Civ V - Beta 2
- Thread starter Ozbenno
- Start date
vitorbaixinho
Chieftain
Defenitily one bug/exploit to discuss if should be allowed or banned.
By one side, we always have to spent gold to rush a tech. And the fact that you enter in war and the other civ gain one free tech will not stop you from doing this "strategy" especially on lower difficulties.
By the other side whenever we are ready for a war, will defenitily be one "exploit" to take in account.
Soory. I didnt mean you did it.
Feyd Rautha
Prince
Another exploit to watch is the strategic resources bug that sometimes appears. This one is easy to spot if the judges do a quick headcount of all the available strategic resources the player SHOULD have vs. the phantom ones that can sometimes be produced by this bug (which I used in a recent OCC game to keep Monty appeased and off my backside).
IneffableBob
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2001
- Messages
- 10
I like this setup. I'm a big fan of spaceship victories, my favorite way to win. I've started a game and after 100 turns, still haven't met any other great powers and only 2 city-states. Things move a lot more slowly in Epic mode!
I'm on turn 244 of my latest try, now that I correctly set it to Epic speed. Sadly, none of my starts since have been better than that screenshot I posted earlier, where I was alone on a large landmass w/3 Maritime CS.
However, my current game might be close. I started out on a long snakey landmass, with Nebby to my west. First time I've had another civ on the island with me. I immediately switched to another warrior (I didn't bother with a scout on this game). About two turns later, Monty shows up from the east, which I had thought was Ocean, but turned out to have a landbridge over to his area. I was marching my spearman (ruins upgrade) and warrior to take Babylon, but I knew I'd need more firepower against Monty, who always builds lots of his UU. I switched to an Archer after the warrior was done, and he was ready right about the time Babylon finally dropped. Killing the Aztecs took far longer than I expected, as he kept building jaguar warriors that I had to keep killing off. The archer proved invaluable as he kept weakening the warriors as they tried to rush my spearman. The poor warrior died for his country, but the spearman and archer brought Democracy to Tenochtitlan.
So by turn 66 I had three cities, yay! Going further past Monty, I met up with Songhai across the water. Sadly, I only had 2 sources of horse nearby, and I had to build a settler to get that, but a GG had spawned during the Aztec War, and he led two company of horsemen, one of spears, and one archer detachment across the water (under watchful eye of the US Navy, consisting of one trireme) and took out the two Songhai cities, which remain US Protectorates rather than full statehood.
On a side note, I think I detest Civ5's archipelago maps. I much prefer Small Continents, you don't get those tiny 1 hex islands everywhere.
However, my current game might be close. I started out on a long snakey landmass, with Nebby to my west. First time I've had another civ on the island with me. I immediately switched to another warrior (I didn't bother with a scout on this game). About two turns later, Monty shows up from the east, which I had thought was Ocean, but turned out to have a landbridge over to his area. I was marching my spearman (ruins upgrade) and warrior to take Babylon, but I knew I'd need more firepower against Monty, who always builds lots of his UU. I switched to an Archer after the warrior was done, and he was ready right about the time Babylon finally dropped. Killing the Aztecs took far longer than I expected, as he kept building jaguar warriors that I had to keep killing off. The archer proved invaluable as he kept weakening the warriors as they tried to rush my spearman. The poor warrior died for his country, but the spearman and archer brought Democracy to Tenochtitlan.
So by turn 66 I had three cities, yay! Going further past Monty, I met up with Songhai across the water. Sadly, I only had 2 sources of horse nearby, and I had to build a settler to get that, but a GG had spawned during the Aztec War, and he led two company of horsemen, one of spears, and one archer detachment across the water (under watchful eye of the US Navy, consisting of one trireme) and took out the two Songhai cities, which remain US Protectorates rather than full statehood.
On a side note, I think I detest Civ5's archipelago maps. I much prefer Small Continents, you don't get those tiny 1 hex islands everywhere.
Beef Hammer
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2010
- Messages
- 255
I'm playing mine on low sea level, seems to get rid of most if not all of the tiny 1 hex islands.
jayjackson
Warlord
You are very smart sir. It is my opinion that the "winning" entry to this competition will be on a low sea level map. The stopping power of water is immense.
iggymnrr
Deity
- Joined
- May 20, 2003
- Messages
- 2,289
Interesting challenge and archipelago's do look a lot different and awkward.
