Codex verdict: Civ IV vs Civ V, which is better and why?

[314159]

Civ IV. One unit per tile is a terrible idea, cause the AI just can't handle it. I doubt it will ever get fixed. Computers can't even play fucking Go properly.
On the other hand, Civ V is dumbed down significantly, which is good. But still, Civ IV is better.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Civ 2 and 3 are nowhere near as good as 4, I played both of them to death and eventually got frustrated with the imbalance and over-simplicity. Although 2 was much better than 3 and had some nice mods, like LotR, WW2 and the Test of Time expansion.

Civ 4 and Fall from Heaven shit all over the rest of the Civ series, I haven't even played 1 or 5.

Actually I think I liked Civ 2 mods better than FFH. Civ 4 is still the best unmodded game though.

 

[MetalCraze]

You are joking right?

They took Civ, removed "frustrating imbalance" like zones of control, 4-5 stats per unit (replacing them with a primitive 1) and the ability to take a few turns moving through the neutral territory without declaring the war first (which is stupid considering that at the same time one army may run through the square of another army) - and then they called this excrement... Civ4

Yeaaaah

If there is anything FFH2 shits on it's Civ4. However in the end FFH2 is brought down by a stupid Civ4 combat which is all about running around in stacks with more "strength" than stacks of enemies have. In Civ2/3 you had to balance stacks at least with offensive/defensive/arty units.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

They still don't have traditional turn-based multiplayer in Civ V.

 

[Johannes]

c) Alpha Centauri

 

[TripJack]

skyway has some kind of fetish for zones of control

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

He's right though. I didn't like Civ III, but Civ II is markedly better than Civ IV, and SMAC is no contest.

 

[attackfighter]

problem with civ 4 is the mods suck dick. everyone bashes civ 3 for it's map editor but it really did have some great mods. oh and the graphics of civ 4 suck, 2D graphics will always be easier on the eyes and more distinctive than 3D, especially if the 3D graphics are WAAAAAAAAAACKY and cartoony like in civ 4

 

[ChristofferC]

People say that Civ4 is the best game ever because they never played earlier Civs, compared to which it's what Civ5 compared to Civ4 - a dumbed down casual strategy.

I've played all of them. I started with Civ1 when I was ~7 years old. I still play Civ2 sometimes. But Civ4 is soo much better. Civ4 is in no way dumbed down. It has the most diverse gameplay of them all by far.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

Yeah Christoffer is right. Zones of control were fun and all but hardly deciding - CIII was just as much about huge stacks as CIV. CIV on the other hand did a lot for the resource system - it removed the old problem of ICS as the optimal strategy, it made tile improvements much more of a strategic choice, civics were a major strategic element, and of course it didn't have the ridiculous imbalances of CIII conquest. Tbh even if we accept that removal of ZoC were decline that pales compared to all the major strategic elements introduced in CIV.

It were worse on one thing though: CIV is pretty much the posterboy for "3D is not always better than 2D".

 

[attackfighter]

Yeah Christoffer is right. Zones of control were fun and all but hardly deciding - CIII was just as much about huge stacks as CIV. CIV on the other hand did a lot for the resource system - it removed the old problem of ICS as the optimal strategy, it made tile improvements much more of a strategic choice, civics were a major strategic element, and of course it didn't have the ridiculous imbalances of CIII conquest. Tbh even if we accept that removal of ZoC were decline that pales compared to all the major strategic elements introduced in CIV.

It were worse on one thing though: CIV is pretty much the posterboy for "3D is not always better than 2D".

the promotion system sucked, waste of time the AI didn't know how to use it and except for rare occasions I always just spammed either the raider promotion or the basic "+10% strength" one.

cottages were also retarded. made losing a war far too costly as you'd have to wait 100 turns for your economy to grow back. the one saving grace of this bad concept is that the AI is too incompetent to beat you in a war so it's only bad in theory

religion was dumb, corporations were broken, espionage was a hassle, especially the way the AI utilized it they just randomely sabotaged tile improvements in obscure places forcing you to either set the workers on retarded auto-work mode or waste time micro managing it

techs were fucked up. hello, I am researching electronics and yet I have not yet learned the ways of fishing.

late game lag was possibly worse than civ3

there were just many shitty concepts in civ 4... if they'd cut out all the superfluous crap and focused on more important stuff, like the AI, it would be the best. sadly it's just yet another iteration that added/changed a bunch of stuff but fixed very little.

 

[Brotherman Bill]

made losing a war far too costly as you'd have to wait 100 turns for your economy to grow back.

Plan your tile improvements, protect your cottages n00b. Both of the things you mention are a plus.

techs were fucked up. hello, I am researching electronics and yet I have not yet learned the ways of fishing.

Bullshit. The tech tree is universally considered to be one of CIV's strongest points. As for electricity you cannot research it without knowing physics, which requires astronomy, which requires optics, which requires compass, which requires sailing, which requires fishing.

religion was dumb, corporations were broken, espionage was a hassle

Religion were sort of gimmicky, but it hardly detracted much from the game. Corporations and espionage were both added by Jon "Civ 5" Schafer but are all too little and too late to detract much from the game as most of the games are decided long before they come into effect.

 

[attackfighter]

Plan your tile improvements, protect your cottages n00b. Both of the things you mention are a plus.

Yeah lets be 500 years behind everyone else technologically just because I lost a war hurrr hurr, I guess that's why Germany's poor and shitty right now, cause they lost 2 wars in a row right? Get real, it detracts from the little realism there is, and while I"m all for grand strategy having to spend 20% of the game recovering from a lost war is teh dumbzorzzzz

 

[Malakal]

Civ IV > Civ V by a lot right now. But the potential for a great game is there, one unit per tile, less units overall, better resources, city-states... But AI sucks so hard right now. Needs at least two expansions and a ton of DLCs.

 

[Ghoulem]

Voted Rise of Nations, because meh.

 

[Norfleet]

I dunno. The combat rules in Civ have always been notoriously awful, but Civ 4 has better combat rule potential than the others did. At least it was POSSIBLE to get rid of the Phalanx vs. Tank effect with creating massive number inflation.