Civilization Thread!

[ROC]

Turned on the strategic map thing on my shitty computer Civ5 and holy shit, things got so much faster. It's like a playable game with no absurd load times for me now.

[Pizza]

So, you can annex cities as Venice in strategic view. That's something.

[Mick]

Annex, you say?

[Sweet Holy Moses]

Yeah, you just have to nuke yourself first.

[Mick]

Yeah, you just have to nuke yourself first.

Fuck you.

[Sousa]

bollywoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.

Not too tough when your land is that nice.

I loaded up a game before that to try the "three-city culture win with Gandhi" and got a capital with no food and half-tundra. I tried anyway. It was awful. What is with Civ V and these god-awful starts? Even the worst starts in Civ IV (brown with lots of plains cows) weren't as bad as this one was.

[Mick]

Three cities....might give that a go. Sacrifice two trade routes to give to Delhi for production....

[Chris the Human]

I'm finding playing as Venice so tedious. I need to explore and colonize - not sit here improving one fugging city.

[Sousa]

Three cities....might give that a go. Sacrifice two trade routes to give to Delhi for production....

Keep trying until you get a good Delhi. If you can't get a really nice Delhi, the whole game stagnates. It's really ideal for the Tradition/quick National College/Hanging Gardens gambit I keep harping about, too. This map was particularly nice because I was on a smallish island alone but with neighbors across a navigable strait.

[Mick]

I'm finding playing as Venice so tedious. I need to explore and colonize - not sit here improving one fugging city.

Well, there's your first problem. Venice is not a city for colonizing. Venice simply is. Venice is about shitting more money than Mitt Romney and buying everything you fucking need. The early going is rough, I'll give them that. But the payoff is huge once you establish those sea routes.

As Venice, I generally go Pottery --> Writing --> Mining (to clear forests), the basic techs (I may nab Philosophy if I can get the Great Library built so I can start working on faith). After that, I assess the situation. Sailing allows me to build/buy a ship to check out the world; if there's a few cities around me, be it other Civs or City-States, I'm in business. I go after...whatever gives Harbors (it's not Navigation), as well as Iron Working (For Colossus) and Banking. You want Tradition for all of this, and the rest is all how you want to play. Exploration is good because the last tier will give you +4 per trade route. This means that if you're using all your trade routes, it can be the same as having one or two extra trade routes for free. Patronage will give you a fantastic tech boost. Commerce will make your Merchant Trade Missions insane. You don't need Liberty or Honor, and Piety could be an interesting route to go. It depends on the victory you want.

But yeah, I open with: Monument, Worker/Great Library, whatever hasn't been done of the last two, and it's straight on to buying shit for the most part. Great Scientists are used to build academies, Engineers are stockpiled to rush wonders. Trade your strategic resources, and try to negotiate for whatever Venice demands. Make friends with City-States, and when the World Congress begins, start fucking with people politically.

Venice is insanely powerful in spite of their limitation. I just had the most insane game as Venice I've ever had, there were only a handful of Wonders I did not get.

[Sousa]

Why are you building Monuments as Venice and then taking Tradition? Tradition gives you a free Monument and culture just for adopting. Building a Monument as Venice is stupid.

[Mick]

Why are you building Monuments as Venice and then taking Tradition? Tradition gives you a free Monument and culture just for adopting. Building a Monument as Venice is stupid.

Fair point, but I submit to you the concept of turn-rate advantage.

Let's assume I'm doing a marathon game. The first policy comes at 60 culture, or 60 turns. Figure 30 turns to build the monument. Suddenly I'm producing three culture. By building the monument before adopting Tradition, I effectively save 20 turns of waiting. Those 20 turns are significant in the early going. It means I will adopt tradition faster, and yes it seems wasted, but consider I have what is at least 60 more culture points due to the 20 turns; that means I'll be able to hit the first tier that gives the bonus to Wonder production before any other Civ, which means I can get started on the Great Library before any other Civ, which usually means I get the Great Library and it's free tech, which also grants me a free Library.

Look at all the fucking turns I've saved that I can now use for something else. A worker. The Temple of Artemis, if I feel so inclined (I like big population levels ). Building the monument first sets off a chain reaction where you rack up freebies that the AI has to build themselves, and pays off in spite of Tradition giving you the free Monument. If you want to be an ass, sell the Monument before you adopt your first policy, but either way you've just given yourself a big advantage.

[METALMAN]

[Sousa]

Look at all the fucking turns I've saved that I can now use for something else.

How many turns have you really saved? You've just spent thirty turns building a Monument that your tech path will give you for free. Wanting Aristocracy early is understandable, but I've not yet been to a point where that makes an appreciable difference in whether or not you land the Great Library (the limiting factor is usually the quality of your capital, in which case you want a Worker early to make it better). Getting an early Worker or an early Granary (more food means working more tiles) will net you just as much if not more than earlier Aristocracy, and again, it's the long game--you get the Granary earlier so you can grow into more and better tiles. Granary also speeds up growth in the early game faster than the ToA, and in a pinch I'd much rather have the Hanging Gardens anyway, which make it even faster.

I totally understand a Monument first strategy when you're going Liberty and REXing; early Liberty can get you your first Worker and Settler for free (and increase productivity of both down the road). But building something early that the game will give you for free when there are so, so many good build options early on makes no sense at all.

And again, because it bears mentioning, if you're going down Tradition, Legalism (free Monument in Venice) will likely be the third Social Policy you get. If Marathon scaled differently (in Civ IV it gave faster production relative to scale) then I could understand your math, but it's 20 culture to your first policy on Standard and 10 turns for a Monument, so it's clearly just multiplying by 3. The fact that you're playing Marathon makes no difference other than the fact that it makes your units move faster relative to production--which, incidentally, is a great case for building a Worker or a Warrior, not a Monument.

[Mick]

Whatever. My system works just fine.

[Plubby]

I AM GOING TO RUNK CIV!

Should I start a new game, that I come back to every time i'm runk? Or continue with my Siamese game?

[Mick]

I found Ur City-State

[Pizza]

I felt so stupid for building a monument in my Venice game when the policy was like right there, and comes in real handy if you beeline Optics and puppet a city state. It worked out, but I don't think it would have if I was surrounded by warmongers or any higher than prince.

[METALMAN]

It is a monumental error.

[Mick]

Pretty slow start for my Bollywood game. 100 turns to produce a Worker!

It's on Marathon, but still .

At least now I have the two other cities founded, and the one that was taking forever to build is now growing. Such a change from Venice...