Sid Meier's Civilization V: one...more...post...

Morkath

Got to play a "quick" learning game last night as Japan. It seems like their best strategy is going to be massing ranged units and naval vessels, while not super useful in melee, bushido gives you a huge advantage in those bombardment fights.

Sonork

So are the internet games for this broken? Just trying to play with some friends but the online games list is barren save a few random games. We can't see eachothers games at all.

tofu

Zeon wrote: »

I read the 1up review and dont disagree with any of his points, i think its actually pretty spot on. However, if i were rating the game, id still give it like a B, B+, rather than a C, but again this is based solely on the fact that its a sequel to Civ4 (and on that line, Civ, Civ2 and Civ3 as well). I dont think its as good as Civ4 was, but its not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, it almost made me late for work this morning. I cant even remember the last game i wanted to play before going to work, so thats saying something.

If this were a brand new series, id easily be able to give it an A or A+ review, but its not, and unfortunately it needs to live up to the previous games, which in its current state, i dont think it does. But ill still play it because its still awesome. Just not the awesomest.

And there will be mods in the near future to change it however anyone pleases. I mean its been one day and theres already mods to get stacks of doom back. So probably within a month im imagining theyll be mods like "Civ4 Reborn!" which bring back religion and actual social policy and real diplomacy with the major nations.

The thing people forget is that pretty much every Civ game launches like this. Once this game has multiple patches and two expansion packs it's probably gonna be pretty great too

Dracil

Zeon wrote: »

I read the 1up review and dont disagree with any of his points, i think its actually pretty spot on. However, if i were rating the game, id still give it like a B, B+, rather than a C, but again this is based solely on the fact that its a sequel to Civ4 (and on that line, Civ, Civ2 and Civ3 as well). I dont think its as good as Civ4 was, but its not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, it almost made me late for work this morning. I cant even remember the last game i wanted to play before going to work, so thats saying something.

If this were a brand new series, id easily be able to give it an A or A+ review, but its not, and unfortunately it needs to live up to the previous games, which in its current state, i dont think it does. But ill still play it because its still awesome. Just not the awesomest.

And there will be mods in the near future to change it however anyone pleases. I mean its been one day and theres already mods to get stacks of doom back. So probably within a month im imagining theyll be mods like "Civ4 Reborn!" which bring back religion and actual social policy and real diplomacy with the major nations.

I really think these Civ4 comparisons really need to be qualified. Are you comparing it to the latest Civ 4 with two expansion packs fully patched?

Or are you comparing to vanilla Civ4 unpatched?

There's a pretty big difference between the two.

Jephery

Civ 4 took a year or two (or three) to finally get to a good point. Same with Civ 3 and 2.

HamHamJ

tofu wrote: »

The thing people forget is that pretty much every Civ game launches like this. Once this game has multiple patches and two expansion packs it's probably gonna be pretty great too

This is fine if they want me to not buy their game at launch, as is my policy for say Paradox games.

Jaunty

Interesting bug: I've regularly been able to purchase the unit upgrades outside of my own territory. As long as you're on somebody's territory, and not open land, it appears to let you purchase the upgrade. This has definitely happened ugrading to Britain's Ship of the Line unit for me.

Docshifty

I have three cities and seven puppet states.

I think I'm doing it wrong, haha.

tofu

HamHamJ wrote: »

tofu wrote: »

The thing people forget is that pretty much every Civ game launches like this. Once this game has multiple patches and two expansion packs it's probably gonna be pretty great too

This is fine if they want me to not buy their game at launch, as is my policy for say Paradox games.

To each his own. I'm not saying the game is bad by any means, but it always has problems at launch and is never as fully featured as the last Civ game.

A Flock of Walrus

Docshifty wrote: »

I have three cities and seven puppet states.

I think I'm doing it wrong, haha.

Or very, very right.

Fandyien

HamHamJ wrote: »

They have had how many decades to make decent AI? Maybe they should have spent some time focusing on that instead of graphics and new mechanics that their AI is even less capable of handling.

Just under two?

That is not a lot of decades, if we're looking at things in those terms

Dracil

That's fine though personally I'd rather play a game now than 2-3 years later

Also the only 4x game with a decent AI has been the galciv games

Zeon

Dracil wrote: »

Zeon wrote: »

I read the 1up review and dont disagree with any of his points, i think its actually pretty spot on. However, if i were rating the game, id still give it like a B, B+, rather than a C, but again this is based solely on the fact that its a sequel to Civ4 (and on that line, Civ, Civ2 and Civ3 as well). I dont think its as good as Civ4 was, but its not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, it almost made me late for work this morning. I cant even remember the last game i wanted to play before going to work, so thats saying something.

