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

[CmdrSlack]

I really need to learn how to micromanage my cities. I was working on a cultural victory and ended up going science because I could not figure out why I wasn't building culture fast enough.

Something tells me that allowing the game to manage specialists was a bad idea.

[Shannow]

I didn't realize till I looked that more cities = much slower culture growth

[Tannhauser]

IIRC, every city past the first one increases time to the next culture point by 15%.

[Ingmar]

Sort of. It increases the number of points required. If you could come up with some sort of magical scenario where the new city produced more culture/turn as a % of your current, than it adds in how far you have to go, then it can be a win. But that's vanishingly unlikely given a new city almost always is going to be terrible culturally, whether you founded it or took it over.

[Megrim]

Some civs are more oriented towards it than others. Plus, I've found that dropping down Great Artists into tiles can provide a significant increase in culture in a new city. Still, I wouldn't go past three cities when trying for a Cultural win.

[Cheddar]

Something tells me that allowing the game to manage specialists was a bad idea.

[Merusk]

I really need to learn how to micromanage my cities. I was working on a cultural victory and ended up going science because I could not figure out why I wasn't building culture fast enough.

Something tells me that allowing the game to manage specialists was a bad idea.

Depends on the difficulty.  The higher you go the more you have to micromanage.   Prince you can get away with very little beyond making sure you don't have unemployed folks. Below that you can ignore it.

[Spiff]

I find getting certain wonders is almost a must to get a cultural win before I suddenly get "blah blah finished the Apollo Program" and either have to take my pitiful army on a suicide run at his capital or crawl into a corner and await the end.

Christo Redentor is really good with it's 10% discount (especially endgame when the culture cost is spiraling out of control) and definitely Sidney Opera House, which gives a big boost and a free policy. You have to plan ahead for that one though since it can only be built in a coastal city.

3 cities seems to be my sweet-spot for it as well, but I almost always go into Liberty early and pick up "33% less increase to policy cost for each new city" before I start expanding.

Been planning to try a cultural victory by focusing on city state alliances though (the right ones can give quite a lot), but city states irk me.

[Teleku]

I've pulled off two Cultural victories with one city, at whatever the second to hardest difficulty is.  Making alliances with city states, and dropping great artists to build their monuments is absolutely key.  Along with building every wonder possible to create mega-city 1.  This is why Egypt still works best for me.  I'm trying it at the hardest difficulty, but it just seems impossible.  I'm being out built on the wonders no matter how good of a starting spot I get, and usually get wardecced by a civ with 50 units already early in the game.

Though also keep in mind I always play a Pangaea map.  Getting myself isolated off on some island/continent seems to easy.

Still, I’m trying a game as Alexander on second to hardest difficulty again, and it seems to be going well.

[rk47]

IIRC, every city past the first one increases time to the next culture point by 15%.

which is why it's best to just cherry pick the cultures u want before going into an aggressive expansion or annexing cities.

[Maledict]

Bear in mind that puppet cities do not increase the cost of social policies but do contribute culture from buildings and social policies. It's entirely possible to have a huge sprawling empire whilst also ploughing through the social policy tree. You just can't control the majority of it...

[Malakili]

Slightly off the Culture topic here, but I am playing a game on Continents Plus as Carthage and got a really fantastic spawn for a strong economy and science game.  Currently building a strong navy to defend my mostly coastal empire and going for a science victory backed by an absurdly strong economy.  One of the most fun games of Civ 5 I've played so far.

[Rishathra]

So does Civ 5 solve or at least mitigate the problem of the stacks of doom you run into in earlier games?  Count me in with the group who likes to peacefully expand and avoids the whole war route as much as possible.  Unfortunately, in Civ 4 there seemed to be a particular aspect to my play style that the AI just DID NOT LIKE.  Everything would be humming along just fine, and I would be on good - even friendly - relations with all my neighbors.  I didn't build a big military but I made sure I had a modern one.  Everything was peachy until all my neighbors would just turn on me, all at once, and send literally hundreds of units into my domain and just crush me through sheer numbers.  This would happen in pretty much every game I played, unless I managed to colonize a landmass alone, like on an archipelago map.

What I understand about 5 is that military units don't stack, and that positioning and such matters a lot more.  This sounds like it would help a player like me, who hates having to juggle large armies, and can position and fortify my domains to effectively repel jittery neighbors.  Is this at all true, or are the deathswarms still a thing I would have to worry about?

[Shannow]

The military AI seems to be fairly weak actually. I can't remember how 4 worked it but in 5 your cities can bombard and they have their own garrison, so it's quite difficult to take one now. This gives you more time to get units in play. I only had one empire DoW me, and no others DoW with him and his attack was , well pitiful doesnt do it justice. After DoWing another empire I had every other player denounce me but no one went to war...take that for what its worth.....I have a large army and I'm only on Prince difficulty.

