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[weekend_warrior]

There might have been a dormant worker in the capital city preventing you from moving the engineer into the city. I've run into this problem a lot but don't know enough about Civ to know if there's a bug or if it's just the (automated) workers running out of stuff to do and heading home. When that happens what should I be doing? Deleting the unit or is there some action I can direct them to do that the automatic AI workers won't do?

No it wasn't a worker, it's just a "feature" in the game that a great engineer can build any wonder in 1 turn except the utopia project.

I never automate workers, when I run out of land to improve I put 1 to sleep outside each of my cities. You'll need them again to improve a late game resource, build railway, or fix a pillaged tile, so I won't delete them.

 

[platypotamus]

So Steam says that Gods and Kings will be available in approximately 9 hours. 9 or 10 PST? What a strange time to unlock...

 

[MrCompletely]

Reviews of the expansion are starting to trickle out. So far, consensus seems to be that it's middling...

 

[GrandHarrier]

Reviews of the expansion are starting to trickle out. So far, consensus seems to be that it's middling...

Seems to be getting 8+'s from most places whose opinions actually matter.

Who the fu-- is Quarter to Three??? They are the one massive outlier with a 40.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Somone from 2K is streaming the expansion early here:

http://www.twitch.tv/2k?utm_campaign=frontpage_player_click&utm_source=http://www.twitch.tv/&utm_content=2k

Not sure how exciting people would find a Civ stream to be though :lol

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Who the fu-- is Quarter to Three???

Tom Chick. He didn't get the original a great review on launch either.

 

[GrandHarrier]

Tom Chick. He didn't get the original a great review on launch either.

Ah, alright. Makes sense. The review was particularly bitter. I wondered. lol.

Somone from 2K is streaming the expansion early here:

http://www.twitch.tv/2k?utm_campaign=frontpage_player_click&utm_source=http://www.twitch.tv/&utm_content=2k

Not sure how exciting people would find a Civ stream to be though :lol

I'm down! Excite! :d

 

[Mengy]

So from the sound of it, this is basically the same excitement level as "Warlords" was for Civ IV. Does that mean that the next Civ V expansion will be "Beyond the Sword" levels in terms of content and awesomeness?

Eh, I'll most likely still buy it anyway, lol.

 

[Kud Dukan]

Can't wait for tomorrow. I've been feeling the urge to dive back into this game for a few weeks now, but have been holding off until the expansion pack releases. I have a feeling that I'm not going to be very productive this week...

 

[ksimm]

Looking forward to Friday! The new expansion plus revolution mod should make it feel nice and fresh.

 

[Snapshot King]

Looking forward to Friday! The new expansion plus revolution mod should make it feel nice and fresh.

Huh, only 2 hours to go. I wonder if it'll actually unlock on time.

 

[FollowSmoke]

Got my first cultural victory today.

Congrats, duder. Those are always the most rewarding for me.

 

[foomfoom415]

Huh, only 2 hours to go. I wonder if it'll actually unlock on time.

45 Minutes early and the store page lists it as available now. Steam tweeted about it being released too, just now. And yet I still get Vanilla Civ. Why must you toy with my emotions, Mr. Meier?

 

[platypotamus]

Same, it downloaded something, but when I load it up, nothing

 

[foomfoom415]

I just got a 975MB update, so I think we are live. Downloading now.

Edit: That update did the trick. See you on the other side.

 

[ksimm]

Damn UK Friday releases! I wanna play now. :[

 

[alazz]

Just started a G&K game. The AI seems to be less frantic, but the game is only in medieval era.

The tech tree is expanded, but still linear. Would be nice to have less entangled tech progression with one-off branches. Oh well. There are some interesting rearrangements, though. I dislike that the free settler policy is now the second tier. Unlocking Trade Posts later than vanilla is weird. While I think I have more income than I normally did, trade posts early on were fantastic early game and even better late game with that Rationalism science bonus. I'm not sure how I feel.

I haven't gotten to the meat of the expansion though so I'll hold off more judgement until I unlock espionage and religion and complete a few games.

 

[Sarcasm]

I didn't get the expansion but I am wondering what mods to get?

 

[questionmark]

Why the hell doesn't this come out till the 22nd in EU? Way to pull the rug from under my feet.

I didn't get the expansion but I am wondering what mods to get?

Get bish, he has been on the front page of Reddit.

