A comparison of Civ 4 and Civ 5

[CHE]

I like both games, but I enjoy Civ IV more. I find Civ IV more fun, and Civ V more serious. I think Civ IV has funnier leader animations, and I love the music in Civ IV.

Most people think that Civ V has a more realistic map layout (Civ IV has a square grid, and Civ V has hexagons). Most people also think the combat in Civ V is more realistic, because in Civ IV, any number of units can fit on one square (the "doom stacks" which Keith Fife mentioned), but in Civ V usually only 1 unit can fit on each hexagon.

I like the fact that in Civ IV civilizations can put units on the same square as units from other civilizations, if they are at peace - e.g. a player can put their ships into a port of another civilization, if they have an "open borders" agreement. (This can't be done in Civ V.)

I prefer the political system of Civ IV ("civics", which enable a player to change between the policies which they have discovered as technologies) and the simple religious system of Civ IV, more than the political system and the more complicated religious system of Civ V (where the player can make their own religion).

I also like the vassal-state and colony system of Civ IV. In Civ V only individual cities can be puppet cities, but entire civilizations cannot be vassal-states, whereas in Civ IV, a civilization can make an entire civilization into a vassal-state. Civ IV (Warlords and Beyond the Sword?) allow a faction to make some of their cities into a colony (a vassal-state), thus reducing the upkeep cost of having a very spread out civilization, and allowing the "lord" faction to get benefits, such as free resources from the vassal state, while the colony provides and controls their own buildings and military units. This also risks an independence war, under certain conditions, like the American War of Independence. I find this an interesting feature, allowing you to recreate the colonial period of history.

I like the city sickness/health system of Civ IV. This makes access to health resources very important.

I like the city unhappiness/happiness system of Civ IV. This means that individual cities can become unhappy (in Civ V, unhappiness always affects every city in a civilization).

I like the espionage system of Civ IV (you get to move around spy units, which can sabotage mines, roads and railways, etc., whereas you can't do this in the Civ V espionage system).

I like the Apostolic Palace and United Nations systems of Civ IV (I think Civ V only has the United Nations, so you can't recreate the power of the Catholic Church to declare crusades, or things like that).

I like the wonder videos of Civ IV (in Civ V, you only get a still picture when you build a wonder).

Civ IV includes privateers (sailing ships with hidden faction identity, allowing the faction to attack and plunder the coastal cities of other factions, and take control of any ships defeated in combat, without declaring war).

Civ IV has wild animals in the early game.

In Civ IV, barbarians start with cities. In Civ IV, they can also capture cities. I'm not sure whether or not they can capture cities in Civ V.

If you play Civ IV with the Beyond the Sword expansion, it allows some military options that are not in Civ V. E.g. forts can be used as airbases, and 1-2 forts can be used as canals.

[tedheath3]

Awesome post, Che!! Thanks for spending the time to write all that. Civ IV it is then!

[CHE]

Originally posted by tedheath3:

Awesome post, Che!! Thanks for spending the time to write all that. Civ IV it is then!

You're very welcome, tedheath3

[Username Unavailable]

Originally posted by CHE:

Most people think that Civ V has a more realistic map layout (Civ IV has a square grid, and Civ V has hexagons). Most people also think the combat in Civ V is more realistic, because in Civ IV, any number of units can fit on one square (the "doom stacks" which Keith Fife mentioned), but in Civ V usually only 1 unit can fit on each hexagon.

This is what annoys me the most about Civ V. If anything, stacks of doom are more realistic than 1UPT. I'd rather have millions of soldiers sitting on a city sized piece of land, even if they're a bit cramped, than having a few thousand soldiers sitting in that same piece of land going "Nope! Can't come through here! We have a very strict policy, only one soldier every 200 feet!"

[CHE]

Originally posted by Username Unavailable:

Originally posted by CHE:

Most people think that Civ V has a more realistic map layout (Civ IV has a square grid, and Civ V has hexagons). Most people also think the combat in Civ V is more realistic, because in Civ IV, any number of units can fit on one square (the "doom stacks" which Keith Fife mentioned), but in Civ V usually only 1 unit can fit on each hexagon.

This is what annoys me the most about Civ V. If anything, stacks of doom are more realistic than 1UPT. I'd rather have millions of soldiers sitting on a city sized piece of land, even if they're a bit cramped, than having a few thousand soldiers sitting in that same piece of land going "Nope! Can't come through here! We have a very strict policy, only one soldier every 200 feet!"

