[VidLP] Lets play CIV5 I - Hiawatha (HD video)

[Bibor]

Hi people,

I'm starting a brand new Lets Play Civilization 5 series on Youtube, featuring:
- 1080p recordings (possibly to be uploaded in 1080p in the future)
- 720p HQ uploads
- full audio commentary

For the first game I started a king difficulty game with random leader (turned out to be Hiawatha), normal speed small pangaea, although I'd really like to hear your wishes for future games.

I'd like to link these lets plays to civfanatics forums, if the admins allow it (mentioning these forums by name or possibly even starting the videos with civfanatics logo). Reasoning? I can't imagine playing CIV games without visiting these forums. Also, I hope these threads will spark some discussion and criticism.

These videos are obviously influenced by TMIT aka The Master of CIV Letsplays and one can only hope that he'll stop playing Genghis Khan II and start making some more Civ5 videos.

In the future, I'd like to include your suggestions into these games, possibly splitting these games into 50-turn segments, with a few days of discussion time between each segment.

Videos are for now split into 15-minute segments. I recorded the the whole game already, and the first segments of Part One (T0 to T 150) are already uploaded.

I strongly suggest watching these videos directly on youtube since embedded videos cannot reproduce neither 720p nor fullscreen.
Links to part one are still here, but all further uploads will be available on my channel.

Link to channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/biborkiraly

Part One - Turn 0 to Turn 150


link to video. (1/5)


link to video. (2/5)


link to video. (3/5)


link to video. (4/5)


link to video. (5/5)

Thumbs up if you like'm, thumbs down if you don't*.

The initial save is attached (requires the two mentioned mods, all available DLCs and you need to put the save into the ..\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\ModdedSaves\single if you want to play with mods enabled).

*Blatant theft of copy from TMIT!

[Treso]

Good thread. Sure I will see and comment

[Camikaze]

I do like the idea of this format as a Civ-educational tool. I'll be sure to watch.

BTW, you can embed youtube videos, but putting the bit of the URL after http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= in [youtube][/youtube] tags. So, for the first video, it would be [youtube]CtA_mlM5fbs[/youtube].

Edit: removed- see first post

Also, posting the save might be a good idea, so people can play along with you.

Edit2: Although I see this is using DLC...

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by Camikaze

BTW, you can embed youtube videos

Awesome! Can you remove your links so I can embed them into the first post?

[Treso]

How could you select all the maps types in the "main screen"?
In my screen only appears archipelago, continents, earth and pangae.

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by Treso

How could you select all the maps types in the "main screen"?
In my screen only appears archipelago, continents, earth and pangae.

I started a new game from the "mods" section.

[Treso]

Theres a 10 turns gap beetween both videos.

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by Treso

Theres a 10 turns gap beetween both videos.

Oh crap. I knew this was going to happen. Rookie mistake. Each segment is like 2.5 minutes and takes up 4 gigabytes uncompressed, so I had to delete the finished segments. The other segments are good, because i started renaming the FRAPS files so no more confusion about segment names.

[Treso]

Thats fine. Are fraps a free software?

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by Camikaze

Edit2: Although I see this is using DLC...

Yup, sorry. Although I think both deluxe and DLC2 are worth it. Nabucco and Inca are awesome.

Thats fine. Are fraps a free software?

Nope. Costs as much as a computer game. But both the audio and video encoding are top-notch. I could easily record 1080p movies with full audio support no problem without a Raptor or disks in raid (at 30 FPS at all times except when meeting leaders). Other settings are DirectX9 with average GFX quality settings. And a now obsolete nvidia 8800GT gfx card.

[Treso]

How many parts the full game have?

Are u still uploading?

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by Treso

How many parts the full game have?

Are u still uploading?

Oh yes, 5 segments for part 1, at least 10 segments for part 2 and around 2-3 segments for part 3. Takes 120 minutes per segment

[vranasm]

Hi.
Pretty good english for croatian (you should hear my czech accent :-D).

I see you mention fraps as recording device. I would advice you to use "CamStudio" TheMeInTeam has pretty good video about how to use it.

I tried it and made some CIV video with it. Mine videos for 1080p have around 350MB for 15 minutes gameplay, so you don't need recompress it etc. (the only problem being the upload to youtube grrr, but that is separate issue)

here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0rNv-t4g5g is the link to tmit video about usage of camstudio

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by vranasm

Hi.
Pretty good english for croatian (you should hear my czech accent :-D).

