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[Deku]

I just got this off amazon, and it seems the gaf census is that its not nearly as good as civ4.

If you like civ4, keep playing civ4.

If you like civ and the concept of an optimistic 4x game, it's worth a shot. I can't guarantee you'll like it. but as a long time civver, this is a seachange in the franchise and its moving in the right direction. I honestly can't wait for the expansion and the features they add in there. (cash register.gif)

 

[LCfiner]

I just got this off amazon, and it seems the gaf census is that its not nearly as good as civ4.

wha? most of gaf has been loving it.

it's the Civfanatics forum that has more dissenters

 

[Hari Seldon]

Civ 5 and Civ 4 are radically different games imo. Both are unique and worth playing, but now that I am playing Civ 5 I won't be going back to 4.

 

[Deku]

now that I am playing Civ 5 I won't be going back to 4.

It wouldn't be civilized to go back.

 

[Goron2000]

I was playing my first game last night and i was having a lot of fun and really like the changes, but as i got more military units near the end they would keep requiring me to move them and wouldn't do anything when i set it to auto. Is this normal?

 

[erragal]

Compared with CIV IV on release, CIV V is leaps and bounds better. There are definitely AI issues and some balance tweaks to be done, but the core gameplay is addictive and fun.

 

[Zzoram]

I'm in the camp thy enjoys the first 200 turns more than the last 200 turns.

 

[Deku]

I'm in the camp thy enjoys the first 200 turns more than the last 200 turns.

Civ5 games are considerably longer than 4, even on standard speed.

I think fewer units and less micro-management helps a lot.

 

[evilgreg]

Civ5 games are considerably longer than 4, even on standard speed.

I think fewer units and less micro-management helps a lot.

I've noticed that the games are much longer/progress more slowly as well. I definitely like this change. Sometimes I get a bit worried though when I see that its the year 1240-ish and I haven't even explored my entire continent (earth map-huge). I also find myself unsure of how quickly I should settle new cities. I'll probably pick this up after more plays, but am I alone in this?

 

[Danne-Danger]

I had considered it. How much influence do you get. I know city states will sometims request units, so I assume influence boost is greater then.

I usually just walk the units I don't want over to my borders and disband them for the gold.

I really only gave them crappy units (like scouts) but the bonus was pretty small. You'd probably have to boost it with the civic tree to get anything meaningful out of it. I never did a "give me units" mission, but most other missions seemed to give around 60 or so (friend -> ally) IPs.

Also I was playing a Marathon game, not sure how well it scales with the amount of turns between units and influence degradation on other settings.

I was playing my first game last night and i was having a lot of fun and really like the changes, but as i got more military units near the end they would keep requiring me to move them and wouldn't do anything when i set it to auto. Is this normal?

You mean on auto explore? They won't keep exploring if there's nothing left to explore, i.e when there's no more Fog of War or when another player and/or the environment is blocking his path.

 

[Archie]

I just got this off amazon, and it seems the gaf census is that its not nearly as good as civ4.

I'm sorry did you mean to make this post at CivFanatics?

 

[erragal]

The speed of settling new cities is a more flexible thing in Civ V than in the last game (Where REX was everything). Depending on how close your neighbors are and what luxury/strategic resources you lack you might want to expand quickly, but this can hurt you in the social policy department early in the game.

Standard game speed feels almost identical to Epic speed from Civ IV...fortunately for me that's my preferred scale. I cannot play Epic in Civ V; I tried and it seemed to progress slower than marathon in IV.

 

[Deku]

I've noticed that the games are much longer/progress more slowly as well. I definitely like this change. Sometimes I get a bit worried though when I see that its the year 1240-ish and I haven't even explored my entire continent (earth map-huge). I also find myself unsure of how quickly I should settle new cities. I'll probably pick this up after more plays, but am I alone in this?

Yeah, they need to fix the anemic expansion rate, but I'm worried that will break the game. I think the expansion / no expansion push/pull is just right at the moment.

The big change is the no map trading change. Used to be you'd augment your map with AI maps to get a very quick world picture once contact is made with all the civs.

Certainly drawing out the big middle part of the game, the period from the classical through the industrial age is a huge plus. that's always been the most fun part of the game and they go by too quickly in the previous Civ games, especially when rampant tech trading speed up the tech speed to absurd levels. And I'm very glad they took out tech trading too.

 

[Totakeke]

It's not possible to argue that Civ5 has more depth than Civ4 at its current state. Yes, even vanilla Civ4.

