Civilization Thread!

[Sousa]

Man, motherfuckin' Bismarck. Turns out I'd never played as him before. Great traits to get cities up and running quickly, especially if you can get Stonehenge (which I did). Founded great cities early, was getting something like 380 hammers in my Ironworks city and a respectable amount in my two other main cities, beelined to Panzers, and vassalized the whole goddamn world (Sitting Bull, Tokugawa [who destroyed Wang Kon before I could get to him], Monty, Asoka, and Gilgamesh). Highest score ever. Not bad for going against four Protective leaders, including fucking Sitting Bull and his super-archers.

[MDK]

Heh, Wang Kon.

[Guest Canary4life]

Finally won a game as Washington. It was a large-ish Continents map with 2 big ones and 3 small off-shore landmasses. Started off slower than before, being invaded by Siam and the Ottomans, but allying with China. The Chinese took out one of their cities, I dominated the rest of their cities. I annexed each one and the entire east area of my country were Ottoman cities. On my west side, with a little help from India, I took over Siam within 10-20 turns. My Frigates and Ironclads were vital in taking the coastal Siam cities, whereas my Anti-Tank Guns, Fighters and Infantry were the main factors in in-land domination. I proceeded to take over an island city from India after Gandhi denounced me, although this island had been my target for a little while. It was working Krakatoa and producing a lot of science. I took the city and made a peace treaty right after.

Then, I put a fuck load of investments in border expansion and science speciality buildings to work towards a Space Victory, as Greece were hot on my tail research-wise. They had engulfed France, Mongolia and half of India to create a large empire (but they were all tiny countries compared to Siam and Ottomans, so our owned land was roughly the same size) and had many wonders within their cities. Using the science shagging technique, I managed to build the majority of my rocket by 1960, then finished it in 1975. Played on a little longer, they built their rocket in 2002.

[Benji]

Civ V's specialised units and buildings aren't nearly as effective as in IV. I can't decide if that makes it better or worse. There's more of a challenge, but then half the fun on higher difficulties used to be managing to hold out until your era came along and then fucking shit up for everyone else as quickly as you could during that era.

[Mick]

Civ V's specialised units and buildings aren't nearly as effective as in IV. I can't decide if that makes it better or worse. There's more of a challenge, but then half the fun on higher difficulties used to be managing to hold out until your era came along and then fucking shit up for everyone else as quickly as you could during that era.

That's one aspect I don't care for much; oh sure, it's an awesome benefit, and it does help make the nations stand out (versus Civ II, where the only distinction they had was how aggressive and eager to expand they were, and even then it didn't matter much), but as much as I love cranking out a shitload of Praetorians and curbstomping the first couple Civs as I encounter, some of them are just plain gamebreakers, and some are just plain dumb.

By just plain dumb...unique buildings that expire. Wow, way to stay unique By Gamebreakers, well, the aforementioned Praetorians, and there's already my thoughts on the impact of religion in the game, which is doubly effective by giving you a jump start in your nation as well as being able to totally cripple other civilizations through denial...

Maybe they should've thrown in multiple examples of different kinds of religions, limiting each civilization to one from each tech that grants one? (i.e Polytheism grants Pantheism or Hinduism, your choice; there's certainly a lot of ancient religions that can be split into the six techs).

As far as specialized units, Benji, if you want sick, you should have seen how it was in Alpha Centauri. You have a Unit Design Workshop; there's a few different basic models for each unit type, and you can specialize it based on the technology you receive. This can lead to insanely messed up units that the designers probably didn't imagine. Take the game's spy unit, the Probe Team. Probe Teams don't require any support at all; as a result, you can design a Probe Team with the heaviest armor you have, and give them the Police special ability, meaning that they serve both as a garrison, anti-spy unit, and makes unhappy citizens content, all the cost of production. The fact that the AI doesn't design any units (they still get new designs, but these are pre programmed) puts it at a serious disadvantage.

[Benji]

Had a serious case of Onemoreturnitis yesterday. I was playing as Montezuma and had managed to gain absolute control of the eastern continent. All other races had been eliminated by myself and the Egyptians, who seemed more happy than me to rule their continent with City-States. Since I was a war monger, no city states were my friend.

