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

[Ingmar]

My point was they seem important to Kael, and Stardock seems like a company much more likely to let him indulge those impulses.

[Sky]

Reason #563 why it's a shame he wasn't given a job at Firaxis.

[ezrast]

This will be 66% off at GamersGate tomorrow. More importantly, Civ IV+expansions is available for the rest of today for $6.24. Definitely slips under my impulse buy threshold. No idea when I'll actually play it.

[Sky]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=171398

 

[Korachia]

Guess I will finally get CivIV and play it. Was a huge fan of CivI and II(loved the fantasy mod) and especially Alpha Centauri, but after CivIII I gave up on the series. 

So, should I start with CivIV vanilla or go straight for the cake and jump on FFH?

[Malakili]

Guess I will finally get CivIV and play it. Was a huge fan of CivI and II(loved the fantasy mod) and especially Alpha Centauri, but after CivIII I gave up on the series. 

So, should I start with CivIV vanilla or go straight for the cake and jump on FFH?

Civ 4 with beyond the sword is good in its own right.  It really depends on what you want though.  If you want Civ, go for vanilla, but if you want something more fantasy oriented go FFH.

[WayAbvPar]

Not to be a total dick, but there IS a Civ IV thread a few spots down from here...


e- here it is http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9428.0

Any played any V with the patch? I noticed Steam was updating it a couple of days ago while I was playing Magic, but I haven't tried it yet.

[Merusk]

Not to be a total dick, but there IS a Civ IV thread a few spots down from here...


e- here it is http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=9428.0

Any played any V with the patch? I noticed Steam was updating it a couple of days ago while I was playing Magic, but I haven't tried it yet.

I plan to tonight, I've been too busy processing photos from a wedding until now.

[Sky]

Since WAP isn't being a total dick...

So, should I start with CivIV vanilla or go straight for the cake and jump on FFH?

Try a game or three of Beyond the Sword, when that starts to get old move into FFH2 (not the Beyond the Sword scenario; the full mod I linked). Playing BtS Civ first will allow you to learn the engine and the vanilla way of doing things. FFH2 throws A LOT at you, and it's not documented well. Try to learn a single Civ first as they're pretty different, ask the vets here if you have questions.

And to respect WAP not being a dick, we should probably continue the FFH2 stuff in the aforementioned thread from here on :)

On the Civ V patch - I'm also interested. I uninstalled the game pretty quickly. I still think it's going to need a BtS-type expansion to get it to fighting trim.

[WayAbvPar]

I think you are probably right. I haven't played since before the first big patch, so 2 patches later it might be a very different game for me.

[Merusk]

I played about 200 turns this evening as Egypt. Not long enough to see if Gold totally unbalances things, but it is still pretty important.  Spamming Tents doesn't seem to help as much as it did early on, though.  (Then again, I chose "random" map and wound up on an island world with little expansion room.)

I don't recall there being bonuses for completing a Social Policy tree, but they're in now and pretty nice. There's also been some shake-up on the starter bonuses, so they're nicer.  Some new resources, etc. (I didn't read patch notes so I just found out about that.)

The nicest change was it seems like they're making an effort for you to get great people earlier.  Some of the wonders and techs grant 'your choice' when you complete them, so getting a great merchant for an early city-state friendship is possible instead of having to wait until much later when more merchant buildings are available. (Or engineer to complete those wonders earlier.)

In all it still feels like Civ5 but seems to play a bit better.  I was just getting into the mid-game so I can't say if it's much better but I was enjoying it more than on release.

[Maledict]

Things I've noticed from playing yesterday:

- buildings matter more now. They are cheaper to build, less expensive to maintain, and have a bigger bonus than previously. In particular, all the production buildings are much better. Builders have more to play for.

- tile resources matter more. They still only give the small bonus they did at launch, but now every resource has an associated building that increase the gain. E.g. Cows, sheep and horses all gain an extra +1 production if you build a stables; wheat, bananas and dear all gain +1 food if you build a granary etc. I like this compromise to be honest - special tiles aren't hugely powerful immediately, but they are definitely worth aiming for now unlike when the game launched. Also the buildings that unlock from having certain resources in your ci radius are much improved. They don't cost any maintainence, are cheap to build and have a decent effect. Having elephants or horses in a city radius is very, very good now as it unlocks the circus which is a +2 happiness building with no maintainence.

