The most luck based of the civ series

Seriously Just because you're between 2 warmongers you conclude this game is mainly based on luck and give up?
Try rushing composite bowmen early on few cities, even on deity you can win war early and when you get à capital turn 60 thats à HUGE boost.
The real luck is wether youll get production or not in your capital

Chicoutimi said:

Seriously Just because you're between 2 warmongers you conclude this game is mainly based on luck and give up?
Try rushing composite bowmen early on few cities, even on deity you can win war early and when you get à capital turn 60 thats à HUGE boost.
The real luck is wether youll get production or not in your capital

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A single mountain or hill forest tile can make that rush a slugfest which sets you behind.

Myth and Legend said:

A single mountain or hill forest tile can make that rush a slugfest which sets you behind.

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Same applies for the AI.

Don't know how you can say Civ V is the most random, considering IV's random events.

Volcanon said:

All the civs have somewhat-annoying luck problems. Civ 5 might actually the game with the least amount of irritants.

Civ 1: Lose 8 chariots to a fortified phalanx, thus losing the entire war. Lose a battleship to a militia on plains. AI attacks a fortified rifleman in a walled city at 1/3 strength and wins. AI spawns wonders at random.

Civ 2: Annoying tendency to spawn on a tiny island covered with hills and jungle on pangea. Also I haven't played 2 in ages.

Civ 3: No iron anywhere on the entire continent. No oil anywhere on the entire continent, etc.

All civs except 5: High variance to starts. Jungle is a word often thrown around. So is Swamp. Also, random scouts or barbarians don't demolish brand new cities with no defender.

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Don't forget the random events in Civ IV, which were far too badly-balanced and some of which could (depending who was the target) result in either you getting a great bonus or being crippled by a targeted barbarian invasion, or benefitting/suffering from exactly the same happening to a rival.

As for the OP's scenario, it's hard to describe that as 'luck'. It's variability that you can adapt to by adjusting your strategy, unlike random events or beneficial/bad random starts. Which is not to say Civ V doesn't have its share of game-defining luck - I started a game yesterday; firstly, my random civ turned out to be the Shoshone and I happened to have a large number of ruins in the immediate vicinity. Secondly, I came across the Fountain of Youth very early in my exploration and was readily able to take advantage of it as my second city spot.

PhilBowles said:

Don't forget the random events in Civ IV, which were far too badly-balanced and some of which could (depending who was the target) result in either you getting a great bonus or being crippled by a targeted barbarian invasion, or benefitting/suffering from exactly the same happening to a rival.

As for the OP's scenario, it's hard to describe that as 'luck'. It's variability that you can adapt to by adjusting your strategy, unlike random events or beneficial/bad random starts. Which is not to say Civ V doesn't have its share of game-defining luck - I started a game yesterday; firstly, my random civ turned out to be the Shoshone and I happened to have a large number of ruins in the immediate vicinity. Secondly, I came across the Fountain of Youth very early in my exploration and was readily able to take advantage of it as my second city spot.

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Civ 4's random events is the best part of civ 4. You never know what happens!

I've been a target of barbarian invasion in first few turns and I survived those from time to time XD Sea people is a joke though, they might get to pillage a fishing boat or two then float away harmlessly.

Callonia said:

Civ 4's random events is the best part of civ 4. You never know what happens!

I've been a target of barbarian invasion in first few turns and I survived those from time to time XD Sea people is a joke though, they might get to pillage a fishing boat or two then float away harmlessly.

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I also liked the random events, but the point is that Civ IV was much more luck based than V. V is a lot more transparent when it comes to the game design.

Benzidrine said:

I think the issue comes from war not being very advantageous early in this one, if I am at war in a previous civs I can take a couple of cities and make up for the lost production time. This one it is just straight disadvantage unless you are geared for it beforehand.

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My understanding is that the aggressive Deity players here start war early, four archers or so being very in the queue. I have only had success with that a few games, but taking a couple cities early really makes the long game so much easier. I am not sure what you mean by “geared for it beforehand”.

I had my fun with it but it feels weird to be done with a civ game in 75 hours compared to how much I played the previous iterations.

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Personally, I am liking 5 so much better than 4 or 3. Maybe you made things too hard on yourself by jumping straight to Deity? I never would have explored all the social policies if I had tried that!

