Talking about Diplomatic Victory type, I've out right disabled it now in all my games. Refuse to have it as a victory type anymore as its far to easy to achieve (I'm playing on Emperor).
Wait, Admirals give attack bonuses? I have no idea how I missed that. I remember thinking they should but for some reason thought they didn't.I don't think so. Generally the only influence you have with GP for a city state is when a city state wants to see a given type of GP.
And Great Admirals are only useful if you're going to have a "pod" of 3~5 ships floating around to bombard units and cities in preparation for a capture. No one usually builds navies like that except in the late game when sending a bunch of artillery over might be risky. However, I'm not sure if missiles/aircraft will benefit at all from the attack bonus provided. If they do, that'd be great. Otherwise, my experience is the same... the Admirals are crap. If they could build offshore installations of some kind or fight on their own, that might be cool.
Ah well.You might be only able to gift GP with Sweden. It's their UA, +90 influence with a GP gift.
Talking about Diplomatic Victory type, I've out right disabled it now in all my games. Refuse to have it as a victory type anymore as its far to easy to achieve (I'm playing on Emperor).
I agree with Science being easy. On this last game I've started I've disabled it and also extended the turn limit since I hit that for the first time last game.I find Science to also be pretty easy. Culture takes some doing given that you have to overwhelm everyone else's crap with your Tourism now.
Passive 15% to all naval units w/in two tiles, just like the Great Generals.Wait, Admirals give attack bonuses? I have no idea how I missed that. I remember thinking they should but for some reason thought they didn't.
Slows everything down. Enemy can't zerg you (and you can't zerg them back), wars take real time, and you won't be popping tech every other turn and getting sick of upgrading crap every few turns. Workers don't get bored. Empires don't get huge in a few decades. You have time to do some real strategy. You don't blow through the Rennaisance and Industrial eras.I've heard a few people mention playing on Epic length. Why the preference? Is it a make every unit count kind of thing (since they can't be quickly replaced)? I've played most of my games on quick, but the last one was on normal and I wasn't surprised I won by score at turn 500.
I've heard a few people mention playing on Epic length. Why the preference? Is it a make every unit count kind of thing (since they can't be quickly replaced)? I've played most of my games on quick, but the last one was on normal and I wasn't surprised I won by score at turn 500.
I play on epic because even standard is toooo fast. I feel like I'm jumping periods before I've even deployed a newly acquired unit. Everything get obsolete within a few turns it feels like on standard. I want the different periods to last, and actually feel like full games in them selves. I like my civ 5 games to take a few days to play through.
It sucks when you embark an army to conquer someone on a different continent, and the units are already obsolete when they get there. I played my last game on Epic, it was...epic. I was still able to way out tech most of the AI civs on King though, Battleships and subs vs. privateers and frigates. They didn't stand a chance.
I think you guys are way better than me. My last game I started a war with subs knowing I'd need to research battleships before I could finish it. It was a long wait...
Still, I'm intrigued. Depending how long this normal/huge game lasts I might give one a shot. YOu guys certainly didn't let me down on the archipelago recommendation.
Epic is easier than standard and quick, it forces you to use your units and build order intelligently, something the AI can't do.
And rainforst can generate a lot of science, that's for sure. But also zero hammers. If your capital starts in a rainforst, you have to cut that down. At least half of it.
Still on my random immortal game as Siam btw. The game is taking an insane amount of time. I'm in the 1920's now and I can only play about 20 turns per evening. But, things are finally looking up. After a failed invasion of Ethiopia (1 city conquered, damn that unique ability) I saw the Nuclear age was approaching and that India didn't like me. 1+1=2, India needed to go down. 15 turns later I owned his three biggest cities and got the achievement for taking petra with a landship. A complete surprise btw, always cool when something like that happens.
The hammer problem, at least in the early game, is easily fixed by using your trade routes (with a workshop) to send hammers to the city thats short on them. Makes things easy. I honestly think the trade routes kind of broke part of the game. They make late game cities super easy to populate and get running, and when you are short on cash they are a quick fix. Almost always too easy
workshops are not early game and the hammer benefit is really bad unless it's a sea route.
I'm firmly in the 'jungle sucks' camp. I can make a billion beakers with plains, hills, or grassland in a reasonable timeframe. Getting hammers out of a jungle city is like pulling teeth.
