First Impressions

I'm enjoying myself hugely. I'm best buddies with Atilla (playing as Germany). Have PoF, Defensive Pact, he's sharing my religion (Christianity), trade back and forth and we're doubling up on the Ottomans. I just hit the Ren. era which means the beginning of the spy era :D

I just saw a Hunnic Battering Ram so that was pretty sweet. Took a turkish city as Atilla raided another. Having a couple of slight economic/happiness issues but overall it's a great expansion and I'm on edge a little bit about being so close to the Huns as they're the world superpower and I'm #2 right behind them. I'm just waiting for the betrayal but right now we're as close as brothers.

The AI was giving me a run for the money until I overloaded them with units. Hell of a lot of fun so far.
 
Well, my first game I chose Boudica, standard speed, small map, King difficulty.

I conquered Ethiopia fairly quickly but afterwards everybody become Guarded against me saying I was a warmongering menace. I tried spreading my religion to them but that didn't seem to help (no positive modifiers as far as I could tell). Before 0 AD I got declared on simultaneously by Carthage and Austria (Carthage brought two ships to try and conquer my coast city, though nothing else to help them and instead focused the rest of their army elsewhere). I managed to stabilize but 200 years later, Sweden declared as well and the game was pretty much over. I might have held my Capital but I didn't have the will to continue.

Granted, most of this was caused by my early conquest of Ethiopia but I was still saddened as to how little impact religion had on diplomacy. Also, most of the Founder and Follower beliefs don't seem that great, especially considering how slowly religion spreads (and missionaries seem somewhat expensive at 100 faith when you need 300 to enhance the religion). I did like the enhancer beliefs, those seemed fairly more powerful.
 
Yes you can have games with No Espionage in the Advanced Setup screen for those of you that don't like it. I enjoy it even though it's not what it has the possibility to be.
 
I like most of what I'm hearing so far. Working sucks.

One minor question about the new way the "free" GP from policies, etc., change the cost for the next (natural) GP. Has anyone noticed that this adds to micromanaging just a bit? I can see people holding off a certain policy if they're very close to getting another Great Person anyhow to get it at the cheaper "cost"--much like how the Legalism policy works now with temples.

Still, that's minor. Sounds very fun.
 
First game as the Celts. They feel seriously over powered.

I have more cities than I've ever had as early as this. I have no happiness issues, and have consistently had over 10 extra happiness. I am making between 50-100 gold a turn. Tech lead. Main religion of my area.

I haven't done this well at Civ since Civ 4. I've been playing Civ 5, and haven't been anywhere close to this ever.

So either I got extravagantly lucky, or the Celts are very powerful.
 
From the beginning of my second game, I can say that demanding tributes seems overpowered. I started exploring with my Warrior and 2 built Scouts. One of them got ruins-upgraded into an Archer. Just by exploring and walking through CS territory, they become afraid of me (even though its just one Archer or one Warrior) and are willing to give me 60 gold in exchange for -15 relations. It seems like a really easy way to amass a small fortune at the start of the game before any CS relations start to matter.
 
Getting beaten by Austrian space and diplomatic victory in Turn 320+

And this is on Emperor.:sad:

blackcatatonic said:
On watching MadDjinn's CS/diplo video it looks like this is a new special thing that Militaristic CSs do; they will give you UUs from Civs which aren't in the game provided you have researched the technology. There was an example in the video where one CS window mentioned that it had the technology for Keshiks.

Heh, I just watched that video. It was an interesting touch, seeing how rare those "unique" unit gifts appear in Vanilla.
 
Only slept two hours last night, played from 12:30-7:30am. Standard pace, but I wasn't even at turn 300 by the time I stopped, which is unusual. A lot more fun in general, as I had started playing with mods recently after becoming a bit bored with vanilla (I'm only at 80 hours total play time). I also found the CS aspect very enjoyable, the announcements of CS changes got me paying more attention to it--previously I had mostly ignored CS diplomacy.

Turn times also seemed shorter, for what it's worth.
 
I am in this protracted war with Austria. We made peace some turns ago. At that point I accepted her proposal for an embassy. I was going to be content with building up my cities, and concentrate on the naval game as I am the Dutch. Then this fat woman denounces me, and the following turn declares war. So be it, this time I have retaken a coastal city I lost. Now my army is within reach of her capital. My pal Boudicca backstabbed her from behind as well. It's time to finish this broad and stick her on the rack. Then we'll ask her questions she'll have no answer too. After that we'll burn for heresy, after she confesses to following a heathen religion. :lol:

I am struggling with science, mostly, because of war. Hopefully, that will be over soon. Austria recently hit the Renaissance. So, I need to finish her before she gets better units.
 
From the beginning of my second game, I can say that demanding tributes seems overpowered. I started exploring with my Warrior and 2 built Scouts. One of them got ruins-upgraded into an Archer. Just by exploring and walking through CS territory, they become afraid of me (even though its just one Archer or one Warrior) and are willing to give me 60 gold in exchange for -15 relations. It seems like a really easy way to amass a small fortune at the start of the game before any CS relations start to matter.

What difficulty level was this? I guess CSs are less afraid of you on higher levels (as they have more units) and less willing to pay tribute.
 
Did Austria reach Renaissance before everyone else?

If so, this will put her on the "must-watch-out-science-runaway-types" list. Its made worse by the fact that she can turn CSes into her own production cities!

e: sorry Dido, you were a good friend for 4000 years, but you happened to have Petra in your capital and I happen to have landships on your borders

Spoiler :
 
Keep those experiences coming, they're gold for those of us not able to play yet.
Oh, and screenshots please.
 
Austria scares me. How exactly does the marriage thing work? I take it she can only do it to cities which she's already allied with, but can she ally with them and 'marry' them in the same turn?
 
Carthage was at 175-defence str with the Kremlin

Her normal cities were 127-def and beyond.

I shudder to think of Babylon.
 
I'm sure the answer is no, but is there a ''no espionage'' button in the advanced settings?

If not, let's hope someone mods it in :)

Actually, the answer is YES. There is a "No Espionage" on the advanced options.

No "No Religion" option, though. Athiests just have to deal, I guess. haha
 
Austria scares me. How exactly does the marriage thing work? I take it she can only do it to cities which she's already allied with, but can she ally with them and 'marry' them in the same turn?

That seems to be the case, yea
 
I am not liking the sound of Austria's UA at all. I always release city states that have been conquered, do we get that option on the ones she takes control of?
 
I only played for about an hour as the Celts try my hand at religion, but I was surprised to see that while I was the first to found a pantheon (and since I had 5 elephants in my general area I chose Goddess of the Hunt), Ethiopia beat me to a religion. On Prince. I wasn't expecting that; I thought the Celt had the religion thing in the bag.

The unique monuments (Pacal's Pyramid giving +2 beakers and Haile's Stele giving +2 faith) seem to definitely make a huge difference in the early game, especially when it comes to trying to win CS quests.

Oh also I laughed the first time I spoke to Theodora after meeting her the first time. Her animation shows that she's very very happy to see you again!
 
I am not liking the sound of Austria's UA at all. I always release city states that have been conquered, do we get that option on the ones she takes control of?

You cannot liberate the city-states she marries, as explained in one of the introductory videos; they no longer exist as city-states. The marriage costs her though (dowry?) and how much is probably be where any balance adjustments would be made.
 
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