As to exploit's, it is not clear to me what should be or not. I've lost a lot of respect for the game and just playing it seems like an exploit. At the moment it's doubtful a gauntlet could be thrown down that isn't another variation on building horsemen and slamming them into cities.
As to exploit's, it is not clear to me what should be or not. I've lost a lot of respect for the game and just playing it seems like an exploit. At the moment it's doubtful a gauntlet could be thrown down that isn't another variation on building horsemen and slamming them into cities.
That's the main issue with Civ right now. Everyone says it's so easy because they all do the same thing: Build Horsemen, win. The AI never builds them, or people would be singing a different tune =).
Horsemen are simply out of balance. They should be 10 Atk Power, and move 3, instead of 12 and 4. Companion Cavalry would then be brought down to 12 AP and 4 move that Horsemen currently are at.
I'd love to see a Domination Gauntlet with Horsemen removed from the game =).
Horsemen are simply out of balance. They should be 10 Atk Power, and move 3, instead of 12 and 4. Companion Cavalry would then be brought down to 12 AP and 4 move that Horsemen currently are at.
I'd love to see a Domination Gauntlet with Horsemen removed from the game =).
Ford
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2010
- Messages
- 121
Finished in 1869. Have no idea whether that is a good time or not. The King AI seems to like the Great Library a lot more than Prince, so I had to hurry to get it. I kept restarting until I got a game with marble, someone else on my island, and the GL. My build order ended up being warrior -> warrior -> worker -> GL with a library bought whenever I could afford it.
I should have done a lot more conquering. It was just hard to find the production time or gold to spend on military when the five cities I focused on for building spaceship parts always needed something else, and I always needed every cent I could get to keep paying maritime city states.
But here is my game. If somehow it does end up being a good time, I'll give a little more detail about it.
I should have done a lot more conquering. It was just hard to find the production time or gold to spend on military when the five cities I focused on for building spaceship parts always needed something else, and I always needed every cent I could get to keep paying maritime city states.
But here is my game. If somehow it does end up being a good time, I'll give a little more detail about it.
I didn't use it, not only because I don't take advantage of exploits because it ruins the game for me, but for the cultural victory I had always something better to spend my gold on so the temptation was not even there.
Yes but don't forget one thing, we are playing on prince and king, which are not exactly the highest difficulties there is. Would it be fair to play the game on warlord, conquer everything with warriors and complain the game is one dimensional?
On a different subject, I am a bit disappointed on the choice of Epic speed. First There is a lack of RL time, and even normal speed is a bit long to be honest (especially since it is fun to have 2-3 tries at a gauntlet to experiment a little, which is not possible with slower games). Second I already had the bug when I get stuck at a fixed turn, something that has more chances to happen the longer a game is.
Archipelago is also not optimal since the AI can't handle islands well if at all, so we would be playing a broken game from the start. This alone will make most of the data you collect form these games near useless imo.
But I will give it a shot anyway for the sake of science.
Hi first time posting here.
I completed a space victory by 1948 with the conditions imposed. It was my first time beating the game on King difficulty and also first time playing archipelago. It was quite a memorable game, and it was insanely long as well
I spawned on a location with many gold tiles, room for about one more city and also next to Oslo, a maritime CS. I rushed to civil service with GL in this game, although I didn't have many rivers to take full advantage of this tech, the medieval era let me spend my saved up culture points on the patronage tree. I immediately became allies with oslo after, and never let it drop.
After that, I got the tech that would allow me to scout around my surrounding area. I found the various civs and city states and befriended all of the maritime ones, and eventually the cultural ones too as I got a science bonus from allied states with a tech in patronage tree.
I had two cities on my spawning island, Washington and New York and made a third one - Boston - on the island to my west which was only occupied by another maritime state. Right when I was moving my settler to get a fourth city on this western island, Montezuma made Calixtlahuaca in the exact same place I had planned to put my own city! After that, I declared war and captured the city as it was in my sphere of influence
After this little engagement, and favorable settlement terms for me I rarely made any units at all. I kept on refusing open border treaties with other civs which I guess is what caused my approval rating to be the lowest at the end of the game. Instead after the appropriate tech I made about 4 destroyers to control key points of the map. I honestly didn't need them but it felt good to know that no civ was ever going to walk on my lands with any ease at all. I also made a submarine and a carrier with a B17
After discovering I had no coal nearby any of my 4 cities I decided to found another city - Philadelphia very far away from my own civ but did provide a nice coal tile. I only had one destroyer defending this the whole game. This city turned to be a growth and production powerhouse later on, and also added nice beaker bonuses.
