So was Civ4 dumbed down?

[MetalCraze]

I'm thinking about giving Civ4 a try

But as I take there are series of dumbing down for soft casual kids in place:

- there are no corruption and riots anymore
- there are no Zones Of Control (1 square in the radius of your unit through which nobody but your ally could move in the previous games - was a great thing to protect roads and borders where 2 units could've controlled 6 squares in one line instead of two)
- 'fortify' is useless - gives only 5% of defense bonus per turn up to 25% - so basically you need 5 years of "fortifying" to make fortify more or less matter - also no heals/repairs during that
- instead of a proper combat system (attack/defense/armor/hp) there is now some gimmick shit (strength/hp with strength being tied to hp)
- neutral units could move through squares with your units because kids cried that evil h4xx0rz blocked dem roads in MP

True/false/how terrible?

 

[GarfunkeL]

True.

 

[Malakal]

I'm thinking about giving Civ4 a try

But as I take there are series of dumbing down for soft casual kids in place:

- there are no corruption and riots anymore
- there are no Zones Of Control (1 square in the radius of your unit through which nobody but your ally could move in the previous games - was a great thing to protect roads and borders where 2 units could've controlled 6 squares in one line instead of two)
- 'fortify' is useless - gives only 5% of defense bonus per turn up to 25% - so basically you need 5 years of "fortifying" to make fortify more or less matter - also no heals/repairs during that
- instead of a proper combat system (attack/defense/armor/hp) there is now some gimmick shit (strength/hp with strength being tied to hp)
- neutral units could move through squares with your units because kids cried that evil h4xx0rz blocked dem roads in MP

True/false/how terrible?

Corruption is replaced with upkeep cost for cities. It's much better because it makes far cities viable and democracy isn't so overpowered now. You can actually play a competetive police state!
Lack of zones of control sucks ass unfortunately, fortunately AI is too stupid to wage grand pillage campaign.
Fortify may be useless by itself but you can still get forts and massive tile defense bonuses (forests/cities/hills etc). And let's face it, 25% seems reasonable for a defensive bonus. It's not like defending on plain was so much better than attacking...
Combat is indeed much less complicated now. HP is strenght and all units have the same offense/defense stats. What bothers me more is lack of unit types. It is possible to wage wars using one unit type and artillery now!
Yes, granting open borders allows neutral units access. Buy you can always deny it. Bad for trade and diplomacy, but you can choose to be a dick.

That should answer your questions. Overall I find Civ 4 very good. Much better than 3, I had as much fun with it as with 2 and Alpha Centauri. Modern warfare is especially fun, unfortunately other ages seem lacking in comparison. Wonders are now optional (ie not THAT powerful as they used to be), tiles can be improved in new ways, AI (with massive cheating on higher levels) can be challenging. Civ 4 is a bit different but still good.

 

[Tails]

For me the biggest push off is graphic style of Civ 3/4 (especially 3). In Civ 4 unit size looks strange comparing to size of towns, in SMAC it looks reasonable.

 

[OSK]

I agree with what Malakal said, but I prefer the new combat. Promotions allow you to specialize your troops. You can train your units specifically to defend cities, or forests or hills. You can train them to heal other units. You can train them be offensive powerhouses, or to invade cities, or to shutdown a specific threat. And all of those roles can be filled by a single type of unit, if you wish.

 

[MetalCraze]

Corruption is replaced with upkeep cost for cities. It's much better because it makes far cities viable and democracy isn't so overpowered now.

Except having far cities more useless was better because it effectively stopped you (and not only you) from easily having an empire all over the map and fighting wars anywhere you wanted with accessing the full potential of captured cities half a world away. Moving your capital was a nice touch to balance this.

Fortify may be useless by itself but you can still get forts and massive tile defense bonuses (forests/cities/hills etc).

What's the point without zones of control? The enemy will just move past them.

And let's face it, 25% seems reasonable for a defensive bonus

You will have 25% only after 5 moves of fortifying and doing nothing else. In the later game especially 5 moves are a lot of time.

