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RagnarokAngel: Oct 5, 2006; Do not engage or respond to me, as I am an insufferable prick. I love posting about posting or posters, rather than actual content. But it's cool because I'm smarter than you and have the correct opinion on every matter.

Civilization V: Brave New World Pre-Release Hype Thread
What�s Civilization V?
Civilization V is the newest entry in the over two decade long Civilization series, where you control a real-world civilization from 4000 B.C. discovering how to make pots, to the near-future of 2050 A.D. fighting with nukes and artillery. While playing the game you�re trying to reach one of the game�s preset victory conditions before your opponents, in order to make �A civilization to stand the test of time.�
What�s new in Civilization V from Civ 4?
Civilization V is host to a lot of new features that make it a rather different game from Civ 4.
Disclaimer: Note that not all of these features are very popular. Some are poorly implemented or just in general bad ideas. Depending on who you are you be able to overlook it.

Hexes � Civ 5 threw out the square-based tile system of earlier Civilization games and uses hexes. This allows for more organic looking continents and avoids the often ugly looking �Fat cross� and 1-2-1 movement of units on square tiles.
No Unit Stacking � Civilization V lets you only stack one unit per tile. Well, technically two, you can put one civilian (Settler, Worker, etc.) per tile and one military unit to protect it. This removes the �Stack of doom� gameplay that dominated Civ 4.
Ranged Military Units � Some military units, like archers or artillery, are ranged. This means they can hit a target up to 2 spaces away (Assuming there�s nothing blocking their view like mountains), and will take no damage in return. This is great for softening up enemy units and cities before going in for the kill with your melee units.
Embarkment � Once you research the right tech, your units can now go on water without needing dedicated transport ships. However they�re unable to fight back when doing this, so you must keep dedicated naval units to protect it. In the expansion, embarked units now offer some resistance however it still isn't as good as a dedicated ship.
No Religion or Spies � These features were removed because the developers (at the time) seemed to think gameplay would be better without them. These were added back into the expansion, Gods and Kings.
No Tech Trading � Presumably because it was too easy to exploit the dumb AI, you can no longer directly trade techs, but secure �Research agreements�, which involve dumping some money down up front, in order to receive a huge chunk of bonus research down the line.
Fully Voice Acted Leader Scenes � Civ 5 uses absolutely gorgeous full screen graphics in leader scenes where the leader will speak to you in their native tongue. Even civilizations who spoke languages that are long dead.
Happiness is now nation-wide � Instead of individual city happiness you now have a set number which is based on how many cities you have, how big their population is, and various modifiers from �luxury� resources like wine or incense.
Culture is now different � While culture does control your borders, borders will increase one tile at a time instead of extending out all at the same time in the �Fat cross� formation. The real use of culture now is to buy into �social policies�. MMORPG like �skill trees� that grant passive benefits to your empire. The more cities you have the more it costs to buy a new social policy, so smaller empires will grab more than big ones.
City-States � City States are single city �minor� civilizations who aren�t trying to win the game. You can pay them cash or fulfill �quests� to get their favor, and they will reward you with resources, units, culture and other things.
Resources are limited � Instead of granting you unlimited iron, horses etc. resources now give you a set amount. Since units that use resources are often more powerful than units that don�t in the same era, you must strategically make use of what�s given to you.
Roads and Railroads now cost upkeep � You must pay upkeep on each tile roads occupy, requiring you to make the most of a few roads rather than covering every tile in them.
Changes in victories � There are 4 victory types, some work slightly different from their Civ 4 versions.
Cultural � Won now by completing 5 Social Policy tracks, and then building the �Utopia Project�.
Diplomacy � Won by building the United Nations and having city states vote for you in an election. Major civs no longer vote.
Domination � Now to win you must capture all opponents capitals, not all their cities. While a civilization isn�t knocked out of the game by losing their capital, they cannot win until they get it back.
Science � Pretty much the same as it was before. Fill in the tech tree, build spaceship parts, go to Alpha Centauri.

Who can I play as?
In the base game you have access to the following 18 (technically 19, see dlc section below) civilization and leaders:

Is this game good yet?/Should I buy this or Civ 4?
OK this is where it gets tricky. For an AAA title with a lot of critical acclaim, Civ 5 has a lot of problems. I personally love the game through its flaws but it�s sometimes VERY hard to love it. I want to give an unbiased look at many of the problems people have with it. This isn�t an attempt to defend them, just give some context.

Bad AI � The AI in this game isn�t, technically speaking, worse than Civ 4. However it has some issues. Namely that it�s A. More opportunistic and B. Not very good at using game mechanics. The AI still has different "personalities" like in Civ 4, but is more willing to take advantage of a player lacking an army to defend themselves, which can make it seem like you're always dealing with backstabbing "friends". The other problem is it�s not very good at game mechanics. Civ 5 introduced hexes and one unit per tile, in an attempt to offer more strategic gameplay. The AI doesn�t always know how to use these and will try and siege you with very poorly equipped armies, get slaughtered and peace out, wasting everyone's time.
The good news is that the expansion, Gods and Kings, does a lot to fix this. It's still not perfect but the AI generally is a lot more rational and doesn't hold grudges till the end of the game over trivial things you did early on.
Too much DLC � This is a can of worms that stretches across the entire video game community, whether or not we�re being cheated from the �full game� by DLC. I�m not going to defend this because most of you have made up your mind on whether or not DLC is �good� or not, but the GOTY edition of Civ 5 includes most of the DLC.
No SDK � At launch modding was extremely limited, and it's actually still more limited than most would like. However time has improved things and theres actually a decent modding community out there, and the game supports steam workshop, making finding mods easier.
Streamlining leads to busted game mechanics � A lot of mechanics from Civ 4 were streamlined to be easier for casual gamers to get into. The most infamous is �universal empire happiness� where instead of Happiness being on a per city basis, it applies to the whole empire. This causes a bunch of weird poo poo to happen like when you capture a city, they�re unhappy for being occupied. However this drags down your entire empire�s happiness, because happiness is universal. This problem stretches to many of the game mechanics like maintenance.
It�s just boring � The game is missing some mechanics from civ 4 that spiced up the non-warring parts, like religion. This can make the game drag if you�re not in a war. Gods and Kings as promised does round out the "lack of stuff to do" problem.
Poor Performance � This is iffy but basically Civ 5 is not terribly well equipped to deal with large maps. It�s much much better than it was at launch, but late game games slow down a lot and most people don�t play on anything larger than standard size because then it takes too long between turns.
Multiplayer doesn't work - Multiplayer simply sucks right now. It's done in simultaneous turns (with no option for turn based), you can't use DLC unless every other player has it. It used to be plagued with network issues that have since been fixed.

