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

[March]

Much improved if you like the City Building and Resource Mongering aspect of CIV... Policies and Techs flowed much, much better.

I definitely do not "power-game" CIV, but I found this patch returned the game to the empire building game that the initial iteration inexplicably had abandoned.

[Malakili]

After getting the DLC I'm loving playing a game as Polynesia on the archipelago map type.  Definitely worth trying if a naval game sounds fun to you.

[WayAbvPar]

Started a few games and played around a bit. Don't remember much about the game at launch, so I can't really tell how much the patches have improved things. Have noticed a couple of new bits like atolls, for instance (they look awesome). Still annoyed by how long it takes my reasonably beefy PC (i7 920, 12gb RAM) to grind through AI turns even early in the game. I like huge maps and lots of opponents, so I guess I get to suffer. Be nice if it was optimized better though.

[Tannhauser]

England can be scary powerful on a naval map.  Otherwise meh.

[Lucas]

12GB of RAM?  And I tought I was above average with six (in a similar vein, I think the latest Steam hardware survey still has 2GB has the most common amount of memory). Sorry for the slight derail.

[Merusk]

Started a few games and played around a bit. Don't remember much about the game at launch, so I can't really tell how much the patches have improved things. Have noticed a couple of new bits like atolls, for instance (they look awesome). Still annoyed by how long it takes my reasonably beefy PC (i7 920, 12gb RAM) to grind through AI turns even early in the game. I like huge maps and lots of opponents, so I guess I get to suffer. Be nice if it was optimized better though.

Weird.  I'm on a dual-core 2.35ghz with 2gb and Win Xp and I don't get grindy early turns.  Takes forever to load initially, but after that no problems.  Hell, even late game it doesn't take much longer than early.

[rk47]

After getting the DLC I'm loving playing a game as Polynesia on the archipelago map type.  Definitely worth trying if a naval game sounds fun to you.

Have they even fixed the naval invasion AI yet? It's really a case of 'auto-win' if you manage to secure an island all by yourself early on, chances are they can never mount a real assault to that place.

[Amaron]

12GB of RAM?  And I tought I was above average with six (in a similar vein, I think the latest Steam hardware survey still has 2GB has the most common amount of memory). Sorry for the slight derail.

You should check it out now.   


The Vram numbers are pretty nice too.   Even the below average steam user is sitting on a computer way better than his Xbox.

[Maledict]

England can be scary powerful on a naval map.  Otherwise meh.

Actually I think England are overpowered on basically any map par Pangea. Even a continents map has a lot of coast room, and at least two continents.

The thing about England is that their archers let them play a very defensive game up until they get their second unique unit, the Ship of the Line, at which point they utterly dominate anything even vaguely *near* the ocean. They are faster, cheaper, stronger and see further than any other unit, and if you go down the commerce tree as well you can end up with ships with speed 9 bombing the crap out of every city near the sea. You can build them much faster than everyone else, they move so fast and can see so far you can pick every battlefield, and they are naturally stronger. To be honest it almost feels like cheating at that point as you just pulverise every coastal city.

I thoug they were very weak and specialised for island maps at first as well, but even continents maps allow them to do stupid stuff. They are definitely an undervalued civ - the ship of the line is probably the best single unique unit in the game to be honest, and certainly no other mid-game or late game unit comes close to how powerful it is in comparison.

[Murgos]

England's bonus to sea movement also applies to embarked units.  So, yeah, how about being able to move slow ground units 5 (or 6 with policy) hexes a turn?  That's some really effective force mobility.

[Maledict]

5 with their unique bonus, 6 with a policy, 7 with the lighthouse. England can drop an army on your doorstep *very* fast.

(I havne't ever had +1 movement for circling the globe so presume that doesn't exist anymore despite the achievement for it).

[rk47]

Didn't mean shit to Alexander.  Best phalanx. Best horsemen. The dude just broke the AI on normal difficulty. I spam Hoplites army with a general in the middle and there's no much the army can do, really. Especially if executed aggressively, Alexander can simply sack the city states, sell the resources for cash, and buy more spears to take on larger civs.

[Amaron]

Ok I finally got around to trying this out again with the new patches.   Is it just me or is the AI still horrible at judging armies?   I was playing Mongol with like 4 horsemen a chariot and  a Kahn and he attacked near my city with like 6~7 warriors  .   I promptly demolished them with hit and run without losing a single unit.    He then bribed me with everything he had to give him peace.

