TSG3 Game in Progress

Welcome to the TSG3 Game in Progress thread. This thread is used to discuss the game once you've started playing. There are no reading or posting restrictions as such (apart from normal decency), although we encourage players to use the spoiler tags for screenshots. Here you can post questions related to the game and share your achievements/anger/frustration/victories while you play. Once you've completed the game, head over to the TSG3 After Action Report thread.

Posting from work, so can't give a complete in progress. But I'm holding a two cities and have 2 SP's completed. I did have one bad click that may hurt. Got my GS from the tower and as I was about to click discover tech to get acoustics. When my wife distracted me and I clicked golden age by mistake, arrrggggggg now I'm slogging through the 24 turns to research it.

Settled on marble. Early Stonehengh -> GL -> Pyramid -> Oracle. GS + GL bulb aucustic.

Currently I am somewhere around turn 145. edit: this was turn 130 apparently

I have puppeted 4 cities. I have 4 martime allies, 2 cultured (dont think there are more on the map) and 1 militaristic. 5 horsemen about to be upgraded to knights.
Tech is Biology + just completed chivalery.

Got patronage tree completed. Aristocracy from Tradition tree, And Freedom+ 2 SPs there.

Recently completed hemmorage? and building the lovre

Settled right at the starting spot and beelined to accoustics by GL/GS, my build order was scout-worker with me buying a bunch of warriors when I had the money.

I started my conquest spree at turn 37 with 3 warriors vs. Egypt and ended it with 3 horsemen around turn 90, netting me 5 puppets (razed one fairly badly placed Iroquese city).

Currently I am at turn 100 and am researching knights, not even at Compass in the upper tech tree once my probing warrior found the 2nd continent.

SP-wise I went for Aristocracy and 4 Patronage SPs (everything except the additional gifts), currently I am trying to make up my mind if I should go for Freedom or maybe even Piety now or save the culture till I get access to the Order tree. I think I will rather take the 2 free policies instead of going for Rationalism.

At turn 100 I am producing 81 research, 55 gold and 57 culture and am about to DoW Japan in a few turns.

I am currently allied with 3 mil CS, 1 (or 2, not sure here) cultural and 2 maritimes.

For wonders I got the usual suspects (GL, Oracle, Stonehenge, Chichen Itza) in addition to the Pyramids and maybe 1-2 other once (ended my game for today, so I am not really sure now).

Overall I am fairly satisfied with my current progress, the only thing that really bothered me was being unable to trade/give away enough luxuries in order to have the GA fire after building CI.

CharonJr

General though after my second session. I'll try to use the spoil option for the first time so let's see how it work.

First game on a East VS West Map. The giant river all over the continent is incredible for specialist city. Once I'll clean those puny civilisation who dare established so close to me, it will be up for a good start. Secondly, these map are small and narrow compare to usual Standard size map. I was kinda surprise I reach the tundra so fast whil exploring. Make it perfect for a puppet-rex strategie. If I had known it, I would probably have gone for a millitary start even tough I got a bad start with that. And then, there's the science overflow. I can't wait 'til they fix that. Before library, it's really hard to manage, even imposssible when you are beelining. And in a cultural game, you are beelining a lot.

I look at CharonJr just up there and I'm disappoint I didn't go that way too. I really got to practice my millitary side on this game. It's what got me that bad ranking on TSG2.


Now, let's see what happenned.

I start with Animal Husbandry to see if I could Horseman-rush the west continent. Unfortunaly, by the time my warrior got slayed by barbarian, I had only discover 2 horses and no others civilizations. Aiming randomly on the map with 2 horses didn't seem like a efficiant conquest way so I kept going the upper science tree for calendar, writing, philosophy...


After a worker, and a monument, I start the construction of Stonehenge. Now I'm thinking it was a mistake. As I said in my preparation, I aim to go for a large-empire-city-gifting strategy and the addition of Stonehenge might be of little help in that situation compare too a small-empire-regular-type of cultural win.

Mistake, mistake and more mistake. Money-wise, I was saving money for my first settler. But I didn't look carefully and put my worker in a dangerous position. I had to waste money on a scout to save him, greatly delaying that second city. Loosing my warrior so early as greater signification than in civ4 where I just sent them to there death at the other end of the world.

