New Civilization 5 Expansion - Brave New World

[Jowy]

Anything is biased that portrays Civ5 in good light

[Gaspar]

Anything is biased that portrays Civ5 in good light

Nice strawman you've got there, does it keep the crows away?

[MJW (ya that one)]

I think this shows that Civ5 fans like 1upt and are casual. Most who liked Civ4 better dropped out as the game is too old.

I had no idea that this would cause me to get "Godwin's lawwed" for the first time.

[Gaspar]

I think this shows that Civ5 fans like 1upt and are casual. Most who liked Civ4 better dropped out as the game is too old.

I had no idea that this would cause me to get "Godwin's lawwed" for the first time.

It shows that people who like Civ5 and visit a Civ5 forum prefer Civ5's style and people who prefer Civ4 aren't visiting a Civ5 forum to vote.

1UPT might well be more popular - in fact I actually think it probably is - but this poll shows absolutely nothing.

[Qgqqqqq]

I think this shows that Civ5 fans like 1upt and are casual. Most who liked Civ4 better dropped out as the game is too old.

I had no idea that this would cause me to get "Godwin's lawwed" for the first time.

It shows that people who like Civ5 and visit a Civ5 forum prefer Civ5's style and people who prefer Civ4 aren't visiting a Civ5 forum to vote.

1UPT might well be more popular - in fact I actually think it probably is - but this poll shows absolutely nothing.

This, big time. Every few months or so there's a poll or a discussion of Civ5 vs. Civ4 (or one of the core mechanics featured) and each time, the result depends on which forum it is posted in. And all of them are biased, as is natural.

Civ5 is almost certainly a more popular game with a larger player base at this point. But that isn't something proven here.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

I've been playing quite a bit of Civ5 GMR games elsewhere, it's really not a bad MP game when your opponent isn't fumbling their units ass-first into your firing line.

Needs a few house rules, but it's no worse than RB style no tech trading etc.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Bump because of Sullla's new BNW content. I've read it and feel that I cannot comment on it as I've not played Civ5 for over a year. I'll just say that he could not have avoided lateness without buying the game at full price or pirating both are which are okay to find unacceptable.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Well I've read somewhere that the science penalty is additive not multipliable. It's still really bad though as I've also read that the new city needs a research lab at the end of the game to pull even...

[Azoth]

I read Sullla's sample game and review, and while I enjoyed them, I cannot help but feel that he's too hard on Civ5. Many of the problems he identifies in Civ5 appear in one form or another in Civ4, and are endemic to 4X games. There are always tradeoffs to be made: balanced/boring options vs. interesting/imbalanced options; simple/passive mechanics vs active/tedious mechanics. Different games will decide things differently. To wit:

Freebies: Civ4's version of the Fountain of Youth is probably riverside grassland Gems. And a nearby Cultured city state is analogous to plains hill Marble for your second city. (MoM, here I come!) And free Writing or Horseback Riding from a Civ4 hut can be just as game-changing as a free pantheon. For random City State quest, see random religion spread from the AI game leader. The point is, if terrain is to matter, then some element of geographic luck is unavoidable. And while random elements can be frustrating, they add variety and force choices of their own. (What if you don't find a nearby Religious city state? Are you going to give up on the faith subsystem altogether, or go against the tide and build Stonehenge?) The best that games can do is offer players the choice to turn off some of the random elements (goody huts, barbarians), which both Civ4 and Civ5 do.

Economy: There is One Right Choice for early peacetime economy in Civ5: Tradition. Food Caravans. Resource Sales. Early National College. The same can be said for Civ4: Monarchy. Slavery. Tech trades. Early BureauAcademy. Sure, there are other options in specialized circumstances (Liberty, Great Lighthouse) but you won't use them most games. And, of course, repeated resources sales/slavery timers get tedious fast. But that's OK. Designing multiple viable economies is hard and the payoff is not that great. (EitB does it with City State/cottages and Aristocracy/Agrarianism but the end result is you can pick either; it doesn't matter for most civs.) At least the imbalance creates room for variant games: Civ4 default civics only. Civ5 Honour opening.

Diplomacy: Yeah, the Civ5 AI is exploitable. Civ4 AI? Same deal. Most leaders won't declare war at Pleased while a handful cannot be appeased at almost any price. God help you if you start next to Shaka on Civ4 Immortal! (It's usually a game loss for me; I can deal with Shaka fine, but I fall too far behind some one like Mansa on the other continent.) Meanwhile, witness the expert-level tactics of GOTM players, who rush Settlers to poor city spots along AI borders, then gift the cities away for diplo points. Magic invulnerability to war declarations and no WFYABTA! The upshot is that only human players can provide a real challenge - though, from what I gather, Civ4 handles multiplayer much better than Civ5.

Combat: This is clearly a matter of taste, but I much prefer 1UPT to stacks. Stacks allow for more tactical depth, but they are way more tedious than even 1UPT traffic jams. An Industrial Age war in Civ4 can involve hundreds of units and require hour-long turns! I don't have time for that; in fact, I've never played Civ4 out to a domination victory. So, yeah, it's a shame that the Civ5 AI is clueless about 1UPT but the Civ4 AI didn't really understand stacks, either - it just had the advantage of quantity. And the answer was always: build more Catapults.

Expansion: This is another matter of taste - a matter of scaling. The average peaceful empire in Civ3 had ~15 cities. In Civ4, ~10 cities. In Civ5, ~5 cities. I'd much rather micromanage 5 cities than 15, but it's fair to demand more from an empire-building game. That said, I think the culture and research penalties in Civ5 are MUCH more transparent than Civ4 city maintenance or Civ3 corruption, where you never really knew how much an additional city was going to cost or what gain was to be had from the Forbidden Palace. Again, it's a tradeoff.

TL;DR The real strengths of Civ4 are multiplayer and modding. As standalone SP strategic games, I'd say BtS and BNW are roughly comparable. This, from an admittedly casual but by no means unthinking gamer.

[Serdoa]

Well, you say it yourself, you prefer less armies, less cities. So obviously Civ5 will be better liked by you than by someone who would prefer more armies, more cities. And that obviously will lead to a softer look on "not so well implemented features". Also I think if you play rather casually (as I do to with Civ5, if I play it at all) you don't really realize the issues with some of the systems. The freebies are a good example. You compare them to Civ4s "freebies", but look at one of the examples you listed:

Fountain of Youth: +10 Happiness, nothing to do on your part
Riverside Grassland Gems: You have to research Mining if you didn't start with it, you have to improve it, you have to work it

The difference should be obvious. And it is imo for every one of your examples. While in Civ5 the freebies are not needing any input by you, they just happen, in Civ4 you do have to actually use a possible advantage that is presented to you. It needs a conscious decision. That decision might be very easy to make for experienced players, but it is a decision nonetheless. And the question if you go for the grassland corn first or the riverside grassland gems is actually a real tradeoff (faster growth vs more commerce) to make. But the fountain of youth? Not really anything to do but to stumble by pure luck upon it.

That said, I did play most of Civ4 in MP.