First Impressions

[nefloyd]

The AI does some crazy tech delving lately (going deep while leaving side techs untouched). I've entered renaissance and had enemy civs steal calendar and masonry from me not long after. Would completely explain #4 since they wouldn't have the techs necessary to even hook those up.

 

[zomg]

Yea pretty much all this. There seems to be a lot more ways to get gold and happiness. I had games before expansion where I could get extreme incomes like that, its just more common. Havent found this a really bad thing, since by mid-late game other limiting factors such as space available come into play. All I can say is try bumping it up a difficulty level if your strategy works "too well".

The AI sometimes not expanding beyond capital needs to be looked at, I've seen this numerous games also.

 

[Disgustipated]

I still struggle with gold and happiness in the early game, so Shhh. We don't need Firaxis nerfing these things.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

While being a great expansion, I have noticed some things that I would like to point out and see if anyone else has noticed these and also do tell if you have noticed some other stuff related.

1. Happiness seems to be much easier to control the longer the game goes, with the combination of powerful policies like protectionism, humanism, order tree and religion + wonders like Eiffel Tower. I often had 40-70 happiness in Emperor all the while spamming colonies as Spain, just because I could.

2. I also seem to get consistently tons of gold after renaissance. In all my games I have gotten around 250 - 400 gold per turn on emperor and I'm not a master in this game. Is this a lot of gold or normal? Seems like a lot to me. Might just be my style since I usually go for commerce (but I don't spam trading posts, usually farms and mines and occassional trading post.

3. Also AI seems to lose a lot of ground the more the game progresses. I struggle in starts with challenging AI on emperor but on REN-IND I become too much of a economic powerhouse that the AI can't handle. I overwhelm them later on with my science, gpt and production. Can AI handle the late game well enough? Does it build factories asap and production boosting buildings? Or does it keep building mediocre units most of the game with low production and not utilize the gold well enough?

4. Some AIs seem to get totally paralyzed and won't even improve their capitals improvements such as stones and other. I captured Egypt's capital on Emperor and it was the saddes capital I've seen in a while, something that I expected to see in 2000 BC when in fact it was 800 AD.

A1 Much easier, and I am one who loves it!! Never liked the way my cities had artificial caps because of bad game design. Never in all my civ games have I ever had to stop growing!! So, yes it is easier, some hate it some love it!!
A2 Beginning of game is slow, but yes it picks up speed rapidly later. Religion is my cause.

A3 Some indeed never seem to get good troops, other do send some. No idea why, but a lot of people noticed this.

A4 No idea why either on this, some AI's lose focus, I think it is the AI's who lose settlers or really get hurt in the 1st 100 turns. They never seem to pick themsleves back up.


But rest assurred you are not the only one who sees these things.

 

[The_J]

[...]

Moderator Action: Merged into a similar thread.

 

[spider1]

Jesus H Columbus Christ, the maps suck with G&K. I don't know if it's just me and my bad luck, but these frigging maps that are so called Continents are horrible.

No matter, I'll play anyway. But the default maps suck. Don't even bother with the advanced set up, it's meaningless now.

 

[Buccaneer]

A1 Much easier, and I am one who loves it!! Never liked the way my cities had artificial caps because of bad game design. Never in all my civ games have I ever had to stop growing!! So, yes it is easier, some hate it some love it!!

Woohoo, another call for dumbing down the game to make it even easier. They need to serously take a look at the happiness boosts (as predicted) and nerf the heck out of it (or go back to the levels it was before). It becomes a better game when there are more challenges.

 

[zyx]

My first impressions:

Somehow expanding cultural borders seems more difficult than in vanilla. as you have to research an extra technology for getting amphitheaters. And Angor Wat is way too late.

I go liberty and traditon most often: liberty opener, then free worker, tradition opener, +2 production, 1 free settler and after I have four cities with monument I choose +1 cultural free building in your four cities.and then I choose the reduction on Sp costs and golden age.