If this were a brand new series, id easily be able to give it an A or A+ review, but its not, and unfortunately it needs to live up to the previous games, which in its current state, i dont think it does. But ill still play it because its still awesome. Just not the awesomest.

And there will be mods in the near future to change it however anyone pleases. I mean its been one day and theres already mods to get stacks of doom back. So probably within a month im imagining theyll be mods like "Civ4 Reborn!" which bring back religion and actual social policy and real diplomacy with the major nations.

I really think these Civ4 comparisons really need to be qualified. Are you comparing it to the latest Civ 4 with two expansion packs fully patched?

Or are you comparing to vanilla Civ4 unpatched?

There's a pretty big difference between the two.

I didnt play either of the Civ4 expansions. I dont remember anything glaring from vanilla civ4 but maybe ive got my rose colored glasses on.

It crashed a lot. But that was about it...

Spoit

tofu wrote: »

Darlan wrote: »

1up lays down the gauntlet with a C review. A lot of people are probably going to accuse them of just hunting for site traffic, but I can see why the changes would rub some people the wrong way. A certain charming x-factor seems to be missing in the atmosphere of the game from what I've played.

I stopped listening to Tom Chick when he decided Mass Effect 2 was worse than the first game

It really isn't as unilaterally better as a lot of people claim

Veitsev

The 1up review is spot on. The AI in the game is functionally brain dead. It simply has no idea how to use its units in combat and sends forces in stupidly. Defense is bad as well. Enemy cities seem to target the most powerful unit instead of the weakest. I have frequently had horsemen with 1 bar of health left sitting outside a seiged city, but the AI chooses to bombard the full health archer instead.

Cities are far too easy to take and the AI doesn't defend them well at all. Instead of keeping units at home to defend it sends its units on death marches to your defenses. This kind of brute force worked in Civ IV but in 5 these units are far too valuable to lose like that. The result is a failed offensive by the AI that leaves their empire completely vulnerable to any kind of counter offensive.

And when you manage to just beat off their attack with your little army but have no way of counterattacking? The AI is happy to give you terms of surrender despite you never approaching their border. I beat back Arabia's attack earlier today and despite having an army barely able to defend myself and just 2 horsemen, he offered me 2 luxury resources, iron, all his gold reserves, and every one of his cities except his capital. This is Civ 3 levels of retarded diplomacy.

I also have no idea how to keep in good graces with other Civs. It seems if you conquer a city state everyone hates you even if you were in a defensive war. This underlying mechanics of this needs to be made clear by the developers. Maybe its like in EU3 where a defensive war doesn't give you the right to take territory without diplomatic blowback. As of right now I have now way of knowing how to forge alliances with any of the AI. I mean I know war is going to happen eventually but there should be 1 or 2 civs I can reliably depend on as friends. Like earlier today China was my friend for the majority of the game. Arabia and its allies Warsaw and Dublin declared war on me. I pushed back their offensive and even though I could have taken every bit of land my enemies had with enough time I only conquered Warsaw and signed a rather fair treaty with Arabia. After that China went from being nice to hostile with me. WTF

Oh and City States continue to be even more fucking retarded than the AI in combat. They will send 1 or 2 units at a city at a time to get killed by my city with 1 archer in it. It feels like I am fighting barbs.

GPIA7R

I have the opposite luck with unit cities targetting my stuff. I'll have a horse sitting and "healing" from 2 units. City will do -1, Horse will give +1, it'll go on forever as I pummel the city with a couple of archers in-distance.

Terms of "peace treaties" and surrender are bullshit to me. I'm getting tired of getting an enemy city down to nearly no HP... then they surrender for 10 turns... which I have to wait for them to heal back up before I'm allowed to re-attack them. Fuck that.

Trades are a bit off, too. They could be done much better. I've never had a successful trade that I've initiated.

it's also very expensive to stay allied with City-states, at a rate that I can't see how anyone makes enough gold to do it.

tofu

Why would you accept a peace treaty right before you move in on one of their cities...

GPIA7R

tofu wrote: »

Why would you accept a peace treaty right before you move in on one of their cities...

I wouldn't. But my AI ally would. I'll literally have their capital down to nearly NOTHING... then BAM - My fucking ally trades the last remaining enemy one of his cities, AND a 10 turn peace treaty. Fuck. That.

When I resume that game tonight, I'm taking out my ally, then moving onto the enemy for the fifth time.