- social policies are MUCH better. They're cheaper to get, and expanding to a large empire doesn't make them impossible to obtain like before. They also have more powerful effects, and the addition of starting & finishing bonuses for each tree makes you commit more. Going for the liberty tree, for example, is a definite choice for people who want big empires. You get a free settler, a free worker, faster settler production, faster worker construction, +1 production and culture per city, less impact on social policies from having many citizens, a free golden age, extra happiness from connected cities and less unhappiness from your population size. Social policies seem to offer more choice, and have a bigger impact, than before.

- I'm not sure if it's new or shifted around, but you now gain a bonus to all tile improvements through the tech tree. E.g. Mnes gain +1 production from chemistry etc. I'm fairly sure they reduced trading camps output at the start of the game to only +1 gold, and then they get improved to +2 gold later with tech to reduce the power of spamming trade camps and getting gold.

- the AI is improved. I'm only playing on prince but Montezuma actually built several combined armies andusedthem against me effectively. It's still not perfect, especially at that level, but it's clearly better than before where the AI wouldn't combine troop types properly and couldn't use archers properly at all.

- tech speed progression seems right now. Previously, you'd get tech faster and faster as you progressed which is opposite to how civ games normally work. That's been fixed, and tech is clearly faster early on and then more expensive as you progress up the tree.

- city states are no where *near* as powerful as before. You can't run an empire on maritime city states for example - at friendly rep they only give your capitol a small amount of food, and even when allied you only get +1 food per city. Nice to have, but you can't just spam trade posts and rely on city states any more. They are more a little bonus rather than a core strategy.

- happiness is more important now, as you get more unhappy people per city, less happiness per luxury, and buildings give a bit less happiness. It prevents you spamming everywhere with cities. On the plus side, social policies now have some excellent tools to deal with this. (even the honour tree, which actualy now has some freaking powerful city management options).

Overall, the changes have much improved the game in every way really. I'm not saying its the equal of BTS, but they have added a large amount more depth to the game and opened up more play strategies. The changes to tiles and city improvements make it feel a LOT morel like a civ game now, and sate the builder urges I get when playing these games.

(oh, and wonders seem to be better. Notre Dam used to only give +5 happiness, which was the same as normal building you click get. It now gives +10, and the normal buildings give less).

[Amaron]

Damn that stuff sounds sexy.  City state nerf was sorely needed. Guess it's time to redownload.

[Malakili]

I've been playing it again lately as well, due to one of my friends suggesting I give it another go.  Definitely liking some of the changes.  It doesn't feel  *drastically* different to me, but most things do just feel plain better.  I think I am going to pick up the DLC during the Steam sale.

[WayAbvPar]

Oh good plan. I will likely do the same.

[Mazakiel]

Yeah, those changes sound like they might fix most the issues I had playing the game.  Time for another go at it. 

[Jobu]

How much do you guys trust the advice on where to start cities when you have a new settler? I'm torn between following it, or doing my own thing. I'm never quite sure.

[Merusk]

I use it as a starting point, but then make a final decision based on how big I want the city to be, how close it is to another visible resource I might want and if I need another coastal city or not.   The computer seems (or did at release, I don't know about now) to take resources you can't see into account when making suggestions, but likes crowding cities so you can't use their full spread because you'll be sharing tiles with another city. (A problem that's a Civ tradition now.)   It also seems to like telling me "hey put a city right here.. one tile away from being useful when you need a navy later on."

[Sky]

I'm obsessive about city placement.

[Tannhauser]

Same.  Sometimes tough choices, but I tend to drop them beside a river for the flood plain food bonus so my city will grow faster. 

[Jobu]

I actually alt-tabbed from a game to post that. There was this spot in grassy plains, with lots of hills, a single lake tile, some cows, and two 6 iron deposits. Yet the game told me three settlers in a row to ignore it and go somewhere along a river with a luxury resource I already owned and some horses. I ended up settling in the iron valley anyways, it just really confused me why it would want to ignore such a great production hub.

[Tannhauser]

My Romans would punch through three empires to get to a place like that!

Has anyone else re-started the game again and again looking for that perfect starting city spot?  Uh..me either...