I think the gattling gun coming with industrialisation is way too early - I like factories so I prefer that way - so cannons are pretty useless. Moreover well promoted xbows upgrading to gattling guns are much better then cannons. gattling guns should have -300% against cities.

I was impressed by Attila's ramms - when I conquered his city he took it back - but when I played as Attila I had difficult to bring them into position, they were killed before they could do any damage to the city.

I haven't play a game yet in which I "ignored" religion

I had a lot of crashes though - but Iit could be they were due to the heat.

 

[blackcatatonic]

This is by no means a first impression, but needs to be said nevertheless:

You can get Rocket Artillery before Cannon now. Really, Firaxis?

 

[headcase]

This is by no means a first impression, but needs to be said nevertheless:

You can get Rocket Artillery before Cannon now. Really, Firaxis?

It's like automobile before the wheel all over again

What interesting settings can you advise?

Shuffle!

Sure, you'll get an annoying map here and there, but usually it's very interesting to explore and build on

 

[Huaojozu]

You can get Rocket Artillery before Artillery too which seems... strange. You also can't upgrade your Trebuchets to Rocket Artillery unless you also have Cannons and Artillery :/ .

AI sometimes doesn't expand much or at all which I personally do not find to be a problem. I sometimes do not expand much or at all too, so why should the AI be forced to? Perhaps they are trying to play an easy-to-defend cultural game?

 

[McRoos]

Played as William on Emperor level.
Nearly lost in 2012 (!!) from the Danes who reached Alpha Centauri.
Tried to go for a cultural victory, but researched Globalization too late.
Had a chance though...

Impressions.
Better game, but the AI is still poorly forcused on one thing.
The Japanese always seem to have piles of gold while others are only able to win by domination.
Pitty.

Oh... can't enable the InfoAddict MOD. Did register the version for G&K, but it isn't available.
Why is that ?

 

[Naresh]

I loved civ 5. I love Gods and Kings. Of course it needs a tweak, the tech tree needs to get rid of stupidities (rocketry before cannons).
Early game happiness is hard to come by, stupidly abundant late game.

Love the leaders.

I wish religion and espionage were a tad more in depth...

Basically, I want more of the same thing

 

[Disgustipated]

Woohoo, another call for dumbing down the game to make it even easier. They need to serously take a look at the happiness boosts (as predicted) and nerf the heck out of it (or go back to the levels it was before). It becomes a better game when there are more challenges.

Not all of us are expert players. I struggle with happiness on Prince and above. How are you guys doing this?

Again it seems to me people are bragging how easy the game is to make it look like they are awesome players. Not everyone is doing that great on this game. I was good at Civ4, but I can't seem to get the hang of Civ5. I don't know why.

So how are you guys getting all this happiness? The ai won't sell me anything, I'm lucky to get 4 or 5 resources, after that, what do I do? My main problem is too many cities, and I just don't know how to correct happiness from # of cities. How many cities do you guys run?

 

[Disgustipated]

The real question that hasn't been answered in this thread is:

Can a spearman beat a tank in Gods and Kings?

It's mostly a rhetorical question, but I'm curious if anyone has seen it. I never see spearman when I have tanks (actually, I almost never build tanks since I never war that late).

I have noticed that more advanced units do seem to defeat obsolete units much easier than Civ5, unless it's my imagination. Maybe the increased hitpoints caused this.

 

[DemonMaster]

Not all of us are expert players. I struggle with happiness on Prince and above. How are you guys doing this?

Again it seems to me people are bragging how easy the game is to make it look like they are awesome players. Not everyone is doing that great on this game. I was good at Civ4, but I can't seem to get the hang of Civ5. I don't know why.

So how are you guys getting all this happiness? The ai won't sell me anything, I'm lucky to get 4 or 5 resources, after that, what do I do? My main problem is too many cities, and I just don't know how to correct happiness from # of cities. How many cities do you guys run?

They are probably selecting a happy generating religion, happy generating SP, happy generating wonders and so on for game after game after game and then also usually complaining that the game is boring.

