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Civilization Weekend!; Not actually a weekend, but I like "Weekend" at the end of it.
Topic Started: Aug 12 2014, 08:52 PM (2,985 Views)
LightningBolt
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it's fun
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Romanticide
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I feel like I'm saying a lot here, but my review by necessity will be simpler than this. I'll probably write that in a week or two when I've had more experience with the game. This is mostly just "first game" thoughts for people who have some familiarity with Civ.

http://imgur.com/a/Tn2UJ

SPOILERS: I lost. On *normal*. The last image says it all, but it's nice to see the AI is actually in it to win it this time around. One of my biggest problems with Civ V is that even Emperor and Immortal AI can be really slow to win. Of course, at those levels I'm pitting them against each other constantly because it doesn't cost much, but still. Deity AI is still pretty damn competitive even if you pit them against other civs.

In many ways, this is essentially Civ V with a new skin. The aliens are far, far more pesky than Barbarians (they block trade routes, they're tougher, etc), but around turn 100, you can finally go toe-to-toe with them because you have a good tech base and stuff. You can probably take them on earlier if you focus on techs that allow you to build military units, such as Physics, but doing so means you won't have much of an infrastructure. I felt that after turn 150, they weren't much of a problem anymore and the game turned into my usual 4 city Tradition turtle fest. I had eliminated most of them and their nests (well, in my part of the world), and as far as I know, they didn't hate me for it. The icons are supposed to change color but they never changed from their default green.

Level 1 in Purity is probably the single most useful affinity level in the game. Well, outside of 13 for all three of them, but that allows you to *win*, so that's a given. What it does is it allows your Explorers to explore without getting killed by aliens. This combined with their low hammer cost makes them wonderful Colonist/Worker escorts. Miasma still sucks though. I guess you could consider early(?) Alien Hybridization if you hate it, but I think I'd rather focus on other techs.

Health is the new Happiness, and boy is it scarce. There are no luxury goods here, so that source of health is out. Rather, your health comes from buildings/quests/some Virtues. I don't really miss hoping that a Civ would get a spare luxury so I could trade for it, but it did alleviate Happiness issues. At least there's no Ideology (or Affinity, here) pressure to lower your health because that shit would suck. In exchange, going even below -10 Health won't hurt too much. Losing 10% science, production, and culture definitely has an effect, but it won't screw you over in and of itself.

Going wide is worth considering in this game if there's not another penalty that's even worse than -10% science/culture/production. With enough cities you can probably overcome it, because I never saw a GROWTH penalty. The -75% growth penalty once you hit negative Happiness is what made going wide in Civ V almost unviable. That said, the tech/culture penalties still exist, but you can probably overcome them more easily in this game because the tech costs are way lower than in Civ V.

Without Luxuries/World Congress, Diplomacy is veeeeeeery pared down. The other civs mostly asked me for Open Borders, some gold, science, or Xenomass in return for a Favor, or to join them in war against another civ. In retrospect, I probably should have sold the Xenomass I had for science or money. I had 22 at the end and it didn't do a damn thing for me during this game. I just didn't know if I would need it for any buildings or units. I didn't call in my Favors either because I never felt I needed anything. There's little to no reason to interact with other civs outside of having them declare war on each other, which is kind of boring.

I'm not sure if it's easier to pit other civs against each other in this game, but if it is you bet your ass I'm going to be exploiting that shit in future games. This game throws money at you and other civs try to win, which should make the strategy even more useful in this game than it was in Civ V. Even if it delays their victory for just 50 turns, that's pretty damn valuable.

I didn't find the diplo screen until almost turn 300 I'm so fucking pro.

The tech tree is very... different. You'll be taking many of the first ring techs in every game, but the second and third ring techs are ones you might not even get to in some games. It'll take quite a while to learn this tech tree and to learn which techs are most valuable for which wincons. I like the idea behind the tech tree though; no longer is it just "beeline science techs, get everything you missed, beeline next science tech". You need a clear plan that takes into account your need for science and your wincon, though I suppose all except Domination are science victories when you think of them this way.