So should you buy this or Civ 4? I�ve painted a pretty bleak picture of the game but the game is the sum of its parts. Despite its flaws I�ve sunk many many hours into this game still play, and many people in this thread say the same thing. If you�ve played Civ 4 to death this may not be your thing, but on the other hand it might be, if you want something new. New players will likely be able to overlook these flaws. Either way there�s a demo, and the game goes on sale a lot, so you can pick it up cheap. For

or whatever it�s hard to say it wasn�t worth it. The game is steamworks so even if you buy it amazon it can be registered to steam.

Goddamnit I've seen this opening cinematic so many times I can recite it by memory why can't I skip it?
It's a disguised loading screen, find UserSettings.ini in My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 5, look for "SkipIntroVideo = 0" and change the 0 to a 1. You'll get a black screen now, but at least it's not Morgan Sheppard monolouging for the umpteenth time.
Patch fixed this, now it can be changed in the options menu AND there's an actual loading screen instead of just black. Spiffy!

I've played the tutorial and while I understand how to play, I don't understand how to win. Are there any guides or tutorials?
I want to collect a couple of good Tutorials here for people. In general the recommended advice is to look up youtube videos of people playing on Deity. Whatever works on Deity will work even better on lower difficulties.

Tabarnak's Tradition 4 Cities Opening - An important key to victory is getting a good start, and that means spreading out early, which can be tricky. This guide gives a really solid opening that sets you up to play any victory you want. However, don't just copy the steps, understand why the author does what he does, because adapting to a different map is an important skill for Civilization.

Other good tips:

Expand Early - It can be hard to do so early on because you have so few hammers but more cities mean you're putting out more units at a time. While you shouldn't go overboard, settling early means cities have more time to grow and you get better picks of the land.
The AI will pay you for stuff - It's tempting to just trade resources for resources but that's not always neccesary. Assume the AI doesn't hate you and has the cash, they will pony up 240 gold for a luxury resource or 50 gold for open borders. In the early game this is huge, so take advantage of it! Even if it's your last luxury resource, do it if the happiness hit wont kill you. Buying up some settlers can be a big help.
Settling on top of a luxury resource grants that resource - Assuming you have the tech, settling on top of some silver will get you access to that silver. This is good because it saves you several turns trying to harvest it, so you can sell it to the AI as quickly as possible.
Keep a standing army - It's easy to forget this. Even if youre going for a peaceful game, keep a standing army. The AI can smell weakness. On the defensive you have the advantage so you can win with a much smaller army than they would need to take your city. Keep your army stationed to ward off any wanna be conquerors.
Stay focused yet flexible - Finally, keep in mind your victory early on. What do you need to do to win? Civilization is a balancing act, in a science victory you need a lot of science sure, and you should keep that as your priority, but you also need to balance that with a solid army and a good economy. Try not to spread yourself too thin by building every building in every city. Focus on what you absolutely need to have right now. And remember to adapt, if wars on the horizon, there's no shame in slowing your research a bit in order to crank out a small militia.

The AI hates me and I don't understand why. What did I do wrong?
Users Eric the Mauve and Chronojam made some very lovely effort posts detailing all the modifiers that affects AI diplomacy. You can find them here and here.

The most common mistake people make is wiping out a civ. If you commit genocide the world community (generally) frowns on that, so don't do it. Leave them one shithole city in the rear end end of nowhere if you have to, they're generally not a threat anymore if you take their capital, but don't wipe them out. Other stuff, like border disputes, are often inevitable and that's why you must always prepare for war.

I heard this game has a ton of DLC. Is it worth it?
Yes and no. The DLC runs the gauntlet from brand new leaders (who are also fully voice acted and integrated into the game) to preset maps (who the hell even uses these?). Whether or not you should get them is up to you, but most say �get the leaders on sale if you think they�ll be fun for your play style�. The included scenarios with leaders are hit or miss with people. Some are really great, some less so. They probably won�t be the main selling point, but are a nice bonus. Every Civ DLC includes a scenario except Babylon.

Note however that while you can use DLC in multiplayer (except Explorer's Map Pack), you can only do this if everyone owns it.

The Gold Edition includes all the DLC and the Gods & Kings Expansion pack
Available DLC :
(Images link to their steam store page)

$4.99
Babylon � Nebuchadnezzar II
Originally free with the Digital Deluxe edition of the game Nebuchadnezzar II is a technology driven Leader who can outpace nearly every other civ. He used to be a lot more powerful to a hilariously broken degree but has been toned down. Still quite powerful.

Mongolia
Free
Mongolia � Genghis Khan
This civilization was given out for free to everyone who purchased the game. It will already be added to your account when you buy the game, no need to actually buy it. Mongolia focuses on horse based armies and the included scenario lets you play the Mongolian conquest of China, though on higher difficulties the scenario ranges from extremely difficult to impossible due to changes in horse units being able to attack cities.

