Civilization V Coming This Fall

[paperfist]

Well apparently I'm in the minority on these boards - I love it so far.

Any complaints I have with the game will likely be patched over time, and as-is it's still fun to me so I'll play away. This is my first Civ game so clearly I'm a noob and from the sounds of it, I should drop this game and go play Civ 4.

I just scored my first culture win (warlord) and had a great time. Going for a giant death robot next!

I wonder if most of the lovers of this game are first timers? Playing V I feel like I did when I bought the new Pirates! and Sid's Railroads, like it all got dumbed down from previous versions and was no fun to play.

Civ IV is a really nice game, pretty well balanced and there's a lot to do, almost too much to do. The base game isn't quite as deep as Beyond the Sword, but it still offers a complete experience.

this game taxes my hardware more than metro 2033....
is this game not optimized or what?

The cooling fan on my Radeon 4800 goes ape s*** while playing Civ V, it's so bad I've ordered a 120mm case fan in hopes of quieting down the GPU cooler. I can play Bad Company 2 for hours on end and the fan doesn't go this nuts.

The only times I'm getting CTD is when I attempt to play a game with the largest map.

I really like the combat system, I must say.

However, that is about it, at least compared to 4. The AI is just atrocious. I took out England and their 6 or 7 cities with the same 4 longswordsman units. Why? because England HAD NO ARMY. All they had was an archer unit at each city. No melee units came out after me, nothing. Best part? they declared war on me.

Brilliant strategy by the cpu, get mad at me and declare war without an army. Really makes for a tough go of it.

What's really appalling is how hyped up the AI was pre-launch. The AI is 3 layers deep! The AI is so good everyone on our staff plays sessions durning lunch instead of eating!

LOL

 

[Acanthus]

Do you guys have BSOD under Win7 64bits while playing Civ5??

Happened 3-4 times since release...I checked my temps on CPU and graphics card and everything under control...

no.

What does the BSOD say?

 

[Regs]

I play on the fastest settings, but it still seems like I am spending turn after turn waiting, doing nothing.

I'm gonna try the mod that makes your fields produce more resources and see if that helps out.

e: its not necessarily just about the speed though, I mean there are other things, like the god awful AI.

See, I thought I wasn't the only one who noticed this. It's a turn based strategy with less micro management so there has to be something there to give it more depth but there isn't. It's like Rome Total War but without the ability to stack armies, fight epic battles on both water and land, and built a balance of units i.e. it's lacking.

Battle design is improved, and I like the hex system and single unit occupation, but it needs more involvement. I miss the micro management, and there is nothing taking its place.

 

[Sylvanas]

Wow this game is still as addictive as ever. I absolutely lost track of time today. I told a friend I'd call them back in 10minutes, I thought it wouldn't take long to finish my offensive and take a city or two....an hour later I realized it was time to step away from the computer and do what I said I'd do 50minutes ago . One small example but Civ5 rocks !

 

[HomerX]

One problem of the new combat system is imho that it is very difficult to stop an invasion.
If i declare war to an enemy with the same tech lvl and i attack with 1-2 siege units, 2-3 ranged units and 2-3 melee units, i will not only be able to conquer one city but his complete empire!
once you reach a critical army size that is able to crush the initial defenders with no casualities, the defender will have no chance to survive...

The reason is, that you can conquer cities without loosing any units... in Civ4 you had to use siege units in order to soften the defenders through collateral dmg, slowing your invasion down after a few battles because the siege units got used up... you also lost a few attackers against strong city defenders, especially if you had no time to bombard the city for a lot of turns...
In Civ5 you position your 1-2 siege weapons and archers, move the melee units in place and one turn later the city is yours without any lost units... heal 3-4 turns, move to the next city....
The Culture of the city immediatelly switches sides... in civ4 the defender often had the advatage of the own culture, which made it more difficult to defend the conquered city, while moving to the next one.
I am not sure if my opponents used defensive structures in their cities or if these structures are strong enough in order to stop an invasion but i doubt it...

to sum it up:
-no units that are used up in order to soften the defenders (collateral dmg units in civ4 that got suicided in order to weaken the enemy)
-no need to bombard a city for several turns in order to lower its defense (1-2 siege weapons in civ5 +1-2 ranged units are enough to weaken a city in one turn for your melee units to win)
-no dedicated "city defense units" compared to the archery units in civ4
-instant culture switch, removing all combat/movement bonuses for the former owner of the city, making "guerilla" taktics impossible

 

[rpanic]

Well I was liking it the first few hours of play but now that I have finished it a couple of times I have to agree with the negatives that everyone is talking about.