Farms might not be the de facto best improvement anymore, but I'd probably have to experiment with all the others to see which ones do help. I like the idea behind making Manufactories and Academies tile improvements if you have the right tech, but I think the -2 health cost of Manufactories is prohibitive. I'd rather just make the cost 3-4 energy, in which case they're worth considering on hills. 6 energy for an Academy is probably a bit high too, especially in a game without buildings that add a percentage of science. At the moment I'm thinking Farms and/or Biowells are the best for most tiles, but there's at least a discussion to be had. (I wouldn't be surprised to see it at Civfanatics.)

Because of all the money the game throws at you, you'll be able to build a lot more units than normal. I had 5 Explorers, 5 Workers, a lot of military units, and I was still making bank. You can save all this money to get newer cities up to speed faster, make your military stronger, or just troll the world with endless wars. I'm a fan of trolling, so that's probably what I'll do in most games, though having more money and a less punitive penalty for negative Health might make warmongering more fun.

EDIT: I forgot... things.

I like the new settlement mechanic; I feel it makes more *sense*. A city didn't just become a city overnight; it took time. If you forward settle an enemy, they can now end that settlement before it turns into a full-fledged city. Something like a siege worm can take it out too, but you'll just put an Explorer there until you get an Ultrasonic Fence so the aliens can't harm it.

The quests are a good idea, but shit like 1 additional trade route per city versus +1 energy isn't even a fucking choice. You're taking the Autoplant's trade route 100% of the time because it's OP. It's so fucking good that it makes many WONDERS look meh. There are other quests that aren't really choices at all because one reward is far better than the other, but this one is so early and so powerful that it stands out. But when there's a real choice, it's a way to tailor your buildings to your style of play. Mine tends to focus on food/science, so if possible I usually take those bonuses.

I like the customization of troops, too. It's pretty much free promotions, which is awesome. Even if you won't warmonger, you'll be able to field a respectable defense force by just leveling up your affinity of choice. This would be more handy if the AI knew how to fight, but from all reports, it doesn't. I'll have to play a warmongering game at some point anyway.
Edited by Romanticide, Oct 25 2014, 01:01 AM.
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Olinea
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I'm at work but later I can try to give a pitch for Civ. It's a really popular game for a reason, but it's not the kind of game that I think EVERYONE would enjoy. I took a gamble during the steam sale and I wouldn't ever take that money back. But yeah more to come later.
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Outlaw454
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LightningBolt
Oct 24 2014, 11:19 PM
it's fun
You are officially the worst salesman ever.

Gil, however, has me interested. I will probably pick it up when I get my laptop fixed eventually.
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LightningBolt
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but fun is good
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Romanticide
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Outlaw454
Oct 25 2014, 01:43 AM
LightningBolt
Oct 24 2014, 11:19 PM
it's fun
You are officially the worst salesman ever.

Gil, however, has me interested. I will probably pick it up when I get my laptop fixed eventually.
Tbh I'd recommend Civ V in most cases first.

For one, it'll be a cheaper plunge. Beyond Earth probably won't fall below $30 any time soon. Maybe during the Winter Sale, but I think even then $25 during a flash sale would be the absolute lowest. Civ V regularly hits $15-20 for the base game plus all expansions and DLC. You're getting a lot more content for your money.

For two, Civ V with expansions is the more fleshed out game. I'd put Beyond Earth on the same level as vanilla Civ, which was still quite playable but not fully realized. Diplomacy was pretty meh because there was no World Congress (and diplo wins were ruled out with Greece on the map), there was no espionage until Gods and Kings, Culture was a really boring wincon (I think it's one of the more fun BNW wincons, though), and money just flowed because rivers gave +1 gold and there weren't so many essential buildings. The expansions added a lot of things most cities want, which drains your money.
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Outlaw454
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I'll keep that in mind. It seems like it is in the same vein as GalCiv, but obviously more fleshed out and with no crazy design-your-own-fleet aspects.
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Romanticide
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Posted Image

Shouldn't have taken two games to get a win, but whatever.
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Granskjegg
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Guess I'll give Civ V a go later on then.

