How does Civ 6 compare to Civ 5?

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mrbadger
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How does Civ 6 compare to Civ 5?

Post by mrbadger » Fri, 12. May 17, 09:30

I am finally getting the hang of Civ 5.

I don't have a lot of free time to play it, but I have discovered that I now regret avoiding it all these years, because it is an amazing game.

I'm not about to rush out and buy Civ 6. I haven't got close to exploring everything I can do in Civ 5, so why bother? (besides I want for cheap with all the DLC in a Steam sale) But I would like to know how they compare. I assume some people here play it, since it has come up before.

I see TotalBiscuit has a thing on Civ 6, but that's an hour long, and I don't know it compares the games, plus I'm in the middle of marking season. As much as I want to I just can't sit and watch that right now, but I will.
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Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 12. May 17, 10:13

Civ 6 is the most complete Civ game on release for years--but that's not really saying much, considering the state Civ4 and Civ5 were in when they were released (they eventually got patched into the much better versions we have now). It has some interesting features, like the fact that you now build things in the hexes controlled by the city--so, a World Wonder would need a free city hex available, rather than just being bundled into the city centre as they were in earlier games. That makes choosing your city placement even more critical--do you choose to pick a place with some mountains, so your learning district will get bonuses?

Other major change is the way happiness and luxuries are handled. Cities all have their own individual happiness, which is derived from their population and how many "amenities" they have--amenities can be granted via luxuries or special buildings. You also need enough housing to support the city's population, and housing is pretty hard to get early in the game, so no more size 30 cities by turn 100 that you could do in Civ5.

AI wasn't great on launch, it must be said. Don't know if they've improved it since, it's actually been a few months since I last played it.

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Post by InFlamesForEver » Fri, 12. May 17, 18:43

I love Civ 5 and I love Civ 6, but I can't go back to Civ 5. Civ 6 is in my opinion superior to Civ 5 in almost every way. I just really like the way the game works. The AI could still do with some improvements but they're no worse than the AI in Civ 5 as far as I can tell.

If you still have life left in Civ 5 I'd say stick with it till you want new features, get the most out of it you can because its a great game and great fun. There's no rush to move to 6, I only got it on launch because by that point I'd played Civ 5 to death, something close to 300 hours according to steam, which I'd say is a respectable amount of time to play.
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Post by mrbadger » Fri, 12. May 17, 19:07

I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of Civ 5. I'm still just learning how to do things. I'm only on 20 hours.

For example while I was taking a break from work today I decided to fork off my main save game and start a war with a state who'd been threatening me.

Didn't end well for me, rather fast in fact. Turns out undefended cities are a really bad plan when the other side has a real big army you didn't know about :o

So, good thing I did it on a different savegame really.

And I only just started having archological sites pop uo. No idea what those are about, and no clue how to get it so the archeologists can dig them up. My workers just seem to ignore them, and I can't find the option to build the archeology dig on them, or whatever it is you need.

Still, early days, I suppose this is all part of the fun.
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Post by greypanther » Fri, 12. May 17, 19:33

Slightly off topic, but how does Civ 5 differ from 4? I just could not get into 4 at all, even with mods. :(

I have never bothered with 5 or 6 because of that experience and have just re loaded Civ 3, it is very dated, but still better than 4!
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Post by brucewarren » Fri, 12. May 17, 19:46

I think the biggest change was they went from a grid to hexagons. Also they removed unit stacking.

Nicer graphics but personally I've not been that interested in the series since Alpha Centauri.

It's purely a personal reaction but I've had the feeling that ever since three the whole thing has felt mechanical. There's a lot of charm and wit from the originals - especially 2 -that never made it into the later generations.

Of course that might be because they gutted the railroads, removed "Our words are backed by NUCLEAR WEAPONS" and removed the character from the advisors. Now they just tell you stuff, but the older versions had a certain personality. Especially the military guy. Also who could fail to chuckle at the high council if you were in anarchy?

