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[Feorax]

Anyone got any graphics cards recommendations for this game? Im trying to play with a 9600GT overclocked, and no matter how low I put the settings, the game just chugs at like 5 to 10 fps...

(Im also running an AMDx2 @ 2.8ghz and 4gb RAM if thats any help)

 

[MjFrancis]

Apparently filling out the fifth cultural tree on turn 499 and hitting Next Turn doesn't count.

Oh well. I did learn a lot about the game though. Use more trading posts on my land and lean on maritime city-states for food. Start gifting units more frequently to them to fend off attackers, or just send my guys there directly and block the way. :lol

Real sad ending there, but great Civ story. And sorry to say, but you were many turns out from winning - after filling out your fifth cultural tree, you still need to complete the Utopia project, which, depending on your production capabilities, could still be 20 - 40 turns out.

I did a Gandhi cultural victory, but I also took the one-city challenge. With one city, your cultural trees fill out much quicker, but you truly depend on allied city-states for support. I tried to friend or ally with four throughout my game, two military, one maritime and one cultural.

 

[Deku]

I need to try OCC with the city state mechanic.

One interesting thing is I think OCC, being such an old play style dating back to Civ3, is going to be very interesting with city states.

Players can essentially recruit help in a way they can't before.

 

[punkypine]

I had no idea just how powerful the Honor tree was, in all my games up to now I've always gone Tradition or Liberty, but in my last game I was saving up policies for when patronage unlocked when Washington invaded on like turn 30. At the time I had two cities and he had five (wtf?), and flooded my borders with warriors, archers, and even a couple of swordsmen (again, wtf?). It looked like I was completely fucked, so I dumped all the social policies I had been saving up into the Honor tree and bought myself a Horsemen with the money I had been saving up to give to Maritime City-States.

Through smart use of terrain and promotions I was eventually able to wipe out his invading force, turn the tide, and bring the fight to him. Now after wiping his ass off the map I've got a number of units at level 5 and 6, with Blitz, March, and Medic promotions thanks to the double-xp policy. Blitz effectively doubles the size of your armory, and with March I rarely have to stop my offense to heal up.

how do you save a policy?

 

[LCfiner]

how do you save a policy?

i think he meant not using culture points until the other policy tracks became available in later eras and then blowing them all on those new policies.

I never thought about doing that but it makes some sense if you don't need early bonuses from liberty or freedom...

 

[Deku]

i think he meant not using culture points until the other policy tracks became available in later eras and then blowing them all on those new policies.

I never thought about doing that but it makes some sense if you don't need early bonuses from liberty or freedom...

Game wouldn't let me move on to the next turn when I have enough culture to unlock a policy.

I tried to save my culture points before. Haven't given it much thought as I'm still playing the traditional expansionist empire builder in my 2nd game.

Any tips on how to 'not use up' a policy when it becomes available?

 

[Zzoram]

how do you save a policy?

When it prompts you to adopt a policy just right click to dismiss. It won't ask you again so you'll have to remember to manually adopt whenever you're ready.

I discovered it accidentally by hovering my mouse over it and getting a tool tip.

 

[Steve Youngblood]

This fact alone should be telling.

Not really. While it's important to hear out the enthusiasts who carry with them vast expertise with the product, one shouldn't just assume that their opinion is automatically more valid than another. The reason is that a number of the hardcore superfans can become too emotionally attached at times to the product they already know. This can blind them in one of two ways. The first is that it sometimes causes them to hate any and all changes regardless of qualitative impact simply because it's different than what they know and love. On the opposite end of the spectrum, sometimes they'll ignore glaring flaws and defend bad design decisions simply because they have too much blind faith in creators who are assumed to be infallible.

That's not to say that opinions from franchise enthusiasts should be ignored, but I think it's a mistake to assume that they should be more trusted than other, well-reasoned opinions.

 

[Totakeke]

It's a giant crutch, so are the tech trading slingshot shenanigans. I love the pace now. The middle of the game is nice and long and thats the best part. civ is no longer a rush to the modern age.

That... is probably not true. Tech slingshot shenanigans pretty much still exist. Just because you can't trade the techs, doesn't mean sling-shotting is obsolete. And coupled with no pre-defined bulbing list, it's more powerful than ever as it's easier jump to certain techs you want to achieve overwhelming superiority. Furthermore, with city state bonuses and social policy tree unlocks with new eras, you're still rewarded quite nicely for doing it. There's also a thread on exploiting it to get BC Riflemen on Emperor difficulty at Civfanatics.