Oh, and the complete edition is only $20 over at G2A.
Edited by Granskjegg, Oct 25 2014, 09:15 AM.
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Olinea
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The draw of Civilization is multi-layered. As far as gameplay goes, on the surface it seems hugely complicated, with having to worry on a micro scale of Food and Production outputs of your cities, empire-specific traits like Culture, Religion, Science, Happiness, and Gold output, diplomatic relations and landgrabbing, military maintenance without spending unnecessary turns of production and gold for upkeep, controlling the favor of (or destroying) city-states, etc. And if you jumped into the medium or 'normal' difficulty right off the bat you'd get your ass kicked - rightfully so. It's a really complex game with a lot to learn about that may not make much sense right off the bat. And nothing should really be neglected - if you don't have good Science you'll fall behind in technology and be susceptible to military attack, if your Culture sucks then people with high Tourism levels can make your citizens unhappy and convert your cities to them, Faith is useful for spreading elsewhere or purchasing important units, low Food or low Production means your cities will be ineffective at producing units and buildings, and low Gold means you have nothing to maintain a military or your buildings. If you don't build a military the AI will conquer you. If you don't explore you can't settle on new lands. If you have crappy relations with people they might declare war or refuse to sell you goods you really need.

So there are a ton of variables, but they aren't all thrown at you at once. Well, they are, but it's not the end of the world to be trailing in Culture or if other civs are taking land closer to you than you'd like. The game constantly changes, from the beginning where you want to locate and secure the best land you can get, the midgame where people have a bit of everything and it's time to see how effectively you put the early game resources to the test, and the lategame where your actions over the course of the game influence how people think of you, and the race to one of the victory conditions. Yes, there are more ways to win than 'kill everyone else', which diversifies the way you can attack a game from the beginning, and means you need to be aware of everyone's status culturally, diplomatically, scientifically, and of course, if they're marching an army across the world and coming for you.

What I think gives Civ the flavor is the huge assortment of playable civilizations, ancient and modern alike. Washington can lead the Americans to build a spaceship before Montezuma's Aztec army nukes everyone, Hiawatha of the Iriquois can go to war with Alexander the Great of Greece. Nebuchadnezzar II gives the Babylonian empire a second chance to show off their scientific prowess to the world, Attila leads his Hun's Battering Rams to obliterate his opponents to give himself a huge early lead, Napoleon builds a huge tourist empire that converts the world to following French culture. That flavor makes the game, and your choice in empire adds a lot of flair but can also dictate the type of victory you pursue - like Genghis Khan isn't tailored to a Diplomatic victory but he sure as hell can pursue Domination.

Beyond that, your empire gets to evolve right before your eyes. In the early stages your people must learn to tame horses and how to write - a few dozen turns later you're working on making rudimentary machinery - later, developing your first rifles and discovering flight, and moving onto modern inventions and beyond with penicillin, computers, and nuclear fusion. Every tech you research is going to provide a boost to your empire, like being able to build a new unit or building, improving growth from farms you build nearby, etc. and paves the way for a tech beyond it. So it's really cool to have your empire start with axe-waving barbarians and see it to the end with futuristic paratroopers.

The games are long. I think (maybe) mostly everyone has heard that Civ can trap people into a "just one more turn" syndrome that turns into hours of gameplay. Yes, it happens, and it can be very hard to break away from the game when I just need one more turn to finish this tech so I can build Universities or in one more turn I'll have the Statue of Liberty or I'm on the brink of war with Shaka, BRING IT ON and it keeps repeating until you kinda just phase out and forget about the initial decision to go sleep. It has happened to me. If you play this game (at night) I guarantee it's going to happen to you. It means it's a good game.

The reason I think it's not for everyone is because of the slow pace, and that there aren't any benchmarks or checkpoints where you can be praised for your efforts so far. You invest hours and hours into one round, as one specific civ on this one map with these opponents, and if someone builds their spaceship first then that's it, you lose. But hell, you have fun doing it. It's not the kind of game you'll boot up and play for ten minutes and then go do something else.

I like Civ, and a hell of a lot of people like it. I'm not going to lie and say I know that it'd be the best choice for your money but it's probably the most complex strategy game out there and if you're paying $20.00 for the full version you're absolutely going to get your mileage out of it.
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Romanticide
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Turn 307 Harmony victory tonight, so some more observations.

