Civilization 5!!!

[bigglesworth]

So I finished (and won) my first game today. My thoughts:

Moving to a hex map doesn't feel strange, not one bit. It's perfectly natural. Loads of the boardgames around when Civ I was written were on hexes, why wasn't it adopted then? Ah well.

The unit movement and battle seem a lot more tactical now. So much so that the fighting doesn't feel as much like a bunch of unconnected skirmishes and then one huge army unleashing hell, as Civ IV did, but feels more like actual battles, invasions. Planning an invasion of a small island, working out where my cannon and where my riflemen would go felt good.

I kinda miss the religion system. It was a good way of making the diplomacy interesting - there's no more crusades. Perhaps there could be a mod/DLC with the Vatican as a City-State

The buying system for tiles felt slightly strange, but for everything else the buying system felt spot-on. I want a battleship and I want it right now!!!

I like the graphics, though sometimes the building placement is slightly strange, such as the underwater pyramids I built at Corinth. Also, the Great General's Citadel is huge! Bigger then the city I built it to protect!

[The Utilitarian]

Yea I had underwater Stonehenge in one game.. which I have to say is about nine times cooler than normal stonehenge as far as I'm concerned. Not only is the Citadel huge it's also totally awesome. If you can get one within two squares of a city you want to siege (or three squares after Artillery) you can just set up your catapult/cannon/whatever in there and shell a city with impunity. If your unit gets a little too low swap it out with a backup behind it. Even better, keep it next to one or two squads of Medic upgraded ground troops and it'll be unstoppable. The 100% defense boost and area damage makes it untouchable.

One of my favorite tactics is to Culture Bomb with a great artist near an enemy city in order to expand my borders close enough to slap down the Citadel. It's a a great point to start an invasion, especially if you build some roads to your intende assault targets ahead of time.

[bigglesworth]

My citadel was mostly a nice place to put artillery to shell enemy troops in case of invasion through a mountain pass, though it couldn't save one unit from being bombed to fuck by about four artillery batteries firing on the same turn.

[Mother Superior]

I am currently kicking Awia and SoapyHobo's asses as Julius Caesar. Admittedly, there was a scary moment where Soapy almost put a stranglehold on my only source of iron, but since then he's one city poorer and most of his military is gone (I hope).

[bigglesworth]

:O I wanna play with you guys! You free this evening?

[Mother Superior]

:O I wanna play with you guys! You free this evening?

I am.

[bigglesworth]

I can do 9pm GMT, that sound good for anyone?

[Mother Superior]

Speaking on behalf of those who know nothing about this (Awia, Soapy and e_e), yes. That sounds alright.

[Vaniver]

I'll be around at ~9:20 GMT.

[bigglesworth]

You'll beat us all though D: :p

[Vaniver]

You'll beat us all though D: :p

I am willing to play with a number of handicaps, if you're worried But I don't think I would go for ICS, and so I shouldn't be too troublesome of an opponent.

[bigglesworth]

Well, perhaps another day; I regret to inform that all slots in the map have been filled tonight.

[Vaniver]

Ok; enjoy!

[The Utilitarian]

Woo, buddy bought me the DLC for christmas. Hello massively overpowered and broken Inca!

[bigglesworth]

I'm wondering how possible running the Aztecs as a militaristic social victory nation would be. You wouldn't annex many cities, but instead there would be large amounts of puppets. You wouldn't have much production, but could your puppets feed you enough cash to maintain a large army? This would then leave you with a few cities amassing culture, while your army sabotages other nations' victory plans.

[ArgonV]

Wow... Is it just me, or did the AI develop some Jekyll and Hyde tendencies since the new patch?

I started a game as France, got settled on a continent with Japan. So far no problems, but all of a sudden a greek trireme comes along and Alexander (who's on the other side of the world) gets hostile because I've got wonders he want (I can understand that) but he also wants my territory, so he gets hostile. We trade some insults, he denounces me, so I denounce him in turn and Japan (my somewhat ally) denounces him as well.

All of a sudden he's friendly again, asking my for an open borders treaty. I refuse, raze the city he started along the unclaimed soil of my half of the continent, tell him to fuck off and make some unreasonable demands for peace and denounce him again, he agrees and is friendly again. What the hell?

Oh and also, just because I want to say were friends doesn't mean you can throw a hissy fit when you ask for 50-75% of my cash or my only supply of some resource and I don't agree.

[Meteorswarm]

Wow... Is it just me, or did the AI develop some Jekyll and Hyde tendencies since the new patch?

I started a game as France, got settled on a continent with Japan. So far no problems, but all of a sudden a greek trireme comes along and Alexander (who's on the other side of the world) gets hostile because I've got wonders he want (I can understand that) but he also wants my territory, so he gets hostile. We trade some insults, he denounces me, so I denounce him in turn and Japan (my somewhat ally) denounces him as well.

All of a sudden he's friendly again, asking my for an open borders treaty. I refuse, raze the city he started along the unclaimed soil of my half of the continent, tell him to fuck off and make some unreasonable demands for peace and denounce him again, he agrees and is friendly again. What the hell?

Oh and also, just because I want to say were friends doesn't mean you can throw a hissy fit when you ask for 50-75% of my cash or my only supply of some resource and I don't agree.

What do you mean? Surely, if (modern) Britain asked America for half of its GDP and all of its uranium, America would happily comply.

[The Utilitarian]

A friend of mine who likes diplomatic strategy proposes that if you consider nations being afraid of you, it explains a lot more of their actions. For instance:

I begin a game that puts myself (Egypt), Greece, India, Rome, and France all together on one landmass. Soon alliances form and Greece/France team up and start bullying myself Rome and India. I set up defensive pacts and beat off Greece and France two or three times when they go after myself or my allies, finally culminating in India and myself taking out Greece.

A period of peace follows and I manage to rise ahead in technology in no small part thanks to the newly aquired Greek lands. Contact is established with the second continent and the three nations over there. Eventually France makes friends with one of the foriegn powers and once again France goes to war with Rome. At this point it's the fourth times they've attacked my allies so I figure "alight, short guy just can't be left alone" So I move in with my new artillary and completely take over France. Suddenly my erstwhile allies I was defending are denouncing me and becoming hostile! Eventually India, Rome, and the nearly wiped out on the other continent England all declare war on me, though admiting they have no chance. What the hell?

I thought it was a ridiculous turn of events but as my friend put it "They're TERRIFIED of you!You just went in with superior technology and wiped a civilization out over some saber rattling. Eventually your power has extended beyond theirs by so much they see their only chance of survival being to try to carve some land out of your empire."

[Amnesiasoft]

The AI coming and demanding I hand them all my money is most definitely not explained by them being terrified of me.

[Jessica]

The AI coming and demanding I hand them all my money is most definitely not explained by them being terrified of me.

I just think they're either arrogant or stupid.

[Spambot5546]

The AI coming and demanding I hand them all my money is most definitely not explained by them being terrified of me.

I just think they're either arrogant or stupid.

Arrogant stupid heads of state? That doesn't sound right...

[bigglesworth]

Okay, this game officially has the "one more turn" quality.

Also, apparently there's a penalty for launching an attack from a strategic resource? o_O

My current game's Genoa is almost unassailable: three land hexes including two strategic resources border it. It's also on a very thin strip of land. In essence, I would have to build at least three more frigates, move them all the way around the continent and then attack with one land unit from a single hex.

[The Utilitarian]

mm if you can tech to it you could effectively attack with one "capturing" unit like Riflemen and two squads of artillary since they have indirect fire and three hex range. Even if all you have is a single hex line of land leading to it you can still march them single fire into position.

[bigglesworth]

Yes, eventually I will be able to take it. Right now it has one of the two sources of iron on my continent, and the other's only mine to rent anyway.

[Awia]

Has anyone else had an AI who's clearly losing a war attempt to bargain for peace by demanding all of your money and resources? It makes no sense!

[Menacing Spike]

Has anyone else had an AI who's clearly losing a war attempt to bargain for peace by demanding all of your money and resources? It makes no sense!

Maybe they hope really really hard you will click on the wrong answer.

[The Utilitarian]

Has anyone else had an AI who's clearly losing a war attempt to bargain for peace by demanding all of your money and resources? It makes no sense!

Maybe they hope really really hard you will click on the wrong answer.

Hehe, meta-gaming AI?

But yea, frankly I think the AI needs to be programmed to have a better sense of how poorly wars are going. It's hard to be fair to your opponents when they won't take an even peace deal until they've lost a few cities

[bigglesworth]

Maybe there should be some sort of unhappiness if you make peace after losing a war, and happiness gain for re-gaining lost cities. That way it would model history better.

After winning a cultural victory, I can say that it makes MUCH more sense than how cultural victories were done in Civ IV.

[Vaniver]

Thoughts about the patch (all from memory, and thus some could be totally wrong):

They significantly increased the prerequisite density in the tech tree, which solves some problems and creates others. They appear to have increased the number and quality of national buildings (i.e. you need an X in every city to build a super X in one city). They reduced the number of scientists you can get from buildings, which is really aggravating- the first scientist you get is at the university, and you can't get another until observatory (which requires a really awkward city placement) and public school. They reduced the per city happiness penalty reduction so you no longer can add new cities for free. They also made it so you can't save up social policy breakthroughs. They also seem to have reduced / gotten rid of maritime food to non-capital cities.

The net result is that I enjoy it less, I think. Some of the fixes strike me as strategically interesting (do I want to build another city now, or wait until I've finished the National Library?), some necessary (making it so you couldn't get new cities for free), and some just annoying (having to wait so long for scientists, not being able to rush Renaissance). While it was odd, I actually really enjoyed the idea of triggering the Enlightenment super early, and having an alternate history where Babylon instead of England was when humanity started taking off. Now, while you can still target it, it doesn't work nearly as well- you have to waste a ton of social policies on subpar things (Stonehenge actually feels like a handicap now) and Rationalism isn't nearly as good when you have so few scientists.

Again, modding seems like it can help- it's pretty trivial to make libraries give scientists again, which should make hitting Renaissance early enough easier, and it might be possible to make it so you can save social policies again- but there are so many little irksome things that I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Rivers are so astoundingly good I find myself only playing maps with tons of them, and restarting if I'm in a location without them (and I've found Earth maps tend to be a good way to find a bunch of packed rivers).

[bigglesworth]

There is an option in advanced settings when creating a game to allow you to save social policies.

[Vaniver]

There is an option in advanced settings when creating a game to allow you to save social policies.

Ooh! Thanks!

[bigglesworth]

I may have replies to the other bits of your post, but that seemed most immediate

[ArgonV]

I'm sorry, but I have the feeling tech progression is actually quicker after the patch than before, scientists or not

[bigglesworth]

Why do you think Stonehenge is a handicap now, Vaniver? Admittedly I've only ever seen it as a way to boost a Great Engineer or two to finish other, more useful, wonders.

[Vaniver]

I'm sorry, but I have the feeling tech progression is actually quicker after the patch than before, scientists or not

Among other things, extra research points now carry over. The National College is also fantastic compared to previously (the extra +5 research is massive). They may have fiddled with tech costs but I don't know.

Why do you think Stonehenge is a handicap now, Vaniver? Admittedly I've only ever seen it as a way to boost a Great Engineer or two to finish other, more useful, wonders.

So, Stonehenge is useful for growing your capital's size, getting more social policies, and getting Great Engineer points. The middle can be bothersome when you get subpar social policies, since the cost of getting a social policy is both the policy you didn't get and the increased cost of every policy that follows. The Oracle doesn't save you the cost of the policy you got with it, but the cost of the next policy you're about to get- but that comparison shows that this is melodramatic, as Stonehenge ends up being better for you social-policy wise than the Oracle for most of the future after you get a choice between them. The ability to save up policies helps a lot in getting effective policies, though.

Thinking about social policies, I wonder if the tech system from Civilization (the board game (the first one)) would be more appropriate than a tree. As I recall, there weren't any prerequisites- you could buy the most expensive tech first- but each tech gave you discounts on some other techs. So most of the time you would buy the cheap ones and then the expensive ones. The main change I expect would happen with that is that people would just save up for the best policies and get them as soon as they're unlocked, ignoring the precursors- if I can get Communism at the cost of 3 normal policies instead of 4, that's pure profit for an ICS strategy. So, if something like that were implemented it would need other changes too.