Except for the income from extra trade routes, I honestly find playing as Austria or Greece to be more entertaining if you want to become the lord of City-States. Or India if you just want to want to run a three city game. Venice is cute for one game for the giggles, I can't imagine going for any victory with them beyond maybe science or diplomatic. You can't do culture... everyone else is going to whip your ass on wonders so you'll never have the art for your museum. I'm not even sure if Domination is possible given that you just have to raze everything... how do you raze a capital? Hmm... sounds like I have an experiment for the weekend.
You know, when I wrote the post you quoted, admittedly a few hours ago, I'd completely forgotten about puppeting. I am getting old.Venice can still puppet cities, and crucially it can buy with gold even in puppeted cities. Considering the fact that you will make a ton of money off the double trade routes Venice you can utilize your puppets fairly well.
In fact, I'd say Venice is actually excellent for late game Domination if you can get a strong start. First of all, City states tend to build large armies which you receive when you buy them out.
Secondly, other civs require reinforcements from your cities or annexing conquered cities to build troops there, which is hard to do because of happiness and social policy costs, as well as being slowe (because of the revolt turns). Venice can puppet and buy units immediately straight on the front line.
Warmongering as Venice is especially ridiculous if you get Commerce, Big Ben and Autocracy, which will let you purchase units extremely cheap. In BNW you end up making lots of gold, especially as Venice, so you will be able to just grow an army on the front line. Finally, a city state taken by a Merchant of Venice is the perfect landing spot on another continent, as it comes with it's own army and potentially deprives whoever it is you're trying to kill from an ally.
Seems that a small patch has been released...
CRASH
Fixed a crash that could occur when users try to replace a farm with another improvement (like a Holy Place, Manufactory, etc.).
Fixed a crash with the World Wrap when moving naval units across it (primarily on Windows 8, the FX draw could cause a crash due to memory constraints).
Fixed a crash when attempting to unlock the Raiders of the Lost Ark achievement. This affected only human Washington players who were completing an Archaeological Dig in neutral territory.
Fixed a crash that could occur during the AI turn if a city that had connected trade routes was razed.
Fixed some additional random crashes found via Steam Reporting.
AI
The number of Archaeologists built by the AI is now more reasonable.
Correct error in flavor changes for ranged unit construction strategies.
Espionage AI: Correct an issue that was causing the AI to assign diplomats improperly when there were no valid targets.
Tactical AI - Pillaging: Update tactical AI to include targeting Citadels and non-resource tiles for pillaging, to prioritize closer targets over farther targets, and to prefer to use damaged units (so they get the healing benefit).
BALANCE
Allow Wats to be purchased with Faith by Siam (instead of Universities).
UI
When pressing escape, the tech tree now uses the same close logic as hitting F6 or the close button. This was previously causing the pop-up system to fail in-game. After the error occurred, no more pop-ups would be shown until it is cleared by reloading, or by hitting "F6" multiple times. This would be most noticeable when capturing an enemy city and the player would not be able to choose to annex, puppet, or raze, as it would just annex it automatically.
Audio sliders now move in increments in 1 (was 10) and display as a percentage. Fixed how the Slider control moves based on keyboard and scrollwheel input so that it correctly uses the WheelSteps property.
The Declare War UI now displays whether the players have created a declaration of friendship or denounced each other. There's also now a turn counter specifying how long the Declaration of Friendship or Denouncement has left.
GAMEPLAY
Fixed a bug causing all "Victory" achievements to stop functioning for the base game and Gods and Kings.
Fix the "Dr Livingstone" achievement.
Fix the "Pickett's Recharge" achievement.
Fix a bug that was causing Barbarians to not properly target civilian units.
Fix "Greed is Good" achievement. No longer unlocks when the AI fulfills the requirements.
Fix the Venetian Great Galleass so that it can no longer both Melee and Range attack.
Fix cases where Cite-State units weren't being marked properly as dangerous or friendly. These could cause workers to wake up (or ignore danger) incorrectly.
MODDING
DLL connecters now link properly. Custom built DLL mods would previously not load properly (since last update).
Fix "flibby" antiquity sites bug that can occur when using a World Builder map that has pre-defined antiquity sites.
EXPLOIT
Venice can no longer annex cities through the Strategic View.
Venice can no longer annex cities that were previously their puppet, captured by another player, then recaptured as Venice.
MULTIPLAYER
Fix an issue that can occur when you start an MP game with AI players, and that AI meets a City-State, and if a human then joins the game and takes over that AI slot, the game prevents the human from moving into the City-State territory without declaring war.
