Just made the jump to Civ 5: Impressions

That's a criticism I don't really get, the whole "you build less units and less building and it's all because of 1UPT". Technically this is all true... I just don't see where the problem is. es you build less units in CiV than in CIV. This is bad because... ? I'm not saying it's good either, it's just a difference that to me doesn't change the experience of playing the game fundamentally. I understand when people complain about the AI's inability to fight with 1UPT, since that's obviously true and obviously bad, but this I don't get.

I don't think 1UPT in theory is bad, it's just that it seems like it was a bandaid approach to fix the problems it created, instead of building the game from the ground up. Just like combat with Civ V, which the AI doesn't do well with 1UPT, it seems like it was: "We don't have the time or the capability to create a good AI 1UPT combat system, so let's just stick the Civ IV combat system in there (without stacking of course) and hope that is good enough."

"Anyway, do people think the problem is 1UPT itself, or that the AI isn't smart enough to handle 1UPT?"

I think it is the AI can't handle 1UPT. I decided the best course was a compromise option that put ranged units in their own layer and melee in their own layer, and it would be soooo much easier to program a good logic for the AI and also feel like less of a log jam to players. It would reward combined arms approaches since two layers would imply twice the movement freedom if you used both layers rather than 1. Why not just change it in a mod? Because the games cities arn't designed for the concept. A melee and ranged layer would make it a lot easier to take cities and they would need to be correspondingly beefier.

Adding to my tips:
Tip #1: (previous post)
Don't judge Civ 5 until the AI is beating you.

Tip #2:
Quit games when you know the outcome. If you are a runaway you win. Pat yourself on the back and imagine the victory screen. GG.

Regarding the game blog post by Sulla. I think everyone recognizes the sentiment in the blog. I would append my comment to one more thing that has helped me get value out of Civ 5: don't be afraid to quit games when you know what the outcome is going to be. This isn't a book report or something that needs to be finished... This is here to amuse you. When you know the game is decided: move on! I previously said don't judge Civ 5 until you are playing a difficultly you can lose on, but I am adding don't be afraid to quit games where there is no tension. Don't let it turn into farmville.

Tip #3:
Change your civ if an old choice is getting stale.

Regarding Sulla's choice of civ. Again Civ 5 has some classic "game" elements. In that the devs have left in certain choices that are easier than others. This is common in roguelikes etc. Certain character classes may not be "unbalanced", but they certainly are easier to use or emphasize certain game play mechanics. If you know a civ is contributing to being bored. Move on. It is considered part of the replay value of roguelikes to pick a new class (ftl a new ship etc), and here Sulla doesn't seem to be doing that. Sulla said the choice was to show what you could get with luck from barbarian encampments (yeah if you win the lottery). Sulla mentioned the HoF. That is an issue for Sulla, but does she think more than .01% of the players on the planet care about a hall of fame? If it was more than 1 in 1000 I would be stunned. If that bugs her turn them off. Play the game.

Also one more thing:
Sulla touched on something deep, but I don't think she realized how deep. The nature of luck in apparent skill games. I came to terms with this in FTL and really came to understand it in the distilled down Candycrush, and then I realized it was present in every single player game you can win or lose. When you up the difficulty in a game with skill until you are winning half the time what decides if you win or lose? In FTL tons of players can do one difficultly at a 50% loss rate and another player can do the same starts with nearly a 100% win rate. So was it luck or skill? It is both. You realize that when you are a 50% win rate what is luck to you is a position you "understand". The cards have to lay out in a way that you see how to connect the dots, but another player can look at the same position and see the connections that you missed. What you realize is that whenever you turn a game up to where you are winning on a coin flip you are basically turning a game of skill into luck, and there is no way to fix that... If you start getting caught up in it then it is time to pick a new game. Maybe one not about winning.

