Civilisation 5 Anyone?
I have just been persuaded to buy Civilisation 5. Quite surprisingly I have never played any Civ games before, but I think it is the kinda in-depth game I'd enjoy.
Outta curiosity... does anyone else here play it too? Might be cool to organise some MP games after I've familiarised myself with it.
Outta curiosity... does anyone else here play it too? Might be cool to organise some MP games after I've familiarised myself with it.
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If you have never played a Civ game before, I recommend playing a couple of games before using the expansions, to get the core basics down. Install G&K and play a game or two to familiarize yourself with religion and spying. For a less overwhelming experience.
Once you think you have that mastered, install BWN which turns everything on its head by changing the victory conditions, adding in trade routes, tourism and world diplomacy and a tougher AI.
I've never played MP though figuring most of the games take hours to complete and I don't have that much time in a day to sit down and play a game through, especially with the game pace I enjoy (Epic), although I wouldn't mind trying it once though.
Difficulty curve is a bit harsh, at least for me. I can win easily on second easiest (Warlord?), but third easiest (Prince?) is already a struggle. Perhaps I need to learn how to focus on a specific victory condition.
Yeah I played for a few hours yesterday... As a total noob, it is pretty overwhelming. The tech tree is HUGE... so I have been 'roleplaying it', as in following the path China kinda took in real life. (Legalism, Monarchy, Aristocracy, Civil Service etc) lol I get the feeling my strategy is extremely inefficient, cos I have no idea what the synergies are.
Anyone know any good guides out there? I wanna become reasonably good quickly so I can kinda compete with my friends in MP. They all got 100s of hours of headstart on me. lol
If we do this I am usually available around 2:00 PM to 9:00 PM weekdays and 1:00 PM to VERY late into the night on weekends.
Edit: that is eastern standard time
Also edit: I am out of a job ATM if u wonder why I have so much time
Which will be never.
5 to me was kind of the "Moo3" of the series where the game just goes off the rails and doesn't compare to the gameplay of the earlier game. Maybe with expansions it's gotten better but base vanilla game I didn't care for.
I caught up and surpassed my AI rivals around the Industrial Age, and thanks to a science focused strategy, it was ridiculous how fast I moved from Modern to Information Age. Maybe I need to try epic instead of standard, cos I am nearing finishing off all research around the 1980s, and I probably could have won a technological victory with a space ship before I even finished building railways to link up my cities, or deployed a modern fighter jet, which is ridiculous. (My tech was advancing far faster can I can afford to build/upgrade).
One thing I noticeda about the AI. Might is Right! Up until the late-industrial age, I had an economic/science focus, and had a minimal military, I had only ever invaded one country (Japan) and didn't respond to repeated provocations from my neighbours (Siam), yet somehow random powers I had nothing to do with kept denouncing me. One faction even mocked my 'pathetic military'.
Just as I was about to reach the Modern Age, I was suddenly invaded by Mongolia in a surprise attack, my 'Pearl Harbour moment', with my heartlands at risk of being swamped by Mongol cannons, Keshiks and riflemen, I suddenly threw the weight of my manufacturing and wealth into making war. I decimated the Mongol invaders with rocket artillery and WW2 era bombers and pushed deep into the Mongol heartlands with modern infantry, essentially committing genocide and pushing the Mongols into the wilderness of the far North. Now on a warpath, I continued my military build up and invaded Siam by land and sea to deal with that pesky neighbour once and for all, along the way I dropped 2 nukes on them to see what it would do. I expected international condemnation, maybe a coalition to form against me....
Instead as my military strength and belligerence increased, all the neutral or even guarded countries came to offer embassies, several turned around altogether and asked for declaration of friendship! Clearly the AI was programmed to fear and respect strength! I guess that's kinda realistic... but it begs the question, 'how do you win a diplomatic victory?!' Do you just have to send huge amounts of gold to everybody so they vote for you at the UN? That would sound rather boring and unrealistic.