$7.49
Spain � Isabella
And
Inca � Pachacuti
Two civilizations for the price of�well, one and a half. Despite the increased price tag this is a good pack. The Inca civilization is really great for hilly regions, with their hill farm. Spain�s ability is either really great or really crappy. It depends on whether you manage to find natural wonders first or not. The conquistador is a knight that can found cities when on another continent. Spiffy!
The included Scenario is my personal favorite. It lets you play the European conquest of America from 1492 to 1592. What makes the scenario so interesting is you can play as the Europeans (Spain, England or France) or the Native Americans (Iroquois, Aztecs or Inca). The European map is static and always resembles its historical appearance, but the New World is randomized every time. Europeans have a tech advantage but Native Americans have more cities to begin with. It�s well thought out and different every time.
NOTE: Due to requiring Spain in one of the included Scenarios in Gods and Kings, Isabella is a bonus civilization with Gods and Kings, so if you have no interest in the Inca or the included Scenario, it might be wise to just skip this.

$4.99
Polynesia � Kamehameha
Kamehameha is an absolute beast on water based maps. His units can embark before researching the necessary tech, his Moai unique building improves the defense of your units on the shore, and he generates a ton of culture. Playing as Polynesia on an archipelago map is almost cheating.
The included scenario has you playing one of 4 Polynesian civilizations, trying to become the dominant cultural powerhouse by unlocking all the social policies first, with no penalty for having many cities like the base game. It also included a modified tech tree. One of my personal favorites.

Cradles of Civilization Map Pack
$2.99 per map, $9.99 bundled together.
Avoid. Nobody ever uses preset maps in Civilization so why start now? These were originally pre-order bonuses and they�re not particularly great. Again, avoid.

Denmark � Harald Bluetooth
$4.99. $7.49 when bundled with the Explorer�s map pack.
Vikings!

Actually I�ll be honest this is my least favorite of the DLC civs. The Vikings as one would expect are good for war, war and more war, and I�m not a warring player. If you DO enjoy Civ 5�s warfare this might be up your alley though.
The included scenario is kinda lackluster. About the 1066 English war with Norway you basically are just fighting to conquer England before the AI and secure the throne.
Personally, this is the last civ you should be buying, if you do, definitely go for the Denmark and Explorer�s Combo Pack

$4.99. $7.49 when bundled with the Denmark Civilization.
This is surprisingly really good. It includes 5 new preset maps, but we don�t care about those. The real meat of this DLC is the new generators. Specifically Continents Plus and Pangaea Plus. These are improved algorithms to Vanilla�s continents and Pangaea maps that will add little islands off the coast. Generally recommended, get the Denmark and Explorer�s Combo Pack to save a few bucks/cents (assuming you want Denmark of course). Does not work in multiplayer.

Korea � Sejong
$4.99, $7.49 when bundled with Wonders of the Ancient World
King Sejong the Great is a technology power house, though his method is different from Nebuchadnezzar II. He gets more research from science buildings and great person improvements. Overall not quite as powerful as Babylon but I still really like the civ. Their military units are really fun too.
The scenario is the Japanese invasion of Korea. You can play as either China, Korea, Japan or Manchu. China and Korea are locked in a permanent alliance, but Japan has the military advantage to start. The game ends either when China/Korea push Japan off the mainland, or whoever has the highest score when time runs out. Can buy in the Korea and Wonders of the Ancient World - Combo Pack.

$4.99, $7.49 when Bundled with Korea
This pack contains 3 new wonders you can build, as the name implies, in the ancient world: The Temple of Artemis, The Statue of Zeus, and The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Pretty well balanced and not a bad purchase.
The included scenario lets you try and be one of 4 ancient civilizations to own the most of the 9 in-game wonders of the ancient world, either by building them first or conquering other cities who built them. The research speed is very heavily slowed down to keep things firmly locked in the ancient era, medieval at best. I really enjoy this scenario because there�s many ways to approach it so it doesn�t get stale. Can be purchased in the Korea and Wonders of the Ancient World - Combo Pack.

MODS
Civilization V supports mods and steam workshop but it can be sort of confusing to know what to get. I personally don't play Civ 5 with mods so I'm a bad authority on what is "Essential" but these are ones that people have suggested. Note that mods disable Achievements, if you care about that sort of thing

Historical Religions
Leonard Nimoy Civ 4 Quotes

Expansion Content

Gods and Kings is Civilization V�s first expansion and mostly adds in features that people missed from Civilization 4, and some other stuff. Some choice new things:

Religion and Espionage are back � Yep, two features sorely lacking are back completely redesigned.
Religions are no longer just a diplomacy modifier. Now they are designed from the ground up with many passive traits to boost your civilization, earned with the new �Faith� points system.
Spies are completely different from Civ 4. They are not units, but a menu where you control up to 3 spies and send them on missions to sabotage other civs or city-states.
9 New Civilizations
Austria - Maria Theresa
Byzantium � Theodora
Carthage � Dido
Celtic � Boudica
Ethiopia - Haile Selassie
Huns � Atilla
Mayans � Pacal
Netherlands � William I
Sweden - Gustavus Adolphus
27 New units
9 new wonders
Alhambra
CN Tower
The Great Firewall
Great Mosque of Djenne
Hidden City of Petra
Hubble Space Telescope
Leaning Tower of Pisa
Neuschwanstein Castle
Terracotta Army
Plus an additional national wonder, The National Intelligence Agency
New City States To fit with the new religion mechanic, new �religious� city states are being added that give bonus faith for being allied, and Merchant city states, which give special luxury wonders (like jewelry) you cannot get otherwise, making them very valuable.
Revised tech tree General housekeeping is being done to reorder the tech tree, some old units require different techs than before, new units are slotted in and certain eras that previously went by quickly now go on for longer.
Better AI Turns out this one was (mostly) true. While still not perfect, the AI will flake on you from time to time, it seems to be a lot better both at not holding grudges for quite so long and knowing how to use ranged units better, and how to properly retreat.