I complete the Apollo Programme and build one of the components, happy in the knowledge I seem to have the space victory in hand and just trying to boost my score... then Egypt builds the United Nations. Shit. I have ten turns to complete the damn thing before the vote gives them the win. Long story short, a quick change to making my best production cities to spaceship parts winds up with me picking up the space win a single turn before the vote.

Started a new game with India just after that, looking to gain a culture victory this time around, hopefully with the three cities for the Steam achievement. I'm constantly bottom of the rankings thanks to spawning right in the middle of three barbarian encampments and me not concentrating at all on military beyond defence. On the plus side, my culture is massive and I'm about to build my third and final city, which will probably be a coastal since my other two are on rivers.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

Steam has civ 5 for 17 bucks. A good price to pick it up at now if you cant run it but could if you are upgrading your computer fairly soon.

[Sousa]

Steam has civ 5 for 17 bucks. A good price to pick it up at now if you cant run it but could if you are upgrading your computer fairly soon, Sousa.

That's what you're saying, isn't it?

I'm still having fun with my ancient copy of Civ IV, though! Realized I'd never played as the Portugese after all, so I went in as Joao II, nabbed Stonehenge, and basically took every inch of land I wanted. I cut off my one continental neighbor (Huayna Capac, whom I normally haaaaaaaaaate) and three other civs who were a galley away from my land (Gilgamesh, Hammurabi, and Wang Kon [heh heh wang]). After I find Asoka and Justinian overseas, I realize that Huayna and I have founded most of the religions and everyone's adopted a different one, so I build the Shwedagon Paya and jump right into Free Religion. All of a suddden, I'm Mr. Diplomacy, everyone on the map is Pleased or better, and my nearest rival in population (Justinian) is no great shakes. So I beeline Mass Media and build the UN, and as this is happening, Wang Kon decides to go after Gilgamesh. Huayna, Gil, and I kick Wang in the wang and drive him back to Korea. By the time the UN's up and peace breaks out, I have enough votes for a diplomatic victory... with one exception. I need Hammurabi.

So as I'm teching toward space to be on the safe side, my next few turns consist of playing peaceful builder (getting the wonders from the early techs I've just picked up) and kissing Hammurabi's ass, running his favorite Civic (Bureaucracy, fortunately, which means all I was leaving behind was some extra commerce in other towns to get extra commerce and hammers in my capital), trading with him, gifting him techs. I set up Defensive Pacts with Huayna, Gil, and Asoka, thinking that those usually lead to peace. Just in case, I've got a good tech lead and have a leg up on the space race. The Diplomatic Victory vote comes up again, so I vote for myself.

Then Wang declares war on Huayna.

He buys Justinian's involvement, and the defensive pacts mean that the world has broken down into the Wang Kon/Justinian faction and the Joao/Gil/Asoka/Huayna faction. Oh, and fucking Hammurabi, who STILL refuses to vote for me. Meanwhile, Korea unleashes hordes of outdated legions straight off of his Galleons--basically, he declared on Huayna to attack my coastal cities. Right as he unloads his horrible little army, Hammurabi finally caves, joins my side, votes for me for the Diplomatic Victory, and I win a Diplomatic Victory just as the world breaks out into World War II. Presumably, post-game, I led my Coalition of the Willing to castrate Wang and give Justinian the plague, and then we all had a massive orgy.

[KevinStorm]

I really, really fucking hate the happiness system on Civ5.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

Just won civ 5 culture victory with a single city of Rome on prince diff. Took about 4 hours given that my turns were going by so quickly due to lack of management on my part. Oh I may have been dead last in size of empires but I was one of the richest and most powerful.

Was a very enjoyable game. Playing on Immortal difficulty and trying to do the same was less so, what with some entering industrial levels about 50 turns before I could even dream of it. Being sandwiched between 3 players wasnt good for me either, I think if I had to defend from just one angle I might have held out better.

[Sousa]

Have you Civ IV folks ever tried a specialist economy (settling tons of Great Scientists and running loads of specialists, running Caste System and Representation, and basically shutting the research slider down)? It requires a lot of work, but I just tried it with Gandhi and ended up pacifying the world via violent civil disobedience in 1800. I was up against tech fiend Huayna, other tech fiend Cyrus, other other tech fiend Zara, religious whacko Suleiman, total nutjob Alexander, and my goddamn Protective nemesis Sitting Bull. Teched ridiculously quickly early on, captured a bunch of other cities, and leveraged their matured cottages into keeping my research up in the endgame. Won a Conquest/capitulate-'em-all victory while building just one tank (my usual late-game crutch), and my score was nearly double my previous high score.