-Going wide IS viable. I took a slightly different Virtue path in this game, starting with a bit of Prosperity to get my colony up and running, then going into Knowledge for Networked Datalinks and Memewebs (40% reduction in Science/Culture penalty for founding a new city, respectively), getting Metaresearch Methods (10% less Science needed for leaf techs) returning to Prosperity to get Eudamonia (25% less negative health), and then the plan was to head into Might for Martial Meditations (free Affinity level), which I didn't need. You get about a level and a half when you research the appropriate techs, and in most games you'll get a level or two of free Affinity, sooooo you usually don't need this Virtue.

This isn't a bad Virtue path if you want to go wide. Eudamonia is an absurd Virtue; it'd be one of the two or three best policies in Civ V easy, if not THE best. Negative health is basically not a worry unless you're growing a lot of cities super fast and for that reason I'd argue it's this game's best Virtue by a long shot.

What I'd do differently is probably head into Knowledge after Helping Hands (15% faster Worker speed), and then probably dip a bit into Industry after I get Eudamonia. I know I'd want Scalable Infrastructure (+15% Wonder Production); 4/5 wincons require you to build at least one Wonder and even in a good capital it takes >20 turns. Beyond that idk what I'd want. I didn't notice a difference picking up Metaresearch Methods either, so I'd consider dropping that.

Might isn't a great tree if you ask me. 50% XP is probably one of the best Virtues in it, much like it was in Civ V. Part of that is opportunity cost; it doesn't cost much to get that 50% XP increase. It WILL cost you more to get something else later, but if you war enough it's probably worth it. Another part of that is most of the Virtues are just meh. Something like Channel Wrath (+10% strength for all Melee/Ranged units) should not be the last Virtue in the fucking tree. Idk how you salvage this tree. Maybe give it Japan's UA in tier two or some shit.

In the end I had six self-founded cities and five captured cities, and all but two were founded/taken after T125. I had >30 Health even after all of this. I don't think this has ever happened for me in Civ V, but it'd probably take Happiness tenets/Protectionism, and I never get Protectionism because Commerce fucking blows.

-Satellites are OP. Towards the end of the game, I had two cities dedicated to pumping out Solar Collectors (+1 Energy per tile, and it covers 7), which took 1-2 turns to make and stayed up for 60 turns. Do the math and it's basically >400 free energy. Per satellite. That is fucking insane.

Of course, this might just be a symptom of...

-Trade routes are OP. I already said this, but I never clarified. In BNW, you had to make the choice of whether to send Food or Production to one of your cities. Food was almost always the best choice (specialists are way more important in Civ V, and if you aren't running them yet, the citizen can work another tile), but Production had its uses, mostly when trying to build a Wonder. In Beyond Earth? Both cities get Food AND Production. The recipient gets more, but the city that sent the route gets a fair bit as well. They can also be used to turn an outpost into a proper city in half the time.

Trade routes are unlocked at Pioneering, which you can have at T0. This isn't the best approach, but you will get them early enough (I'd say T30 at the latest) to have a gigantic impact on your game.

You'll notice this when a new city is founded. Even the first buildings take ~20 turns. Trade routes? They cut the time to <5 turns. I suppose this *makes sense* because going from 1 to ~5 hammers is the biggest increase in terms of percentage, but the thing is, you don't have to make any hard choices. In this game, I'd probably send hammers; population isn't half as important and everything costs far less hammers.

-AI still blows at war. This is nothing new under the sun. My first war in this game was against Brasilia and ARC. Neither of them sent troops; they just declared out of the blue. I'm guessing they were mad because I had expanded to five cities and was forward settling what they thought was their turf. Yeah, well, fuck 'em. I brought the fight to ARC after noticing Brasilia's cities were more well-defended, but they never once asked for peace, even when I had taken two of their three cities.

So I'm getting ready to go kick Brasilia in the balls when they ask for peace out of the blue and OFFER ME A CITY. We didn't even have one skirmish in this "war". Idk how or why this happened. If I had to guess, they noticed I took ARC out and wanted to avoid the same fate. Yeah, well, you would have if you didn't fucking diss me with a bullshit war. Assholes. I wiped out 3 of my 7 opponents, mostly to experiment with war in this game. If I wanted to win via Domination, I could have, but the main objective was to find out how the Harmony victory worked.

