Why is CIV4 still the best civ game?

[AspiringScholar]

Lots of addiction warnings for Factorio
Very positive ratings.

Do you as an elite Civ 4 player personally like it?

Also, I'm curious what other games fall in suit with what Civ 4 does excellently as a strategy game, obscure or otherwise. There are lots of fun and amusing other historical strategy games but they tend to follow the trend of disparate, independent chains of effects with a superabundance of information density which are actually more strategically shallow than they appear, and are not lastingly interesting.

 

[Fippy]

Misunderstanding there, i just looked at reviews quickly (and most mention the addiction factor)..
never played Factorio.

Imo Civ 4 is "no nonsense" at it's best.
I often wonder in other games "why did they take this turn now", but Civ 4 stays true to itself.
No rock bands
I have no idea what they actually do in one of those later Civs, but i just know it's not part of no nonsense.

 

[AspiringScholar]

Misunderstanding there, i just looked at reviews quickly (and most mention the addiction factor)..
never played Factorio.

Imo Civ 4 is "no nonsense" at it's best.
I often wonder in other games "why did they take this turn now", but Civ 4 stays true to itself.
No rock bands
I have no idea what they actually do in one of those later Civs, but i just know it's not part of no nonsense.

Ah, I see. Yeah, incidentally before replying earlier I had just been talking with a coworker whose favorite game is Magic: The Gathering and he was arguing that its merits are in the vast array of variability and unique outcomes possible with the whole range of cards and their effects, as well as the dynamic created by variable strengths due to things like different deck compositions meeting each other in play and such. From admittedly only a superficial understanding of its rules, though, I was aiming to make the point that simplicity and depth are two different, but related aspects of a strategy game, and that often complexity creates an illusion of depth by increasing the clutter of information by tacking on ever new rules and effects. I'm not saying that Magic is an inherently bad game or that it isn't fun for a lot of people, but is it ultimately that deep of a game, when a player aspiring to master or even simply become strong at it must first and primarily memorize a huge list of individual and unique effects that don't have interrelated opportunity costs or a "zero sum" relationship with each other; when there are 99 different unrelated and uninteractive ways to win? It seems like this general trend is the direction that most "thematic" strategy games have gone recently, whether fantasy or historical. That approach does create a rewarding sense of progress or success, but I think there is a large "smoke and mirrors" amplification going on when it comes to actually being a deep and profound game.

 

[Thrasybulos]

complexity creates an illusion of depth by increasing the clutter of information by tacking on ever new rules and effects

I remember reading someone somewhere drawing a distinction between "complex" and "complicated": "complex" applies to ouput, "complicated" to input.

I have no idea whether this is standard English usage or not, but I thought it was certainly an apt way of distinguishing between two game design approaches.
And I certainly favour the "simple-complex" approach.
Go is extremely simple in its input: place a stone down. But evaluating the consequences (output) of a move is certainly very complex.
At the other extremity of the spectrum are games with tons of rules, tons of cards, tons of options... but once you've learnt them, picking a correct choice is very simple.

Unfortunately most modern game designers (and players) seem to prefer the "complicated" approach: they want moar and moar stuff in their games, and I agree that usually it just leads to an illusion of depth.
I mean, a game can be both complicated and complex... but that's rather difficult to successfully pull off.

 

[intutama]

From my sw engineer, non-native english speaker point of view, the term "complex" applies to systems (or things) working efficiently while being made up of many parts. In other words, you can break down a complex system into a sum of simple mechanisms. When I listen to Spotify, I'm aware that there is a complex system running to handle artists releasing new albums, compilations, regional limitations, user created playlists, etc. but using Spotify itself is simple. "Complicated" systems (or things) on the other hands are simply unpractical or wasteful to use. Using Lotus Notes as a mail client was complicated. Complicated things require to do first a thing, and then a different thing, even though it's decided that optimally you shouldn't have to do these things.

I think "Slay the Spire" is a pretty complex game, due to the high variability of synergies between cards & relics in each run, but it's not a complicated game : you have attack, defense, hp, and then a few character-specific mechanics.
On the other hand, I found "Master of Orion" (I got hooked for a few days) to be needlessly complicated, but not very complex. Colonisation & growth is a mathematical problem that has an optimal solution - in fact on the open source remake, some mods will manage the ratios for you for optimal growth & population transfer. The 6-ship type limitation is also annoying and require micromanagement to switch colonisation types, add the latest upgrades to a new ship class, etc. while tactical combat is kind of a joke. Once you remove the needless clicking around by automatized managers, there is in fact not much to do in the game, and it can play itself.