Turn 46


Turn 51


Turn 53


Turn 73



Tech Tree : AH, Pottery, Calendar, Writing, Philosophy, Mining, Archery, Trapping, Civil Services

Social Policy : Tradition, Aristocracy

Hammer : Worker, Monument, Stonehenge, Scout, GL(not finnish), Warrior, Settler, Oracle (too early, I would have had time to built an army first but as I got rape for GL, I was mad and didn't think much about it), Library, My army on the way

ARRRRRGGGHHHH.
I have three cities, a million puppets, and control about 3/4 of the map. 5 social policies away from victory at turn 344, and I just misclicked and annexed stinkin' Edinburgh. Why oh why.

Made up my mind and will go for Freedem till the +25% culture cost reduction, then switch to Piety, should have made up my mind earlier here.

Attacked Japan, took 4 puppet cities, razed one and left him with one. I am starting to get painfully low on happiness here (-7).

Am at turn 123 now and still building the Forbidden Palace, but am about to DoW Siam (-3 happiness at the moment and still 7 turns to FP) with 4 knights.

And I forgot to mention that I have had a culture CS ally, too.

Used one General to fire a GA, but it will run out before my FP is finished, so I will have to slow down my conquest and work on my happiness. I am not completely sure if the -20% unrest from the Piety tree will be much help with puppets, but I hope so.

CharonJr

CharonJr said:

Made up my mind and will go for Freedem till the +25% culture cost reduction, then switch to Piety, should have made up my mind earlier here.
CharonJr

Click to expand...

Maybe I am mistaken, but don't you need to complete the entire SP tree? Doesn't doing this mean you have to come back and waste an SP to people to take that missing ones if you change before the tree is complete?

No, I meant switch in the sense of putting my focus there, then come back to Freedom later I will take Order as my final tree and not take Rationalism, so there will be no conflicts.

Finished my game for today at turn 150 (264 research, 453 gold during a GA, likely about 350 without it, 198 culture, allied with 16 CS, researching Archaeology now to get Biology via Oxford).



CharonJr

I'm using this game to experiment with puppets a bit more - didn't like them pre-patch and still don't fully like the idea of not controlling my cities. However, the benefits are just so overwhelming that I can't say no any more, especially for a culture game.

I settled SE, SW. That allowed me a lot of juicy nearby hexes: the 3 food cows, the 2f3c sugar and two marbles, as well as two 2h1c hills. Very very strong capital, even without tile improvements. I let it grow to 5 rapidly and once I started getting stonehenge, worked the two 2h1c hills.

Research went pottery -> calendar -> husbandry -> archery -> mining -> masonry -> horseback riding -> bronze working -> iron working.

Build order was scout -> worker (to work sugar) -> stonehenge (purchase settler here with money made from selling sugar) -> worker -> pyramids (not used to such an easy difficulty: figured why not) -> oracle -> temple

Social policies went tradition -> the wonder building policy -> everything in piety except the last 2 policies

The settler was going to go north for the nice river + 3 sugar + marble spot, but Egypt beat me to it, so I headed west to the other decent river spot with an ivory. This was to be my only settled city. This city went monument -> archer -> worker -> temple -> horseman.

I didn't go for any slingshots, just normal solid play. I sold spare luxurieis whenever I could and was efficiently improving my tiles ahead of working them. I allied with the maritime city state to the south to help my growth. At about turn 100, the Egyptians and Iroquois both declared war on me. It probably had something to do with me signing a pact of secrecy with Askia against Egypt - in my experience the secrecy pacts aren't so 'secret'.

Anyway, both of them sent their typical badly organised forces against me. I rush bought an archer and a horseman, and their hopeless attacks were fairly easily repelled, with me losing one archer for about 10 of their units. There was only 2 nearby iron and I spent both of them on catapults.

