I see Civ V is now $29.99 on Steam, but I’ve had Civ IV less than a year, so I feel kind of guilty ditching it already and spending more money. Is V that much better than IV? Is it harder, or can you make it as hard/easy as you like? I am a pitiful, pathetic excuse for a Civ player: I like building stuff, and I hate having it torn down. Yes, if my grasp of strategy was better, I wouldn’t have to be so cheaty and reload the huts twenty times in order to get optimal results… Also, I feel like I grasp the basics of the game, but there are lots of features that don’t seem thoroughly explained. Of course there are sites I can go to to learn the game in more depth, but it would be nice if game features were more self-explanatory. Any ideas how Civ V compares in this area?
I don’t have Civ5, but from what I’ve heard it isn’t as good as Civ4. I’ve seen the Civ games compared to Star Trek movies in that the odd numbered ones aren’t very good.
Also, Civ5 isn’t an “upgrade” (or even sequel) and there is no reason to dump one for the other.
Civ V has different difficulty settings, from “Damn this is easy” to “WTF?!”, as you might expect. It’s also a fundamentally simpler game than Civ IV—gone are a lot of the complex ideas like religion and all that, not to mention unit stacking—and as such, its learning curve is quite pleasant. Plus, all the nasty crashy bugs were fixed in the patch a bit ago, plus it’s just a bit more than half the price it was when I bought it. If anything, I envy your position right now. Thirty measly bucks and you’re not a glorified beta tester? Hell yes, buy it.
I just got CIV 5. I like it, but I didn’t think it was much of an improvement over 4. Things are simplified a bit, which I liked, but I didn’t feel like I got much for my money.
I like Civ5 a lot more than I did like Civ4, but sometimes it feels I’m in a minority in this. I’d say it is mostly simpler to grasp than full Civ4 with all its expansions and if you like to build stuff but have trouble defending your civilization, in Civ5 that is easier. The computer AIs aren’t that great with the one unit per tile tactics and cities are rather formidable even without a garrison unit, so it is easier to react to an invasion before the enemy manages to take a city from you. YMMV but I played Civ5 over twice the hours I ever did play Civ4.
The word “upgrade” doesn’t really apply. Civ V is very different from Civ IV. I won’t say it’s better, but I won’t say it’s worse, either. Personal taste is too much of a factor for me to predict whether any particular person will prefer it. It really will be gambling thirty bucks on a new game, so your own gaming budget should be the biggest factor as to whether to buy now.
Civ V isn’t perfect, but I don’t intend to go back to Civ IV. I’m currently figuring out how to use the Mod Buddy to make little tweaks to the game to make it more to my liking. That in itself has been a fun experience. Next on my list are preventing the AI from founding cities so damned close together and finding a way to make randomly generated maps a bit more lush.
Civ 4 with all the expansions is a more varied/complete game than Civ 5, but it wasn’t at launch. It has the advantage of years and expansions. When Civ 5 has a few under its belt, it’ll be clearly better. It may be better now, depending on what part of the game you like.
The combat is massively better. It’s the first time a civ game has had combat that wasn’t totally a chore late in the game.
The interface is pretty slick and streamlined. Some of the mechanics are streamlined in a way that simplifies them (which may be bad) but for example I like the happiness system now better than having to micromanage every city in the previous games. I like the cultural/policy interaction a lot, it handles culture and policies better than in any of the previous games.
If you like Civ type games, you’ll definitely get $30 worth of entertainment out of it.
My thoughts exactly. As it stands now, Civilisation IV: Complete is a better (IMHO) game than Civilisation V. But I’m confident that a couple of expansions will solve the worst of the game’s oversights (hopefully returning Religion and Corporations, for example) and that in a year or two it’ll be on the same level as Civ IV was.
Of course, it should have been as good as, if not better, than Civ IV when it was released, which makes me wonder what game all the reviewers were playing (it had a score of 90+ on Metacritic, “Universal Acclaim”, but I’ve been quite disappointed with it for the most part so far).
I agree that Civ IV, especially the BtS version, is better than the release version of Civ V. I think that some of the changes are interesting I don’t mind not having the stacks of doom, but you should be able to at least stack 2 units together.
I figure that by the time I get the Master of the Universe title there should be an expansion.
+1
The SDK mod pack is free on Steam and is such a wonderful tool. There is just so much potential and I keep waiting for someone to map a mod or scenario that makes this game fun. The downfall of it is that it’s far more complicated than the stock Worldbuilder of Civ IV and so few rookies try.
The officially designed Genghis Khan mod isn’t bad, there is a WWII scenario thats broke but has some potential and there is a Spanish Civil War scenario that isn’t terrible. But really the largest problem is the game just isn’t that good as is and so doesn’t really deserve the labor of love that was put into Civ IV greats like Ryhe’s and Fall, Clash of Civilizations and Rise of Mankind.
Still…Civ V is relatively new, perhaps there’ll be a BtS-like expansion that fixes the tactical AI, monotonous individual unit trafficking and brings out the games true potential.
And after all this time I still simply detest that lands units can just morph into transports when they touch water.
I hate it. I hate it. I hate it.
It should be harder to do this than to do it at a city port, but other than that this seems unobjectionable to me.
Gaah! Wavering, wavering… I was about 70% ready to buy it this morning, and then I went out and bought a $73 purse, so I was down to about 65% ready, and now the new comments have me down to 50%. Aaaaaargh! But thanks all for the input so far.
I’d grab it, since it’s on sale. If it weren’t I’d say wait for it to be.
I’ve complained about the game plenty of time, yet I have over a hundred hours playing, so yeah.
I forgot another factor. My computer is new-ish, and (and least at high settings), and Civ V runs a bit slow on it. If your computer is old-ish, you may want to ask other people about how well the game runs on a system similar to your own.
There’s a new patch due out this month as well. Looks like one of the chief aims is to diminish the dominance of “infinite city sprawl” strategies. One nice thing is that the changes to several building bonuses make food resource hexes more worthwhile.
I miss being able to name my civilization and give my cities idiotic names. That always used to amuse me to no end.
Even aside from idiotic names, it could be useful to give your cities names like “Horsetown”, “Wineville”, or “Ironburg”, just to remember why each of them is important.
You can name your cities, guys. Just go to the city screen; there’s a little button near the city name.
Actually, you can name your civilization, too, through the Advanced Setup screen.
Man, that’s arguably my single favorite change in the entire game. I’ve been playing Civ since the very beginning, and for the first time ever, I don’t mind playing island maps.