Gods and Kings is out now in all regions.

Should I get this/Does it fix Civ 5?
The consensus basically a "yes". This of course isn't universal, as no opinion is, and if you absolutely hated Civ 5 this probably isn't going to win you over. However if you already enjoyed Civ 5, Gods and Kings only makes the game better. The addition of religion is well thought out and integrated into the game. It probably will get nerfed in the future for balance reasons but for the most part it's surprisingly well implemented.
Spies are less exciting but the implementation is still really sound. They just lack a lot to do, especially if you're in a tech lead. But they still add a lot of non warfare nuance to the game and doesn't actively ruin it, so either way it's not a step back.
The AI fixes are subtle but seem to be there, whether it's new game hype we still have to see but so far people have actively noticed that the AI leaders are less spiteful about minor transgressions, and the annoying "Trying to win the game the same way as us" negative modifier is completely gone.
In terms of warfare, they try and use their ranged units in an intelligent manner rather than run their archers out into the open, and even make a tactical retreat if prudent.
So if you enjoyed Civ 5 already, this is a no-brainer. It improves the game on every level and doesn't detract from what's already there. If you were ambivalent and just couldn't get over some niggling complaints, wait for a sale, Gods and Kings might just be enough to convert you

Brave New World is the second expansion to Civilization V. This one focuses more on world diplomacy. Features include:

Updated Culture System - The culture system is being completely reworked. With strong culture you can influence other nations, even changing their ideologies from hardcore capitalism to glorious egalitarian communism or nationalistic pride. The cultural victory is also being scrapped, no longer can you just sit in your own corner and build cultural wonders till you are the winner. You have to get out there and make your civilizations culture be known.
Updated Diplomacy: World Congress - An atttempt at fixing the lacking diplomacy of Civilization V, the world congress is a meeting of the nations to decide on matters that affect the entire world (And allow you to screw over nations you don't like). Feel a nation is getting too big? Vote on a trade sanction against them, or convince people the next World Games should be in your country.
International Trade Routes - Possibly the most controversial new system but certainly an interesting one. You can send caravans out to other nations to share gold and resources, and will also affect the spread of science and religion with neighboring nations. You can also disrupt the trade of civilizations you're at war with by attacking the caravans.
Additionally domestic trade will be added, you can send caravans from your major cities to supply food or production to other cities, helping kickstart a small new colony or fuel production of a wonder in your capital.
9 New Civilizations So far we know of
Poland - Casimir III
Assyria - Ashurbanipal
Brazil - Pedro II
Zulu - Shaka
Portugal - Maria I
Indonesia - Gajah Mada
Morocco - Ahmad al-Mansur
8 New Wonders We currently know 7:
Borobudur
Broadway
The Globe Theater
The Motherland Calls
The Parthenon
The Uffizi
International Space Station
2 New Scenarios -
War Between The States - Play as the union or the confederacy in the American Civil War.
Scramble for Africa - The international powers are attempting to colonize Africa. The rest of the world will be static while Africa will be randomly generated each game, much like the Quest For The New World scenario in the Spain/Inca Pack. Presumably you'll be playing as either a European power or African civs trying to repel the invaders.

Brave New World is planned July 9th, 2013 release in the US/Canada, July 12th everywhere else. As with Gods and Kings keep checking Well of Souls for any new information.

RagnarokAngel fucked around with this message at May 17, 2013 around 15:11

# ? Apr 6, 2012 22:56

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 18, 2013 11:50

Mercury Crusader: Apr 20, 2005; 「ダブル超電磁ロボの必殺技,
見せてやるぜ!」

I'd be satisfied if they made the AI for combat better. Kind of boring when half the time your enemies arrange their armies in a way that the ranged units are taking point and the melee units are right behind them unable to do anything.

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:13

Zoolooman: Mar 30, 2003

Looking forward to the expansion *if* it resolves some longstanding issues with the play experience. Fingers crossed in anticipation. :>

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:19

Quodio Stotes: Aug 8, 2010; by angerbot

Since the new thread opened immediately after my reply

Quodio Stotes posted:

Awesome. Ethiopia is a really cool addition. The defense bonuses make sense. Ethipoia was one of the few african states to stave off colonial invasion during the scramble for africa. My great grandfather actually became a coptic priest and befriended sellase and many times was part of his entourage when taveling.

bpower posted:

Thats the most intriguing sentence I've read in quite a while. Can you tell us a bit more?

I don't know enough about the man, but he was a missionary attempting to convert locals in Egypt and Ethiopia to his brand of Christianity which I believe was protestantism and eventually converted to become a Copt himself. He gained a deal of prominence by writing ferverishly, gaining clout in the coptic church, and being an oddity as an American Copt. My great grandfather was rather mercurial but well read. He was not a criminal, but very eccentric. His main feat was helping Haile Selassie in his meeting with Roosevelt. He helped broker the meeting and traveled with selassie at points. Bringing this back up really makes me want to investigate more as I don't know enough, but I have a whole stack of his writings ranging from religious musings to the realm of international politics. I'm not calling him nostradamus but his writings are from the 30s mainly and they predict a lot of events and how they would play out especially relating to WW2. All my great grandfathers have weirdly interesting tales ranging from a vaudeville actor who performed with houdini to a silent movie piano player. A lot of interesting guys.

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:21

Tithin Melias: Nov 14, 2003; This message brought to you by the ancient and honorable guild of arseholes.

It's worth mentioning that both the "great firewall" and national spy agency are national wonders, not world wonders and can be built by every civ.

edit on another note, it'd be very interesting to see what they're going to do to the mongols based on their treatment of the huns.