I see you mention fraps as recording device. I would advice you to use "CamStudio" TheMeInTeam has pretty good video about how to use it.

I tried it and made some CIV video with it. Mine videos for 1080p have around 350MB for 15 minutes gameplay, so you don't need recompress it etc. (the only problem being the upload to youtube grrr, but that is separate issue)

here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0rNv-t4g5g is the link to tmit video about usage of camstudio

The compression speed is not the problem. I process a 15-minute video in 30 minutes. Upload is the problem.

The problem with Cam studio is that its internal codec is not compatible with most (if any) editing programs and I didn't manage to get the DivX codec to quality I like: compression at real-time @ 1080p would eat up too many of my PCs resources.

[ipris]

Very cool. With TMIT back doing civ4 for the moment it's nice to see some civ5 LPs.

Originally Posted by Bibor

In the future, I'd like to include your suggestions into these games, possibly splitting these games into 50-turn segments, with a few days of discussion time between each segment.

Seems like a great idea, and good for the strat forum as well.

[gt9953b]

Subscribed - nice to have something to watch while TMIT is playing Civ4 and HoMM.

[gunnthra]

Props for having the courage and will power to both make and post this Let's Play. I've watched the first three parts, and let me say, you are surprisingly comfortable for a first timer. It is challenging to play with competence, speed, accuracy, and for an audience all at the same time. With time, your videos could be very entertaining.

With the brown nosing aside, lets discuss strategy, since that is the title of these forums, and is what Let's Plays is supposed to engender, as far as I understand. I'll preface these remarks by saying I am generally an emperor/immortal player.

Everything about your start screams REX to me, and I am generally not a REXer, and am in fact morally opposed to an ICS play style. Let's start with your leader, Hiawatha. His unique ability drastically cuts down on tile improvement maintenance, and makes large territories more easily defensible, earlier. His unique unit, the mohawk warrior, is a supreme defender when well placed, and transitions nicely when on the counter attack. And the longhouse makes highly forested cities, which are small, but highly productive (especially as the game progresses), very strong. Everything about the Iroquois civilization is made for REXing.

Your starting location is equally suited for rapid expansion. From my count you have SIX unique luxury resources readily available: sugar, gems, wine, furs, dyes, and cotton. And some AMAZING city locations. That is 30 raw happiness, plus a ton of gold for trade if you settle cities quickly, but keep your capital population low. Your capital is the epitome of a great Hiawatha city: as much food as needed, and highly productive. Which makes it a very decent settler spammer, and later, unit producer. Also, your nearest neighbor is a considerable distance away, and it is Darius who is (generally) peaceful.

With this in mind, I would have done a few things differently. First, I would have expanded to about six or seven cities by around turn 110-130 (you have 3 at this point). For social policies I would have gone down the left hand side of liberty to get my cities up and running quickly and to maximize Hiawatha's production advantage. In my cities I would have built monuments, granaries, watermills (where applicable), and longhouses. In the tech-tree, I would have prioritized iron working, machinery and engineering. All excess gold, after I had enough workers, would go towards buying alliances with cultural city states for two reasons: more happiness from gifted luxury resources, and more culture per turn, which leads to even more happiness via the piety tree.

Anyway, just wanted to say again that I am grateful for your contribution to the CiV community and hope it stirs some more legitimate strategic discussion. I'll be watching for more videos in the future

[Bibor]

After the uploading of part 5 froze, I tried to reboot my PC. Somehow idiotic Win7 managed to delete its own MBR. After hours and hours of trying to fix it I decided to go for a fresh install (yet another, my old disk died 3 weeks ago). Hooray!

[nokmirt]

Let me have a look Bibor, maybe I can learn a thing or two.

[Bibor]

Originally Posted by gunnthra

With this in mind, I would have done a few things differently. First, I would have expanded to about six or seven cities by around turn 110-130 (you have 3 at this point). For social policies I would have gone down the left hand side of liberty to get my cities up and running quickly and to maximize Hiawatha's production advantage.

Its a small-size map and I wasn't ready to deal with the "you expand too quickly" penalty. (Two neighbours equals almost one half of my diplomacy). I would have much to loose and little to gain. By expanding close to Pachachuti I got into very bad relations I never really recovered from. In any case, the good city spots were settled just in time and the remaining 2 or 3 mediocre/poor spots I decided not to settle at all. Too bad my uploads got delayed by a day. The Part2 is the really interesting one.