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[Zzoram]

No foreign trade routes. Roads costing gold maintenance makes you think really hard about where you build roads. Build them all over and you'll go bankrupt really fast.

 

[zoku88]

Oh, ok. I was wondering what I could do to offset my building maintenance. I only have two cities, but I wanted them to be pretty big (thus, using mostly farms.)

Going for another cultural victory on King. I was really poor for my previous one >_<

 

[Helmholtz]

Is it bad to set workers to build improvements automatically? That's what I've generally been doing.

 

[Zzoram]

Is it bad to set workers to build improvements automatically? That's what I've generally been doing.

It's only bad if you're playing above Prince difficulty. You want to micromanage at least a few workers to make sure that certain tiles get specific improvements before worker turns are wasted on other things.

 

[Zeliard]

What's the best thing to do with workers when they have no land to currently do anything with? Go chop surrounding lumber?

It takes a bit longer, but you actually can start and finish wars in one age using the same types of troops. In a standard game, one can start a war with musketmen and wrap it up with mechanized infantry if it is an even match. Your guys also move at the same speed, so when you go exploring or sailing, you can get stuff done in a reasonable time, especially on a huge map type. No more taking 100 years to sail around the globe.

Makes sense.

 

[Spire]

What's the best thing to do with workers when they have no land to currently do anything with? Go chop surrounding lumber?

Delete them. They add to your unit maintenance and deleting them inside your territory gives you a small amount of gold (the unit maintenance is the big thing, though). If you've run out of tiles to improve and are just waiting for your borders to expand, only have one or two workers left. Borders expand slowly, you really don't need any more than that. I've played standard speed games where I never built more than three workers, an army of them will kill your gold per turn.


Also:

One More Turn, I've got it bad. It doesn't help that I feel the need to get every achievement. I have 51 so far, getting all 120 might cost me my job. And does anyone know anything about the achievements that don't have any descriptions that appear only in the global achievement list, like Six Degrees to Side and The Paul Murphy Award for Excellence and Attractiveness? I assume they're supposed to be hidden, but I need to know how to get them. I NEED to know.

 

[Arozay]

This is my first Civilization game, I'm still getting the hang of the whole food system and all that, only had timed wins so far but I've been close to Dominations (Japanese are overpowered).

Is there any way to remove the opening cinematic? For some reason you can roll your face over your keyboard and mouse and it still takes 5 seconds to skip it.

 

[Aaron]

Is it bad to set workers to build improvements automatically? That's what I've generally been doing.

It's a bad idea, yeah. They seem to have worse AI compared to 4 where they'll continuously replace spots if you empire is teetering between certain needs. Like if you need gold, it builds a trading post, but then you need more production, it replaces it with a mine. But now production is up and gold is down, so it replaces that with a trading post...

You can set them to not replace buildings, but as you earn new and better improvements, you actually want them do. So manual them, and if they seem to be of no use, delete them as others have suggested.

 

[leroidys]

Is it bad to set workers to build improvements automatically? That's what I've generally been doing.

Yeah it sucks. The AI has a trading post fetish, so it will start turning everything into trading posts and starve you/ruin your production.

 

[British Monsoon]

Won my first game, a Domination victory with the Aztec. I was going to start peaceful, but then the English just kept pestering me, so I had to conquer them and as a result ended up in a war with a half dozen city states. My one ally was Hanoi, but after I'd laid waste to everyone else on the continent, they turned on me! Foolish, but annoying. France was the final civilization left untouched by my armies, so I nuked Paris and sent in a trio of giant death robots (coolest unit in the game, by far - wish there was more crazy future-tech) to mop them up and win after 380 or so turns.

 

[Rad-]

Is there any way to remove the opening cinematic? For some reason you can roll your face over your keyboard and mouse and it still takes 5 seconds to skip it.

Go to My Documents/My Games/Sid Meier's Civilization 5 and open UserSettings.ini file. From there change the line SkipIntroVideo = 0 to SkipIntroVideo = 1

 

[No45]

It doesn't help that I feel the need to get every achievement. I have 51 so far, getting all 120 might cost me my job.

I had a look at the achievement list earlier, it's scary.