And that's funny, because Civ4 never had any bonuses for rushing through eras, but Civ5 clearly has them with city state bonuses and social policy trees unlock. Civ4 wars depended a lot on the civ, but large wars most commonly started with the introduction of Riflemen due to the introduction of the gunpowder unit type negating the combat bonuses of earlier units and the large increase in unit strength. It was definitely not a race to the modern age.

For Civ5, exploiting he Pikemen -> Riflemen upgrade path is pretty darn powerful, and second, you don't even need to research the techs below leading to riflemen to build mech infantry. If anything, Civ5 is more of a rush to the modern ages than Civ4 ever was.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

For Civ5, exploiting he Pikemen -> Riflemen upgrade path is pretty darn powerful, and second, you don't even need to research the techs below leading to riflemen to build mech infantry. If anything, Civ5 is more of a rush to the modern ages than Civ4 ever was.

This was the biggest question people had when the tech tree leaked, on how effective doing this particular strategy would really be.

 

[Deku]

That... is probably not true. Tech slingshot shenanigans pretty much still exist. Just because you can't trade the techs, doesn't mean sling-shotting is obsolete. And coupled with no pre-defined bulbing list, it's more powerful than ever as it's easier jump to certain techs you want to achieve overwhelming superiority. Furthermore, with city state bonuses and social policy tree unlocks with new eras, you're still rewarded quite nicely for doing it. There's also a thread on exploiting it to get BC Riflemen on Emperor difficulty at Civfanatics.

And that's funny, because Civ4 never had any bonuses for rushing through eras, but Civ5 clearly has them with city state bonuses and social policy trees unlock. Civ4 wars depended a lot on the civ, but large wars most commonly started with the introduction of Riflemen due to the introduction of the gunpowder unit type negating the combat bonuses of earlier units and the large increase in unit strength. It was definitely not a race to the modern age.

For Civ5, exploiting he Pikemen -> Riflemen upgrade path is pretty darn powerful, and second, you don't even need to research the techs below leading to riflemen to build mech infantry. If anything, Civ5 is more of a rush to the modern ages than Civ4 ever was.

You can't race to the modern age with a standard game with as many turns as a epic Civ4 game. You can in Civ4 because of tech trading, which speeds up the tech speed the higher you go in difficulty, to absurd proportions. Beating game at XXX AD has become an Epeen measuring stick.

The pace is much slowed in V, and bee-lining for techs no longer work as you'd have to backtrack and research all the techs you missed (can't trade for them).

Civ V is about trade-offs, all within the player's control. Unlocking new policy branches is meaningless when you don't have the culture to use it. Alternatively, You can easily get cutlure by supressing the cultural pool to unlock new policy branches by keeping a small empire, but that means you lag in research which is now based on population size, not the old conversion of commerce to beakers. The trade off is clear. Larger empires for science. Smaller empires for cultural dominance.

All the while trading hasn't been sidelined. discrete resources mean you can have iron but always need more. The game presents fantastic strategic choices not present in IV.

 

[MjFrancis]

For Civ5, exploiting he Pikemen -> Riflemen upgrade path is pretty darn powerful, and second, you don't even need to research the techs below leading to riflemen to build mech infantry. If anything, Civ5 is more of a rush to the modern ages than Civ4 ever was.

So, how effective is this strategy of rushing to mech infantry? Has anyone here used it for a domination victory on the higher difficulty levels?

 

[Totakeke]

You can't race to the mdoern age with a standard game with as many turns as a epic Civ4 game. You can in Civ4 because of tech trading, which speeds up the tech speed the higher you go in difficulty, to absurd proportions. Beatign game at XXX AD has become an Epeen measuring stick.

The pace is much slowed in V, and bee-lining for techs no longer work as you'd have to backtrack and research all the techs you missed (can't trade for them).

Civ V is about trade-offs, all within the player's control. Unlocking new policy branches is meaningless when you don't have the culture to use it.

All the while trading hasn't been sidelined. discrete resources mean you can have iron but always need more. The game presents fantastic strategic choices not present in IV.

Again, modern age is hardly the goal here, I don't really see much people aiming just to do that to win the game through conquest. Renaissance is often the starting point because of rifles. And how does having a possible path to getting Rifles at BC not the very same thing in Civ5?

You're wrong that bee-lining doesn't work. There's very obvious beelines in this game, just not heading to future tech. Riflemen is one, Mech Infantry is very possibly another.

Let's not kid ourselves here, Civilization has ALWAYS been about tradeoffs, it's not special to Civ V. You probably should know that you can opt not to adopt social policies and keep them the points until you reach the eras that unlock them.

I also don't see how that Civ V suddenly presents fantastic strategic choices just because resources are limited. Resources in Civ4 were also limited, and in Civ4, the non-strategic resources actually had much more differences from one another, hence you had to choose between them and not just have them be another generic Luxury Resource that grants you 5 happiness or food resource that grants you one extra food.