[Ingmar]

Ok I finally got around to trying this out again with the new patches.   Is it just me or is the AI still horrible at judging armies?   I was playing Mongol with like 4 horsemen a chariot and  a Kahn and he attacked near my city with like 6~7 warriors  .   I promptly demolished them with hit and run without losing a single unit.    He then bribed me with everything he had to give him peace.

He may have been resource-screwed and stuck with warriors.

[Merusk]

The AI is still pretty stupid.  It will build the most expensive unit with the highest attack.  This meant that Ghengis was trying to throw Aircraft Carriers at my Battleship/ Destroyer/ Missile Cruiser convoy earlier today.  I crushed him mightily just as I won a Utopia Victory for Egypt. 

[Amaron]

He may have been resource-screwed and stuck with warriors.

Nah he had a ton of horses that he traded to me after he lost.

[Maledict]

I thought I'd try a Pangea map and go for a cultural victory - huge mistake. I'm in second place, with 4 superb cities with everything you could ever want for culture, and 3 full policy trees before turn 250. GReece, on the other hand is at war with the rest of the planet and *winning*. He's ahead massively on tech, has destroyed two civilisations, and is conquering two more. He has literally twice my score at this point. Taking down Riflemen with trebuchets and knights is *not* a fun experience.

The main issue seems to be city states - he's allied with every city state bar one, and they are all piling tons of units into the war. The AIs get too distracted by city states, and instead of going after Greece's undefended flank throw units up against city states to die pointlessly. Next pass at the AI they need to re-prioritise their targets in warfare - they absolutely need to prioritise city states less.

[Paelos]

City states broke the game. It make it unplayable.

[Pennilenko]

You can turn city states off.

[Tannhauser]

True, and I have done that, but friendship with city-states is about the only long term advantage Greece has.  Greece is the
'burst dps' race in Civ V.

[Amaron]

Play as Mongolia where your job is to destroy city states!

[Maledict]

City states broke the game. It make it unplayable.

City states are fine now in terms of balance. They give a small bonus, but it is nothing at all like it was at launch. Generally I enjoy them in the game - they give extra flavour and challenge. In this game though they don't work. Greece is the only empire interested in allying with them, the other AIs didn't bother, so he literally  has all the city states bar one as allies. Combine that with the AI prioritising them too high and it's a real issue.

Greece isn't strong in my game because of the bonuses from city states, he's strong because he's allied with almost every single One and they contribute massive armies that just confuse the hell out of the other AIs. I presume if Siam or Gandhi were playing this wouldn't be an issue as they could fight over the city states, but as it is every other nation is a warmonger or Egypt.

[Merusk]

City-States are awesome for empire-builders like myself.  I always have this huge surplus of gold, because I enjoy building very few high-pop and diversified cities with a small army.  The CSs give me satellite nations to surround myself with as a buffer.  1k Gold every 30+ turns to keep them happy is nothing when your empire is making 75+ a turn in the medieval era.

I can see how, if you're a more aggressive player, they'd really piss you off, though.

[Maledict]

I think to be honest my issue is about the greeks more than anything.  Alexander is a warlike leader who also allies with city states very easily. On a Pangea map he has endless targets to pick, and what basically happened was:

Went to war with a small civ
Took a couple of cities with his extra powerful unique units
Used the gold he got from winning to buy city state alliances ultra cheaply
Used the city state alliances to win more wars
Got more cash to buy more city states

It's basically a feedback loop. Alexanders really strong starting units got him started, and then the more he allied the more wars he won, which meant he allied more and then won more wars. No civ should be in a position to have 15 out of 16 city states allied with them by turn 200 which is the case in my game. I don't really know how you could stop it though, beyond improving the AI of other civ's so they don't prioritise taking out pointless city states in wars but instead focus on the source - I.e. Alexander.

[Murgos]

City states broke the game. It make it unplayable.

City states are fine now in terms of balance.

I disagree.  City states, with very little effort give you far too much power.  Looking for a military win?  City states can hook you up.  Looking for a cultural victory?  There are city states for you.  Just want a happy, well fed population while you grow?  City states are the answer.  And with the right policies they don't even cost that much.