Finally managed to find a copy that didn't require me to either a) go to town or b) pay full price. Result. I now have two days off of work. ^_^

 

[Hari Seldon]

So if you are playing Ghandi and trying to get the 3 cities achievement, if you take a city and raze it, does that count against the 3 cities? It takes a few turns for the city to go away so that is why I'm asking.

 

[kyo_daikun]

Struggling to get into the game, never seem to be able to build much as im surrounded by other civs/ states so I can't expand (this is on huge map) I sit there just trying to research more and I just get bored, going to have to try with less people so I have more breathing room.

 

[Moonstone]

That makes sense, wasn't the case here though as all the city states are on the edges of my empire and I have no roads going through them. I noticed that one of the road tiles went to recommending building a road but there was already a road there and I couldn't built. Then it went away. Might just be a glitch.

I recognized that I lost my production bonus for the railway several times. A traderoute can be blocked just by units I think.

What I really like about the city states is that you can gift them units. I just managed to win a diplomatic victory with just one war and one enemy. I never really had military units
and was everybodys darling except for Alexander. But I fought all big nations through city states. Some even lost several cities to the city states.:lol
Florence was in the puffer zone between me and Alexander, my only enemy. They did all the fighting for me and even got 2 great generals on their own.

Best thing about this is, that you don't have to pay the maintenance anymore if you gift them away, just try to keep the states happy.

That's just awesome because you can be friendly with those nations, do research projects with them etc. pp, while you are financing a shadow war against them behind their back at the same time.

 

[moojito]

Struggling to get into the game, never seem to be able to build much as im surrounded by other civs/ states so I can't expand (this is on huge map) I sit there just trying to research more and I just get bored, going to have to try with less people so I have more breathing room.

I don't know if you have the wrong sense of scale or something. You'd often have several cities visible on the same screen, ie fairly close to one another. You don't want to have your second city away over the other side of the landmass or anything like that.

 

[Deleted member 30609]

I recognized that I lost my production bonus for the railway several times. A traderoute can be blocked just by units I think.

What I really like about the city states is that you can gift them units. I just managed to win a diplomatic victory with just one war and one enemy. I never really had military units
and was everybodys darling except for Alexander. But I fought all big nations through city states. Some even lost several cities to the city states.:lol
Florence was in the puffer zone between me and Alexander, my only enemy. They did all the fighting and even got 2 great generals.

Best thing about this is, that you don't have to pay the maintenance anymore if you gift them away, just try to keep them happy.

That's just awesome because you can be friendly with those nations, do research projects with them etc. pp, while you are financing a shadow war against them behind their back at the same time.

Wow! Never even considered that. Awesome.

 

[kyo_daikun]

I don't know if you have the wrong sense of scale or something. You'd often have several cities visible on the same screen, ie fairly close to one another. You don't want to have your second city away over the other side of the landmass or anything like that.

See i've always thought that the cities tiles overlapped they both couldnt use the same one and a city would be worse off because another city was already using the resources, maybe this is where im going wrong, going to watch some youtube videos and get myself upto speed.

 

[markao]

Addictive as always :lol


Still getting the hang of all the new additions to the game, reading this tread helps a lot, but overall feel very positive about most of them. Game, art + IQ, looks beautiful and have no issues, as long as I stay away from the "huge map" setting (load times in between turns).


I have one question though, does it mater on what type of tile you build your city, or is it just about the surrounding tiles. I do see how a river, mountain could help, but does it mater if its on fertile ground, build in the forrest, etc ?

 

[IMACOMPUTA]

Is there an option to have all civs in their real locations when playing on earth with continents?

Bump.
Anyone?

 

[JayDubya]

Still on my Marathon / Emperor first playthrough...

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this Liberty / Commerce build. Now that money is pouring in, and I buy things for half price, I just keep building more and more coastal cities near fish / whales / pearls...

Then they need a monument, a workshop, a harbor, a seaport, and enough entertainment buildings to offset their happiness cost... making money roll in faster, and giving me more places to pump out units once the big war finally comes (and oh, how I expect it to come).

I guess it'll be a long time before I get another social policy, but this is working out pretty well so far.

I have Angkor Wat to boost trade, Forbidden Palace to reduce happiness costs, and Big Ben to reduce purchasing... I need to look into getting the Eiffel Tower and / or Statue of Liberty first too.