You can put spys into neighbouring empires and see if they are plotting against you too..

[Rishathra]

You can put spys into neighbouring empires and see if they are plotting against you too..

See, this reminds me of what confused me so much when I would get rolled over.  I did all that.  It't not like i didn't build a military and posed too tempting a target.  I didn't neglect the diplomacy or espionage either.  Everything would be hunky dory and then it was like a switch was flipped and all alliances and treaties were thrown out the window and the world was always at war with EurasiaRishathra.

[MrHat]

You can put spys into neighbouring empires and see if they are plotting against you too..

Expert Tip: They are.

Always build up a few troops and keep them upgraded.  It's a strong deterrent.

[Shannow]

You can put spys into neighbouring empires and see if they are plotting against you too..

See, this reminds me of what confused me so much when I would get rolled over.  I did all that.  It't not like i didn't build a military and posed too tempting a target.  I didn't neglect the diplomacy or espionage either.  Everything would be hunky dory and then it was like a switch was flipped and all alliances and treaties were thrown out the window and the world was always at war with EurasiaRishathra.

We talking about 4 or 5 now? I do remember that it seemed to be no matter how much you tried when the AI decided you were to be crushed you were going to be crushed. Which was fairly ridicolous. I don't seem to have had that problem so much in 5.

[Maledict]

The military AI seems to be fairly weak actually. I can't remember how 4 worked it but in 5 your cities can bombard and they have their own garrison, so it's quite difficult to take one now. This gives you more time to get units in play. I only had one empire DoW me, and no others DoW with him and his attack was , well pitiful doesnt do it justice. After DoWing another empire I had every other player denounce me but no one went to war...take that for what its worth.....I have a large army and I'm only on Prince difficulty.

You can put spys into neighbouring empires and see if they are plotting against you too..

Generally for Civ 5 I would advise you play at one difficulty level higher than you would normally for Civ. Between the changes to combat and the increase in the number of difficulty levels the entire game seems to be one level easier than previously.

For example - for Civ 4 I was a comfortable King level player. That was the difficulty where I had a challenge, but generally felt I could win. In Civ 5 King is a cake walk, and I play on Emperor to have that same level of comfortable challenge.

[Bzalthek]

Taking a city in 5 is such a pain in the ass I much prefer other victories.  Which isn't bad because I normally prefer those.  It's just every once in a while you start on a small continent with a dick civ which walks through you to land on that ancient ruins you were right next to and you're like, "fuck you, you're dead" and then it's 3 hours of dick punching to follow through.

[Shannow]

Taking a city in 5 is such a pain in the ass I much prefer other victories.  Which isn't bad because I normally prefer those.  It's just every once in a while you start on a small continent with a dick civ which walks through you to land on that ancient ruins you were right next to and you're like, "fuck you, you're dead" and then it's 3 hours of dick punching to follow through.

Artillery, Artillery Artillery. It is the only way. Start with your catapults, get em levelled up, sink all the level bonuses into +dam to Cities. Once those things are upgrade to artillery (and then rocket artillery) you can take down a city in 1 turn. BTW air units are fairly useless, outside of the convenience of their range, they do less damage to cities and take damage in return.
But yes otherwise its a huge pain in the ass. Which is good because it means its a pita for the other guy as well. Keep a few cavalry units spare to flank his artillery units.

I also built walls and castles on all my cities when I realised it was 0 maintenance cost (unless that was a policy benefit I missed)....Castles also provide +happiness.

[MrHat]

Taking a city in 5 is such a pain in the ass I much prefer other victories.  Which isn't bad because I normally prefer those.  It's just every once in a while you start on a small continent with a dick civ which walks through you to land on that ancient ruins you were right next to and you're like, "fuck you, you're dead" and then it's 3 hours of dick punching to follow through.

Artillery, Artillery Artillery. It is the only way. Start with your catapults, get em levelled up, sink all the level bonuses into +dam to Cities. Once those things are upgrade to artillery (and then rocket artillery) you can take down a city in 1 turn. BTW air units are fairly useless, outside of the convenience of their range, they do less damage to cities and take damage in return.
But yes otherwise its a huge pain in the ass. Which is good because it means its a pita for the other guy as well. Keep a few cavalry units spare to flank his artillery units.

I also built walls and castles on all my cities when I realised it was 0 maintenance cost (unless that was a policy benefit I missed)....Castles also provide +happiness.

There's also a wonder that gives culture and stuff for castles.

[Merusk]

Arty/ Combined arms can't be stressed enough.  They really tried upgrading the combat with 5 but did so in a Rock-Paper-Scissors fashion.   You can't take a city with Horseman without huge losses anymore (or at all with ranged units) but Melee don't last long if they don't have some cover to whittle-down any defending ranged units.  Even Tanks take a bunch of damage if you're fighting a guy who has musketeers or better, so you need those siege weapons.