Tithin Melias fucked around with this message at Apr 6, 2012 around 23:38

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:23

Davincie: Jul 7, 2008; Kies mij!

Hey Quodio, if you know any historians or have a history department nearby I'm 100% sure you would get help sifting through his writings and a very happy historian.

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:25

Quodio Stotes: Aug 8, 2010; by angerbot

Davincie posted:

Hey Quodio, if you know any historians or have a history department nearby I'm 100% sure you would get help sifting through his writings and a very happy historian.

Yea, I'm close to rutgers but the thought never crossed my mind. I really do need to do some more personal research first but that's a good idea. Wild guy, he helped spur my interest in Ethiopia and the coptic religion.

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:43

Phobophilia: Apr 26, 2008; Suffer this Terrible curse!

Here lemme post a shitload of words.

RagnarokAngel posted:

[*]Hexes � Civ 5 threw out the square-based tile system of earlier Civilization games and uses hexes. This allows for more organic looking continents and avoids the often ugly looking �Fat cross� and 1-2-1 movement of units on square tiles.

Only unambiguously good decision.

quote:

[*]No Unit Stacking � Civilization V lets you only stack one unit per tile. Well, technically two, you can put one civilian (Settler, Worker, etc.) per tile and one military unit to protect it. This removes the �Stack of doom� gameplay that dominated Civ 4.

Bad, because it replaces with stack of doom with the carpet of doom. At least stacks can be easily group-selected and moved around.

quote:

[*]Ranged Military Units � Some military units, like archers or artillery, are ranged. This means they can hit a target up to 2 spaces away (Assuming there�s nothing blocking their view like mountains), and will take no damage in return. This is great for softening up enemy units and cities before going in for the kill with your melee units.

Alas, the AI can't handle it properly.

quote:

[*]Embarkment � Once you research the right tech, your units can now go on water without needing dedicated transport ships. However they�re unable to fight back when doing this, so you must keep dedicated naval units to protect it. This is changing in the expansion.

Broken, running down embarked units insta-kill them, and the AI loves leaving them unguarded and vulnerable.

quote:

[*]No Religion or Spies � These features were removed because the developers (at the time) seemed to think gameplay would be better without them. This seems to be changing with the expansion (See the Gods and Kings section in the next post).

Fair enough, spies are hard to implement, and delaying their release until it can be properly nailed down was a decent idea. Same with religion, it should be only one element amongst many.

quote:

[*]No Tech Trading � Presumably because it was too easy to exploit the dumb AI, you can no longer directly trade techs, but secure �Research agreements�, which involve dumping some money down up front, in order to receive a huge chunk of bonus research down the line.

Tech brokering was somewhat broken strategy, as proper tech trading was overly crucial to high level play. There was no better way of generating beakers than specialising down the path less travelled, and trading those techs to high level AI with huge research bonuses. At least you could turn off brokering or trading. However. Research agreements are even more broken. Tech trading only gave you access to techs other people had, and they usually didn't want to trade them away as soon as they got them. RAs give techs that no one else has. High level Civ5 play is absolutely dominated by RAs.

quote:

[*]Fully Voice Acted Leader Scenes � Civ 5 uses absolutely gorgeous full screen graphics in leader scenes where the leader will speak to you in their native tongue. Even civilizations who spoke languages that are long dead.

Utterly pointless, because the voice actors say nothing of value. The resources were better spent on development and testing.

quote:

[*]City-States � City States are single city �minor� civilizations who aren�t trying to win the game. You can pay them cash or fulfill �quests� to get their favor, and they will reward you with resources, units, culture and other things.

Bad, because city states are boring and there is no meaningful interaction. They were added late in development and was never properly tested.

quote:

[*]Resources are limited � Instead of granting you unlimited iron, horses etc. resources now give you a set amount. Since units that use resources are often more powerful than units that don�t in the same era, you must strategically make use of what�s given to you.

No real problems with this, other than the fact that someone with 6 irons is going to have a mix of strong bruiser units like swords, and crucial units like catapults. Someone with 2 irons is going to be badly nerfed in any conflict. Not a huge issue though, you just have to be more aggressive grabbing iron, and slowing down your resource grab can be a legitimate trade-off.

quote:

[*]Roads and Railroads now cost upkeep � You must pay upkeep on each tile roads occupy, requiring you to make the most of a few roads rather than covering every tile in them.

This is hilarious because half the reason they did this was because they thought road spam was ugly in Civ4 (and it often was). Now... it's even more ugly. Not to mention that this, plus 1upt, means you will get traffic jams *everywhere*, and you'll have to babysit your units every single loving turn. Not to mention a large redundant road network is crucial to defend your territory, and now you're basically punished for playing this correctly.

quote:

[*]Changes in victories � There are 4 victory types, some work slightly different from their Civ 4 versions.
Cultural � Won now by completing 5 Social Policy tracks, and then building the �Utopia Project�.
Diplomacy � Won by building the United Nations and having city states vote for you in an election. Major civs no longer vote.
Domination � Now to win you must capture all opponents capitals, not all their cities. While a civilization isn�t knocked out of the game by losing their capital, they cannot win until they get it back.
Science � Pretty much the same as it was before. Fill in the tech tree, build spaceship parts, go to Alpha Centauri.
[/list]

Cultural has problems, it locks out heavily expanding civs out of that victory. Last capital standing isn't great as it's too easy to cheese, you shouldn't be winning that way unless you are truly dominating the world. Diplomatic is broken, it's basically an economic victory, stockpile gold, sell tons of luxuries and excess strategics for AI with high level gold bonuses, press butan, win.

