Yes I played G&K at the beginning, and then bought BNW when it was on 33% sale. The main differences between the two, in addition to new factions and some changed factions are:
1) Less gold income from the land. For example u no longer get extra gold from tiles next to rivers. This somewhat reduces the importance of rivers.
2) Gold income is compensated by Trade Routes, for which you need to build caravans or cargo ships. You can trade internally, but the main benefit of trade route comes from foreign trade with regions with different resources. This has a few major consequences:
A. Cargo ships and caravans can be raided (destroyed) by barbarians or hostile civs, so you got an added incentive to destroy barbarian camps and patrol/protect your trade routes. This makes trade a bit of a high risk/high reward strategy. It can make you a tonne of gold, but you need to maintain a larger military to protect trade routes, and if a trading partner declares war on you, you lose all the cargo ships/caravans you had trading with that civ, which can be a massive economic blow.
B. This encourages more of a peaceful strategy than in G&K. In G&K I almost always try to conquer my nearest neighbours, now, if they are a fairly peaceful Civ like India, I often prefer to maintain friendly relations and establish a long term and stable trade partnership.
3) Tourism is the path to Cultural Victory. It has little effect until the Industrial Age and beyond. But in the late game it can have a big affect on other Civs even if you don't actually win via Cultural Victory.
4) When you build 3 factories, you get to adopt one of 3 Ideologies, (Order, Autocracy and Freedom), which kinda replaces the endgame Social Policies in G&K. Having a large culture output can cripple civs of a different Ideology as yourself and force them into damaging revolutions and adopt your Ideology. The first 3 civs to adopt a particular ideology get free bonus (3, 2 and 1) Tenants each, which can make the factory race and Ideology decision quite strategic, and dependent on your Culture output.
5) The World Congress and United Nations is significantly more important, again changing the dynamics of the endgame. Various WC resolutions can have massive beneficial or damaging affects on different civs. In one of the games I lost against my friend, I managed to throw away a large production and population advantage precisely because I overlooked the WC.
Yes I played G&K at the beginning, and then bought BNW when it was on 33% sale. The main differences between the two, in addition to new factions and some changed factions are:
1) Less gold income from the land. For example u no longer get extra gold from tiles next to rivers. This somewhat reduces the importance of rivers.
2) Gold income is compensated by Trade Routes, for which you need to build caravans or cargo ships. You can trade internally, but the main benefit of trade route comes from foreign trade with regions with different resources. This has a few major consequences:
A. Cargo ships and caravans can be raided (destroyed) by barbarians or hostile civs, so you got an added incentive to destroy barbarian camps and patrol/protect your trade routes. This makes trade a bit of a high risk/high reward strategy. It can make you a tonne of gold, but you need to maintain a larger military to protect trade routes, and if a trading partner declares war on you, you lose all the cargo ships/caravans you had trading with that civ, which can be a massive economic blow.
B. This encourages more of a peaceful strategy than in G&K. In G&K I almost always try to conquer my nearest neighbours, now, if they are a fairly peaceful Civ like India, I often prefer to maintain friendly relations and establish a long term and stable trade partnership.
3) Tourism is the path to Cultural Victory. It has little effect until the Industrial Age and beyond. But in the late game it can have a big affect on other Civs even if you don't actually win via Cultural Victory.
4) When you build 3 factories, you get to adopt one of 3 Ideologies, (Order, Autocracy and Freedom), which kinda replaces the endgame Social Policies in G&K. Having a large culture output can cripple civs of a different Ideology as yourself and force them into damaging revolutions and adopt your Ideology. The first 3 civs to adopt a particular ideology get free bonus (3, 2 and 1) Tenants each, which can make the factory race and Ideology decision quite strategic, and dependent on your Culture output.