/edit grammar

[Amaron]

I'd hazard to guess they don't even want it to make good city recommendations.  It's only there for late game when you don't really care where the latest city in your massive empire goes.

[Sky]

It's only there for late game when you don't really care where the latest city in your massive empire goes.

DOES NOT COMPUTE

[Malakili]

I'd hazard to guess they don't even want it to make good city recommendations.  It's only there for late game when you don't really care where the latest city in your massive empire goes.

Its there for newbies who don't know anything about city placement.  If you know enough to make a better decision, then make a better decision, pretty simple.  But if you are brand new to Civ and don't have a good idea about how to play, follow it will generally at least prevent you from hosing yourself.

[Jobu]

My Romans wound punch through three empires to get to a place like that!

Has anyone else re-started the game again and again looking for that perfect starting city spot?  Uh..me either...

In Civ 4 (or was it 3?) they actually had a command to re-generate the map instantly without going back through the UI. God I miss that.

[Trippy]

My Romans wound punch through three empires to get to a place like that!

Has anyone else re-started the game again and again looking for that perfect starting city spot?  Uh..me either...

I've regenerated games where I didn't like the starting terrain. More often though what I used to do regularly is blaze through the first set of turns scouting, remember where the best spots are and then start over. I'll also remember where my closest neighbors are and try to "jump ahead" towards them as fast as possible and then "backfill" cities once I've managed to halt my neighbors' expansion towards me.

[Tannhauser]

I do the same.  I put out a few blocking cities then fill in closer to my capital.  I like a 'tidy' empire, so I never do Open Borders until I'm ready.  In Civ 4 if you have ONE square not under your control you can bet your neighbor will plop a town down.  Even if you have massive culture.  It makes me want to drink battery acid.

I like island maps and finding those resource rich islands.  The game is an indifferent sailor so you can really get a jump on many empires this way. 

[Maledict]

Oddly enough that's reminded me of one of my biggest complaints about civ 4 that civ 5 completely fixed - the fact that war in civ 4 ends up being total war due to cultural borders. Whenever you take a city, it's culture drops to 0 and every square around it will just get swallowed by the culture of the empire you're attacking, so in order to keep the cities you conquer alive you have to crush your enemy absolutely.

I like the fact in lciv 5 cities retain their original borders when conquered, it makes more sense and prevents a massive war escalation.

[rk47]

Oddly enough that's reminded me of one of my biggest complaints about civ 4 that civ 5 completely fixed - the fact that war in civ 4 ends up being total war due to cultural borders. Whenever you take a city, it's culture drops to 0 and every square around it will just get swallowed by the culture of the empire you're attacking, so in order to keep the cities you conquer alive you have to crush your enemy absolutely.

I like the fact in lciv 5 cities retain their original borders when conquered, it makes more sense and prevents a massive war escalation.

I'd just raze it and move on. ONWARD TO VICTORY!

[Amaron]

I do the same.  I put out a few blocking cities then fill in closer to my capital.  I like a 'tidy' empire, so I never do Open Borders until I'm ready.  In Civ 4 if you have ONE square not under your control you can bet your neighbor will plop a town down.  Even if you have massive culture.  It makes me want to drink battery acid.

My approach is a bit more brutal.  I put my cities where I want and if someone brings a settler into an area that I see as mine then I torch their entire civilization. 

[Sky]

I'd just raze it and move on. ONWARD TO VICTORY!

What about the effect on the armageddon counter....wait nm 

[CmdrSlack]

FFH2 with hexes and no stacks of doom would be rather nice.

[Merusk]

I concur, Just for the ability to avoid of the goddam Elves and their 20-stacks of Priest of Leaves spamming tigers at my city every goddamn turn.

[Maledict]

Mmm, trying a game on king level as the Aztecs now. Trying to pay to their strengths (I.e. Honour tree, early rushes and farming barbarians) and it's surprisingly effective. You get 12 culture per barbarian unit killed now as the aztecs, which is a *huge* boost for those early policies. Most players have just entered the classical age and I've already maxed out the honour tree (which means I also get unit strength's value in gold for every unit I kill). Am tempted next time to switch 'raging barbarians' on when playing the Aztecs as you can just feed off them amazingly well.

Going to war before I even have a second city is interesting though. Need more captives for the sacrificial alters!