Not entirely on topic, but I used to play a ton of Civ IV. I tried getting into V, but it never really clicked with me.
I can't get over the Civ IV mindset for how stuff works: unit stacking, civics, religions and other stuff they changed.
I just feel like there's something I'm missing. Should I just treat it like an entirely different game?
Maybe? Are you playing with all the expansions? Civ 5 gets a LOT of good stuff.
I think religion in Civ5 is implemented better than in 4. I wish it was a bit easier to proselitize in 5, but you can't have everything I guess.
Policies rather than civics are completely different from each other. I didn't think Policies were that good, it just feels like a second Tech tree, which is kind of boring.
Trade in 5 is a bit convoluted compared to 4, because the system got a *partial* overhaul with Brave New World. I don't remember it being particularly interesting in 4 though, so no big loss.
1UpT is probably the biggest change 5 introduces, so you just have to get used to it. Wars are WAY more interesting, at the cost of a lot of extra micromanagement. The AI doesn't know how to 1UpT to save its life though, which leads to massive player advantage in warfare.
I don't know, what sort of answer were you looking for? The two games do have a different feel.
Can someone inform me about stacks of doom? I don't think I played since Civ II (maybe III?). The only stacks of doom I remember was cleaning up pollution.
Sounds like a doomsday clock when the Manhattan Project is discovered?
IIRC (been a while), you can put as many units in a single tile in Civ4 as you want. Back in Civ2, your whole stack would die if you lose a battle, but in Civ4 only the losing unit dies. So basically you just get a massive stack with some artillery in it and throw it against each other until one of the stacks dies. Many people though it was unfun.