5) The World Congress and United Nations is significantly more important, again changing the dynamics of the endgame. Various WC resolutions can have massive beneficial or damaging affects on different civs. In one of the games I lost against my friend, I managed to throw away a large production and population advantage precisely because I overlooked the WC.
so basically be more friendly to friendly civs. normally I would merely try to eliminate my closest neighbor if they are in the way, like if I have an island with one neighbor I would take them out to have complete control. and this trade routes thing will certainly work against me as I often do not have a military until late medieval times then I focus on crossbows and galleons (or was it frigates). also stinks to hear about rivers as I once had a starting area in a forest with deer and rivers, providing massive amounts of food, production, and gold, though reduced movement through the land without bridges.
I will try to get around to that soon so I can learn it. It is nice that civ even has a menu to choose what you want running, as each of the expansions have done a great deal in changing the game. luckily you were using my strategy so I know that isn't gone as one of the social policy trees were made worse from vanilla to GK and that put a dent in my old plan.
@ChildofBhaal599 Oh I should mention that you can also trade with City States, though on average that generates a little less gold than trading with other civs, it is still a very significant amount of income. In that epic game vs my friend, he managed to pass trade embargo on me via WC, so that I could not trade with any other civs, but I managed to secure control the oceans and just traded with city states instead. In another game I started on an island with no civs nearby, but a whole island chain of city-states. With no civs to threaten me, I ended up becoming stupidly rich through maritime trade. (Cargo ships typically generate more income than land caravans, because they have longer trade range, and income is dependent on resource diversity, which tends to increase the further trade routes go.)
But Trade Routes significantly increases the incentive to play a more peaceful strategy, whilst at the same time forcing you to build a military to protect your trade networks.
@ChildofBhaal599 Oh I should mention that you can also trade with City States, though on average that generates a little less gold than trading with other civs, it is still a very significant amount of income. In that epic game vs my friend, he managed to pass trade embargo on me via WC, so that I could not trade with any other civs, but I managed to secure control the oceans and just traded with city states instead. In another game I started on an island with no civs nearby, but a whole island chain of city-states. With no civs to threaten me, I ended up becoming stupidly rich through maritime trade. (Cargo ships typically generate more income than land caravans, because they have longer trade range, and income is dependent on resource diversity, which tends to increase the further trade routes go.)
But Trade Routes significantly increases the incentive to play a more peaceful strategy, whilst at the same time forcing you to build a military to protect your trade networks.
I will be sure to try that out soon. Would be a bad idea to start one now or I would lose track of time. It is strange going from morning to dark without even realizing as you play that game. It really stops you from accomplishing anything that day
@SapphireIce101: Ehh, I don't think the Tochlight games are that good, to be honest... Sure, in the beginning they're nice... But they become repetitive and boring VERY quickly. It's just fighting your way through dungeons and even more dungeons. The gear you collect usually consists of re-skins of the same models in different colours and with slightly increased stats... There's no replay value at all. I got bored of both after a couple of hours.
well here I am, 3 AM, still playing CIV 5. It really needs a warning like "do not play if you want to have a life". I am trying to do the new cultural victory, or perhaps diplomacy. my first game didn't go too well, or at least it went pretty well with me in second place for cultural but there was a huge gap in every victory between me and persia. I guess I learned some things from that game and am trying again, this time will focus a lot more on city states for the world congress. I have one city state in the bag actually because it had a barbarian encampment just outside it that kept taking it's 3 workers and ignoring me as I go to collect them. I will have this city state for at least 300 turns as long as people don't affect it with spies
lol yeah I really like BNW, it really adds a new dimension and a better balance between the victory conditions, not to mention providing a lot more depth for the endgame.
I find that cultural victory and diplomatic victory kinda go hand-in-hand. They are perhaps not very efficient for a MP game, where a player is likely to give up once u have a decisive tech/military/economic advantage anyway, but they are still a very interesting way to play the game. In the only Marathon Huge SP game I've played through to the end, I initially planned a Cultural Victory, but I ended up dominating the WC and elected myself World Leader.
I guess you are playing at a higher difficulty setting? I found BNM to be slightly harder than G&K for the same difficulty level. The AI is slightly less aggressive (some of them), but the barbarians are more numerous and they pose a much more serious problem in the early game due to ur reliance on route routes for gold.
