January 2015 Playstyle Survey

94067 · Jan 15, 2015

Link to the Survey.

Hello!

About two weeks ago, I made a survey on the Civilization reddit which asked some questions about playstyle, favorite civilizations, favorite game, etc. A few days ago, I posted the results (if you're interested).

I'd like to repeat that here as well, plus we could see if there are any differences between the two communities. Once the responses start slowing down, I'll update this post with the results.

If there are any questions you'd like to see me add or if you have any quibbles with the responses, please tell me and I can update the form as such.

Thanks for your help! I hope you find this as interesting as I do.

killmeplease · Jan 16, 2015

are you going to process that data to make diagrams

94067 · Jan 16, 2015

Yeah, I'll put the data in Excel and will make all sorts of neat bar/pie charts and pivot tables.

Aenthin · Jan 16, 2015

Do I have to answer the survey again? Rofl

Socratatus · Jan 16, 2015

I thought `What kind of mods do you use? ` was way too limited- None fell into the critiea of Mods I use.

Teproc · Jan 16, 2015

Some answers might benefit from being multiple choice. The map one wasthe most annoynig to me, I ended up answering "random in-game map", but in reality I have a list of all the maps (including all the YnaEMP ones and a few modded scripts like Tectonics) and use random.org to determine which I'll play on, so I could have used a "all of the above" option there.

That being said, very interesting initiative, I wish the results for the reddit one were more readable though.

stormtrooper412 · Jan 16, 2015

All done. If I skipped any questions, it was unintentional

Playsoneasy · Jan 16, 2015

Thanks for posting this here. I read about this survey on Civ Reddit and wondered if I'd get the chance to take it, so thanks. :thumbsup:

Resipsa · Jan 16, 2015

ok done, some of the questions didn't have enough answers though

eris · Jan 16, 2015

Entered my data and then looked at the other results. Interesting. Thanks.

94067 · Jan 16, 2015

Socratatus said:
I thought `What kind of mods do you use? ` was way too limited- None fell into the critiea of Mods I use.

What mods do you use? The mods I listed were intended to be examples, no the exact mods (e.g., InfoAddict would be a Quality of Life mod, City-state diplomacy would be a gameplay mod, etc).

Teproc said:
Some answers might benefit from being multiple choice. I wish the results for the reddit one were more readable though.

The map question was originally one of two questions, the second of which asked a bit more specific questions (e.g., biome maps included in the game like Arborea or Sandstorm, random modded maps, etc), but I found that this was redundant and so included its options under this one. I suppose for your case "Random" fits best :/

What do you less-than-readable about the Reddit results?

Resipsa said:
some of the questions didn't have enough answers though

Which questions did you think could use more answers?

lefuet · Jan 16, 2015

- map question needs more than one choice (as do many other questions)

- "which civ do you like best" is missing a.o.:
Call to Power ! and II
FreeCiv
C-Evo (this is free and amazing!!!)

maybe allow a few answers? Top three, or so? ..
or to allow to rate the best three in AI, UI, Presentation, Innovation, Fun, ..?!!

- Crusader Kings is twice in the list

..

LyricalAssassin · Jan 16, 2015

Great survey mate!

pvtjava · Jan 17, 2015

"Three policy trees most likely to adopt"

Since the latest fall patch, this is a tricky question.

I used to almost exclusively go full Tradition, some in Patronage, some in Rationalism, full Aesthetics for cultural victories. Now I usually open Tradition, Liberty to free Settler, assess. If I am Poland, I will typically move back and forth between Liberty and Tradition, with the aim of getting the free GP (usually GE) for the wonder I want the most and amphitheaters free in all my cities just after all monuments finish and hopefully finishing Tradition before Rationalism is unlocked.

If I am not Poland, I will work to finish Liberty or Tradition and then go to either Patronage, Aesthetics, or Commerce, depending on all sorts of different things until Rationalism is unlocked.

I chose Tradition, Liberty, and Rationalism even though I hardly ever took Liberty before the patch.

"Two vanilla Civs you like the most"

Tricky since some vanilla Civs changed for BNW.

I chose France as one of my two even though I like them better for BNW.