 

[Sarcasm]

Why the hell doesn't this come out till the 22nd in EU? Way to pull the rug from under my feet.



Get bish, he has been on the front page of Reddit.

Get what?

 

[GungHo]

Seems to be getting 8+'s from most places whose opinions actually matter.

Who the fu-- is Quarter to Three??? They are the one massive outlier with a 40.

Tom Chick didn't like the base game and thinks that all this pack does is put things in that were already in Civ IV and still didn't address the other base issues of Civ V. Tom really likes Civ games and 4x in general, so I'm actually inclined to listen to his complaints. While he may be a bit harsh on the scoring, his complaints are pretty spot on... though I have to disclose that I really believe that Civ II and SMAC were the pinnacles of this genre.

 

[Mengy]

Tom Chick didn't like the base game and thinks that all this pack does is put things in that were already in Civ IV and still didn't address the other base issues of Civ V. Tom really likes Civ games and 4x in general, so I'm actually inclined to listen to his complaints. While he may be a bit harsh on the scoring, his complaints are pretty spot on... though I have to disclose that I really believe that Civ II and SMAC were the pinnacles of this genre.

Tom Chick may be spot on, but I still do enjoy Civ V. I'll admit I don't like it as much as Civ IV:BTS, but the positive changes in V make going back to IV very hard for me. I'm hoping the next expansion brings the game up to BTS levels. That would be wonderful.

 

[Hambone]

I'm going to have Civ blue-balls all day at work. This morning I installed the expansion, while I was getting ready for work, started a game with Boudica, but only got a few minutes to play and to look over the new Civs.

This is going to be a long day. Anyone else jumped in yet? Thoughts?

 

[alazz]

Tom Chick may be spot on, but I still do enjoy Civ V. I'll admit I don't like it as much as Civ IV:BTS, but the positive changes in V make going back to IV very hard for me. I'm hoping the next expansion brings the game up to BTS levels. That would be wonderful.

I felt the same way. Hadn't played Civ IV in a long time, so I reinstalled it a few months ago but couldn't finish a game. The base game definitely has stronger core game design, army stacking aside. Civ V was "simplified" and is almost entirely more addictive than Civ IV because of it. If they can take the convenience of Civ V, which is really built into the game, and add in the complexity of Civ IV I'd be in heaven. I bet if they make a second expansion it'll be a lot closer to this.

The Nights mod for Civ V is iirc very good about that. My installation of it was corrupted a while back and I haven't bothered to reinstall it, but I think I like its take on the tech tree more than G&K.

 

[Guesong]

Ah, Civilization.

"Surely the expansion pack will fix stability issues that has plagued this game!"

Nope. Keep getting the infamous Crash to Desktop issue on random moments, be it loading a multiplayer game to managing units. DX9, DX11, low settings, high settings, it'll crash.

 

[SRG01]

Got my first cultural victory today. Was quite easy. I think the key was to get that first wonder up early, then use the great engineer points you get from it to keep building wonders. I was completely passive, never even had to kill a barb, and no wars (until Egypt declared the turn before I completed the utopia project :\) Only had 4 cities, which were all massive in population, tons of farms, built around 20 great people (mostly artists), would have won 15 turns earlier if the game didn't fuck me over by refusing to let me use a great engineer to build the utopia project. Good times though. It was a lot more fun not having to worry about a bunch of military units. Science Victory next!

I'm India. And the only reason I had even that much military might was because I had a huge treasurery so I used some to upgrade my garrisoned crossbows to infantaryman.

Cultural victories are actually fairly fun, once you realize that hammers (lol can't let go of old terminology) and culture go well together. You need hammers for cultural buildings, and you can use hammers to switch cities over to culture.

On another note, you need hammers for the late culture game for defensive units because civs will attack you once they realize you're going for a cultural victory. Of course, you can always use your hammers to build an army and use it to raze your neighbours while you wait :3

 

[fallout]

Tom Chick didn't like the base game and thinks that all this pack does is put things in that were already in Civ IV and still didn't address the other base issues of Civ V. Tom really likes Civ games and 4x in general, so I'm actually inclined to listen to his complaints. While he may be a bit harsh on the scoring, his complaints are pretty spot on... though I have to disclose that I really believe that Civ II and SMAC were the pinnacles of this genre.