The game feels like it drags even when setting it on fast and it does seem really dumbed down. I’m going back to playing Civ 4, hopefully this game gets better as time goes by.

 

[nanobreath]

Despite what complaints I have about the game, it is still wildly addictive. Kept me up till 4am Fri night/Sat morn.

Played my first game on the prince difficulty and it was a big jump up from chieften. Happiness and Income were a lot more difficult to manage. You HAVE to trade luxury resources in order to keep up, as well as build happy buildings, but they cost upkeep. Thus leads to problems with income. I was struggling, but was keeping up. Decided to go for cultural victory and I was doing well. I was staying slightly ahead in technology such that I wasn't having to worry about spamming units to keep from being dominated militarily.

Everything is fine, until I realize that one AI is starting to dominate everybody else and is building a MASSIVE empire. I have a slight tech lead on him, but when he attacks me he has such a massive army that I cannot stop him. It was my first lesson that cities without defensive structures are worthless. They cannot bombard worth shit, and are easy to take out in a single turn without any siege. He finally gets me back to my capitol only, but luckily it is built in a mountain range with easy choke points that force him to attack my units instead of my city. Also I have been able to pump out two bombers such that by the time he ever reaches my city I have him dead or so close to it he cannot hope to win a fight.

I did finally quit at 4am since I knew there was no way I could win the game. I couldn't die, but there was no way I could fight my way out of that hole against somebody who now could out research me.

The next game I play I decide to play a bit more aggressively. When I have the military advantage, use it to take somebody out before somebody else does. It works great, but I'm having a problem keeping my civ happy after expanding to such a large empire. It is hard to afford all the happy buildings without digging myself into a hole financially. Then almost by accident I befriend a city-state and he gives me food. Lots of food. 5 in my capital, and 3 in every other city. Then I notice all the city-states around me are the same type. I befriend them and get up to 9 bonus food in all my cities and the light bulb finally turns on in my head. If I have all this extra food...I don't need farms. I can put down trading posts. I can make money, LOTS of money. About the time I get a large number of farms changed to trading posts I finish the Lourve and pop two golden ages from the great artists. Then I build the Taj Mahal for more golden age. And then popped on of my great generals to add more! I swear I had like 40+ turns of golden age. 400+ gpt is awesome.

Oh as a heads up to anybody else building trading posts and eyeing that policy in that science tree that says it adds 2 science to every trading post. It lies. It is only 1 science to every trading post. Bullshit! Pissed me off, I sacrificed a lot to get my culture up with a 14 city empire to be able to purchase that! Golden age was up and I only had 160 gpt, how sad!

Suddenly, where prince seemed very difficult, now it was extremely easy.

 

[murphy55d]

nano when you took out that other civ did you annex or puppet state the cities? if you annex them and do not build a courthouse your happiness goes into the toilet. however if you puppet them you do not get the happiness penalty.

you may have known that just throwing it out there.

 

[Rhezuss]

nano when you took out that other civ did you annex or puppet state the cities? if you annex them and do not build a courthouse your happiness goes into the toilet. however if you puppet them you do not get the happiness penalty.

you may have known that just throwing it out there.

Before I started attacking my neighbor, I had no idea what an annex or puppet city was. Now that I obliterated the Azteks, I have like 6 puppet-cities that give me lots of gems, incenses, silk, cotton, bananas, coal, silver and iron.

I was sitting at a 2 to 20 gold per turn and now i'm at 150-200 gold / turn since I got more "aggressive".

Love this game...got to sleep at 2:20am this morning...

 

[Homerboy]

100% totally addicted. (again)

Nano I was in a similar game for my first "prince" level. I thought I was doing fine and dandy, and I was... for my island. Little did I know the Persians (who I hadn't even discoverred yet) were crushing on their (large) island, both in tech and in military.

Before I even saw them though, apparently I pissed off a City State, they were allies with the other CSes and in turn they were allied with other Civs. Withing 1 move I literally had the WORLD against me (except Persia). I fought off Napolean, the Aztecs, 10 city states and a few other Civs. BEGGING for peace between every move. I held my own, only lost 1 city in the process, eventually making peace with the Civs (though the CSes are still at war with me... how do you make peace with the CSes?)