The next hundred turns or so was just me steamrolling all the other civs on the continent with my small army of 2 catapults, an archer, a warrior (later upgraded to a swordsman), 3 horsemen (later upgraded to knights) and a couple of spearmen (later upgraded to pikemen). I puppeted everything. I had to take a breather in the wars of about 20 turns in the middle because I had fallen well below -10 happiness, but that soon righted itself as I sent a knight to meet the civs on the eastern continent and traded for their luxuries.

I was a bit undisciplined with social policies: I went fairly far down the piety and patronage trees, when ideally I probably should've skipped patronage at the time and saved for the left side of the freedom tree. It'll cost a few turns in the victory time.

I was just freely building wonders in my two cities, while using cash to purchase culture and happiness buildings whenever I unlocked those techs. Acoustics was unlocked using a great scientist, but as mentioned, I hadn't really planned for it so didn't get the -25% social policy cost policy for a while.

I'm now cruising to victory. The western continent is all mine (except the city states), and I don't plan on doing any more fighting. I stopped getting social policies until I got the cristo redentor, which I got using oxford + a saved engineer. Now I'm about 5 policies from being able to build the utopia project. I've got great generals and other great people saved up to golden age once the utopia project starts. It's taking about 8 turns per new policy, the economy is going very strongly, and the civs on the other continent are squabbling with each other but not making quick progress, so I'm not likely to be warred anytime soon. In any case, I've been diligently selling luxuries and strategic resources to them, as well as making research agreements, so they have no reason to come over to my continent.

The puppets tended to build what I would've anyway. They were happily pumping out the commerce buildings, happiness buildings, and the occasional library. I only saw one building I wouldn't have built come up: a garden. So certainly at this stage, puppet seems far superior to annexing or annexing then razing.

It's been an interesting, if a little easy, game. I'll finish it off tonight.

If I made some mistake at the start, what's following is armaggeddon. I'm probably not gonna submit and start it over for my own experience. What a shame, at King level.

But well here's what happen...

Like I said before, CApe Town want Almaty Destroy which suit me. So I though 3 archer plus 1 warrior would be enough for a strong 16 city-state. The result was about 10 turns of useless attack. Slowly taking him down. Right before he get in the red zone, Egypt declare war on me. Nice timing...

When I get hold of the situation, 7 turns later, Hiawatha declare war on me.

Result :
I lost Orleans and took it back
lost 2 horseman
3 pikeman
1 warrior
5 archer
1 great general

My army is totally decimate and I'm quitting




It's my second game in a row that half the leader rush on me soon after an attack. Last game, on Immortal, I late horseman-rush Germany and when they had 1 city left, Suleiman and Hiawatha team together on me.

Now, same thing happen after I attack Almaty.

I really need to understand how that AI diplomacy work. For now, I'm gonna try that 3 warrior rush to see how it work.

I settled on the marble, which I think was a bad choice. Either stay on the river or move to the coast. Built Stonehenge and Pyramids, maybe another something or other. I really need to figure out where the Oracle is in the tech tree, too. Missed that, and made a concious choice to delay Writing, and therefore missed the GLib as well. But I have the "Most Wonderful" civ... but it sems that wonderspamming is not as strong as in previous game versions.

Second city was next to wheat to get horses. Third city was intended to go get wine and more sugar, but Ramses beat me to spot so settled my first coastal city instead. I couldn't resist temptation to steal worker from Ramses, and now the whole world knows of my treacherous nature. Anyhow, I think I killed one unit and he starts begging for peace (my army consists of 2 horse, one spear, and two warriors). When I killed his last unit (war chariot) near Thebes, he offers Memphis plus cash and wine for peace. This is my biggest mistake not to accept it! I wanted to look at Memphis and decide in leisure... figuring he'll make the same offer if I cantact him after end-turn. Nope... his city killed one warrior, he bought a warchariot, and now I just get the cash and lux for peace. Grrr... I take it, but I think I want to kill him later anyhow, just for spite.

Another mistake is that I forget his ally Cape Town is still at war with me. I could easily grab this city... but instead made peace to prevent a worker getting taken. Now I want to wait for Almaty or Capetown to want the other dead (just a matter of time, I suppose) before taking one or the other.