For me the biggest push off is graphic style of Civ 3/4 (especially 3)

True that. I still think that Civ2 ToT and especially SMAC were the ones with the best graphical style.
Civ3 feels like an overly colourful poo.

You can train your units specifically to defend cities, or forests or hills. You can train them to heal other units. You can train them be offensive powerhouses, or to invade cities, or to shutdown a specific threat. And all of those roles can be filled by a single type of unit, if you wish.

I only hope it won't be just another gimmick

But heh I guess I'll give Civ4 a try, though I don't expect it to be better than the older ones (especially from Brian Reynolds' era)

 

[OSK]

Except having far cities more useless was better because it effectively stopped you (and not only you) from easily having an empire all over the map and fighting wars anywhere you wanted with accessing the full potential of captured cities half a world away. Moving your capital was a nice touch to balance this.

Upkeep is determined by the number of cities as well as the city's distance from the capital. That city on the other side of the world will be fully functional, it'll just cost a shit ton to maintain.

 

[Keldryn]

It's not dumbed down at all.

Some features, such as corruption and riots, were removed entirely or completely re-worked. However, the game added new features as well. The series had maintained a good equilibrium between complexity and playability, and features which detracted from the game or which didn't really add much were dumped in order to make room for new features without making the game excessively bloated. For every feature that was removed, a feature of equal complexity was added.

Civilization Revolution is a different story. I likely wouldn't play it if it was available for the PC, but it's a great little diversion on my DS. I don't consider streamlining the same thing as "dumbing down," but this one is a case where too much streamlining has led to the game being a bit dumbed-down.

I enjoy Civ 4 more than I enjoyed 2 or 3; the original was one of my first experiences of checking out a game that sounded interesting around 7pm one night and then the next thing I knew the sun was coming up, so nothing will really measure up to that.

Civ 4's combat system requires a bit more thought, I find. Units have a single combat strength (instead of Attack/Defense stats), and I believe they do less damage the more they are injured. Units have special properties that make them more or less effective in specific situations or against certain units. Axemen, for example, have a strength of 5, but they get +50% vs other melee units. Swordsmen have a strength of 6, with a +10% when attacking cities. If you're attacking a city garrisoned with archers, then Swordsmen are a better bet, but Axemen are what you want to put up against early melee units. Spearmen have a strength of 4, and +100% vs mounted units. Mounted units frequently don't have an attack bonus, but have a chance to withdraw from combat before getting injured. Archery units get a +25% or +50% city defense bonus, and usually a +25% hill defense bonus as well, plus promotions can give them a first strike ability.

Units earn XP in combat and "level up" to earn promotions, which improve existing bonuses, grant new bonuses, or grant new abilities. Certain buildings, government civics, and leader traits give units free XP when they are built or give bonuses to earned XP. Customizing your units in this way requires a great deal of thought so as to create the most effective army. Building a huge stack of your most advanced unit doesn't work nearly as well as it used to. If you research the technology to build Knights before everyone else, cranking out a stack of 8 and going on rampage will usually result in your army getting decimated when you attack that city with 3 fortified spearmen units. Every unit has an effective counter unit. The combat is certainly not dumbed down.

 

[spectre]

First, get yourelf some mods for it, Skyway, I recommend WolfRevolution for a neat mix of features.
Then, be ready to learn how to work a few concepts from scratch, like spying, civics, combat system, different pacing when founding cities and slight changes to wonders. This civ works a bit different then the last (no more crazy land grab).

I miss the zone of control thing, though I remember it works in 4 as well (although was nerfed), I remember when units walked past my cavalry, they got damaged. Could be a mod thing, though.

The promotions are not just gimmicks. If you take care of your units well, and specialize, you'll get visible results. A unit with Woodsman III promotion and three City Defender III and the one with three flat +10% bonuses are very different units.

I am satisfied with the new combat... almost. The main gripe was that siege units no longer bombard units, just cities. A few mods fix it, though, so no loss.