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Post by greypanther » Fri, 12. May 17, 19:52

Yes, I agree two was better than three. I even had the alien mod thing on disc, which was nice... :D
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Post by mrbadger » Fri, 12. May 17, 20:27

I have a friend who has played the series since Civ 1.

In fact I had to convince her to upgrade her computer and buy Civ 2. By the time she did she was so good she was essentially nuking rivals when were still cavemen...

I do recall her complaining that after Civ 2 things went a bit pear shaped, but I lacked context to understand what she meant by that.

I assume she is playing Civ 6, but I don't know, since I don't do Facebook no more. She is insanely good at playing Civ anyway, but lives up in Orkney with limited time for internet access, so isn't much use for advice.

I find it odd now that with the evidence of a friend I knew so well liking a game that much I was never tempted to even try it.

I think it's the whole turn based thing. I just didn't get it.

I was tempted to start by buying Civ 2, but I ended up getting Civ 5, because I thought it was more likely I'd find advice easier.
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Post by greypanther » Fri, 12. May 17, 21:04

mrbadger wrote: I was tempted to start by buying Civ 2, but I ended up getting Civ 5, because I thought it was more likely I'd find advice easier.
They still sell Civ2? :o

I couldn't find the cds I am afraid, but would buy it in a heartbeat, especially if it had the alien extras. Last I tried, when I still had the cds, it was no longer at all compatible.
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Post by Mightysword » Fri, 12. May 17, 21:24

Feature wise of course Civ 6 doesn't have as many as Civ 5 with its 2 expacks. But overall I like the system in Civ 6 then in previous games, the city macro and micro aspect are more involved then other civs yet not over complicated, I quite enjoy it.

As for the AI ... well, they're about as good or as retarded as any other Civ's AI. They provide a decent challenge on higher difficulty albeit very mechanical (or regressive as I normally say). They don't appear to have organic or progressive thinking. I much prefer the Galciv's AI, but it due to the thinking of the developers and not their competency.

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Post by Morkonan » Fri, 12. May 17, 21:38

I played Civ5 at a friend's house for a few hours over a couple of days. Admittedly, it wasn't too long after release. But, I was unimpressed after trouncing the other civs, without using any more info than the Civilopedia, I think, on an advanced difficulty. (Prince or better? Can't remember.)

CivIV, especially with mods, is the best of the lot that I have experienced in the IP. (My favorite, and one that is especially deep and very complex, requiring very different strategies depending upon what civ one choses and what AI civs are in game, as well as all of the dynamic conditions that unfold during play, is derived from the awesome, but comparatively simplified, mod Fall from Heaven 2. That more advanced mod is FFH2-Rise from Erubus - Final Fixes Reborn. (It's a comprehensive polish/fix for the RISE submod for FFH2.)

There have been so many great mods for CivIV, from space themed, Star Trek, real world, WWII, etc... Yes, mods are what truly make this game great, but the fact that it has so many possibilities for gameplay is what makes the original CivIV so wonderful.

I haven't fully experienced V or VI, so I'm obviously biased.

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Post by pjknibbs » Fri, 12. May 17, 21:49

mrbadger wrote: And I only just started having archological sites pop uo. No idea what those are about, and no clue how to get it so the archeologists can dig them up. My workers just seem to ignore them, and I can't find the option to build the archeology dig on them, or whatever it is you need.
If you have an actual archaeologist unit (which is a specific unit you train in a city that has a university) then you just move it on to the archaeology site and select the command to carry out a dig. They take a few turns and then you get the choice of either turning the dig into an antiquity site, which gives culture bonuses if the site is worked, or returning an artifact to an open slot in one of your museums or what-have-you.