Now though Persia is at war with me, but is not being agressive about it. I camped a few frigates on their borders and pound anything that leaves their shores. I'm trying to make France an ally by trade, and clearing out a few CSes that they are at war with. It seems to be working. My only hope at this point is to get France on my side and then both attack Persia for the win.



The one gripe I have thus far, as somebody previously mentioned, is the lenght of CPU moves. Too damned long. I have a PIIX4 @3.5Ghz and it only seems to use all 4 cores at like 50%. Turns are etternal. Why does it take so long? I don't get it.

I do have the problem of annexing the captured cities and having the unhappiness issue. I should probably let them be puppet states... at least the smaller ones.

 

[nanobreath]

nano when you took out that other civ did you annex or puppet state the cities? if you annex them and do not build a courthouse your happiness goes into the toilet. however if you puppet them you do not get the happiness penalty.

you may have known that just throwing it out there.

Neither! Well not entirely true. Usually I raze and found my own city on the same spot. This works very well early game when their culture isn't very large so I can catch up to same level the city was at quickly, especially since my income is so high I can buy any land I need, though I rarely do. Lots of times I slightly move the point for the city, getting better resources, or condensing two of their cities into one of my own. This not only saves the cost of courthouses, but the AI sometimes have crappy buildings and doing this avoids other unnecessary maintenance.

When it is a capital, or has very large culture boundaries that I'd rather keep, I always puppet them. I keep an eye on what they are building. When they start building something I don't want, like a barracks or forge(why the hell would a city that cannot building units, build unit buffing buildings?), I annex and switch to a courthouse. The only reason you shouldn't annex a city is the maintenance cost of a courthouse(this is in a non-cultural game of course). 5gpt is a lot, however, soon as they start building pointless buildings that are going to cost you anyway, you are better of taking control.

100% totally addicted. (again)

The one gripe I have thus far, as somebody previously mentioned, is the lenght of CPU moves. Too damned long. I have a PIIX4 @3.5Ghz and it only seems to use all 4 cores at like 50%. Turns are etternal. Why does it take so long? I don't get it.

I do have the problem of annexing the captured cities and having the unhappiness issue. I should probably let them be puppet states... at least the smaller ones.

I have read that switching to strategic view (F10) before ending turn can shave off a decent amount of time from ending turns. Haven't tried it personally.

See above for best way of avoiding unhappiness from annexing cities.

However, I have also read a strategy on civ-fanatics about completely ignoring un-happiness. -200 is the same as -20 unhappiness. By having appropriate upgrades, flanking and great generals you can overcome the reduction to army effectiveness. You do not need population growth if you are conquering new cities, and by not needing food you can have a very large income and buy anything you need instead of using production.

 

[YoungGun21]

I play on the fastest settings, but it still seems like I am spending turn after turn waiting, doing nothing.

I'm gonna try the mod that makes your fields produce more resources and see if that helps out.

e: its not necessarily just about the speed though, I mean there are other things, like the god awful AI.

Where is that mod? I can't seem to find it. I've looked in-game and on several websites.

 

[MrMatt]

Have you played the same game I have? Culture has a huge affect. Culture lets you purchase extremely useful social policies and it grows your cities. I actually prefer the new culture system to Civ4. Sure it's fun to culture bomb some poor sap with an artist, but honestly how realistic is it to have constantly shifting borders? American movies and music are all over the world, but incredibly I have yet to see our borders shift even a mile into Mexico or Canada.

I do agree about adjusting the tax/science/luxury rates though.

Not saying I necessarily dislike the culture system now, I just find it much less useful. It would royally piss me off sometimes in Civ 4, but I didn't think it needed a radical change.

 

[Homerboy]

Not saying I necessarily dislike the culture system now, I just find it much less useful. It would royally piss me off sometimes in Civ 4, but I didn't think it needed a radical change.

I dunno. I'm finding adopting the right policies have a HUGE impact on the game. I never liked the culture bombs in Civ4. Well... I mean I LIKED to use them, but felt they were too powerful.

What I am having a hard time dealing with in Civ5 is what to do with great people... generals I always keep as their military advantage is damn nice (+45%?!). Artists and scientists though... man I always just want that damn free tech!

 

[MrMatt]

I can't get into this game.

It seems so slow and boring compared to any previous one.

