Shafi-is-back
Prince
So Im in the late game of my first BNW game (turn 320+) and I really have to say Im impressed. The AI is not psychotic like in G&K but they also dont sit back and do nothing like a lot of people are claiming.
I wonder if the problem is that people are playing below their skill level for their first couple of games? Could this b probable? I play on emperor on G&K and (cant win on immortal thus far) and I played my first game on BNW on emperor.
For me G&K used to be too one dimensional, nothing you could do to avoid an early DOW from a neighbour so you build up an army of CBs and wait wipe them out then go take their lands, or if you want to play passively just wait for the next DoW.
Now my first BNW game has been incredibly different and so far its been a rich game with many different aspects, you cant ignore any aspect of the game military, culture, science or trade. At least thats my take on it.
I am going to summarise how my game has gone so far to show where Im coming from.
Started the game as Morocco on standard continents map, standard speed. Idea was to shoot for a diplomatic win. I met all three of my neighbours who shared my continent within the first 15 turns I think. It was a crowded continent with Germany, Russia and Ethiopia as my neighbours.
Russia and Ethiopia were right next to me and Germany was behind them. Given the changes I was having a hard time without the gold from luxuries in the early game, so I wet liberty picked up the free settler and worker. I still ended up with only three cities, one of them actually behind Cathys borders as she plopped a city in between before I could settle my third city.
Russia and Ethiopia had the negative diplo from contested borders / envying my land or whatever, since Germany didnt have shared borders with me I was able to get to friendly with them and got some luxury trades going.
My tech path and focus was always on getting trade routes and enhancing them and did quite well on the trade front. The gold was flowing in nicely. I was 6th in military. I managed to piss off cathy when settling the third city and also rush buying tiles due to Cathys proximity.
On turn 170 she invaded and thankfully I had plenty of gold from my trade routes to quickly buy units to hold her off.
After the unsuccessful invasion Cathy was sensible enough to offer peace rather than destroy herself.
The AI on the other continents were China who seemed to be on a small continent close to ours, Ottomans, Celtics and Portugal who were on the far away continent.
I wasnt too focussed on culture or tourism at this point and things were going well. Portugal, Germany and Ethiopia were culture monsters. Germany built a lot of wonders.
Sometime later Germany and Russia were at war and Germany wasnt really liked by most so I slowly distanced myself (not renewing DoF) and made friends with Ottomans, China, Russia and Portugal block and seemed all nice and warm and fuzy. Wars were still going on between Ottomans and Celtics and maybe a few other wars which I dont remember.
Then came the world council, forcing me to annoy someone or the other the first time I picked Worlds fair but after that I had to annoy someone with the available choices and I went for damage limitation. This was nt the breaking point though
That happened when I was the first to pick an ideology and picked freedom the world seemed to like Order China, Russia, Portugal, Ottomans picked order. Ethiopia picked Autocracy. Germany and the Celts who were behind didnt have a ideology yet.
My friends started to hate me, and I got denounced one after the other, suddenly I was the outcast. Then came the DoWs from my best friends (former) Russia and China. Russia fought fairly competently specially since I was a little behind on military tech as I was focussing on solving my culture and tourism problems.
The cultural pressure on me was huge and if I didnt do anything I was going to have to switch ideologies. I proposed Freedom as the world ideology and bought Germanys an Celtic votes and that solved the problem but I was obviously hated by most of the world.
Germany has now adopted freedom and I am slowly working on patching things up with him I bribed him in to war with Cathy and Ethiopia who were playing passively surprised me by suddenly DoWing Cathy probably sensing an opportunity as I had weakned Cathy. My fleet of subs destroyed chinas incoming army although China did take one of my CS allies.
China offered peace and Russia even gave up one of their cities when they realised the game was up. Russia still leads in points which tells you how strong they were but now it seems the game is up for them.
Throughout the game different civs have seemed strong with the celts being the exception. I have been mid table on points, and even on demographic screens except for Gold and Production. Tech wise I was number 2, but later fell to mid table.