Anyways I think I will try the same scenario again, but at Emperor difficulty at epic. I will hopefully avoid my numerous mistakes in my first effort, cos I expect the AI will no longer allow me to race ahead by a whole era or more.
1. There is a mod that slows down tech advances, but speeds everything else up, allowing you to actually play the eras instead of blowing right by them. Changing game speed, just changes the amount of turns (and how long it takes to research, build, grow etc) the game has. The longer the game speed, the more strategy you need to put into building and keeping alive a military. As if you get invaded, the AI has more turns to wreck havoc to your country before you can throw out your first troops.
2. I'd go up slowly. I find there is are huge jumps from each setting due to the bonuses the AI gets. Try Prince first.
3. Depending on what expansion you are playing on, Diplomacy is achieved in different ways. If it is Vanilla, buy off as many City states as you can. G&Ks, buy off as many city states as you can AND attempt to be friends with other civs for a good chunk of time. Liberating countries and city states help a lot as well. BNW through the world congress, you need X amount of votes to win diplo. You can do that by forcing certain measures through (World ideology, world religion) and befriending city states. Diplomatic victory is good for gold focused empires.
Find me on steam if you want to play. Im game.
Killeah would be the id you're looking for
Every time I play it, I lose somewhere between two and six hours of my day. Where does the time go?!
Most of the time I play with my brother, when we both happen to be online and not busy.
As far as winning a diplomacy victory goes, sending gold to buy votes from City States is the primary way to do it, but you can get the AI to vote for you if they are eliminated and you restore them to life by liberating their capital. BNW adds some additional strategy through the World Congress, as you can make political deals to get resolutions that increase your total number of delegates passed, which then makes you less reliant on City States (and Ideological tenets can give you non-gold means of gaining City State allies).
I browsed a couple forums but nothing stood out... Also discovered WEIDU creator makes mods for Civ5 nowadays :O
There are series of Mods that will implement the forgotten realms setting, game of thrones or even Mass effect.
There are also ones that tweak the game slightly (no auto heal promotion, no fountain of youth, balancing world wonders, adding other units etc) that can really customize a game.
Then there are the cosmetic ones that change unit scaling to be more realistic or better map generators.
Others add more civs like Canada and Finland to the game, but keep in mind, these Civs can be unbalancing.
Best place to look is the Steam workshop and there is a link on the main page of the steam civ5 page.
Also keep in mind if you are achievement hunting, don't play with any mods or the achievements won't register.
In each case we used Marathon, Huge Map and Continent Plus with King difficulty for AI. His handicap for playing against me as a noob was that he had to use a random faction, whilst I could choose.
The first time I chose China and he got Byzantium. We started on different continents, but I was seriously constrained by a lack of (different) luxury resources, which meant I couldn't expand rapidly and by around the 250th turn, as I struggled in the Medieval Age, his Caravel was already exploring the oceans. His production, science, population and religion were all well ahead, and he colonised on my continent, depriving me of a key luxury. I surrendered cos there was no way I could turn things around.
The second time I chose Babylon and he got Maya. Again something similar happened, although this time I managed to maintain a narrow tech advantage, he had far outstripped me for number of cities and productive capacity, and again won the resource war with regards to luxuries, containing my growth.
The third and last game I used Babylon once more, and he got Siam. I finally made the right choice of choosing Liberty over Tradition at the start, managed to win some early wars that were forced on me and secured a large productive region for colonisation. My friend tried to contain me by paying the Iroquis (between us) to declare war on me whilst I was fighting the military superpower (Russia) of the world. Unfortunately for him the Iroquis just took his gold, declared war, and then did nothing about it, presumably because I was too far away. This gave me the chance to end the war against Russia on favourable terms (Russia paying me a large amount of reparations). My friend was playing a very ambitious strategy of trying to compete with me technologically, whilst also colonising very aggressively, leading to regular wars against the Greeks and Huns. After my phoney war with the Iroquis ended, I retaliated by urging them to declare war against my friend. I expected this to keep him busy and give me peace to occupy the vast and rich lands my wars had secured. Instead the Iroquis destroyed his army in the jungles and ruined his empire. Suddenly I was ahead by every measure and he surrendered...