I remember iPad version of Civilization IV, I also remember how lazy I was after playing 10 hours non-stop. I think I deleted it because I got bored, but whenever I play Age of Empires III, my powergamer spirit gets in the middle, so I build 50 Skirmishers, as many as I can of Grenadiers, and game won :P just I ever play with the Dutch. i really like having free coin aka Banks aka free coin :P and when you get Factories, is the best country to make a revolution with, just be sure to make more Settlers, what also cost COIN INSTEAD OF FOOD... I olayed with my dad many times, but only won twice, the other time he resigned because we were in a 3-hours long game and he didn't had much and I made and wall to make him stand outside. Then the other two times, well, I won by far, and then, we haven't played anymore, he still saying I know too much besides the n00b he is :P
lol yeah I really like BNW, it really adds a new dimension and a better balance between the victory conditions, not to mention providing a lot more depth for the endgame.
I find that cultural victory and diplomatic victory kinda go hand-in-hand. They are perhaps not very efficient for a MP game, where a player is likely to give up once u have a decisive tech/military/economic advantage anyway, but they are still a very interesting way to play the game. In the only Marathon Huge SP game I've played through to the end, I initially planned a Cultural Victory, but I ended up dominating the WC and elected myself World Leader.
I was able to won by both Cultural and Tech one time, but instead, I finished destroying all the enemy capitals with nukes it was so funny :P and then the last enemy was alone, and I thought that leaving him a time before he dead was funny, I didn't realized I had selected to research another tech, so I ended up winning by tech :P
lol yeah I really like BNW, it really adds a new dimension and a better balance between the victory conditions, not to mention providing a lot more depth for the endgame.
I find that cultural victory and diplomatic victory kinda go hand-in-hand. They are perhaps not very efficient for a MP game, where a player is likely to give up once u have a decisive tech/military/economic advantage anyway, but they are still a very interesting way to play the game. In the only Marathon Huge SP game I've played through to the end, I initially planned a Cultural Victory, but I ended up dominating the WC and elected myself World Leader.
I guess you are playing at a higher difficulty setting? I found BNM to be slightly harder than G&K for the same difficulty level. The AI is slightly less aggressive (some of them), but the barbarians are more numerous and they pose a much more serious problem in the early game due to ur reliance on route routes for gold.
really? I find I am having an easier time with BNW than GK
this map setup I have atm was amazing. only people with direct access to me were the Huns, so I didn't have much in the way of gold especially when they declared war. I won the war, however, with 3 units, 2 archers and a trireme. basically there was a point on the coast with only one coast section, so I place my trireme at it and blocked all of there triremes! basically it stood there while I bowed them down.
right now I am later and have total control over world congress. I just voted my religion in as world religion with some bribes on people without religions to help ensure it passes. I also won the world fair race and am getting huge amounts of culture. just watching as policies fly at me is amazing, and I own all the culture city states I know to add on to my own.
overall my religion is suffering a little, even with it voted in. this was mainly to put a blow in the other religions, and the tourism was nice as I am working on tourism. my next proposal is the increase in culture from world wonders as I have a lot of world wonders.
if anything could mess me up it would be a ban on salts. my island is filled with salts, and is my major income other than trade routes. I could trade salts to every other players and still have some!
currently the huns are also back at war. they took one of my city states earlier without me retaliating, as I wanted the other players to hate him so instead I decnounced him and let him take it. my production is superb and I quickly built a huge fleet of frigates which is now blowing him away. I could also take a city with only a minor warmonger penalty, and I could also liberate that city state to get my ally back and make people forget about my warmongering!
oh, and all this I am playing on immortal difficult (7, just under the highest). I can't believe I might even go to the end. It is difficult for me to get to the end in Civ as things always go bad or I get bored. hoping to win it here
edit: I am also playing Pacal of the mayans, as my starting plan gets me theology almost instantly and allows me to quickly start getting great people every end of the mayan calendar
Ah... yes u generally play at a higher level than me. I've never gone higher than Emperor... it just bugs me too much when the AI is only challenging cos it cheats. At King/Emperor, the difference between G&K and BNW is quite obvious. Barbarians are significantly more numerous and actively attack your trade routes. But as always in Civ 5, the quality of ur starting territory, the availability of resources and the geography of the land can have a massive impact on actual difficulty. I once started in the middle of a large continent, land-locked and surrounded by Greeks, Romans, and Turks, and in the middle of an open grass plain. 3 of my neighbours declared war on me in short succession... It was impossible for me to trade and although I repelled the Greeks, but the Turks wiped my battered survivors off the map in one attack. I had no defensible terrain at all.