The trade off is clear. Larger empires for science. Smaller empires for cultural dominance.

That seems like less of a freedom of choice for achieving victories doesn't it? In Civ4 you can do either, is that bad?

So, how effective is this strategy of rushing to mech infantry? Has anyone here used it for a domination victory on the higher difficulty levels?

I can't say I've read anyone posting about it. But I used it myself on Prince difficulty playing Gandhi with screenshots a few pages back. I had 3-4 Great Scientists bulbing myself to Mech Infantry then basically conquered the whole world with only a few Mech Inf. Plus military City States can also gift you Mech Infantry even though they themselves are far behind in tech. Their gifted units depend on your tech and not theirs. It definitely feels like a plausible strategy for me, but then at high difficulties you probably need to wage war in the beginning to keep them in check.



Also, here's the link for the discussion on the Riflemen slingshot. It's kinda rough, but you can see the idea.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385379

 

[Deku]

Again, modern age is hardly the goal here, I don't really see much people aiming just to do that to win the game through conquest. Renaissance is often the starting point because of rifles. And how does having a possible path to getting Rifles at BC not the very same thing in Civ5?

You're wrong that bee-lining doesn't work. There's very obvious beelines in this game, just not heading to future tech. Riflemen is one, Mech Infantry is very possibly another.

Not going to disagree, I'll need to play more here. And I see your point. but based on my first 25 hours or so, the pace in V is a lot slower than IV. It's probably not right to say the tech slingshot issue has been solved, but I think the removal of tech trades has created a very different kind of game from what we're used to.

That's not to say there won't be exploits or that Firaxis wouldn't move techs around to cap some of these bee-lines you've suggested.

Let's not kid ourselves here, Civilization has ALWAYS been about tradeoffs, it's not special to Civ V. You probably should know that you can opt not to adopt social policies and keep them the points until you reach the eras that unlock them.

I haven't played with social policies enough to know. The situation came up yesterday where I wanted to save an upgrade but ran into interface issues not letting me. I queried another poster on how to do it.

As for strategic choices, well by default all strategy games are about choices on a strategic level, I do think however some are less balanced than others. In this game, there's clear opposing choices. Large empires for science, small empires for culture. If you're militarily dominant and conquer, happiness will always be a struggle, you'll get fewer GAs through happines, your cultural limit will go up proportionately. It's a kind of trade-off not present in IV or III.

In those games, as your empires grow, you become more dominant on almost every axis and dimension as the happiness penalty from large empires were miniscule and concepts like health were more significant cap on growth.

I also don't see how that Civ V suddenly presents fantastic strategic choices just because resources are limited. Resources in Civ4 were also limited, and in Civ4, the non-strategic resources actually had much more differences from one another, hence you had to choose between them and not just have them be another generic Luxury Resource that grants you 5 happiness or food resource that grants you one extra food.

The collapsing of health back into happiness is an elegant solution to the age old question on penalizing large empires and growth.

civ4 has inflation, maintenance, happiness and health all doing the same job happiness is doing in civV.

I like elegance and in Civ5 I see an elegant solution. I don't care too much that all luxuries are treated as interchangeable, because that shouldn't be what the game is about. There's enough of an impulse to get more luxuries just by the way the happiness system is setup.

That seems like less of a freedom of choice for achieving victories doesn't it? In Civ4 you can do either, is that bad?

Not bad per se, just different. The system works in Civ4 because you had so many things to keep track of. Having it unified into a single stat ' happiness' is a huge change that simplifies everything without make it 'dumber'.

Edit: Also note that I see a centralizing trend in Civ and the use of a central 'happiness' metric makes a world of difference.
In Civ2, unit support was on the city level. In Civ3, the introduction of a unified military charged to your imperial coffers removed this. All the while, happiness remains on a city level. This is the first time we have a unified happiness metric, that enhances the power of happiness buildings. It also means some cities can subsidize your entire empire's happiness

 

[MjFrancis]

But I used it myself on Prince difficulty playing Gandhi with screenshots a few pages back. I had 3-4 Great Scientists bulbing myself to Mech Infantry then basically conquered the whole world with only a few Mech Inf. Plus military City States can also gift you Mech Infantry even though they themselves are far behind in tech. Their gifted units depend on your tech and not theirs. It definitely feels like a plausible strategy for me, but then at high difficulties you probably need to wage war in the beginning to keep them in check.

I've noticed that my tech improves gifted units - between this and your anecdote, I'm trying this on Prince soon. Seems plausibly effective.

