Civilization V

[Thorton_AP]

Producing units was never time accurate in the Civ games so I wouldn't use that as a measurement at all.

 

On a side note, I do not find expanding culture to be very difficult, especially since I have decided that money exists in this game to be accrued and spent.

 

 

If you're playing on a very slow time setting (epic or marathon) then it will be a problem for sure. Though a well placed scout can often take care of barbarian spawns as well.

[Malcador]

Best way to play Civ is at Marathon I found, gives you a nice sense of creating history.

[Calax]

Producing units was never time accurate in the Civ games so I wouldn't use that as a measurement at all.

 

On a side note, I do not find expanding culture to be very difficult, especially since I have decided that money exists in this game to be accrued and spent.

 

 

If you're playing on a very slow time setting (epic or marathon) then it will be a problem for sure. Though a well placed scout can often take care of barbarian spawns as well.

Well... it's more that on standard time speed I've had a 12-15 city empire that had several turns where I did nothing simply because all my production ques were still working and I was at peace.

[Malcador]

Well that's true for all the Civs. Although I put cities on stuff like Wealth or Research more than improvements as all that does is weaken my economy.

[Syraxis]

I've never played a Civ game *cue laughing* but now I'm curious. Which do you all recommend I should start with?

 

IV or V?

[Hurlshort]

Start with 5. They are both fantastic, but you might as well go with the latest and greatest. I know some folks nitpick the differences, but you will never notice them and Civ5 is simply an excellent game.

[Humanoid]

Or Alpha Centauri!

 

 

 

 

But yeah, start where you plan to finish - so most probably V. Learning IV with expansions would be a pretty exhausting job given the extra complexity over the base game - and I imagine trying to learn the base game first before adding expansions would be a bit over the top. With V I guess you could say you can learn it in step with the rest of the Civ community.

 

The only caveats I guess would be assuming a system that runs it well, and not wanting to say, play multiplayer with a friend who absolutely refuses so move forward or something like that. Or a religious aversion to Steam.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Humanoid

[Tale]

Or Gal Civ 2

[TheHarlequin]

Or Gal Civ 2

 

I LOVE this game. Play it all the time. In fact I'd say its much more addictive then the current civ game.

[Malcador]

I've never played a Civ game *cue laughing* but now I'm curious. Which do you all recommend I should start with?

 

IV or V?

 

Start with II and then move up.

[Humanoid]

I've never played a Civ game *cue laughing* but now I'm curious. Which do you all recommend I should start with?

 

IV or V?

 

Start with II and then move up.

 

That would involve playing III!

 

1-2-SMAC-4-5 would be a better progression. Maybe slip in MoM before II.

 

 

 

 

I can't exactly put my finger on it but I found Call to Power excruciating. This after the local games rag tricked me by saying it was superior to SMAC in the battle to be Civ2's successor. Its only redeeming feature was the African music track (I forget its name), which wouldn't be matched until Civ4's Baba Yetu.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Humanoid

[Malcador]

Hm, true. I do have a theory stolen from many others about Civ being like Star Trek in that the odd numbered ones are less than impressive. III certainly was, the changes they made were just bleh. But I'd definitely advise that you play Civ 2 if you've never done so.

 

They really need to make SMAC 2. But maybe without Shafer doing the design *laugh*

[Humanoid]

Unfortunately EA holds the rights to it, and Brian Reynolds is busy working on ....Farmville. So that's three things that need to come together for it to happen. Most of the flavour of SMAC came from Reynolds' real interest in philosophy, so I imagine it'd be harder to just straight out switch designers. Some might have dismissed it as pretentious rubbish but hey, it worked.

[Tale]

Or Gal Civ 2

 

I LOVE this game. Play it all the time. In fact I'd say its much more addictive then the current civ game.

I've been meaning to get the second expansion. How is it?

[TheHarlequin]

Or Gal Civ 2

 

I LOVE this game. Play it all the time. In fact I'd say its much more addictive then the current civ game.

I've been meaning to get the second expansion. How is it?

 

Best game of its type. Hands down. Even better them MoO in fact IMO. Get XP2 you wont be disappointed!

[Syraxis]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

After doing some research I decided to take Hurlshot's recommendation and as I type this; downloading V from steam.