My point here is about the barbarian camps. Let us say I win half my immortal games with a particular civ. Not all. Half. What was different about the half I won? I don't change. My civ doesn't change. What was different? Must have been the random elements. They must have aligned in my favor. Does that mean there is no skill? No because someone reading this could have took most of my losses and turned them into wins, but I couldn't. Still though they exist at random--to me. So, yes barbarian camps have a random element, but all my wins when I am winning half the time have a random element.

My point is I can't find a single player game that avoids this. To avoid it you need to win all the time or none of the time. Whenever you can restart a single player game over and over and come to a 50% win rate something about the game was randomly aligned in your favor. Most games where we might feel like it doesn't exist are actually foregone conclusions in disguise. We don't replay them enough to break down the disguise or maybe they arn't not about winning or losing so you don't examine them that closely.

Imo the reason I work with civ in this fashion is because when you do civ 5 is very rewarding, and there are no other titles in the genre that feel as interesting to me.

I enjoy this post very much^^

I think your luck/skill open question is a very strong talking point. I've commented in various threads that I find Diety off-putting because I feel like I'm surviving by manipulating that luck/skill pendulum. In other words, the only reason you don't get rolled over and crushed by an AI is often because either you've skillfully bribed your way into safety, or luck would have the AI more interested in other lands than yours.

It's a great question. Good post.

Oh, and the problem with range being able to overlap with melee units is you'd suddenly have massive numbers of range units in range where normally they'd have to be behind a unit. It'd be first-strike madness.

qemist said:

So why is there a big graphic at the top that says "Sulla's Page"? Moreover that's how it's spelled in the title of his website home page. If cannot spell his own name your correction is unwarranted and patronizing.

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I see your point about the name. The banners have two l's, but the URLs have three.

Alright so I just played my second game with Rome on emperor difficulty, and wow... what a difference. How the frick does anyone play with a large empire in this game??

The UI is really annoying me. It's actually not all that easy to see which unit is selected sometimes, and the game keeps selecting units for me instead of letting me choose which ones I want to move myself, which means that I can be in the middle of a battle on one side of the continent with 10 legions, and the computer is switching me back and forth between that battle and my workers on the other side of the continent. I can't tell you how many legions and archers I lost because of misclicks.

Also... the trade screen is annoying as well. When someone proposes a trade with me I'm still not 100% sure that I can see whether or not I have more than 1 copy left of the luxury they're asking for. It happened many times - that someone proposed to pay me gold for one of my luxuries, only for me to discover that I had given my last copy away and was suffering happiness problems - before I learned to just refuse all incoming AI offers and wait to trade on my turn only.

So, annoying UI aside, how did my game go? Well.... I spawned on a continent with 3 rivals and 6 city states and planned on conquering with my legions and then developing a wide empire. Wouldn't you know it, the 6 city states were: 4 military and 2 culture. Not one mercantile. The 2 culture ones got wiped off the map, too, so I was left with military ones which weren't necessary or useful to me. Needless to say, after conquering the continent, I had major happiness problems.

In fact, my happiness problems were so severe that I abandoned the game. At least I got to do some early warring and see how that went. I think the AI did reasonably well against me. I barely lost any units but you can't blame the AI, I had 10 legions and 3 ballistae at the start of the war, backed up by something like 10 archers, against the Songhai who had maybe 3 swords, 5 archers.

So, questions for you guys - how do you manage happiness in a wide empire/conquest? I think if I'd had mercantile city states on my continent that would have helped.

Also...how do you generate culture?? In the Egypt game I nabbed almost every wonder and was spamming great artists/writers/musicians, and even then I only just barely managed to hit my first level 3 ideology tenet before the game ended. In this Rome game, I built no wonders as I was concentrating on warfare, and there aren't a lot of buildings in the game that generate straight culture, from what I can tell. It seemed to me that I was on track for a game with very few social policies. Is there a way for wide/conquering empires to generate culture?

You could try to get a happiness religion, make earlier coliseums, circus, and circus maximus. Settle in priority cities that get access to luxuries and horses/elephants (for circus).