Allow the game to read-in custom maps from any maps directory, not just the main game maps directory.
Unlocked the rest of the map-scripts for multiplayer play (there were some that were previously not hooked in from earlier releases) ContinentsPlus, Donut, PangaeaPlus, Sandstorm, Highlands, Lakes, Terra.
Sea Routes are the ONLY trade route you should ever be doing, Caravans are completely useless unless you are land locked (which I never ever am, I always build on the coast).
Oh thank god. I hope that's my problem.Fixed a bug causing all "Victory" achievements to stop functioning for the base game and Gods and Kings.
Oh thank god. I hope that's my problem.
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In game news, I think I've run into the infamous Nabunaga charm. He attacked me earlier on (Turn 100?) sent a couple of Triremes to my newish seaside settlement, had them wiped and did nothing for the next 100 turns (outside of send a settler, which hells no). Every peace attempt was met with derision. Dude, if you want war, do something.
On the other side of the continent, the AI continues to stump me. Made friends with Catherine who had like 7 or so cities, which I can't understand how she's not drowning in unhappiness (even if the pops are low). Then she walks a good amount to plop a city just south of my capital. After amassing a small set of forces there, she declares war, which is WTF. Luckily I had made two defensive pacts, though one of them was with the worthless India. Still I don't get the betrayal (We had a DoF).
Anyway, the world hates her.
My first game with her.Catherine is a scheming asshole in all the games.
Sea Routes are the ONLY trade route you should ever be doing, Caravans are completely useless unless you are land locked (which I never ever am, I always build on the coast).
I consider workshops early/midish game, I guess medieval era is kinda mid, but still its one of the first jump points I have, especially if you used the Great Library to jump to Iron Working early.
Catherine is a scheming asshole in all the games.
Correct error in flavor changes for ranged unit construction strategies.
Tactical AI - Pillaging: Update tactical AI to include targeting Citadels
Every leader has a file with flavors, a sort of bias towards various strategies and behaviours in the game, from bullying city-states to backstabbing and building units. Each unit type has a different flavor: naval, air, mobile, ranged, naval, and others. Apparently, the line you quoted means the game had a problem with the strategy followed by the AI when building ranged units. Units are built according to the unit flavor and the strategy being followed by the AI (offensive, defensive, city defense, recon, etc), so it's variable in game, increasing or decreasing by 2 depending on what has happened.If anyone can translate, I'd be interested to hear what this means.
Damnit.
Sea Routes are the ONLY trade route you should ever be doing, Caravans are completely useless unless you are land locked (which I never ever am, I always build on the coast).
I consider workshops early/midish game, I guess medieval era is kinda mid, but still its one of the first jump points I have, especially if you used the Great Library to jump to Iron Working early.
Completely false. In a domination game-heck, any game with mid to late game war- a random non-allied CS caravel can completely wreck you during a war, where as land trade routes with the remnants of a conquered Civ is safe and secure. They can also still bring in decent cash, you just have to develop a city that's amenable for it.
edit: also the idea of a coastal jungle city with any production seems completely pie in the sky. You lose half your workable tiles to ocean, and the rest jungle? I mean, sure there might be decent food w/ fish and bananas but unless you spend time clearing off hills you are getting nowhere. Also I'm pretty sure trading posting jungles takes approximately one billion turns without liberty/pyramid buffs.
Speaking of leader flavors - Gengis Kahn is a fucking asshole
He is indeed, their are a few leaders Genghis, Shaka and Attilla are the first to mind, that you can just never trust no matter how friendly they appear. I'm in a multiplayer game currently where I settled fairly near the Zulu land, forgetting that they had both Zeus and the Terracotta Army and what followed is wave after wave of Impi crossing my border and trying to take the settlement while I desperately try to create a line of fortresses to keep them at bay. It was very dramatic stuff.
He is indeed, their are a few leaders Genghis, Shaka and Attilla are the first to mind, that you can just never trust no matter how friendly they appear. I'm in a multiplayer game currently where I settled fairly near the Zulu land, forgetting that they had both Zeus and the Terracotta Army and what followed is wave after wave of Impi crossing my border and trying to take the settlement while I desperately try to create a line of fortresses to keep them at bay. It was very dramatic stuff.
Speaking of leader flavors - Gengis Kahn is a fucking asshole.
He declares that I'm his best friend, then ten turns later he calls me up: "Sorry about this, but that DOF was a big lol and now we're at war". When I beat his catapults and pikesmen he sues for peace. I didn't have the economy to keep fighting him so I agreed.