 

[mycophobia]

Go is extremely simple in its input: place a stone down. But evaluating the consequences (output) of a move is certainly very complex.

Ahhh if only the influence of a stone were as powerful as the culture of a city in Civ IV...would be a much easier game

 

[TheBirdMan]

Because this game seems like it never dies..... New pre-release of Realism:Invictus ver 3.7 is here.

All right, the 3.7 release candidate is uploaded; if there is nothing terribly wrong with it, this will become the official release by the week's end.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ci...us 3.7 (2024-12-16) Setup (Full).exe/download
BTW, the changelog has grown almost a full page since the "provisional" one was recently published.

I'm going to comment my 1st testgame here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/r-i-my-personal-spin-off.683863/page-7

And here we start. I'm using my own scenario - "15Civ Eu_Af_Asia 200_120_8205.CIVBeyondSwordWBSave" (not published). A map with 15 Civ from Europe, Africa and Asia and with 8205 landtiles. Normal speed (not the Epic speed I normally choose).

 

[ArchGhost]

I picked up CIv5+6 with all DLCs for a steal thanks to Gaben this sale season (about $45 all told) and have been trying to get into Civ6 again. I really want to like it (it's such a pretty and crisp looking game) but I keep hitting a wall in terms of enthusiasm to play it. So many decisions seems to not matter much and I keep falling into complacent building which is a major red flag from Civ4's teachings. I'm still trying to navigate through my, like, 5th real attempt at a full game (instead of playing around to get a feeling of things) of it on King or whatever the default moderate difficulty is. I think the lesser impact of expansion penalties compared to Civ5 and of course, the brilliant Civic/Policies system keep hooking me back enough to overcome my hatred of the 1UPT and city-states (which I just flat turn off, even the hyper aggressive barbs in civ6 aren't as fudging random as dropping single city civs to fill out the map space instead of just balancing around giving that land to the players...). I still don't like empire-wide inflation on EVERYTHING or the districts at all, but I'm starting to come around to them a bit by watching some multiplayer gameplay on youtube helping me understand value/tradeoffs...slowly.

I dropped Civ5 like touching too hot a pan when I ruined my economy by...attempting to build roads. Global happiness, the nebulousness of Faith...that game has some weird decisions right off the bat for even a total noob. Killed all desire instantly and went on to Civ6 instead.

I got on the old comp in the other room paying bills last month and just did a "why not?" start with Pericles in Civ4, played till 6 cities or so around T80, didn't like my jungle choke with like zero fishing resources on my coasts and quit. Immediately rolled up Earth18 and went stomping with Cyrus and forced myself to stop after hitting t105 Currency with 18 cities so I could go do my prep work for Christmas around the house. The pull of Civ4 is very real, it just sucked me right on into the next try. I don't know if it's necessarily simpler, but the complexity it does have feels more nuanced -- I can "feel" my way through the game, which is largely how I managed to make my expand-heavy style work for me all the way up through difficulties into Immortal which also makes it so much more satisfying to succeed. Better understanding of the meta and how the AI behaves is definitely helping me a huge amount in things like tech goals and what land to take on the map, so I understand I have a huge amount of bias toward 4 because I know it. Either way, it doesn't feel frustrating or a chore at all to play, and right now I'm trying to stop myself from going back to it at the moment haha.

I said once before on this site that the reason I rage so much against bad turns of fortune in Civ4 is because I care about the outcome. I've even slammed my fist on the desk hard enough to break it (the desk, not my fist) and yet I always come back to play it more after I cool off.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

I dropped Civ5 like touching too hot a pan when I ruined my economy by...attempting to build roads.

If you time building roads right, they can massively improve your economy, you just need to make a cost analysis of how much gold you're getting per turn and how much you'll lose in maintenance before two cities are connected, and how much gold you have right now

 

[ArchGhost]

Yes I'm 100% sure it's simply my mishandling and not understanding the game. I was barely floating in the black at 4 cities very early on, put down a few road tiles and went broke. Oops. I am very accommodated to straight up killing my economy in Civ4 so I wasn't hesitant about it here and I got a rude awakening lol.

