Civilization 5

[HPLovecraft]

My PC is pretty old, and so likely won't be able to run this. Alas, and I am a huge Civ fan. I suppose I can always keep playing Civ IV -- it's likely the better game at this point with all its expansions, anyway. Still, I feel as if I'm missing out on the fun. Maybe I could try it and see if it works on low settings . . .

[worth]

I like the fact you can have open borders, pile up the troops and the guy asks "wtf are you are doing?" then you say, "i'm just passing through dude", and then you smash his face in and then he calls you a liar.

Are there not trade benefits to open borders?

[starseed]

Originally Posted by worth

I like the fact you can have open borders, pile up the troops and the guy asks "wtf are you are doing?" then you say, "i'm just passing through dude", and then you smash his face in and then he calls you a liar.

Are there not trade benefits to open borders?

You cannot establish trade routes through another nation with closed borders as far as I am aware. Persia made the mistake of cutting off Chartres and Avignon from Paris by building a city along the road between them. It was merely a temporary setback, as I took his entire civilization as retribution.

Mind you, once I signed a military alliance with Rome to attack Persia, the rest of the world hated me. Elizabeth ripped up our pact of cooperation, and everyone jacked up the prices of their luxury resources. With that, and the happiness deficit after adding Persia, I was in a bind to appease the French citizenry.

Wow. I am a mega-nerd.

[blankall]

Reading this thread is torture. The game arrived in the mail last night, but I have not had the opportunity to play yet.

[JayP]

After playing a bunch the past few days, I've realized City States are pretty awesome. The thing is that you have to almost go all-in and milk them for all their effectiveness or it's tough for them to provide any benefit.

In my current game, I went for a heavy gold production route and used it to pay off the City States for influence. Once they become allies, cultured City States give out 12 culture/turn. That's huge in the early game. And once you start getting enough culture to adopt the policies specifically for City States look out. If you get the one that slows your degrading of influence and the one that adds Science from every friendly city state you're pretty set. After that point and getting every City State I can afford to be allies with, nearly half of my culture and science per turn was being generated from the city states (along with huge food surplus from the maritime ones).

EDIT: Forgot to mention that using City States is a great way to get additional resources (both strategic and luxury). I found myself never lacking for iron or horse (which I in turn flipped the iron/horses in my territory to other Civs) and selling excess luxury resources to other Civs goes a long way in paying for City State's influence.

[jammies]

Managed a cultural victory (complete the entirety of five social policies then build the Utopia wonder) as a 1 city Egypt. Only Rome and Siam were left on my continent after about 1850, and the AI left me alone until about 1970; unfortunately (for them) the crappy AI threw Siamese musketeers and longswordsmen against my artillery and infantry in that first war and got eaten up, with my razing 2 of his cities before he conceded defeat.

On the plus side, he was willing to give lots of gold and resources away for peace once he knew he was beaten. However, then he attacked again once he rebuilt his forces - this time he had infantry and cannon, but by using fortresses and especially two Citadels (built by sacrificing a Great General in a fortress to upgrade it), he lost again as his armies were sent in piecemeal to be ground up by my defences until he had nothing left to prevent a successful counter-attack.

So it seems the old strategy of suckering in the AI works yet again; while this is nice for managing to get to get to the end of the game as a 1-city empire, I rather hoped the military aspect would be improved over previous games. At least before the AI could build monster stacks and overwhelm you with sheer material superiority, whereas now you should be able to hold off almost any size army as long as you have tech equivalence and enough ranged units to set up layered defences.

[photon]

Originally Posted by JayP

After playing a bunch the past few days, I've realized City States are pretty awesome. The thing is that you have to almost go all-in and milk them for all their effectiveness or it's tough for them to provide any benefit.

In my current game, I went for a heavy gold production route and used it to pay off the City States for influence. Once they become allies, cultured City States give out 12 culture/turn. That's huge in the early game. And once you start getting enough culture to adopt the policies specifically for City States look out. If you get the one that slows your degrading of influence and the one that adds Science from every friendly city state you're pretty set. After that point and getting every City State I can afford to be allies with, nearly half of my culture and science per turn was being generated from the city states (along with huge food surplus from the maritime ones).

EDIT: Forgot to mention that using City States is a great way to get additional resources (both strategic and luxury). I found myself never lacking for iron or horse (which I in turn flipped the iron/horses in my territory to other Civs) and selling excess luxury resources to other Civs goes a long way in paying for City State's influence.

Dude, you're totally gonna cause inflation.

[Dan02]

one thing I've noticed is that the AI seems to be willing to offer you a ton of stuff in this game for peace. It's baffling.

[Esoteric]

Uh guys, I think this game doubles as a time machine.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by JayP

After playing a bunch the past few days, I've realized City States are pretty awesome. The thing is that you have to almost go all-in and milk them for all their effectiveness or it's tough for them to provide any benefit.

In my current game, I went for a heavy gold production route and used it to pay off the City States for influence. Once they become allies, cultured City States give out 12 culture/turn. That's huge in the early game. And once you start getting enough culture to adopt the policies specifically for City States look out. If you get the one that slows your degrading of influence and the one that adds Science from every friendly city state you're pretty set. After that point and getting every City State I can afford to be allies with, nearly half of my culture and science per turn was being generated from the city states (along with huge food surplus from the maritime ones).

EDIT: Forgot to mention that using City States is a great way to get additional resources (both strategic and luxury). I found myself never lacking for iron or horse (which I in turn flipped the iron/horses in my territory to other Civs) and selling excess luxury resources to other Civs goes a long way in paying for City State's influence.