On the bright side, I'm already farther up the SP tree than ever before at this point in the game. Tradition and Piety are almost done. Still just 3 cities. Should get a GE soon, just in time for another wonder from Theology. Or maybe save for something else like Sistines. Never used one to rush build anything before, so I hope I'm not really wrong in my thinking of what that GE will do for me. I don't really plan more than a few turns ahead, since I don't really know what's comeing up, honestly.

I detoured to Optics so I could explore the East, and have met everyone. Got Monte and Obamanooga in secrecy pacts against Wu. Figure shes my target if I acts rationally. If I acts emotionally, its Ramses.

First time ever, I gave back a unit captured from barbs to the Iraqis. (Iroqis?). While the text of his messages had gotten very polite and friendly, I see no other effects (still wants cash for OB/OB trade? hah, forget it Tanto).

I think I will have to expand now, or be killed later. So the game pace should slow down a lot from here, but maybe be more exciting.

Never ever had so much happiness, btw... at +26 or so. Weird, with only 2 different happy resuorces to work with. I guess half of that goes to culture due to policies (if I undersdtand the description properly, not at all a given). Does this show in my +76 culture per turn, or does it add on to that?

Anyhow... just got a sword from my CS ally (Budapesters?), so am looking for a place to put it (once I get my units home from their Eastern exploration). This is gonna be fun! (Of course, to be competitive I should have just beelined the horses and wiped out my neigborhood eons ago, but I hate how the optimal strategy in every game seems to start that way, so I refuse to be that way.).

I like how my borders grow all by themselves. I guess I've always neglected culture somewhat before. I'm starting to think that unlike Civ4 where you need to focus on one aspect and make it supreme, here in Civ5 you need to find a balance of all factors culture, science, commerce, happiness... (or just kill them all with horsemen).

Well,, am at turn 165 now which seems to be a very nice point to start spamming cities when I will try to go the "sell cities" route (1-2 additional cities earlier will be helpful, but since I making too much money each turn there is essentially nothing I can spend it on during a normal game).

Production each turn: 339 science, 701 gold (GA), 287 culture



CharonJr

ssjos said:

Settled on marble. Early Stonehengh -> GL -> Pyramid -> Oracle. GS + GL bulb aucustic.

Click to expand...

If you settle on marble, do you get access to it without masonry?

bhavv said:

If you settle on marble, do you get access to it without masonry?

Click to expand...

Yes, settle on marble will yield +25% wonder production even without reserach to masonary. (However, you dont get the +5 happy for resource and u cant sell it).

It will also give capital +1 gold/turn (+2 if at river)

Turn 99.

Nowhere in the Civilopedia can I find any mention that additional cities increase Social Policy costs. People are saying "it's right there in the tooltip". Really? I don't see it. Further cruddiness of 'pedia is that when searching for a term, instead of opening up the relevant section, only one entry is shown. Thus when I search for "culture" I get the definition of culture, period. No option to click on any of the other culture-related entries (there's a whole freaking menu sub-branch.)

This game has by far the worst design of any game I have played in the past 10 years.

No research overflow is absolute excrement. There is nothing fun about this decision. It is one of the most egregious examples of pissing on your customers I have ever seen. I make a living from advising businesses, and my advise to Firaxis is to fire every single person who worked on the design of this game, then fire the person who hired them, then commit seppuku. (That was hyperbole. I am not actually condoning that they commit ritual suicide. That would be mean. Besides, it's too good for them.)

Gameplay:
I am not using the gifting cities "exploit". Statistically this makes France one of the worst civs in the game for a Cultural Victory. I am not even going to attempt to guess whether this is an intentional design factor, because I don't believe I have the ability to see into the murky thoughts of a brain damaged moron. Anyways, we'll see how it goes. By the way I've never played Civ 5 on King before.

Cities:
At this point I have only two cities, Paris and Orleans. Orleans I built up by the SpiceRiver about 6 tiles to the NW, on Egypt's border. I wanted the Wine site North of Paris but Ramses got there first. I've effectively walled off the Southern tip of the landmass but have deliberately refrained from settling further cities. I'm interested to see how many of those empty tiles Cape Town is able to expand into...they're basically my AlliesForLife so I'll get any resources in those tiles anyways.