Regarding gold, there is something you didn't really elaborate on. There is no more research:wealth slider, all citizens naturally generate +1 beakers,and gold comes from luxury tiles, trading posts and rivers. In Civ4, a 1 beaker is equivalent to 1 gold. The ratio changes as you build research and gold multipliers, but the principle stands, if you want to accumulate gold for whatever reason, you can turn down the slider and temporarily sacrifice research, and if you have accumulated gold, you can turn up the slider and gain more beakers. Running 100% science for 5 turns and 100% gold for 5 turns, is the same as running 50% science for 10 turns.

So fair enough, no more slider is a decent streamlining. It means you accumulate gold, and you can choose to spend it on whatever. But. It means the AI also accumulates gold, and you can sell them things they don't need. This means that high level play relies on bilking the AI out of all their money, so you can spend it better. This is exploitative as hell, as you can sell luxuries and turn them into units, city state alliances, and beakers via research agreements.

The prevalence of rush-buying is also bad, as so many uses of gold means it is far too liquid. That means if you have a decent cashflow (especially in the late game), you can settle a junk city on another continent and rushbuy a constant stream of units out of it, even if that city has absolutely zero infrastucture or tile improvements. That's just not right, a city had better be able to stand on its own feet if wants to to contribute to the war effort. The usual life cycle of a city in Civ4 is a maintenance drag, until it grows via its food resource onto several improved tiles, and only then does it contribute to your empire.

And here is another issue, tile improvements in Civ5 suck. Improvements add barely anything to their yields, meaning you de-prioritise workers. The fun of Civ4 is finding some really good land, settling it before someone else does, and rapidly developing it into a powerhouse city generating tons of hammers or beakers.

# ? Apr 6, 2012 23:56

TheOtherContraGuy: Jul 4, 2007; YOUNG, DUMB AND FULL OF BIOWARE'S CUM

I obviously have some kind of crippling social anxiety and cannot seem to relate to human beings on any sort of emotional or intellectual level!

I GOT A HEBREW TATTOO BEFORE THEY WERE COOL

Is it kosher to talk about Civ IV in this thread? I'm one of those people who played Civ IV too much to jump to V.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:03

Zoolooman: Mar 30, 2003

Let this thread be about V.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:11

Red Crown: Oct 20, 2008

I want Gods and Kings to make this game more Civilization centric and not...war and war preparation. If you aren't at war there isn't a whole hell of a lot to really do in Civ V. Then again, I loved waging wars of annihilation because the AIs are so god damned psychotic. It's like I've got 8 ex-girlfriends bitching at me.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:16

Blunt Force Trauma: Mar 16, 2008; No one gives a fuck about shit.
So fuck your shit.
We fuck shit up,
Cause shit's fucked anyway.
Shit is run in to the ground.

I don't wanna think about it,
I just wanna get down.

I never liked the religion system in Civ IV, in fact I don't think I've ever really liked any implementation of religion in a strategy game like this (i.e. Shogun 2), so I'm kind of sad that it's the major focus of the first expansion for Civ V. It always just felt like an unnecessary road block in regards to diplomacy and I would much rather have diplomacy expanded in directions other than "Same religion: friends, different religion: probably not friends".

I still don't like Civ V as much as Civ IV and I can't really figure out why. It just seems kind of hollow and empty, managing military units is a pain in the rear end since you need to control each one individually, and it feels like I spend most of my playtime just sitting around ending turns and waiting for something to happen.

I think I'm just going to skip this expansion and hope that the next expansion does a BtS kind of thing and includes all of the updates from this one.

Espionage sounds really neat, though.

Blunt Force Trauma fucked around with this message at Apr 7, 2012 around 00:29

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:27

RagnarokAngel: Oct 5, 2006; Do not engage or respond to me, as I am an insufferable prick. I love posting about posting or posters, rather than actual content. But it's cool because I'm smarter than you and have the correct opinion on every matter.

Phobophilia posted:

Here lemme post a shitload of words.

I'm confused why you wrote all this. My op isn't a persuasive argument you need to debunk. I even had a disclaimer that not all of the features will be universally popular. It's just a features list.

Also Civ 5 owns sorry.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:28

Phobophilia: Apr 26, 2008; Suffer this Terrible curse!

You posted a ton of words saying that these things could be good or bad, depending on the perspective.

I posted a ton of words why bad things are Bad Things.

Nothing personal, I wanted to criticise Civ5 on your terms.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:30

CampingCarl: Apr 28, 2008

Phobophilia posted:

Bad, because it replaces with stack of doom with the carpet of doom. At least stacks can be easily group-selected and moved around.

How is stack of doom better in any way other than less clicks to move?

# ? Apr 7, 2012 00:36

Defenestration: Aug 10, 2006; This title certifies that Defenestration knows something about literature.

Saw the PAX demo, it was good! You get a stupid voiceover video, then one of the production guys gives a religion demo (pantheon ability, first great prophet then founding of religion) with Carthage, then a war demo of Huns vs Ethiopia. Huns raze cities twice as fast, Ethiopia has crazy defense buffs when you're near the capital. There were great war era infantry, tanks, fighters and bombers. An 11 ranged strength archer thing. And boats are going to be ranged vs melee now too (so that you can take a city with some kinds of boats) 100 hit points for all, which is good I think.

Spies are all in a menu (no units). They take a turn to "move" to a city though.

Phobophilia posted:

You posted a ton of words saying that these things could be good or bad, depending on the perspective.

I posted a ton of words why bad things are Bad Things.

Nothing personal, I wanted to criticise Civ5 on your terms.

You felt the need to write 500 words about why Civ V sucks a year and a half after its release, and right before they make a major expansion upgrade?

Also I don't find those things Bad Things so good job proving subjectivity exists I guess?

