"I think we can make a home here..."

Catherine listened outside the tent flap as her father in law detailed his vision of the future. It was glorious... glorious...

And then... the story finished, and she waited for Peter to say something.

Anything.

:cringe:

Bumbling dunderhead! He was ruggedly handsome, but dumb as dirt. If left in charge, there was no way he could lead them to the future his father foresaw.

Catherine was not cruel. She waited until the old man died before she and her advisors deposed her husband and she took rule for herself. The patriarch was buried in the new city, and she promised the people to build a monument in his honor. She kept Peter on as her military advisor.

This is my first full game of Civ V, though I've played the demo through twice. Settings are Continents, Standard Speed and Size, Prince difficulty, time victory turned off, no advanced options ticked.

Grar! The screenshots aren't appearing in the screenshot folder! I've lost all of them from my first play session.

I opened the starting save to get the starting position at least.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/civ5/000-start2.jpg

((Hmm... and apparently jpgs are needed. PNG files end up massive))

A good starting place, with food and luxuries, and a couple of hills. I settle in place, start building a scout, and start researching Animal Husbandry. My plan is to go for expansion, using the Liberty tree, and gobble up resources.

((Wheee! It turns out the screenshots are there, just saved as a weird format. Then the first .tga to .jpg converter that I used made the colors funky and then deleted the original files. Then I remembered irfanview. So if you can put up with pinkish/purple screenshots for the first 50 turns, it will get better after that.))

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/civ5/Civ5Screen0000.jpg

First 50 turns:

Research: AH > Mining > BW > Pottery > Writing > Iron Working
Production: Scout > Scout > Worker > Scout > Spearman > Settler > Monument

For now I'm ignoring encampments until I get the territory scouted. The rewards for early scouting are too high to put it off.

Except when I can't. I ended up losing two scouts and a warrior to the barbs. The honor tree must be necessary to take them without advanced troops.

In these early turns, I meet China and later Washington.

Turn 30: China asks for a Pact of Cooperation. I agree, and ask for a Pact of Secrecy against America. It seems appropriate. :trouble: She agrees.

This:
http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/civ5/Civ5Screen0009.jpg

leads to

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/civ5/Civ5Screen0011.jpg

from both China and Washington. I give the polite answer to China, the rude one to Washington.

http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq40/happyturtle-avs/civ5/Civ5Screen0010.jpg

Bucharest asks for help with barbarians, offering influence for each one we kill. I have a spearman nearby, so kill the barb, rescuing and liberating one of Bucharests citzens. We're now friends. They're a cultural city state, which is great. Sadly that influence is going to degrade next turn and I don't have any gold to buy more. :sad:

Bastard! Next round the influence dropped to neutral, and then I got a 'trespassing' penalty for the spearman who just rescued their worker. Damn it, should have kept the guy. *grumble*

Happiness is starting to be an issue, so I've switched from iron working to Calendar to access my Incense, and then will do Sailing to get nice pearls.

Initial Save (http://www.mediafire.com/?miaoi9hi0ssy9dd)
Turn 53 (http://www.mediafire.com/?59hwfzdvydiyeiq)

You lost 3 units to the barbarians? That's harsh. I'd build more warriors and fewer scouts.

On Warlord, my scouts could kick barb tail. Then I moved up to Prince. :D

((Wheee! It turns out the screenshots are there, just saved as a weird format. Then the first .tga to .jpg converter that I used made the colors funky and then deleted the original files. Then I remembered irfanview. So if you can put up with pinkish/purple screenshots for the first 50 turns, it will get better after that.)) Getting to see screenshots was driving me crazy too ... irfanview seems simplest so far, gimp also works to view the ones the game makes. It was not this tricky in Civ 4 ... so a step backwards here.

dV

I stopped building scouts after my first full game, because they are too weak and can't attack very well. Build only warriors and if you get promotions for them upgrade them as soon as you can. In civ 5 it's cheaper to upgrade your obsolote and promote units then building new ones :).