Planes serve one purpose, interception. They're useless for anything else and that kind of blows.

Bombers are pretty excellent for having a siege unit in a safe location and not having to spend turns defending it, the tradeoff being that they take damage.  Considering the tradeoff of an unsupported/ unprotected siege weapon is "it's gone forever" I'm willing to take a turn letting them heal at my airport.

[Shannow]

My bitch is that Stealth bombers won't fit on carriers. Why not godamnit!

The AI is also not smart enough to attack your artillery.

[calapine]

I also built walls and castles on all my cities when I realised it was 0 maintenance cost (unless that was a policy benefit I missed)....Castles also provide +happiness.

Only with Professional Army from the Honor tree. It's a very good one though, and if am not mistaken the policy that has the potenial for the single most happyniess again.... Walls, Castle, Arsenal + Military Base = 4 happyness per city without upkeep.

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Re: getting ganked by the AI

The best way to avoid war as a peacefull builder is not to neglect making units too much. The AI compares their strength to yours and being perceived weaker greatly increases the chances for a wardeck. Si vis pacem, para bellum is a literal truth in the Civ universe.

[MrHat]

Only with Professional Army from the Honor tree. It's a very good one though, and if am not mistaken the policy that has the potenial for the single most happyniess again.... Walls, Castle, Arsenal + Military Base = 4 happyness per city without upkeep.

Neuschwanstein Castle is the one I was thinking of:

+3  Gold, +2  Culture, and +1  Happiness for every Castle. City must be built within 2 tiles of a Mountain that is inside your territory.

If you've got a few castles it's really a  huge bonus.

[Shannow]

Yeah thats the one, I built it...well cause I could...then I started building all my castles. I'm a happiness whore...which if you go to war as much as I do you have to be.

[Ingmar]

Honor tree is suboptimal in almost any circumstance, but it isn't bad enough to derail your game on King and lower.

[koro]

As someone who has the base Civ V (thanks to the new X-Com but failed to realize it for months) but lacks the expansion (and the desire to get it), is the game worth playing? Or is it "Gods and Kings or go home"?

[calapine]

The Gold-Edition upgrade is only 10$. It contains God & Kings plus all DLCs. Well worth it, IMHO.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/

[koro]

Says $20 for me. But I'm broke either way, so.

[calapine]

Duh. Says 10€ here. I was assuming the usual bad 1€=1$ exchange rate at steam.

To answer your question, the expansion is good, it gives the game more meat on bones. But it doesn't drastically 'fix' anything or transform the game. So it's very playable without.

To say it differently: If you enjoy vanilla, maybe find it a bit shallow, G&K will be a solid improvement. If Civ5 isn't your thing, don't expect it to be a game changer (game changer, it's a pun! tee hee).

I hope that helps.

[koro]

I've toyed with the game a bit. I don't find it particularly shallow, but it often feels like a chore to play. The one unit per tile deal is something that frequently keeps frustrating me, and the utter slog of city sieges mentioned earlier on this page is also a big thing.

I guess that it doesn't help that I'm absolutely terrible at Civ in general.

[calapine]

Hmm. Artillery was already mentioned. In ancient periods you can do without still, later it's necessary. Generally in Civ 5 ranged units are king. Archers come very early, are great on the battlefield and strong enough to be used as 'siege artillery' against most cities. Use your melee units to shield archers against calvary and to deliver the killing blow on weakened units.

Don't fight like the AI and attack piecemeal. 3 archers and 1 melee unit should be a good rule of thumb to take a normal city without losses or too much hassle. Or even 4 melee units, if they are something strong like longswordmen.

[Bzalthek]

I find the cities bombardment pretty effective, so I generally use 3 warriors, 3 archers.  The warriors just soak bombardment while archers destroy defenses.  However if you know you're going to go apeshit with combat, rushing Mathematics for the Catapult will make things much quicker.

Yesterday I started on a small continent with 3 other civs, so I wiped out one, was working on destroying Hawaii (because seriously, fuck them) when Aztecs decided to wardec Hawaii as well.  I had Honolulu mostly surrounded, when Aztec came in with something like 12 units, but he only had 3 spots to move into to attack.  I ended up skipping turns for all my units and was pleased to see Honolulu prioritizing the units doing damage.  So once Aztec lost a majority of its units, Honolulu was pretty low, which allowed me to one-turn it.  I was going to wait a bit before engaging Aztec to beef up my attackers, but since there were so many casualties I just turned around and curb stomped him.  So now I have a continent to myself.  As it should be.

[Shannow]

Playing the Greeks has ruined me...I don't think I'll be able to play with other empires. I have 12 city states as allies now...the amount of crap they give me is ridicolous. How did I live without city states before?

Btw I Capture the capital of the Iroquis last night and my happiness jumped by 60!!