Is Civ V worth getting into?

When I played it when it first came out, it had brain dead a.i to the point that every single game was a cake walk, a flawed district system where it meant pretty much every city ends up the same and broken special abilities for some civs.

The AI is pretty much the one big thing that the expansions for 5 never really fixed, unfortunately.

As far as 1upt/warefare goes and production stuff, there's a few mods that the longer research times for techs from the longer game speeds with normal/shorter production times for units and buildings and wonders, so looking into those might help there.

steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=78516377
steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=220412890

Not sure if these are the most up to date versions of them though. You can also modify themif you just want the lower production times for just units or want to modify how much longer/shorter stuff is you can follow this guide forums.civfanatics.com/threads/pace-mod.389183/

Now that all the expansions are out and you can get if for cheap, yes

I'm not getting Civ 6 until after it's actually fucking finished

If you can get the whole thing for a few bucks, it'll eat some hours. It still pretty much sucks, though.

I forgot to mention I recommend installing the full package with EUI by the way. Once you get used to EUI which takes like a minute, you'll feel even more how shit Civ 6's UI was. Improved City View mod on Steam makes the UI even better, it works like a charm with VP + EUI but choose the right version and read the description on which files need to be removed (every new patch).

Also, you can mess around in communityoptions.sql if you hate the bonus resources being revealed by techs like I do. It's the first option at the top, change 0 to 1 or 1 to 0, I forgot (needs to be done every new update though, but it's worth it imho). Tons of options there, and the file can be found in the folder called (2).

Some advice: Lower your difficulty. If you played on Emperor Civ 5, try it on Prince first. Gold is scarce as shit early game and you might be forced to sell some buildings to get gold unless you have Gold monopolies, really focus Markets + growth or are certain civs.

The UI is absolute shit even compared to vanilla Civ 5 and seems like it was designed for mental asylums, the balance is non-existent, the AI makes Civ 5's seem genius in comparison. Tech progression (when I played it) was so shit I pretty much got to renaissance BC without a single science district, how is this shit even possible? Also Production costs for most stuff were insanely high and district system was imperfect, the new movement system is just a pain in the ass. I haven't played it since because I've heard nothing was really fixed.

The most annoying thing is I clearly felt that underneath all that shit was hidden something genuinely good that could become great if someone just polished literally every part of it. In other words, once the game is actually finished after 1-2 expansions are released it might be a good game, but before that happens just get Civ 5. Even without mods it's better.

Will disabling bad events just make the whole thing too easy or was it not balanced with that in mind in the first place?

Civ5 is a miserable experience.
Where in Civ's 4 there was an emphasis on producing a military, border culture wars to force you into warfare and an encouragement to build many cities, Civ's 5 punishes you for war and encourages sitting on a handful of cities.
Science is based on population, population growth is crippled by low happiness, happiness is global instead of on a per-city basis. As cities can attack and units have range, attacking a city is an advantage to the defender, especially later in the game when you get artillery with 3 range, meaning your opponents won't even be able to ee what hits them. Also since only melee units can capture cities its super easy to pick them off unless they have fast melee units. The hexgrid is also tedious to play around.

If anyone tells you to play Civ 6, don't. It suffers from many of the same problems of non-interactive gameplay.

I can't speak for multiplayer, I've only ever played against the AI (I can win on difficulty 7, but I found 6 to be the best comfy balance between winning and bullshit). The AI cheats.

Anyways, the game becomes trivial when you realize science/turn is the best resource because it enables all the victory conditions. Increasing city pop/growth increases science, so you double down on these two things and you basically have a guaranteed victory. The AI is easy enough to predict and avoid combat. Tradition and Rationalism and 4 cities is pretty much a given for every single build.

It's not "bad" but expect a long game of watching bars fill up, combined with a sense of anything you do will make you win … eventually. It's a game designed to make you win (the AI only delays you, it doesn't stop you) and waste time.

I like it, it's okay.

its the best civ so far, provided you have all DLCs for it

Nah, both you and AI can randomly get bad events, it disables it for both of you so it's balanced. Though some very minor bad events or ones that are simultaneous for everyone (so 100% fair) like ice age still appear despite "no bad events" being on, but they're not annoying.

Guys…?
humblebundle.com/civilization-bundle

yes/no?

Only the $1 one is a good deal. If you're like me and you have a lot of spare time but not a lot of energy, getting 5 for $9 is okay, I guess. Beyond Earth had some interesting ideas amidst the crap, but charging more for it than 5 is stupid.