My social policies were: Full patronage tree, followed by commerce up to +3 production in all coastal cities and then order up to communism ( +5 production ).
As for my tech I went this route: I got satellites first, followed by robotics and then completing the route that leads to globalization which gave me access to particle physics and nanotechnology. So I built in this order: Apollo program as soon as I got rocketry, SS Cockpit with Satelites, then Spaceship factory in 3 cities and 3 SS Booster in those 3 cities while I researched the globalization line of tech. Once I got particle physics I had saved a great scientist to get nanotech at the same time and afterward immediately began production of the other two necessary items.
The end populations were Washington 22, NY 13, Boston 20, Calixtlahuaca 12 and Philadelphia 15.
What I could have done different?
Maybe my tech route was inefficient. The boost you get from research labs is pretty big and perhaps it would've been more beneficial to get this tech first. I haven't played many civ games prior to this one, and I was still confused on how specialist works, but this game I think I got a hang of it. I wasn't using specialists efficiently all throughout the game but at the end I had a good allocation of different specialists throughout my cities. Maybe I could've done this faster paying proper attention to this. Also, I would consider building significantly less units as cities could be focused on research instead and the other civs never seem to attack if I do not open my borders to them.
As for social policies, I'm thinking now rationalism could be a great policy to experiment with as the +2 free techs is awesome, but at the time I was more worried with production and how fast I would build the space ship parts as my beaker production was pretty good (196 beakers for Washington alone at the end of the game).
Also, throughout the game I must've gotten 4 great scientist who I didn't use to discover a tech but instead founded academies near Washington. Does anyone know if this is more or less cost efficient than otherwise? I haven't done the calculations, but I imagine if you get a scientist earlier in the game it is best to settle him down to an academy and get the benefits throughout the game.
It was a fun game and I am looking forward to the next challenge. But do not do epic speed again! It felt unnecessarily slow.
I completed a space victory by 1948 with the conditions imposed. It was my first time beating the game on King difficulty and also first time playing archipelago. It was quite a memorable game, and it was insanely long as well
I spawned on a location with many gold tiles, room for about one more city and also next to Oslo, a maritime CS. I rushed to civil service with GL in this game, although I didn't have many rivers to take full advantage of this tech, the medieval era let me spend my saved up culture points on the patronage tree. I immediately became allies with oslo after, and never let it drop.
After that, I got the tech that would allow me to scout around my surrounding area. I found the various civs and city states and befriended all of the maritime ones, and eventually the cultural ones too as I got a science bonus from allied states with a tech in patronage tree.
I had two cities on my spawning island, Washington and New York and made a third one - Boston - on the island to my west which was only occupied by another maritime state. Right when I was moving my settler to get a fourth city on this western island, Montezuma made Calixtlahuaca in the exact same place I had planned to put my own city! After that, I declared war and captured the city as it was in my sphere of influence
After this little engagement, and favorable settlement terms for me I rarely made any units at all. I kept on refusing open border treaties with other civs which I guess is what caused my approval rating to be the lowest at the end of the game. Instead after the appropriate tech I made about 4 destroyers to control key points of the map. I honestly didn't need them but it felt good to know that no civ was ever going to walk on my lands with any ease at all. I also made a submarine and a carrier with a B17
After discovering I had no coal nearby any of my 4 cities I decided to found another city - Philadelphia very far away from my own civ but did provide a nice coal tile. I only had one destroyer defending this the whole game. This city turned to be a growth and production powerhouse later on, and also added nice beaker bonuses.
My social policies were: Full patronage tree, followed by commerce up to +3 production in all coastal cities and then order up to communism ( +5 production ).
As for my tech I went this route: I got satellites first, followed by robotics and then completing the route that leads to globalization which gave me access to particle physics and nanotechnology. So I built in this order: Apollo program as soon as I got rocketry, SS Cockpit with Satelites, then Spaceship factory in 3 cities and 3 SS Booster in those 3 cities while I researched the globalization line of tech. Once I got particle physics I had saved a great scientist to get nanotech at the same time and afterward immediately began production of the other two necessary items.
