Any plans for Civilization V?

[Alidar Jarok]

I usually would build up an army until I get cats and throw a couple of them in there to make the perfect stack.

Axemen usually are the bulk of my army unless I notice my enemy just has Archers (then I go with only swords). Usually, a city raider Swordsman is the punch, but the axes with city raider are the main fighters (since there's usually a couple of axes or swords in the city that need to be defeated).

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I find being the first civilization with Macemen gives you a distinct edge in city raiding. Siege units such as catapults and trebuchets are your best friend, it goes without saying, softening up your enemies before you send in the swordsmen.

I also agree with geting the Oracle before any other civs, although in past games I've advanced my tech sufficiently that I manage to reward myself with Feudalism as a free tech - not the case anymore.

The Great Wall is also a must-build, and not just because it has the coolest Wonder movie.

 

[Anwar]

With just Chariots and Swordsmen I was able to conquer two Empires and become the Superpower of my continent. Maybe it was just good luck that I had access to enough food resources, Iron and horses for the advances but it paid off.

 

[The Evil Dead]

This thread has inspired me to reinstall the game, I am currently downloading it from Steam.

 

[Spider]

got a question for everyone. What game parameters do you normally use? I've listed mine below.

Map Type: Fractal
World Size: standard or large
Leader: usually Elizabeth or Incas, but usually a Financial trait
Difficulty: Noble or Prince
Game Speed: Normal

 

[Anwar]

I go for continents, or random. World Size is Huge, Saladin as Leader, Difficulty is Noble and Game Speed is Marathon.

Funny, I went from ranking as Henry VII at the end to Winston Churchill. Guess I improved.

 

[Commander Vaughn]

I always went with:

Map Type: Fractal
Size: Standard
Leader: Elizabeth (the financial trait and the Redcoats are an awesome combination)
Difficulty: Monarch
Game Speed: Marathon

Anything faster and technology advances too quickly for my tastes.

 

[AdAstra]

Dammit, this thread made me install and play the game again! I lost my entire weekend!

Started as Justinian I of the Byzantines, on a Huge map. I don't quite remember what the map setting was called but it generates several (4 in my case) continents, some east, some west and some smaller islands. I started off in the middle of a medium-sized continent with the Russians to my left and the Romans to the right. I managed to take out the Russians pretty early with an Axeman-army (and some swordsmen), but while I was occupied with that, the Romans expanded and are now bigger than I am - but somewhat less advanced.
On the other continents there are always 2 or 3 other civs, but they don't pose a threat. I managed to recently colonize an empty mini-continent so in case I ever get overrun by the Romans I have a safe-haven. Or I can just create a vassal.

Can't wait to nuke the shit out of the Romans, haha!

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Dammit, this thread made me install and play the game again! I lost my entire weekend!

Ah, a classic example of the Deus Ex Effect!

 

[Anwar]

Dammit, this thread made me install and play the game again! I lost my entire weekend!

Started as Justinian I of the Byzantines, on a Huge map. I don't quite remember what the map setting was called but it generates several (4 in my case) continents, some east, some west and some smaller islands. I started off in the middle of a medium-sized continent with the Russians to my left and the Romans to the right. I managed to take out the Russians pretty early with an Axeman-army (and some swordsmen), but while I was occupied with that, the Romans expanded and are now bigger than I am - but somewhat less advanced.
On the other continents there are always 2 or 3 other civs, but they don't pose a threat. I managed to recently colonize an empty mini-continent so in case I ever get overrun by the Romans I have a safe-haven. Or I can just create a vassal.

Can't wait to nuke the shit out of the Romans, haha!

Heck, that's nothing. I wasted all my free time for two weeks playing it (over 10 Hours in total according to the end score). A weekend is okay.

So, what tech level are you at and what year? I was able to get Industrial Age by 1720.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I once played the game from 6:00 in the morning to about 4:00 at night with only breaks for lunch and dinner.

It was AWESOME

 

[TheArsenal]

So, for all you die hard civ4 fans, got a question for you. For your economy are you a cottage spammer or do you try to do it with specialists and great people?

Depends really, I try to gear toward specialists, but my preferred method getting my early economy off the ground is founding a religion and having the Holy City. I then go into Missionary spammer mode. Additionally, if I am lucky enough that I am the dominant religion in the region (or continent) then the diplomacy bonus - depending on factors such as the aggression level of my neighbors - lets me maintain fewer units and concentrate on building other things.