Finally got the game up and running.

Even from my first game, I would say city states were huuuuuuuge.

I started surrounded by 5 city states. The city states went to war with eachother and I picked sides. I took two of them out. Which means I get two extra cities. Then the remaining city states started providing me with units.

Units are extremely valuable in this game and much scarcer than other civ games. After getting 4 free units from these other city states, I now had the largest army in the world. This let me take out my closest neighbour.

So far the game has been fun, but it has not broken my attachment to Civ4. Definitely willing to give it a few more tries though.

[SeeBass]

I think my wife said something to me two days ago.

I can't seem to find her, I think she must have left me.

Well ok then, just one more turn...

[Dan02]

I have yet to get 4 hours of sleep tonight since release. Was so wiped today I "gave" everyone the afternoon off and went home for a snooze... time to get some a few more turns in before i unfortunateyly have to make a engagement tonight.

[Itse]

It works.

It's beatiful.

Who needs a life anyway?

Although I have to add this nitpick: the video options are quite technical for me, and since you have to restart the whole game after each change, finding the right settings for my low powered computer is a bit of a struggle. I went to the manual for help, and this is what they give me... and I quote:

"
Leader Scene Quality: Affects the quality of the image of the Leader Scenes.
Overlay Detail: Affects the quality of the overlays.
Shadow Quality: Affects the shadow quality of units, buildings, and other non-terrain items.
Fog of War Quality: Affects the quality of Fog of War.
Terrain Detail Level: Determines the level of texture detail in the terrain.
Terrain Tessellation Level: Determines the level of mesh detail in the terrain.
Terrain Shadow Quality: Determines the quality of the terrain shadows.
Water Quality: Determines the quality of the water.
Texture Quality: Determines the quality of the textures in the game.
"

Gee, thanks for those words of wisdom, I never would've figured THAT out by myself.

(I would have liked some tips into what eats the most resources.)

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Itse

It works.

It's beatiful.

Who needs a life anyway?

Although I have to add this nitpick: the video options are quite technical for me, and since you have to restart the whole game after each change, finding the right settings for my low powered computer is a bit of a struggle. I went to the manual for help, and this is what they give me... and I quote:

"
Leader Scene Quality: Affects the quality of the image of the Leader Scenes.
Overlay Detail: Affects the quality of the overlays.
Shadow Quality: Affects the shadow quality of units, buildings, and other non-terrain items.
Fog of War Quality: Affects the quality of Fog of War.
Terrain Detail Level: Determines the level of texture detail in the terrain.
Terrain Tessellation Level: Determines the level of mesh detail in the terrain.
Terrain Shadow Quality: Determines the quality of the terrain shadows.
Water Quality: Determines the quality of the water.
Texture Quality: Determines the quality of the textures in the game.
"

Gee, thanks for those words of wisdom, I never would've figured THAT out by myself.

(I would have liked some tips into what eats the most resources.)

Shadows are computationally expensive in any game, and lower detail shadows are probably the least impacting to overall eye candy, so I’d start there.

[Hemi-Cuda]

so i bought the game last night and got a few turns into my first round before saving and going to bed, and today after lunch i figured i'd finish my game off. that was 9 hours ago, i don't have a clock in my PC room so when i got up to take a piss and saw what time it was i couldn't believe it. an entire day gone just like that

somehow this is one of the worst and best $50 i've spent on a video game

[silentsim]

My buddy bought it and his PC couldnt really power it so he gave it to me

Im kind of bad at this, but I love it.

First game, played a duel. For the longest time I was just building up a huge army, and had around 7 cities. Then i checked my advisors and my competition basically built no military as they were just expanding and I walked over them lol. Most epic disappointment of a 3 hour match (30 seconds to defeat them :P)

[Ducay]

Grabbed a wicked mod off CivFanatics that increases yields on tiles. Basically makes production similar to Civ4, which made the game I just played infinitely better.


Instead of having 2 cities and 2 units at 150 turns (standard speed), I've got an empire of 8 cities and 10 puppet states and am in an epic battle against the mighty Indians. Finally got me stuck in a "one more turn" mentality tonight.

[CaramonLS]

Strategy in Civ 5 is quite different - no stacking units, which creates a way different element. You have to have battle lines, and use artillery/archers to wear down cities.

Also a good navy is essential if you're on an island. With Vision + Movement, you can easily defend against someone who just sends units to die over water.

Gotta say though, I like it.

Resources play a way bigger factor. I played continents - I had the largest one, and ended up having 1 oil resource, 0 uranium, and 1 coal resource. I was about 200 years ahead of everyone else, but I wanted to nuke the **** out of someone.

There were only 2 Uranium spots on the map, both beside the enemies capital.

If you ally up with the city states, you can get massive food bonuses, specialize your capital/cities. Or grow super fast.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Grabbed a wicked mod off CivFanatics that increases yields on tiles. Basically makes production similar to Civ4, which made the game I just played infinitely better.


Instead of having 2 cities and 2 units at 150 turns (standard speed), I've got an empire of 8 cities and 10 puppet states and am in an epic battle against the mighty Indians. Finally got me stuck in a "one more turn" mentality tonight.

Ally w/ city states to boost your yield. I think they give +5/+3 food to your capital/regular cities + some luxury items.

[silentsim]

so question, i see that my cities need "spices" for example. to find a place with spices do i basically have to explore like crazy?