 

[LCfiner]

After playing around with city states more as Alexander, I really wish we could do more than just gift them money or units.

I want to trade resources with them just like with standard civs. I want more options with the city states. I'd like to see options for being penalized in culture or science areas if they are unfriendly to you.

I guess this will be expansion pack material?

 

[Deku]

After playing around with city states more as Alexander, I really wish we could do more than just gift them money or units.

It wouldn't surprise me if the expansion is centered around expanding city states functionality.

I want to trade resources with them just like with standard civs. I want more options with the city states. I'd like to see options for being penalized in culture or science areas if they are unfriendly to you.

No, Firaxis learned its lesson. The now civ-staple Golden Age, which made its first appearance in Civ3, was actually developed as a ‘dark age’ to simulate the waxing and waning of empires.
Firaxis later introduced random events, like plague, volcanoes, resources randomly disappearing and all those were meet with a cool reception.

They’ve since stopped doing ‘negative’ random things and modifiers to their games. Civ4’s quests and random events avoid the ‘negativity’ trap by giving players a choice, usually tied to cost. I don’t see them penalizing players too harshly. City states who know of each other can already mass declare war on civs if you attack too many.

 

[Sober]

Do you guys know how to check what cities wonders are in? It was one of the F keys in a previous game. I need to know if I should be raising cities or annexing them.

Yeah, it's like Vanilla Civ4, I can't inspect the city prior to deciding if I want to raze it or keep it. Wonders you can argue you can see outside the city (moreso now), but if there's none I still want to see what's still standing (e.g. military or cultural buildings, etc.) and if it's worth taking control of or just rolling a settler over and starting up with all the improvements. If you select raze and reneg on it, you basically just annexed a city, warts and all; have fun with the 50-turn courthouse and extra unhappiness. Also, puppeting makes no sense because I assume you would want to install one of your fanboys as governor, so why can't I at least inspect a puppeted city to see if it's worth annexing or not later on?

No map trading and no world map unveiling with Satellite tech makes me sad.

How did you convert to baba yetu?

Run the mp3 (should be able to download it anywhere even if you don't have Civ4) through a converter into a wav file and replace it. I think it's something like \Assets\Sound\Streaming\Openmenu_Proto_1.wav or something like that.

On that point, I noticed they have like 3-5 different "era" quotes, so I'm sad when I get a simple "Welcome to the X era".

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

I'm liking the game so far, but it really hasn't sucked me in. I think I've yet to find my sweetspot on map size and type. Normally I'm into giant maps and marathon games, but it really starts chugging after the map is revealed, to the point where playing isn't really that enjoyable.

Really, the main thing it's doing is making me drool for the newest EU3 expansion that is in development... Diplomacy feels really shallow, but I love the combat. Oh well, I'm very much a beginner to the franchise (I have all of the other civs, but usually only put about 40-50 hours into them before moving on), so maybe I just need to figure it out a little better.

 

[Deku]

almost all buildings, save for wonders are wiped out when you take cities. I've only seen harbours consistently stay. And i assume it's a balance issue, (helps you hook up a coastal city to your capital faster).

On Europa Universalis, Civ's been compared to that franchise since Civ3, yet it doesn't seem to matter much. You have to keep in mind, Civ's diplomacy has to work on all situations, where as EU's diplomacy have a defined set of parameters. completely different, and I overwhelmingly prefer the Civ games as 4x games.

Never been much for limited historical simulations.

 

[LCfiner]

No, Firaxis learned its lesson. The now civ-staple Golden Age, which made its first appearance in Civ3, was actually developed as a ‘dark age’ to simulate the waxing and waning of empires.
Firaxis later introduced random events, like plague, volcanoes, resources randomly disappearing and all those were meet with a cool reception.

They’ve since stopped doing ‘negative’ random things and modifiers to their games. Civ4’s quests and random events avoid the ‘negativity’ trap by giving players a choice, usually tied to cost. I don’t see them penalizing players too harshly. City states who know of each other can already mass declare war on civs if you attack too many.

Interesting. I'm unaware of the history.

to be clear, I was not thinking of any random negative effect. I was thinking more along the line that a city state could, if you declare war on it, negatively affect some aspect of your empire aside from the impacts of a brief war against them (getting troops ready, potentially losing units).

edit: or if you have poor diplomatic relationships with a city state due to other choices you made -- not just declaring war on them.

