Thoughts after my first game

[slowjames]

Hey, since we're all talking about Civ, I'd like to share some thoughts after my first game.

- Japan is strong. Bushido means that Japanese units can basically take on other Civs' units 3 to 2 and win.

- Hexes are good.

- Zone of control is better. I think if I had to pick one of these two to add to Civ 4, zone of control would be my choice. It's SOOOOOO good.

- Good idea making the attack take a move. I was playing a hex based strategy game not long ago where you could move then attack. This kind of setup means that zone of control does not protect units that are behind and to the side of the frontline. That makes keeping your ranged units near the frontline impossible, and all kinds of interesting strategies become unviable. So, go Firaxis for getting it right.

- Happiness: I'm not sure I like it, but there's no question in my mind that it makes the end-game a lot more tolerable. I no longer capture every city I come across like in Civ4, because it's easier to raze them most of the time. That means there is less BS to manage during the end-game when you know you are going to win anyhow. There are also a bunch of nice touches that in human-on-human games will give a player who is down a chance to regroup. For example, even if you choose to raze a city, you have to deal with unhappiness for a few turns while you burn it down. That puts an automatic brake on true steam-rolls unless the game is really already over.

- Hammers are going to be a problem for me. I'm thinking about playing as Caeser next time to get that build bonus for buildings already constructed in the capital. I will definitely pay more attention to getting production in the next game, because I think that the focus has definitely shifted from currency being the most valuable to production in Civ V.

- I'm not sure I like all the changes, but I'm going to give it time to settle in. Overall, I will say that this definitely has the potential to be the best game in the Civ series that I've played (all two of them ).

[Xzylvador]

One thing which annoys me is how units automatically fortify themselves in a city when you move them there. On more than one occasion did I put my archer in a city to heal faster, only to have it disappear and turn into an icon instead of asking for orders when fully healed.

Also, trade route recognition seems to be a bit off. I built a road to a city state asking for a route, and it didn't notice it was done.

(Only playing demo, need to wait for the full version, "eurocentrism" my @$$!)