Tech:
I picked up Masonry to get the Marble for trading, then basically beelined Civil Service. Because of the design of the tech tree and the lack of tech trading I now have to backfill all the 2-and-3-turn Ancient techs I skipped (such as Wheel). There is literally no way for me to avoid massive research overflow while doing this. Did I mention that this game was designed by a committee of infantile monkeys with excrement for brains? Actually what I wanted to beeline was Philosophy for the Oracle, RAs, and National Epic. CivServ just seemed like a better next tech than Theology (and it was the only tech I managed to research efficiently), but I don't really care about the food bonus because...

City States:
I'm allied with the Cultural city up North (forget the name) and with Cape Town (Maritime). I have killed several barbs/encampments for Cape Town so they are Allied to me for the next 60 turns or so. Since I've only found the one Cultural citystate, this frees up my gold to buy another Maritime. I will have more food than I know what to do with so I have begun paving over all my farms to build trading posts. In my opinion gold is THE KEY RESOURCE in this game because gold can be used to purchase absolutely anything in the game, whereas all the other production outputs have limited use.

GPs:
Paris produced a GS like 30 turns ago. He has been sitting unused all this time. I consider the Great Scientist broken in this game and see no reason to ever build an Academy. I have read the arguments for an Academy and none of the Academy supporters have the first clue about how to make a rational economic decision. The opportunity costs are so out of whack it's disgusting. 30 turns at +5 science would be barely enough to get a cheap classical tech. Instead I can save the GS to bulb something like Education. (Which provides the first real science multiplier building, since Libraries don't actually multiply existing science but merely provide additional.) By the way if the Academy produces +5 science/turn, and Universities add +50% science, that means that an Academy with University yields (+5)(1.5) = BRAIN DEAD MONKEYS. I don't miss the slider, but this is decidedly LESS complex than the slider mechanism, which can actually be managed to make efficient use of +25% and +50% multipliers. As it is, I am constantly putting on and taking off scientists in order to attempt to achieve a modicum of research efficiency. Since any turn the Academy is not being worked it is delivering a benefit of ZERO, this incredibly stupid necessity makes the Academy even more useless than it already was. Since the opportunity cost of bulb/beakering is an Academy (which uses up a citizen if worked) or a Golden Age (and that's it), it will always be more efficient to save GSs to beaker techs. This also provides me the further optionality of using a banked GS for a Golden Age if at some point I decide I need that more than a tech.

Social Policies:
I actually went with the Honor tree to get the GG and experience bonus. (1) I have been actively seeking out Barbs and waiting for city states to quest me to go kill them, which has dramatically helped with CS Influence. (2) I don't expect to build a huge army for some time, so I want the promotions. (3) Later on, I expect to create golden ages by fighting my neighbors enough to produce an additional great general or two (which will be spent on Golden Ages), and I want the cheaper upgrades, etc. that Honor provides.
Second tree I picked was Piety, for the Happiness-Culture conversion. This is because....

Trades:
Have been limited. About the only resource I can trade away consistently is the Marble. Either the AI doesn't need Spices or they don't have any money. My allied Cultural city state gives me Incense which I've managed to trade to Ramses for a paltry sum of gold (all he had) and Iron, which I don't need but don't mind denying to the AI. I also managed to trade Spices to Hiawatha for a paltry sum of gold (all he had) and Horses, which again I have no use for but don't mind denying to the AI. I normally trade away all my luxury resources and find happiness elsewhere, but that hasn't been possible this game due to the AIs lack of money. The same goes for RAs: there has been one RA announced between Egypt and Iroquois (I opted to spend money on city states at the time) and that's it. I have no idea what the AI is spending their money on; I don't see upgraded units. Are they all just buying buildings and then paying maintenance? They must all have the U.S. Congress determining their fiscal policies...Anyways since I consistently have a buncha extra happiness, I figure I may as well get the Piety culture-boost.