But ultimately Civ5 doesn't really reward wide play. It's doable but tough to pull out.

Main boost of culture early and mid game comes from cultural city states. Later it can come from the accumulation of great works, % bonus and hermitage.

One thing I've noticed is that if you start in an isolated position you almost will never get attacked. you may go the whole game without ever getting attacked. the AI does not generally go after you unless you are immediately next to him.

The thing with trading your last luxury is a bug, I think. It only comes up when it's the AI's turn, so, as you realized, the easy fix is to not agree to those trades during the AI's turn and then make the offer on your turn.

I think you're playing BNW, so for culture, you need to get your guilds running with two specialists ASAP and get some great works. (If you're conquering other cities, don't forget to have some free slots if possible so you can take their works.)

There are some some social policies that can help with culture and happiness, too. And you should also prioritize getting luxuries either from your cities or trades. But there's going to be some point where an additional city is more harm than good. Generally, taller is better than wider, but you can get a lot wider after you get your ideology - that is, if you don't get unhappiness from pressure from other ideologies.

Thx for the tips. Yeah it occurred to me that if I don't get the culture from building wonders, I should get the culture from stealing them, right? heh. Hmm... I didn't know you could plunder great works. Oooh, it's fun to be evil

For me the game is lost since CIV3. This 3D mess where I have to stare at the screen for minutes to find where to improve a square is killing my desire and joy. I liked when you could have a clear overview of parts of your land, now the automatic zoom in/out the program does is tedious.

Surely the game is more beautiful, they got advanced tools for that. but I feel the golden days where you could play fast and focused are now lost. I have to stop and pause every 1 hour or so, my eyes get tired. In CIV2-3 I could play for ten hours non stop.

If you're being annoyed by the UI, I heartily recommend Enhanced User Interface. It's a mod that gets installed as a DLC so it doesn't disable achievments and you can customize it to a degree.

noto2 said:

The UI is really annoying me. It's actually not all that easy to see which unit is selected sometimes, and the game keeps selecting units for me instead of letting me choose which ones I want to move myself, which means that I can be in the middle of a battle on one side of the continent with 10 legions, and the computer is switching me back and forth between that battle and my workers on the other side of the continent.

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W key (cycle to next unit) helps a lot. The UI is better than it use to be, but it still switches focus from one side of the map to the next.

I can't tell you how many legions and archers I lost because of misclicks.

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I still occasionally through units into water when I don't mean too. I think the interface is fiddly. I have enough trouble with one civilian stacked with one military. I can’t imagine how awkward things would be it if ciV supported stacking.

I spawned on a continent with 3 rivals and 6 city states and planned on conquering with my legions and then developing a wide empire. Wouldn't you know it, the 6 city states were: 4 military and 2 culture. Not one mercantile. The 2 culture ones got wiped off the map, too, so I was left with military ones which weren't necessary or useful to me. Needless to say, after conquering the continent, I had major happiness problems.

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You shouldn't be killing CS even when they are aligned with enemies. And don't annex cities until you are done building your national wonders.

I had 10 legions and 3 ballistae at the start of the war, backed up by something like 10 archers, against the Songhai who had maybe 3 swords, 5 archers.

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That is at least twice the army you needed. You are ready to bump up the difficulty level!

I think if I'd had mercantile city states on my continent that would have helped.

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Yeah, but only a little. You get luxes from other CS too. And mercantile CS need not be on your continent to ally.

Also...how do you generate culture?

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The cultural CS, which you wiped out, can make a huge difference if you keep them as allies for much of the early game.

Oh, as far as generating culture, the Guilds which give you Artist specialist slots are the most reliable way to do it. Otherwise having an allied Cultured CS is also extremely valuable.

@ beetle: It wasn't me who wiped out the cultural CS, I would have kept them. The Songhai wiped them out while I was trying to save them. Had I known you could liberate a CS I would have gone for those cities first. My point was that I felt unlucky being on a continent with mostly military CS, as I feel the other ones are almost always more useful.