 

[MjFrancis]

I tried to play an Earth mod where every Civ and city-state begins on their real starting point, and discovered that my install mod feature is bugged. I can download anything, even manually place something in my 'mod' folder, but nothing ever shows up on the install screen. It's a real bummer! I looked around and found this was a fairly common bug, so it should be remedied soon.

In the meantime, I'll work on a science victory for Babylon! That free scientist with writing gives a heck of a head start on science production.

 

[LCfiner]

Bump.
Anyone?

there's a mod for that. it's in the mod browser, i think. real start locations, it's called. or similar.

 

[AstroLad]

I have one question though, does it mater on what type of tile you build your city, or is it just about the surrounding tiles. I do see how a river, mountain could help, but does it mater if its on fertile ground, build in the forrest, etc ?

Well you automatically work the tile you're on, so make it a decent one. You also get defensive bonuses from the terrain, at least for hills I believe.

 

[Hari Seldon]

I have one question though, does it mater on what type of tile you build your city, or is it just about the surrounding tiles. I do see how a river, mountain could help, but does it mater if its on fertile ground, build in the forrest, etc ?

I believe cities have a base value no matter where you build them. DO NOT build them on luxury tiles or anything like that. It is best to build the city in the shittiest tile if you have a choice, but it is more important to get the most resources in the 3 hex radius of course.

 

[Big Chungus]

So far all the games i've played online have had complete assholes in them.

I thought the online multiplayer would have more settings

 

[Rad-]

So far all the games i've played online have had complete assholes in them.

I thought the online multiplayer would have more settings

Yeah online in Civ games is usually horrible with randoms. Many play it like a simple war game.

 

[AstroLad]

i couldn't even fathom playing online civ with randoms. that seems beyond masochistic

 

[MjFrancis]

So far all the games i've played online have had complete assholes in them.

What have they been doing? I've had mixed results with online communities in general, but having a Civilization V community populated by assholes seems surprising. I never took IV online but I do plan to do so with V once I've got the game down on diety - maybe the community will be whittled down to a righteous core in a few short months?

 

[markao]

Well you automatically work the tile you're on, so make it a decent one. You also get defensive bonuses from the terrain, at least for hills I believe.

I believe cities have a base value no matter where you build them. DO NOT build them on luxury tiles or anything like that. It is best to build the city in the shittiest tile if you have a choice, but it is more important to get the most resources in the 3 hex radius of course.

Thanks guys, but I think I need a third opinion now

 

[syllogism]

I recall you get one more gold if you build on a luxury resource, but it's still wasteful

 

[PoweredBySoy]

Thanks guys, but I think I need a third opinion now

Hari had it right.

 

[Macattk15]

Game AI is so annoyingly stupid sometimes.

I get into a war with Alexander for quite some time, I'm dropping his units and ended up taking 3 of his cities. My forces are starting to wane and he is now tech'ed up to Industrial units while I'm still in the previous era killing stuff with Minutemen. Alexander offers a peace treaty because I have been stomping him at this point and I accept.

About 20 turns later I see him running a settler around. Sure enough he settles like 6 tiles from one of my cities (not one of the ones I conquered from him). About 10 turns later he declares war on me because my borders are too close.

DUDE, YOU CAME AND SETTLED RIGHT NEXT TO ONE OF MY TOWNS EVEN WHEN I TOLD YOU NOT TO SETTLE NEXT TO MY CITIES.

Speaking of which, they generally seem to ignore and never agree when you tell them to not settle next to your cities.

So very annoying. I ended up losing because by this point he had better units than me, even though I had the quantity.

So stupid.

 

[AstroLad]

i thought if you build on a resource i thought you got access to the resource right away once you get the requisite tech. seems like a decent benefit in some circumstances. can't try it out i don't get back to civ for like 9 hours :/ kinda wish it was spelled out better in the manual; i checked in response to the initial question and didn't really see anything on point

 

[moojito]

Yes, imagine a country making up frivolous reasons to invade another country with a lesser army. Unheard of!

Spoiler

They were looking for your WMDs

 

[AstroLad]

Speaking of which, they generally seem to ignore and never agree when you tell them to not settle next to your cities.

So very annoying. I ended up losing because by this point he had better units than me, even though I had the quantity.