Takes some time to re-adjust, but I never looked back at III once I got the hang and got the right mod for me. Tbh, same when III came out and kinda rendered II obsolete.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Don't forget ugly 3D graphics and avatars.

Strenght=HP is a good idea(Since 200 Marines is better than 20 Marines) but IIRC combat in Civ4 was utterly fucked up, even though they patched it three times

 

[PorkaMorka]

dumbed down isn't really right

it was just made more boring

It seems like the changes pushed it more towards the Gal Civ model of the game just being a spreadsheet and various things just boosting your numbers by a percent

But mostly my biggest issue with the game is that I would sit there and play for like 4 hours

and my civilization didn't do ANYTHING of interest during this time except slightly advance in technology.

 

[Ogg]

and my civilization didn't do ANYTHING of interest during this time except slightly advance in technology.

You, sir, are playing Civilization.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

Protip: don't play it vanilla. Fall from Heaven is a really good and fun mod to play, but if you want more of a traditional kind of Civilization experience, you should play Rhye's and Fall of Civilization. The vanilla version of the game is pretty bland; it can be fun for a while but once you start playing the good mods you probably won't go back to playing it unmodded.

 

[deshields538]

The one thing that pissed me off the most was how they put religion into the game. They all give the exact same bonuses as each other because they were afraid some people might get offended if they made them *gasp* different.

Dunno if there is a mod to fix it where Judaism gives you extra gold and Islam gives a conquest bonus with a free suicide bomb for all units in the modern era, hur dur.

But I play Fall From Heaven 2 (fantasy mod) where the evil religion slowly turns the world into hell, fuck yeah!

 

[Damned Registrations]

Fall from Heaven is indeed a giant piece of kick ass. Converting your nation to a legion of octopus cultists and raising some water-zombies to take out an enemy navy or leveling up some champion of your race/religion/whatever to be a wargod that massacres a dozen units without breaking a sweat is pretty awesome.

As for the vanilla mechanics, someone summed it up well earlier. They added more than they took out from Civ 3. You CANNOT use one unit type + artillery. Cavalry will get decimated by a few spearmen. Archers in a city on a hill will be nearly impossible to take down without specific anti city/archer units or a lot of artillery. Artillery is no longer a magical auto-kill-everything unit. It just gets some bonuses for certain kinds of combat and has a very high withdrawing chance so it rarely dies. But it still gets fucked up in combat, so you can't camp next to a city with a few units and bombard them for 30 years.

 

[~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-AIN'T]

You CANNOT use one unit type + artillery. Cavalry will get decimated by a few spearmen. Archers in a city on a hill will be nearly impossible to take down without specific anti city/archer units or a lot of artillery. Artillery is no longer a magical auto-kill-everything unit. It just gets some bonuses for certain kinds of combat and has a very high withdrawing chance so it rarely dies. But it still gets fucked up in combat, so you can't camp next to a city with a few units and bombard them for 30 years.

:

Pretty much the best way to take any city is to spam your strongest type of unit and a bunch of artillery. Bombard until theres no defense bonus, then attack with all the artillery which does collateral damage, and by the time you get to your other units it doesn't matter what type they are, because all the units in the city are so hurt from the artillery attacks. Combat outside cities is better in Civ4, but I'd hesitate before saying city combat is at all improved, and artillery is still definitely OP.

 

[Turisas]

It has its issues, but I still think Civ4 has so far been the best in the series. And with mods it gets even better.
Of the modpacks that still retain the original gameplay concept(excluding for example FfH which of course is kickass), my current favorite is Rise of Mankind.

It adds shitloads of new stuff so someone may prefer modpacks like Legends of Revolution, but for me RoM is perfect. I'll never play the vanilla BtS again, it just feels crappy in comparison.

