Marketing New Brain posted:

I liked post patch Vanilla better, but the consensus was that it got better than BTS after G&K

Crazy Ted posted:

Looking at that spreadsheet, is it just me or could it use a little tweaking?

Also, to that poster who mentioned Gandhi: here's how I'd end his introduction

Safety Scissors posted:

Is this game as good as Civ 4 beyond the sword? Please keep the discussion short.

Safety Scissors posted:

Is this game as good as Civ 4 beyond the sword? Please keep the discussion short.

RBA Starblade posted:

"Better luck with the Romans this time Boudicaa." I feel really bad for the Celts in their description in-game, it's basically just "Well at least you pissed Nero off some".

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

As someone who never played a civ game before 5, what was so great about 4 and the Beyond the Sword expansion?

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Better diplomacy. A more interesting tech tree with more viable ways to progress your nation. Better unit balance. An AI that can actually be competitive in middle and higher difficulties (it's not great but it's miles above V's). Better systems that limit empire growth, like its empire-wide maintenance and city specific happiness systems. Better tile yield, improvement, and city management mechanics. Increased moddability with more interesting player mods. The combat is average. It was good for a 4X game at the time but at this point I prefer the hex based one unit per tile style system in theory. In practice, Civ V's is horribly imbalanced and poorly implemented and I hesitate to call that better, as well. It probably is, but both games' combat are lacking. And there are some things I like more about the unit stacking system in IV like stacked workers.

The stuff added to Civ V in the expansions are great for creating more interesting ways to customize your nation and create interesting strategies out of them, but it feels like the depth is completely wasted due to stuff like the AI and poo poo combat. I'm not saying Civ V is a poo poo game or anything, it just has some really high highs and some really low lows, and I honestly don't really know how I feel about it. While I know how I feel about Civ IV, it's one of my favorite games of all time and I still go back and play it every now and then.

Pvt.Scott posted:

Greetings noble Lord Oda Nobunaga of the Japanese people. You're pretty much regarded by history as a mustache twirling, puppy kicking, psychopath. Go hog wild with your screaming hordes of suicidally fanatic followers. Can you finally prove that a katana can cut a tank in half? Can you build a civilization that will be romanticized by your descendants and baka gaijin alike?

Crazy Ted posted:

Civ IV with Beyond the Sword would probably be my favorite game ever if it wasn't for the Stacks of Doom.

starfish prime posted:

I think the one thing that really hurts Civ V, besides the AI's horrible combat, is the impossibly retarded way it artifically prevents you from growing your empire. Namely, the happiness mechanic. It is so frustrating to have a badass midgame empire with huge GPT and well-developed cities, maybe a conquered neighbor or two, and to be unable to settle all the untouched land around you because it's basically impossible to scrounge up any more happiness, especially if you have puppeted cities. Why does the size of my capital have any bearing on my ability to settle cities elsewhere? The maintenance mechanic in Civ IV made way more sense. In V it feels like there's an artificial wall forcing you to choose tall or wide when it's a stupid thing to force the player to choose in the first place.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

I don't think "stacks of doom" are horrible but it's definitely the game's biggest weak point.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Better diplomacy. A more interesting tech tree with more viable ways to progress your nation.

Vahakyla posted:

So how is the combat AI better than in Civ?

To anyone unfamiliar with earlier civs:

Unit stack infinitely. Using "move all" command the computer automatically makes everyone attack the target in such fashion that the one with best promotions for that particular tile is ALWAYS the first one to attack or defend.

Thus war strategy consists of taking as many unit types with different promotions as possible, slapping them into a hguge stack as possible and then attacking your targets one by one. One stack per front, that is it. Anything else is a wasted effort in that your Schwerpunkt is not heavy enough.

So for the AI to be "good" as many rosy-eyed images here portray, the AI had to churn out as many units as possible, "move all" into their desired target and that was it. Because sure as balls the enemy would have a single stack at the frontline city, too. There was no benefit in dividing the stack.

I just finished a BTS game and this got on to my nerves again. And because the stacks are always attacking in the mathematically most optimal way, you need to expect losing modern tanks and mech infantry to spearmen (that the AI never upgrades, since gently caress it, just stack em).

The diplomacy was in some ways better and more varied, yes. And I really think random events like "new hit album" or "generals having a doctrine disagreement, decide", "flood in York Granary", "your spy satellite crashed in England, solve this" and all those made the world feel alive. Much more.


But the combat AI is not any worse now. Now just somethin real is actually expected of it, instead of "stack and beeline to Berlin".

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

Could you expand on these? As far as diplomacy, I remember reading about a civ 4 diplomacy mod for civ 5 with something about vassal states and being able to ask for help like the AI does in 5.

starfish prime posted:

I think the one thing that really hurts Civ V, besides the AI's horrible combat, is the impossibly retarded way it artifically prevents you from growing your empire. Namely, the happiness mechanic. It is so frustrating to have a badass midgame empire with huge GPT and well-developed cities, maybe a conquered neighbor or two, and to be unable to settle all the untouched land around you because it's basically impossible to scrounge up any more happiness, especially if you have puppeted cities. Why does the size of my capital have any bearing on my ability to settle cities elsewhere? The maintenance mechanic in Civ IV made way more sense. In V it feels like there's an artificial wall forcing you to choose tall or wide when it's a stupid thing to force the player to choose in the first place.