Don't get Beyond Earth shit. I don't know if it even has all DLCs or not. It might be cheaper to just get it from some other place. Not sure what would be better. But all of this is only if you really want to buy it.
You can also send Civ4 to [email protected]/* */

You can at least speed them up (in the settings when you start a game) which should help with those issues.
I have no idea why those retards think the default setting is a good idea.

You can scale up game by % in start settings. this should help.

It's worth it, but definitely get into the modding community. It's Steam Workshop integrated, and there are some quality-of-life patches on there that will make your experience all the better. I've got one that will let me tell the game very specifically which combat animations to allow, so while I'm trying to get into space I don't have to stop to watch Unga-Bunga and three hundred of his closest cousins throw their spears at Djangu-Djangu and his extended family.

There are some mods that add in factions as well. They're universally more interesting and flavorful than the official factions. I play the Militaire Sans Frontier, led by Naked Snake. Forces you to go on a single-city run, but you can upgrade it much more heavily than other factions can their own cities by forming mercenary contracts with NPC city-states.

Neat mods worth checking out:

Quick Turns - The above mentioned don't-waste-my-time mod so you don't have to disable your own animations to ignore others.
Increase City Radius 3 to 5 - Cities' workable radius doesn't expand over time, so this mod just pumps it up a few tiles.
Improved Air Recon - Normally doing air recon just reveals an area you can already see anyways. This lets you search from afar.
Improved Nuclear Missiles - Nukes are weak in the default game, both power and range. This brings them up to speed. Caution.
Future Worlds - MASSIVE expansion of the tech tree. Nearly doubles its length. Lets you get into extremely high-tech stuff late game.
LibertyMod - The Liberty social policy tree is a little lackluster, which has to do with wide empires sucking. This buffs it.
Bottom Panel Info - Extremely helpful UI upgrade.
RazeCapitals - Normally you can't permanently destroy an original capital. Fixes this. Double caution when combining with Improved Nuclear Missiles.
Militarily Occupy Territory - Setting a unit to Fortify on a tile has a small chance per round of pacifying the area, adding it to your property without needing a city.
Palace Additions - Adds a large set of powerful once-per-player structures that provide great benefits but cannot be bought with gold.
Pontoon Bridge - Allows your work boats to construct bridges that close single-tile gaps of water. Supremely helpful and an oversight to have not been default.
Diplomacy Values - Shows you why other people are happy with or mad at you in the diplomacy screen. Very good for navigating retarded AI's decisions.
Great Admiral Aquaculture - The Great Admiral unit is useless unless you're at naval war. This allows him to create a valuable resource instead.
Reforestation - Once you reach the Fertilizer technology your Workers can plant forests. Great for converting snow into useful land.
Closer Cities - Exactly what it sounds like. Removes the minimum distance requirement to founding cities.
Camera Rotation - Also exactly what it sounds like.
Info Addict - One of the most popular mods. Provides a bevy of statistical information about your and other empires.
Remove Ice - Work Boats can remove Ice tiles, turning them back into Ocean, possibly opening up passages previously impossible.
Late Game Range BNW - For some retarded reason your ranged units stop being ranged normally. Archers outrange Gattling Guns. This fixes this.
Water Tiles Don't Suck - Buffs the benefits of the Harbor and Seaport buildings to help de-gimp coastal towns.
Submarines Ignore Borders - Get some Cold War spy action going on.
Better Helicopters - Changes the way the game calculates their attacks for the better and allows them to fly over water without packing up onto a boat.
New Beliefs Pack - Adds a shitload of new religious beliefs, which were previously kinda sparse.
Double Speed Aircraft - Civ tried to sell you on the majesty of combat aircraft. Problem is, it's slow as fuck. You'll want this.
Starting Worker - Everyone has to have one, so why even bother making everyone produce it? Just start with one Settler, one Warrior, and one Worker.
Caravans Build Roads - Your trade routes will automatically produce a road along their route. Exceptional for not wasting your time dedicating a Worker to it.
PROMOTIONS PACK (no DLL required) - The upgrade system for units is kinda boring. This spices things up in a big way. Lots of cool new stuff.
Barbarians Evolved - Extremely cool set of additional options for NPC barbarians, up to and including playing as them. Has modes for Barbs being their own faction, making and capturing cities, possibly evolving into NPC city-states, and even a Nightmare Mode Zombie Barbarian setting for brutal survival challenge.