RoM also has some great modmods available, I'd advise to check some of them out as well http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=351

 

[Malakal]

Well it's true that some things were 'dumbed down'. In Civ3 you had shit load of resources and strategic resources. It led to stupid situations where your advanced empire couldn't build infantry because it lacked rubber! (even if you had oil) No musketeers without salpenter (never mind that salpenter is very common irl)! In Civ4 they cut some resources and its great, no moresuch dtupid situations as mentioned above.
About one unit and artillery I meant infantry + artillery or riflemen + cannons as two good examples. AI doesn't build enough grenadiers or machine guns to be competetive in those 2 eras. And you wont have problems attacking even earlier with one unit stack, for example axemen and catapults are easily the best combination in ancient era when its enough to always hide in forests in order to siege cities (AI doesn't cut them fast enough).
Anyway vanilla Civ4 is soso. Beyond the sword made it much better, but it's in mods where it really shines. As suggested try Fall from heaven (I heard they fixed some AI to be almost challenging) or Rhyes Rise and Fall of civilizations for a more historicall flavor.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I dunno why I had never tried FfH before - now there went my last night pretty well. I had an evil civilization, running things nicely when I built the Mercurial Gate without checking more closely - I was just happy that it gave -25% war weariness to all cities. Guess what? It really was a gate to heaven and a bunch of angels came through, capturing that city WHICH WAS MY BEST ONE AFTER MY CAPITAL GRRRRRRR!

In other words, they've found that sweet spot where the game is close enough to the original to still be interesting as a Civ-game but with enough changes that it really engages the player. Two thumbs up!

 

[AzraelCC]

The key to understanding why Civ 4 isn't dumbed down is to not compare it to simulations like the Paradox Games. It performs an abstraction of the general ebb and flow of history and translates it into a strategy game. In the Codex, everytime Civ4 is discussed, somebody would always come in and say it's not historically accurate. Civ4 is a strategy game first and foremost, before any attempt at simulation.

Is Civ4 better than SMAC? I believe it isn't, but it's the best of the Civilization series. SMAC is also a strategy game, but precisely because of its fictional setting, it has more avenues to create gameplay enhancements that jive with the setting.

I don't understand why people say Civ4 is dumbed down compared to Civ2. Corruption is gone, but the upkeep of cities grows exponentially. So much so that not only is the national wonder forbidden palace needed for large empires, but there is an option to declare distant cities to become colonies or vassals. Rioting is still present, and Civ4 actually gives you options to deal with it should you have the resources (money, loss of population, or a turn of not being able to build anything).

I don't even understand the claim that the religions are too bland, since they don't confer bonuses. But in a way they actually do--in the form of the specific wonders that their requisite technologies may unlock. Religion's purpose in the game is to provide choices in your research focus, better than the singular strategy of just using religion as a means to satisfy the people as in Civ2 or 3 (in the form of temples). Civics serve as the gameplay mechanic that confers global bonuses. This decision shows a good understanding of the use of mechanics, as opposed to adding features just because they can.

Admittedly, combat and diplomacy are still relatively weak compared to the building aspect of Civ4. There are clearly specific technologies that would signal a period of mostly offense or mostly defense (Archery emphasizes defense until the discovery of Construction, then defense again when Machinery is discovered until Steel is founded, in which case offense is again encouraged). Stacks are still very encouraged, and the lack of zone of control indeed lessens the opportunity for strategic options in terms of unit positioning. Still, proper unit choices play a part in combat, which is far better than the combat of Civ3 or even Civ2. Diplomacy is simply a bitch in the higher difficulty levels, but the option is there (and can sometimes be used to one's advantage), whereas in Civ2 and 3, diplomacy is non-existent.

Play the game at Monarch difficulty on your first play through (with beyond the sword of course) and use the Terra map template. In my opinion, this is the best way to enjoy Civ4 even in its vanilla state. You can go for early aggression or early expansion or quickly get advanced naval tech to expand in the new world for a late game advantage. Too much expansion in this map will let you feel the effects of upkeep dramatically, while too little will make you insignificant on the world stage.