Oh and yes I find the WC to be a bit cheesy, cos u can bribe other factions to vote for totally suicidal policies, and almost always get ur way, if u really tried. Whereas in reality, I doubt the USA would ever have agreed to declare Communism the World Ideology in the Cold War, no matter how much the USSR paid them.
Multi player is really important on dark souls and It is more than worth it so buy it. Skyrim is horrid, but if your really want it pirate it. You can play playstation games (FF7) on your computer with psx it is a playstation emulator and it is free or you could pirate the pc game if it is the only playstation game you would like to play again. What do they teach you kids in school these days... dam kids and there rap music.
Ah... yes u generally play at a higher level than me. I've never gone higher than Emperor... it just bugs me too much when the AI is only challenging cos it cheats. At King/Emperor, the difference between G&K and BNW is quite obvious. Barbarians are significantly more numerous and actively attack your trade routes. But as always in Civ 5, the quality of ur starting territory, the availability of resources and the geography of the land can have a massive impact on actual difficulty. I once started in the middle of a large continent, land-locked and surrounded by Greeks, Romans, and Turks, and in the middle of an open grass plain. 3 of my neighbours declared war on me in short succession... It was impossible for me to trade and although I repelled the Greeks, but the Turks wiped my battered survivors off the map in one attack. I had no defensible terrain at all.
Oh and yes I find the WC to be a bit cheesy, cos u can bribe other factions to vote for totally suicidal policies, and almost always get ur way, if u really tried. Whereas in reality, I doubt the USA would ever have agreed to declare Communism the World Ideology in the Cold War, no matter how much the USSR paid them.
in the case of dark souls and stuff I like that things are equal on all fields. for this, however, going for that level of difficulty prove too easy against the AI. not that it doesn't bother me, but I need the higher difficulties to ensure I don't crush everybody
yes, my starting territory is a little OP. as long as I am in single player I usually hit restart a few times to get a map I want. I also restart multiplayer if somebody started in something like a desert. being alone didn't help with trading, however. it was a while before I met people to trade with, and then I got filthy rich and bought off the city states, effectively making things go my way in the votes.
I just took the Hun capital too. took a bit, but all I lost was a frigate and a great admiral I used the heal ability on to heal my entire fleet. we are now in peace as they had enough melees to turn it into one of those battles where a city can be brough back to one population with no buildings, and destroy all progress. I will be sure to war on them later to liberate that city state though, as it will make me look better after this warmongering.
I am also dominating in the culture front. I am expecting to win through this or diplomacy, whichever is faster. I have to worry about Morocco, however, as they destroy multiple CIVs, including my allies the Byzantines just recently. there is a huge gap when I look at our points but I am not too worried over that considering my cultural and diplomatic progress, so I still think I am winning.
At the very least I still have Carthage. I always seem to put Dido into the game as the only non random and they become my ally. She is not really aggressive at all it seems. Hopefully she won't be too upset that I went order while she went autocracy
Multi player is really important on dark souls and It is more than worth it so buy it. Skyrim is horrid, but if your really want it pirate it. You can play playstation games (FF7) on your computer with psx it is a playstation emulator and it is free or you could pirate the pc game if it is the only playstation game you would like to play again. What do they teach you kids in school these days... dam kids and there rap music.
I wouldn't advertise pirating much. The only time I really did so was when I was getting games I already owned on console, but I made a legal purchase when they went on sale. Also down with rap! I despise it. I like lyrics with a meaning, so I go to Rise Against and other punk bands.