 

[Kaiman]

Legitimately can't remember the last game I've bought, it's likely been years. There's zero reason to buy modern games when I know they will just be watered down versions of past games.

That about sums it up for me too.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I just buy the new games and let them sit in my steam library to collect dust. Although I've been meaning to give civ5 another try and make some let's play videos of it to motivate myself. Still have civ5, civ6, humankind, and old world to try out. And it's hard to not get caught up in the civ7 hype and I'll probably buy that to collect dust as well.

 

[Fippy]

Civ7 is an expensive dust collector..

 

[Core Imposter]

I am planning on buying Old World at some point. I think they have an expansion coming. Mainly because of the design team.

 

[Plains-Cow]

Civ7 is an expensive dust collector..

I believe that CIV VII is a good demo as to why CIV IV is the best version to date.

Also....

CIV IV DOESN'T HAVE THE WORST UI IN THE SERIES ANYMORE! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

 

[Civinator]

Also....

CIV IV DOESN'T HAVE THE WORST UI IN THE SERIES ANYMORE! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

 

[AspiringScholar]

CIV IV DOESN'T HAVE THE WORST UI IN THE SERIES ANYMORE! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

I always thought that it was one of if not the best (at least from a clarity and functional standpoint), but can understand why some people dislike the overall aesthetic. Was this a widespread opinion?

 

[TheBirdMan]

CIV IV DOESN'T HAVE THE WORST UI IN THE SERIES ANYMORE! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

I always thought that it was one of if not the best (at least from a clarity and functional standpoint), but can understand why some people dislike the overall aesthetic. Was this a widespread opinion?

I really can't understand why Civ4 was/is rated as "The Worst" in the serie. I remember it as quite good compared to CallToPower and Civ1 and Civ 3 (don't think I ever played Civ2). But it has also been many years - about 20 years I think - since I played Civ4 in the original version.

I can only add to above that it is good (and a gift) that Civ4 and the add-on BtS had so much of the code released so it became possible for skilled people to further develop these with Mods to a quality I think and believe is unusually high for a computer game. With the R:I mod as the best.

 

[Tecumseh1]

I believe that CIV VII is a good demo as to why CIV IV is the best version to date.

Also....

CIV IV DOESN'T HAVE THE WORST UI IN THE SERIES ANYMORE! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

In 2000+ hours the game has never crashed for me. Even after patches that's damn impressive for a software made in 2004 or whatever

 

[Plains-Cow]

In 2000+ hours the game has never crashed for me. Even after patches that's damn impressive for a software made in 2004 or whatever

I am on Loonix, sir. My rituals are what prevent crashes.

I really can't understand why Civ4 was/is rated as "The Worst" in the serie. I remember it as quite good compared to CallToPower and Civ1 and Civ 3 (don't think I ever played Civ2). But it has also been many years - about 20 years I think - since I played Civ4 in the original version.

I can only add to above that it is good (and a gift) that Civ4 and the add-on BtS had so much of the code released so it became possible for skilled people to further develop these with Mods to a quality I think and believe is unusually high for a computer game. With the R:I mod as the best.

I always thought that it was one of if not the best (at least from a clarity and functional standpoint), but can understand why some people dislike the overall aesthetic. Was this a widespread opinion?

Oh man, the number of times I'm speed civing and the UI shifts what I was previously clicking on to "explore" is brutal. The camera jumping at the last second when trying to click a unit on the screen can also lead to disaster. "Oh, you want to click your worker? Ok, let's scroll over to- uh, uh, uh, no, wait, I mean, you need to be managing your RIFLEMAN stack now!" It also doesn't allow for good worker management without being very slow and methodical because it will do the same thing with them and skipping turns. The worst thing is going to be the specialist management, re-arranging them in a jumble if I lose pop. Why doesn't the city re-assign the specialists I had when it re-grows????? Nobody is going to convince me that it's a good design in BtS, especially how it loves auto-assigning spy specialists. You're telling me I can command my city to auto-anything but I can't tick a box to disallow spy specialists in a city by default or only allow for one specialist type to exist there?