AI is not only much improved, its a lot more stubborn. And different AIs work together. They seem to be a lot more aware of what eachother is doing and co-ordinated, especially in their AP resolutions.

Nukes lose you a lot more diplo points than before.

Fighters are still useless IMO. Spies are great, some missions arent up to much, but some are brilliant, particularly poison water supply.

Siege weapons really are nerved and you need more to get a city's defense down. Likewise you probably need more attackers, because the defenders are less hurt when you start your assault.

The AI is better at defending its cities and really good at the counterattack. Also, they are more willing to start wars and are more effective and divers at them.

Regarding espionage, keeping up and maybe moving the slider up to 10% should be enough be in the safe most of the time.

Passive effects seems very useful and when you have enough points you don't have to be too afraid of enemy attack, which most of the time are just about destroying improvements.

Also, putting your own spies looks to be very effective and makes it easier to catch enemy spies.

Dikes, seem very powerful so far and when playing the Dutch beelining to them certainly is a possibility.

For Civ 5 I want minor Civs, this seems to have been achieved by colonies, I didnt think the AI would be so eager to create them. But I wish they werent automatically vassals, I think it would be better if you just started with a big diplo bonus but they could follow their own path

The AI seems to be doing more nasty vassalage stuff.

I'm pounding Egypt, she vassals with the largest power so I'm fighting that power as well, so I am forced to peace. Now she has got longbows from here master and is alot tougher. A little while later she breaks her vassal status with Victoria and is free again. I declare war start the pounding again.

Then she goes vassal to another great power who declares on me...

All I wanted to do was pound Hatty and have had to fight half the World to do it!

Also, Civs seem more inclined to allow themselves to be vassalised by a relatively weak master so they can both challenege eachother. For example in my present game Sitting Bull vassalised Darius when the both of them were on the bottom two rungs of the score ladder. Never saw that in Warlords

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The AI seems to be doing more nasty vassalage stuff.

I'm pounding Egypt, she vassals with the largest power so I'm fighting that power as well, so I am forced to peace. Now she has got longbows from here master and is alot tougher. A little while later she breaks her vassal status with Victoria and is free again. I declare war start the pounding again.

Then she goes vassal to another great power who declares on me...

All I wanted to do was pound Hatty and have had to fight half the World to do it!


Actually that sounds pretty awesome (and clever)

i lost a normal civ game today playing as normal i went for the small empire got christaintly and sate down building wonder.

further through the game i becomes apparant the major relgion is islam as teh 2 biggest ai are that relgion and many smaller then they build the apostic palace thing this is worring for me being the only christian the game carries on an i get declared war on i think fine i can hold them fight goes ok large armies which are hard to fight :S then another neighbor declares war im like argh but i can still handle is then a 3rd player declares war at this point im battered i retreat what i can to my cap and form a good defense on a hill (musket men on the only hill into my lands with 2 hill defense upgrades :) ) then every player on the map decalres war in like wtf

is this a bug or is it just that i was about to die.?

Does anyone know if negative nuclear diplo modifiers ("You nuked our friend!") are permanent, or simply very high for a short period?

The AI seems to be doing more nasty vassalage stuff.

I'm pounding Egypt, she vassals with the largest power so I'm fighting that power as well, so I am forced to peace. Now she has got longbows from here master and is alot tougher. A little while later she breaks her vassal status with Victoria and is free again. I declare war start the pounding again.

Then she goes vassal to another great power who declares on me...

All I wanted to do was pound Hatty and have had to fight half the World to do it!

Something similar to me happened in my first game today: I (Persia) had weakened Korea in my first war against him. When I declare war on him the second time, he becomes Catherine`s vassal, who leads in score. I take some cities, eventually agree to peace. Korea (forgot the leaders name) breaks free.
When I declare war against Korea again, it`s the same procedure all over again, this time I also take two of Catherine`s cities. I declare peace, Korea breaks free.
The next time I declare war on him he vassalizes to Alex.
I really, really want to finish Korea off, but with the strong masters he drags in every time, it`s a lengthy process and also stops me from teching as fast as I`d like.

Does anyone know if negative nuclear diplo modifiers ("You nuked our friend!") are permanent, or simply very high for a short period?

If they haven't changed anything about diplomacy I'd find it very strange if it expired.
In Warlords I once destroyed Carthage with my first warrior around 3800BC and had "-1 You declared war on our friend" with Shaka for the next 5500 years.
Hope they fixed it.