I am not going to tell anyone to buy a garbage game like Skyrim at least on pc the fans made it almost playable. As for piracy who cares just make sure you seed and if it is a good game buy it. If it is a shit game you are doing the world a favor by putting bad devs out of business.
I am not going to tell anyone to buy a garbage game like Skyrim at least on pc the fans made it almost playable. As for piracy who cares just make sure you seed and if it is a good game buy it. If it is a shit game you are doing the world a favor by putting bad devs out of business.
I just can't justify it unless we're talking EA
Also Skyrim still has the really nice mod support of Bethesda games, so it is really good on PC. It didn't hold me as long as Oblivion though
No it's not really good it is just better the combat is still rubbish after they released the tools the players did made a wide array of content, graphic customization, and fix the menu. Even if you think the player made content was great it doesn't change what was put on the market.
I'm glad Chaotic_Good is here to tell us his objective opinion about Skyrim. My advice for those thinking about Skyrim, try it yourselves, don't let anyone tell you what you should think about it (this goes for a lot of things). Sure, mods make it better, but the vanilla game is not worse for it, IMO. Please do note that I'm expressing only my personal, subjective opinion on the matter, here.
As for the sales, just the other day I was watching a let's play of Dragon Age: Origins, and decided to add it to my wishlist. And wouldn't you know, yesterday it was -75%. Also bought Max Payne 3, and now I'm probably going to wait till Christmas Sales, hopefully BWN and Prison Architect will have a huge discount.
And I also enjoyed it. I prefer Oblivion, but Skyrim was good, if anything much too easy with the shouts so I don't use them and also use mods for difficulty. I like having an open world as well as a good story. The open world just lets me make the story a little. I will play Baldurs Gate for a good story. Kind of like Fallout 3 to New Vegas in that respect of what I want in the game I play.
Have you played Morrowind? Give it a go the combat is dryer than oblivion, but the detail and cohesiveness of the world will blow your mind. In this game you can walk into a bar overhear a story about some weapon or what ever no quest or tool tip just lore and actually search it out it's soo tasty.
Here was my time breakdown for Tes games.
Morrowind 3-4 years Oblivion 3-4 months Skyrim 1-2 months
Have you played Morrowind? Give it a go the combat is dryer than oblivion, but the detail and cohesiveness of the world will blow your mind. In this game you can walk into a bar overhear a story about some weapon or what ever no quest or tool tip just lore and actually search it out it's soo tasty.
Here was my time breakdown for Tes games.
Morrowind 3-4 years Oblivion 3-4 months Skyrim 1-2 months
I've played every Elder Scrolls game. That's right, that includes the DOS ones I think I have an Oblivion bias as it was my first Elder Scrolls, most people like the first game they play in a series. I also find the old ones somewhat charming, flailing my mouse all around to attack! Morrowind was good as well, lots of cool magic like levitation. I would always get ebony really early however as there was a character in a ruin wearing it who wasn't too difficult. got it at level 2 once, though it took the majority of my weight allowance. I still, however, just like Oblivion best of all.
anybody know for sure if it ends in half an hour or goes one more day? i don't know if I should buy everything that has a good price but not in a daily/flash sale, or if i still have one more day to get the chance
Flash sales seem to be 8 hour cycles. The daily sales I am not sure, cos I dunno when the day cut-offs are... and it also seems kinda random what happens after a sale. I noticed that Skyrim was still on sale a day after I bought it, but possibly reduced to 60% off or something. When I saw it yesterday, Skyrim Legendary was at 40% off, instead of the 66% off when I bought it.
Yes... I'm the stingy guy who enjoys knowing he got a bargain, and gets pissed off when something gets cheaper after I buy it, and is sad enough to check out the price after I bought it to satisfy my curiosity.
Hmmm... maybe thats why I actually enjoyed the D3 AH whilst everyone else hated it! I love winning bargains and trading to profit more than actually playing D3. Haha!
Multi player is really important on dark souls and It is more than worth it so buy it. Skyrim is horrid, but if your really want it pirate it. You can play playstation games (FF7) on your computer with psx it is a playstation emulator and it is free or you could pirate the pc game if it is the only playstation game you would like to play again. What do they teach you kids in school these days... dam kids and there rap music.