I tested out that kind of playing style, but it felt a little bit ridiculous so now I am back to my normal, varying playing style.
And thanks to the religion system, the game has now become more versatile.

And yes, there are a lot of exaggerating posters in this (and other) forums these days. I have (now) learned to ignore them (... and this post?). I guess they impress each other if anyone.

 

[learner gamer]

How many cities do you guys run?

This is a great question actually. If the 3 youtube let’s plays I’ve watched and my own limited experience with Civ 5 are any guide, I’d suggest that the initial wave of expansion is likely to be no more than around four cities in many cases, depending on the map and game level of course. Each LP that I’ve seen (from quill18, Bibor and MadDjinn, covering prince - deity) has found that early game happiness becomes an issue at around this point. It’s also what I’ve noticed in the game I’m currently playing (at prince).

Of course, early SP’s and religious effects can add to happiness (and therefore the ability to REx early) but, IMHO, the key limiter is actually either that (i) happy caps are still a little low in the early game and / or (ii) there is a tendency for luxury resources to cluster on map scripts. The result of (ii) is of course that you can end up settling cities for multiple copies of the same luxury, which gives you less of a happy cap boost than you’d get if you could settle cities for different luxuries. IMHO, I think your earlier point re: happiness is actually spot on: early game happiness is still a little low (since good city sites can’t be settled without causing unhappiness) and needs raising a little. However, my initial impression (and it’s what I’ve seen in the LP’s) is that happiness is perhaps a little too abundant by the mid game.

 

[Naresh]

Typically you go for a spam rush of 4 cities with adequate defenses and then plan from there.

Four is the sweet spot number. Not high enough to make policy gain crippling, not low enough to make you too squishy a target for the AI

 

[PhilBowles]

Not all of us are expert players. I struggle with happiness on Prince and above. How are you guys doing this?

Again it seems to me people are bragging how easy the game is to make it look like they are awesome players. Not everyone is doing that great on this game. I was good at Civ4, but I can't seem to get the hang of Civ5. I don't know why.

So how are you guys getting all this happiness? The ai won't sell me anything, I'm lucky to get 4 or 5 resources, after that, what do I do? My main problem is too many cities, and I just don't know how to correct happiness from # of cities. How many cities do you guys run?

I'm currently on 18 happiness with 6 cities in 1515 (turn 200-and-something), mostly through trade with the Iroquois and Siamese. I have one or two mercantile CS allies, who with their unique resources and the way CS bonuses improve by era are an extremely good happiness generator (it's not uncommon for a single mercantile CS to be giving you 20 happiness by the Industrial era). AIs will usually trade resources, so make sure you settle multiple copies of a single resource. I play on Emperor and haven't yet needed to choose happiness religious beliefs, nor do I take the happy garrison policy any more. I also only usually need to build Colosseums in the late game.

I have noticed that more advanced units do seem to defeat obsolete units much easier than Civ5, unless it's my imagination. Maybe the increased hitpoints caused this.

In my current game my Swordsmen struggled even against Crossbowmen, even with a terrain advantage, and don't have a hope against pikes or knights - and they're not that much lower-tech. The fact that the AI is now almost always getting "adjacent unit" bonuses doesn't help.

 

[Buccaneer]

I haven't played on my usual level of Immortal yet but in my one game, there seems to be one extra luxury in a city mix than in vanilla (and in looking at other's screenshots), so that's +4 right there. Also, I keep # of cities low, as I always do and yet do have a puppet empire (which gives me more happiness than I lose). I think there were a few happiness SP in the mix, but I purposely did not choose any happiness beliefs, nor did I have the +10 happy wonder (ND?). As Demon Master said, there's all sorts of ways to get happiness, moreso than in vanilla. Whereas in vanilla, you stay between -3 to +4 happiness a good deal of the time; in GK, I think it's been bumped to +1 to +8. But my earlier comment had more to do with wanting constraints removed from the game (like happiness and enemies) so you can play Civ like a city-builder simulation instead of a strategy game. That's the direction they need to go the opposite of.