hi all :)

[david1806]

Hi all.....
Just wanted to say hi and ask a couple of questions if I may. I haven't used this forum for a looong time!
Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I am loving the latest incarnation of this great game. I'm sorry to say I'm old enough to have bought the original Civ....when it was released - and I wasn't particularly young then!
What's the general consensus on Civ 5? Are people liking it? Hating it? Still preferring Civ 2!? I loved Civ 4 & 2, disappointed with 3 though.
Couple of quick questions. Am I being dumb, or is there really nowhere to find what resources you have/using? I noticed in the patch a button is being added to the UI, but is there nothing now? Also, how do you become an ally of a city-state? Thanks in advance.
Cheers!
David

 

[Save_Ferris]

To ally a City-State, click on its name and gift at least 1000 gold to ally it.

 

[Camikaze]

You can find out what strategic resources you have as they are displayed in the top bar. I haven't looked at the game post-patch yet, but I'm fairly sure prepatch at least hovering over the happiness icon allowed you to see what luxury resources you had.

 

[ButSam]

It does not normally take 1000 gold to ally a city-state. Normally it is around 500 gold to go from nothing to ally, assuming someone else isn't that city-state's ally already. There are basically 3 different types of city-states: militaristic (give units), cultural (give culture boost), and food (give food to capitol and possibly other cities if allied). There are also different types of demands and moods. Aggressive (I think that's what it is called in-game) decay somewhat faster than the other personalities. If you want to pursue a city-state-based strategy, check out the Patronage policies (and make it a priority to get in the Medieval era as quick as you can as well to unlock the Patronage policy track) to really help it be a lot more viable. They help most directly with the diplomatic victory, since allied city-states are each 1 vote for you. They help the least with the militaristic victory, although they will go to war with your enemies if you are allied to them.

Hope that helps! Have fun with the city-states, they add quite a bit to the game, despite being rather simplistic right now.

 

[NicTeos]

one way to judge civ 5 is by the amazon ratings.

( amazon.de )
civ 5 - avg 2,5 star
civ 4 - avg 4 star,

if you really liked civ4, you may have problems to love civ 5.

 

[bryanw1995]

hostile is the CS trait that makes your influence with them deteriorate more rapidly. As mentioned, patronage is very valuable if you intend to use CS's in your game. That first policy takes influence decay down 25%, so on standard speed you go from -1 to -.75 per turn for most CS's, and even hostiles drop from -1.5 to -1.12 per turn. Philanthropy is ok b/c it increases your benefit from gold gifted to a CS, but scholasticism is unbelievable. Puppet empire = lots of gold and not much growth, right? use all that gold to buy up the city states, then literally double your science with scholasticism. The only time this isn't a slam-dunk victory method is on deity, or perhaps immortal if you have alex or ramchkakakwhacka as a top rival.

@nicteos: civ 4 vanilla is actually 3.0 on amazon. I got into a very long and drawn out argument a few months ago here about civ 5 vs 4 on amazon (possibly with lschnarch though I don't remember now if it was him or another user) so I started actually charting/watching more closely the ratings. civ 5 has gone up .05 ratings points in 2 months, so it's not likely to get up to the civ4 vanilla levels, but this follows a remarkably similar trajectory to what civ 4 had. ie, at first lots of people complained that it was too: simple, hard, basic, stupid ai, etc etc etc. patches came out, they fixed some things and broke others, though they have gradually improved the game. now that it's been patched up, many of the true civ 4 fanatics (of which I was definitely one) still don't like the basic game nearly as much as civ 5, but they don't hate it at all. I suspect that if every person who posted a score to amazon were allowed to re-vote, it would be closer to 3.0-3.5 now. Civ 4 was/is my favorite game of all time, but I currently enjoy playing civ 5 more (5 years is a long time...). I think that a more accurate indicator of user enjoyment for civ5 is "What was your level in civ4?". Civ 5 is generally 1.5-2 levels easier than civ 4 was, so if you played at emperor or below then you'll probably enjoy civ 5 a lot, and for a long time. If you always played immortal or deity then civ 5 will probably need mods to keep your interest. Just don't be afraid to quickly scale your playing up to the higher difficulty levels.

 

[Keejus]

I think hostile city states also generally are more powerful militarily than others, to make up for the increased difficulty of allying them

 

[jagdtigerciv]

To see your resources in the new patch, go to the tip right of the screen, where, by default, it will show what technology you are currently researching.

Click the silver(ish) beaker icon, this will take down a menu for units, science, etc. Click on the icon with two Fishes (resources).

It will display all of your resources.

 

[Save_Ferris]

one way to judge civ 5 is by the amazon ratings.

( amazon.de )
civ 5 - avg 2,5 star
civ 4 - avg 4 star,

if you really liked civ4, you may have problems to love civ 5.

Well, he loved both. So did I.

 

[david1806]

wow, thanks all!!
@jagdtigerciv - yep I'll look for that when its patched, i was just wondering if there was anything like that pre-patch.

 

[ButSam]

Great observations, bryan! I agree on most of them. I would add, if you find the military-handling in Civ IV cumbersome, you are more likely to like Civ V than if you didn't have problems with the military handling in Civ IV.

Civ 5 is generally 1.5-2 levels easier than civ 4 was, so if you played at emperor or below then you'll probably enjoy civ 5 a lot, and for a long time.

I actually would say Civ 5 is perhaps 0.5 levels easier. The key is they have one fewer difficulty level total, and in nomenclature they took it away from the middle (no more Noble), so Prince is the new Noble as far as difficulty level number. Minor nitpick, but if you play below what is the new Prince it is important.

Let me also add, city-states have 4 levels: hostile, neutral, friend, or ally. Tendency is to return toward neutral without any interaction. They can have any number of friends, which give a small bonus, but only one ally, which gives a larger bonus, plus the UN vote.

I recommend the first game where you want to take city-states seriously, try being Alexander and getting Patronage track. It'll show you the power of city-states.