I wouldn't advertise pirating much. The only time I really did so was when I was getting games I already owned on console, but I made a legal purchase when they went on sale. Also down with rap! I despise it. I like lyrics with a meaning, so I go to Rise Against and other punk bands.
Flash sales seem to be 8 hour cycles. The daily sales I am not sure, cos I dunno when the day cut-offs are... and it also seems kinda random what happens after a sale. I noticed that Skyrim was still on sale a day after I bought it, but possibly reduced to 60% off or something. When I saw it yesterday, Skyrim Legendary was at 40% off, instead of the 66% off when I bought it.
Yes... I'm the stingy guy who enjoys knowing he got a bargain, and gets pissed off when something gets cheaper after I buy it, and is sad enough to check out the price after I bought it to satisfy my curiosity.
Hmmm... maybe thats why I actually enjoyed the D3 AH whilst everyone else hated it! I love winning bargains and trading to profit more than actually playing D3. Haha!
omg i need to keep typing this out because of the internet here! i am not at home. anyway, i was asking if you thought there would be one more day of sales or not. it appears as thought it is done. the sale prices are still up, however, probably because daily sales last one extra day.
Multi player is really important on dark souls and It is more than worth it so buy it. Skyrim is horrid, but if your really want it pirate it. You can play playstation games (FF7) on your computer with psx it is a playstation emulator and it is free or you could pirate the pc game if it is the only playstation game you would like to play again. What do they teach you kids in school these days... dam kids and there rap music.
I wouldn't advertise pirating much. The only time I really did so was when I was getting games I already owned on console, but I made a legal purchase when they went on sale. Also down with rap! I despise it. I like lyrics with a meaning, so I go to Rise Against and other punk bands.
Hmm why wouldn't you get the lords mail?.. You don't have to lie bro its ok if you didn't play a game. While oblivion had a better but still flawed combat e.g. Blunt weapons not staggering. I find it hard to believe that anyone could prefer a dimensionally inferior game i.e. dimensions, size, guilds, scenery, freedom, story, and more. Despite the game being over 10 years old, people are still making new mods for it and posting them on NexusMods. Cuique suum
Hmm why wouldn't you get the lords mail?.. You don't have to lie bro its ok if you didn't play a game. While oblivion had a better but still flawed combat e.g. Blunt weapons not staggering. I find it hard to believe that anyone could prefer a dimensionally inferior game i.e. dimensions, size, guilds, scenery, freedom, story, and more. Despite the game being over 10 years old, people are still making new mods for it and posting them on NexusMods. Cuique suum
I didn't lie. I played the Elder Scrolls games as: Oblivion, Morrowind, Arena, Daggerfall, Skyrim. Morrowind was the second game I played, but Oblivion is just my favorite. I do like Morrowind, just not as much. The spells, as I have said, are my biggest plus to Morrowind. However, I find a lot of stuff more in depth in Oblivion, from the guilds to the dungeons. Yes Morrowind is the biggest but Oblivion was also decently sized, and I just don't make use of it's fast travel. I think Oblivion had the best guilds, while Skyrim ones were much too short and Morrowind ones were not yet at the point where they followed much of a story (at least as far as I have gotten in them). I did complete house Hlaalu and not much storywise happened, just a bunch of short quests with no story. I greatly enjoyed the Raven Rock section of Bloodmoon though, as I watch the town build every time I visit.
Comments
Yes I played G&K at the beginning, and then bought BNW when it was on 33% sale. The main differences between the two, in addition to new factions and some changed factions are:
1) Less gold income from the land. For example u no longer get extra gold from tiles next to rivers. This somewhat reduces the importance of rivers.
