I've had CiV since the release date, but my computer wasn't strong enough to run it. Now that I've upgraded, one of the first things I did was start a game of CiV. I'm about 300 turns into my first game (Marathon). In my spare time, I'm reading all 100+ pages of this thread.
My question is this: how is it possible to obtain a Domination Victory when the size of the military it would take to achieve this condition would bankrupt you?
For the record, I am loving this game so far.
I can't say that I've ever really gone for a domination victory - I prefer to concentrate on science. However, in the experience that I have with capturing cities and whatnot, I feel like it's safe to say that the more cities you capture, the more gold you can make per turn, which means it's easier to sustain a larger army. Also, you don't have to conquer everyone at the same time - you can use the same army multiple times, so you don't have to continuously produce units once you have enough to beat the other civs.
A few more questions:
1. With the game coming up on 2 years old, is it safe to say that there will be no more patches?
2. If I have a fresh install via Steam, does that ensure that I have the latest patch, or do I have to update manually?
3. Is the Gods and Kings expansion pack worth the money?
4. Can you disable espionage in Gods and Kings? I love the religion aspect, but hate the spies.
1. Based on experience with previous Civ games, and since there was a patch released on the 14th of June, there probably won't be any more patches for vanilla CiV - especially since G&K is out.
2. I believe that you should have the latest patch if you downloaded your game recently (within the past week or so). The latest version/patch ends with .674, so if in the main menu of CiV you look at the bottom of the screen and the version number that ends in .674, then you have the latest patch.
3. I don't have G&K yet, so I can't tell you, but it seems like most people are happy with the new features.
4. Again I'm not completely sure, but as far as I know you can't. I'm sure that if you can't someone is out there creating a mod (if it hasn't been created already) that disables espionage.