The idea of City states unbalances the game.  If you balance the techs and resources for no city states then any use of city states quickly pushes you into overpoweredness.  If you balance the game for city states then NOT having them pushes you into a weekend state.  It becomes a game of city state management.

Mostly I play with only 1 or 2 of them in the game so that they are interesting rather than critical not the enormous amount given you by default.

[Ingmar]

I think they're the best new feature in the game - I'm very happy with the idea that there's an extra thing to manage there, it raises diplomacy to a level of importance that I think was always missing from the non-SMAC Civ games.

[rk47]

'u give gold?'

'yay! u giev gold, we fren!'

 

The whole economic model stinks. It's like those city states literally used magic to conjure up ANYTHING whether it's culture, military, or resources. It never made any sense for UN victory to be based on alliance with these smaller nations too. It was all about buying everyone's loyalty up till you get the wonder if you want the UN victory. This isn't diplomacy, it's just straight up 'Economic Victory' where the civ with most gold will win.

Maritime CS in the start,  giving food to EVERY SINGLE CITY you had was also my main gripe. How the fuck did that work? I can't even use one of my cities to do that, yet these smaller nations can feed my 30 cities, no problem.

The best new feature is still the single unit per tile. And that's that. CS is an idea that didn't work at all due to how the game and players treat it. It's not an alliance, it's just a resource node without the hassle of unhappiness and growing a town over it which you magically convert to your side with gold.

[Ingmar]

UN Victory has always been retarded in *every* version of Civ. That's just a sacred cow that needs slaughtering, nothing to do with city-states.

[Malakili]

My problem with city - states are that they are basically an attempt to add quests to Civ.  I don't want quests in my Civ.  If they acted more as a direction of stuff that might be useful for newer players or something, that'd be neat.  Or maybe just acted as weak 1 city civs without conferring as many bonuses, but would still be worth having as allies, etc.   Instead I end up feeling like "Sigh, gotta help out these fuckers or else I'm going to wish I had later"

I liked them more on release than I do now, to be honest, but maybe that was just the new shiny talking back then.

[naum]

I dislike the city states feature -- to me, it's just a gimmick in lieu of addressing other facets -- i.e., religion…

[Paelos]

I think they're the best new feature in the game - I'm very happy with the idea that there's an extra thing to manage there, it raises diplomacy to a level of importance that I think was always missing from the non-SMAC Civ games.

What management? You pay them off. It's not like you're working out the Versailles treaty because they are in the game.

I think they suck as implemented. I'd rather see meaningful religion in the game over them since it's actually a huge part of what drives real Civs.

[Maledict]

Civ is never going to be able to tackle "meaningful religion" though - it's just too much of a hot topic. Look at how civ 4 ended up doing it - it boiled down to picking one of your neighbours religions, allying with them and the entire world going to war with the other faiths. I *hated* the fact that my religion mattered more than anything else with regards to how the AI picked its friends and enemies.

That's not to say they shouldn't aim for it in civ 5, just that it's by no means easy and civ 4, in the end, really missed the mark on it.

Re. City state power - sorry but they just aren't that great now. In the game I outlined above allying with a cultural civ cost 750 gold and gave me a whopping 12 culture a turn. That's tiny by that point in the game. A maritime civ at ally status gives 1 extra food to each city in the end game - again, a nice little perk but tiny overall and nothing like the bonuses they gave at the start when you could run an entire empie off maritime civ's and just drop trade posts everywhere. I agree that the fact that dumping gold into them shouldn't be the default, and easiest way, to make friends with them - but then I haven't seen a lot of the old requests they used to give out either recently. Connecting roads, building wonders, discovering natural wonders and getting great people seem incredibly rare compared to what they were at launch. Now more than ever they just seem to be gold dumps. Gold should be the little extra that pushes you over the top, not the entirety of city states.

[Paelos]

Civ is never going to be able to tackle "meaningful religion" though - it's just too much of a hot topic.

Total War seems to have grasped it with Medieval. Christians vs. Islamic hordes calling out Crusades and Jihads on towns with reckless abandon. I think Civ is being a bunch of pussies by ignoring it. They are a game, not some sort of government agency. They need to get over themselves.

[Sky]

Meaningful religions in Civ. What a novel idear.

[CmdrSlack]

Is that some mod for Civ 4 or something? Is it new?