 

[Deku]

I've noticed that my tech improves gifted units - between this and your anecdote, I'm trying this on Prince soon. Seems plausibly effective.

military city states give you random units, and almost never top of the line units -- those that require resources are rarest.

Defensive units and ranged units seemed most common.

 

[Totakeke]

Snip.

Well I'm not going to argue most of your points, but just one. I really don't think that happiness, at its current state, is an elegant design at all. For one, it absolutely prevents dominating/conquering the world at early eras unless you totally ignore happiness (which is a legit strategy but halts empire growth and is a all-or-nothing strategy). I don't see how taking another option out of how people want to play the game as a good thing. Maybe you like having all games play out gradually to the middle or modern eras, but telling the players that they can't go Montezuma like and conquer the whole world whenever they want to doesn't sound like an elegant design. It's the same thing saying that you MUST be this small to win a cultural victory. It's silly. To me and to a lot of other people. But I can still play around with what's left.

military city states give you random units, and almost never top of the line units -- those that require resources are rarest.

Defensive units and ranged units seemed most common.

Not true from my experience.

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

All I've got to say is that navies are awesome now. I always hated how, in Civ 4, destroyers and battleships had little influence on land battles outside of blockading and reducing city defenses. I played a small continents, king difficulty game the past few days where I surrounded a long, thin continent with a handful of destroyers and battleships and pummeled everything into oblivion, clearing the way for my one infantry to conquer every city.

And there's nothing so satisfying as having a couple of battleships with logistics, +1 range and +60% damage to land units laying waste to a city from four hexes away.

Big guns on ships are awesome. Unfortunately there was only one piece of aluminum on the map that wasn't worth getting so I never messed around with carriers + fighters. I'll have to try for that some time.

 

[Deku]

Well I'm not going to argue most of your points, but just one. I really don't think that happiness, at its current state, is an elegant design at all. For one, it absolutely prevents dominating/conquering the world at early eras unless you totally ignore happiness (which is a legit strategy but halts empire growth and is a all-or-nothing strategy).

Only penalty for going into the red for happiness is it rolls back your GA bank, and your growth by food slows to like 1/4? So no rioting, no losing production, you just slow down. That is a good solution.

I don't see this as a problem. If anything domination victory before the modern/industrial age is highly unrealistic to begin with and is only possible because of previous Civ version's exploits.

I don't see how taking another option out of how people want to play the game as a good thing. Maybe you like having all games play out gradually to the middle or modern eras, but telling the players that they can't go Montezuma like and conquer the whole world whenever they want to doesn't sound like an elegant design. It's the same thing saying that you MUST be this small to win a cultural victory. It's silly. To me and to a lot of other people. But I can still play around with what's left.

Montezuma and Alexander did not conquer the whole planet or dominate every ancient civilization contemporary to their time. Conquering large tracks of your continent before the medeival era is still possible in this game, I've done it. Just not winning, which is fine.

also as an aisde, our historical standard of empires is always muddled as its always included allied states and states under influence of a larger 'core' empire. If vassal states come back in a future expansion, It's going to be even less of an issue.

Not true from my experience.

i'm allied to 3 military city states in my current game and have gotten at least 20-30 units so far.

2 scouts
4-5 knights
8-10 Crossbowman
5 Pikes
1-2 Warriors


i've gotten 0 long swords, 0 seige

note: even when i got musket tech, game still pumped out non musket units. This could be due to the fact I have minuteman as my UU, and game can't reconcile it. Requires more testing, but gifted units seem to prefer weaker/ranged units.

 

[erragal]

Well I'm not going to argue most of your points, but just one. I really don't think that happiness, at its current state, is an elegant design at all. For one, it absolutely prevents dominating/conquering the world at early eras unless you totally ignore happiness (which is a legit strategy but halts empire growth and is a all-or-nothing strategy). I don't see how taking another option out of how people want to play the game as a good thing. Maybe you like having all games play out gradually to the middle or modern eras, but telling the players that they can't go Montezuma like and conquer the whole world whenever they want to doesn't sound like an elegant design. It's the same thing saying that you MUST be this small to win a cultural victory. It's silly. To me and to a lot of other people. But I can still play around with what's left.

I disagree with this because I conquered the world with Montezuma and made sure I never went below 9 unhappiness at any time (And usually was in happy state). The key is to select your military targets based on acquiring luxury resources you don't have, and to prioritize happiness buildings as your empire expands. Social Policy choices help a lot at reducing empire-wide unhappiness as well. It's not impossible at all, it just requires more planning. This is a place where Civ V depth far exceeds Civ IV, especially with the puppet state option available.

I agree with the cultural victory issue, however.

