Civilization V!!

[Beskar]

The game needs an autosave. It has CTD'd a couple of times, and it makes me lose progress.

[frogbeastegg]

The game needs an autosave. It has CTD's a couple of times, and it makes me lose progress.

It's in the main options menu, under the gameplay tab IIRC. You can set how often it saves and how many it keeps. You might have to access the menu once you start the overall game but before you enter the game world; a lot of menu options vanish once you hit the world. By default it's on with 10 turns between saves.

[Beskar]

It's in the main options menu, under the gameplay tab IIRC. You can set how often it saves and how many it keeps. You might have to access the menu once you start the overall game but before you enter the game world; a lot of menu options vanish once you hit the world. By default it's on with 10 turns between saves.

Found them, they were under a different tab, hence why I didn't see them.

[frogbeastegg]

The box boasts about giving a portion of the game's sale price to charity and says the player will be asked to choose a charity during install. I wasn't asked. How do you choose a charity for 2K to give money to? It'd be sad to miss the opportunity.

Finished my first game. 6.2 hours according to steam. Diplomatic victory because I got bored with how easy it was and that was quicker to grab than spaceship or cultural victories.

There were a pair of interesting little wars sparked by one AI attacking city states I had under my sphere of influence. The first was somewhat hard going (in an easy kind of way) because it happened very early on and, true to my froggy ways, I hadn't built up much of an army. I had to scramble units to send a decent force over, and didn't have much of a tech edge. I saved the place with a nick of time - the health bar was on its last shred of red and another turn would have seen the place conquered. The second was fun in a different way. I had industrial era units and the AI had late classical ones. Can you say shooting fish in a barrel? 4 units crushed an army far larger and razed his second city. That sort of thing's fun to do every once in a while. The third time someone declared war on one of my city states I simply gave them a single unit of mine since it wasn’t worth the bother of getting personally involved. Mobile infantry versus swordsmen and archers; the city state cleaned up without getting scratched.

Time to begin the climb up the difficulties until I find one which suits. It's a civ tradition of mine; I start at the bottom and work my way up even though I know most of the early levels will be way too easy. Why do I do this? Why? Cakewalks aren't much fun. Yet every single time I play one of these games I do it. Suppose it must have something to do with wanting to watch how the AI improves with each step.

[Lemur]

Finished a game. Egyptians, second-easiest difficulty, large map, diplomatic victory.

IMHO combat is a huge improvement. Arranging your units for a successful assault is gratifying in a way no Stack of Doom could ever be. Diplomacy is meh. AI is okay. I ran into no Black Knight situations, but perhaps that was due to the difficulty setting. Social policies are funky and interesting, forcing you to make some huge decisions every so often.

Addictive. Fun. Neat little mod browser. I predict this is going to stay on my HD for a good long time.

[frogbeastegg]

Eeep! I think I've discovered this game's power strategy. Got to try it on higher levels but I can't see it failing to work since it ties into the core concepts introduced for this version. Two words: city states.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Focus on building culture via early wonders like Stonehenge, and speed ASAP to the middle ages to unlock the patronage tree. Stick with 1 city for now unless there's a highly pressing reason to make a second. Buy the concept followed by aesthetics and philanthropy. You now have a boost to starting influence, your influence decays 25% slower, and your gold gifts are 25% more effective, and you got them cheap because you only have 1 city.

Start wooing the city states. Begin with the ones closest to you. Order of preference is as follows: the maritime ones as the food boost they give you is massive - you won't need to make any farms. Then pick up culture ones; the amount you gain each turn sounds small but adds up into more policies very quickly. Then military ones. Let them build your army for you; don't build many units yourself and focus on more powerful stuff like wonders or the big boost buildings. If you reach the point where you don't want any more units, or you don't like the unit you have been given, simply gift it to a city state for a free influence bonus.

Found a second city if you like, and probably a third during the wooing process. Specialise your cities to gold, science or production. Remember: no need for farms. Spam improvements which give gold or production.

Once you factor in the rest of the patronage tree you're sitting even prettier. Bonus research, bonus great people, double resources (great for strategic resources) and extra happiness. Because you’re tailoring your city and focusing everything on useful resources instead of food or unit production you boom like crazy.

Greece is made for this strategy. Any civ can do it successfully.

[Crandaeolon]

Multiplayer is completely dysfuctional. Bought two copies to play with my fiancee; that was money well wasted. I wonder if a refund is possible... probably not. A couple of links to summarise some of the problems (yes, there are more.)

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88675

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=89150