The end populations were Washington 22, NY 13, Boston 20, Calixtlahuaca 12 and Philadelphia 15.
What I could have done different?
Maybe my tech route was inefficient. The boost you get from research labs is pretty big and perhaps it would've been more beneficial to get this tech first. I haven't played many civ games prior to this one, and I was still confused on how specialist works, but this game I think I got a hang of it. I wasn't using specialists efficiently all throughout the game but at the end I had a good allocation of different specialists throughout my cities. Maybe I could've done this faster paying proper attention to this. Also, I would consider building significantly less units as cities could be focused on research instead and the other civs never seem to attack if I do not open my borders to them.
As for social policies, I'm thinking now rationalism could be a great policy to experiment with as the +2 free techs is awesome, but at the time I was more worried with production and how fast I would build the space ship parts as my beaker production was pretty good (196 beakers for Washington alone at the end of the game).
Also, throughout the game I must've gotten 4 great scientist who I didn't use to discover a tech but instead founded academies near Washington. Does anyone know if this is more or less cost efficient than otherwise? I haven't done the calculations, but I imagine if you get a scientist earlier in the game it is best to settle him down to an academy and get the benefits throughout the game.
It was a fun game and I am looking forward to the next challenge. But do not do epic speed again! It felt unnecessarily slow.
Welcome to the HOF!
Man, epic takes forever. I chose low water and ended up with a fairly large landmass with a single city state on it. I'm currently up to four cities and have finally located other civs who appear to have no navy. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue this game though. I may try and few other maps to see if I get anything better.
Its rather odd after playing the other HOF beta, due to rarely ever getting any additional policies.
darkdefender
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2010
- Messages
- 6
I doubt this is going to be one of the best but here you go. I've learned a lot in the first beta gauntlet thread and tried several games to achieve a decent game but to no avail. So, I decided to give this a go and I think I did pretty well for a newbie to Civ.
Starting location had marble, wheat, 1-tile long river, and a coast, so I figured it was a decent starting position. I had Suleiman south of me and a military CS to the SE of Suleiman. I took out Suleiman slower than I wanted, but there was only that military CS on my archipelago island.
For my tech path, I went to Civil Service with the GL. After that, I forget the exact order but I got masonry for the marble, horseback riding, and optics. I got astronomy and eventually bulbed to biology with a GS.
After Optics, I started exploring the coastal waters and pretty quickly found 3 maritime CSs. I ran into Gandhi shortly thereafter but didn't go after him til after I explored a bit. As it turns out, exploring was the way to go. All those little islands connected by coast had ruins on them, so I eventually turned my pikeman to a mechanized infantry over a period of 100 turns or so.
I took out Gandhi with pretty much a knight (horseman ruin upgrade) and a little help from a free chariot archer from a CS.
I didn't even use my mech infantry until my 3rd victim, Germany. The best he had was a couple swordsman (against my mech lol).
I eventually took out two more Civs, Songhai and Arabia. Songhai had tons of units varying from swordsman, pikeman, crossbowman, and trebuchets (or catapults). I took him down with two units, my mech infantry and the knight. I tricked him into going to war with Arabia and he moved most of his units into Arabia territory and left his cities undefended. So, I eventually took both of them out. After that, I concentrated on building up my science and production.
Starting location had marble, wheat, 1-tile long river, and a coast, so I figured it was a decent starting position. I had Suleiman south of me and a military CS to the SE of Suleiman. I took out Suleiman slower than I wanted, but there was only that military CS on my archipelago island.
For my tech path, I went to Civil Service with the GL. After that, I forget the exact order but I got masonry for the marble, horseback riding, and optics. I got astronomy and eventually bulbed to biology with a GS.
After Optics, I started exploring the coastal waters and pretty quickly found 3 maritime CSs. I ran into Gandhi shortly thereafter but didn't go after him til after I explored a bit. As it turns out, exploring was the way to go. All those little islands connected by coast had ruins on them, so I eventually turned my pikeman to a mechanized infantry over a period of 100 turns or so.
I took out Gandhi with pretty much a knight (horseman ruin upgrade) and a little help from a free chariot archer from a CS.
I didn't even use my mech infantry until my 3rd victim, Germany. The best he had was a couple swordsman (against my mech lol).