[RPS]

Need help fellow EWBers. I'm playing Civ IV, currently playing a round where I got to destroy everybody. There are six of us remaining in the game. Big problem - everybody is on friendly and pleased terms with one another, except for me and Isabella. I've got Defensive Pacts with three other nations (two of which share a continent with me) and they all are pleased with Isabella. She is furious with me, as I keep sending spies and making outrageous demands of her. Only problem is she refuses to declare war on me. I'm by far the biggest military left standing, however, I'm not big enough that I can go declare war on Isabella without pissing off everybody remaining in the game. I've got about 35 nukes stockpiled that I could use to wipe out Isabella totally, but I'll end up alienating all the other players and they'll just declare war on me and all knock me out. Any creative ways around this? How the fuck can I get Isabella to declare war on me, or alternatively, get everybody to hate Isabella and I can nuke her without a care in the world.

[Sousa]

Isabella won't declare war on your if your military strength is 100000000x greater than her. Most of the game's leaders won't rush headlong into a war of annihilation. Each of the leaders has a certain personality, and certain ones will go to war more often than others. Isabella's more likely to war if you don't share her religion, but she won't kill herself doing it. Now if it were Montezuma and you were in the same sitch, he'd storm across the border with 800,000 Axemen and charge headlong into your waiting Mechanized Infantry. Good ol' reliable Monty.

If you're the largest military power in the world, fuck it--you don't need everyone else to be cool with you. Just go in and wipe Isabella out. If you're going for a diplomatic victory, just don't worry about going to war. If you're going for domination or conquest, just go in and fight. The AI in Civ IV knows when it's outgunned, and most of the other ones won't declare war if they fear you, either.

Let me give you an example from a game I played last night (as Mao and China) to show you how the leaders' priorities differ (Keep in mind I'm using the Warlords and Beyond the Sword expansions). It was another capitulate-'em-all-and-let-Glorious-People's-Leader-sort-'em-out type game where I warred in basically every era. I was on a continent with Hannibal/Carthage (wiped out early), Pericles/Greece, Isabella/Spain, and Boudica/Celtia. I knew Hannibal and Pericles would be early targets because they were both nearby (Isabella and Boudica were on the other side of my borders with Greece) and they were both formidable tech guys who could be competitive mid-game. So Hannibal was my first war, and it wasn't easy--Hannibal's AI techs well and builds lots of units, so it took a few tries before I smashed him. While this was happening, Isabella was pursuing religious techs, founding religions, and using missionaries to spread her state religion (Christianity--there's a Choose Religions option, so she founded it with Meditation) around. Meanwhile, Boudica was building units and keeping her power rating up, but she didn't declare war on anyone because her nearest targets (Greece and Spain) were both Friendly.

So when I went to war with Pericles, I had sort of a tough war, but I had a tech advantage plus Cannon, so the solution was just "build more uber-units!" Literally two turns after I took the Greek capital, all of a sudden, Boudica declared war on me and marched a giant stack right at Athens! So now, my offensive in Greece had gone into a defensive war to hold my winnings. I checked the Power graph and realized that, thanks to losses in the Athens campaign, Boudica had passed my power, and since I'd already pissed her off by declaring war on her friend Hannibal (three times) and her friend Pericles (once), she smelled blood. Now Boudica's a tougher opponent if she gets the jump on you--her AI pursues military techs, she builds tons of units, and she will declare war if she sees weakness, even if you're an old friend. Quite a few of the leaders (Julius Caesar/Rome, Catherine and Stalin/Russia, Shaka/Zulu, and Napoleon/France) are programmed this way, and they're all tough neighbors to have. So at this point, my focus switched to building units to hold my Greek captures rather than offensive forces to take them.