Foefaller

tofu wrote: »

Why would you accept a peace treaty right before you move in on one of their cities...

I think if you join a war with/at the behest of another civ, that civ has the power to accept a peace treaty in your behaf, ending the war for both of you.

...at least, that's the only explanation I can think of that makes sence...

GPIA7R wrote: »

it's also very expensive to stay allied with City-states, at a rate that I can't see how anyone makes enough gold to do it.

The Patronage social polices help a bit, but yeah, you're probably not going to be allies with more than 2 or 3 city-states without lots of trading posts and income increasing buildings, and your going to have trouble keep your army up to date in the meantime.

Unknown

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4rch3nemy

This game is hard to do anything but conquest, in my opinion.

Docshifty

They're only good for allies temporarily. Either you do a quest that gets you to allied, like killing barbs you were already aiming for, or you plop 500 gold in their lap and reap the benefits until it runs out, past that it takes way too much work to actively pursue. Just ignore or take over.


Funny enough, I attacked two city states in the span of like 150 turns and was informed that were I to continue my aggression, the other city states would band against me.

Unknown

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Dracil

Yeah, I think the current game does boil down to Conquest (partly because it's so easy) and then when they're down to one capital, you can decide how you want to end the game.

I'll probably just save and reload until I've won in all possible ways and probably get a few achievements off that.

LaPuzza

This just feels so different from 1, 2 and 4 (never played 3). Normally, I'm a fast expanding tech guy that needs good friend to protect the expandad nation from war. With the AI and built in city defenses, this is a totally different game.

I coudln't expand like I wanted because I was surrounded by other nations, and they had city defenses to keep me at bay. I made friends with India (I coudn't see his cities, but why not?) and Siam (Thailand is awesome). Other nations were in contact, but had no trade agreements or anyhting). I made a few cities and ended up with a weird tech tree (steel before the wheel, I believe).

Having scouts too close to India for too long got me a nasty comment from Mr. G. Two turns later, he declared war on me. Next turn, everyone else does the same. Everyone I've met - 4 nations and 4 city states - wants to start shit. I'd have been screwed, except I'd just built my first round of Roman Legion units while they were stick at pikemen and wariors. It went well for me. Very well.

What I don't get is that they kept offering a ceasefire for 10 turns, but wouldn't offer anything for it. If I've got siege weapons at the gate of someone's last city, shouldn't they pay me to hold off for a few turns? Apparently not.

TheGerbil

I don't recall the AI in Civ IV being particularly brilliant either, the only difference being the AI was awful at economic stuff and would just spam massive stacks that were a headache to take out.

Taking out stacks makes that trickier for the AI, but oh so much better in the long run. At least for me.

Dracil

I kinda miss the vassalage system. But puppet cities serve the same purpose I guess. Not like my vassals ever helped me attack in Civ 4

TheGerbil

Dracil wrote: »

I kinda miss the vassalage system. But puppet cities serve the same purpose I guess. Not like my vassals ever helped me attack in Civ 4

Puppet states are essentially vassals you have a little more control over.

Fats

My biggest complaint about Civ5 so far is that when you win, you don't get that neat little time-lapsed screen showing how the world evolved, it's just "hooray! return to menu?".

Dracil

TheGerbil wrote: »

Dracil wrote: »

I kinda miss the vassalage system. But puppet cities serve the same purpose I guess. Not like my vassals ever helped me attack in Civ 4

Puppet states are essentially vassals you have a little more control over.

The difference is I have to conquer everything now, instead of simply saying, see my big army? Be my slaves or die.

I guess if they give me the cities it's the same thing, except no capitals.

rakuenCallisto

Fats wrote: »

My biggest complaint about Civ5 so far is that when you win, you don't get that neat little time-lapsed screen showing how the world evolved, it's just "hooray! return to menu?".

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Loedr

Professor Phobos wrote: »

-Combat units should be able to "Escort" non-combat ones so they move as a group.

I disagree, this is a bad idea in general and the functionality to make it optional would be confusing given the current UI.

I just got reamed on Prince. Taking over city-states is probably not worth the difficulty without any siege weapons in BC. FYI. I burned half an army taking one out, then some asshat saw me do it and then declared war

I think I'm going to go back to the "one big city" strategy. After trying a couple starts with the expansion racials/civic benefits, it seems that spreading yourself out sets up for early failure. Barbians on Prince take two warriors/scouts to take out, so I'm also juggling multiple "lookouts" before they roll in and pillage all of my land improvements. With a bunch of small cities, you need a ton of workers and thats a lot of resources

I think its a lot easier to turtle up in three giant cities, establish until you're comfortable, raze what you don't want, and build from there. Anyone have suggestions for an expansionist strategy?

