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

[Pennilenko]

I am not as hardcore as you guys. I cheat my ass off until I've built so big the game crashes. I don't think I've ever finished a game.

[Maledict]

I really dislike Spain because of that random luck factor. If you find El Darado then you basically win at that point. Luck based abilities just seem wrong in a game like Civ to me.

[Sophismata]

I really dislike Spain because of that random luck factor. If you find El Darado then you basically win at that point. Luck based abilities just seem wrong in a game like Civ to me.

I used to really favour them, particular because start bias made finding a wonder pretty good odds. But the randomness of it eventually wore thin. Still, it's amazing how strong that early boost is.

[Tannhauser]

Won a diplo victory as Spain.  Two natural wonders were close to me, Rock of Gibraltar (8 hexes) and Mt. Kailash (13).  Ironically, due to city placement, the Rock stayed unused while Mt. Kailish granted me faith points as well as an observatory since I settled at its base. 

The game was started at the Medieval era since I'm so sick of the early game.  The other nations were pretty mannerly, with only Monty throwing down the gauntlet around 1880.  Eventually my frigates and ironclads controlled the shores and took his forward city.  He then gave me another city to declare peace. 

Not too many surprises, a couple of wonders were sniped.  Britain constantly beat on Carthage and America went science, with a brief stop to conquer Vatican City.  Askia, I don't know what the hell he was doing, but he never crossed me.

I won the UN vote in 1960 with 11 votes, needing 9.  I did learn that major nations will vote for you if you have the best relations with them of any other nation.  Thought it was strictly city-state votes.  Spain was fun to play, never got to fight with Tercio's or Conqs, but the Conqs did settle some nice island terrain.  Lastly, it was funny that no coal, oil, aluminum OR uranium spawned in my territories.    Madrid ended having 20 pop, a large amount for me. 

So to sum up, Spain is fun, but does need to find a couple of natural wonders early on and this 'luck' factor does keep it from the top tier civs IMO.

[Shannow]

In my 12 step program to get over being a serial settler, I tried for a cultural victory with India over the weekend. Limited myself to 4 cities (god that was hard) , on a hugh continent map with 12 civs and 20 city states. At first I thought this was like playing on easy mode. Cities were pumping out huge amounts of cash, happiness and culture, my setup was fortutious basically covering a penisular on one of the continents so only 1 civ tried to attack me around 1500 (didnt even get to a city). After 1800 or so I realised though that I was falling behind tech wise. Choosing piety over rationalism hurt, and only 4 cities couldnt pump out enough sci to keep up.

Mind you my spys mustve stolen about 10 techs during the course of the game. I attacked Babylon for something to do and ended up having to negotiate a peace because he was sending AA units at me like inf and I only had great war inf to counter. PITA. Basically a statemate. Did see something interesting with that though, I had captured a second city which used to be Chinese....he recaptured it and then liberated it bringing back the Chinese AND kicking me out of that city's border. Quite clever and rather annoying.

Anyways it ended up being a LOT closer than I'd anticipated. Babylon and a huge Hunnish empire were pumping out Spaceship parts at an alarming rate when I finally got to my Utopia project (which you can't hurry with a Great Engineer I discovered...$#!@%@)...I went back and reloaded the save game and found out I won by 3 turns.

The replayability in this game is fantastic.

[Morat20]

Started a Celt campaign, on a big huge continent (I turned down the number of city states though -- only half as many as normal). Ran into the Mayans, the Huns, and...someone I forgot. Took out the Mayans, since they were close and settled where I wanted to be. Then turned to Atilla the Hun because, fuck it, that guy always shows up with a million units out of nowhere.

Accidentally took out that "can't remember" power (it's the guy standing in front of the burning city) because I was careless and thought he was Atilla. He only had a few cities, and it turns out Atilla was attacking him and razed two of his newer cities while I snagged his capital. Then I started rolling over the Huns -- we had pretty close tech, but most of his units were battering rams (not that great against the horde of knights and composite bowman -- and then crossbowman) I was churning out, although his pikeman were occasionally very annoying to my horses.

His city placement was killer, though. Mountains that would limit avenues of attack, and he had enough sea units scurrying around to prevent me from embarking around it. Had to basically brute force through one city. Got cannons right as I got to his last two cities -- was setting up an attack on his last (and capital) last night when I went to bed.

Seriously, I don't know if it's luck or the AI is smart about placement, but three cities in a row with just killer geography and placement. Would have been easier if I could have gotten water units to bombard his cities or cleared the seas to lift troops around, but the only port I had on that side of the continent (and my other ports were blocked by ice -- they had to go halfway around the world to get to the places I was fighting) was one I had just captured and was still being pacified.

In the meantime, the freakin' Austrians have declared war on me and snagged a city-state way too close to my main cities. Gonna have to kick them off before I resolve that war too.

[WayAbvPar]

WayAbvPar
now owns Sid Meier's Civilization V: Brave New World

8 hours and counting. Argh.

[Maledict]

4 days and counting. I hate you all.

[MrHat]

WayAbvPar
now owns Sid Meier's Civilization V: Brave New World

8 hours and counting. Argh.

Will it go live at midnight though? I thought STEAM was wonky about that sometimes.

[Ingmar]

Steam is usually at 10 am, dunno what it is for this one.