Crazy Ted posted:

I played a game about a month ago and had Monty show up out of nowhere with eight catapults and a dozen other units.

Horrible is a good word to describe the result.

Jedi Knight Luigi posted:

Could you expand on these? As far as diplomacy, I remember reading about a civ 4 diplomacy mod for civ 5 with something about vassal states and being able to ask for help like the AI does in 5.

Vahakyla posted:

The Iron Rose posted:

Huh, really?

By and large, the impression I got - accurate or no - was that the consensus was nothing in Civ V really topped BTS. How much of that is due to nostalgia (though it's not like it's been decades since BTS...) is another question entirely however.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Also I have literally never, in hundreds of hours of play, lost a tank to a spearman in Civ IV.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Nope, not even close. Civ V is objectively worse than Civ IV BTS as long as the AI remains in such an utterly abysmal state. It's so awful that it drags the entire experience down every step of the way.

Vahakyla posted:

I think the sentence your are looking for is more around "I lost track of the units in the stack 200 turns ago. Now I have no idea who dies and who lives when my 87 units hit Washington's 76 units in a single click, so I just refill it with new ones every now and then".


You constantly lose modern units to the old ones the AI has unupgraded in the stack.

Vahakyla posted:

I think the sentence your are looking for is more around "I lost track of the units in the stack 200 turns ago. Now I have no idea who dies and who lives when my 87 units hit Washington's 76 units in a single click, so I just refill it with new ones every now and then".


You constantly lose modern units to the old ones the AI has unupgraded in the stack.

FISHMANPET posted:

I feel like with as much focus there is on religion there should be a way to win with it. As it stands I feel like if I pay attention to religion I'm missing out on something to do with my desired victory type.

Safety Scissors posted:

Please keep the discussion short.

FISHMANPET posted:

I feel like with as much focus there is on religion there should be a way to win with it. As it stands I feel like if I pay attention to religion I'm missing out on something to do with my desired victory type.

Away all Goats posted:

Doom stacks never really bothered me, especially with religion you can basically form blocs really quickly and have vassals fight wars for you.

In civ 5, sharing a religion doesn't necessarily mean you'll be friends and you can't have proxy wars through vassals.

Edit also religion and culture was handled way, way better in CIV4 IMO. Basically the only thing Civ 5 does better is combat, still a good game though.

Tulip posted:

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Oh and I just want to add to what I said, when I say Civ IV's AI was better, I don't just mean combat, I meant overall AI. It generally made more intelligent decisions in every single aspect of play. edit: And for your edit about Civics, that's just a matter of taste, I feel. I enjoy the civics more than social policies because you're allowed to change them and adapt to the current situation. Some of the combinations are a little silly, but some of your examples of stupid combinations are historical. Monarchies with universal suffrage are constitutional monarchies with parliaments. Freedom of Speech with slavery, AKA America pre-emancipation.

Pvt.Scott posted:

I'm perfectly ok with a dozen dudes with swords getting lucky with ambushing a tank, opening the hatches and murdering the crew. Hell, molotovs would do it in a lot of cases.

thehumandignity posted:

Not really. Tank hatches have things called combat locks, inch-thick steel bars holding them shut from the inside.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

And the decision to go wide vs tall has been getting progressively less interesting and more one-sided as the patches and expansions come out. Now going wide means settling six or so cities and maybe adding some more in mid-to-late game conquest. ICS may have been a problem in Civ 2 where you could settle an actual infinite amount of garbage cities and still profit from them, with this in fact being the strongest strategy, but it was a very minor problem in 4 where you had to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it and there were often better ways to play. In that light, the nerf to ICS/REX in 5 seems like an incredibly heavy-handed overreaction.

Chomp8645 posted:

All this talk about BTS reminded me that I really hope they implement vassals in Civ 5 at some point. Aside from just being a cool thing, it really helps give people who are losing multiplayer matches a reason to stay in the game. Without the vassal option if you're gonna lose, well, you're just gonna lose. With the vassal option you can at least fight for your liege and be a part of his/her victory. It's not the same as winning the game yourself, but it's a drat sight better than extermination or quitting because you're 1000 points behind in score.

TheGame posted:

Tradition doesn't strictly limit you to 4 cities, but you have to have a very good reason to settle a fifth (excellent starting spot or vital strategic interest). The main reason 4 cities is the norm isn't necessarily because of the free culture building/aqueduct (although those are great), it's because national wonders are extremely important and if you have a misplaced fifth city that has too little production or growth you're going to be at a huge disadvantage when the time comes for your national college, hermitage, Oxford, etc.

A four-city empire has really good timings and is easy to defend while also large enough to produce a quick victory. Expanding beyond that point gives diplomatic penalties, may overextend you and may just not be necessary.

So basically I'd argue that Tradition doesn't make the 4-city plan optimal, the fact that the 4-city start is optimal makes Tradition great.