Hardtarget

crosspost from steam thread:
oh god Civ V, oh god

I started playing at 5:30 yesterday, played with 3 friends in a multiplayer game, we ended at 9:30 (so 4 hours). I had a 10 minute food break than started a new single player game and played until 2:30am

I had to wake up today at 7:20am to go to a Dr's appointment before work


the game is sooo good

Melkster

Loedr wrote: »

Professor Phobos wrote: »

-Combat units should be able to "Escort" non-combat ones so they move as a group.

I disagree, this is a bad idea in general and the functionality to make it optional would be confusing given the current UI.

I just got reamed on Prince. Taking over city-states is probably not worth the difficulty without any siege weapons in BC. FYI. I burned half an army taking one out, then some asshat saw me do it and then declared war

I think I'm going to go back to the "one big city" strategy. After trying a couple starts with the expansion racials/civic benefits, it seems that spreading yourself out sets up for early failure. Barbians on Prince take two warriors/scouts to take out, so I'm also juggling multiple "lookouts" before they roll in and pillage all of my land improvements. With a bunch of small cities, you need a ton of workers and thats a lot of resources

I think its a lot easier to turtle up in three giant cities, establish until you're comfortable, raze what you don't want, and build from there. Anyone have suggestions for an expansionist strategy?

Chariot Archers deal with barbarians much better than any other BC unit. Just one or two can take out Barb camps as soon as they spawn.

(This is on Prince)

Dracil

Loedr wrote: »

Professor Phobos wrote: »

-Combat units should be able to "Escort" non-combat ones so they move as a group.

I disagree, this is a bad idea in general and the functionality to make it optional would be confusing given the current UI.

I just got reamed on Prince. Taking over city-states is probably not worth the difficulty without any siege weapons in BC. FYI. I burned half an army taking one out, then some asshat saw me do it and then declared war

I think I'm going to go back to the "one big city" strategy. After trying a couple starts with the expansion racials/civic benefits, it seems that spreading yourself out sets up for early failure. Barbians on Prince take two warriors/scouts to take out, so I'm also juggling multiple "lookouts" before they roll in and pillage all of my land improvements. With a bunch of small cities, you need a ton of workers and thats a lot of resources

I think its a lot easier to turtle up in three giant cities, establish until you're comfortable, raze what you don't want, and build from there. Anyone have suggestions for an expansionist strategy?

Get Honor for your first social policy. +58% vs barbarians and then letting them attack you first while you're in good terrain = dead barbarians. You definitely don't want too many full control cities IMO though. At least not until you can build some happiness improvements, after which cities up to size 6 are happiness neutral. More if they have the right stuff like circuses. After that use social policies/wonders/luxury resources to have bigger cities.

Don't annex captured cities unless you have a ton of happiness to spare. Just puppet state them. You can raze or annex them later I think.

City-states are not really meant to be taken over IMO. Take out neighboring civs instead.

Use generals, especially if you're Chinese. +25%/+45% to all units 2 tiles from it is awesome.

Emporium

Let me preface my post by saying what little time I've been able to spend with Civ V has been turn after turn of entertainment.

But I have to admit, all the changes are taking a while to get used to. The biggest difference being the much slower pacing (relative to Civ IV: BTS) at the beginning of the game, in my opinion. This feeling was alleviated somewhat once I learned that I could buy city improvements (hurr durr, thats what you get for not reading the manual).

I'm sure the more time I spend with the game the more it will grow on me, but that was the most immediate impression I've had of the game so far.

Hardtarget

I forgot to mention my favourite part of the game:

The fact that the game totally fucks up if you have two monitors so that you can't scroll the direction your second monitor is because your must just floats off into windows instead of snapping to the edge of the game screen is so awesome.

DisruptorX2

Hah, I've only gotten to play for an hour, but I did notice it was rather easy. What tipped me off: I suck at these games and was doing the best easily.

Dignified Pauper

So, what I gather, is that the game really is meant to be played with human players because the computer AI is terrible. Further, city-states are more hassle than they worth...?

Dracil

Hardtarget wrote: »

I forgot to mention my favourite part of the game:

The fact that the game totally fucks up if you have two monitors so that you can't scroll the direction your second monitor is because your must just floats off into windows instead of snapping to the edge of the game screen is so awesome.

Yeah, same problem. I just learned to click to move around instead.