Guide to civ5 multiplayer

[Silverfuturist]

I have some more advice for Rockflake, or anybody else wanting to play MP:

#1 i think, most important: CHECK THE DEMOGRAPHICS SCREEN EVERY TURN. Here are a few examples of this critical tool:

Look at your soldier level compared to the average, and the #1 in soldiers. This will tell
you if you need to beef up your military. If you have a close neighbor last in soldiers by far... you get the idea. WARNING: I had a game where 2 buddies were playing, and one had "no soldiers." When I attacked, his buddy gifted him his army back to him (the units were in his territory but he didn't own them at the time), then my force was too small and the attack failed. While that happened his buddy attacked my cities! In cton this can't happen, but funky stuff happens in FFAs.

Look at your production level compared to others. This will give you a good idea who can produce more units if a war breaks out. This number will change if you are on production focus vs normal focus in your cities.

Looking at the science level... good, but this can be misleading because somebody who goes right for a harder tech (such as education) will appear lower than somebody scooping up the lower techs first.

[KiffeLesBiffles]

Look at all source of info you have as often as possible:
- look at "global diplomacy" screen to know which SP you opponent has. You will able to answer question like, Will i have my great ingeneer from Liberty first ? -> you CAN décide to go for theology to build hagia Sofia or not.
To know which SP, he does after the first one can indicates you what type of strat he Will do.

-> look at his diPlo screen to know when he Will have Iron.

To make a good MP player you need to be paranoïas !

[KM]

Updated with FAQ and General advice.
Basicly pasted the replys together and off cource put the name of the player who wrote the advice or answer in () for the credits.

[KM]

Added info about TS + re wrote some of the general advice and added some info.

[KiffeLesBiffles]

I would also advice players in MP to remove auto selection of units : It helps a lot for fast move en the beginning of turns.
Moreover, personaly , I play with tile yields on : you can see quickly the fields.

[Thresian]

First of all, thanks for writing this. I recently started playing some MP games, and this post was very helpful in getting me started.

It might also be helpful if I add a few things from my perspective as someone new to MP. I think I'm not too bad at SP - at least, I can beat deity most of the time, even though the GOTM TSGs make it clear that I'm still a long way behind the really strong players. I still lost my first 6 or 7 MP games, and I lost a couple of them very quickly (thanks, Faikogaksu). Looking back, I made some howling errors, like building the GL when I was right next to the Iroquois, and then getting surprised when a bunch of Mohawks took over my capital.

In terms of how the gameplay differs, the big difference is the simultaneous moves. I certainly found that quite confusing at first, because I'd be looking at one area of the map, and suddenly I'd get lots of 'unit killed' notifications. As Kiffe says, you need to turn unit-cycling off: it took me a few games to work that out.

Also, as you have intelligent opponents, you need to give some thought to what their strategy is likely to be, whereas in SP you can basically just think about your own strategy. For instance, in my last game, I really ought to have anticipated that Adreno would attack with camel archers.

I do find that the turn timer puts quite a bit of pressure on to move quickly at certain critical points. You need to get into the habit of thinking in advance: if you wait for your settler to spawn and then spend ages trying to decide where to put the city, then you'll time out. You can also queue up builds and techs so you don't get distracted when you're in the middle of a war.

[KM]

Originally Posted by Thresian

First of all, thanks for writing this. I recently started playing some MP games, and this post was very helpful in getting me started.

It might also be helpful if I add a few things from my perspective as someone new to MP. I think I'm not too bad at SP - at least, I can beat deity most of the time, even though the GOTM TSGs make it clear that I'm still a long way behind the really strong players. I still lost my first 6 or 7 MP games, and I lost a couple of them very quickly (thanks, Faikogaksu). Looking back, I made some howling errors, like building the GL when I was right next to the Iroquois, and then getting surprised when a bunch of Mohawks took over my capital.

In terms of how the gameplay differs, the big difference is the simultaneous moves. I certainly found that quite confusing at first, because I'd be looking at one area of the map, and suddenly I'd get lots of 'unit killed' notifications. As Kiffe says, you need to turn unit-cycling off: it took me a few games to work that out.

Also, as you have intelligent opponents, you need to give some thought to what their strategy is likely to be, whereas in SP you can basically just think about your own strategy. For instance, in my last game, I really ought to have anticipated that Adreno would attack with camel archers.

I do find that the turn timer puts quite a bit of pressure on to move quickly at certain critical points. You need to get into the habit of thinking in advance: if you wait for your settler to spawn and then spend ages trying to decide where to put the city, then you'll time out. You can also queue up builds and techs so you don't get distracted when you're in the middle of a war.

thank you. I appriciate the input. I might also ad that since this post was rewarded with a sticky I ll try to edit it somewhat to make it a bit more unpartial, a bit more structured and put some work into make it a really good guide.

So faar thought I havnt really found the time to do it between real life work, real life other stuff then work, and playing civ insted of writing about playing civ. But ill geta round to it

[donhenriko]

I have to applaud you too Ketil. This guide has really made a difference for recruiting new civfanatics into the civ MP community. At least, I'm sure NQ has grown thanks to your nice guide.

Thumbs up and continue the great work.

[salqadri]

Thanks for the guide.

I think I'll join NQ tonight (steam id: Gadzair). Will be a complete noob though lol, but I used to play in the civ4players ladder about 6 years ago lol (name was 'Word' in clan MUD). Hopefully ppl can guide me. I assume NQ FFA games don't use TS right?

