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OS Neutral is it just me or is civ 5 not as fun as civ 1-4?

M

madeirabhoy

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 26, 2012
1,688
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lost my degree to playing civ 1 too much.
civ 2 got me through my first years abroad on my powerbook.
didnt play civ 3 much but civ 4 was good.

trying to get into civ 5, but it seems i dont know.....

the world is a much smaller place.
i love big sprawling empires but it seems the best way to play it is 2 or 3 cities.
taking cities is far more difficult and therefore war is.
theres no swapping of techs!

i know it has much more 'improvements' but im struggling to find the love. it seems hard to get a handle on whether you are ahead or not, whereas in the old days, swapping techs told you whether you were or not
 
madeirabhoy said:
lost my degree to playing civ 1 too much.
civ 2 got me through my first years abroad on my powerbook.
didnt play civ 3 much but civ 4 was good.

trying to get into civ 5, but it seems i dont know.....

the world is a much smaller place.
i love big sprawling empires but it seems the best way to play it is 2 or 3 cities.
taking cities is far more difficult and therefore war is.
theres no swapping of techs!

i know it has much more 'improvements' but im struggling to find the love. it seems hard to get a handle on whether you are ahead or not, whereas in the old days, swapping techs told you whether you were or not
Click to expand...

It's just you. I played 2-4 a ton and 5 is a huge improvement.
 
I am finding it to be not as much fun as well. It's like they don't want you to win using military anymore. It takes FOREVER to produce units, you can't stack them, and taking over a city is simply excruciating now. I prefer Civ4 for these reasons alone.
 
I also think that Civ 4 is the best to date, followed closely by Civ 2 (I haven't actually played the original, and Civ 3 was kind of a transition between 2 and 4 but not as good as either). I bought and played Civ 5, but I agree that it's too different maybe. Taking over cities is definitely a pain in the ass. I just went back to playing 4.
 
Thraun said:
I also think that Civ 4 is the best to date, followed closely by Civ 2 (I haven't actually played the original, and Civ 3 was kind of a transition between 2 and 4 but not as good as either). I bought and played Civ 5, but I agree that it's too different maybe. Taking over cities is definitely a pain in the ass. I just went back to playing 4.
Click to expand...



im playing a game now, been playing it for a week. im on a big island, as are most of the countries on their own islands. i think im ahead in everything but its hard to tell. however i cant work up the energy to attack anyone coz i know its going to be such a massive effort to do.


civ 1 was fantastic. 2d map. massive nations coz there was no weariness or tax strains from big nations and war was fun and easy. nothing better than going america on an earth map, and treating it like 'risk', ie block off the link to south america and populate, 20 or 30 cities. then take south america. boats eventually reaching europe...then sending them across with loads of tanks to take africa....


the excitement of finding that you could cheat your way out of not being able to cross the ocean early on because you couldnt finish your turn in the ocean, but if you went up to the arctic you could just hot the top of the world until you were level with america and drop down.

being able to go gung ho and win the game bang on 100bc, the earliest you could win a game, and set the scoreboard off the scale.
 
I started with Civ 4 so I am not objective (friends at GamerDad guilted me into playing ... and I loved it!) ... but Civ 4 remains my fave. I think Civ III is the low point, and the original Civ has been fully superceded. I did love Civ 5 and had reloaded to replay, but I have such a backlog it just hasn't happened yet!
 
Count Blah said:
taking over a city is simply excruciating now.
Click to expand...

It's not the same game as the other civs so try some other strategies. I find that cities fall very quickly when attacked with the right mixture and amount of elements. If it was the same game as the others and you used the same strategies, what's the point of getting it ?
 
Civ5 is great ... and yes I've played them all over the years.

The strategy is much different though, and of course there are a few tiny things here and there that could be improved... but if you take Civ5 with all its current expansions, its a great game. Taking over a city isn't that difficult as long as you use some type of siege weapon or aircraft. Its more difficult early on, and much easier as tech advances. I've played huge maps and had 50+ cities under my control waging war on the whole world... and its quite fun.

I always felt Civ4 was too easy... just put 50 units in 1 space and steamroll everyone with no tactics, just brute force. Zzzzzzz
 
doh123 said:
Civ5 is great ... and yes I've played them all over the years.

