Pliped
Lurker in the Water
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2011
- Messages
- 186
First I wanted to say thank you to Rhye for letting me join in the play testing of this game and I hope I can provide useful feedback.
I've played a lot of Civ 4 Rhyse and Fall and appreciate my expectations and biases may need to adjust for the new reality of Civ 5.
I decided to try my first game on Prince Difficulty as China, a relatively early start with no expectation of collapse as newer civs come to fill my place.
I founded Bejing in place, I noticed that compared to prior versions there were now Marsh tiles to prevent settling by the coast (the otherwise obvious course of action) and decided to play a fairly straightforward game.
I also noticed Nanning the rebel china city in the middle, again an interesting addition as it gave me a focal point and opponent to focus on for the first 100 turns.
An archer and horseman flipped to me when spawning, this was interesting as on an aborted run I didnt get the horseman which I noticed later on (once I had linked the horse resource north east of Beijing) would become one my of strongest units against Barbs, a little bit of RNG in my favour.
It would take until turn 67 to take Nanjing with an army of two warriors and three archers, the central placement on Nanjing really discourages settling any more cities in central china especially on the coast, in hindsight I wonder whether another course of action would have been to raise Nanjing and use settlers to build cities further north on the river mouth (to secure Nanjing's dyes & rice as well as silk on the other side of the bay) and another city on the southern river mouth (for Nanjing's silks, sugar and marble). I also ran into happiness problems due to the occupied city pop which it was difficult to do anything about in the early game.
By turn 100 below I still had only 2 cities (total 5 pop), had only managed to research two techs (pottery and ceremonial burial) and was concerned with my deficit and happiness. In my notes I noticed that the game felt slow, especially from a tech perspective as I was unlocking cultural policies as a more conventional rate while city growth was far lower (I suspect due to the grassland nerf laid out by Rhye). My main focus was on taking out Barb camps for unit exp and the gold bonus. I had sent out units to explore in the south and find any natural wonders (mainly for happiness boost).
Techs I desperately needed:
Writing to kickstart research with the paper makers (as well as the +2 gold)
Calendar: all local resources required plantations without which I was struggling with gold and happiness. This included Rice which was a departure from Civ 4, somewhat of a surprise to me but I assume this was for balance reasons? I also noticed rice didnt boost the Granary again I assume this is due to rice being added for the Mod and either being overlooked or not intended to boost the Granary. I do wonder if this has been explored as it would make rice a focus in the early game for growth.
Annoyingly my screenshots stopped working or didn't save I dont have much to illustrate my next set of notes
Finished liberty in turn 112, chose a great scientist and settled south east of Beijing, this 8 science went a long way to speeding up Tech progess and Im no sure what I would have done without it.
Met Ghandi/India around turn 115 I noticed the embassy tooltip refers to writing although embassies have been moved to Code of Laws. I was able to maintain my deficit spending by offloading some horses to him for gold, this is classic Civ 5 behaviour but did feel slightly like i was taking advantage of the AI overvaluing something I had no use for.
Turn 120: settled 3rd city Guangzhou to secure southern crabs, pearls and tea. It would take some time before I had research fishing though but once I had these resources pulled me out of the happiness hole I had slipped into. I also founded my Pantheon selecting Oral Rites to take advantage of the plantations I would be building. With regards to religion Egypt had founded Islam (I missed when in my notes) and I assume rushing through piety had reformed it, by turn 114 they had already enhanced Islam. India did not found Hinduism until turn 126 but had reformed it by turn 170. By turn 200 I think maybe 5 pantheons had been founded but would need to check.
Turn 150: I had built a trireme to explore the coasts, I had also built the Temple of Artemis and Great Library in Beijing, I noticed the AI did not seem super rushed to build wonders as only Stonehenge had been built elsewhere (although this would speed up with Pyramids and terracotta army being built by turn 200). Note: Have Pyramids and the Mausoleum effects been swapped? And how does this work with liberty unlocking the Pyramids? (according to the tooltip, not actually tested this yet).
Turn 200, Korea spawned turn 190 and Japan spawned this turn as well. I had a chance to take out Koreas 2nd settler on the site of Pyongyang but decided against trying to strangle them in their cradle so I had a better idea of how a game would play out.
I founded Guiyang on turn 184 to secure south west China and gain access to Spices, if able to settle on Jungle I probably would have gone one more South East to potentially get the Ivory. I still have yet to complete my first road connection and have only just finished Construction Tech. Beijing is building a settler and I am looking to colonise the Philippines for my next city. Despite feeling like I am researching extremely slowly I have joint top Tech score with 15 technologies.