One more thing you could add to the guide about how to become a better player (from my Civ4 experience):
Play in a larger 4v4 or 5v5 setting and use TS (TeamSpeak) to constantly communicate with your more experienced team members to help guide you to be better. Since it is in their best interest that you do well, you will learn a lot.

Gadzair

[BuilderFTW]

NQ doesn't really use TS since they rarely do teamers.

4v4s and 5v5s arent stable in Civ5 at the moment. (my own internet has trouble handing 6 ppl in a game at once) so 3v3 is generally the largest we make a game.

[KM]

Guide updated 2012-03-22. A total wokthrough of the guide with multiple changes. Please read through and comment if something is missing.

[Tabarnak]

Good work KM! Have you talked about playing under dx9 for better stability than dx11? It prevents a lot OOS and sudden crashes(with at least dual cores for everyone but we don't have control on this).

[KM]

2012-04-11
Added:
Article index
I will try to keep this section updated with links to threads that adress MP tactis, Issues or other general information regarding CIV V MP play.

Technical FAQ
I devided the FAQ in technical/general
Added common technical questions regarding MP and answers

[KM]

regarding the articles.
I will continue to add links to threads here. I will ad threads written as articles. Not threads that discuss an issue. For example if you write a big post regarding how to do a specific thing, how to get around some technical issues or tactical, lets say industrial start options, I ll ad it. If its a thread that is intresting but is more of a discussion where someone rise a question and then it s a debate over it I wont ad it.

I would also be glad if you do post a link here if you write an article posted somewhere on the civfanatics or see an artichle someone else wrote that might regard MP game so that I can ad it to the links.

regards

[KM]

2012-04-16 some grammar and spelling corrected. Thanks Grumalg for the help.

[Ultraviolent4]

I would like to start playing a couple of multiplayer games. Unfortunately I don't know how to actually find a game.

If I choose "Multiplayer" from the main menu and then "Internet" there are never any games.

If I try to join NQ chat I'm told "You don't have the required permission to enter the NO QUITTERS chat".

If I look through the other Civ groups, none of them seems to have a chat with more than 2-3 people so I don't see how to get into a game that way.

I don't especially want to join Civplayers yet because I haven't played any multiplayer (other than some LAN with housemates) and the whole score system seems a little serious to start off with.

So how do I go about playing Civ multiplayer?

Edit: I've just spent the last 30 mins or so trying to host a duel through the civ main menu. A couple of people have joined but they left immediately...

[Silverfuturist]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolent4

I would like to start playing a couple of multiplayer games. Unfortunately I don't know how to actually find a game.

If I choose "Multiplayer" from the main menu and then "Internet" there are never any games.

If I try to join NQ chat I'm told "You don't have the required permission to enter the NO QUITTERS chat".

If I look through the other Civ groups, none of them seems to have a chat with more than 2-3 people so I don't see how to get into a game that way.

I don't especially want to join Civplayers yet because I haven't played any multiplayer (other than some LAN with housemates) and the whole score system seems a little serious to start off with.

So how do I go about playing Civ multiplayer?

Edit: I've just spent the last 30 mins or so trying to host a duel through the civ main menu. A couple of people have joined but they left immediately...

If there are not many games - go to steam-settings and change server to a different area.

[N0QUITTERSULTAN]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolent4

I would like to start playing a couple of multiplayer games. Unfortunately I don't know how to actually find a game.

If I choose "Multiplayer" from the main menu and then "Internet" there are never any games.

If I try to join NQ chat I'm told "You don't have the required permission to enter the NO QUITTERS chat".

If I look through the other Civ groups, none of them seems to have a chat with more than 2-3 people so I don't see how to get into a game that way.

I don't especially want to join Civplayers yet because I haven't played any multiplayer (other than some LAN with housemates) and the whole score system seems a little serious to start off with.

So how do I go about playing Civ multiplayer?

Edit: I've just spent the last 30 mins or so trying to host a duel through the civ main menu. A couple of people have joined but they left immediately...

you can also join NQ-chat where it isnt always so seriousFull diplo games and no score systems..
add me at steam and i gladely help you join the group.add:sultankenan

[CanuckSoldier]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolent4

I would like to start playing a couple of multiplayer games. Unfortunately I don't know how to actually find a game.

If I choose "Multiplayer" from the main menu and then "Internet" there are never any games.

If I try to join NQ chat I'm told "You don't have the required permission to enter the NO QUITTERS chat".

If I look through the other Civ groups, none of them seems to have a chat with more than 2-3 people so I don't see how to get into a game that way.

I don't especially want to join Civplayers yet because I haven't played any multiplayer (other than some LAN with housemates) and the whole score system seems a little serious to start off with.

So how do I go about playing Civ multiplayer?

Edit: I've just spent the last 30 mins or so trying to host a duel through the civ main menu. A couple of people have joined but they left immediately...

As well as NQ you can also check out the Civplayers Leagues chat for games, we tend to have more than a couple in chat :-/ Things are a little slower lately as everyone is waiting for Gods and Kings and the changes it will bring.....

Links to CP are in my signature.

CS

[Rockflake]

Just wanted so say thanks, especially to KM. I'm a sporadic player and had to take a few months off. Thus the delayed appreciation.

Rockflake