If I'm playing a Civ or in a situation where I don't get either Buddhism or Hinduism, I have a much harder go of it. And if I don't eventually end up with the Great Wall I also have a harder go since I'm building more Barbarian Defense Units than I prefer in the early game and replacing workers/improvements more often than I would like.

My problem always is that I never have as big an army as I thought I did, so if I don't have any technological advantage, the AI's huge stacks always kick my ass.

Unit balance is more important than pure numbers. Certain units gain bonuses against other units or in certain situations, such as city defense.

When I play Civ 4, whenever I get pulled into a war (or, more often than not, whenever I choose to start a war ), I think "What would Churchill do?" and essentially drop everything and drive every city towards a war footing (even if it means changing civics to Serfism and Theocracy), producing as many armed units of whatever variety as possible.

Every game is different, of course. But unless I start the war, I generally fight defensively to hold territory, maybe taking a city or two if they are easy pickings and I can afford to hold them. But generally I tend to expand around certain unit milestone such as Swordsman, War Elephants (sometimes), Knights, Cannons, etc. Of those, Knights usually signal the first time I am strong enough financially and unit wise to really press toward serious expansion.

Once the the majority of AI Civilizations get well into the gun powder techs and beyond, and have units which can do some damage when they penetrate - such as Cavalry or tanks - it changes everything. That is when I'm like you and find I have to switch my entire Civilization over to a War Economy and fight like the devil.

 

[AdAstra]

Heck, that's nothing. I wasted all my free time for two weeks playing it (over 10 Hours in total according to the end score). A weekend is okay.

So, what tech level are you at and what year? I was able to get Industrial Age by 1720.

It's now 1666 and I'm researching Chemistry. So I think I'm a bit behind, but hey, I've got Riflemen and I'm not afraid to use them!

 

[Anwar]

I was able to have a strong economy in the beginning thanks to lucky conquests, I conquered the civs early on that had founded Buddhism, Hinduism AND Judaism while I founded Confucianism myself. So I had 4 religions for the people and to spread meaning the holy Cities made me more than enough dough.

 

[ATW]

*looks up from my civ2 game* there's a CIV3??!!

Civ2 the greatest ever "Just one more turn" game that ever existed. When I know I have time to spare (which isn't often now) this is usually one of the first games I think about playing. Graphics were poor, game play was easy but what a game it was

 

[ThunderAeroI]

I didn't enoy CIV 4 was much as CIV 3. Many things I liked about CIV were taken out.


I do recall an email I sent to Paraxis a few months after I started playing Warlords. It went something like this:

When are you going to remake Colonization, that game rocked.

Their email back was rather interesting considering.

Having played the colonization CIV version I'd still rather play the origional DOS version.

 

[TheGodBen]

I was rubbish at Civ IV until last year when I learned the strategy which saw me finally beat the game on Noble difficulty; kick the crap out of your nearest neighbour as soon as you can. Once I tried that I not only managed to beat the game for the first time, but I won my next two games after that as well!

I also learned that I should beeline to Feudalism and try the get a rolling capitulation strategy up and running, it always works well for me.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Today I played Civ4 on Monarch difficulty. My goal was to have no wars and make it to a space race victory. Well, I made it through most of the game but, towards the end, Boudica declared war on me for no reason (I think I pissed her off at one time by canceling trade agreements). That led to a delay long enough to let the Romans win (actually, it was quite a long delay because it was a good 15 turns afterwards that I even launched mine).

I was so pissed off that they won that I kept playing, finished the Manhattan Project, and attempted to nuke everyone. It was the first time I used them. While it's certainly satisfying to watch them explode, I'd have to say that the feature is broken. Almost every civilization had SDI before I even had my first nuke. SDI is also way to effective. I wouldn't mind this if the final result was worth it, but it's good for a quick city grab afterwards, but that's about it. So I nuked everyone and called it game. I might try for another space race victory, but I'll probably have to lower the difficulty level a bit.

 

[Anwar]

Funny, I tried for a Domination Victory and then a Diplomatic Victory but ended up settling for a Space Race Victory (it was faster than the other two).

 

[alasdairsim]

I really hope Civ V is released soon, I live the civilization series. Its one of those games where one moment its light outside as its 7pm then next minute its light outside because its 5am...