Civilization V!!

[frogbeastegg]

The flash of steel civ 5 podcast is available. IMO the site's podcasts are always worth listening to. For those who don't know, it's a dedicated strategy game site, mainly PC oriented.


Having played further, maritime city states = teh aw3s0mez!!11! Oh yes. So much so that they obsolete the entire population growth line of buildings, make farms an improvement which is rarely needed, and leave food the least valuable out of the gatherable trinity of food/production/gold. It's even better since food = population = research. Getting them on your side is the important diplomatic interaction; the rest is all fluff by comparison.

Following a discussion I learned something interesting which changes the way I view some facets of the game. Open borders is not a good idea, contrary to Civ 4. It's not the start of a friendly relationship, a handy status you want with the civs you intend to work with. More often it's your doom. The AI can't tell what units you have unless it can see them. Open borders means it scouts you. Insufficient military units? The AI will declare war now it knows you are weak. Keeping your border closed means the AI remains uncertain and will be wary. Closed borders plus units placed 1 hex back from your frontier will show strength regardless of how weak you are inside your empire. NB: don't put the units right on the edge of your border or it will be taken as aggression and the AI will begin to complain if you're lucky, or launch a pre-emptive strike if you're not.

So military deterrent is about placement and visibility, not numbers. Peace is about keeping closed borders. I kind of like it.

[Gaiseric]

No more Civ games for me. After playing Civ2, Civ3, + Civ4, I have decided that it is just way too much micromanagement for the rock-paper-scissors style combat that these games offer. The only way I would ever spend that much time micro-managing cities again would be if they gave me control of the battlefield like in TW games. Combine the AI of the Civ series with the battles of the TW series, and then you would have a great game!!!

[Beskar]

UN option does not seem to bring up any resolutions or voting. Is that intentional?

[frogbeastegg]

UN option does not seem to bring up any resolutions or voting. Is that intentional?

It takes some turns before the vote appears. Something like 10-15. You can see a counter in your top right hand screen corner. Took me a while to figure this out when I did the diplo victory too.


Heh. I've now won a game on every single difficulty level and, unless the AI vastly improves when you can play on larger maps than the small ones I'm currently forced to use, all I can say it's pathetic. On the one hand it cheats way too much, on the other it's still as stupid as it was on the lower levels. On deity the AI entered the medieval era in ~50 turns, had 4 cities, and a teeming mass of units. I had 3 horsemen and I crushed it in a 3 turn long war. Game over. Awful! Regardless of whether the AI is improved or not, there's no way I am playing on deity again. Medieval era with all of that in 50 turns due to bonuses!? Where's the fun in that!?

For reference, I beat Civ: Rev on all difficulties and felt much the same about it: too dumb at low levels, too dumb and cheaty at high ones. Civ 4 I only got 2/3 of the way up the difficulty ladder on.

[LeftEyeNine]

If you're gonna make an arcade-style management game based on civilizations, fine, would be an alternative taste.

If you skim up Civilization series and call it the newest of it all, it's an insult.

Huge disappointment so far. And I'm pretty sure that it's been made so in order to make room for the expansions. And this is another way of offense too.

[Lemur]

If you skim up Civilization series and call it the newest of it all, it's an insult.

Hmm, not sure I agree. At the very least, the move to hexes and the lack of stacks makes for a more strategic game than previous Civs. I'm kinda digging it.

[LeftEyeNine]

No culture ? Oh, yes we can unlock policies by collecting cultural points.

No religion ?

No espionage ?

No leader-specific civilization features ?

Brushed diplomacy which only presents City-state driven Super-mario-like collect-it-all interstate relationships as something new ?

I thought this was a civilization simulation, not a lightweight web spinoff of Civ series.

Another victim to the console age; thanks, Sid, for the nice dirk you've thrusted into our Civ-crazy hearts.