 

[AstroLad]

I like the cultural-victory mechanics (because I like playing small), but calling it cultural is probably giving people the wrong impression and expectations. Should be called utopia victory. Jibes a lot better with the substance.

 

[Deku]

I like the cultural-victory mechanics (because I like playing small), but calling it cultural is probably giving people the wrong impression and expectations. Should be called utopia victory. Jibes a lot better with the substance.

Something for future games perhaps, but culture as envisioned initially meant cultural infuence. Civ3/4 played to this alot. Remember city flipping from Civ3? people hated that.

culture in this game is treated slightly differently. city states or other empires can never be impressed by your culture, it's not something you can utilize as a weapon directly in the same way cultural borders could be used as weapons in the past. The culture points are entirely earned for borders and policies.

They should have called it civic points.

 

[David Incorporated Esq.]

note: even when i got musket tech, game still pumped out non musket units. This could be due to the fact I have minuteman as my UU, and game can't reconcile it. Requires more testing, but gifted units seem to prefer weaker/ranged units.

I have gotten swordsmen as Rome. The city-state will put out the standard version of your UU.

I think it's just a random assortment of the units you can build at any time, at least that's what it feels like. I've gotten units of all different sorts and roles.

Something for future games perhaps, but culture as envisioned initially meant cultural infuence. Civ3/4 played to this alot. Remember city flipping from Civ3? people hated that.

culture in this game is treated slightly differently. city states or other empires can never be impressed by your culture, it's not something you can utilize as a weapon directly in the same way cultural borders could be used as weapons in the past. The culture points are entirely earned for borders and policies.

They should have called it civic points.

The only way culture can be used as a weapon is with great artists culture-bombing your enemy's land. I've never tried that mechanic though.

 

[Totakeke]

I disagree with this because I conquered the world with Montezuma and made sure I never went below 9 unhappiness at any time (And usually was in happy state). The key is to select your military targets based on acquiring luxury resources you don't have, and to prioritize happiness buildings as your empire expands. Social Policy choices help a lot at reducing empire-wide unhappiness as well. It's not impossible at all, it just requires more planning. This is a place where Civ V depth far exceeds Civ IV, especially with the puppet state option available.

I agree with the cultural victory issue, however.

What difficulty was that? Unhappiness scales quite severely with the difficulty. Puppet states are still terrible because they build a lot of useless buildings. It also depends on the map, if you have a map with a large variety of luxury resources sure, but if you have like 5 extra copies of silk because that's all around you, that's not going to do you anything good, especially if the other players have already have silk.

It's true you can build happiness buildings to offset the unhappiness, but then you get more maintenance fees. So whenever you conquer something, you get negative unhappiness which needs to be offset by maintenance fees from happiness buildings, then you get a gold deficit by building many buildings which then you need to cover by doing something else. So it's far less rewarding to go on conquest and you have a high possibility of digging yourself into a hole you cannot climb out off.

Sure, I'll have to agree that in a way it's more strategic depth because conquering has so many downsides, but then again, how unhappiness climbs so quickly with more cities is very similar to how social policy costs increases in the same way. Basically the game is telling you that you must play it in a certain way.

'm allied to 3 military city states in my current game and have gotten at least 20-30 units so far.

2 scouts
4-5 knights
8-10 Crossbowman
5 Pikes
1-2 Warriors


i've gotten 0 long swords, 0 seige

note: even when i got musket tech, game still pumped out non musket units. This could be due to the fact I have minuteman as my UU, and game can't reconcile it. Requires more testing, but gifted units seem to prefer weaker/ranged units.

It's probably random, definitely not weaker/ranged units. I had like 5 Mech Infantry gifts in that game out of like 8 units.

I like the cultural-victory mechanics (because I like playing small), but calling it cultural is probably giving people the wrong impression and expectations. Should be called utopia victory. Jibes a lot better with the substance.

That's what I said, a few pages back.

 

[AstroLad]

The only way culture can be used as a weapon is with great artists culture-bombing your enemy's land. I've never tried that mechanic though.

They get pretty pissed. I do sort of miss if not outright city-stealing, then tile-stealing because of superior culture. Not as fun to have something fixed forever short of a culture bomb. (Unless there's some other mechanic that allows for flipping of tiles). And I always liked checking on how close certain tiles were to flipping. I guess it makes some sense that borders wouldn't be that fluid as to be constantly shifting, but I did like it as a gameplay mechanic.

 

[Zzoram]

That seems like less of a freedom of choice for achieving victories doesn't it? In Civ4 you can do either, is that bad?

In Civ4 it was never good to have only 3 cities. In Civ5 that's viable for cultural victory. Civ4 cultural victory required 9 cities because that's the only way you could get the 2nd tier religious buildings to beef up your culture.

