Civilization V

Well, I got bored with the other game I was playing and my parents were taking too long in getting me our old copy of Alpha Centauri, so I joined your ranks and picked up Civ V. I'm really liking it so far.... still trying to get used to some of the game concepts and functions, but I'm getting there. The thing I'm having the hardest time getting used to is trying to slow down my gameplay and really think about what I need to do.... I've spent too much time playing RTS's, so there's a major urgency to everything I do and I've had a hard time slowing down.

I'm part way through my first game as the Germans on a huge random map. I am out-teching and outnumbering everyone else. I have a giant military, and I'm running around with longswordsmen, knights, and crossbowmen while everyone else is still running around with rocks and pointy sticks. Just started researching gunpowder as well. I also seem to have a much larger empire than everyone else I've found with two exceptions. I wiped out the Aztecs early on when they attacked me and I sort of paniced and moved quickly to wipe them out. I was getting ready to implement Operation Fuck The Queen (england is really starting to annoy me), but the Chinese randomly denounced me for the third time this game, so I'm working on making them pay. Then I'll move forward with Operation FTQ.

 

Expansion incoming. Religion is returning in a meatier form and so is espionage, there's a new diplomatic system with city states being more important, new civs, units, wonders, and all the other usual stuff.

Just yesterday I went checking the Civ Fanatic forums to see if there were any rumours on an expansion and when I didn't see anything I pretty much gave up hope on ever seeing one. They sure timed this announcement right.

 

Are you a member of CFC? I'm smellincoffee there, same as here. I'm still playing Civ3 (and sometimes, CIV), but mostly hang around in off-topic.

 

I have an account there but I never post, at least not since the initial 2-3 posts I made when I joined way back when. I lurk every now and again if I'm looking for info on upcoming releases or strategies for winning the game.

 

I picked up the Civ5 Game of the Year edition a few weeks ago, and have spent a few hours slugging through it.

Its... interesting, overall. Not sure if I agree with some of the changes, but there are some good bits there. I like the idea of religion coming back in this expansion, as I thought that was one of the more clever additions to Civ4.

Cheers,
-CM-

 

Is the expansion already out? Is it going to be sold physically (its' own disc and everything) or is it an online only thing you get from Steam?

 

Anyone else get the expansion? It unlocked on Steam at midnight here so I got to play for a few hours last night. I played as the Celts because they look like a great Civ to play around with religion, and because, well, I am one. Playing on epic speed on a standard-sized continents map, I founded the first religion (Godfreeism), and successfully spread it across the continent before the Indian pantheon became a full-blown religion. Someone on another continent founded Christianity, but I haven't met them yet so don't know how they'll react when they find out about us heathens.

I'm liking religion so far, being able to customise it so that it helps your strategy, while also trying to increase its attractiveness to potential converts, makes it much more interesting than the way it was implemented in Civ IV. The Celts might be a bit overpowered when it comes to religion as I already have a fully upgraded religion that spans my continent by 170BC, but I suppose it's up to me now to convert my religious success into success in other areas of the game.

 

You know, I've had this game on Steam for almost a year and I still haven't played it...

Still playing IV.

 

Yeah, the new mechanics do make things more interesting, espionage played a big role in me leading my current game. I was on a continent with the Indians and the Danes, and even though I was friendly with India, they were slowly pulling ahead of me in science and culture. I got my first spy and sent her to India to see if she could steal some tech for me, but the first thing she does is warn me that India are preparing to attack Denmark. I'm not on good terms with Denmark, but I know that if India takes them out then they may become unstoppable, so I warn Denmark about the impending attack. Roughly ten turns later, Denmark preemptively attacked India and caught them off-guard. I took advantage of India's disarray by declaring war myself, hitting their army from the side and taking control of their cities from under Denmark's nose. Denmark weren't even upset, they were overjoyed that I warned them in the first place and helped them out in the war. (Not that their friendliness helped them out in the long run. )

Espionage may seem limited in scope at first glance, but it does make global politics more interesting.

Wow, a whole year, that must be one hell of a game. Create a dystopian future yet?