Although, right now, the negative impacts do occur immediately after the battle if you Annex the city and get the happiness penalty.

hmmm.

Yeah, it's like Vanilla Civ4, I can't inspect the city prior to deciding if I want to raze it or keep it.

I just set it to Puppet right away, then inspect it and see what's inside. you can raize the city at any time from the city screen once you've checked what it has.

 

[AstroLad]

i love random events and i hope they come back

 

[XiaNaphryz]

as a newborn pc-gamer, what does that mean? I was under the impression that all the games I've been playing on win 7 64bit were inherently 64bit

Most games are still compiled as 32-bit, due to min specs still supporting 32-bit XP. Having a separate 64-bit executable at release means testing everything twice - doing playthroughs and testplans on the 32-bit exe and again on the 64-bit exe, since there may be bugs that only affect one or the other. Most dev teams don't have the time/budget to do that for release.

 

[Danne-Danger]

i love random events and i hope they come back

Random volcanic eruptions might have been the most enervating thing in a game ever. You know that mountain sitting in the middle of all your towns, mines and strategic resources? SURPRISE IT'S A VOLCANO! *clears tiles*

One thing I really miss in V though is the small chance that your mines will find some rare resource, felt so good every time that happened in IV. But that also meant that I never even considered bulding windmills and such on hill tiles when I could gamble and maybe get some gold or iron from a mine.

 

[AstroLad]

One thing I really miss in V though is the small chance that your mines will find some rare resource, felt so good every time that happened in IV.

Yep I was just thinking about that yesterday.

 

[Deku]

The random events introduced in Civ IV =! what I was talking about.

They are if anything an example of Firaxis learning its lesson from previous attempts at introducing completely random, largely negative events to Civ3.

One thing I really miss in V though is the small chance that your mines will find some rare resource, felt so good every time that happened in IV. But that also meant that I never even considered bulding windmills and such on hill tiles when I could gamble and maybe get some gold or iron from a mine.

That of course is the opposite of what the original design was. Used to be there was a small chance a mined resource would deplete.

Agian, going bavk to my point Firaxis learned its lesson about random negative events.

Interesting. I'm unaware of the history.

to be clear, I was not thinking of any random negative effect. I was thinking more along the line that a city state could, if you declare war on it, negatively affect some aspect of your empire aside from the impacts of a brief war against them (getting troops ready, potentially losing units).

edit: or if you have poor diplomatic relationships with a city state due to other choices you made -- not just declaring war on them.

Although, right now, the negative impacts do occur immediately after the battle if you Annex the city and get the happiness penalty.

I'd be on board with this. Adds depth, but they should expand city states in all directions, also. Very much XP material ^^b

 

[AstroLad]

We've got a lot of knowledgeable players on here. Someone enterprising and experienced should do a thread for a guided walkthrough like the old one on CF: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/civ4intro.html

Would be about a katrillion times more useful than the tutorial to new and even experienced players. I'd do it but I don't have the requisite expertise.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

We've got a lot of knowledgeable players on here. Someone enterprising and experienced should do a thread for a guided walkthrough like the old one on CF: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/civ4intro.html

Would be about a katrillion times more useful than the tutorial to new and even experienced players. I'd do it but I don't have the requisite expertise.

I'd do it but I don't have the time. It took me a month to piece the OP together, slowly building it up in the spare time I could find over that span. :lol

 

[moojito]

Aye, a guide like that would be quite nice, although I have to say that the game does a decent job of starting you off with the advisors. As a complete newbie to the civ series I've found myself familiar with the basic mechanics fairly quickly. It's only now that I'm trying to work towards a particular victory that I'm finding things a bit hard to figure out.

 

[Deku]

Like this one?

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/civ5.html

Sulla can't be beaten, he is awesome.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Like this one?

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/civ5.html

Sulla can't be beaten, he is awesome.

Oh god, it's like I've time-traveled back to the Geocities era of web design.

 

[AstroLad]

Sweet will check it out.

 

[Zzoram]

I just got this off amazon, and it seems the gaf census is that its not nearly as good as civ4.

I like it better than civ4. Only the elites in CivFanatics actually hate it. They don't like it because it's different, and they just wanted civ4.5. They complain that all the things they used to do don't work anymore and that means that Civ 5 sucks, without considering that they're trying to play it like a different game and That's why it's not working. The vast majority of people love the game, it tops the steam charts for concurrent players every day, something I haven't seen since a valve shooter or modern warfare 2 released.