[EdenStarGazer]

Good comparisons!

[CHE]

Originally posted by EdenStarGazer:

Good comparisons!

Thankyou, my friend

[Magron]

yeah.. Civ V seems dumbed down compared.

[CHE]

Originally posted by Vladimir Putin:

Pretty much all that stuff can and has been made into mods for CIV V. That's the great thing about CIV V. Not everyone likes or agrees with everything that is in the base game of any game, and that's where the assortment of mods that CIV V has comes into play, so that each person can customize their own gaming experience.

CIV V is far and away much better simply because of this.

Really? Which mods?

While Civ 5's mods are easy for the player to install, due to the Steam Workshop, Civ 4 is easier to make mods for than Civ 5, and Civ 4 has mods for many of the benefits of Civ 5.

[geteum]

civ iv 4 life

[Nathan Algren]

I agree civ 5 is somthing else as a new different game....it is not enimore a civ game

[CHE]

Originally posted by DasaniCW:

i love the graphics and lighting of civ 4, they give off a older vibe (which i like) and think they are better than the bright colors and such of civ 5. the game is also more accessible (because of the dated graphics) and the ui is very simple and easy to use. civ 5's ui is definitely more confusing, but you get used to it when you figure everything out and know how to do everything.

civ 5 is definitely aimed at an older audience and it's much more complex and deep than any other civ game. civ 5 i think is the best for the thinking and strategy. civ 4 is best for when you're bored and feel like playing a simple, yet great game about building an empire.

the combat of civ 5 is definitely more realistic in my opinion and is way more strategic and requires more thinking than the spamming of units and stacking them together to take down multiple cities in a few turns of civ 4.

the music of civ 5 is just a tiny bit better than civ 4's music. its more high quality and moving and definitely has more money and time spent into it. civ 4's music is fantastic for what it is, which is a sillier, easier civ game.

civ 5's modding community is amazing as well. i love how the developers take the community more serious here. and support mods and even have a built in feature to enable mods in-game and download them via steam workshop and not have to visit any sites to download them (unless you arent using the steam version). pretty much everything that was in civ 4 and not in civ 5 is a mod. and i think thats what the developers intended. civ 4 definitely has an older way of using mods. you have to find one on the internet and manually install it, which doesnt take much, but is definitely not as simple as civ 5's built in modding feature.

i think they both are great, but civ 5 is more for me. because its deeper and more serious than civ 4. and there are a ton of new features and ui changes added.

I described above some of the ways in which Civ 4 is more complex (and also realistic) than Civ 5. In real life, huge armies of multiple unit types travelled together in the space they do in Civ 4. Forcing them to spread out, as happens in Civ 5, is unrealistic. This is especially the case in pre-WW1 wars. However, WW1 involved so many troops and a different style of warfare (trench warfare to prevent soldiers from being mown down by machinegun fire) that spreading soldiers along long fronts was realistic. However, a realistic representation of this would involve more than one unit per tile, and multiple unit types on each tile also, such as infantry, machineguns, artillery and eventually airplanes and tanks, too.

I find Civ 4 more fun, more humorous (and we can prove that there are more aspects of Civ 4 that were deliberately made to be humorous - mainly leaders & diplomacy), but "sillier" is a derogatory term, a subjective term, and like all subjective claims, "sillier" cannot be proven.

As for the music, taste in music, like games, is subjective, a matter of personal opinion. Nothing in real life is "better" or "worse" or "higher quality" or "lower quality" or "sillier" than anything else. I find the music of Civ 4 to be much more moving than the music in Civ 5.

As for whether or not a game is "easier", that, too, is subjective.

[ZumZoom]

Thinking of buying Civ IV, especially after becoming very bored with Civ 5 after 80 hours. In Civ 5 i just can't see any difference between 2 matches after playing about 6-7 of them. Maybe i just don't know how to entertain myself... Is this one more diverse in the ways of achieving victory then Civ V?

[Loy]

nice

[CHE]

Originally posted by ZumZoom:

Thinking of buying Civ IV, especially after becoming very bored with Civ 5 after 80 hours. In Civ 5 i just can't see any difference between 2 matches after playing about 6-7 of them. Maybe i just don't know how to entertain myself... Is this one more diverse in the ways of achieving victory then Civ V?

I'm sorry, I'm unsure. I haven't played enough Civ 5 to compare the ways of achieving victory for the 2 games.

I know that I prefer Civ 4, for the reasons I mentioned in the original post....