For the most part, the Codex likes Civ4 and understands its weaknesses. I just don't think anyone can objectively claim that it's dumbed down compared to the other games in the series.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You CANNOT use one unit type + artillery. Cavalry will get decimated by a few spearmen. Archers in a city on a hill will be nearly impossible to take down without specific anti city/archer units or a lot of artillery. Artillery is no longer a magical auto-kill-everything unit. It just gets some bonuses for certain kinds of combat and has a very high withdrawing chance so it rarely dies. But it still gets fucked up in combat, so you can't camp next to a city with a few units and bombard them for 30 years.

:

Pretty much the best way to take any city is to spam your strongest type of unit and a bunch of artillery. Bombard until theres no defense bonus, then attack with all the artillery which does collateral damage, and by the time you get to your other units it doesn't matter what type they are, because all the units in the city are so hurt from the artillery attacks. Combat outside cities is better in Civ4, but I'd hesitate before saying city combat is at all improved, and artillery is still definitely OP.

Even without a city defense bonus, archers in a city on a hill with no promotions gets a 75% bonus, bringing their effective strength up to 5.25, better than even axemen and they cost nearly a third less shields. With even two promotions they can get another 45% to bring them up to 6.6. And this is AFTER having the city bombarded to 0, which will take long enough they'll be able to bring in plenty of reinforcements and harass your best attackers with their own axemen or cavalry.

If you have so much artillery to waste that you can bring every single archer they have low with a single attack (Since they'll heal up the next turn and your artillery will be fucked until you can get it out of enemy territory to heal) then you could have just swarmed them with women wielding floppy dildos anyways you had such a massive economic advantage.

 

[RandomLurker]

my current favorite is Rise of Mankind.

Seconded. Turn on revolutions and then try complaining about dumbing down. Still, be sure to install some modmod that includes the CAR mod (unless that was incorporated in the latest release, I'm not sure) - this can net you significant improvement in game speed in the later stages.

Also, it makes all religions different (with islam giving extra money and science and judaism giving extra culture, for some reason), which could be important for those bothered by that in the vanilla.

 

[Shuma]

I think a good discussion should be had on what constitutes 'dumbed down' and what is streamlined. Civ IV streamlined many unwieldy and unfun game elements in the desire to create a better balanced and more entertaining game. Corruption in Civ 3 was not very fun or balanced. It encouraged Infinite City Sprawl as the only viable strategy. It essentially punished you for developing your cities and so it made the most sense to pack as many cheap cities as you could into the densest area possible. Nothing else was optimized. Now you face a choice: should I spam settlers early, risking a total economy breakdown to claim as much land as possible before my civics and techs can support it, or should I expand at a slower pace, risking engulfment by my ever-greedy neighbors? Doesn't seem like dumbing down to me.

Other elements mentioned are valid. I can see no good reason for removing ZOC, other than the aforementioned dumbing down. Combat is a bit simplistic, even with the promotions system, and stacks still reign supreme.

On the other hand, it's the best Civ to date at creating an interesting late game. The modern age pulls out all the stops in terms of tactical options (few, but meaningful) and strategic (with Corporations and multiple win conditions).

Here's maybe a better question: why is SMAC the better game? It's repeated as gospel around here, but I have my doubts. I have a feeling we'd quickly get into simple preferences (Civ IV too cartoony, 3D sux, SMAC's storyline was awesome!) rather than gameplay comparisons. Don't get me wrong, SMAC was awesome, but I think the two games are just as good as each other, and Civ IV gets better when you take mods into consideration.

 

[JoKa]

how about terraforming done (mostly) right, really distinct factions and a mighty unit editor? doesn't sound like cosmetics or 'simple preferences' to me...but alas, didn't play civ4 too much, i admit.

 

[Malakal]

how about terraforming done (mostly) right, really distinct factions and a mighty unit editor? doesn't sound like cosmetics or 'simple preferences' to me...but alas, didn't play civ4 too much, i admit.

Terraforming? Done right? In SMAC? In the game where it is possible to global warm all the land under water? Or to dry all oceans by creating mountains? Yes, terraforming in SMAC was awesome and fun. But definitely it wasn't done right...
And factions werent that different. Nothing you couldn't achieve with social engineering, only higher maximum.