FatherJack wrote:Civ5, hmm. I'm trying to learn how to play. The tutorial seems to simply present scenarios you have to figure out, along with menus upon sub-menus of text about stuff you don't need to know yet. It doesn't tell you how to do anything.
I've been a while away from true turn-based games, such that I'm used to the Total War definition of a turn - ie: I can do at least 20 awesome things each go, not umm.. move a single square.
I've redownloaded Civ4 in the hopes that the tutorial in that might give me some pointers, but surely that points towards a major flaw in the design, at least for people new to the series.
Other than the graphics, I really cannot tell what the difference is between Civ4 and Civ5.
Roman Totale wrote:Other than the graphics, I really cannot tell what the difference is between Civ4 and Civ5.
Civ4, there's a tutorial. Sid Meier himself pops up (though his mouth never moves) and tells you what to click to do shit. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but nothing like this happens in Civ5, even when selecting the "new to Civ" difficulty option. Surely this can't be how it's supposed to be?
Roman Totale wrote:Other than the graphics, I really cannot tell what the difference is between Civ4 and Civ5.
The biggest ones are:
No more unit stacks, you can only have one military and one non military unit in the same tile. They can pass through each other, but cannot end in a stack.
Ranged units actually fire over a distance. Archers can shoot three tiles over in general.
Civ V switches from the square tiles used in previous games to hex shaped tiles. This changes the way you'll be moving stuff around slightly.
I've only managed a few hours (repeated as it's crashed twice, I suspect it my computer no the game though), but it feels different. I always hated the government system, and this one feels nicer. The city-states are a nice addition too. Hopefully the AI is better than Civ IV and I can actually use different tactics without being dragged into a world war.
I've not had crashes so far (fingers crossed) so I managed about 12 hours in one sitting - it's bloody addictive. That was just the tutorial as well.
To be honest I've found it reasonably intuitive (or I might have just remembered stuff from last game). Only thing I can't work out is how to delete productions. I needed to free up some Aluminium, but couldn't find any way of destroying one of things that was using it up.
I'm stuck on turn 278 with only 3 civs to conquer yet and it keeps crashing at the same spot. I've been playing the same game for 21 hours now and I get to keep replaying turn 277. It feels like groundhog day, I swear I even hear "I got you babe" when my game finishes loading.
Finally completed my first game. Medium map at Cheiftain (I think), space victory.
I'm enjoying this more than Civ IV. The diplomacy works nicely, the government system is good, it's just full of little things that used to bug me in the series and now make me like it.
My first game demonstrated how much more control I have over my Civ. I'd shared my little continent with the Romans all game, but due to the cramped space and their penchant for cramming cities in little spaces we eventually clashed (a sneak attack by them no less). They took my capital, but I fought back and eventually drove them into the sea. In Civ IV this would have let to every other civ hating me for the rest of the game, and likely declaring war on me too. Here I had most others looking on (and generally squabbling among themselves), while my closest ally decided I was a warmonger and started amassing troops on my border. Since I had a large army I just put them all on my side of the border, and a cold war ensued until he broke and offered a research treaty (to be fair, he had spearmen facing off against my infantry and artillery). The situation dissipated in quite a satisfying manner. Thing is, during the clod war I was hovering over the Autocracy button, a click away from becoming a military state and wiping my opponent off the map. Had I have done I expect I wouldn't have stopped there. It felt like a viable option.
In all, I'm very impressed. They've dumbed it down a little, but put in lots of new features to vary your game and make it feel less like the simulator Civ IV did.
It seems like they took a lot more micromanaging out of the game in Civ V. There was a religious element infused in Civ IV. Leaders would demand conversions to a specific religion, temples could be built to promote it, etc. One of my more memorable Civ IV moments was when Saladin angrily demanded I drop Islam and convert to Judaism. I hate to use the phrase "dumbed it down" but it definitely feels more streamlined and simple, which I think is a plus.
Oh, and as far as crashing goes. I had a saved game, then a patch was applied, and I couldn't go more than 4 or 5 turns without it crashing.
If I make a large game (12 civs, crazy huge map, marathon time) the game will just give up and die. I'm in the later stages and it takes a good 5-10 seconds to get through all the AI's turns.
The first Civ game I've finished in a long time and it ended in defeat. I was almost finished building a spaceship and time run out and I was 3rd on points.
And I probably could have crushed the other nations if I hadn't set my mind on SCIENCE.
I just scraped through a culture victory as the Germans (not the best civ for it, admittedly) with 2 turns to go. I'd have done better were it not for the Siamese taking exception to me colonising their continent and laying siege to Frankfurt for several hundred years.
I'm playing an island map now as the Greeks trying for a diplomatic victory. Being able to embark your units to cross water is a massive improvement on the other games.
I'm a bit of a Culture and Settler whore. Victories so far have been Space, Time and Kicking everyone else's heads in.
Pro tip for starting: produce two lots of warriors, then a set of workers. Explore surrounding area with warriors and bash any barbarians. Scout places nearby for a good place to settle. Produce more settlers as soon as possible and get another city started (ideally near to any luxury resources) as soon as possible.
This version of Civ is unusual in that expansion isn't necessarily the best thing to do. Every game I've played has been pretty crowded, without enough room for more than three or four cities. Trying to expand aggressively by getting cities farther out early only pisses other people off and inevitably leads to conflict later on. In my last game I realised that the amount of culture needed for a new policy increases with the amount of cities you have, so it's actually better to have only a few. I don't like not having any room to expand to more than a couple of cities (although it might get more spacious in larger maps), but I do like that there are ways to victory which don't demand rapid expansion.
I just won my first game, a Pangaea Duel map, the smallest. I had 17 cities covering every scrap of land I could. I didn't really know what I was doing and just made random stuff, hoping that I'd win on technology eventually.
Sadly a few of my cities started starving - it talked about upgrading tiles but I couldn't see how to do that, only replace what was there. Fearing my mighty empire would crumble from within, I began mobilising my vast army towards China's border.
They noticed this, and did not believe me when I said they were just hanging out, so I launched a premptive strike upon their capital. A dissapointing two turns later I'd won the game, having only moved two or three of my troops into position.
If your cities are starving, get workers to build farms over trading posts and lumber mills etc. Of course then you'll probably start to run out of gold.
Big empires are a pain in that respect: people are either starving or you've got no money.
You can go into the city screen and change the focus of your population too. I think they just move around squares (well, hexes) so they're using ones which produce more food.
It feels like groundhog day, I swear I even hear "I got you babe" when my game finishes loading.
