Still learning the game...

Been playing on Prince learning more and more mechanics in Civ 5 Vanilla, here is me on a 12 man Pangaea with France with no city states cause I generally find them to be annoying. Other then no City States all default options.

For someone who has only just started to do alright, and is still learning a lot of the mechanics does it look like i'm doing allright? BTW Rome JUST got around my archer block a couple of turns ago, been turtling on my peninsula for a while and about to catch up on military.

Vanilla?

Why would you do that to yourself? vanilla was horrible...

Because I don't have gods and kings or BNW yet and I love the hex grid on Civ 5. Still have Civ 3 Complete and all of Civ 4, though i have to admit civ 5 vanilla does seem half finished especially with the lack of religions compared to 4.

You definitely aught to pick up both expansions next time there's a steam sale if money is an issue. They improve the game in such a profound way, it's difficult to over-state how much better of an experience the game becomes.

Which is the most important? I played a lot of Civ 4 never got that good at it but enjoyed it, played a lot of Civ 3 as well, hated civ 2 loved civ 1 just for the your next to me so f off and stay mentality lol. As a defensive turtler that invades as is necessary which is the most important expansion?

G and K is better if coming from Vanilla. If you get BNW, theres a lot to learn at once.

Don’t turn off CS, figure out how to make them work for you, fun wise, either by fighting or wooing them (or a combination of both). It is the one new aspect of the series, and they impact lots of things. You may end up using half as many (add a civ for every two CS you knock out) but less than that really breaks play in non-obvious ways.

I agree that GnK is a nice but moderate step up from vanilla. You gimp the game less by turning off espionage and/or religion than you do by turning off CS. There were recent reports on this board of people finding that they now have GnK (for free) with a recent Steam update, so double check that.

Updating this rather then starting another thread... Just bought the complete pack today as it is cheaper then simply buying both expansions and comes with all the added bonuses, and I have got to say I agree that vanilla civ 5 is a sack of crap. Seems like it was just a testing ground for the base mechanics before they added the rest of the game into the mix. Loving the Shoshone, and getting a feel for the fact that city states actually seem to matter now, as well as learning the faith system.

Chabshaile said:

Seems like it was just a testing ground for the base mechanics before they added the rest of the game into the mix.

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That sums it up. Which they successfully sold at full MSRP. Same thing happened with III and IV. Why mess with a business model that works?

It works for some people. I didn't buy vanilla and got it later after all the expansions came out. Only spent about 25 bucks for it all.

The entire reason I loved France was for the +2 Culture per turn, which has now burned in a fire and is gone forever. Is the Museum world wonder bonus in capital actually better then the old +2 Culture per turn? Or is France indeed dead to me. In the mean time loving Shoshone but keep seeming to not be using them optimally, and wanting to like Babylon but can't seem to get them off the ground as quickly as i'd like.

Chabshaile said:

The entire reason I loved France was for the +2 Culture per turn, which has now burned in a fire and is gone forever. Is the Museum world wonder bonus in capital actually better then the old +2 Culture per turn? Or is France indeed dead to me. In the mean time loving Shoshone but keep seeming to not be using them optimally, and wanting to like Babylon but can't seem to get them off the ground as quickly as i'd like.

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France should probably be dead to you. The theming bonus is kind of lame.

I thought so, what would you vets reccomend as top tier civs for the non war mongerer? I prefer to defend from wars then actively engage in them. Culture and science seem to be my main goals for an eventual victory. I try to stay peaceful for as long as possible.

Chabshaile said:

I thought so, what would you vets reccomend as top tier civs for the non war mongerer? I prefer to defend from wars then actively engage in them. Culture and science seem to be my main goals for an eventual victory. I try to stay peaceful for as long as possible.

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Poland is probably in a class by itself, but Maya, Shoshone are also quite strong for any win condition. Polynesia on an Archipelago map is especially fun!

I keep trying Shoshone but feel like I am not growing as fast as I want to, I like to go wide. Have yet to try Poland or Maya, and I agree Polynesia and Indonesia both look awesome on an island heavy map.

TheGrumpyBuddha said:

France should probably be dead to you. The theming bonus is kind of lame.

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it can actually be very powerful but it's just a very different play style from old France.

I don't understand why everyone seems to hate vanilla so much. I thought it was a great game and enjoyed about a thousand hours in it.

G+K on the other hand I found a massive disappointment, and went off the game after about a month. Fortunately BNW was a great improvement, so I guess that's something we can all agree on.
(Pity they never managed to get the AI turn times back down to where they were before G+K though, because the painful turn time increase was probably the single biggest problem with G+K.)

Maybe it was coming from Civ4, Beyond the Sword, which made it feel empty in comparison, or maybe they've since fixed all the issues the vanilla game had at launch. I think most people's opinions of vanilla (mine included) were formed around launch, which frankly, was a huge disappointment.
On a tactical level, the AI was a complete joke, you could bug its troop movement by providing obstruction, and rather than simply kill your unit, they'd spend their turn reorganizing, over and over again while you pick them off.
Strategically, there... was little strategy. keep building cities until you win. The global happiness did not decentivise carpeting the map in as many cities as possible, as it was designed to do.
Also, every game saw ridiculous run-away civs (Ramkhamhaeng was a nightmare), which rendered games unwinnable from a very early point, as there were absolutely no counter-play mechanics available. Unless you were playing on very small maps with access to every competitor right from the start, on the other side of the world, someone had already essentially won the game, everything to follow just saw you waiting for the defeat screen.

In essence, there was clear potential, the game was just so horribly and unequivocally broken. I put it down until G&K came out. Even then I didn't consider it great, G&K just made it qualify as complete so far as I was concerned (also, Dido ).
Then comes Brave new World, which is not just a great game, but such a finely crafted "experience". Easily qualifying as one of the greatest games ever crafted so far as I'm concerned.
Looking back to vanilla is like looking into the dark ages, frankly I don't really understand why someone would choose to languish there.

It may be different now, but most of us moved onto the expansions as they came out, so we never had those bitter memories overwritten with anything better.

It's not that Vanilla was bad (after patching). It's just that the final product with both expansions is way better. Steak is good, but if you have the chance to upgrade to filet mignon, you might as well.