On-Topic Off-Topic Forum Thread: Rate'em! Civ's I-V

[self biased]

it's not particularly easy, and requires you having nine cities and a ****load of patience and access to most of the religions.

[-Jrabbit]

The patience is the hard part. For me, certainly.

[Straybow]

II > SMAC/X > I >>> III

I didn't play III. I was still playing II and SMAC in 2009. My old computer couldn't quite handle IV, and before I replaced it I had a daughter with a heart problem to take care of.

[Dinner]

4, 2, 3, 1, 5.

[Nikolai]

SMAC, for being plain awesome.
IV, for being great.
II, for being the pinnacle of Civ for ages, although it's getting long in the tooth compared to newer editions with regards to mechanics.
V, for being very good, if not perfect. Would go above II had it not been for II's lasting legacy.
I, for being very good for it's time and for starting it all.
III, for being the worst main civ game, although it was not a total loss.
CtPII, for being plain horrible compared to the "real" civ games.

CtPI I never played and Revolution I only played the demo of, so won't place them anywhere.

[Krill]

it's not particularly easy, and requires you having nine cities and a ****load of patience and access to most of the religions.

You can do it with 3 cities. Only reason to do it with nine is so that you can have every cathedral in each city.

[Elok]

Did cultural once just to say I had. Will never, ever do it again. Ugh, that was horrible.

Are we agreed that the rule against using enemy roads was just about the worst flaw of IV? I hate massing troops at the border, declaring war, then spending two or three turns just slogging forward to attack the first city.

[Sava]

4>2>1

5 is meh on its own merits... but horrible considering the expectation that sequels should improve the series

3 is the worst. God awful. Nothing redeeming whatsoever.

[Dinner]

CTP2 was great as long as you didn't use the AI and instead only played multiplayer. Or at least it was until people discovered the infinite builds bug.

[Sava]

also relevant:

That was amazing.

[Aeson]

Are we agreed that the rule against using enemy roads was just about the worst flaw of IV? I hate massing troops at the border, declaring war, then spending two or three turns just slogging forward to attack the first city.

I disagree. There are interesting ways to deal with this "problem" that expand the viable options a player can pick from. If you "fix" it there's only one option in most cases, as it's completely overwhelming.

I remember in playtesting boating someone on a lakes map. That took about 100 turns of planning, much of it while fighting a border war. Left me with a completely useless navy and Amphibious promotions on some units that would never sail the seas again. But it was totally worth it.

If we had been able to use enemy roads, the war would have been over the first turn. The winner would have been whoever was able to click fast enough to attack with their Cats.

Interesting choices: Navy + Commando, flanking attacks to culturally weak areas, Great Works, border Culture wars over long time-frames, Commando upgrades, Gunships/Bombardment late, or just slogging it out.

Not a choice, and kinda boring: First turn, collateral damage. Second turn, it's already over.

[Jon Miller]

What if you had 1UPT but you had an overall limit of units.

Like 1 unit per population point or something?

My problem with 1UPT is always when there gets to be a carpet of units.

JM

[Jon Miller]

What if you had 1UPT but you had an overall limit of units.

Like 1 unit per population point or something?

My problem with 1UPT is always when there gets to be a carpet of units.

JM

[giblets]

What if you had 1UPT but you had an overall limit of units.

Like 1 unit per population point or something?

My problem with 1UPT is always when there gets to be a carpet of units.

JM

So you're more likely to run out of stuff to build? I'd prefer not having an arbitrary limit on how many soldiers can exist in a tile.

[regexcellent]

I disagree. There are interesting ways to deal with this "problem" that expand the viable options a player can pick from. If you "fix" it there's only one option in most cases, as it's completely overwhelming.

I remember in playtesting boating someone on a lakes map. That took about 100 turns of planning, much of it while fighting a border war. Left me with a completely useless navy and Amphibious promotions on some units that would never sail the seas again. But it was totally worth it.

If we had been able to use enemy roads, the war would have been over the first turn. The winner would have been whoever was able to click fast enough to attack with their Cats.

Interesting choices: Navy + Commando, flanking attacks to culturally weak areas, Great Works, border Culture wars over long time-frames, Commando upgrades, Gunships/Bombardment late, or just slogging it out.

Not a choice, and kinda boring: First turn, collateral damage. Second turn, it's already over.

This is fixed by allowing units that are defeated to have a high chance of retreating 1 tile instead of being destroyed. Chance goes down with lower initial health.