~50 turns later we're still at peace, he has a couple of caravans into my cities and I have one cargo ship into his capital, but suddenly I see five catapults and four swordsmen lining up on my border. For some reason he just keeps shuffling them near my border for ten turns or so, giving me enough time to build up a big army. My pal Rahmankangkansnanaah tells me Genghis is a proper bully and wants us to go to war against him and I of course agree.
Five turns later Genghis' armies are gone and this time all his cities and improvements will be burned, pillaged and razed. He will be mourned by none and I will make his capital into a monument of his foolishness.
I prefer the obvious warmongers like Oda and Genghis to schemers like Catherine or Wu Zetian. At least you know they will attack you if you show weakness, and prepare for them. And of course, most of the time they get too aggressive and get dogpiled out of the game.
Every leader has a file with flavors, a sort of bias towards various strategies and behaviours in the game, from bullying city-states to backstabbing and building units. Each unit type has a different flavor: naval, air, mobile, ranged, naval, and others. Apparently, the line you quoted means the game had a problem with the strategy followed by the AI when building ranged units. Units are built according to the unit flavor and the strategy being followed by the AI (offensive, defensive, city defense, recon, etc), so it's variable in game, increasing or decreasing by 2 depending on what has happened.
Flavors go from 1 to any number, with maximum value being 10, but some values are >10 because they can be decreased in game. A value of 12 and above guarantees that it'll always be at 10.
A running joke in the series is Gandhi's nuke flavor. Due to a programming error in the first Civ, Gandhi was a pacifist right until he adopted democracy, from which point he got a roll with maximum flavor for aggression.
He's been a nuke lover in every game ever since, as you can see in his Civ 5 leader file:
<LeaderType>LEADER_GANDHI</LeaderType>
<FlavorType>FLAVOR_NUKE</FlavorType>
<Flavor>12</Flavor>
I hunt him down and murder him the second I see him in my game. Same with Atilla. They're always going to become a problem, so might as well get them before they start burning everything. I leave Catherine and Nobunaga to the AI. They can be dealt with by just not doing any deals with them. They'll eventually piss someone else off and they'll get killed by the AIs that don't react well to broken deals... like Suleiman or Bismark.Speaking of leader flavors - Gengis Kahn is a fucking asshole.
I hunt him down and murder him the second I see him in my game. Same with Atilla. They're always going to become a problem, so might as well get them before they start burning everything. I leave Catherine and Nobunaga to the AI. They can be dealt with by just not doing any deals with them. They'll eventually piss someone else off and they'll get killed by the AIs that don't react well to broken deals... like Suleiman or Bismark.
Gandhi dies the moment I see he's researching the Manhattan Project.
I agree with you, it is funny.The last game I finished, Genghis was my bro from our first DoF straight on through to the end. He's rarely an issue for me. Catherine is 50/50. Sometimes she'll pout all game, sometimes we're besties all the way through. Siam is frequently a problem for me, due to placement and rapid growth. Boudicca usually hates me, but ineffectually. Austria ALWAYS hates me, and is usually a real thorn in my side. And Alexander is basically the devil. I've never coexisted with him.
I don't think that's true. Just last night I was warring with Catherine her having the best military me in the bottom half of the world, and she sued for peace several times (offering it irnexchnage for all my cities, then dwindling). I also find they also get desperate when you start doing aggressive things like razing their cities and pillaging their tiles. She stalled me on taking over a third city and I decided I had had enough. She even threw in some gold.Also anytime the A.I. sues for peace, you have them beat. You have either completely eclipsed their military or wiped it out. That's when I go in for the kill.
In my near 700 hours of playing I've found the A.I. only sues for peace when there's an extreme imbalance between the military strengths of the two warring Civs. It doesn't matter what the relative position of the A.I.'s military is in the world, if it's anywhere near any of your cities, if they can actually threaten your cities, it doesn't matter. If their army is simply larger than yours by a significant margin and you are at war the A.I. will make ludicrous demands. "Give me all of your cities, strategic and luxury resources, oh and open borders." How the game tallies up military strength is a bit nutty, the A.I. can have a large number of primitive early game units and those will still count towards an A.I.'s military strength despite there being a massive technological gap between those units and the present era.
But if you are winning the war and the A.I. sues you for peace, you likely more than have it on the ropes, should refuse their offer, puppet all of their cities and take their capital city.