Was thinking this last night. NOTHING happens in this game. Just the same horse shit with city states whining about barb camps. And wars are WAY too easy. I'm playing on Monarch I think it is, and I've obliterated multiple city states & opponents with 3 or 4 units. Seriously, I'm running around with a great general and TWO legions and conquering empires. I built a catapult to try it out so now I have 4 units (only 3 of which are actual combat units) and I'm raping everything around me. I don't even like wars in Civ games usually, but without them there is absolutely nothing to do in this game. It's like rather than making managing the empire optional they just completely eliminated it and didn't put anything in its place. If I could return this thing for even a 50% refund I would.

 

[minmaster]

city states are the most annoying thing in civ since AI spies constantly poisoning your water supply in civ 4 bts. every freaking turn theres some city state message... somebody figure out how to disable that shit.

 

[xboxist]

lol such a divide in this game. I love city states. Here, I'll give you gold every now and then and you give me free culture, food and random military units. Thanks!

edit: oh yeah, and luxury resources

 

[BurnItDwn]

city states are the most annoying thing in civ since AI spies constantly poisoning your water supply in civ 4 bts. every freaking turn theres some city state message... somebody figure out how to disable that shit.

Well, you can easily disable all the city states by just going into advanced start and setting the # of city states to 0.

 

[Acanthus]

Was thinking this last night. NOTHING happens in this game. Just the same horse shit with city states whining about barb camps. And wars are WAY too easy. I'm playing on Monarch I think it is, and I've obliterated multiple city states & opponents with 3 or 4 units. Seriously, I'm running around with a great general and TWO legions and conquering empires. I built a catapult to try it out so now I have 4 units (only 3 of which are actual combat units) and I'm raping everything around me. I don't even like wars in Civ games usually, but without them there is absolutely nothing to do in this game. It's like rather than making managing the empire optional they just completely eliminated it and didn't put anything in its place. If I could return this thing for even a 50% refund I would.

Play multiplayer.

 

[sandorski]

Neither! Well not entirely true. Usually I raze and found my own city on the same spot. This works very well early game when their culture isn't very large so I can catch up to same level the city was at quickly, especially since my income is so high I can buy any land I need, though I rarely do. Lots of times I slightly move the point for the city, getting better resources, or condensing two of their cities into one of my own. This not only saves the cost of courthouses, but the AI sometimes have crappy buildings and doing this avoids other unnecessary maintenance.

When it is a capital, or has very large culture boundaries that I'd rather keep, I always puppet them. I keep an eye on what they are building. When they start building something I don't want, like a barracks or forge(why the hell would a city that cannot building units, build unit buffing buildings?), I annex and switch to a courthouse. The only reason you shouldn't annex a city is the maintenance cost of a courthouse(this is in a non-cultural game of course). 5gpt is a lot, however, soon as they start building pointless buildings that are going to cost you anyway, you are better of taking control.



I have read that switching to strategic view (F10) before ending turn can shave off a decent amount of time from ending turns. Haven't tried it personally.

See above for best way of avoiding unhappiness from annexing cities.

However, I have also read a strategy on civ-fanatics about completely ignoring un-happiness. -200 is the same as -20 unhappiness. By having appropriate upgrades, flanking and great generals you can overcome the reduction to army effectiveness. You do not need population growth if you are conquering new cities, and by not needing food you can have a very large income and buy anything you need instead of using production.

F10 in CS also speeds you to Respawn....

 

[paperfist]

Is there no more leader board that shows who's 'winning' the game based on points?

Is it possible to group a general with a unit? I can't seem to figure out how.

Why the hell does a static map have to redraw after every movement?

 

[Regs]

Is there no more leader board that shows who's 'winning' the game based on points?

Is it possible to group a general with a unit? I can't seem to figure out how.

Why the hell does a static map have to redraw after every movement?

Hm good question, I will have to check that out. Doesn't appear to be a point board until you win or lose at the end game summary screen.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Hm good question, I will have to check that out. Doesn't appear to be a point board until you win or lose at the end game summary screen.

Doesn't the diplomacy screen show points? Top right drop down. Currently I have about 560 for example. India has 600-odd....bastards.

 

[Acanthus]

Is there no more leader board that shows who's 'winning' the game based on points?

Is it possible to group a general with a unit? I can't seem to figure out how.

Why the hell does a static map have to redraw after every movement?

Open the diplomacy window.

The numbers next to each civ are the scores.

Also, the "prince" AI isnt all that good, lol.

 

[gophins72]

city states are the most annoying thing in civ since AI spies constantly poisoning your water supply in civ 4 bts. every freaking turn theres some city state message... somebody figure out how to disable that shit.

you can right click the messages so that you dont have to manually read them all. that could help with the gameplay.