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Post by Mightysword » Fri, 12. May 17, 23:14

pjknibbs wrote:
mrbadger wrote: And I only just started having archological sites pop uo. No idea what those are about, and no clue how to get it so the archeologists can dig them up. My workers just seem to ignore them, and I can't find the option to build the archeology dig on them, or whatever it is you need.
If you have an actual archaeologist unit (which is a specific unit you train in a city that has a university) then you just move it on to the archaeology site and select the command to carry out a dig. They take a few turns and then you get the choice of either turning the dig into an antiquity site, which gives culture bonuses if the site is worked, or returning an artifact to an open slot in one of your museums or what-have-you.
Unless this is something changed since last month (the last time I played it), I believe the archaeologist come from the Cultural District, not the University. After building the theather you have 2 options, either to build an art museum or an archaeology museum, in which the latter let you train an archaeologist. Don't seem to recall an option to work the site though, I just normally dig it up.

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Post by mrbadger » Fri, 12. May 17, 23:24

greypanther wrote:
mrbadger wrote: I was tempted to start by buying Civ 2, but I ended up getting Civ 5, because I thought it was more likely I'd find advice easier.
They still sell Civ2? :o

I couldn't find the cds I am afraid, but would buy it in a heartbeat, especially if it had the alien extras. Last I tried, when I still had the cds, it was no longer at all compatible.
Unfortunatelly they don't. It turns out what I saw on gog was something called Galactic Civilizations II, which obviously isn't the right thing :(

I might get six at christmas, if I'm ready by then, but at my current rate of play I think I could make Civ 5 last another year easily.
pjknibbs wrote: If you have an actual archaeologist unit (which is a specific unit you train in a city that has a university) then you just move it on to the archaeology site and select the command to carry out a dig. They take a few turns and then you get the choice of either turning the dig into an antiquity site, which gives culture bonuses if the site is worked, or returning an artifact to an open slot in one of your museums or what-have-you.


Ah, I'll have another go then. I have several archeology units sat doing nothing.
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Post by greypanther » Fri, 12. May 17, 23:28

mrbadger wrote:what I saw on gog was something called Galactic Civilizations II, which obviously isn't the right thing
Maybe not the right thing, but a good one still from what I remember... :)
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Post by berth » Sat, 13. May 17, 01:26

I played Civ 1 to death on my trusty Amiga, must have been 100s of hours, but I couldn't go back to it after Civ 2, which I played and played and played. Still got the disks :)

I didn't have the hardware to play CIv 3 until much later but it did seem to improve upon 2 and iirc had the border thing that Alpha Centauri had (not that I played much of that either, for the same reason). However it did suffer from a bug(?) whereby if you had lots of cities you could not effectively govern them because corruption went through the roof. This may have been sorted out in a later patch, I'm not sure.

Civ 4 I never quite got into. Civ 5, initially, I liked. But once I realised I couldn't easily have more than 5 or 6 cities without unhappiness becoming a major pita and crippling the whole empire I kinda lost interest. The hex thing was good though.

My happy place in Civ 2 was having around 12 cities and then just trying to ignore everyone else until they had to be dealt with. I'm not sure you can really do that in Civ 5.

I had a look at the Civ 6 demo and, for me, it was the art style that killed it. That cartoony thing that they've had in recent iterations just annoys me. As a previous poster has said, the advisors in 2 were great. The military guy, if things were going well, would just sashay across the screen with a drink in his hand, singing a song. Brilliant.

Basically, I probably just want to be playing Civ 2 with less micro management in the late game. I've reinstalled 4 and am giving it another go.


mrbadger, my advice is save your cash and stick with Civ 5. It is not a bad game. Indeed I think it's probably a very good game - it's just not the Civ that I want. I'd be interested to hear what your Orcadian friend has to say on this matter :)

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Post by Olterin » Sat, 13. May 17, 03:03

A bit late to the party here, so to speak, but anyway, here goes...

Civ 6 iterates on many systems of Civ 5 in a good way. It is a more complete game at launch, having incorporated espionage and religion back into the core game where they rightfully belong. The complete lack of unit stacking has been disposed of through the "army" system whereby you can sort-of merge units into a stronger single unit, as well as being able to stack "support" military units with actual combat ones - game gets a big plus from me for that.