The strategy is much different though, and of course there are a few tiny things here and there that could be improved... but if you take Civ5 with all its current expansions, its a great game. Taking over a city isn't that difficult as long as you use some type of siege weapon or aircraft. Its more difficult early on, and much easier as tech advances. I've played huge maps and had 50+ cities under my control waging war on the whole world... and its quite fun.

I always felt Civ4 was too easy... just put 50 units in 1 space and steamroll everyone with no tactics, just brute force. Zzzzzzz
Click to expand...

maybe i need to try a huge earth map.just feel theres no buzz in the game.
 
Count Blah said:
I am finding it to be not as much fun as well. It's like they don't want you to win using military anymore. It takes FOREVER to produce units, you can't stack them, and taking over a city is simply excruciating now. I prefer Civ4 for these reasons alone.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I like to approach the game from different aspects (play through it lots of times) and the military one is usually second on my list after the space race. It's too "grindy" to do that part so it takes away from the fun for me. IMO

I've played them all over the years as they've come out and I only dislike Civ III more than Civ V. Those two versions have ended up being my least played.

For me it goes:

Civ II
Civ I
Civ IV
Civ V
Civ III
 
Honestly when I first played civ5 I didn't think it was as fun as earlier editions. Not stacking units really bothered me. But after awhile as I got used to the gameplay, I started to enjoy it.
 
I think it's fine.

I've been with Civ since day 1 back in 1992. I can't recall which was the best - I tend to forget whatever came before pretty quickly. I'd actually get a kick out of playing Civ 1 again, but I suspect that it isn't readily availble for OSX. I guess that I played Civ 2 the most - that's the one were the advisors were movie clips, right?

I agree that taking cities is almost impossible until you can get artillery or bombers involved. But that meshes with the style of my gameplay -- hope I'm alone on a mid- or large-sized island and build a huge economy. Then, around the modern age, I can take out a couple other civs pretty easily and try to win either a tech or diplomatic victory.

I'm personally very happy about the lack of stacking, since armeis with huge numbers of units aren't my thing.
 
Civ V has gone unplayed by me for several weeks now. Where as, Civ 4 was played a TON. I can't keep track of the 3AM "Just one more turn" nights I had on Civ 4, no a single one on Civ 5.

I guess for me, the devaluing of the military route hurts the game way too much. I have to devote so much production time to single units that then take forever to travel anywhere close to combat, that the whole system just seems to be built against the military. Perhaps it's because I'm also a big fan of HOMM, so the military approach just seems to be the logical choice to take initially. And if I don't take the military approach, I can go 1000 years, and have literally NOTHING of interest happen. My boats map the world, I talk with other leaders, improve my cities, get bored, quit.

What am I missing?

Quite honestly, it feels like I wasted my money on Civ 5 at this point
 
The cause is probably me ageing and not the game, but I've yet to experience the same excitement I felt when playing "Civilization" on my Amiga1200.
Days and days and days obsessing over it... ;)
 
i have to admit, im now finding it more fun as i learn the difference.


basically having built 15 tons of soldiery things of all types i realise hat its not about having lots of them, its about protecting artillery so they can bomb the **** out of the cities and then the first soldier to do anything can take the city.


hate the not using boats, fed up with my defensless wee infantry getting run over by privateers, want boats to carry them rather than them swimming!
 
Count Blah said:
Civ V has gone unplayed by me for several weeks now. Where as, Civ 4 was played a TON. I can't keep track of the 3AM "Just one more turn" nights I had on Civ 4, no a single one on Civ 5.

I guess for me, the devaluing of the military route hurts the game way too much. I have to devote so much production time to single units that then take forever to travel anywhere close to combat, that the whole system just seems to be built against the military. Perhaps it's because I'm also a big fan of HOMM, so the military approach just seems to be the logical choice to take initially. And if I don't take the military approach, I can go 1000 years, and have literally NOTHING of interest happen. My boats map the world, I talk with other leaders, improve my cities, get bored, quit.

What am I missing?

Quite honestly, it feels like I wasted my money on Civ 5 at this point
Click to expand...

I'm not sure since I always go the military route in Civ 5 and I don't bother trading or negotiating :D. I like to get a fleet together, pound the costal cities, and grab them without much trouble. In any case, Civ 5 requires combined arms (a mixture of unit types). Experience points for units is also very important. Late in the game, it's nice to get three improvements to a unit when you first produce it. +1 combat range and +1 movement to ships is a huge advantage.