So stupid.

I've found that at least on King it's great forewarning of an impending invasion. They start spamming settlers all around your border. Love how you often have 5 turns or more notice of an attack in this Civ. Nice for production-heavy military-light people like me.

edit: not that you really need much of a military in this game to defend yourself, at least on King, provided you are teched up but i am greedy as hell and would run no military if i could get away with it

 

[Calantus]

AI isn't great, yeah. I had 10 units on Alexanders borders and he didn't mass up an army. Maybe it was because we had a 10 turn peace treaty so the AI didn't 'think' anything of it.

I bum rushed his ass and destroyed all three of his cities in ~7 turns.

 

[f0rk]

Game AI is so annoyingly stupid sometimes.

I get into a war with Alexander for quite some time, I'm dropping his units and ended up taking 3 of his cities. My forces are starting to wane and he is now tech'ed up to Industrial units while I'm still in the previous era killing stuff with Minutemen. Alexander offers a peace treaty because I have been stomping him at this point and I accept.

About 20 turns later I see him running a settler around. Sure enough he settles like 6 tiles from one of my cities (not one of the ones I conquered from him). About 10 turns later he declares war on me because my borders are too close.

DUDE, YOU CAME AND SETTLED RIGHT NEXT TO ONE OF MY TOWNS EVEN WHEN I TOLD YOU NOT TO SETTLE NEXT TO MY CITIES.

Speaking of which, they generally seem to ignore and never agree when you tell them to not settle next to your cities.

So very annoying. I ended up losing because by this point he had better units than me, even though I had the quantity.

So stupid.

That sounds pretty smart tbh, he's playing to win rather than just doing what you tell him.

The main AI problem I've seen is the actually combat, the diplomacy and decision making seems ok.

 

[Hari Seldon]

i thought if you build on a resource i thought you got access to the resource right away once you get the requisite tech. seems like a decent benefit in some circumstances. can't try it out i don't get back to civ for like 9 hours :/ kinda wish it was spelled out better in the manual; i checked in response to the initial question and didn't really see anything on point

That is what it said in the strat guide. What you say is how it worked in the past IIRC. But maybe the strat guide is wrong, I haven't tried it.

 

[AstroLad]

That is what it said in the strat guide. What you say is how it worked in the past IIRC. But maybe the strat guide is wrong, I haven't tried it.

yeah i'm gonna mess around with it tonight for sure. right now i'm looking back at pacts of cooperation and secrecy as well. <3 but it's crazy how opaque some of the basic concepts are.

 

[Sober]

i thought if you build on a resource i thought you got access to the resource right away once you get the requisite tech. seems like a decent benefit in some circumstances. can't try it out i don't get back to civ for like 9 hours :/ kinda wish it was spelled out better in the manual; i checked in response to the initial question and didn't really see anything on point

I've done this to nab some iron in a previous game, but the only problem is you won't be able to work the resource for whatever extra benefit it would normally provide with an improvement. If a city has a base value whereever you place it though (I haven't noticed any difference besides the palace benefit yet), that really sucks cause putting one on a hill feels like a waste if I can't get a small production boost/build a windmill to offset any defensive benefits and one less mine that might provide.

 

[erpg]

Ugh, just ended a game after a couple hundred turns due to shit placement. Was playing on Earth, and while Iroquois, Arabia, Greece (me), Aztec and America started really close in Europe/Asia, England had Africa all to itself, and Japan had North America. Super lame no resources to get anything done.

 

[AstroLad]

Can someone remind me -- when you puppet a city, does it increase your policy requirements like building a new city? Decision time here on my little continent.

 

[Cheech]

What have they been doing? I've had mixed results with online communities in general, but having a Civilization V community populated by assholes seems surprising. I never took IV online but I do plan to do so with V once I've got the game down on diety - maybe the community will be whittled down to a righteous core in a few short months?

CoD 7: The Return of Dudebro drops in a month. Expect the Civ V community to improve exponentially.

Seriously enjoying this game quite a bit. I have no idea what the Amazon reviewers/bitchers are going on about. I paid full price via Steam, and the game is a downright value.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

What have they been doing? I've had mixed results with online communities in general, but having a Civilization V community populated by assholes seems surprising. I never took IV online but I do plan to do so with V once I've got the game down on diety - maybe the community will be whittled down to a righteous core in a few short months?