There are plenty of cool factions to add too, but that'll largely be a matter of taste, so I won't bother you with elaborate suggestions on those. But you can play as Naked Snake's MSF, Dr. Weil's Neo-Arcadia, Dr. Robotnik's Eggmanland, several Command and Conquer factions including Yuri, and tons of waifushit like Neptunia, Vocaloid, Megucas, and whatnot.

There are a bunch of just-for-fun mods as well, like changing the Public Denouncement text to the Navy SEAL copypasta, adding the Sad Panda as a great work of art, turning Sweden's idle music to Ikea muzac, India's battle theme to Tunak Tunak Tun, and adding George Costanza's "The Timeless Art of Seduction" as a great work.

Go nuts. Have fun. Don't kill yourself when dealing with mod conflicts. (I don't think any of the above will conflict, though.) And now's the part where I post and the site fucks up my formatting into an unreadable blob.

Interesting. This might just get me back into Civ V, which I long disdained because how shit the base game was. Are these multiplayer compatible? (GMR if possible).

I've got bad news for you user

Mostly not, unfortunately. There's a way to play with mods in multiplayer, but you have to jump through some hoops to make those mods into a format that fools the game into thinking they're official DLC. There are some pre-made packs up here, as well as a guide on making your own. I don't think there's anything stopping you from making all of these work together in multiplayer, but it may be some effort.

forums.civfanatics. com/threads/mpmpm-multiplayer-mod-dlc-hack-updated.533238/

You'd need to make a pack for your intended game contents, and then make sure everyone who wants to play has the exact same mod file in their PC's Civ folder.

I prefer IV but I admit V with all expansions can be fun if you don't expect much from it.

Just wait until they start re-releasing civs already in the base game but with female leaders because muh strong womyn, like they did with Gorgo.

Pirate it and buy if you like it holy shit.
My opinion, stay away from this hot garbage, the game is inherently flawed with it's global happiness and the game is incredibly boring and dull to play, UI's shit, graphics are shit, combat's shit, just plain shit. No overhaul gets rid of it global happiness and can fix it.

It's a bit weird about city size vs number of cities but it's pretty easy to figure out. The AI is pretty fucking braindead and poses no threat now that there is no opportunity for it to build a doomstack and slap your capital's ass. At higher difficulties the AI just gets free starting units, science, production, money, and starts with a bunch of technologies already researched instead of actually being harder. If you manage to seclude yourself (somewhat hard if you don't have an island to yourself) and snowball (really easy) until you catch up, the difficulty becomes irrelevant. That said, it's still fun to play against AI. Just remember there is no such thing as lasting friends in 5. In 4 if you started near someone and treated them nicely and didn't screw them over with war all the time, they wouldn't bite the hand that feeds when it doesn't feed enough. This is not the case in 5. People will betray you at the drop of a hat and everyone starts somewhat hostile. None of the AI trusts first and reacts to you so don't even bother trying to make friends. Consider yourself a master among lesser civs to subjugate and never give them an inch.

The base game is shit but the gold edition is good and the mods add all your favorite anime and my little pony civilisations to genocide and enslave as much as you like. Most of the mods are new civs that are blatantly OP and maps of fictional places or other parts of the world (like in your OP pic) which is nice though none really change the game enough to be more of a curiosity. Would highly recommend the x10 mod which I think goes under the name of the gold balance mod or something. It makes everyone massively overpowered and the entire game into a complete shit show adding some of that Fun™ kind of appeal.

There will be 75-80+% off sales all year round so just wait for it to be

That's pretty much the main problem I think with 5, in that they changed it into a board game where everyone wants to actually win, whereas 4 tries to be much more like how countries / leaders would actually act depending on their personalities.

How many times have I seen this before?

I don't even know anybody that fucking plays Civ for the multiplayer. Anyway any good will I had towards firaxis has been thoroughly eroded in recent years, what with Xcom and civ 5/6.

I've known quite a few over the years, it's quite common, even moreso when you consider the origins of civ in the first place.

There is an even bigger autistic version called mega civilization that was produced in limited quantities. I had the misfortune of playing this game once, it took 14 hours to play 1 game with I think 12 people, maybe 14. Never play this stupid game.

Civ 5 and 6 are not real Civ games anyway.

Civ V is ok played with friends but isn't much fun alone. Get Alpha Centauri if you haven't already.

It is absolute irredeemable shit and the patch support has been almost non-existent so far.