My least favorite unit in the game is probably the tank. It has great movement but seems to die quickly (especially attacking cities). Artillery and infantry work best taking cities. My favorite unit is the submarine (a group of them can decimate an enemy fleet). In any case, civ 5 is different then civ 4 and you need to experiment on what strategies work in civ 5.
 
Plutonius said:
I'm not sure since I always go the military route in Civ 5 and I don't bother trading or negotiating :D. I like to get a fleet together, pound the costal cities, and grab them without much trouble. In any case, Civ 5 requires combined arms (a mixture of unit types). Experience points for units is also very important. Late in the game, it's nice to get three improvements to a unit when you first produce it. +1 combat range and +1 movement to ships is a huge advantage.

My least favorite unit in the game is probably the tank. It has great movement but seems to die quickly (especially attacking cities). Artillery and infantry work best taking cities. My favorite unit is the submarine (a group of them can decimate an enemy fleet). In any case, civ 5 is different then civ 4 and you need to experiment on what strategies work in civ 5.
Click to expand...
Thanks. It just seems that from 0BC-1400AD there is precious little going on, other than the same old same old
managing/expanding, and the siege weapons take too long to produce/move/damage cities. With one stack per block, you need to build for 500 years to have enough to bombard, protect, capture a city, heal, move onto the next one. Oh look, I started trying to take over two cites, now it's 750 years later in the year 1505.

Feels more like a chore, than fun. At least with multiple troops per stack, you could chance battles/capturing cities/wars. Not you can't chance anything because you devoted 500+ years of midgame to take over one city.
 
Count Blah said:
Thanks. It just seems that from 0BC-1400AD there is precious little going on, other than the same old same old
managing/expanding, and the siege weapons take too long to produce/move/damage cities. With one stack per block, you need to build for 500 years to have enough to bombard, protect, capture a city, heal, move onto the next one. Oh look, I started trying to take over two cites, now it's 750 years later in the year 1505.

Feels more like a chore, than fun. At least with multiple troops per stack, you could chance battles/capturing cities/wars. Not you can't chance anything because you devoted 500+ years of midgame to take over one city.
Click to expand...

Right in the beginning, I grab all the enemy cities nearby. You don't get artillery until later in the game so make due with archers. The enemy city defense numbers are pretty low so they can be taken out.

strategy.
1) First unit you build is a worker. Automate the worker when he is finished. 2) Research the necessary tech to build archers. Next, research all the tech necessary to build courthouses (for all the cities you are going to conquer).
3) Build warriors until you can build archers. Every warrior you get, send out on automated exploration.
4) Fortify your first archer in your city. Continue building archers until you find a good city to invade. The secondary independent ones are best since you can actually surround the city (i.e. enter their territory) before attacking and declaring war.

It's simplified but the best time to grab cities is towards the beginning and end of the game.
 
Get Europa Universalis, or any Paradox game really. Blows Civ out of the water, and that's coming from someone who's played since Civ II.
 
I consider myself a Civilization veteran. I played the very first game on my Amiga 500 back in the days, it was a pain in all sorts of ways and it's evident the game has evolved substantially since then.

I still consider the fourth iteration, together with the expansions, the best but Civilization V isn't far behind. Why? Because of the latest expansion released in July. Brave New World gave the game a meaty middle that I have missed in previous versions. If it wasn't for the first expansion being so-so I'd say this is the best Civilization to date. Hopefully they'll release another expansion in a year's time to finally surpass Civilization IV.
 
Tried to "enjoy" playing CivV again last night.

No such luck. I like the archipelago/fractal maps in general because you are often given enough land to initially expand without getting totally boxed it. I did this again last night. But the same thing happened. Expand, explore, build archers to take out a city state. Following instructions from above - Three archers, 2 triremes. All do one damage to the city, the city heals up two, two shots on any one unit, and you have to retreat and heal for X turns or die. 15 turns later, I can begin thinking about bringing in a ground unit to take over the city. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Excuse me, did I just nod off there? Yeah, similar to what happens in CivV.

All the while, expanding, exploring, expanding. Just seems like a resource management and city planning "game" than a "dominate the world" game.

I guess I'm still not getting CivV, just seems like all the fun has been sucked out of it.

HELP!!!!
 
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