A good chunk of us are waiting for pending multiplayer modes before we bother to jump in (PBEM, pitboss, etc).

 

[Macattk15]

That sounds pretty smart tbh, he's playing to win rather than just doing what you tell him.

The main AI problem I've seen is the actually combat, the diplomacy and decision making seems ok.

I had just taken like 4 out of his 7 cities and razed them to the ground to create more room for myself.

He runs a settler allllllll the way over next to my city ... basically in a desert with no luxury resources near it ... and then declares war because my borders are too close.

Why waste the time and not just declare outright war if that is your goal, what did the AI achieve? That is why I think it is stupid.

I can confirm what the strat guide says is correct. I built my city on top of a field of Dyes (because another was relatively close) and as soon as I researched Calendar I had the happiness from the settled on Dyes.

 

[MjFrancis]

It's a little out there, but it sounds like a good strategy to me. Heck, I've used it already - if I have a large treasury I'll settle six tiles away from my target and buy a few units to supplement my invading army. Reinforcements at arm's length - what's not to like?

It sounds like something a human opponent would do.

 

[AstroLad]

Where are the city-state bonuses specifically outlined? They seem to be only referred to in generalities in the manual.

 

[Pacman2k]

I'm a first time Civ player so there's a lot I am trying to get a handle on right now, but so far I've played through 2 maps and I have a couple comments/questions.

-----
1. Attempt #1 was to try and leverage Germany's ability with recruiting barbarians, coupled with the social policy that reveals new barbarian encampments to produce an early military and quickly take over a couple neighbors. Then proceed on to a military victory...

This plan worked great. Maybe too great, as I quickly found myself over expanded after taking out 2 other nations + a couple city-states + was using settlers to expand also. I was stuck in a long haul of building courthouses (some with upwards of 50+ turn build times.) This allowed other nations to basically catch up to my unit count, and France used this opportunity to amass a huge army at my northern border.

I believe my fail here was not leaving them as puppets long enough (or perhaps, permanently?) What is the general consensus on when to annex vs. when to puppet? Is it always better to annex if you can afford the happiness? Is happiness always ok as long as you stay above zero?

I ended up having to turtle up but this somewhat worked out ok as I had huge amounts of science generating, and was able to achieve a science victory.
-----

-----
2. My second try was as Siam, going for a culture victory. Having only 2 cities, happiness was through the roof, and I had obtained just about every wonder possible, but I was still not generating enough culture to get my 5 policies maxed before 2050. (I think I was generating 110-120 per turn.) I was nearing 2050 and still had 3 more I needed to unlock.

Relation with city-states was good, but mostly via gold donations... This was putting quite a strain on my economy but I had no choice but to keep paying them because I needed the allies. They were generating basically all of my units for me and a good chunk of science (via that social policy that siphons 33% of allied states science)

Towards the end I felt annihilation was brewing as Arabia, who had swallowed up the entire rest of the continent I was on, minus one city-state, was amassing a HUGE force at my borders. Naturally my science was lagging way behind as well so I was facing tanks with my... elephant rider units and crap like that. It was scary looking.

I switched gears and tried to go for a UN victory, manage to get the research needed but Arabia crushed me before I could build the UN building.

I still want to achieve a proper culture victory... any pointers?
-----

General question #1: Is the *base* production / build times of a city dictated by the number of citizens? I know there are lots of bonuses to production like via workshops and what not but where does the base value come from? Is it a good plan to tell your workers to optimize "hammers" first?

General Question #2: In general I feel like having to switch gears like that mid game means you fucked up... I think in both cases I would have been utterly destroyed if I wasn't playing on the default difficulty (level 2 or whatever) - Is this true, or do you find yourselves having to switch gears like this mid game even on the higher difficulties? (and does it turn out successful?)

So far loving this thing. Can't wait to get home and try again.

 

[Sober]

Where are the city-state bonuses specifically outlined? They seem to be only referred to in generalities in the manual.

On the city-state screen, mouse over the "type" they are and it lists what they give (updates based on friendly/ally), but they seem to be about the same at either level, plus or minus benefits from the era you are in.