Civ thread

[MacLovin]

multiplayer with humans must be annoying when one guy takes forever to finish his turn earlygame.

I find the Maya to be quite strong with that baktun stuff. Free great person every baktun.

The inca are fun with their whole ignore hill terrain cost, and the terrace farms are useful too.

***** Ghandi lategame though. Sonovabitch always declares war on me, even when I'm the leading civ.

[Esau of Isaac]

Hell yeah it's annoying. There's a turn timer but one of our friends doesn't like to use them when he makes the room. So no one ever joins his invites. Like, I'm not going to play a game for five hours and not leave the classical era.

[MacLovin]

Oh and just because.

I might get civ 4 next sale though. If I have the cash.

Civ Beyond Worlds has a higher priority on to get list.

[Esau of Isaac]

That's definitely pretty reminiscent for me, but this one blows my mind every time I hear it

I remember coming in from hot days to air-conditioning and playing hearing this for hours as I conquered the world. I'm going back and playing the series through again, and III is so much fun even though I'm not crazy about the mechanics purely because of nostalgia.

[Phoenix Wright]

civ v was my first civ game, and it was great. it eats hours away like minutes, so i make sure not to play it too often.

i am beyond excited for beyond earth. whenever space is thrown into the mix, i instantly get excited, especially if it has elements of exploration. doesn't matter how much of a focus exploration is, just as long as it's there (eg, fog of war in civ v is good enough).

also, i'm really bad at it. just like a good handful of chapters in the advance wars series. i'm great at srpgs until i have to produce units. i guess i just don't think well enough ahead to make me successful. my armies either end up too weak, or my working/production units do.

[MacLovin]

I've found a bunch of FE based civ 5 mods on steam.

Who wants to play as Daien?

[XeKr]

i'm great at srpgs until i have to produce units. i guess i just don't think well enough ahead to make me successful. my armies either end up too weak, or my working/production units do.

Good thing you don’t have to build any units in BNW.

If domination fails it’s usually because you were too slow, so a LTC-like mentality (maximize efficiency of every turn) can help. In Civ it’s about timing (in AW more about composition), so you should prepare and plan everything around the few turns before and after hitting a crucial military tech.

It’s probably easier (if you just want to win domination) to start with lategame conquests like Bombers since at some point you just start purely making units (and a lot of skill from pure econ play transfers over). Cavalry+Artillery conquests may be better to learn and practice solid military timings (get tech+army by turn 160-180 or so, going Sci Theory first is safer but slower). Early domination is where it’s notoriously harder to balance military/econ (it’s easier if you played G&K on higher difficulty, as it was a dominant strat then, but things are a bit different in BNW also). Just requires practice, I think (afaik, most will do it by "feel").

Edited September 12, 2014 by XeKr

[Phoenix Wright]

thanks for the advice!

can someone explain something to me: are these expansions dlc or standalone titles? i bought gods and kings 2 years ago when it was on super sale, and now i'm looking at bnw and it's $30? and be is $50? like, i know these expansions bring a lot to the game, but are those really what's considered "fair"?

i don't play pc often because my toaster sucks, so i may just not understand the idea behind an "expansion" as opposed to typical dlc.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

I've found a bunch of FE based civ 5 mods on steam.

Who wants to play as Daien?

oh god these sound neat

[XeKr]

can someone explain something to me: are these expansions dlc or standalone titles? i bought gods and kings 2 years ago when it was on super sale, and now i'm looking at bnw and it's $30? and be is $50? like, i know these expansions bring a lot to the game, but are those really what's considered "fair"?

i don't play pc often because my toaster sucks, so i may just not understand the idea behind an "expansion" as opposed to typical dlc.

BNW changes things substantially (for the better is the consensus, other people/articles can cover the changes more thoroughly), mechanics are added or tweaked, especially with regard to making the lategame more interesting. I'd say it's more significant than a 10 hour extra dungeon (lol that's like one game, as in many other DLCs, but that's mainly due to the nature of Civ.

It seems you just barely missed a large sale on GMG. Tbh I’d wait for a discount simply because not much time passes before it goes on sale somewhere (but I’m fairly patient about this sort of thing.)

I suspect BE will endure some controversy as merely Civ 5 with a new coat of paint, but it’s ostensibly a separate, new game.

[BBM]

you get to play as ALIENS, worth

I'll probably get BE in the christmas sale

[Esau of Isaac]

thanks for the advice!

can someone explain something to me: are these expansions dlc or standalone titles? i bought gods and kings 2 years ago when it was on super sale, and now i'm looking at bnw and it's $30? and be is $50? like, i know these expansions bring a lot to the game, but are those really what's considered "fair"?

i don't play pc often because my toaster sucks, so i may just not understand the idea behind an "expansion" as opposed to typical dlc.

Eh, I would personally say they're close to worth it, but that's probably me inflating it a bit as a Civilization junkie. Gods and Kings definitely isn't worth $30, but BNW added a bunch of content and civs. The game definitely suffers if not played with it.

There's a bunch of DLC for the game too, though. DLC civs are some of my favorites too. Korea and Babylon are fuckin stronk

[Rewjeo]

Beyond Earth will come out and not be Alpha Centauri II, and much rage will ensue. That's how I'm seeing it playing out.

[Rehab]

Yeah, I'm reminded of when they directly said it's not intended to be like Alpha Centauri, to an extent where some people thought they were being ungrateful/foolishly dismissive of the game's legacy. Which I kinda can go both ways on, myself- on the downer side of that news, AP has some of the best, most heady flavor I've ever taken a bite out of in strategy games, and I would love to see that embraced without reservation, but at the same time I made a point to swear to myself that I would never complain about even the most hand-holdey tutorials ever again after I played the original AP's "here are all the tabs, one at a time, and a domino chain of text walls. Knock yourself out" tutorial, and still didn't know wtf to do or where to go (to its credit, though, the Alien Crossfire expansion had a more traditional tutorial scenario [which I didn't end up missing completely] that held my hand to my relative satisfaction). Also saw some dudes in that link's forum thread note that total, across-the-board building balance wasn't exactly the game's strongest suit.

