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

[Maledict]

Yeah, I think everyone is assuming there's an implicit "nerf maritime city states into the ground" coming with the patch as well. They distort the game to a ridiculous level.

[Koyasha]

I think if the diplomatic system for dealing with them were somewhat more complex than 'give them X gold every Y turns' it would be interesting.  The miniquests they offer are not consistent enough to be relied upon as a method for gaining favor, so I don't really count that in the equasion.  Being able to trade resources to them in exchange for alliance would be my favorite option, I think.  If a city-state lacks either a strategic or luxury resource, make a deal where they will become an ally as long as you supply them with what they want (and if two nations are offering them stuff, then they ally with whichever one offers them more).

I also think maritime city-states are fine (since they make up for the lack of food transportation I was complaining about above), but the AI should make use of them as well in order to make it fair.

[rk47]

Regarding city states usage by AI civs:

Yes, they do. Harun Al Rashid is a prominent customer since he's the man with the cash. I checked a continent where he was dominant before. All the states there were allied to him. And next turn, he bought off my ally too, since he got the cash to spare. All those size 15 cities are not due to farms, it's from the maritime states boosting growth to ridiculous levels, but who cares about population when you can employ all the citizens as specialist without providing food tiles?!

I'm done with this game. I'm off to Dead Rising 2 till Firaxis does a balance patch or make mods work with other drives than C:\
It's a mess to balance since the core game design is flawed:
AI that cannot cope with early rushes.
Imbalanced city states mechanics.
AI that doesn't know how to stop players from completing victories, how many times do you play culture/science victory that ends up with just clicking next turn since the AI DOES NOT DO ANYTHING to stop you?

[Khaldun]

I'm done for now as well.

Lotta good ideas in terms of new mechanics. Interesting shift in paradigm. But the AI's absence just kills it flat as a source of fun. I don't even have to try and I run over opponents on high difficulties easily.

[Hutch]

I just turn off city states now.  Seems to make the game more fair.

I didn't even know you could do that! I guess I should examine the start options more carefully.

And anyway, in my past couple games I finally figured out how to use them properly. All that culture and food (plus the occasional luxury resource) help greatly in propping up my sprawling, gold-mongering empires.

[Cyrrex]

I always end up slaughtering the city-states around me.  Maybe I need to stop this practice.  My cash flow always seems to be rather precariously balanced, and now I'm starting to think that this is a result of not leveraging the city-states to full effect.

Of course, in my current game, I did full Earth map but with only 6 players and I think 6 city states.  I spawned in the center of North America, and eventually found out that I had both North and South America all to myself, with 5 of the city states.  I was going for a domination victory, so murdering them seemed like a natural thing to be doing.  I can really see, however, that this has stunted my overall development.  I'm in year 1986, and I think the most advanced tech I have is for Artillery.  I don't yet even have ships that can cross the ocean and find the other players.  It has been a weird, isolated game, and despite having full control of the entire western hemisphere, I have no chance of winning, I am sure. 

So, killing off city states too quickly is bad.
Not having trading partners in the form of other players is bad.  My development is too damn slow.
The combination of these two things is boring.
I am bad at Civ.  This is the first one I've played.

[rk47]

You can disembark to the ocean without building transports, as long as you researched the proper techs, naval techs are at the top row of the tree, can't miss it.
And yes, killing City States early is a waste, these states provide food and culture for ridiculously cheap price, on top of the luxury goods you're getting. You can conquer military city states since they only provide units, but sometimes they can surprise you with some gifts.

Don't worry, you'll win. Since the AI cannot mount an effective invasion from the sea, you can start scouting around and find all the rival capital cities. Focus on capturing these and domination victory won't be too far off.

[Cyrrex]

I think the problem with this particular game is that it may be too late to win.  Because of a combination of factors, my tech advancement has just been too slow.  I can get the tech to cross the seas in a few turns, but I'll bet they have far more advanced units.  It's 1986 or thereabouts, and I am have chiefly knights, cannons and riflemen as my best units.  I think I just cracked the Industrial Era.  It has been a weird game.  Because of my city-state squashing and general isolation, it's been a struggle to even keep my cities fed and stay in the black.  Science, Research and Culture are almost non-existant.

