Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Which Civilization is the least dumbed-down?

Which Civilization is the least dumbed-down?

  • Civilization

    Votes: 3 3.2%
  • Civilization II

    Votes: 17 18.1%
  • Civilization III

    Votes: 5 5.3%
  • Civilization IV

    Votes: 51 54.3%
  • Civilization V

    Votes: 4 4.3%
  • Civilization VI

    Votes: 2 2.1%
  • Other

    Votes: 12 12.8%

  • Total voters
    94

Arrowgrab

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 20, 2016
Messages
603
I understand why you would include 1-2 units like that. But including: Zebra Chariots, Giraffe Archer, Giraffe Crossbowman, Zebra Archer, Bear Knight, Zebra Knight, Giraffe Carabiner, Giraffe Cavalry, Giraffe Cuirassier, Giraffe Dragon, Bombard Mammoth, Zebra Cuirassier, Zebra Cavalry, Giraffe Trench Cavalry, Giraffe Urban Raider seems a little bit excessive. Also makes me wonder why is there no Giraffe Knight or Zebra Urban Riders and Carabiners.

Because those would unrealistic.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,712
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Obligatory SMAC reference if it's not been mentioned yet. The elevation mechanic in that game and the fact you can raise and lower terrain is incredible. It interacts with sea level rise warnings, river flow routes, humidity and crop yield, and solar farm yield (main source of energy, which is the currency resource).

I still like Civ IV more because it has pitboss multiplayer (ie simultaneous turn based, turn rolls once everyone has played and you don't have to wait to play sequentially), it has the most modding, and it has a far better UI than SMAC.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
I'd just read an article about riding zebras before and recalled a bunch of the stuff, and looked up another article or two during this conversation. Everyone thinks that trying to ride zebras is a novel idea but it turns out it isn't and it isn't done for a reason.
 
Joined
Aug 27, 2021
Messages
698
Western Civilization is the least dumbed down, but that's not saying much. Middle Eastern seems to be the most dumbed down, they went from the cutting edge of science and mathematics to retarded religious cavemen. Africa's dumb, but it's always been dumb. Eastern Europe is getting smarter, but they started pretty dumb so they've still got some ground to cover.
 

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,494
Civilization IV is trash compared to V and VI. Of course in a forum like the Codex, where hipsters always shy away from praising new games, everyone voted for the IV garbage. yet no one plays it today because it sucks, all people play VI on Steam.
You are trolling yet again but you're right that sometimes Codexer's conservatism is going too far. Most of my steam pals with whom I was playing Civ V have immense amount of hours in all Civ games and other strategies (like EUIV) and yet the most popular is still Civ V. Some are shifted to VI but not all. Civ 5 is quite nice in MP mode despite its shitty net code and the fact it doesn't have any tangible in-game support of MP like stats, ratings etc. Requires communities and house rules to play. I woulnd't say it the least dumbed down though, IV indeed has more features/mechanics with all DLCs as far as I concerned. Also, even if it against the definition as was mentioned earlier, Civ I is definitely the most primitive of all so take a good laugh at those who voted for it.
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Civ 1 had the best throne room mechanics you filthy casual.
Ah yes, the throne room in civ1.
Palace.jpg
 

Brocken Jr.

Arcane
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
1,545
Location
Dixie
Civilization IV is trash compared to V and VI. Of course in a forum like the Codex, where hipsters always shy away from praising new games, everyone voted for the IV garbage. yet no one plays it today because it sucks, all people play VI on Steam.

Please commit Corporate_Jew_Mastering.

We lost the wrong greek.

TemplarGR is an Irishman.

Also Civ III is my favorite, but I've only played it and IV so I'm hardly an expert.
 

Silva

Arcane
Joined
Jul 17, 2005
Messages
4,778
Location
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Obligatory SMAC reference if it's not been mentioned yet.

Worth remembering that many Civilization features came from SMAC since CivIII. Civics in IV is probably the most famous example.

SMAC is incredible in the sense that even its immitators have been able to offer at best cargo cult immitation so far.
And yet we never had SMAC2 but Civs went up to 6. Go figure.
 

Inconceivable

Learned
Joined
Aug 31, 2020
Messages
251
Location
Germany
Obligatory SMAC reference if it's not been mentioned yet.

Worth remembering that many Civilization features came from SMAC since CivIII. Civics in IV is probably the most famous example.

SMAC is incredible in the sense that even its immitators have been able to offer at best cargo cult immitation so far.
And yet we never had SMAC2 but Civs went up to 6. Go figure.

Well, there is "Civilization: Beyond Earth". Much maligned. Not really SMAC2. More like "Civ V: Futuristic Version". I think it's a good game.
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,820
Location
Italy
Obligatory SMAC reference if it's not been mentioned yet.

Worth remembering that many Civilization features came from SMAC since CivIII. Civics in IV is probably the most famous example.

SMAC is incredible in the sense that even its immitators have been able to offer at best cargo cult immitation so far.
And yet we never had SMAC2 but Civs went up to 6. Go figure.

Well, there is "Civilization: Beyond Earth". Much maligned. Not really SMAC2. More like "Civ V: Futuristic Version". I think it's a good game.
no it's not. there's a "codex" mod around which makes it bearable, average. a true miracle. vanilla is a disaster.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,810
I loved Civ4 but fuck those stacks of doom. Civ5 and 6 went with 1 unit per tile which is based. That alone makes them better.

If you want actual good game just play Alpha Centauri.
 