AI diplomacy is still much the same. Even if you take cities as a sort of punitive measure, they'll still see you as a warmongerer. I really feel warmongerer penalties should be cut by at least half if you didn't declare war. Maybe more because they're some ridiculous penalties.

-Supremacy level 3 (free Roads/Magrails) should be taken in wide games. It saved me >100 EPT (or GPT, if you prefer) on Magrail maintenance, allowing me to pour that money into my troops/more buildings instead. Hell, you can probably take this in tall games, but I wouldn't do so unless you really need that money.

-The game is generally faster, in large part due to lower costs of, well, everything, and the absurd power of trade routes. I wish dealing with trade routes weren't so tedious, but that's something a modder/a patch/an expansion can hopefully deal with. I'd appreciate a menu that tells me what bonuses are going where so I can have a better idea of where to send my routes. I don't really consider sending my routes elsewhere because figuring out where to send them would take forever and I'm not ready to min/max anyway.
Edited by Romanticide, Oct 27 2014, 12:13 PM.
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Romanticide
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Civ V is still a thing, and today's patch is actually pretty huge.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537043

-Beaker overflow being fixed is awesome. It was only ever going to affect Deity-level play in the first place, because to make the exploit *work*, you need an AI that can research a lot of techs quickly and you also need to get Scholars in Residence passed, which means sending your first Spy out as a Diplomat instead of getting it valuable promotions. You need to be a decent player on Deity in order to even set the exploit up.

The basic idea is that you leave the Sailing line of techs untouched. You could leave the Mining stuff untouched, but the AI will not propose Scholars in Residence. You get that resolution passed, wait until you feel you have a lot of Science (I tried before/after Public Schools, shit was more broke after Public Schools.), and then pop your Great Scientists on a cheap tech. The science overflows and you can have up to ~210k excess beakers, but go beyond that and you go into negatives. This allows to to fly through the tree to any tech you wish and thus allows you to pursue any goal you desire. I'd be partial to reaching something like Tanks/Artillery and blitzkrieging the world.

I was messing with it before this patch and it's pretty broke. I was able to jump from the early Industrial almost to the end of the tech tree with one Great Scientist after I got all my Public Schools up and running, along with Secularism/maxed out Specialists. I reached Satellites on T209. *Satellites*. Two Great Scientists would have finished the tree, probably around T230-40.

But yeah. Awesome.

-The Tradition nerf is fairly significant. Civ V at its highest levels is about going tall (Deity AI starts with two Settlers, going wide without fighting Deity carpets of doom is tough), and the Tradition tree is far and away the best for that playstyle. Legalism now requires you to take Oligarchy, which is normally a pretty meh policy but might be buffed due to this patch. The net effect of this is that free Monuments are slowed down a bit, probably by ~15-ish turns. You might consider building your first one now. I'll probably try with and without building a Monument right after my Shrine.

I don't think it's enough to supplant Tradition as the no-brainer tree, though. The closer is still as powerful as ever, probably just a bit delayed.

-Piety buff is decent but I still don't see why you'd go into the tree. Tradition has a lot to offer to tall playstyles, Liberty and indirectly Honor have stuff to offer wide playstyles, and Piety has... well, nothing to help your early growth in any way. I suppose you can make an argument that Sacred Sites cheese is easier than ever, but for more normal games it offers no benefits. You can make Temples better via beliefs, but there are generally better beliefs on offer. I feel that if you gave Temples/Shrines some Food/Production bonuses or something, the Piety tree might be more viable. Tbh I don't know how you fix this one; most of the emphasis on religion is via beliefs.

-Warmongerer penalties being reduced drastically helps early game war. Attila and Genghis especially benefit from this, as does Caesar (always fuck Caesar) with his early UAs. There are probably other leaders who derive benefit from this, but those are the ones that come to mind first.

I still feel they should be cut across the board in general, or dealt with in some more intelligent way. Taking a city as a punishment of sorts for declaring a war you couldn't win seems like fair play to me, but as it is taking cities results in harsh warmongering penalties unless half the world hates that AI or something.