Buildings:
I prioritized Libraries in both cities as I fully expect my tech rate in the late game to be abysmal. ICS strategy is so much better in research than is painstakingly growing a few cities over the centuries. I need to bank as many GSs in this early game as possible so I can use them for some decent Renaissance techs.
Paris built Oracle and a Barracks as well; I detoured to Bronze working before Philosophy to allow this. Since having a bank full of cash is such an important factor in gameplay flexibility, and since I've skipped most of the early-game military techs (though CS allows me Pikemen for defense), I fully expect to buy most of my military and the extra XP will be useful especially when added to the Honor Tree bonuses. Paris will complete the National College in 4 turns or so. [Note - The reason all my numbers are approximate is that Alt-Tab crashes the game, so there is no way for me to toggle back and forth between this write-up and the in-game menus. Likewise, I was going to list the Demographics information, such as it is, but I am not going to load up the game again just to do that. I do recall that I am last in military...and yet nobody is hostile nor have I even been "insulted" by any of the AIs.)
Orleans has a Library and was working on Stonehenge, which is a stupid Wonder in this game but seemed like at least a better first choice than a Monument. I just got a message that Hiawatha built Stonehenge, but when I check the Orleans production screen guess what it says: Stonehenge = Finished! That's right I "Finished" Stonehenge but it actually got built by Hiawatha so I don't have it in my city. Did I mention BRAIN DEAD MONKEYS? I don't even think I received any "Failure Gold" so this may be a bug...I will need to load up an autosave to see if I have in fact received any more gold than the income I was making per turn.

I'm more than a little disappointed. Having never played on King before I did not expect to be first in score at turn 99. It seems that not REXing and not accepting an Pacts of Secrecy mean the AI doesn't want to DoW on me, despite my dinky little military (still just two Warriors plus one upgraded Spearman.) At this stage I feel like pulling off a Cultural victory will be an exercise in bribing Cultural city states and waiting it out while deliberately avoiding the other victory paths. (Diplomatic would be easy for me in this game, since Siam is nowhere to be seen and the other AIs appear to be ignoring the city states on our landmass.) While I'm not entirely sure I can pull off Cultural before the AI steamrolls me, I'm absolutely certain that if I were to pursue other victory conditions I would have this game in the bag. For my first King game ever that seems really...dumb. I will try to finish, which would make this the first Civ 5 game I will have finished. All my other games I just got BORED and gave up. Of course this is because I deliberately avoid playing on small maps and using the early rush strategy to win domination, which means my games inevitably degenerate into massively outpacing the AI and just clicking "End Turn" while my forces crawl across the ocean to attack whoever is left alive. Frankly, watching my dog lick her anus is more fun than this.

I'm really enjoying this GOTM. Having the opportunity to point out that a better game could have been designed by a baby gorilla banging on a LOGO machine with a broken spoon makes me feel WAY better about wasting $50 on this travesty of a game.

PS - Do I seem bitter to you guys?

ChevalierdeJstn said:

Turn 99.

Gameplay:
I am not using the gifting cities "exploit". Statistically this makes France one of the worst civs in the game for a Cultural Victory.

Click to expand...

Not at all. You can still have a huge puppet empire and benefit from the France bonus without raising your SP increment.

I am not even going to attempt to guess whether this is an intentional design factor,
because I don't believe I have the ability to see into the murky thoughts of a brain damaged moron. Anyways, we'll see how it goes. By the way I've never played Civ 5 on King before.

Click to expand...

Hum... do I really have to work on my english or is he insulting our moderator team. Can we ban that guy??

As far as I understood he did not insult the moderators, but the developers

CharonJr

Well - I picked up my Civ5 about a week ago, and this is the 3rd game I've played.

I'm generally very peaceful - still trying to find my way around. I had an early war with the Egyptians, taking a puppet city by the 3 sugar resources between us. Later I decide to annex it and build a courthouse, thinking I could probably make more culture that way eventually by purposely building a wonder there.

I also build a fairly mediocre city on the coast, thinking it would be useful to build units to reach the other continent. Of course, I now realise it was pointless since any old land unit could embark and reach them.

So now I'm playing with just 3 cities + 1 puppet. Most likely not competitive, but I'm having a good time Siam on the other continent is ripping everything to shreds. Askia and Ramesses are Hostile, but given how hopeless at attacking the AI is I'm not too concerned.