# ? Apr 7, 2012 01:53

Chronojam: Feb 20, 2006; gosh, mrs. robot, mom told me not to take mixed drinks from strangers

I really feel like playing some Civ V because it is a pretty good game, but I think I will wait until the expansion comes out because then it will be a better game. Also, I've got lots of other things to finish in the mean time so this'll work out well.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:13

Midnightghoul: Oct 1, 2003; COME ON DON'T BE SCURRED

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa is the real wiki link for Austria's leader

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:17

RagnarokAngel: Oct 5, 2006; Do not engage or respond to me, as I am an insufferable prick. I love posting about posting or posters, rather than actual content. But it's cool because I'm smarter than you and have the correct opinion on every matter.

Chronojam posted:

I really feel like playing some Civ V because it is a pretty good game, but I think I will wait until the expansion comes out because then it will be a better game. Also, I've got lots of other things to finish in the mean time so this'll work out well.

I feel the same way whenever an expansion gets announced. I keep thinking about what I COULD be playing .

Midnightghoul posted:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Theresa is the real wiki link for Austria's leader

that...makes a lot more sense. Editing.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:20

Office Sheep: Jan 20, 2007

Defenestration posted:

Saw the PAX demo, it was good! You get a stupid voiceover video, then one of the production guys gives a religion demo (pantheon ability, first great prophet then founding of religion) with Carthage, then a war demo of Huns vs Ethiopia. Huns raze cities twice as fast, Ethiopia has crazy defense buffs when you're near the capital. There were great war era infantry, tanks, fighters and bombers. An 11 ranged strength archer thing. And boats are going to be ranged vs melee now too (so that you can take a city with some kinds of boats) 100 hit points for all, which is good I think.

How was the pace of combat? Are you still able to 1 hit kill ranged units or is it slower now?

Defenestration posted:

You felt the need to write 500 words about why Civ V sucks a year and a half after its release, and right before they make a major expansion upgrade?

Also I don't find those things Bad Things so good job proving subjectivity exists I guess?

It seems like a strange time to post these complaints in a thread about an upcoming expansion which will address most of the complaints he has. That said how successful the proposed solutions are is yet to be seen.

I'm looking forward too city state changes. Apparently the quest system is much larger there's more interactions and gold gifting is nerfed. It seems like most other systems are getting a once over as well.

I would say civ 5's greatest strength is that everything feels very pleasant. It's become my go to have a beer and casually play game. I enjoy paradox and other more involved strategy games when I feel like something deeper. If the systems improve to the point where the game remains pleasant AND the flaws are improved I will continue to play this for a long time.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:20

Guidos Python: Sep 7, 2009

Is this going to come with the SDK we were promised?

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:20

RagnarokAngel: Oct 5, 2006; Do not engage or respond to me, as I am an insufferable prick. I love posting about posting or posters, rather than actual content. But it's cool because I'm smarter than you and have the correct opinion on every matter.

Guidos Python posted:

Is this going to come with the SDK we were promised?

Nothing has been stated so I'm gonna go with a big fat no. Adding more gameplay features is probably going to push back the development even further.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:24

Office Sheep: Jan 20, 2007

I feel like Portugal is going to be the last announced civ. I hope not though because the game is already a little too Eurocentric.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:27

Fledgling Gulps: Jul 4, 2007; I'll meet you in Meereen,
we'll grub out.

Defenestration posted:

You felt the need to write 500 words about why Civ V sucks a year and a half after its release, and right before they make a major expansion upgrade?

Also I don't find those things Bad Things so good job proving subjectivity exists I guess?

Whoa, someone expressed some opinions and backed them up with his reasoning :O gotta shut that poo poo down.

All these new civs seem like they're getting huge UAs, it's starting to make some of the older civs look positively dinky.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:29

ChikoDemono: Jul 10, 2007; He said that he would stay forever.

Forever wasn't very long...

Civilization VI will mostly likely be released before the SDK for Civilization V.

Excited for the expansion even though I stopped playing the game. I didn't like the religion aspect in Civ IV too much, but the revised system for Civ V seems interesting. Maybe I just wanted to customize my religion.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:30

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 16, 2004

Office Sheep posted:

I feel like Portugal is going to be the last announced civ. I hope not though because the game is already a little too Eurocentric.

I hope it's another African civ. Hopefully something that isn't too common, maybe Sokoto or perhaps a Central African civ.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:31

Fledgling Gulps: Jul 4, 2007; I'll meet you in Meereen,
we'll grub out.

What about Shaka? C'mon I know sometimes it was hard to get along with him, but he only hurt us because his love is so fierce. I think we should give him another chance guys.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:34

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 16, 2004

Fledgling Gulps posted:

What about Shaka? C'mon I know sometimes it was hard to get along with him, but he only hurt us because his love is so fierce. I think we should give him another chance guys.

It's always the same group in Civ though. Ethiopia, Zulu, and sometimes Mali. It's nice having Songhai this time around, at least.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:36

Fledgling Gulps: Jul 4, 2007; I'll meet you in Meereen,
we'll grub out.

I guess. If we count Carthage and Egypt that's four African civs though. It's not like each region has a limit but I'd like to see another one from south-east Asia.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:40

Tithin Melias: Nov 14, 2003; This message brought to you by the ancient and honorable guild of arseholes.

Having never played a civ game prior I'm looking forward to whoever the new civs are, regardless if they've been in before.

Especially the celts because celts supremacy.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:42

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 16, 2004

Fledgling Gulps posted:

I guess. If we count Carthage and Egypt that's four African civs though. It's not like each region has a limit but I'd like to see another one from south-east Asia.

Carthaginians are foreigners to Africa who are closer to Phoenicians and enslaved the local Berber populations and fought with the neighboring Numidian kingdoms. A Numidia civ would be cool, though. Egypt, yeah, I guess. By "Africa" I guess I really just meant "Sub-Saharan Africa."