I eventually took out two more Civs, Songhai and Arabia. Songhai had tons of units varying from swordsman, pikeman, crossbowman, and trebuchets (or catapults). I took him down with two units, my mech infantry and the knight. I tricked him into going to war with Arabia and he moved most of his units into Arabia territory and left his cities undefended. So, I eventually took both of them out. After that, I concentrated on building up my science and production.
Well done on your game.
Part of the reason we're doing these beta gauntlets is to test out the different speeds/maps/conditions to get a feel for how they all work. Wait until we do marathon
uberdubersoldat
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 29, 2010
- Messages
- 66
epic speed is the best speed. should be fun to try to do this again since space victories are the least common at least for me
Finished in 1914, but could've done much better if I had more than one city with decent production.
My starting position had marble, two silvers, two fish, two wheat, a short river, and hills all over. Big downside was being all alone on the island, which allowed me to never worry about barbarians or war throughout the entire game, but I decided to get sailing quicker than I wanted in order to go out and find some civs and city-states. Silver was also plentiful on my island so I really wanted to get out and trade. Missed GL due to this.
Did all of my exploring with a couple triremes and a scout (which upgraded all the way to infantry with the huts I found). Stuck with two maritimes throughout most of the game, picked up a third late, though in hindsight I should have done that much earlier.
Had a huge tech leap when I combined the SP at the end of the Rationalism tree (2 free techs), with Oxford (1 free tech) and 4 or 5 GS's I was stockpiling.
My capital produced all the ship parts, which held me up at the end. Probably could have finished earlier than 1900 with another production city. Combine that with another maritime CS and I would be looking at a much better end date.
My starting position had marble, two silvers, two fish, two wheat, a short river, and hills all over. Big downside was being all alone on the island, which allowed me to never worry about barbarians or war throughout the entire game, but I decided to get sailing quicker than I wanted in order to go out and find some civs and city-states. Silver was also plentiful on my island so I really wanted to get out and trade. Missed GL due to this.
Did all of my exploring with a couple triremes and a scout (which upgraded all the way to infantry with the huts I found). Stuck with two maritimes throughout most of the game, picked up a third late, though in hindsight I should have done that much earlier.
Had a huge tech leap when I combined the SP at the end of the Rationalism tree (2 free techs), with Oxford (1 free tech) and 4 or 5 GS's I was stockpiling.
My capital produced all the ship parts, which held me up at the end. Probably could have finished earlier than 1900 with another production city. Combine that with another maritime CS and I would be looking at a much better end date.
Finished in 471 turns/1881 AD
I more or less just played this straight up, no clever tricks or anything like that-- except I did use low sea-level, which seems to help. Fished around for a Marble/River start and wonder-whored for the first 100 turns or so (maybe more), working down the patronage tree while I was at it.
I massed a few archers with a couple warriors and a single horseman while I let my neighbors (China and Arabia) build up a few cities, then took them all down and puppeteer-ed like 6 cities. I did this mostly because I didn't have the happiness banked to handle annexing all of them, though it's also nice to not have to pay through the nose for cultural advancements. Once I explored the oceans a bit and found a fair number of city states, I allied them all and used the extra happiness from the gifted luxuries to start annexing cities.
Once annexed, I started building a ton of science buildings and advancements and from there it was straightforward.
Next Time: Focus on sling-shotting through the tech tree more and earlier. I feel like I brute-forced my way through by just massing beakers, but there should be a better way to do it via GS/wonders/social stuff.
I more or less just played this straight up, no clever tricks or anything like that-- except I did use low sea-level, which seems to help. Fished around for a Marble/River start and wonder-whored for the first 100 turns or so (maybe more), working down the patronage tree while I was at it.
I massed a few archers with a couple warriors and a single horseman while I let my neighbors (China and Arabia) build up a few cities, then took them all down and puppeteer-ed like 6 cities. I did this mostly because I didn't have the happiness banked to handle annexing all of them, though it's also nice to not have to pay through the nose for cultural advancements. Once I explored the oceans a bit and found a fair number of city states, I allied them all and used the extra happiness from the gifted luxuries to start annexing cities.
Once annexed, I started building a ton of science buildings and advancements and from there it was straightforward.
Next Time: Focus on sling-shotting through the tech tree more and earlier. I feel like I brute-forced my way through by just massing beakers, but there should be a better way to do it via GS/wonders/social stuff.