2) Gold income is compensated by Trade Routes, for which you need to build caravans or cargo ships. You can trade internally, but the main benefit of trade route comes from foreign trade with regions with different resources. This has a few major consequences:
A. Cargo ships and caravans can be raided (destroyed) by barbarians or hostile civs, so you got an added incentive to destroy barbarian camps and patrol/protect your trade routes. This makes trade a bit of a high risk/high reward strategy. It can make you a tonne of gold, but you need to maintain a larger military to protect trade routes, and if a trading partner declares war on you, you lose all the cargo ships/caravans you had trading with that civ, which can be a massive economic blow.
B. This encourages more of a peaceful strategy than in G&K. In G&K I almost always try to conquer my nearest neighbours, now, if they are a fairly peaceful Civ like India, I often prefer to maintain friendly relations and establish a long term and stable trade partnership.
3) Tourism is the path to Cultural Victory. It has little effect until the Industrial Age and beyond. But in the late game it can have a big affect on other Civs even if you don't actually win via Cultural Victory.
4) When you build 3 factories, you get to adopt one of 3 Ideologies, (Order, Autocracy and Freedom), which kinda replaces the endgame Social Policies in G&K. Having a large culture output can cripple civs of a different Ideology as yourself and force them into damaging revolutions and adopt your Ideology. The first 3 civs to adopt a particular ideology get free bonus (3, 2 and 1) Tenants each, which can make the factory race and Ideology decision quite strategic, and dependent on your Culture output.
5) The World Congress and United Nations is significantly more important, again changing the dynamics of the endgame. Various WC resolutions can have massive beneficial or damaging affects on different civs. In one of the games I lost against my friend, I managed to throw away a large production and population advantage precisely because I overlooked the WC.
I will try to get around to that soon so I can learn it. It is nice that civ even has a menu to choose what you want running, as each of the expansions have done a great deal in changing the game. luckily you were using my strategy so I know that isn't gone as one of the social policy trees were made worse from vanilla to GK and that put a dent in my old plan.
Oh I should mention that you can also trade with City States, though on average that generates a little less gold than trading with other civs, it is still a very significant amount of income. In that epic game vs my friend, he managed to pass trade embargo on me via WC, so that I could not trade with any other civs, but I managed to secure control the oceans and just traded with city states instead. In another game I started on an island with no civs nearby, but a whole island chain of city-states. With no civs to threaten me, I ended up becoming stupidly rich through maritime trade. (Cargo ships typically generate more income than land caravans, because they have longer trade range, and income is dependent on resource diversity, which tends to increase the further trade routes go.)
But Trade Routes significantly increases the incentive to play a more peaceful strategy, whilst at the same time forcing you to build a military to protect your trade networks.
lol yeah I really like BNW, it really adds a new dimension and a better balance between the victory conditions, not to mention providing a lot more depth for the endgame.
I find that cultural victory and diplomatic victory kinda go hand-in-hand. They are perhaps not very efficient for a MP game, where a player is likely to give up once u have a decisive tech/military/economic advantage anyway, but they are still a very interesting way to play the game. In the only Marathon Huge SP game I've played through to the end, I initially planned a Cultural Victory, but I ended up dominating the WC and elected myself World Leader.
I guess you are playing at a higher difficulty setting? I found BNM to be slightly harder than G&K for the same difficulty level. The AI is slightly less aggressive (some of them), but the barbarians are more numerous and they pose a much more serious problem in the early game due to ur reliance on route routes for gold.
this map setup I have atm was amazing. only people with direct access to me were the Huns, so I didn't have much in the way of gold especially when they declared war. I won the war, however, with 3 units, 2 archers and a trireme. basically there was a point on the coast with only one coast section, so I place my trireme at it and blocked all of there triremes!
right now I am later and have total control over world congress. I just voted my religion in as world religion with some bribes on people without religions to help ensure it passes. I also won the world fair race and am getting huge amounts of culture. just watching as policies fly at me is amazing, and I own all the culture city states I know to add on to my own.
overall my religion is suffering a little, even with it voted in. this was mainly to put a blow in the other religions, and the tourism was nice as I am working on tourism. my next proposal is the increase in culture from world wonders as I have a lot of world wonders.
if anything could mess me up it would be a ban on salts. my island is filled with salts, and is my major income other than trade routes. I could trade salts to every other players and still have some!