Oh well, if nothing else it means I get to do my favorite thing in this game:  Reroll 

[Ingmar]

I don't think city-states count against you for a domination victory if you let them live, so yeah no real reason to mess with them unless there's something about the spot they're in that you need it strategically.

[Malakili]

http://www.civilization5.com/#/community/dlc_october

Babylon DLC for 5 dollars, and Mongol civilization (Ghengic Khan) added for free for everyone.

[rk47]

Oooh look, a military civ. Just what we need for more fun domination games! I rather they focus on fixing the early game AI. Because regardless of your civ choice, Horsemen kills EVERYTHING the AI can throw at you in classical age.

[Reg]

Five dollars for another civ to add to an essentially boring game? No thanks.

[Malakili]

Oooh look, a military civ. Just what we need for more fun domination games! I rather they focus on fixing the early game AI. Because regardless of your civ choice, Horsemen kills EVERYTHING the AI can throw at you in classical age.

Gee, I guess you missed the patch announcement.

[ghost]

Five dollars for another civ to add to an essentially boring game? No thanks.

No shit.  With every other Civ release I basically didn't eat, bathe or interact with humans for a few weeks after release.  With this one I could probably round file it right now.  There doesn't seem to be that addictive catch that the others had. 

[Paelos]

I'll give them till Christmas to patch the crack in. If they can't pull it off, I'll just shelve it until next summer and hope the modding community has done it a good turn. If not by then, I'll have to officially write the series off and never buy another one. Civ 4 was bland, but the modding community turned it around. They are starting to run out of excuses at this point.

[dusematic]

You can't even use the additional Civs in multiplayer.  It's fucked out.  Now that Civ is dead to me I'm not even sure what I have left besides a faint hope that Diablo 3 will rule.

[Modern Angel]

You can't even use the additional Civs in multiplayer. 

Wait, what?

[dusematic]

Nope.  BOTCHED.

[Tebonas]

For all those who said this DLC thing is no problem and won't make the basic game less than feature complete.

See? BULLSHIT!

[JWIV]

I don't think city-states count against you for a domination victory if you let them live, so yeah no real reason to mess with them unless there's something about the spot they're in that you need it strategically.

They don't.  If they did, getting Alexander's achievement of a domination victory by 350 BC would be impossible. 

[Hutch]

Wow. "Sulla" has a nice site set up with descriptions of his experiences in Civ 5.

Between that page, and the Civ Fanatics' strategy board, I've found a bunch of helpful tips that I've used to form the strategy for my current game.

- spam Trade Posts
- skip building most of the early wonders
- buy the alliance of city-states with cash
- trade excess luxury goods for as much cash as the AI will agree to
- build libraries and markets, and populate them with specialists (the food from Maritime CS's lets you get away with this)
- the AI can't counter a multiple horse rush on their cities
- raze non-capital cities, replace with your own

A strategy point that I've come up with through my own experience is: build exactly one worker, and steal the rest from barbarians. And of course, capture workers from nations I'm at war with.

I'm playing as America, Prince difficulty level, standard-sized pangaea map. It's still early in the game (early Medieval era), and I've built one wonder (Oracle) myself. I captured Stonehenge from the Iroquois, who sealed their own fate when they built a city in my capital's backyard.
I'm currently at war with Rome, who caught my attention the same way as the Iroquois.

I have two maritime CS allies and one cultural. I also have a militaristic ally, but I got that one by killing barbarians, not spending money.

I don't lack for money. I have no trouble maintaining those alliances, and I still have cash for research agreements.

I know some of this stuff might get patched out eventually. It does seem too easy.

[Tarami]

- raze non-capital cities, replace with your own

Yeah. I annexed an enemy city last night until I realized my mistake (the courthouse would take 75 turns to build), so I reassigned all food production to hammer production in order to quickly get a settler. Around the time the settler was done, the town had starved to size 1 and only took a single turn to raze. New town, presto!

The hammer production is just so very wrong. I'm enjoying the game in a casual way, but it could be so much more.

[Hutch]

The hammer production is just so very wrong. I'm enjoying the game in a casual way, but it could be so much more.