This is why I feel Oligarchy might be indirectly buffed. If early war is a more viable thing now, you'll be thankful for the +50% city strength with a garrisoned unit, which should be a Ranged unit in all cases for the second attack.


I don't know how many more patches we'll get for this game, but things I think should be addressed, even if they aren't plausible:

-The absurd power of Cargo Ships. Cut them to 50% more powerful than Caravans and they might be more fair. As it is, Cargo Ships are THE reason you should be aiming to put every city along a coastline. That's not always possible but it should be the goal. At 50% more powerful you might still want to settle along the coast, but if there's a good in-land spot, I don't think the little bit of increased Food, Production, or Gold for external routes would be worth giving up an obviously superior spot.

-The uselessness of many trees.

Already mentioned Piety.

Honor indirectly helps wide, but its policies are fairly meh. Warrior Code and Discipline would be much improved policies if Melee/Ranged units were affected instead of just Melee. Siege units become OP as it is. This game obviously emphasizes ranged/siege troops because there are simply more tiles for those units to attack from. Military Caste is alright I suppose, but it's nothing to write home about. Professional Army is pretty good but more so for the 33% discount on upgrading units. Military Tradition is the best policy in the entire tree and I'll never understand why it's the first policy in two games. Needing half the XP to get to fun stuff like Logistics/Range/March/whatever is awesome.

Commerce is blah. It has a lot of good ideas, but the good ideas are saddled with flaws. Wagon Trains is an attempt to make land routes viable, but if you're doing external trade, it should be via Cargo Ships. Landsknechts have a terrible upgrade path. Any upgrade path but Lancers would make them good units. Nobody wants Great Merchants because they're on the same counter as Engineers and Scientists, which are both objectively better. Protectionism is a great policy but requires three meh ones. Remove the flaws and this tree is worth dipping into for what you need.

Exploration just flat-out sucks. Even on a water-heavy map there are just better things to do with your social policies than pour them into this stuff. You might open it for the Louvre in a Culture game, but beyond that, fill this out for the achievements and forget it. I don't know how you'd improve this tree. Maybe add substantial bonuses to meeting isolated city-states (say, 60/90 influence) or growth bonuses to coastal cities, idk.

-Change AI flavors so that Sciences Funding has a prayer to pass from the get-go. Every civ is biased towards Arts Funding and that shit barely changes over the course of a game. I suppose it makes you use your spies for diplomacy, but what's the use of a proposal that has no chance to pass naturally?

-Allow us to *break* resolutions. I suppose most of them aren't breakable per se, but if a civ wants to trade with an embargoed civ, with city-states, trade a banned luxury, or use nukes, they should be able to. I'd probably balance this by making the reward for such trade greater but adding a harsh diplomatic penalty (almost on the level of warmongering) with everyone following the resolution if you're caught. It would add a certain risk-reward calculation to the mid and late-games, which Civ needs more of.

-Distribute luxuries in a way so that more civs have stuff to trade. On the lower levels, a lot of civs only have one copy of something, so getting it is like prying teeth. Even on the highest levels this can happen, and it's annoying when you need a luxury to avoid reaching negative Happiness.

-Last, the AI. The warmongering AI is abysmal even on Deity. This is probably a reason that the higher level AIs get insane science/production bonuses, because it's hard to make them smarter. Even so, I'd love to see the AI not suck at 1UPT.
Edited by Romanticide, Oct 28 2014, 03:50 AM.
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Romanticide
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T219 Contact Victory, and it should have been 10-15 turns faster.

I didn't take Scalable Infrastructure, though I should have realized I would need it once I researched Transcendental Math. I didn't make Franco-Iberia's free tech for getting ten Virtues Transcendental Math.

Beyond that everything went swimmingly.

Contact Victory is hilariously fast if you get lucky. If you find a part of The Signal in a Progenitor Ruin, you don't have to research Orbital Automation (an endgame tech) for the Deep Space Satellite, which saves an immeasurable number of turns. You can get to work on the Decode Signal project/the Beacon VERY early with a little luck. I was working on the Decode Signal project around T130.