It seems to me that every time, around 200-300 turns into the game, somebody always ends up in a dominant position, and if the game continued, it would just grind to an inevitable conclusion. Is it actually possible to have games where a balanced 'Cold War' develops between 2 or more superpowers, with one side maybe a bit ahead on tech, but the other having more productive capcity/population? It seems to me like the game heavily punishes bad decisions in the long run. A small advantage on the 200th turn continously expands until it is a gulf by the 300th. Is it ever possible for somebody to make a comeback. If you are in the Medieval Age riding around with Knights and Pikemen, and your rival arrives with a Caravel and musketmen, are you basically screwed regardless?
Also... we are considering a 3 way game later, which will be more competitive (Babylon and Egypt will be banned, but otherwise everyone can choose whoever they want). I still don't know the synergies of the game very well, but what I'd like to do is to expand rapidly at the start, secure large and defensible borders (and luxury resources of course) and then settle and develop economically and scientifically, so that have I have at least technological parity with the most advanced factions, and be an economic/productive superpower, so that I can quickly produce a powerful military if and when needed. Can anyone recommend any factions or strategies that would suit this style, given that Babylon and Egypt (and Korea) is banned?
My idea now is China, whose Paper Maker means it is scientifically competitive in the early game. I may race for the Great Library (which everybody always wants) if my capital has good productive capacity (hills), and if not probably the Pyramids so I can get a Great Engineer asap. I figure the Art of War bonuses will help with my early wars and Chokunu will be a big help in the Medieval era, when I expect to face my first serious wars against human opponents. Beyond that, I don't have a plan...
As far as good factions and strategies to try for aggressive expansion, China is a good option for reasons you've already identified. The Maya are also good: Their unique building adds extra beakers to your early cities which allows you to bolster your early tech, and the free great people can be settled for long-term benefit or expended to grab key advantages, depending on what fits your situation. Ethiopia is actually also a good option. While having a lot of cities may not let you leverage their combat bonus, their unique building allows you to get a lot of faith early by expanding, which helps you secure an early religion and get your pick of beliefs. You could also roll the dice and pick a faction that has good early rush potential (Rome, The Huns, Persia) and try to conquer an AI neighbor (or another player) early to add cities instead of building a bunch of settlers. Composite Bowmen are the key to a successful early rush (unless you have really good unique units, like the Huns and even then...), as they kick ass and take names.
As far as strategies go, you've already identified that Liberty is a strong pick in a multiplayer game. You should obviously focus on settling near diverse luxuries as much as possible. Strongly consider settling your cities directly on top of new luxuries, as it will automatically connect those luxuries to your trade network (assuming you have the proper tech to exploit them) without having to wait for a worker to improve them. Get granaries up in your cities as a high priority, as it will help them grow to a useful size faster and allow them to work more productive tiles when you don't need them to grow. At some point (likely after settling 2 or 3 cities), you will want to pause expansion in order to build a National Library; plan your research and build orders accordingly. Don't be afraid to expend a Great Engineer to rush the National Library, as the sooner it's done, the sooner you get the tech bonus and the sooner you can get back to building units and infrastructure. Try to resist the siren call of early wonders. Hammers spent building the Pyramids are hammers that could be spent getting granaries, libraries, water mills, aqueducts, defensive units, more settlers, etc., etc. The Great Library can be worth it, but it's a big gamble, especially with AI players involved. Consider the productivity of the land around your capital before you commit (settling on hills can help you squeeze more productivity in the vital early stages).
Are you playing with Gods and Kings? I can see that you have DLC civilizations and Byzantium, but I haven't seen any mention of trade routes, so I'm assuming you aren't playing with Brave New World.