Its been a far more interesting game so far, with me having to deal with different issues and not being able to play monotonously, so far Im loving it.
I wonder if the problem is that people are playing below their skill level for their first couple of games? Could this b probable? I play on emperor on G&K and (cant win on immortal thus far) and I played my first game on BNW on emperor.
For me G&K used to be too one dimensional, nothing you could do to avoid an early DOW from a neighbour so you build up an army of CBs and wait wipe them out then go take their lands, or if you want to play passively just wait for the next DoW.
Now my first BNW game has been incredibly different and so far its been a rich game with many different aspects, you cant ignore any aspect of the game military, culture, science or trade. At least thats my take on it.
I am going to summarise how my game has gone so far to show where Im coming from.
Started the game as Morocco on standard continents map, standard speed. Idea was to shoot for a diplomatic win. I met all three of my neighbours who shared my continent within the first 15 turns I think. It was a crowded continent with Germany, Russia and Ethiopia as my neighbours.
Russia and Ethiopia were right next to me and Germany was behind them. Given the changes I was having a hard time without the gold from luxuries in the early game, so I wet liberty picked up the free settler and worker. I still ended up with only three cities, one of them actually behind Cathys borders as she plopped a city in between before I could settle my third city.
Russia and Ethiopia had the negative diplo from contested borders / envying my land or whatever, since Germany didnt have shared borders with me I was able to get to friendly with them and got some luxury trades going.
My tech path and focus was always on getting trade routes and enhancing them and did quite well on the trade front. The gold was flowing in nicely. I was 6th in military. I managed to piss off cathy when settling the third city and also rush buying tiles due to Cathys proximity.
On turn 170 she invaded and thankfully I had plenty of gold from my trade routes to quickly buy units to hold her off.
After the unsuccessful invasion Cathy was sensible enough to offer peace rather than destroy herself.
The AI on the other continents were China who seemed to be on a small continent close to ours, Ottomans, Celtics and Portugal who were on the far away continent.
I wasnt too focussed on culture or tourism at this point and things were going well. Portugal, Germany and Ethiopia were culture monsters. Germany built a lot of wonders.
Sometime later Germany and Russia were at war and Germany wasnt really liked by most so I slowly distanced myself (not renewing DoF) and made friends with Ottomans, China, Russia and Portugal block and seemed all nice and warm and fuzy. Wars were still going on between Ottomans and Celtics and maybe a few other wars which I dont remember.
Then came the world council, forcing me to annoy someone or the other the first time I picked Worlds fair but after that I had to annoy someone with the available choices and I went for damage limitation. This was nt the breaking point though
That happened when I was the first to pick an ideology and picked freedom the world seemed to like Order China, Russia, Portugal, Ottomans picked order. Ethiopia picked Autocracy. Germany and the Celts who were behind didnt have a ideology yet.
My friends started to hate me, and I got denounced one after the other, suddenly I was the outcast. Then came the DoWs from my best friends (former) Russia and China. Russia fought fairly competently specially since I was a little behind on military tech as I was focussing on solving my culture and tourism problems.
The cultural pressure on me was huge and if I didnt do anything I was going to have to switch ideologies. I proposed Freedom as the world ideology and bought Germanys an Celtic votes and that solved the problem but I was obviously hated by most of the world.
Germany has now adopted freedom and I am slowly working on patching things up with him I bribed him in to war with Cathy and Ethiopia who were playing passively surprised me by suddenly DoWing Cathy probably sensing an opportunity as I had weakned Cathy. My fleet of subs destroyed chinas incoming army although China did take one of my CS allies.
China offered peace and Russia even gave up one of their cities when they realised the game was up. Russia still leads in points which tells you how strong they were but now it seems the game is up for them.
Throughout the game different civs have seemed strong with the celts being the exception. I have been mid table on points, and even on demographic screens except for Gold and Production. Tech wise I was number 2, but later fell to mid table.
Its been a far more interesting game so far, with me having to deal with different issues and not being able to play monotonously, so far Im loving it.