Boudica finally called off the dogs after I took out two of her stacks. All the while, Isabella--who was Furious at me for leaving Christianity--wouldn't join in the Crusade. Why? Her pursuit of religious techs meant that she had neglected her military. By the time Greece had capitulated, Izzy was fielding Musketmen to my Infantry. Boudica had Riflemen and Cavalry when I finished taking Spain's four cities, but by that point I had Tanks, and once I have Tanks, I usually win.

So basically, most AIs won't declare war on you if they know they'll lose, no matter how mad at you they are. Even Boudica--whose AI is programmed to build units and play aggressor--wouldn't go after me until I was weakened by a campaign in another civ. Go to war with Izzy and suck up the -1 diplomatic hit. She deserves it. I haaaaaaaaate having Isabella as a neighbor for precisely the reasons described above (playing queen bee with religions, refusing to trade without a shared religion, etc.).

EDIT: Oh, and the other continent was Saladin/Arabia and Bismarck/Germany. Saladin had founded Islam, and they were both buddy-buddy. Bizzy's a competitor, but Saladin really isn't long-term, and his AI works similarly to Isabella's. I like using Choose Religions because it means the AIs--if they're available--try to found the religions of their real-life counterparts, hence Islamic Saladin and Christian Isabella. By mid-game, I was Taoist Mao, too, but we abandoned religion to be nasty atheists once the Pentagon went online.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Sousa

[RPS]

Yeah, I came to the realization last night that I am going to have to declare war on Isabella. I just made a shit load of spies, planted them all in her city centres are am destroying her production on everything. Declared war on her, and let her come to me. My estimation is that I've probably decimated about 1/3 to 2/4 of her entire army, and lost MAYBE 10-15 units. She was attacking with Cavalries and I was defending with Modern Armour and the big tanks. She didn't have a chance. I think my next move is to drop one nuke on her most heavily protected city and I think she'll be easy to knock out after that. Than I'm royally fucked, because my options are to either take down the second biggest military on the globe and the people who I'm sharing my continent where all my forces are (the Incans) or go and try and take down one of the three other nations left standing who all reside in their own continent where I don't have a single city but have significantly smaller armies than me (Washington, Mansa Mansa and hmm... I want to say England). I think the smarter move is to declare war on incans, wipe them out completely, rebuild and go after the other continent.

Edited August 3, 2011 by RockPaperScissors

[Sousa]

Is this the first war you've had all game? I think it's helpful to prosecute a war in just about every era if you go military; in my game I went at Hannibal with swords and axes and catapults, then went at Pericles with maces and Trebuchets (and, later, Cannon and rifles), then Izzy with Infantry, then Boudica/Saladin/Bismarck with modern ordnance (Bombers, Tanks, and Destroyers/Marines for the overseas invasions--Marines are insane with a tech lead attacking from boats, just zipping across the coast capturing city after city). Getting the early land by smashing a neighbor guarantees that you'll have the base necessary to leverage a later war more effectively. I sometimes wait until Macemen/Trebuchets (Civil Service/Engineering/Machinery) for my first war, but in my highest-score games I've warred early and often. The Mao game was my second highest score besides the Gandhi game I mentioned a week or so ago.

Who are your rivals and what kinds of units are they fielding? As I said in the last post, I tend to attack my most formidable opponents first if I can (Hannibal in this case), but by the late game, if you're just shooting for land, I think it's helpful to go for the civs that are the furthest behind.

Edited August 3, 2011 by Sousa

[SRN]

Good fucking god, I hate fighting the Romans. Fucking Praetorians maiming my armies.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

easy solution is to play them.

[SRN]

Nah, whenever I play I always choose Random Civilization; makes for a much more enjoyable game and makes it a challenge not knowing who you are going to play as.

[Sousa]

I just finished a game last night with the option to pick any leader with any civ to play one last easy romp before I moved up in level. Boudica + Praetorians = goddamn ridiculous.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Playing as the Japanese on a real world map - got dumped into modern day Saudi Arabia and it took aaaaages to get going. Things are picking up now due to some of my research decisions and just entered into Medieval era in 3500BC - first nation to do it after being about the 5th to enter Classical. Just gone straight for all the iron, steel etc advances - got to get some samurai out there relatively early on and do my stuff.

A few nations and scuffles around me but amusingly the biggest annoyances have been from barbarians who have been swarming around. Good money coming in now, partly due to the Colossus at Osaka which is bringing me in lovely money for being next to so much water.