 

[Totakeke]

In Civ4 it was never good to have only 3 cities. In Civ5 that's viable for cultural victory. Civ4 cultural victory required 9 cities because that's the only way you could get the 2nd tier religious buildings to beef up your culture.

Yeah, those buildings helped a lot, but it's still not necessary to build them in all 3 of your cultural cities. You can still win cultural without those quite handily.

Whereas in Civ 5, it's far more of a slippery slope if you try to achieve cultural victory yet still build more cities. There's far less culture producing buildings/options that's capable of offsetting the social policy cost increases.

 

[erragal]

What difficulty was that? Unhappiness scales quite severely with the difficulty. Puppet states are still terrible because they build a lot of useless buildings. It also depends on the map, if you have a map with a large variety of luxury resources sure, but if you have like 5 extra copies of silk because that's all around you, that's not going to do you anything good, especially if the other players have already have silk.

It's true you can build happiness buildings to offset the unhappiness, but then you get more maintenance fees. So whenever you conquer something, you get negative unhappiness which needs to be offset by maintenance fees from happiness buildings, then you get a gold deficit by building many buildings which then you need to cover by doing something else. So it's far less rewarding to go on conquest and you have a high possibility of digging yourself into a hole you cannot climb out off.

Sure, I'll have to agree that in a way it's more strategic depth because conquering has so many downsides, but then again, how unhappiness climbs so quickly with more cities is very similar to how social policy costs increases in the same way. Basically the game is telling you that you must play it in a certain way.

King difficulty, and the happiness bonus goes down 3 per level from what I've seen. Five copies of silk is great, you trade the excess copies to the civilizaitons you leave alive (With one or two subpar cities and not their capital) for all their gold. You use that gold to rush buy your happiness buildings. Maintenence fees are a nonissue when you have a large empire that you've built roads between every city as trade route income is huge (I also had the right side of the commerce tree completely maxed out).

More conquering just lead me to more cash flow, not the opposite. Make sure you get rid of excess workers to eliminate expensive unit maintenence costs, and to retool your puppet state cities with trading posts to keep the gold rolling in.

Additionally, the honor tree (which is tremendous for early game warmongering) helps negate unhappiness as well. Aztec is actually a great civ for warring, if only due to the extra culture getting you a decent social policy rate without having to build culture buildings.

In summation, I disagree that the game tells you to play a certain way. Huge empires make more gold and research than small empires, the greater research can allow you to get to valuable late era wonders/policies more quickly. Also: social policy cost does not increase with puppet states, but they still produce culture for your empire.

 

[Deku]

The only way culture can be used as a weapon is with great artists culture-bombing your enemy's land. I've never tried that mechanic though.

I tried this and stole 1 tile. Seems to be random which I stole, and i incurred a penalty. went from ally to friend. musta lost like 50 friendship points.

I would think this would make an AI civ go to war with you real quick

 

[coopolon]

I recently played a game on prince where my original goal was to conquer, and I had such a hard time keeping my happiness up, I eventually gave up after taking out 2 civs and let the other militaristic empire just take out the other two civs.

I then just raced to UN while pumping out gold and bought off all the city states for the diplomatic victory, which was incredibly lame. I just got so tired of always fighting my way back from -15 happiness after every military outing.

Edit: I'm going to try it again today/this weekend severely limiting growth in all my cities. Either that or I'm just going to raze every city I conquer.

 

[Deku]

I recently played a game on prince where my original goal was to conquer, and I had such a hard time keeping my happiness up, I eventually gave up after taking out 2 civs and let the other militaristic empire just take out the other two civs.

I then just raced to UN while pumping out gold and bought off all the city states for the diplomatic victory, which was incredibly lame. I just got so tired of always fighting my way back from -15 happiness after every military outing.

Edit: I'm going to try it again today/this weekend severely limiting growth in all my cities. Either that or I'm just going to raze every city I conquer.

keep conquered cities as puppets and grab new luxuries. puppets building produce culture and happiness if they build them. it shouldn't be an issue. Also make sure to connect them to your trade network.

but yes, war mongering is severly slowed in V, and without vassal states its a grind to the end. I'm sure this will be altered in a future expansion and this won't be all we see of Civ5's diplomacy.

 

[coopolon]

keep conquered cities as puppets and grab new luxuries. puppets building produce culture and happiness if they build them. it shouldn't be an issue. Also make sure to connect them to your trade network.

but yes, war mongering is severly slowed in V, and without vassal states its a grind to the end. I'm sure this will be altered in a future expansion and this won't be all we see of Civ5's diplomacy.