[WayAbvPar]

It looks like 12 EDT, or 9PM for me. Enough time for me to get sucked into a game and get exactly dick for sleep tonight.

[Merusk]

I thought it wasn't Steam that was wonky about it, but the publishers who wouldn't let it be activated before B&M stores could get it to people, too. 

[Tannhauser]

Thought I was the only one looking at the clock on the wall. :)

Piddling around with Korea currently.  Average civ so far.

[Nazrat]

I am waiting impatiently.  Do I have to manually start the download?

[CmdrSlack]

So.....yeah. Is there no way to at least download the content in advance? I mean, if we're looking at a 12 AM EST unlock time, then I'd like to be able to play a bit before getting past the point of no sleep return for work tomorrow.

EDIT -- Just clicked play and WHAM! installing new files. Thanks, NSA.  

EDIT the second -- No, I just suck.

[MrHat]

So.....yeah. Is there no way to at least download the content in advance? I mean, if we're looking at a 12 AM EST unlock time, then I'd like to be able to play a bit before getting past the point of no sleep return for work tomorrow.

EDIT -- Just clicked play and WHAM! installing new files. Thanks, NSA.  

EDIT the second -- No, I just suck.

I hated you for a few minutes there.

[Nazrat]

Installing now. 

[MrHat]

[Shannow]

download faster you sonofabitch!

[Tebonas]

Two days and 18 hours to go.

Fucking clownshoes region locking. No wonder people pirate games instead.

[CmdrSlack]

Hey, I can't even figure out why Steam shows me as owning the game, but won't unlock the expansion -- I paid for the damn thing two days ago.

[Maledict]

Thing I don't understand is that most big game releases are world wide nowadays - and yet the second expansion to a game bought mostly digitally has to have region locked release dates? It makes no sense - I've never seen a copy of civ 5 in the shops in the UK, and even those that do have it won't be getting large numbers of the second expansion.

[Merusk]

Just because you haven't seen it in the shop doesn't mean some publishing agreement doesn't exist that demands region locking.  Business makes about as much sense to the end user as government at times.

[Shannow]

Hey, I can't even figure out why Steam shows me as owning the game, but won't unlock the expansion -- I paid for the damn thing two days ago.

I had to restart steam for it to install if that helps

[CmdrSlack]

Hey, I can't even figure out why Steam shows me as owning the game, but won't unlock the expansion -- I paid for the damn thing two days ago.

I had to restart steam for it to install if that helps

Yep, that's what it took. Thanks.

[naum]

I had to restart Steam too, as it downloaded but BNW wasn't showing up (even though the new launch menu appeared).

Started a random game, drew Chinese, but was quickly overswarmed with Zulu invasion (and I had 2 military units on the map v. at least half-dozen).

[MrHat]

So I've been trying Venice and it's so hard to play a single city without the crazy Egypt advantage.

Venice Question: I know you're suppose to be able to buy a city-state with the great merchant, but I haven't seen an option come up anywhere.

[CmdrSlack]

Tried a game as the Shonomish last night. The "pick what your scout finds" ability does not allow you to pick tech for every ruin.

That said, I haven't exited the BC years yet and have already filled an entire policy tree. I am in the middle of the pack with points.  I see a war with Poland or Austria on the horizon.

[Ingmar]

So I've been trying Venice and it's so hard to play a single city without the crazy Egypt advantage.

Venice Question: I know you're suppose to be able to buy a city-state with the great merchant, but I haven't seen an option come up anywhere.

You have to walk him over into the territory, just like with the trade mission. There's a button on the merchant's action list.

[MrHat]

So I've been trying Venice and it's so hard to play a single city without the crazy Egypt advantage.

Venice Question: I know you're suppose to be able to buy a city-state with the great merchant, but I haven't seen an option come up anywhere.

You have to walk him over into the territory, just like with the trade mission. There's a button on the merchant's action list.

Weird.

Note: Click culture tab, play with different pieces of culture and art to maximize your tourism.

[WayAbvPar]

Played a bit with the Shoshone last night, and a bit with Poland this morning. Shoshone are great for exploration with the Pathfinders and their cities getting so much land upon founding. Poland's special ability let me dabble in a couple of trees before really committing, which was kind of interesting. Haven't teched up to the special unit yet, but they sound pretty nasty.

[MrHat]

I feel that the tying of key wonders into the Social Policy tree has me unlocking more rather than trying to finish 1-2 for the completion bonus.

[Ingmar]

What difficulty are you playing at? At King+ you're going to get outraced to a lot of them if you try to spread out and unlock so you can build all the wonders. The nice thing is that wonders are pretty specialized now, so you don't ever really feel like you have to get all of them anymore, you can just target a few that are important to your strategy.

[MrHat]

What difficulty are you playing at? At King+ you're going to get outraced to a lot of them if you try to spread out and unlock so you can build all the wonders. The nice thing is that wonders are pretty specialized now, so you don't ever really feel like you have to get all of them anymore, you can just target a few that are important to your strategy.

Ya, I noticed that.  Let a few slip so I could focus on others.

Prince because I don't like losing hah.

[Lantyssa]

... so you don't ever really feel like you have to get all of them anymore ...

Totally not how I play Civ.  I need them all.  ALL OF THEM.