Have macemen? It start spamming crossbowmen. The AI was smart about building the right type of units to counter what you've been building. Could you hit their unit they left isolated without being within movement range of their 10 stack army just down the road?Īlso, you still had to worry very very much about unit types. On any war that wasn't riflemen vs axemen, the terrain you fought on, wether you were about to stick your newly damaged unit in the middle of enemy units, if you were going to let an enemy move a unit into a forested hill, all matter. Please don't claim that Civ 4 had no military strategy though, as that's objectively false.

For the things you are interested in, it's probably the better game. You are not a civ enthusiast (' never used to build any sort of army until late game stages' - you never played on anything above chieftan, because you wouldn't survive until endgame nor be strong enough you could just spam army units and have your sad country stand up to the stronger countries) so its totally understandable that you like Civ 5 better. *deep breath* 'I am a beautiful flower and all is right with the world' The dev wanted to bring expand the game and bring players out from the cities and into the world, and what a wonderful world it is. I never used to think of unit placement, or preservation of units (when you have 30 units on one stack, what does one rifleman matter?) now these are things which are inescapable. I never used to build any sort of army until late game stages, now I see the benefit. I have to give a round of applause to the dev of Civ 5. I have found myself spending time outside of the city screen enjoying maneuvering, battling for key positions, and even thinking about combat itself rather than equations about combat! Military matters, unit placement matters, unit production matters, strategic movement matters. That being said: As I have played Civ 5 I have come to LOVE what the Dev have done! I was worried my franchise of choice was going to switch focus from being an empire builder/City Manager kind of game to a War/War/War kind of game. That being said the switch to 1UPH was scary, and I was skeptical of the switch in game focus. The Military seemed to work out well, better trained, better weapons, more units= militaristic play. I liked Civ 2, Civ 3, and Civ 4 as empire building games which demanded city management. I was very disappointed reading all the reviews, previews, etc, in the build up to Civ 5 that the Military was going to be the main overhaul.

I just would like to throw IMHO out there in contrast with many of the other threads.

Civ 5 as a strategic war game