say that's just an abstraction, but that is how the mechanics work, and it doesn't simulate war, from any part of history, very well at all. In real life conquests were decided by battles in the field, cities were normally sieged or simply sacked.

In no era of history was the strategy, when under attack, to gather a great army into the cities and wait for the attackers there. It was always to meet them where there was room to manoeuvre the best defenders into position. Unlike in Civ IV, where you are safe in the knowledge that the best defender will always be chosen. The only thing unrealistic about one-unit-per-tile in ancient and medieval eras is scale.

Of course there weren't 1-1 death fights, I'm not saying the combat system was realistic, I'm saying the concept of a giant stack of units (the SoD) was.

 

[Darkhour]

In the end Civ 4 really didnt do it for me.. I played mostly in Civ 1 and 2 and missed Civ 3 as it didnt do it for me either.. hopefully the changes in Civ 5 help to capture me again..

 

[Cilpot]

Things I loved in Civ III that didn't make it to IV:

1. Creation of "armies" with great generals.
2. Ranged bombardement. I really dislike that e.g. catapults attack as regular units (with a high withdrawal chance).

In the beginning these kept me from enjoying Civ IV. Until about a year ago I still played mostly Civ III, and the only IV I play today is FFH2/WildMana/FallFurther... Which I enjoy immensely, and got me to put III on the shelf, probably for good.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I think Civ 4 BtS is excellent as well, but there is always room for improvement. I´m glad Civ 5 finally tries to do something about the tired, unrealistic and utterly tedious combat system of the earlier versions. No more ridiculous huge stacks fighting each other inside a city. Real frontlines, real tactics...YES!!

Stacks are perfectly sensible. Having "front lines" in medieval and ancient warefare will be absurd. There were few complaints about the combat system of Civ4 until the developers' recent announcement that they didn't like it and were changing it.

Personally, I think the new system will make Civ5 even more unrealistic than previous games, and makes me less likely to buy it sooner. We'll see though. I've been skeptical about things in the past and been won round.

But I'll be playing Civ4 for a while!

 

[Balderstrom]

One of my all-time favorites, combat-wise (mechanics) was Warlords III:

• Stacks limited to 8 units
• Varied stack affecting abilities.
• Varied unit-only affecting abilities.
• Terrain modifiers.
• A STR / HP system that worked well.
• The d30 Die-roll allowed for unexpected outcomes at times (Rerolls for Units w/ Medals)
• Logical Modifiers & Counters: Leadership/Chaos, Morale/Fear, Fortify/Siege
• :: Overall maximum STR of 15, incl. a +5 Max Bonus[es].

One unit-group per tile could definitely prove interesting. Without having to code/implement a tactical-zoom feature to provide advanced unit placement within a given stack: the 1u/tile provides for such a feature right on the main map.

The only thing I do find questionable with this (1u/tile) feature is removing the ability to garrison troops within a city. That in and of itself seems harder to justify (to me).

A couple disappointments:
I had expected the inclusion of Civ-Rev's troop-combining Army feature though :/

I also would of preferred religion to be reworked (kept), possibly by automating the spread of religion as a factor of your culture, population and some random element -- as opposed to the tedious micromanagement of missionaries. Abstracted perhaps to where one might pay money/production to advance the spread of religion.

Overall though, as I said, the game sounds interesting. The disappointments would be highly unlikely to keep me from the next Civ foray. Too bad CiV is slated towards the fall instead of the early summer or late spring, where I would of had more time to fully delve into the game.

 

[_hero_]

If you are saying you won't buy Civ V because you consider Civ IV the prefect game and never plan on quitting then fine, but if you are saying you don't want to buy Civ V because it will be different then a great game that's kind of silly. Civ V is supposed to be different than Civ IV that doesn't mean it won't be great too. If Civ V was just Civ IV with new eye candy I'd be pretty mad and definitely wouldn't buy it.

 

[Andrew_Jay]

If the OP is perfectly happy playing Civ IV I can definitely respect that and more power to him or her.

That attitude is infinitely better than folks who do want Civ V . . . but don't want Firaxis to actually change anything.

 

[Hypernova]

Of course there weren't 1-1 death fights, I'm not saying the combat system was realistic, I'm saying the concept of a giant stack of units (the SoD) was.

No it wasn't. You're just saying that because the amount of land a SoD takes up is closer to what an ancient army would take up than a one-unit-per-tile army. I'm saying that one-unit-per-tile, while having less accurate scale, is still way more realistic because no real army was anything like "a giant stack of units" - there positioning really counted. Having the concept of a stack of units in Civ creates all kinds of stupid mechanics. It encourages defenders to just sit around, disallows support units (thus relegating archers to a city defence role), eliminates the role of the extra speed of cavalry in combat and minimises the role of terrain.

 

[Hypernova]

Having "front lines" in medieval and ancient warefare will be absurd.

And Firaxis hasn't actually done anything to indicate there will be, it's pure speculation. I think to maintain frontline will probably require a lot of units, as in real life. Many modern wars haven't had an obvious frontline, and all wars have been fought around specific areas, even if there wasn't a frontline.

 

[davane]

The SoD vs. 1u/t argument is moot, because both are accurate representations of different aspects of war at different times. SoDs accurately cover sieges and massed army movement on a large scale, reminiscent of medival warfare and logistics. This is quite reasonable in a game where a city occupies a single tile, regardless of how big it actually is. The tactical elements of battles is underplayed, because of the issues with scale. 1 u/t is more representative of this tactical level, but whether or not it is feasible with the scale present on the map remains to be seen. My main concern with Civ V however, is hexes vs. squares, as discussed in another thread (don't want to derail this one with the specifics).

Ultimately, however, I feel that given the extensive moddability of Civ IV, the better elements of Civ V can be disected and imported easily enough. Depending upon the moddability promised with Civ V, the reverse is also true, and the best parts of Civ IV can be incorporated in Civ V.

 

[SJSerio]

I think Civ 4 BtS is excellent as well, but there is always room for improvement. I´m glad Civ 5 finally tries to do something about the tired, unrealistic and utterly tedious combat system of the earlier versions. No more ridiculous huge stacks fighting each other inside a city. Real frontlines, real tactics...YES!!

I wouldn't call it completely unrealistic. All of the units in a stack were in a tile representing miles of land. With the new system, now the units are spread out over huge lands... well, that would be pretty unrealistic. Your army could fill the Iberian Peninsula, while the enemy's army could fill France. Tactics are fine and dandy, but the only way they would truly work would be in a zoomed map, IMO. Now, I have lessoned my discontent (a little) on the OUPT feature, but I still don't really like it. What people seem to keep forgetting is the scope of Civilization. It is a global game taking place over centuries and across an entire globe. Tactics are great for more "zoomed in" games that focus on specific areas or battles (for example, Gettysburg, Waterloo, Normandy, etc). On a global scale, it takes away from the game when it is brought into core gameplay with no transition to a "zoomed in" map. I think that the best thing that will come out of Civ V will be scenarios that represent certain battles (like what I mentioned before) or at least more focused scenarios (like, say, American Westward Expansion... or AWE as I like to call it). But it will be a struggle to maintain a sense of immersion when half the continent is covered with units battling it out.

 

[Decius]

I agree with OP about not needing to switch from Civ IV.
But when I buy Civ V, I hope to have two great games.