currently the huns are also back at war. they took one of my city states earlier without me retaliating, as I wanted the other players to hate him so instead I decnounced him and let him take it. my production is superb and I quickly built a huge fleet of frigates which is now blowing him away. I could also take a city with only a minor warmonger penalty, and I could also liberate that city state to get my ally back and make people forget about my warmongering!
oh, and all this I am playing on immortal difficult (7, just under the highest). I can't believe I might even go to the end. It is difficult for me to get to the end in Civ as things always go bad or I get bored. hoping to win it here
edit: I am also playing Pacal of the mayans, as my starting plan gets me theology almost instantly and allows me to quickly start getting great people every end of the mayan calendar
Ah... yes u generally play at a higher level than me. I've never gone higher than Emperor... it just bugs me too much when the AI is only challenging cos it cheats. At King/Emperor, the difference between G&K and BNW is quite obvious. Barbarians are significantly more numerous and actively attack your trade routes. But as always in Civ 5, the quality of ur starting territory, the availability of resources and the geography of the land can have a massive impact on actual difficulty. I once started in the middle of a large continent, land-locked and surrounded by Greeks, Romans, and Turks, and in the middle of an open grass plain. 3 of my neighbours declared war on me in short succession... It was impossible for me to trade and although I repelled the Greeks, but the Turks wiped my battered survivors off the map in one attack. I had no defensible terrain at all.
Oh and yes I find the WC to be a bit cheesy, cos u can bribe other factions to vote for totally suicidal policies, and almost always get ur way, if u really tried. Whereas in reality, I doubt the USA would ever have agreed to declare Communism the World Ideology in the Cold War, no matter how much the USSR paid them.
yes, my starting territory is a little OP. as long as I am in single player I usually hit restart a few times to get a map I want. I also restart multiplayer if somebody started in something like a desert. being alone didn't help with trading, however. it was a while before I met people to trade with, and then I got filthy rich and bought off the city states, effectively making things go my way in the votes.
I just took the Hun capital too. took a bit, but all I lost was a frigate and a great admiral I used the heal ability on to heal my entire fleet. we are now in peace as they had enough melees to turn it into one of those battles where a city can be brough back to one population with no buildings, and destroy all progress. I will be sure to war on them later to liberate that city state though, as it will make me look better after this warmongering.
I am also dominating in the culture front. I am expecting to win through this or diplomacy, whichever is faster. I have to worry about Morocco, however, as they destroy multiple CIVs, including my allies the Byzantines just recently. there is a huge gap when I look at our points but I am not too worried over that considering my cultural and diplomatic progress, so I still think I am winning.
At the very least I still have Carthage. I always seem to put Dido into the game as the only non random and they become my ally. She is not really aggressive at all it seems. Hopefully she won't be too upset that I went order while she went autocracy
Also Skyrim still has the really nice mod support of Bethesda games, so it is really good on PC. It didn't hold me as long as Oblivion though
As for the sales, just the other day I was watching a let's play of Dragon Age: Origins, and decided to add it to my wishlist. And wouldn't you know, yesterday it was -75%. Also bought Max Payne 3, and now I'm probably going to wait till Christmas Sales, hopefully BWN and Prison Architect will have a huge discount.
Here was my time breakdown for Tes games.
Morrowind 3-4 years
Oblivion 3-4 months
Skyrim 1-2 months
Flash sales seem to be 8 hour cycles. The daily sales I am not sure, cos I dunno when the day cut-offs are... and it also seems kinda random what happens after a sale. I noticed that Skyrim was still on sale a day after I bought it, but possibly reduced to 60% off or something. When I saw it yesterday, Skyrim Legendary was at 40% off, instead of the 66% off when I bought it.
Yes... I'm the stingy guy who enjoys knowing he got a bargain, and gets pissed off when something gets cheaper after I buy it, and is sad enough to check out the price after I bought it to satisfy my curiosity.
Hmmm... maybe thats why I actually enjoyed the D3 AH whilst everyone else hated it! I love winning bargains and trading to profit more than actually playing D3. Haha!