 

[Deku]

I like it better than civ4. Only the elites in CivFanatics actually hate it.

I went through this with Civ3>4 transition. I think Civ4 is near and dear to a lot of people. I grew to like it, but never really love it.

I'm just glad I'm in a good position to enjoy Civ5.

 

[Baha]

I like that civ 4 & 5 have enough differences to make me want to play them instead of completely ignoring one for the other.

 

[evilgreg]

Like this one?

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/civ5.html

Sulla can't be beaten, he is awesome.

Deku, you are a Civ god. Just sayin'

Also, I agree with what everyone is saying in this thread: Civ V is great, it's a totally new take on the series. Civ IV is great too, in it's own way. Boosh.

Now question time:

Someone asked this earlier but it wasn't ever really answered. What do you guys do in terms of setting up your land production? I'm never too sure about how much food/production/gold I should focus on in my different cities. Sometimes if a city is near hills or prod resources I set it to production focused right away, but the city takes forever to grow. Can you guys (Deku-I'm looking at you) give me any tips?

 

[dream]

I like it better than civ4. Only the elites in CivFanatics actually hate it. They don't like it because it's different, and they just wanted civ4.5. They complain that all the things they used to do don't work anymore and that means that Civ 5 sucks, without considering that they're trying to play it like a different game and That's why it's not working. The vast majority of people love the game, it tops the steam charts for concurrent players every day, something I haven't seen since a valve shooter or modern warfare 2 released.

This.

I think it's a better game than Civ 4 (which I spent an ungodly amount of time playing). Sometimes it's frustrating because I can't do things like slingshotting to specific techs, REXing all over the place, exploiting my economy for whatever type of specialization I'm working towards, etc -- but I'm always aware that I'm playing a better game overall.

 

[Danne-Danger]

That of course is the opposite of what the original design was. Used to be there was a small chance a mined resource would deplete.

Agian, going bavk to my point Firaxis learned its lesson about random negative events.

But you still had negative events. The aforementioned volcanic eruptions were still there (no warning, nothing you could do to stop it), "a large number of barbarians have spawned at your border" and a lot of events that you could pay to lessen the impact of, but not avoid completely (riots when you used slavery for example) often making you choose between loosing gold or loosing happiness, or turns for cities and/or units.

It often seemed like the game used them as "blue shells" if you were too far ahead (why is my only iron mine blowing up all the time!?) or too far behind (here, have some parrots!). I don't think it actually worked like that though, but it sure felt like it at times. Anyway, I don't really miss them in V.

 

[dream]

But you still had negative events. The aforementioned volcanic eruptions were still there (no warning, nothing you could do to stop it), "a large number of barbarians have spawned at your border" and a lot of events that you could pay to lessen the impact of, but not avoid completely (riots when you used slavery for example) often making you choose between loosing gold or loosing happiness, or turns for cities and/or units.

The Vedic Aryan event generally meant game over for me in Civ 4.

 

[Deku]

But you still had negative events. The aforementioned volcanic eruptions were still there (no warning, nothing you could do to stop it), "a large number of barbarians have spawned at your border" and a lot of events that you could pay to lessen the impact of, but not avoid completely (riots when you used slavery for example) often making you choose between loosing gold or loosing happiness, or turns for cities and/or units.

It often seemed like the game used them as "blue shells" if you were too far ahead (why is my only iron mine blowing up all the time!?) or too far behind (here, have some parrots!). I don't think it actually worked like that though, but it sure felt like it at times. Anyway, I don't really miss them in V.

i'm pretty sure the events are completely random. knowing soren johnson's philosphy he loathed the 'gang up on human' player mentality. His Human blind AI in civ3 & civ4 were and are still the franchise's biggest step forward. (hard to believe people used to and still hold Civ2 in such high esteemd considering its AI is worse than the one in Civ revolutions)

and you're right there are negative events, but the idea is players have some control. there's usually 2-3 options to pick from when a random event happens. ie: pay money to have it fixed, 1 turn revolt to prevent losing something. It's better than just outright losing something suddenly.

And the truly awful things like resources disappearing and plauges were stopped.

 

[f0rk]

Like this one?

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/civ5.html

Sulla can't be beaten, he is awesome.

Started reading through his Solo game, he doesn't sound like such a big fan of the game . While I can see some of his points, I've enjoyed his past reports (mostly the huge team multiplayer game) so I hope he gets out of the QQ ditch and focuses on more entertaining games in the future.