That's another thing. Sulla's idea, which jives with my experiences so far, is to build the following buildings in each city.
Monument
Market
Library
Colosseum

In my larger cities I'll also build Banks and Universities once the techs unlock.

And I also build certain of the situational buildings, like Mints and Harbors.

But in general it takes soooooo looooooong to build any buildings that you're going to end up just building a (relative) handful in each city by the end of the game. This was one of the big mental switches to make (in my experience) from Civ IV to V.

[Soulflame]

I do generally try to build Stonehenge, mostly because it's a beast in terms of cultural output.

In the later stages, the first two buildings I go for are workshop followed by windmill.  I think.  Which of course necessitates that you do not build your cities on a hill. 

[Malakili]

do not build your cities on a hill. 

John Winthrop was wrong all along!

[WayAbvPar]

Patch has been out a few days now- anyone play it yet? I haven't had the time to sit down and really bang away at it.

[Chenghiz]

I haven't tried out the Mongols yet, but I have noticed puppets are more intelligent about what they build, and the AI is better at using its combat units. Still bad at using ranged vs melee units, though.

[Malakili]

I started a game as the mongols, but I don't really have much to say.  Then again, I've been one of the people here who thought the game has been more or less fine since the beginning, and I still feel that way. 

[Jade Falcon]

Can't say it isn't fine or fun for what it is but it doesn't feel at all like a successor to civ 4 more like an improved civ rev.Makes me think with the success they had converting the console players to the franchise they wanted too keep their interest and gave them a more in depth version.

[Wasted]

I finally beat the game on Emperor.  With everyone talking about how dumb the AI is I felt stupid I was having such a hard time of it.  Looking at the Steam achievements though, as dumb as the AI is only 1.4% of people have got the achievement for beating the game at Emperor level.  Immortal and Diety are currently 0.7% and 0.6% respectively.

[rk47]

People are easily bored and lack of historical replays at victory,coupled with 'YOU ARE WINNER' screen is not a sufficient incentive to finish the game.
The scoring is out of whack. You finish the game in BC, you get lower points than when you slug it out in AD. What the fuck?

So - people stopped giving a shit about finishing a game and restarted on a new map.

[Tarami]

In all my games played there has been a point where it has been very obvious that I've won. I rarely continue playing beyond that, because once you got the upper hand the AI is absolutely worthless. Most of the time it doesn't even seem to try to resist.

[Hutch]

In all my games played there has been a point where it has been very obvious that I've won. I rarely continue playing beyond that, because once you got the upper hand the AI is absolutely worthless. Most of the time it doesn't even seem to try to resist.

In my last game, I got to a moment of actual concern, when two of my rivals (Japan and France) declared on me on the same turn, and then a third (India) jumped in on the next turn.

Then, Japan threw all of his forces at my ally CS, on the opposite end of his territory from me. The AI is so ineffectual that I was able to destroy France and hold off India before Japan could take over one city state.

Then I turned my attention on Japan, took one of his cities, and he sued for Peace. Which I gladly took, so that I could concentrate on taking out India (which had been my plan from the beginning).

After India, the even more pathetic Aztecs fell next. Seriously, Montezuma had built three cities and was way behind the rest of us in tech by this point.

And that was when I thought, "I cannot lose, but I don't really want to play anymore." So I took my freshly-upgraded Infantry, sent half of them to Japan, and the other half to Arabia (the only other surviving nation), bent on taking their capitals, just so I could finish the game.

I admit that I was tempted to start up another game this week, but then my Paypal account finished setting up, and so I was able to buy Minecraft.

[dusematic]

I finally beat the game on Emperor.  With everyone talking about how dumb the AI is I felt stupid I was having such a hard time of it.  Looking at the Steam achievements though, as dumb as the AI is only 1.4% of people have got the achievement for beating the game at Emperor level.  Immortal and Diety are currently 0.7% and 0.6% respectively.

Most people quit once they know they've won.  No reason to finish it out unless you're big on achievements.  Plus, all the really good players play multiplayer anyway.

[Tannhauser]

There's a new mod map for Civ 5, it's at the Civ Fanatics Forum:  Azeroth!  It's a huuuge map of both continents and cool as hell.  Still have the current empires but hopefully someone will mod the WoW races for this.   Designer had to make some tweaks but it's very well done.