Aenthin · Jan 17, 2015

pvtjava said:
"Two vanilla Civs you like the most"

Tricky since some vanilla Civs changed for BNW.

I chose France as one of my two even though I like them better for BNW.

This is a good point. For the record, here are all of the changes to vanilla civs for BNW:

America - UU - Added Minuteman's ability to gain Golden Age points from victories
Arabia - UA - Trade Caravans changed to Ships of the Desert
Arabia - UB - Added Bazaar's ability to gain more gold from trade routes
France - UA - Ancien Régime changed to City of Light
France - UI - Chateau added
France - UU - Foreign Legion removed
Germany - UB - Hanse added
Germany - UU - Landsknecht removed
India - UB - Changed Mughal Fort's gold yield into tourism yield upon researching Flight
Iroquois - UA - Added caravan ability to treat forests and jungles as roads
Japan - UA - Added culture yields to atolls and fishing boat improvements
Japan - UB - Added Samurai ability to build fishing boat improvements, upgrades to Riflemen instead of Musketmen (except from ancient ruins), and becomes obsolete only upon researching Rifling
Japan - UB - Removed Zero's oil requirement
Persia - UB - Added Satrap's Court's ability to gain more gold from trade routes

Not only that, but G&K made some changes as well:

Egypt - UB - Changed Burial Tomb's +2 Culture yield to +2 Faith yield
England - UA - Added ability to gain an extra spy
Ottoman - UU - Added Sipahi's Formation I promotion
Songhai - UA - Added Amphibious promotion to all land units in addition to War Canoe promotion
Songhai - UB - Changed Mud Pyramid Mosque's +4 Culture yield to +2 Faith and +2 Culture yields

94067 · Jan 17, 2015

pvtjava said:
Tricky since some vanilla Civs changed for BNW.

Yeah, that's something I thought of while writing the question. Not too many civs changed too drastically (France, Japan, and Germany come to mind), so I don't think it affects things too much, but I more or less intended people to rate the civs as they are with their edition of Civ V (e.g., if they only have Vanilla, then they would rathe them as they are in the base game, whereas if they have BNW they would rank them with those changes in mind).

DocRock · Jan 17, 2015

Nice graphs! Really interesting. I was really surprised by the "most fav civ" vote. Morocco and Zulu so high up? I think I have to give them another try.

Furthermore i was completely surprised how many people started playing this series with Civ 5. Now I am feeling old... Played Civ 1 on a 386 at a friends house for months (wasn't available for my Amiga at that time). Maybe you can include some questions about the demographics of Civ players?

beetle · Jan 17, 2015

pvtjava said:
Since the latest fall patch, this is a tricky question. I used to almost exclusively go full Tradition...

Before and after the latest fall patch, the strongest buff from Tradition was the early aqueducts. Assuming you still go straight through Tradition, those are only a handful of turns later than before. If you hard build a monument in your capital, which was never a terrible idea, and post-patch is probably optimal, then the aqueducts are not delayed at all.

pvtjava · Jan 17, 2015

beetle said:
Before and after the latest fall patch, the strongest buff from Tradition was the early aqueducts. Assuming you still go straight through Tradition, those are only a handful of turns later than before. If you hard build a monument in your capital, which was never a terrible idea, and post-patch is probably optimal, then the aqueducts are not delayed at all.

Yes, yes, you are correct, of course, but I am speaking of my personal playstyle, and for that, aqueducts were just the icing on a cake that was awesome with each and every bite, as each policy seemed to come exactly when I needed it. I will say that I feel like I miss the happiness more than the aqueducts.

94067 · Jan 17, 2015

DocRock said:
I was really surprised by the "most fav civ" vote. Morocco and Zulu so high up?

Furthermore i was completely surprised how many people started playing this series with Civ 5. Now I am feeling old... Played Civ 1 on a 386 at a friends house for months (wasn't available for my Amiga at that time). Maybe you can include some questions about the demographics of Civ players?

Morocco and Zulu rank 4 and 6 out of 9 for the BNW civs.

I too was surprised by how green the Civ reddit community is. I think that has something to do with how young reddit is as a site, how Civ V really introduced it to a lot of people, and that veterans probably drop in only occasionally and so might not see a survey that was only at the peak of visibility for ~36 hours.

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