Arrowgrab

Arbiter
Joined
Jan 20, 2016
Messages
603
I loved Civ4 but fuck those stacks of doom.

Doomstack complainers are people who allow the AI to build an army 10 times as big as their own and then they're butthurt when their 2 precious units can't stop the 20-unit enemy force. The problem isn't "doomstack"; the problem is that you forgot to build an army in a 4X game.

To be fair, Civ 4 did make a mistake with doomstack, namely that they didn't take the concept far enough. There are a lot of mechanics you can explore with stacks: which unit gets a bonus against which, which unit gets to defend, etc. The vanilla game doesn't really take this to its logical conclusion. Some mods do a good job exploring the possibilities.

Civ5 and 6 went with 1 unit per tile which is based. That alone makes them better.

1 unit per tile is cancer, because the AI can't handle it. At all.

Which, come to think of it, fits perfectly with the retardation of doomstack detractors. They're too stupid to build a sufficiently large army, so they must rely on the AI being even stupider and allow the player to still win with his precious 1-unit "army".
 

flyingjohn

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2012
Messages
2,945
1 unit per tile is cancer, because the AI can't handle it. At all
And because the only strategy is mass range or mass range with a couple of meat shields.
Even stacks have more variation then that.
they're butt hurt when their 2 precious units can't stop the 20-unit enemy force
The irony is that they can.A couple of archers on a hill can destroy ai armies at non deity.
Civ 4 stacks are mostly about terrain and attrition.And catapult suiciding ,lots of catapult suiciding.
 

Nutria

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 12, 2017
Messages
2,252
Location
í•śě–‘
Strap Yourselves In
The doomstack is a problem even if you beat it just because killing 20 units takes so goddamn long. This is where the first two games are much better. There is actually an appropriate number of units on the map because it costs too much to maintain a huge army for a long time.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,476
I remember in Civilization I that wasn't necessarily true, since if you kept Despotism instead of moving onto other government types, you could field larger armies. It was a viable, if not entirely ideal strategy. You couldn't really do doomstacks in that game though, since IIRC outside of cities anytime any unit gets attacked and loses the whole stack goes with it.
 
Vatnik
Joined
Apr 10, 2018
Messages
6,712
Location
Mouse Utopia
Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
Why are doomstacks a problem? You can turn off battle animations if it's taking too much time to play them. On the mechanical side in civ4 they are soft-countered by collateral damage.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,054
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Civilization IV is trash compared to V and VI. Of course in a forum like the Codex, where hipsters always shy away from praising new games, everyone voted for the IV garbage. yet no one plays it today because it sucks, all people play VI on Steam.
You are trolling yet again but you're right that sometimes Codexer's conservatism is going too far. Most of my steam pals with whom I was playing Civ V have immense amount of hours in all Civ games and other strategies (like EUIV) and yet the most popular is still Civ V. Some are shifted to VI but not all. Civ 5 is quite nice in MP mode despite its shitty net code and the fact it doesn't have any tangible in-game support of MP like stats, ratings etc. Requires communities and house rules to play. I woulnd't say it the least dumbed down though, IV indeed has more features/mechanics with all DLCs as far as I concerned. Also, even if it against the definition as was mentioned earlier, Civ I is definitely the most primitive of all so take a good laugh at those who voted for it.

The reason I voted IV is mods.

(specifically Caveman 2 Cosmos)
 

spectre

Arcane
Joined
Oct 26, 2008
Messages
5,382
Why are doomstacks a problem? You can turn off battle animations if it's taking too much time to play them. On the mechanical side in civ4 they are soft-countered by collateral damage.
There's no tactics or finesse with a doomstack. War begins, you dump your stack into the enemy territory, and it boils down to who has a bigger one. There won't ever be any clever outmaneuvering, cavalry will be of limited use, and terrain doesn't matter as much as it should.
All the counter mechanics, like bombardment, collateral damage, changing target priority, nukes always felt ham-fisted to me. Probably the best thing about it is that it's very easy to teach the AI how to work with this: declare war, park your doomstacks on the other side of the border,
move towards a target. Of course, 1 unit per turn brought its iwb share of problems. For all its flaws, GenderNonspecificPersonkind(tm) actually proposes an interesting middle ground here by stacking units into groups of 4-8, then having the battle play out on a designated field. It's far from perfect, but allows stacks to cooperate through reinforcements, and deployment of larger stacks an be limited by landscape, line of sight can be a factor, and battles can be fought over more than one turn. The AI is still rather dumb, but seems to handle itself better than with 1UPT.

When it comes to the dumbing down of Civ, I think the biggest missed opportunity (not necessarily dumbing down) can be seen when you compare it to Alpha Centauri. There was some overlap with a few decent ideas getting into Civ3, but the biggest loss is in the terraformable map and unit editor. IIRC there was some work to mod it into Civ4, but the biggest problem was always in teaching the AI how to work it.

Other than this, it's hard for me to trace a definite trajectory for decline/incline in civ games. The first was of course the most primitive, but each civ afterwards has something that I look back at rather fondly (the built-in copy protection in Civ 1, the tax distribution sliders limited by government, the throne room and the palace from civ 3, etc.) and something I was less than enthusiastic about. What I liked about Civ 4 was it tried to break off from the "carpet everything with cities of your color" gameplay and combat actually started to make some kind of sense (never forget, phalanx killing bombers in Civ1, or a lone spearman killing off a horde of barbarian horsemen by healing himself through veterancy, as seen in civ 3). For this reason, I had some hope for the hexes and 1upt in Civ5, but I never managed to love that game.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom