Civilization V- Might actually be good now. Stay tuned.

[proudft]

Yeah I don't find a lot of value in the puppet states thing. The game really incentivizes razing captured cities unless they're really good ones because of that, mostly because of factories wanting coal.

The value of the puppets is they cost way less happiness.  I conquered most of Greece & China with my unhappiness bouncing between like 9 and 15 frowny faces so every city I took I just puppetized until my empire got more in order, then annexed them as happiness permitted.  I think I finally got them all absorbed into the melting pot.

[CmdrSlack]

Yeah I don't find a lot of value in the puppet states thing. The game really incentivizes razing captured cities unless they're really good ones because of that, mostly because of factories wanting coal.

The value of the puppets is they cost way less happiness.  I conquered most of Greece & China with my unhappiness bouncing between like 9 and 15 frowny faces so every city I took I just puppetized until my empire got more in order, then annexed them as happiness permitted.  I think I finally got them all absorbed into the melting pot.

This. It's also helpful to use the various civics that give extra happiness for trade routes to the capital, etc. In the earlyish game, it's fun to run with liberty and piety for that very reason. As you can pull it off, annex the puppets and have your production cake and eat it too.

[Surlyboi]

I generally tend to run with a mix of honor, freedom and rationality. That way, you get happiness, a decent science benny and a cheaper military. Not to mention less food consumption toward the end.

And yeah, keep puppets puppets until you can afford to bring them into the fold. Unless of course they belong to that bitch Katherine the Great. Then you lock the gates and burn 'em down.

[Sjofn]

I generally tend to run with a mix of honor, freedom and rationality. That way, you get happiness, a decent science benny and a cheaper military. Not to mention less food consumption toward the end.

And yeah, keep puppets puppets until you can afford to bring them into the fold. Unless of course they belong to that bitch Katherine the Great. Then you lock the gates and burn 'em down.

Oh my fucking God, I HATE Catherine the Great. Elizabeth I is running a close second. Bitches, am I rite?

[Muffled]

60 turns for a rifleman?  Are you on epic speed with all your cities gold farms or...?

I've actually had more trouble with Hiawatha, dude starts shit even when we don't spawn on the same continent. 

[rk47]

Anyone else noticed the starting spot matters a fuckton more than it used to?  I mean, it was always important but on the last 2 Prince games I started I was way behind the power curve because I had been surrounded by 1) Jungle on Grasslands then 2) Forest on Grasslands.  Fucking production drought and no way of clearing it forever.   Even moving a turn or two away didn't resolve the jungle start's problem.   

I think if you are facing production issues, then you can resort to trading post spam to help with cash flow and buy stuff. Overall dominating in Prince game. Time to move on to King. City State tributing is too rewarding for little investment.

[Lightstalker]

60 turns for a rifleman?  Are you on epic speed with all your cities gold farms or...?
I've actually had more trouble with Hiawatha, dude starts shit even when we don't spawn on the same continent. 

Marathon game speed + auto workers + specialist buildings = crap production. 
My pop 17 capital has:
 27 production
 59.5 Gold
 42.75 Science
 10 Culture
in 1900 - 40 turns to build Infantry.
Default citizen focus brings production down to 16 and a 56 turn build (and up to 35 with production focus - drops build time to 26 turns).
I haven't played civ in a few versions, so I didn't see the specialist building trap coming.  That and I liked the older more pronounced railroads - can't really tell what is railroaded now.

[Ingmar]

The marathon game speed is kind of ... wacky to start with anyway.

[Big Gulp]

The marathon game speed is kind of ... wacky to start with anyway.

I thought I had enough patience for a marathon game, but it turns out, not so much.  Epic is pretty much my sweet spot.

[Lantyssa]

I think Epic is going to be my sweet spot as well.

I haven't played civ in a few versions, so I didn't see the specialist building trap coming.  That and I liked the older more pronounced railroads - can't really tell what is railroaded now.

Lay railroad on top of roads.  It makes the path more well-defined, even if it takes a bit longer later in the game.

[kildorn]

I generally tend to run with a mix of honor, freedom and rationality. That way, you get happiness, a decent science benny and a cheaper military. Not to mention less food consumption toward the end.

And yeah, keep puppets puppets until you can afford to bring them into the fold. Unless of course they belong to that bitch Katherine the Great. Then you lock the gates and burn 'em down.

Oh my fucking God, I HATE Catherine the Great. Elizabeth I is running a close second. Bitches, am I rite?

Elizabeth never bothers me, but Caesar likes to talk a lot of shit until I roll over a city or two. Oddly, Napoleon is always really nice to me, even while he's starting wars with everyone else on the planet.

[Paelos]

I played one game as Ghandi last night in quick fashion. Built only one city, went for the entirely cultural route, and ended up winning the culture victory with 7 turns left in the game. It was quite a diplomatic balancing act, but a lot of quick fun. I think the entire game lasted 2 hours on standard speed.

[Ingmar]

The space race game I played on Huge took something like 8+ hours on standard speed, I don't really feel a need to move it up at this point.

[Paelos]

I am frankly amazed at how viable small empires can be. It's one of the nice balancing aspects they added to the game, making juggernaught cities that are nigh unbeatable.

[MrHat]

I am frankly amazed at how viable small empires can be. It's one of the nice balancing aspects they added to the game, making juggernaught cities that are nigh unbeatable.

Really makes mountains something worthwhile having around.

[Sky]

If it was Bismark instead of Ghandi I was up against, the mountains that are a hassle to move units through would become a blessing. My core two cities are in an amazingly defensible position. Lolghandi.

[Maledict]

The problem with puppet states is that their AI is completely broken. I don't mind that they fixed the exploit that allowed you to control what they were building, but they should at least have fixed the very stupid problem with puppet states. the normal AI doesn't suffer from this, so not sure why puppet states do.

For some reason, despite the fact puppet states cannot build units, they prioritise unit buildings above everything else apart from monuments / temples. (And coliseums if your empire is unhappy). They even build the very specialist buildings like the forge or the stables. That adds a huge amount to their maintenance, meaning puppets often end up costing you a ton of cash for no benefit. at the same time, they don't even build libraries or market places - the very basic buildings that are first on any city's list. Instead, they even go for Military Academies first - a building you *definitely* do not want in every building in your empire.

So fix the exploit - but don't leave puppets completely pointless as they are now, stuck building buildings they cannot actually use nor need whilst ignoring the vital cheap upgrades every city should have. even the AI doesn't do that.

[Pezzle]

I had a good game as America over the weekend.  Playing with the advanced settings can produce some interesting results.  For that game I went with archipelago, high seas, wet, hot, fast combat and no start bias.  I cranked up the resource setting a bit as well.  What I got was an Island that would have enough room for 2 mediocre cities.  Undaunted, my brave people went to work.  My decision was one city on my primary island which meant finding more land fast.

Two ships was enough to make some lucky finds.  A city state located on a nearby landmass.  For whatever reason they were easy to befriend.  They asked for a natural wonder that my explorers found and help against barbarians.  The other important  discovery was a pocket of land large enough to support 3 more cities.  This pocket was SW of my islands and I controlled the only shallow water entry to the area.  

After establishing another city or two I encounter Bismarck up the coast from my City-State friends.  He immediately makes me feel welcome by calling my military puny and setting up a city that blocks off my sea access to the rest of the world.  This should be easy.  Request for open borders denied.  Ok.  I guess we infrastructure up a bit.  Found an island off his Western coast for a city.  

A short time later some interesting events take place.  Bismarck starts alternating between contacting me to insult my military and offering open borders which he then refuses to accept.  This must be a prelude to war so I crank up ship production.  The next thing I know the Germans declare war on my friends.  At this point I have all of two pike units as a ground military but my caravel fleet is master of the seas where I roam.  Not wanting to start a fight with him (having no iron or horses, what a shock) I give my ground unit to my friend and gift back the unit he gives me.  

It becomes clear that my friend will simply not hold out, swordsmen and the like are hammering his defenses.  For him to live I must become directly involved.  My navy begins a successful bombardment of his troops.  Fearing the counter attack one ship is ordered on patrol up his coast.  I found his reinforcements coming all right, lots of them and they were on ships.  Naval commanders quickly swept up the coast sinking his transports.  Then I pressed the advantage a bit, bombarding a couple of units that made it to land.

As the powerful American navy (6 Caravels) closed in on his port towns he asked for peace, offering me substantial gold, tribute, several horses, open borders and of course peace for me and my allies.  A short time after that he is interested in research deals.  Then, rather strangely he declares that my ally city state is under his protection and warns me not to meddle in his sphere of influence.  I guess he figures that no one can protect them from the hostiles (him) better than himself.  Hard to argue with logic like that.

While prepping myself for a land war with the Germans (they have iron and no doubt everything else in time) I ran across the Japanese.  Oda might be even crazier and we were at war soon, but that is a different story.

[Lantyssa]

Can city-states take over other cities and expand their empires?  I haven't been playing with enough military units to gift more than what they need for basic defense.

[Pezzle]

Not that I have ever seen.  They seem content to mill around in or near their borders, even when at war. 

[Paelos]

If a city state is hostile, I don't even bother with it. The decay is too much of a PITA to keep up.

[Ingmar]

City-states in certain circumstances will take over cities from regular countries, yes. Usually they will raze cities they capture, but since you can't raze capitals they will hang on to those if they capture them. Also for whatever reason Bucharest in my huge map game captured a city, started razing it, and then it never burned down and the razing icon went away. That latter one may have been a bug.

Fun times: having a technological lead on everyone, and feeding advanced units to city-states that are at war with other player countries. Watching them roll over entire empires with their gift units is hilarious, and you get the benefit of potentially crippling an enemy without having to pay any maintenance or even pay any real attention to the process. It is especially nice when you have a bunch of city-states allied and you can just gift the free military units the militaristic states are handing you to whoever is under attack at a given time.

[Daeven]

I had a City-state declare war on me, snag an outlying town, hold on to if for about 6 turns, and then /RAGEQUIT raze the captured city after I took his capital from him.

[Paelos]

I had a City-state declare war on me, snag an outlying town, hold on to if for about 6 turns, and then /RAGEQUIT raze the captured city after I took his capital from him.

That's actually pretty hilarious and probably close to a real player response. 

[Daeven]

I had a City-state declare war on me, snag an outlying town, hold on to if for about 6 turns, and then /RAGEQUIT raze the captured city after I took his capital from him.

That's actually pretty hilarious and probably close to a real player response. 

I tried to find a U MAD? console query, but I didn't want the game to format the drive in question.

[Ingmar]

Did the city-state declare war of its own accord, or was it allied with a major state? I've never seen a city-state go to war by itself except in the case of the "all the city states unite against the guy who keeps attacking city-states" event.

[Paelos]

"City States Unite!" is always a hilarious bucket of fail in every game I've seen. Japan steamrolled them all while I was building wonders in one of my games.

[Ingmar]

"City States Unite!" is always a hilarious bucket of fail in every game I've seen. Japan steamrolled them all while I was building wonders in one of my games.

That's why you start handing them tanks and paratroopers and shit!

[Triforcer]

The last version of Civ I played was 2- many fond memories of sending boatloads of diplomats to North America to buy every Iroquois city 

I bought this one, though, and here are my thoughts:

(1)  Taking a city is a bitch.  I usually need to batter at it for a few turns with multiple ranged units, and pray that the AI is dumb enough to not bombard the archers (usually, it will- or the lowest health melee if one is near death).

(2)  Am I doing it wrong to try to have a lot of cities?  Everyone here seems to be implying they have these mini-empires of 2-6 cities.  How can you possibly defend yourself when 15 Germans show up on your doorstep? 

(3)  Am I supposed to leave the city-states alive?  I just hate having other people near me, but usually once I attack more than 1 everyone in the game declares war on me. 

(4)  Worker control is wonky.  Sometimes i have to instruct them to start something 3 turns in a row before they'll start.  Other times they'll stop mid-project and I have to re-give the commands.

(5)  For God's sake, let me MOVE through other units even if I can't stack them.  Even moving units around in my empire is a fucking hassle.


Overall, having fun, I just need to catch up on several generations of mechanics. 

[bhodi]

(1)  Taking a city is a bitch.  I usually need to batter at it for a few turns with multiple ranged units, and pray that the AI is dumb enough to not bombard the archers (usually, it will- or the lowest health melee if one is near death).

You kind of need ballista/catapults/trebuchets. One or two turns and the cities fall.

(2)  Am I doing it wrong to try to have a lot of cities?  Everyone here seems to be implying they have these mini-empires of 2-6 cities.  How can you possibly defend yourself when 15 Germans show up on your doorstep?  

Culture and happiness becomes a real issue after you get more than say 8 cities. I don't generally go above that number. If you want a culture victory, don't go above 5.

(3)  Am I supposed to leave the city-states alive?  I just hate having other people near me, but usually once I attack more than 1 everyone in the game declares war on me.  

Well, they're pretty strong and if you push for economic domination, you can buy them all off -- any allied ones will declare war when you do. Also, they feed you culture and any resources in their area. Downside, it's kind of expensive and sometimes less hassle to just conquer them.

(4)  Worker control is wonky.  Sometimes i have to instruct them to start something 3 turns in a row before they'll start.  Other times they'll stop mid-project and I have to re-give the commands.

Workers re-activate if they are within sight of an enemy - this is so you notice and have an opportunity to move them out of the way.

(5)  For God's sake, let me MOVE through other units even if I can't stack them.  Even moving units around in my empire is a fucking hassle.

You can move through, right click on destination square. You can't do it with the keyboard.

[Triforcer]

Thanks for the advice- good stuff.

[Daeven]

(2)  Am I doing it wrong to try to have a lot of cities?  Everyone here seems to be implying they have these mini-empires of 2-6 cities.  How can you possibly defend yourself when 15 Germans show up on your doorstep?  

Culture and happiness becomes a real issue after you get more than say 8 cities. I don't generally go above that number. If you want a culture victory, don't go above 5.

So far The Forbidden Palace is the must have wonder because of this. The -50% (I think) to Empire Size related unhappiness is *huge*.

[Sjofn]

I generally tend to run with a mix of honor, freedom and rationality. That way, you get happiness, a decent science benny and a cheaper military. Not to mention less food consumption toward the end.

And yeah, keep puppets puppets until you can afford to bring them into the fold. Unless of course they belong to that bitch Katherine the Great. Then you lock the gates and burn 'em down.

Oh my fucking God, I HATE Catherine the Great. Elizabeth I is running a close second. Bitches, am I rite?

Elizabeth never bothers me, but Caesar likes to talk a lot of shit until I roll over a city or two. Oddly, Napoleon is always really nice to me, even while he's starting wars with everyone else on the planet.

Elizabeth bothers me CONSTANTLY. I took great satisfaction running over her smug, irritatingly-voiced ass with my RIGHTEOUS IROQUOI ARMY OF DOOM after she kept bothering me.

That game was sort of funny, I totally didn't intend to become a huge pissy empire, but first Elizabeth started bothering me, so I ran her off the continent. Well, she had a GIGANTIC chunk of it, so the other two people on it (Siam and Germany) take this to mean I am coming for them next and declare war on me first in a hilariously emo way. Bismark in particular was all, "I know you're going to crush me, BUT I AM GOING DOWN FIGHTING, BITCH." Who was I to deny him his glorious death?

[rk47]

What you really get from 2-6 cities empire isn't exactly a superb production, but instead you gain happiness points. The happy points contribute towards Golden Age points. Trigger that and suddenly things build so much faster like in Civ IV. I still haven't got the hang of it, but the social policies are really game-changing. Want to build wonder? Go for Tradition. Honor are for warmongers etc.

Also, try to keep your empire compact and connected by roads to get that gold flowing. Grab luxury resources, and don't be shy to sell it for 30 turns at 300 gp to other civs. These gold can be used to purchase city states loyalty. For 500 gp you might get a military unit, culture, or extra food. On top of that, you gain their luxury resources and moar happy faces. Also, pay attention to what your city demands, make luxury resource swaps as needed to trigger we love the king effect. That way, their growth will double.

[Ingmar]

Something that was perhaps not self-evident at first, by the way, is you can save your policy points up and dump them into multiple buys all at once later. This is handy if you don't want to get any of the ancient age policy trees in a particular game, you could just pile into Patronage for example once you hit medieval age.