I also wonder about making some base terrain tiles that are superior to the grassland/plains/hill trio. This may just be because I do a lot of playing on real Earth maps, where someone like Arabia has room for 1-2 cities and someone like Russia has room for 20 (yay Mercator projection), and appear to have a fetish for single-city nations (Although England or Japan, with 2-3 cities connected by railroad, are also pretty fun). That way you could have someplace very player dense- like northwest Europe, the Middle East, and probably Southeast Asia- that's about as resource dense as wide swaths of Russia, India, and Africa. Africa already fits that model somewhat, with vast deserts (that also occupy central Asia), but that doesn't fix it entirely.

[bigglesworth]

Hmm, yes, I can see your point about the social policies. Though I personally feel that the fact that the policies are limited by research is a good thing, it feels more natural for it to be impossible to have a proper economic system going before your civ understands coinage and banking.

And as for Earth maps (which admittedly I haven't actually played on yet) perhaps a better solution would be to have maps built on a different projection? I... think that any of the equal-area maps might fix the problem of city placement.

[Vaniver]

Though I personally feel that the fact that the policies are limited by research is a good thing, it feels more natural for it to be impossible to have a proper economic system going before your civ understands coinage and banking.

I would feel a lot better if that were the case. At the moment, you can be a commercial civ by virtue of discovering Theology. If it were based off Currency, that would be so much better. (You could also do Rationalism off of Scientific Theory, and so on.)

And as for Earth maps (which admittedly I haven't actually played on yet) perhaps a better solution would be to have maps built on a different projection? I... think that any of the equal-area maps might fix the problem of city placement.

You can sort of accomplish this by making the top and bottom of the Pacific ocean way more massive than normal, but it makes places look weird and slanty. What I'd like to see is an actual curved map, where every now and then a hexagon is replaced by a pentagon but it folds up to an actual pseudosphere. Now that would be cool, and probably not too terribly difficult to program.

[ArgonV]

Maybe they could make maps smaller at the top and bottom than in the middle? Say 80 hexes at the poles and 90 hexes at the equator or something similar, like these kind of maps

[iop]

I really enjoyed my last game using the PlayWithMe mod, which fixes quite a few things that are IMO problematic (tile yields, maritimes, overpowered Great Scientist, ICS, etc). The game was so much more balanced out - tech progression wasn't crazy fast at the end, cities actually grew, and I actually went to war over resources. Also, with the patch, the AI is slightly better at fighting (which is probably a large increase percentage-wise), which made fighting a bit more interesting.

By the way: The one early wonder I really try to get these days are the Pyramids. Faster workers mean that I get to improve more with fewer workers, saving money, shields, and time. Stonehenge wasn't really necessary for me, even though I went for a cultural victory. Getting too many SPs early on is not necessarily that useful.

As for maps: I'm often playing on PerfectWorld, which comes with plenty of rivers and chokepoints, and which makes overall pretty maps that make exploring fun.

[bigglesworth]

I would feel a lot better if that were the case. At the moment, you can be a commercial civ by virtue of discovering Theology. If it were based off Currency, that would be so much better. (You could also do Rationalism off of Scientific Theory, and so on.)

Oh, you mean base the social policy sets on specific techs rather than eras? Well, yes that would be better, though would probably have some ramifications for tech-races that might make it a bit strange.

You can sort of accomplish this by making the top and bottom of the Pacific ocean way more massive than normal, but it makes places look weird and slanty. What I'd like to see is an actual curved map, where every now and then a hexagon is replaced by a pentagon but it folds up to an actual pseudosphere. Now that would be cool, and probably not too terribly difficult to program.

Maybe they could make maps smaller at the top and bottom than in the middle? Say 80 hexes at the poles and 90 hexes at the equator or something similar, like these kind of maps

These are both interesting ideas. Adding pentagons would make unit movement different, but probably wouldn't matter that much. Argon's idea would make a good-looking map, but would surely cause a problem for Magellan! How would you get tiles to match up at the sides of the map?

Another idea I've had is to create a sphere out of hexagons, then project these hexagons onto a plane. The hexagons near the poles would be bigger, those near the equator would be the normal size. This would then give the usual Mercator business.