Callonia said:

Civ 4's random events is the best part of civ 4. You never know what happens!

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I think this summarises my point in a nutshell. Civ IV isn't only heavily luck-based, but it's that very element that's one of its core selling points.

That's true to some degree for all Civ games - starting positions, where you find resources, and lucky-dip huts are all key parts of the games' appeal and have been from the start - but Civ IV did seem to take it to an extreme.

By the way, am I the only one that believes in hidden patterns that tend to equilibrate the meta game in each match?

Callonia said:

Civ 4's random events is the best part of civ 4. You never know what happens!

I've been a target of barbarian invasion in first few turns and I survived those from time to time XD Sea people is a joke though, they might get to pillage a fishing boat or two then float away harmlessly.

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Ever get a visit from the Vedic Aryans? That was fun all right.

binhthuy71 said:

Ever get a visit from the Vedic Aryans? That was fun all right.

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Sometimes... either they were really foolish or they appeared in a location near a city that didn't have a unit fortifying it.

binhthuy71 said:

Ever get a visit from the Vedic Aryans? That was fun all right.

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I remember vedic aryans, they're the ones that spawn bunch of barbarian archers right?

They attacked my capital city and I survived the siege by dumb luck several times. It helped that I'm a warmonger so I tend to have few warriors sitting around in my capital that early.

Other times, I follow their horde to see who they are attacking and join in the fun against the AI being attacked unless it's my friend then I attempt to help them against vedic aryans XD

Spontaneous barbarian invasions with me joining them with my barbarians lol
Well as long as the territory i'm traveling through with barbarians isn't out to kill me that is.

DocRock said:

Of the whole series? Tell that to the Battleship that was sunk by a settler!

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Good one! Referring to the original Civilization game no doubt? Yeah, those were good ol' times. Remember a phalanx taking out a couple of my tanks.

reddishrecue said:

The thing with civilization 4 and 5 is that their new difficulty levels such as immortal or deity arent that easy as the emperor and below difficulties. Emperor used to be easy before and still is.

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Emperor's easy? I wouldn't say so.

Callonia said:

Luck Dependent eh, maybe. AI Alexander started in middle, and his second city contained the el dorado. But the AI alexander failed to realize that his position required him to have strong military.

Dows came flying into his direction from shaka, me, netherlands, poland, and several other civs. Even in classical era.

Now he exists only in history books.

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Developers should have setup Alexander as one of the most warlike and militaristic leaders in the game, although a quite honorable one. He was perhaps the greatest warrior-king of all time after all.

daft said:

Emperor's easy? I wouldn't say so.

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I guess you're right because I wouldn't either but if you compare emperor to immortal and deity which are way more difficult you would start saying so because that's why I was saying so.

What exactly was unlucky ?

Sitting between 2 warmongers or that warmongers declare war ?

The later is normal. You could say sitting between 2 warmongers is unlucky but that is Civ for you. Sorry you felt challenged. Hardly believe it was "impossible" as you put it though.

daft said:

Emperor's easy? I wouldn't say so.

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Once you've spent a couple hundred hours on Deity, playing on Emperor feels like playing Barbie Space Adventure

I would just like to point out some things that can also be done to prevent "luck" or rng.

1: Set resources to Strategic Balance. This will be a really huge factor since every civ is guaranteed at minimum 1 source of horses and iron. Thus removing a bit of rng and luck/misfortune

2: Turn off ruins. If you are unhappy about rng then this may be one of the major things that can make or break a game.

3: Manually set up the opponents to fit just about every aspect of the game. Look at all of the leaders different flavor values and pick accordingly. This way the chances of you being either squashed in between two major warmongers or ending up in an all out peace game should be close to zero.

All in all, I like the amount of rng in Civ 5. I think the rng just adds to the replayability of the game. I also fail to see how the things you mentioned could be considered "lucky" or "unlucky" since being placed in the middle of two warmongers ofc would mean that you'd be at war a lot. There are a lot of civs in the game and of those, quite a few are warmongers. The chances of you ending up between two are at best statistically unlikely, but not unlucky. If you play with all civs randomized, then ofc it will happen from time to time. The thing to do is adapt. Take them out, make them fight each other or just make sure to set-up a nice line of defence. Taking an AI cap early on can most certainly propel you a whole lot into the mid-to-later stages of the game and will certainly make up for the lost production etc.