It's shit. Have you checked out Amazonian Warriors instead?

Seconding another user who recommended the Community Balance Patch/Vox Populi. It vastly improves the game and has gotten a couple hundred hours of playtime out of me since I installed it.

The team are still actively working on it, so there always are new features, bug fixes, and refinements. It really is how Civ 5 was meant to be played, imo.

forums.civfanatics.com/threads/community-patch-how-to-install.528034/

...

I heard it's better than Civ V with the Brave New World expansion pack.

so is civ4 better than civ5+mods?

Short answer, yes.
Long answer, definitely.

I started another game with the Vox Populi mod pack and stopped halfway through. The mods made it better, but I guess the game is not my cup of tea.

It's a completely different game, I've put hundreds of hours into it. It's extremely challenging on the higher difficulties and you've got to play well if you don't want the AI to curbstomp you. On Deity even barbarians can obliterate you if you don't know what you're doing.
You've got to specialize your cities, tech trading is very important and proper diplomacy is needed so that you don't have to fight a war at a bad time or against multiple opponents. The leaders also play differently because they not only have a unique unit and a unique building but also a set of two traits with potentially very high impact.
Empire expansion is limited by maintenance cost. The further away cities are from your capitol the more maintenance you have to pay and cities consecutively cost more maintenance, so you're going to run into financial trouble if you expand too rapidly which will stifle your research, because research is mainly generated by transforming a portion of your income (0-100% in 10% steps) into research beakers.

Consider this. I consider CivIV BTS >>> Civ V with mods.

Now add in that you can play CivIV with mods AND you can do it in multiplayer.

I've never played Civilization game. I want to start with IV. Are there any mandatory mods for it or is vanilla good enough?

Civ4 is a real computer game, Civ5 is a board game you play with simulated 10 year olds.
Mods help a bit but nothing will ever fix some of the fundamental design errors like 1UPT.

The expansions are all good. You may want to look for the mod that replaces the landscape textures with real NASA footage so it looks less blurry.

Make sure to get the latest expansion Beyond the Sword. You don't need any mods, but there is a nice interface mod called BAT mod. You can find it on the Civ Fanatics forums.

I regret buying Civ V.
The game just isn't as fun as IV, even with all the expansions it just feels bland.
Also, the game drags on for waaaaaay too long once you get to the industrial era. I never finished a single game because modern era is too sloggish.

That's what wars are for you dingus.

no, its shit

civ4+mods > civ5+mods > civ4 vanilla >>>>> civ5 vanilla

what are the essential civ4 mods?

See , there are no essential gameplay mods.

If you haven't played this already, play it first. (Play the classic, not Alien Crossfire first.) SMAC is still the all-time greatest.

Shame they nerfed warfare into the ground unless you play as specific civs in specific situations.

Civilization 4,5,6 are all not good.
They have massive balancing issues, shit pacing, awful AI and usually shitty combat

Heed this anons advice and just play Alpha Centauri until the stars grow cold.

is ghandi really that big of a threat as people make him out to be?
first time i played civ 5 i spawned really close to him, so in about 20 minutes i had conquered his shit

Gandhi is only a threat in modern times because of the mythological meme of him growing nuclear hungry and getting unfair advantages over building nukes. If you deal with him early on he's cakewalk.

The "le Ghandi nuke xD" meme stems from how his AI in Civ ONE was slightly bugged and loved nukes a little too much and they put it in every other Civ afterwards. A simple overflow error - His aggression was set to 1 but once he adopted Democracy, which reduces AI aggression by 2, it looped back to 255.

ghandi was a real bastard, dont let jew history fool you

Yes but they made it a canonical strat for Gandhi in all recent iterations to go full MAD tactics whenever he reaches the necessary tech. He's still the most peaceful Civ but he gets such an overwhelming firepower advantage that he'll be involved in war no matter what.

Penn & Teller: Bullshit
Holier Than Thou
Episode about the truth on Ghandi, mother Teresa and some other people I can't remember
daclips.in/01ak05z1cskr

The part about the concubines is actually pretty accurate, he liked sleeping with naked women for 'spiritual' reasons. Ghandi is an overrated fuck.

The AI is abysmally shit, and the diplomacy lot doesn't work for ass.

I have CIV IV with all the expansions. I like to play singleplayer and heard that this has the most fun AI and it's the most polished CIV game while still being modern, in the sense that it looks great. Is CIV 5 better? I want the opinions of someone who played both.