^^ Sorry, I assumed you knew about the Liberation mechanic. Military CS are the most fun when you time ally status to make UU available, but you are correct that the others types are almost more useful (especially after you clear your continent).

It wasn't me who wiped out the cultural CS, I would have kept them.

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So, did you keep them around or not?

I didn't realize you could bring a CS back from the dead so I didn't prioritize liberating them, no

I'm pretty sure the ball has been missed entirely where there is talk about luck.

I have played a lot of deity games. And I mean a lot. What I see is this:
- The impact of ruins is extremely small. Getting 20 culture is probably the best one, but most of the others have very limited impact on the actual game. I think this effect is much bigger on lower difficulty as you can usually get a lot more of these, but all in all the effect is small. Getting an extra point of population for example is pretty meaningless if it immediately caps your growth. Yes you get some use out of it, but it's rarely truly important. This is because this usually happens between population 1 and 3.
- The impact of meeting city states first is rather small.
- The impact of where barbarians spawn is small, since you should always plan to actually deal with them whether they are there or not.
- The impact of city state quests is small to mediocre. Sometimes you can get an early ally that greatly helps your game, yes, but I have played plenty of hard maps without city state allies.
- The impact of your starting area is enormous. This really is where the problem lies with luck. All of the above points are completely blanked by what area you start in, who is near you, what your terrain and luxuries are and so on. This is why I have a problem with the luck statement as this point is the only one that is truly gamebreaking, and it's not a civ 5 issue per sé.

noto2 said:

I didn't realize you could bring a CS back from the dead so I didn't prioritize liberating them, no

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I am still confused then, but prolly it does not matter. Did you wipe out Songhai or not?

Vohbo said:

I'm pretty sure the ball has been missed entirely where there is talk about luck.

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I think you raise a good point and that your list is right-on. The really only game breaking luck is starting dirt.

Ruins, meeting CS, barbs, CS quests -- they are all just flavor. Sometimes it comes together to make a significant difference, for example early easy quest from a religious CS -- so you get an early easy religion. But even founding or not isn't game breaking.

Early scouts are for the CS money as much as anything, and first is less important than busy. So I think early scouts consistently result in stronger games, and since that is so reliable, it is not luck at all. But it is also fun!

Vohbo said:

I'm pretty sure the ball has been missed entirely where there is talk about luck.

I have played a lot of deity games. And I mean a lot. What I see is this:
- The impact of ruins is extremely small. Getting 20 culture is probably the best one, but most of the others have very limited impact on the actual game. I think this effect is much bigger on lower difficulty as you can usually get a lot more of these, but all in all the effect is small. Getting an extra point of population for example is pretty meaningless if it immediately caps your growth. Yes you get some use out of it, but it's rarely truly important. This is because this usually happens between population 1 and 3.
- The impact of meeting city states first is rather small.
- The impact of where barbarians spawn is small, since you should always plan to actually deal with them whether they are there or not.
- The impact of city state quests is small to mediocre. Sometimes you can get an early ally that greatly helps your game, yes, but I have played plenty of hard maps without city state allies.
- The impact of your starting area is enormous. This really is where the problem lies with luck. All of the above points are completely blanked by what area you start in, who is near you, what your terrain and luxuries are and so on. This is why I have a problem with the luck statement as this point is the only one that is truly gamebreaking, and it's not a civ 5 issue per sé.

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Oh I agree, that's not a Civ5 issue at all. Starting position was THE major game-determining feature in Civ4 as well. It's also an issue in other 4x games, like Galactic Civ. I'm also starting to see it in Civ5. The easy game I won in my sleep was a game where I was on my own small continent with 2 city states, no one bothered me all game. Since then I've had more games like that, and others where I was sandwiched in between 2 warmongers. It makes an enormous difference.

It also seems to me that early war in Civ5 is just not nearly as profitable as in previous games.