Role Playing Civ 5

Does anyone try to Role Play Civ 5? By this I mean play the game as if you are actually running a country and not simply trying to win the game.

I know that AI decisions make this hard sometimes but does anyone try it?

If so what kind of ways of playing do you employ for role playing purposes?

I am obsessed with keeping my population happy. It has some bit of mechanics advantage, but mostly I do it to show I am a very benevolent tyrant. Have done that for all iterations of Civilization, really. Refused to go into Slavery in Civ 4. Prefer to go Freedom in Civ 5. Flavor things like that.

to an extent, when playing England, I always make my navy felt by the rest of the world, and usually keep 2-3 ships near by my major trading partners. If I'm playing America I will always invade and wipe out the Indians then go to war with Japan lol.

I try to role play almost every time, though not in the sense that I'm duplicating real world alliances or something like that. I try to make my civilization neat, try to keep policies coherent and usually deal fairly in diplomacy. This means that I'm always straying from the most optimal path of development for my civ. Unfortunately, such approach is possible only on emperor and below so I stick to emperor. Immortal and deity don't feel like playing Civilization but like awkward chess. It's kinda funny because all the previous civs were the most enjoyable for me on higher difficulties.

Makavcio said:

I try to role play almost every time, though not in the sense that I'm duplicating real world alliances or something like that. I try to make my civilization neat, try to keep policies coherent and usually deal fairly in diplomacy. This means that I'm always straying from the most optimal path of development for my civ. Unfortunately, such approach is possible only on emperor and below so I stick to emperor. Immortal and deity don't feel like playing Civilization but like awkward chess. It's kinda funny because all the previous civs were the most enjoyable for me on higher difficulties.

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This. For example as England I would try to keep a large navy & colonies all over the world, if I am Mongolia I'll go on the warpath & conquer as much as I can, if I am Arabia I'll try to establish my religion in rest of the world as well as use trade routes for that & use conquest when it is necessary.

I try to role play sometimes by making the most science per turn sometimes so that way I can discover what happens and stuff.. AIs can surprise you though, sometimes AIs could make more science when you think you make more science, too..

After having 700+ hours, roleplaying is what keeps me interested

That's an interesting topic because to me roleplaying is virtually impossible with this version of Civ. In real life throughout history stronger empires grew by taking over parts of weaker empires. In CiV you take over one city state and the world will hate you forever. On Civilization is bullying everybody else so all go into war together but if you are successful and kill them off everyone will hate you.

So for me roleplay is only possible the Ghandi way...

I tend to do it in a somewhat different sense. I like to create optimal more scenarios that play to the strengths of my favorite Civs

Like building a Songhai Temple with a pantheon belief that give culture bonus to shrines. Then culture bonus to the temple. Then happiness bonus to the temple and possibly the piety bonus for temple building an income from temples

or

Aztec or Zulu warriors complete with the Zeus statue, Heroic Epic, Barracks + upgrade buildings, Alhambra, and Brandenburg gates for a super warrior.

or Aztec with an honor opener, plus god of war pantheon. Means ridiculous culture and religion bonuses for war with barbarians and once you finish honor you can throw gold bonuses on top of that when you war with other civs

Or England with the Great Lighthouse and exploration bonuses. If you start early with your navy. By the time you have ship of the lines any civ with a Capital on the coast is yours anytime you want.

So I like making weird scenarios with these civs.

Yes, I try it, but it's hard with civ 5 for some reason.

I think it is because the other civs are not reacting like civilizations would historically do but like other players would. In the real world every empire has conquered something that might be considered a city state which was close to their territory and nobody cares anymore. If the real world was civ5 nobody would talk to one another anymore.

This is the one thing I wish most for Civ6. Go back to "Build an empire to stand the test of time" and away from "Build an empire to win a civilization match". Leave the multi player behaviour to multi player mode and give us a single player that would match the behaviour of real civilizations.

Chiyo said:

This is the one thing I wish most for Civ6. Go back to "Build an empire to stand the test of time" and away from "Build an empire to win a civilization match". Leave the multi player behaviour to multi player mode and give us a single player that would match the behaviour of real civilizations.

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Yes. So much yes. I said it so many times.