[BBM]

tbh I think everyone will be happier if they treat Beyond Earth as Civilization VI and not as Alpha Centauri II

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

Mayan's to the west, Aztecs to the east, Mongolians to the north.

this is gonna be a fun file

[MacLovin]

No Zulu to the south?

I like how my most recent run had me as India, with a bunch of chokepoints that saved my ass from Shaka/Monty/Mongols/Chinese/Japanese from overruning me.

Also fucking Kamehameha is so good in that islands based map. He might be better than England for it.

Denmark so shitty.

[Esau of Isaac]

Beyond Earth will come out and not be Alpha Centauri II, and much rage will ensue. That's how I'm seeing it playing out.

When I first saw like a few short videos of gameplay I was pretty pissed, not gonna lie. It looked like Civ V with a new coat of paint. But after reading a few of the alterations made for Beyond Earth I think it's like Alpha Centauri thrown into a Civ V cheese grater. The numerous ways you can customize a faction and a lot of the art direction just look really great to me. October can't come soon enough.

Yeah, I'm reminded of when they directly said it's not intended to be like Alpha Centauri, to an extent where some people thought they were being ungrateful/foolishly dismissive of the game's legacy. Which I kinda can go both ways on, myself- on the downer side of that news, AP has some of the best, most heady flavor I've ever taken a bite out of in strategy games, and I would love to see that embraced without reservation, but at the same time I made a point to swear to myself that I would never complain about even the most hand-holdey tutorials ever again after I played the original AP's "here are all the tabs, one at a time, and a domino chain of text walls. Knock yourself out" tutorial, and still didn't know wtf to do or where to go (to its credit, though, the Alien Crossfire expansion had a more traditional tutorial scenario [which I didn't end up missing completely] that held my hand to my relative satisfaction). Also saw some dudes in that link's forum thread note that total, across-the-board building balance wasn't exactly the game's strongest suit.

I didn't even know Alien Crossfire had a tutorial. I remember reading the entire manual for the initial game at a friend's house, since his dad owned it. The damn thing was like a book! I mean it literally had a short story in it that described the events leading up to the game, but still! It was big. :0

[BBM]

Mongolia AI sucks; they'll try to take over a bunch of city states because of their UA bonus, and get denounced by everyone and also be at total war with city states before they even get Keshiks.

You'll have to build a little early military to hold off the Aztecs, but their UUs fall off pretty fast. It's actually good that they're right beside you, because that way they won't take over some other civ and start snowballing.

Mayans are the real threat. They won't attack you probably, but they're more likely to win than either Mongolia or Aztecs.

And yeah, Polynesia is pretty good on Archipelago. But personally I hate playing Archipelago; 30 turns of doing nothing but Next Turn at the beginning of the map is not fun. I guess Polynesia isn't restricted to this but MEH

[MacLovin]

Archipelago isn't that boring if you get a big island.

To be fair, I think alot of Civs are pretty mediocre. Denmark is the prime contender example.

I do find it easy to win with Korea/Babylon/Greece/Rome/Siam, idk why.

Greece is nearly totally broken if you know how to play a diplomatic victory.

[BBM]

well, diplomatic victory in general is just about making a lot of money and not annoying anybody (and teching to Globalization), which makes it probably the easiest wincon

Edited September 16, 2014 by BBM

[Rehab]

any victory condition is just about ____ though

[XeKr]

Multiple warmongers next to each other = bribe them against each other so they’re friendly with you. :D

Maya does well since they almost always have an early, and therefore strong, religion, plus usually beeline Theology. They stumble across Philosophy on the way, and consequently build NC early (for an AI).

Archipelago gets boring for me after a while since the AI can’t move and shoot (the Smart AI mod does help, if you’re into that.) so they can’t use Frigates. It’s a steamroll.

Denmark has dat sick Berserker timing tho. Free pillage is also pretty fun, as is Exploration and embarked assaults.

Diplo is considered the easiest condition because it requires the least “skill” (some combination of game knowledge, efficient decision-making, strategic timing, tactical positioning, etcetc). You don’t even have to get to info era, you can let the AI do it for you. All you need to do is build trade routes and occasionally give money to city states with Patronage and the AI doesn’t care or compete. It’s somewhat trivial to win with Venice on Archipelago, for example. As least there’s some semblance of the space race, in researching the whole tree, that eventually that puts you on a timer for Sci victory (Culture and Domination tend to be even more involved since you have to balance resources and relations better).

Edited September 16, 2014 by XeKr

[Rapier]

Civ is a game that i love to play, even though I'm too stupid for it. I know the basics but more often than not I am clueless to what I should do next or how I should react to what other civs are doing. Especially on Civ 5, on which I'm fairly newbie.

I usually play Civ 4 and 5 on Chieftain or Noble difficulties, as anything beyond that ultimately roflstomps me. On Civ 4, for some reason, I always do well with Greeks (Alexander) and, to a certain extent, Egyptians (Ramesses).

Am I the only one who likes a military approach? I once chose Japanese as my civ, renamed the leader to Gulcasa and the civilization to Bronquia, then proceeded to conquer the entire left side of the Pangaean map. I only go for other kinds of victories when I'm playing with Ramesses.

[BBM]

When I first started playing, I went for Domination with Mongolia and the Zulus. It's pretty fun and worked well on Prince and King, but once I started playing on Emperor and Immortal it became pretty difficult.