But you have to pay for all the buildings the puppet cities are making don't you?

 

[Totakeke]

King difficulty, and the happiness bonus goes down 3 per level from what I've seen. Five copies of silk is great, you trade the excess copies to the civilizaitons you leave alive (With one or two subpar cities and not their capital) for all their gold. You use that gold to rush buy your happiness buildings. Maintenence fees are a nonissue when you have a large empire that you've built roads between every city as trade route income is huge (I also had the right side of the commerce tree completely maxed out).

More conquering just lead me to more cash flow, not the opposite. Make sure you get rid of excess workers to eliminate expensive unit maintenence costs, and to retool your puppet state cities with trading posts to keep the gold rolling in.

Additionally, the honor tree (which is tremendous for early game warmongering) helps negate unhappiness as well. Aztec is actually a great civ for warring, if only due to the extra culture getting you a decent social policy rate without having to build culture buildings.

In summation, I disagree that the game tells you to play a certain way. Huge empires make more gold and research than small empires, the greater research can allow you to get to valuable late era wonders/policies more quickly. Also: social policy cost does not increase with puppet states, but they still produce culture for your empire.

You missed the part where I said especially if everyone else already has silk. It seems to me that you had to build a lot of infrastructure and that definitely took quite a lot of time. Plus filling up a part of the commerce tree? Maybe Monty's ability is better than I thought. How many cities you had and how many of them were puppet? How long did your conquest take and when did you start it? Did you do a slow conquest? Did you use city states much?

 

[Danne-Danger]

I tried this and stole 1 tile. Seems to be random which I stole, and i incurred a penalty. went from ally to friend. musta lost like 50 friendship points.

I would think this would make an AI civ go to war with you real quick

You get all the tiles surrounding the artist. I'm not sure what happens if you use it outside of your own borders... or if you even can use it then. I used it when playing as Ghandi on a superpower surrounding me with land to snag coal and aluminium (took 4-5 artists in the end, I didn't even need aluminum but was going to win anyway). He hated me anyway and I kicked his ass numerous times (Ghandi turtle power), and since I went for the Bollywood achievement it was a great way to snag land/resources without having to capture or settle new towns.

There's also a 10 turn cooldown between bombs, at least on Epic.

 

[Deku]

But you have to pay for all the buildings the puppet cities are making don't you?

yes, puppets almost always start out building a monument > happiness building
They like to build barracks followed by more cultural buildings. you roll the dice of course but the buildings they build are useful. especially with the unified happiness system. So happiness buildings count towards your empire's happiness.

If your going to culture for policies its a great benefit because your not penalized for it as an extra city.

 

[Ferrio]

You get all the tiles surrounding the artist. I'm not sure what happens if you use it outside of your own borders... or if even can use it then.

You have to use them in your own borders . I wanted to try and capture someone's city using it.

 

[erragal]

You missed the part where I said especially if everyone else already has silk. It seems to me that you had to build a lot of infrastructure and that definitely took quite a lot of time. Plus filling up a part of the commerce tree? Maybe Monty's ability is better than I thought. How many cities you had and how many of them were puppet? How long did your conquest take and when did you start it? Did you do a slow conquest? Did you use city states much?

Let me see what I can do from memory (I'm at work ATM and have already started my next game) and I'll post a couple saves if you'd like later.

Monte's ability definitely helped. Constantly killing units just gets you a nice steady supply of culture.

I only settled three cities of my own and ended up annexing two. Social policies: Full Honor tree, and right side of commerce (everything after that the game was effectively over). I started by taking an early city-state with Jaguars and archers, then switched and conquered japan's capital with the same units. basically I was beelining military techs as much as possible while ignoring anything naval related. From there the war just spread to whomever was nearest to the last target, while I used captured workers to fix the terrain and make sure a road network existed.

The key was constantly being in conquering mode. As you conquer multiple early capitals most of the AI's will start to hate you, but they aren't going to be able to do much about it. Aztec has a huge advantage early because the jaguar 2hp on unit kill ability will transfer when you upgrade to swordsmen. With an early focus on grabbing ironworking, I had self-healing swordsmen early just destroying enemy cities. Effectively I had the same two jaguars and two archers from 2000 BC till 1600AD conquer almost every city (Late in the game I started rush buying a ton of knights just to speed the game up, as by that time my empire was so large I was out-teching everyone anyway).

I believe I ended up with three city-state allies; one was a close by maritime one I used for food, and the others were ones I liberated for the free huge influence. Most of the city-states either had declared permanent war on me or were in the 'new world'.

Completely agree that if for some reason your whole land mass is lacking significant resource variety it could be difficult to run a massive empire.