 

[AstroLad]

Seriously that thing is like half a review. Then he just bails without finishing. Tons of stuff he didn't touch upon too. Still the best out there but disappointing.

 

[platypotamus]

Let's talk Great Scientists. What are you guys doing with them? I can't decide if it's better to lightbulb techs or to build academies. With the libraries no longer acting as multipliers, it seems difficult to really benefit from the +5 science early on.

I generally almost always go academies early, and lightbulb late. If you get one early enough, that +5 can pretty much double your scientific output (that's what happened when I got my free one from Babylon discovering Writing). Also, that 5 gets modified by unis, observatories, public schools, research labs, and/or the national college. Sooooo.... we'll assume that you put the academy in the city that gets national college, but we'll assume no observatory, because there's no mountain tile.

So... 5 + 2.5 (uni) + 2.5 (public school) + 2.5 (national college) + 5 (research lab) = 17.5 science, I think?

Not bad!

Harbors provide trade regardless of whether the capital is on a coast or not.

But as far as I can tell, connecting a second city to the harbored one via road doesn't give that second city a trade route to the capital.

 

[Deku]

But as far as I can tell, connecting a second city to the harbored one via road doesn't give that second city a trade route to the capital.

Not sure what you mean here. i've conquered a foreign civo n a completely different continent. I got one of their coastal cities with a harbour, and the rest of their empire was also roaded with each other. As soon as resistance wore off, they were all conntected to my trade system --via the harbour.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Not sure what you mean here. i've conquered a foreign civo n a completely different continent. I got one of their coastal cities with a harbour, and the rest of their empire was also roaded with each other. As soon as resistance wore off, they were all conntected to my trade system --via the harbour.

And then 1 barb comes along and blockades that harbor and you lose half your trade network. :lol

 

[AstroLad]

I had a barb in a little one-tile lake once and couldn't do anything to him. Catapults, archers, nothing. He was just sitting there since the dawn of time.

 

[Deku]

And then 1 barb comes along and blockades that harbor and you lose half your trade network. :lol

not exactly half, it's newly conquered civ in a continents game. And I acquired more habours in the other port cities I took over. As I noted earlier it seems to be the only improvement that remains with any consistency. Most improvements save for wonders are destroyed.

you can also sink barb galleys now from city bombard w/out the need for a navy. though it helps and I have a navy. no point doing a continental invasion w/out a navy.


One improvement I'd suggest is to upgrade the bards by era. the current barbarian model reminds me a lot of Civ3's. you get stone-age barbarians popping up in unpopulated areas of the map, even if you're crusing around escorted by destroyers.

 

[AstroLad]

One improvement I'd suggest is to upgrade the bards by era. the current barbarian model reminds me a lot of Civ3's. you get stone-age barbarians popping up in unpopulated areas of the map, even if you're crusing around escorted by destroyers.

I've seen Barbarian Destroyers. Don't know how that happened but kudos to them.

 

[evilgreg]

Someone asked this earlier but it wasn't ever really answered. What do you guys do in terms of setting up your land production? I'm never too sure about how much food/production/gold I should focus on in my different cities. Sometimes if a city is near hills or prod resources I set it to production focused right away, but the city takes forever to grow. Can you guys (Deku-I'm looking at you) give me any tips?

Can someone help me out? I try to avoid civfanatics at all costs but I might have to wade through the cesspool...

 

[Deku]

Can someone help me out? I try to avoid civfanatics at all costs but I might have to wade through the cesspool...

There's no hard and fast rules, really depends on your terrain, and what you want your city to specialize.

Since growing too big too fast can cause happiness issues and slow your next happiness generated golden age, you want to have a balance. You also want to make sure you're generating enough gold income.

Usually want to farm green, and mine hills. River tiles can have trading outposts for maximum gold generation.

But since none of the improvements evolve, ala Civ4, you have lots of flexibility. If in doubt, go for food if happiness is not an issue also you can assign surplus pop to become specialists. Never automate workers.

One major change in CivV is all plots, except tundra and mountain, can be farmed. So plains/deserts/hills are farmable if your city is not in an ideal spot, (ie: resource city with bonus resources + strategic or luxury resources) and you want it to grow a bit more.

 

[platypotamus]

Not sure what you mean here. i've conquered a foreign civo n a completely different continent. I got one of their coastal cities with a harbour, and the rest of their empire was also roaded with each other. As soon as resistance wore off, they were all conntected to my trade system --via the harbour.

Oh sweet. I must have had some other issue then. :\