The global happiness is sort of gone through the amenity system, which is a functional mix between the old city-bound happiness I know from Civ 4 and the civ-wide global happiness from Civ 5. Amenities can be acquired from buildings, which any city can build, and luxury resources, of which each copy covers up to 4 cities (if memory serves) - thus, wide play is back on the table as being the more optimal route. There's still no "health" but the "housing" cap on city population is an interesting mechanic to play with instead - placing cities on rivers or coasts is actually meaningful now beyond a simple defense boost and/or food output boost.

Another major change from the two previous games (and presumably the entire series thus far, haven't played them all personally :( ) is how workers work. Or rather, they're called builders in Civ 6 and have limited charges - justify it as you wish. Their tile improvements are instant, but they're no longer in charge of making a road network - that is something that traders do when performing trade. This results in a more natural-looking road network (for the most part anyway...) that is also quite functional. And in case those roads are not enough, around the late midgame you get access to military engineers who can help with that.

A promising change was the re-introduction of meaningful leaders - in Civ 5, a single civ pretty much always had a single leader and that was that. In theory, this is (once again) no longer the case in Civ 6, though thus far this has not been used much (I believe only Greece has two separate leaders, or had, last I checked). I suspect plentiful DLC to be making use of this in the future.

... Now, for the AI? That I really cannot say since I hadn't dipped my toes into it again after that balance patch was released around New Year. I did hear from a good source, however, another avid civ player, that the AI got scary, and he did stream me a game of getting absolutely destroyed by mid-tier AI despite having a very strong mountainous/hilly starting position. The main issue the AI had at launch was that it never upgraded units - this seems to have since been resolved. Tread carefully.


Overall though, if you've yet to fully explore Civ 5 (with the two expansions) and already own that, you can safely postpone Civ 6 and savour what Civ 5 has to offer - it is quite a bit. (Although with my 1500 hours in Civ 5 I may be just a tiny bit biased :P)


P.S.: Civ 6 changes how diplomacy works into something that is very, very reminiscent to me of Paradox titles like Crusader Kings 2 or Europa Universalis IV (or Stellaris for that matter). I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that change (didn't play around with it enough) but it is there. Basically it makes the numbers behind the diplomacy very transparent and makes declarations of war something you do only if your cause is just (or if you can afford to ... upset the entire world).
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Post by pjknibbs » Sat, 13. May 17, 07:18

Mightysword wrote: Unless this is something changed since last month (the last time I played it), I believe the archaeologist come from the Cultural District, not the University.
In Civ 6 it does, but mrbadger doesn't own that yet (hence this thread), so he must be talking about Civ 5.

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Post by mrbadger » Sat, 13. May 17, 09:55

I don't own Civ 6, no, and most likely won't for a year, not at this rate :)

Some bleep in my game where I was doing so very well managed to assemble the spaceship first or something and beat me :( and I was so close :evil:

Next time I'll go with less cities, it was confusing managing so many.

What's irritating is I was ahead on everything, so if the game had made to the last turn with no-one getting overall victory I'd have won by default.

I've no clue how likely that was to happen, but I was feeling optimistic. The economic victory condition seemed the most likely for me to acheive if not the spaceship one, so I was trying for both.

But I'm learning at least.
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Post by pjknibbs » Sat, 13. May 17, 13:25

mrbadger wrote: Next time I'll go with less cities, it was confusing managing so many.
Civ5 actually works better if you play "tall" (e.g. have a few big cities) than "wide" (a lot of smaller ones). This is because social policy costs, research costs, and unhappiness all increase with more cities. In my experience, 4 or 5 well-placed cities is about as many as you ever want to have, unless you're going for a conquest victory (where you need to take everyone's capital).

This is another difference between the games, incidentally--Civ6 just gives you benefits from having more cities, so spamming as many as you can reasonably fit is the optimal strategy in that game.

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