 

[Jay Shadow]

You have to use them in your own borders . I wanted to try and capture someone's city using it.

If you manage to push your borders far enough to get in range, it still won't take a city. It'll only take the spaces around it.

 

[Deku]

dyes seem to pop disproportinately to city states. and silks. Not sure if its intentional or a bug.

 

[Cday]

Ironclads have to be the most worthless unit in the game. They are only slightly more powerful than a Frigate, they can only enter coastal waters, and they don't upgrade to anything. I don't see the point in building them, ever.

 

[Pacman2k]

Welp I got my 'Bollywood' last night, and my first proper cultural victory.

Was on the islands map, and pinched between Ottomans and a couple city states... not exactly what I was hoping for but I decided to roll with it.

I started out playing nice with all civs, giving away money and goods as requested by the other leaders.

I had settled a second city and oriented it specifically to cut off the Ottomans from the rest of the land mass and giving me a unified front to hold them back. Eventually the Ottomans were pissed they couldn't expand and went hostile on me even though I had given them everything they asked me for. I steamrolled them with some elephant riders and some other misc. units. Razed every one of their cities, kept the capital (obviously) and that became my 3rd city, and besides a couple allied city-states the whole land mass was mine now.

Progressed culture production quickly, and once the radio towers came online I was generating 405 per turn which was amazing. I was burning through the policies.

Eventually Greece, who I had been friends with the whole time, started to pose a threat. Took out both the allied city states on my island (which Alexander, of course, apologized about taking after the fact. Thanks for that, dick.) and settled a couple more, began producing a lot of units and naturally creating some unease for me just as I was beginning a 26 turn haul to build the utopia project.

So I opened a chat with Alexander and asked him what it would take for him to go to war with England, the only other major military player besides Greece themselves. A paltry sum of ~380 gold and access to a couple resources was all he asked for. Done and done.

Kept his ass busy until I got my utopia built.

 

[Earthstrike]

Just had a nice turn 46 victory with germany on duel pangaea quick game pace.

Gotta farm those achievements between my MP matches.

 

[Earthstrike]

dyes seem to pop disproportinately to city states. and silks. Not sure if its intentional or a bug.

This game has start biases set up in the land. That means during map generation every civ has a proclivity to certain kinds of goods and land tiles. Either city states are biased towards silk and dye, or no civs have a serious bias to silk and dyes so they are relegated near the city states' land.

 

[AstroLad]

This game has start biases set up in the land. That means during map generation every civ has a proclivity to certain kinds of goods and land tiles. Either city states are biased towards silk and dye, or no civs have a serious bias to silk and dyes so they are relegated near the city states' land.

This is like how Hiawatha gets all the forests.

 

[platypotamus]

So, how effective is this strategy of rushing to mech infantry? Has anyone here used it for a domination victory on the higher difficulty levels?

I essentially never research the bottom half of the tree in the industrial/modern eras. There's too much good stuff up top.

note: even when i got musket tech, game still pumped out non musket units. This could be due to the fact I have minuteman as my UU, and game can't reconcile it. Requires more testing, but gifted units seem to prefer weaker/ranged units.

I got like 3 cannons in one game from gifts, so they do siege units. And knights require horses, so they'll do units that require resources. AND, I got a musketman as the French, with the Musketeer as a UU. He was the only one in my army. He died to a Janissary.

If you manage to push your borders far enough to get in range, it still won't take a city. It'll only take the spaces around it.

Still kind of useful for stealing resources. Great Artists seem to be the least useful Great people late game, because building a landmark that late probably won't help much (at all?), and by then I've usually burned about 4 great generals for golden ages, so they don't give me much of a golden age either.

 

[Castor Krieg]

Quit WOrld of Warcraft (again...), got this. Two things:

1. Is it me or the tutorials are REALLY BAD? Instead of walking you through the options and explaining things, they pop up at random intervals, asking if you would like to "know more...". Annoying.

2. How do you end a turn without scheduling any production in the city?

 

[Sober]

So, is it just me or are horses kinda ... pointless during/after modern era? Cavlary is okay I guess but how come even after finishing the tech tree I still can build Lancers?:lol

 

[epmode]

2. How do you end a turn without scheduling any production in the city?

As far as I can tell, this isn't possible. You later unlock research that lets you do something like convert production to gold, which is probably what you're looking for.

 

[Danne-Danger]

2. How do you end a turn without scheduling any production in the city?

Don't think you can do that. Also, why would you want to do that?

 

[Castor Krieg]

Don't think you can do that. Also, why would you want to do that?

In early tutorial maps making tons of Scouts is annoying. Good to know it's a feature though, makes it easy to swallow.