Edit: pretty much all my money is going towards maintaining alliances with city states. I've picked up the first tier of the patronage tree to help out with this. I wonder if city states are a good use of money, as opposed to just buying a military and pupetting them, or spending money on happiness/culture buildings...

Having mentioned how horrible I think the design of this game is, I actually want to sing some praises. Because...I am seriously falling in love with this AI!

I've read a number of the threads complaining about broken AI and I dunno...I think maybe it's just WAY WAY TRICKIER than we think. Case in point:

About 1750AD I'm through 2 social policies and close to a third (yea I know I suck, that's not the point. First time at this difficulty level mkay?) I've slapped Ramses down hard, because I thought I wanted Memphis (a port city which has been pretty useless actually - embarkation is...weird.) Running 4 cities and 4ish puppets. (I play a lot of succession games off-forum and take copious notes...It ticks me off that I can't alt-tab between Civ 5 and other programs anymore without crashing the game. I'm choosing to blame Steam for this, since I despise Steam anyways. And yes I can't remember the names or how many puppet cities I have. They are the drunk-dial girlfriends of cities in Civ 5.)

Anyways so of course I'm getting a big chunk of my culture-per-turn from city states, especially Florence (on our continent) and I'm also relatively dependent on maritime states (including Venice on our continent) for extra food to run specialists. I'm super-friendly with everyone in the world (Montie even gives me stuff for free because he's afraid of me) and I've been running trades left and right, especially Iron which I like to give away to whoever is fighting wars against the stronger AIs. (What ME aid and abet the enemy? Nuh uh!"

Anyways. What does my Good Buddy(TM?) Songhai do but attack Venice. I immediately ask him to stop, and he does - "Whoops sorry we didn't know they were your allies, sorry, sorry." 5 turns or so later what does he do but attack Florence. "Whoops sorry my bad, sorry, didn't know you were protecting them, I'll stop, sorry."

NOW sneaky bandit, what's he done? Totally ticked off all the city states that's what! So THEY declare all out war on Songhai. Every city state in the WORLD declares war on Songhai. Well what's he supposed to do except take over Venice (MY FOOD) and Florence (MY CULTURE)? They attacked HIM after all. He would be happy to stop fighting them since I ask, but they've declared all-out war on him and there is no mechanic for the player to ask city states to stop warring.

This is like, so totally awesome, I want to hug somebody. This was EXACTLY what the AI needed to do to stop my culture advance. And he played it exactly like a human player might - "What me? I didn't declare war, I just signed 3 pacts of secrecy, gifted units to their mortal enemy, and demanded 300 gold for nothing, I mean really, I don't understand why [insert civ] want to go to war with me?" SO COOL!

Now, admittedly I have rifles and artillery and Songhai has pikemen, and Hiawatha is jumping at the gate to get in on the smackdown action. So it doesn't take long for me to decimate Songhai (yea thanks Hiawatha you snooze you lose) and liberate my citystate buddies. Still, this was EXACTLY what I feared (why I made a point to build some military capability) and was IMO the best choice the AI could make to stymie my plans at this stage. Had Siam (my real rival, on the other continent) joined in I would have been done for...still, that would have smacked of cheating since I've really managed to keep Siam and Songhai apart from each other and there is really no reason for them to ally (Siam, of course, is allies with a number of city states as well.)

Anyways, I just want to say, unlike everybody else I've read on this forum I think the Civ 5 AI is awesome! While playing I still wish I had the designers sitting next to me so I could punch them in the face repeatedly for all the insultingly stupid design flub-ups they've made, but the AIs actions go a long, long ways towards making this game actually fun for me. I am really loving it.

I also expect to lose this game, as Siam is running away and I think I am going to have to nuke him. I could easily win the game but the point was to achieve a cultural victory and I think if I nuke Siam that's going out the window. Still, with what seemed like some extremely smart play on the AIs part in this game, it's actually been a ton of fun despite all my complaining about the interface and design (none of which I retract). I DO think this game is fixable, I'm just still pissed that I paid $50 for what was essentially a beta test version. Dear Firaxis: next time I will spend $10 for a used copy of your game, and you will get no money from me, because I don't trust you to release a workable first version. Congratulations!