Seriously, give Civ V a try. I know it has acquired a bad rep from hardcore Civ IV fans, but a lot of that is undeserved in my opinion. Honestly, I can't play Civ IV anymore because I love the 1 unit per tile rule so much, it's a complete game-changer. There were only two big things from Civ IV that I missed, religion and vassals, and this expansion has added a much better religion mechanic than the one in Civ IV.

 

Areas where Civ 5 improves over Civ4:
Hex Tiles
1 unit per tile
How units can embark on the sea without a transport. Makes navies much more valuable.

Areas where Civ4 is better:
Everything else.

 

I disagree, there's a number of things that I prefer about Civ5.

I prefer the way culture and borders work in Civ5, they don't balloon out every couple of centuries, borders trickle out one tile at a time making border shapes more interesting. Acquiring tiles of rival civs is no longer passive with a small diplomatic hit, it's an aggressive act that can lead to war, which is more realistic.

I like that roads cost money to maintain, it makes planning your road network more strategic. Building a road between two outlying cities may be useful if an enemy invades, but is it worth the cost?

City states add variety and character to the game, previous Civ games seem lonely without them. It's true that in the vanilla game they were basic, but in the expansion the influence of money has been greatly reduced and alliances with city states are based on the quests they give you and rigging elections with your spies.

Religion is considerably better in G&K than in Civ4. For one thing, it's not tied to the tech tree any more, it's its own thing. The benefits religions offer are varied and are very helpful if used right. The way religion spreads is also more interesting, it's not so much about how many cities your religion has spread to as it is about how many followers your religion has in each city.

There are things I miss from earlier games, of course.

Localised happiness just made more sense, and it required you to address each city's needs individually. Being able to offset the unhappiness of a captured city by putting a theatre in your capital makes no sense, and it makes rebellions less likely.

Puppet states are a poor replacement for vassal states. The great benefit of vassal-states was that they maintained their culture and their own military, but that was also a danger as if they rebelled against you they posed a significant threat.


I loved Civ4BTS, it's a really complex strategy game with more elements to it than I'll ever fully understand. But I really like the direction they've taken with Civ5, especially with G&K, it may lack some of the complexity of Civ4 but some of the fundamental changes to the gameplay really appeal to me.

 

After getting quite busy with school, I've gotten back into playing Civ V again. In anticipation of downloading all the DLC's and the expansion, I've decided to finish the last saved game I have. I'm thinking that I'm going to have to increase the difficulty on future games. My current game is at the point where I can easily win any way I want to.... I can easily destroy everyone due to far superior technology (I'm about to start deploying killer robots while everyone else has still only figured out the most basic guns and tanks). I have all the city-states loving me, so I can win diplomatically. I'm 3 pieces into building the space craft for the scientific resolution. I can also hold my ground and just wait for the clock to run out and outscore the 3 remaining survivors.

I'm currently making a strong run at the Romans, who are the only remaining force that has any real power (India only has its capital. Japan has several cities, but is still defending itself using crossbows. The other faction [red markings on the map] is currently at peace with me, but I have enough units left on his continent to kill him if so desired). Ceaser has the advantage that I came from him at a bad angle. After wiping out my enemies on a northern continent, I'm attempting to move straight at Ceaser, which is causing the trouble of a massive army trying to come onto land either through a very narrow land bridge or trying to squeeze into a small foothold over sea. I'm starting to make a push into his territory, but he's taking a lot of my units on account of my accidental log-jam and inability to get any of my troops shuffled around.

 

Careful with that, the patch for vanilla that came out recently screwed up old save games. I think they're releasing a new patch to fix it.

I just won the most unlikely victory. About 400 turns from the end (marathon game) I had written myself off, Arabia were ahead scientifically, culturally, and they had most of the city states in their pocket, while I was a relatively small civilization that barely had enough resources to get by. For some reason I stuck with the game and through a combination of tech-stealing, and speeding research with great scientists, I somehow won a spaceship victory. I'm not sure what happened at the end, Arabia probably would have beaten me in the space race if they had tried, but they never even bothered to build the Apollo program. The only way I can make sense of it is if they were aiming for a diplomatic win (which makes sense considering all the city states they were allied to), but never got to build the UN. I don't know if this was a case of me brilliantly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, or if Arabia's AI let me win.