Yeah, even if I disagree with him on some of it, his complaints are far more worth reading than anything the reviews scored in the 80s and 90s say.

 

[mkenyon]

Tom Chick didn't like the base game and thinks that all this pack does is put things in that were already in Civ IV and still didn't address the other base issues of Civ V. Tom really likes Civ games and 4x in general, so I'm actually inclined to listen to his complaints. While he may be a bit harsh on the scoring, his complaints are pretty spot on... though I have to disclose that I really believe that Civ II and SMAC were the pinnacles of this genre.

Me from the other thread:

His complaints seemingly stem from playing the game on a fairly easy difficulty. Something below Emperor at least. Either that or he has little grasp of why things like social/tech/religion are different trees, which add a ton of complexity in choosing how to shape cities or even what to focus on. I mean, I know he's not bad at games, but it seems like he's unable to even think about this game on any sort of critical level.

Maybe I'm missing another level above my understanding, but I've been playing Civ religiously since the original. I play on Immortal in Civ V, so I think I understand the dynamics and system fairly well. Kind of an appeal to authority, but really that's the only way I can make sense of his complaints.

The fact that you can play Civ V and truly explore each type of victory which has stunningly different implications on how you build your Civ from even turn 1, seems to really put this game above any prior version. The elements added in G&K adds even more complexity to this.

Furthermore, saying it's adding elements from previous games to patch it to prior greatness is flat out ridiculous. Religion is so much more fleshed out here and actually means something. To compare it to the farse and total piece of crap that was Civ IV religion is either idiotic or disingenuous.

I felt the same way. Hadn't played Civ IV in a long time, so I reinstalled it a few months ago but couldn't finish a game. The base game definitely has stronger core game design, army stacking aside.

This is the caveat I always see. The thing is, is that that one caveat has such far reaching effects on core gameplay. You can play a small empire focused entirely on defense going for a cultural victory. That kind of diversity in strategy never existed in Civ IV.

 

[alazz]

Me from the other thread:
This is the caveat I always see. The thing is, is that that one caveat has such far reaching effects on core gameplay. You can play a small empire focused entirely on defense going for a cultural victory. That kind of diversity in strategy never existed in Civ IV.

You're right; that simple exclusion really does carry omnipresent effects, and I love it. It affects the whole game and it's better for it.

I spoke too simply with "definitely better." I probably shouldn't even be talking about its core gameplay since I've only played it for less than an hour in the past three years. I really just want the broadness from IV in V. I felt as if despite playing IV for a couple years there was still a lot more to learn, and I feel as if I already know most of V after less than half a year, and IV felt more like a sim and V more like a game. I think V's more fun, but I'd like many more paths in V. The mid-game of every game I play is almost identical, and late-game never lasts long enough for me to really enjoy the tension and see the effects of my decisions.

 

[MasLegio]

really hate GreenManGaming right now.

they have released the keys to people that bought the game after I preordered it and I have not gotten any keys. If I am lucky I might get the keys tomorrow

 

[Omikron]

really hate GreenManGaming right now.

they have released the keys to people that bought the game after I preordered it and I have not gotten any keys. If I am lucky I might get the keys tomorrow

Weird, they gave me my key immediately on purchase 3-4 days ago. Bonus was the game unlocked based on us release date not the Australian one couldn't be happier.

 

[Fragamemnon]

This is the caveat I always see. The thing is, is that that one caveat has such far reaching effects on core gameplay. You can play a small empire focused entirely on defense going for a cultural victory. That kind of diversity in strategy never existed in Civ IV.

Yes it did, even at very high level play. It just required heavy diplomatic manipulation to get there, which is pretty sensible given that you were playing a peaceful victory condition.

I agree with your comments about Civ IV religion being crap, it was the number one way to abuse the AI into letting you power and expand without repercussion.

As for Tom Chick, I am pretty sure he doesn't crank the difficultly like he should be doing. The AI opponents need those bonuses to compete and deal with their programmatic shortcomings.

 

[mkenyon]

Even with heavy diplomatic manipulation, there was still a chance of Huyana Capac (hate that fucker) showing up on your continent with an army of death ready to roll your face. I get what you're saying though, but that always felt to me more like exploitation and manipulation of a system for unintended results, rather than a crafted part of the game.

 

[Juice]

We need a thread title change.

