Civilization Thread!

[Sousa]

Okay fair enough.

Do the Huns then.

My early, thirty-minutes-into-the-early-game assessment is that the Huns fucking blow. Replacing a defensive unit with a siege unit at a time when you absolutely should not be going to war (pre-Courthouses, are you shitting me?) is not so hot. The only thing I liked was starting with Animal Husbandry. I'll try them again with a different map later.

[Lint]

http://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1nrh4q/trekkies_of_rciv_help_me_with_this_star_trek_mod/

Guy is giving his ideas/taking suggestions for a Star Trek mod for Civ 5. Some cool ideas in it

[TKz]

Okay fair enough.

Do the Huns then.

My early, thirty-minutes-into-the-early-game assessment is that the Huns fucking blow. Replacing a defensive unit with a siege unit at a time when you absolutely should not be going to war (pre-Courthouses, are you shitting me?) is not so hot. The only thing I liked was starting with Animal Husbandry. I'll try them again with a different map later.

I dunno, it's pretty cool on a small map when you settle right next to another Civ. You can actually take their capital with the upgraded unit in almost no time. I can't remember the trick to it, though.

[Mick]

To be fair, the huns do have great porn

[Sousa]

I just really hate early war, primarily because I really like early wonders. I'd much rather wait for the AI to build me a fully developed city with goodies inside. But I'll give them a fair shake later on, I've been wrong before (INCA).

EDIT: In more detail, my thoughts on wonders.

There are probably more categories than this, but I divide wonders into a few categories:

1. Wonders that provide an immediate tangible benefit. Great Library (free tech), Oracle (free policy), Taj (Golden Age), Stonehenge (ostensibly a free Great Prophet, it just takes a few turns), Pisa (free Great Person), Porcelain Tower (free Great Scientist), Notre Dame (free happiness), and a few others are an example of this. Most of these are worth pursuing because immediate benefits can snowball into an advantage quickly.

2. Wonders that provide long-term benefit. Hanging Gardens (free food), Petra/Colossus (free trade routes), Chichen Itza (longer Golden Ages), Pyramids (actually in BOTH categories for easier improvements and free workers), Big Ben (cheaper buying things), and a few others. These are almost always good, too.

3. Wonders that buff a specific part of your empire. Some are defensive (Great Wall, Himeji Castle), some are offensive (Alhambra, Kremlin, Temple of Artemis). These are situational.

4. Wonders that are good for pursuing specific victory types. Statue of Zeus & Great Lighthouse (Domination), Forbidden Palace (Diplomatic), Hubble (Space), Globe/Uffizi/Louvre (Culture), etc. Worth pursuing in the right games, but most of the early ones are hard to get.

5. Fucking useless wonders. Angkor Wat, Borobudur, Great Firewall, etc.

The top two categories are the best two categories, and many of them come early enough in the game that I'd rather pursue them than get an enemy capital pre-Maths.

[HC]

Bought a physical copy today and installation is being kind of a bitch. Like, I installed Stream, got an account, activated the product code, installed the game, etc. Then I go to play and stream tells me I have to install the game! Did I not just do that? Now, it's downloading the whole game and that's going to take a while on my crappy ass internet. The whole point of buying the physical disc was to bypass that, right!? I am so confused.

[RoHitman Reigns]

Head Cheese, why couldn't you have waited? It is 75% off on Steam today....

[Plubby]

Trolololol

[HC]

Head Cheese, why couldn't you have waited? It is 75% off on Steam today....

Yeah, I noticed that as soon as I installed it and whatnot. Bad timing on my part, but I only bought the $20 base game so it's not that big of a deal.

Anyway, yeah, this game is an easy way to kill an hour....or twelve. Having fun, although I'm still figuring a lot of stuff out.

[Lint]

If I take over the Holy City for another religion, is it possible to get it out of there?

[Plubby]

Yeah, bring in a missionary and a prophet at the same turn. Activate the missionary first to clear heresy then the prophet to convert the city. Great Prophets work best here. (G&K)

[stokeriño]

Yeah, bring in a missionary and a prophet an inquisitor at the same turn. Activate the missionary inquisitor first to clear heresy then the prophet missionary to convert the city. Great Prophets work best here. (G&K)

Guessing you mean this? (Although this may be a BNW thing, can't remember.)

I've always wondered whether a captured missionary would spread his old Civ's religion or your Civ's religion if you used him. I could have tested this of course, but in the past I've just executed him instead.

[Plubby]

Oh yeah, that's right. I got Inquisitor and Missionary backwards. That's inexcusable.

A captured missionary spreads the religion of the city he was born in, I discovered the hard way

[stokeriño]

Oh good. I shall continue murderising them, then.

[Sousa]

A religion has a set "pressure" attached to it; it affects how a religion spreads from one city to another. You can boost this with the Religious Texts enhancement belief (it's almost always worth it to spend your second Great Prophet on an enhancement belief, and Religious Texts is a good one). A holy city--even if you wipe out the base religion--will still generate "pressure" from the holy city's religion. That said, if you've taken Religious Texts, you can usually assure that your own religion will stay dominant, but it will still pop up automatically. It's impossible to completely "wipe out" a religion; even if you use a Great Prophet and Inquisitors, it'll still keep coming back.

On a related note, I try to take advantage of any tenets from cities with different religions that I conquer before I start converting; if they can buy Mosques or Monasteries or Pagodas or something like that, I'll buy one before sending in my Missionaries/Prophets.

Also, Plubby's wrong; you shouldn't need to send anything other than a Prophet. Prophets convert 100% of a city's religious population to their religion, so it'll automatically wipe out whatever religion you want wiped out. Prophets act as both Missionary and Inquisitor at once.

[Plubby]

I sent a Great Prophet in during war, peaced, and by the time I re-warred, they'd converted themselves back again. Either Holy Cities are immune to this, or they sent an inquisitor over from another city? I won't rule it out but I don't think this is what's happened.

EDIT: Also, maybe the fact that it's a holy city for another religion still leaves it with some pressure? I don't know, just speculating. All I know is that the first sentence definitely happened. Not quite sure why.

Second edit: OK, I admit I just saw my name and didn't read the rest of the post. I think what you're saying about Holy Cities - Great Prophets don't remove that pressure, so if not enough other cities exert pressure, maybe in time the religion can re-assert itself?

[TKz]

Holy City will always release some pressure, unless you've completely surrounded it with cities of your religion. Every so often it'll convert back, just to be converted right back again if you've got enough pressure.

[Sousa]

EDIT: Also, maybe the fact that it's a holy city for another religion still leaves it with some pressure? I don't know, just speculating. All I know is that the first sentence definitely happened. Not quite sure why.

A holy city--even if you wipe out the base religion--will still generate "pressure" from the holy city's religion.

[Plubby]

You know, I did make that second edit WELL before you posted that...

[HC]

My main takeaway from this game thus far is that Augustus Caesar is fucking douchebag. Seriously, every time.