 

Once I spend some time and get a feel for the mechanics, I'll give Alpha Centauri a shot.

[TheHarlequin]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

 

After doing some research I decided to take Hurlshot's recommendation and as I type this; downloading V from steam.

 

Once I spend some time and get a feel for the mechanics, I'll give Alpha Centauri a shot.

 

After going back to Civ4 with the 2 XP's I think you are missing out. The more I play civ4 and more I see civ5 short comings and lack of ability to hold my attention for the same lenght of time. I would also suggest you give civ4 a try as well. You will see civ5 simply is dumbed down and lacks the depth and challenge of 4.

[Malcador]

Eh I wouldn't say it's dumbed down. At least not significantly.

[TheHarlequin]

Eh I wouldn't say it's dumbed down. At least not significantly.

 

You can certainly interpret 5 as you wish however IMO the loss of the following is significant enough to justify that claim;

 

- Transports eliminated

- Religion eliminated

- Cities auto defend

- OUPT

- Very non-aggressive AI vs civ4

- Trade and related tiles removed

- Combat simplified

 

Just those things off the top of my head. To me they removed or scaled back a lot of the complexity, tactics, challenge of civ4.

[Malcador]

OUPT isn't that bad, it's a bit of an extreme change from the stacks of doom, would have been better to have limited stacks managed by some mechanic. Religion should have been tweaked rather than just removed, it made unofficial teams in Civ 4. But otherwise I agree with you about those changes being toward ill for the game. The transports one I laugh at, people welcoming at it was "annoying' to build transports to move units.

[Humanoid]

Civ5 compares well to vanilla Civ4. Given it's got 4 years and 2 expansions to make up for, I think Civ5 is in a good enough spot for the future. There are plenty of good arguments for an Civ veteran to let Civ5 mature, but the question as it relates to new players favours it more by providing a more natural learning curve and the chance to learn in-step with the game and the large Civ community.

 

 

That said, neither SoD or Religion were particularly good implementations of depth. SoD covers for the lack of any tactical nous by the AI and the notion of stacking an axeman and a spearman is certainly no more an involved tactical decision than unit positioning is in Civ5. Religion while not in itself a bad thing is simply too dominant a modifier and renders most other diplomatic factors irrelevant, and furthermore, the implementation of founding religions made it such that it was neither advisable (or for most, possible) to do so.

 

Ultimately none of the items in the list are real causes of the game being derided as "dumbed down," I'd suggest it's entirely down to the AI being less able to hide its constraints behind favourable mechanics - the requirement therefore being simply a smarter AI, or at least one that believably cheats more.

 

 

Maybe this is all just because they just used the Sitting Bull AI module from Civ4 instead of the Shaka one.

[TheHarlequin]

OUPT isn't that bad, it's a bit of an extreme change from the stacks of doom, would have been better to have limited stacks managed by some mechanic. Religion should have been tweaked rather than just removed, it made unofficial teams in Civ 4. But otherwise I agree with you about those changes being toward ill for the game. The transports one I laugh at, people welcoming at it was "annoying' to build transports to move units.

 

My issue with OUPT is they want from one extreme to the other. I think a happy middle ground would have been best. Such as no more then 3 units per tile. That would have kept a good balance between tactics, realism and game play mechanics. I agree with religion. Needed to be tweaked but canned totally? Again IMO going from one far end to another while totally missing the middle ground with that mechanic.

Edited November 7, 2010 by TheHarlequin

[Hurlshort]

I did mention the nitpicky veterans

 

It's not like there is a progressive story between the Civ games. Starting with Civ5 is a solid way to go, it is a great game and from here on out, expansions, patches, and the multiplayer community will all be focused on it.

[Thorton_AP]

I have never really understood when people have serious nitpicks regarding realism since the franchise has always had liberties with realism.

 

OUPT may not be realistic, but the system is 100x better than stacking up 100 units on top of one another.

Edited November 8, 2010 by Thorton_AP

[TheHarlequin]

I have never really understood when people have serious nitpicks regarding realism since the franchise has always had liberties with realism.

 

OUPT may not be realistic, but the system is 100x better than stacking up 100 units on top of one another.

 

Where did I or anyone else argue in favor of giant stacks of doom? Really makes me wonder if some folks here actually read what they reply to or just make up something up in their head and reply to that.