I'm at 1335 AD as the Celts and I'm *loving* the game. It seems like the new mechanics have a side effect of making the game easier, so I'm going to have to probably ratchet up a difficulty level or two

 

[Sarcasm]

So what mods to try out?

 

[Ikuu]

Anyone in EU that doesn't want to wait can just grab it from here for $20. It's the Mac version, but the game is SteamPlay so it doesn't matter.

 

[Mengy]

We need a thread title change.

I'm at 1335 AD as the Celts and I'm *loving* the game. It seems like the new mechanics have a side effect of making the game easier, so I'm going to have to probably ratchet up a difficulty level or two

I'm looking forward to more play impressions like this, but more detail please. I haven't actually bought G&K yet, been too busy with Warlock: Master of the Arcane trying to finish up a game I have there first.

 

[Woorloog]

Dear lord how shitty place Civfanatics is now. I quit from it before Civ 5 was announced.
I was looking for reactions and comments about that decade old game and all i see is Civ 5 bashing instead of them talking about the game.
The more specialized the forum, the shittier it is, it seems.

 

[Firebrand]

really hate GreenManGaming right now.

they have released the keys to people that bought the game after I preordered it and I have not gotten any keys. If I am lucky I might get the keys tomorrow

Same. I told my UK friend to buy it from there after I did, and he's playing it right now even though I thought the European release wasn't until the 22nd. Filed a ticket just in case there's some glitch, I don't even have a date listed for the game on my account.

EDIT: Apparantely the early release of keys was a mistake and the rest of us aren't getting any until the proper release date.

 

[SRG01]

Um, holy shit? Is it just me or is naval combat vs cities ridiculously overpowered now? I used a couple of privateers to decimate a rival civ's (barely existent) naval force, started bombarding, and finished off with a privateer.

I'm not sure if I like naval units being able to capture coastal cities. It wasn't supposed to be this easy.

By the way, I haven't been playing Civ for a while, and the game feels totally different. Trading posts don't "upgrade" with use anymore, and a lot of the improvements were shifted. Was that in a previous patch or was that the expansion?

 

[CzarTim]

Didn't even do anything

 

[platypotamus]

Are they at War with England too? Maybe they are just sexist...

 

[CzarTim]

Are they at War with England too? Maybe they are just sexist...

They are. I made Milan an Ally and in one turn they pulled a 360 on me and allied with Arabia. wtf???

 

[platypotamus]

They are. I made Milan an Ally and in one turn they pulled a 360 on me and allied with Arabia. wtf???

I THINK the city states are still sort of mindless drones. They can only Ally with one civ, and it'll be whoever has the highest score with them. So Arabia must have made them happy.

 

[SRG01]

I THINK the city states are still sort of mindless drones. They can only Ally with one civ, and it'll be whoever has the highest score with them. So Arabia must have made them happy.

Yeah, that's what I don't like about the city-state system. It's just a point system with no recollection of past relationships or ties.

 

[Mengy]

Yeah, that's what I don't like about the city-state system. It's just a point system with no recollection of past relationships or ties.

The diplomacy in the game could use a whole hell of a lot of help. Truthfully I was hoping that G&K would significantly improve both diplomacy and the AI, but it sounds like neither of those got much attention. It's one area where Civ IV greatly outshines Civ V. At least in Civ IV the AI didn't feel so dart board like. And the behavior of the city states only amplifies that dart board feeling.


Maybe the next expansion should be called Diplomacy & Intelligence?

 

[CzarTim]

I THINK the city states are still sort of mindless drones. They can only Ally with one civ, and it'll be whoever has the highest score with them. So Arabia must have made them happy.

Ah, I see. They're no threat right now despite being neighbours. Arabia is coming at me hard though, and the only peace treaty they'll accept is almost all of my gold as well as 2 of 3 my cities.

 

[platypotamus]

Is all but 2 of your gold enough to insta-purchase some military units? Because fuck them and their demands.

 

[CzarTim]

Is all but 2 of your gold enough to insta-purchase some military units? Because fuck them and their demands.

Yeah, that's what I've been doing. I had great starting position defensively speaking. My plan is to turtle this game.

 

[Sblargh]

Buying the expansion is making my Steam look funny.
First it said "license update" or something and stayed there for an hour or so; so I cancelled and just for the heck decided to start the game itself, and then some conversion started and it is downloading a "missing content" for some time now, without any % or estimated time to give me some hope that I didn't break steam.