This victory seems really unbalanced to me. I like the idea of being able to unlock the Decode Signal Project/Beacon via ruins, but being able to do it so early is kinda ridiculous. Either Transcendental Math should be a more expensive tech or it shouldn't be so easy to get lucky through the ruins.
Edited by Romanticide, Oct 28 2014, 08:51 AM.
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Granskjegg
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So hey, I picked up Civ V today. I'll be giving it a go this weekend, I'm pretty excited to play it. It seems like the kind of game where I'll look at the watch one moment, then another and say to myself: "well, there goes that day".

Or I might just end up thinking it's a boring shitty game, but I wouldn't dare tell you that as you'd likely crucify me. <3
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Olinea
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The best advice I can give to someone starting out their first game of Civ is to try and get a basic understanding of all of the game variables, as well as learning the importance of each one. The most basic ones you'll encounter are:

Cities
Posted Image Food: A newly settled city cannot compete, production-wise, with the oldest cities on the board. This is because every city has a population which is dictated on the left near the name, and it refers to the number of hexagons near the city from which you obtain benefits. If you have 1 citizen, you can only 'work' one hexagon near your city - it doesn't matter that the land is inside your borders, it matters that you have someone able to work it. I'd recommend turning on the option near the bottom-righthand part of the screen (I think it's a scroll) that shows you what each tile yields for you. The more citizens you have, the faster your cities can grow and the more Production and Gold they can accrue.
Posted Image Production: Production is what a city needs to actually do stuff with its population. Every unit or building requires a certain amount of 'production' to be made, and with higher production per turn in that city, the faster you can build stuff. Food is how your cities can grow big enough to function well, but you ultimately need good Production in order for that to mean anything.

Empire
Posted Image Gold: Gold is nice to have. You're going to need it since military units and buildings require gold for upkeep (and you will need both) and it's great for bartering, immediately purchasing units, buying tiles you don't own yet, upgrading outdated units, buying the favor of city-states for their bonuses - Gold is undeniably useful but if you don't have something to spend it on it's a waste of time to focus on it. The hierarchy of a city's priority list is Food > Production > Gold - it's certainly something you don't want to pass up but one thing it can't buy is turns and it can't save an empire.

Posted Image Science: The basic tenant of Civ V is "Science is king". Science is king. If your Science sucks you'll be doomed to building musketmen when your opponents are flying stealth bombers over you, or relying on windmills to provide Production when their cities are powered by solar plants. Your Civ grows by learning new Technologies - every turn, your empire's total Science output is added together and put towards the Technology you're researching. It's the driving force behind how a game moves forward, and if you're at the forefront of technology then you have huge advantages over others with stronger units (for offense or defense), more efficient buildings, and access to Wonders (buildings only able to be built by one player once in the game, and provide great bonuses that make their construction a competitive feat) before others. Do not neglect Science, even if that's not how you plan to win.

Posted Image Culture: Culture is nice but out of the first 5 things here I'd say it easily ranks as the least important thing here. It's still really important to know Culture's importance - giving you free bonuses in the form of 'social policies'. It's probably, outside of your choice of the Civ you play as, the most diverse way to 'spec' your playstyle in that game. You can adopt policies in the Liberty tree to focus on an empire that controls a lot of cities, Rationalism for science, Honor to get an early military, etc. Social policies give unique benefits and it's always nice to get a free upgrade - how frequently you want them is something you'll decide as you play.

Posted Image Happiness: As poetic and yet sad as it may be, a living citizen is an unhappy one. If your empire is generally unhappy it creates problems in the form of heavily stunted city growth and, if it gets bad, appearance of rebels that ransack your lands until they are quelled and cities defecting to other empires. Acquire luxury goods like Silver, Cotton, Pearls, what have you - it's not the end of the world if your empire is slightly unhappy for a little while but if it's a persistent problem it's going to hurt you badly. Keep your people happy, because the alternative is nothing but trouble.

You'll have to learn a lot more along with these, like global politics, trading, scouting and landgrabbing, dealing with Barbarians, balancing an army and buildings so you aren't overrun by warmongers but still have sizable infrastructure, important techs, deciding to go for or not go for Wonders, etc. It's a complex game and I wouldn't expect anyone to understand all of the nuances in their first few games - but you are a smart guy and you'll still have fun not knowing everything about what you're doing. And keep your watch by your side : p
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