Really though, why haven't we had Numidia in any game yet? That would be awesome.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:44

Fledgling Gulps: Jul 4, 2007; I'll meet you in Meereen,
we'll grub out.

When the Huns are in, all bets are off. There's only one left we don't know of right? Throwing a dart at a map I predict Harappan.

just joshin it'll be Portugal.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:53

Tithin Melias: Nov 14, 2003; This message brought to you by the ancient and honorable guild of arseholes.

To be frank, I'm scared of starting up a game and finding the huns next to me. I usually start next to Germany and loving Alexander who are both super aggressive early, so to top it off with the huns trifecta would be just my god damned luck.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 02:57

Echo Chamber: Oct 16, 2008

The Zulus are popular enough that they might just release it as its own DLC rather than bundle it with this expansion.

But then again, recent DLC controversies have shown that releasing DLC content "as important as the Zulus" would understandably trigger more hate for the direction of the Civ series. G&K is supposed to calm the division and frustration that came with Civ5's initial release.

Yeah, I'm hoping the last new Civ is something besides another European or Mediterranean power. Zulus would rock. I'm also hoping they add a lot more African and American city-states.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 03:11

dividertabs: Oct 1, 2004; When I grow up I want to be a scientist!

RagnarokAngel posted:

Goddamnit I've seen this opening cinematic so many times I can recite it by memory why can't I skip it?

Has anyone real ever been addressed, or addressed a progeny, as "my son"?

# ? Apr 7, 2012 03:33

Tao Jones: Jun 15, 2007; I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.

I hope they put in some kind of consolation-prize unit for late Iron. That is to say, Pikemen are a mostly acceptable substitute for Swordsmen if you don't have Iron or you open with a tech path based around getting Education or Chivalry, but there isn't really an equivalent for the part of the game where Longswordsmen would be a staple unit.

Really, the way the game flows right now, to my mind, doesn't handle the whole late Iron/early gunpowder era very well, especially at higher difficulty levels where the range of overall strategy is, in many ways, less flexible. You either win the game with early classical-era Swordsmen, ignore the bottom tech line almost entirely (as with a Chivalry rush), or blow past that era very fast in a rush to bulb your way to Artillery (if you're not so ambitious) or Stealth Bombers.

I also hope they make navies more of a thing and make control of the oceans more of a strategic factor. (Of course, I can understand that this is a difficult thing for any AI programmer to do, since unlike land combat it doesn't necessarily apply to every map and there is no "terrain" on the ocean for an AI to prioritize control of. But it would be an interesting problem on archipelago/continents if you knew that some AI somewhere could show up with a massive armada and ruin your poo poo.)

# ? Apr 7, 2012 03:56

ixnay: Jun 11, 2002; rainbow dash why are you making such a cool face?!

Tao Jones posted:

I also hope they make navies more of a thing and make control of the oceans more of a strategic factor. (Of course, I can understand that this is a difficult thing for any AI programmer to do, since unlike land combat it doesn't necessarily apply to every map and there is no "terrain" on the ocean for an AI to prioritize control of. But it would be an interesting problem on archipelago/continents if you knew that some AI somewhere could show up with a massive armada and ruin your poo poo.)

From watching the pax demo, with the change to having some ships be melee instead of ranged, this may be the case. They demonstrated bombarding a coastal city with carriers and cruisers and then capturing it directly with a destroyer. No land units were involved at all.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 04:13

Away all Goats: Jul 5, 2005; Back from the dead

Tao Jones posted:

I also hope they make navies more of a thing and make control of the oceans more of a strategic factor. (Of course, I can understand that this is a difficult thing for any AI programmer to do, since unlike land combat it doesn't necessarily apply to every map and there is no "terrain" on the ocean for an AI to prioritize control of. But it would be an interesting problem on archipelago/continents if you knew that some AI somewhere could show up with a massive armada and ruin your poo poo.)

Yes, I would love to see this. They really need to bring blockading back. And blockading an island city completely reduces its health and defenses each turn. It's kind of silly that you can completely control the water around the island but can't attack it, so your ships just sit just outside of range glaring menacingly at it.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 04:20

Illudere: Jan 12, 2005

I've been addicted to this game the last couple of months so I'm super excited for the expansion.

I enjoyed a couple of games near release and played on Pangaea which seemed to help the AI a bit. Now I'm playing on continents plus which is interesting. Check out that long chain of city states in the Northwest. It let me explore most of the map with a galley. I'm not a brilliant player by any means, and am just now finishing this game and trying to wrap my head around how aircraft and the other late game units work.
This screenshot shows me attacking Montezuma while Russia slips in my back door a few turns before a couple of my ships of the line were finished and grabs Nottingham in 2 turns before my army can get there. It was quick and efficient. Sometimes the ai seems to take a long time setting up a siege and then grabs the city in a turn or two which is fitting with the way city capturing works but sometimes the ai gets stalled. I reloaded the turn in the screenshot and built a ship in Nottingham with gold and the ai responded well by sending its units to the nearest ground but then the next turn they all went back to the water and headed north allowing me to pick them off one by one.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 04:26

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# ? May 18, 2013 11:50

USDA Choice: Jul 4, 2004; BIG TEN PRIDE

Away all Goats posted:

Yes, I would love to see this. They really need to bring blockading back. And blockading an island city completely reduces its health and defenses each turn. It's kind of silly that you can completely control the water around the island but can't attack it, so your ships just sit just outside of range glaring menacingly at it.

I thought that any enemy naval unit automatically blockades everything in a 2 tile radius from being harvested? I just played a game where my capital was in an long bay with other cities down the side so I didn't bother building a navy until a couple of caravels started blocking my sea tiles. I don't know if it does anything to trade routes.

# ? Apr 7, 2012 04:39

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