Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Anyone else got the new expansion pack for Civ 5?

Definitely worthwhile - has added tourism (and made culture victories more viable), some new factions/city states and cool little things like archeologists. It also feels like the AI has had a bit of a tweek (although again the big step up was with the previous expansion).

Now with both expansions the game feels more like a Civilisation game, less like a watered/dumbed down attempt at previous versions with pretty graphics.

The gameplay of IV and V are completely different. Civ IV is more traditional gameplay, whereas Civ V's gameplay is more in depth due to city-states and the one unit per tile rule. Personally I prefer Civ V but I only have the core game for Civ IV so maybe it's better with expansions.

The gameplay in Civ IV is far deeper and richer than in Civ V, which plays like a ftp android game. It was a huge step back for the series.

Civ V doesnt really feel like a challenge military wise. Yes, stacks of doom in Civ IV were annoying sometimes, but it gave the AI some necesarry punch. Now they cant stack anymore and most surprise attacks against my cities fail, due to a severe lack of units and the new city defence mechanism. Basicly if you get past castles in a city its a yawnfest military as you have adequate time in most playthroughs to react to the latest 'surprise' attack.

The AI is still bad, even on Emperor (highest Ive played so far) they still handle their military units like a drunk guy falling asleep on his keyboard.

Yeah, I've logged ten hours or so on Civ 5. Military takeover vs 3 CPUs on Emperor difficulty....thats all it took.

On the attack, its actually quite interesting, because it takes a bit more tactical thinking to take a city.

Civ 4 is the better of the two, but of the civ series, Alpha Centauri. I struggled against the factions in the vanilla on a medium difficulty.

For what its worth, they both have demos up on Steam. So you could try both before you buy!

Course its been a few weeks so you've probably picked one or both up by now.

Civ IV is my favourate game ever.

They're very different games in a way:

Civilization 4 has more complicated (but necessarily more deep) gameplay, it has a sort of cartoony atmosphere and a lot of personality, the game play feels faster and the world a bit smaller.

Civilization 5 has less complex game play, a more serious feel to it and a lot less personality, the game play elements that are present feel more refined but also a bit limiting coming from Civ 4. Game play feels slower, and the world feels a touch bigger, even if you have fewer cities to manage.

They're both fine games. I'd say Civ 4 is probably the stronger game overall and certainly the most memorable. However I played that into the ground and still found lots to like about Civ 5. It's certainly more polished, that's for sure.

Without Gods and Kings, Civ4 by a mile. With Gods and Kings, it becomes a lot closer. G+Ks is the first time I've played a Civ game where the religion aspect made sense and was integrated well. Haven't tried the new expansion, but I hear it's pretty good.

I just got into Civ games recently and I have to say I actually really enjoy Civ 5. I personally like the fact that I don't have to read an instruction manual on how to farm rice or spend twenty minutes learning how to move units (I exaggerate but after Civ III this is like a breath of fresh air). The UI for Civ 5 is also very good, as in everything a unit could do was clearly defined and laid out, not like Civ III where unit actions were... somewhere.

Ive been playing Civ 5 with all the expansions lately and i enjoy the game.

Never really had any issues running or playing it.

Civ games follow a pattern. The odd numbered ones try new ideas and push the limits, usually ending up cool in some ways and frustrating in others. The even numbered games take the good ideas from the last odd numbered game and throw out the dumb ideas.

Generally the even numbered games are better in the long term and age well, while the odd numbered games feel unfinished and beta-ey, but that can still be exciting if you love the series.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Civ games follow a pattern. The odd numbered ones try new ideas and push the limits, usually ending up cool in some ways and frustrating in others. The even numbered games take the good ideas from the last odd numbered game and throw out the dumb ideas.

There are so many dumb ideas in even numbered civs...

Basically, Civ is decreasing in size. Someday its map will fit on a mobile device without scrolling.

 Rented Tritium wrote:
Generally the even numbered games are better in the long term and age well, while the odd numbered games feel unfinished and beta-ey, but that can still be exciting if you love the series.

Games generally get more alpha or beta - y each passing year.

 Bromsy wrote:
Without Gods and Kings, Civ4 by a mile. With Gods and Kings, it becomes a lot closer. G+Ks is the first time I've played a Civ game where the religion aspect made sense and was integrated well. Haven't tried the new expansion, but I hear it's pretty good.

Think I agree with this.. Civ 5 gave me a similar feeling to Silent Hunter 5 when I first started playing that, where the AI was so bad as to be almost hilarious. Both games are similar in that they had attempted to 'dumb down' to try and sell to a wider audience, and the end was a weakened release that upset long-term fans of the series.

Again the first expansion to Civ 5 made the AI tolerable, whereas previously it had made the game almost unplayable in one player, and the new expansion takes it a step further again with trade routes (which work very well, and to draw in Silent Hunter make submarines really cool as you can use them to track down enemy cargo ships during war!) and tourism, archeology, things like that.