I plan on posting another update once I have got through some more of the game, if there are any questions please let me know, I also will post a state of the world at turn 200 when I get a chance.
I've played a lot of Civ 4 Rhyse and Fall and appreciate my expectations and biases may need to adjust for the new reality of Civ 5.
I decided to try my first game on Prince Difficulty as China, a relatively early start with no expectation of collapse as newer civs come to fill my place.
I founded Bejing in place, I noticed that compared to prior versions there were now Marsh tiles to prevent settling by the coast (the otherwise obvious course of action) and decided to play a fairly straightforward game.
I also noticed Nanning the rebel china city in the middle, again an interesting addition as it gave me a focal point and opponent to focus on for the first 100 turns.
An archer and horseman flipped to me when spawning, this was interesting as on an aborted run I didnt get the horseman which I noticed later on (once I had linked the horse resource north east of Beijing) would become one my of strongest units against Barbs, a little bit of RNG in my favour.
It would take until turn 67 to take Nanjing with an army of two warriors and three archers, the central placement on Nanjing really discourages settling any more cities in central china especially on the coast, in hindsight I wonder whether another course of action would have been to raise Nanjing and use settlers to build cities further north on the river mouth (to secure Nanjing's dyes & rice as well as silk on the other side of the bay) and another city on the southern river mouth (for Nanjing's silks, sugar and marble). I also ran into happiness problems due to the occupied city pop which it was difficult to do anything about in the early game.
By turn 100 below I still had only 2 cities (total 5 pop), had only managed to research two techs (pottery and ceremonial burial) and was concerned with my deficit and happiness. In my notes I noticed that the game felt slow, especially from a tech perspective as I was unlocking cultural policies as a more conventional rate while city growth was far lower (I suspect due to the grassland nerf laid out by Rhye). My main focus was on taking out Barb camps for unit exp and the gold bonus. I had sent out units to explore in the south and find any natural wonders (mainly for happiness boost).
Techs I desperately needed:
Writing to kickstart research with the paper makers (as well as the +2 gold)
Calendar: all local resources required plantations without which I was struggling with gold and happiness. This included Rice which was a departure from Civ 4, somewhat of a surprise to me but I assume this was for balance reasons? I also noticed rice didnt boost the Granary again I assume this is due to rice being added for the Mod and either being overlooked or not intended to boost the Granary. I do wonder if this has been explored as it would make rice a focus in the early game for growth.
Annoyingly my screenshots stopped working or didn't save I dont have much to illustrate my next set of notes
Finished liberty in turn 112, chose a great scientist and settled south east of Beijing, this 8 science went a long way to speeding up Tech progess and Im no sure what I would have done without it.
Met Ghandi/India around turn 115 I noticed the embassy tooltip refers to writing although embassies have been moved to Code of Laws. I was able to maintain my deficit spending by offloading some horses to him for gold, this is classic Civ 5 behaviour but did feel slightly like i was taking advantage of the AI overvaluing something I had no use for.
Turn 120: settled 3rd city Guangzhou to secure southern crabs, pearls and tea. It would take some time before I had research fishing though but once I had these resources pulled me out of the happiness hole I had slipped into. I also founded my Pantheon selecting Oral Rites to take advantage of the plantations I would be building. With regards to religion Egypt had founded Islam (I missed when in my notes) and I assume rushing through piety had reformed it, by turn 114 they had already enhanced Islam. India did not found Hinduism until turn 126 but had reformed it by turn 170. By turn 200 I think maybe 5 pantheons had been founded but would need to check.
Turn 150: I had built a trireme to explore the coasts, I had also built the Temple of Artemis and Great Library in Beijing, I noticed the AI did not seem super rushed to build wonders as only Stonehenge had been built elsewhere (although this would speed up with Pyramids and terracotta army being built by turn 200). Note: Have Pyramids and the Mausoleum effects been swapped? And how does this work with liberty unlocking the Pyramids? (according to the tooltip, not actually tested this yet).
Turn 200, Korea spawned turn 190 and Japan spawned this turn as well. I had a chance to take out Koreas 2nd settler on the site of Pyongyang but decided against trying to strangle them in their cradle so I had a better idea of how a game would play out.
I founded Guiyang on turn 184 to secure south west China and gain access to Spices, if able to settle on Jungle I probably would have gone one more South East to potentially get the Ivory. I still have yet to complete my first road connection and have only just finished Construction Tech. Beijing is building a settler and I am looking to colonise the Philippines for my next city. Despite feeling like I am researching extremely slowly I have joint top Tech score with 15 technologies.
I plan on posting another update once I have got through some more of the game, if there are any questions please let me know, I also will post a state of the world at turn 200 when I get a chance.
