A bunch of noob questions - help please

[Carassius]

I am new to Civ 5 -- and more than a little confused at some of the changes.

1) Has anyone posted a summary of the differences between 4 and 5?

2) Optimum number of cities? I am struggling at Prince level to keep my empire happy, financially solvent, and strong enough to scare off predators. Three cities seems to be the max. How do you dominate the world when you can't afford to keep a fourth or fifth city?

3) Lumbermills used to be pretty powerful. Are they just pathetic now? -- or am I missing something?

4) Last question for today : I just met Monty -- any more nightmarish surprises?

Thanks for any help!

 

[PhilBowles]

1. Not that I'm aware of .

2. Civ V is designed around making this variable depending on strategy, rather than the 'more is always better' approach of older games. So your victory condition and choice of civ is going to partly affect the answer to this; in particular culture victories become harder as you expand, because the cost of social policies goes up (there's even an achievement for winning a cultural victory with only three cities). I don't aim for any optimal number, I just base it on when I can afford to expand based on happiness - I usually end up with 6+ cities, plus any conquests I keep. Your economy actually benefits from expanding, since cities add gold and trade routes between them can be profitable, so on three cities you may well struggle both economically and in terms of unit production.

Trading resources is very important to keep happiness levels up, since you will more often have duplicates of several resources than lots of individual luxuries. Social policies are also critical in determining how your empire fares in different spheres, moreso than you'll remember civics being in Civ IV.

3. Every version of Civ changes what's good and what's not so good. I actually use lumbermills a lot, since they're the only way other than trading posts of developing forest tiles without removing the forest, and there are no longer very many production improvements (as water mills, workshops and windmills are now all buildings). Why haven't you found them useful?

4. Why is this a 'nightmarish surprise'? If you're worried about the types of units each civ gets (and Jaguars are indeed pretty strong), as ever that's in the Civ selection page or the Civilopedia. One thing I find it can be good to watch for is the risk of war with the Japanese - the AI is generally very bad at combat, but the Bushido ability actually rewards the way it tends to play (throwing damaged units at cities and the like), and I've found that cities attacked by the Japanese can be hard to hold.

 

[Nevyn]

As for number of cities; What I think Civ V did good was to balance the game in 'tall' vs 'wide'. I've been a civ addict sinse Civ I, but what even Beyond the Sword suffered from was the simple fact that once one civ got an edge in size, it would just grow exponentially larger than the others. The Civ4 graphs always looked the same. A few civs struggling at the bottom, a third place civ growing steady, a second place civ growing exponentially even faster and then (most often you) growing even faster still. Once you got your snowball effect rolling, no-one could surpass you.

As for a good tall strategy, this is how I dance (Milage may differ):

I restart the game many times until I find myself near a river and are very happy if I can find a good place with a mountin for city number 2.

City 2 will be my science city and as both will be huge, I will place it 3 + 3 tiles away from my capital if I can.

Capital will build:
- Scout
- Worker (build farms near the river and at least one mine)
- Scout
- Settler
- Pyramids (two faster workers - yes!)

Capital will then balance good-to-have-buildings with more wonders. Stonehenge and Great Wall have been debated if they are of much use, and I say yes. With all three of them you are +3 in engineering points very early in the game. A manufacture at +6 and later +7 hammers are pretty neat if you are going to build many wonders.

Science city will stampede for Great Library and National Collage and just totally go for science. Hanging Gardens are also good for your second city. Get those specialists into your University. Build that Public School! If you can place that city near a mountin your Observatory will boost all that science with 50% later in the game.

You will also want to research civil service early to get that extra food from farms on rivers. Growing is essential if you want to have few cities.

As for social policies this is my take:
- Unlock Tradition.
- Unlock Honor (+6 culture for each barb killed. You don't erradicate barbs, you milk them for culture)
- Finish all policies in Tradition.
- Unlock Piety
- Pick only the one that converts happiness to culture.
- Unlock Patronage and start picking from here. Buy city states after a few of theese.
- When science is going fine switch from piety to rationalism.


I will also found city number 3 as soon as my happiness and finances allows me too. Usually near an ocean so I have a navy later in the game.

And where do I go from here?

Well, it depends on where the Coal, Aluminium and Uranium is. But as these resources will hardly turn up inside my small empire, guess that means war. With a high focus on science; having Gandhi go on a killing spree with artillery and riflemen against medevial troops is pretty fun. However, if you still want a cultural victory you must stay at perhaps 5-7 really great cities, any other spoils of war should be puppets.

 

[Carassius]

I "remember" lumbermills adding a lot of production -- now it is just +1.

The nightmarish quality of Monty refers to the first time I saw his animation. I haven't met all the toons in the game yet, but I am hoping that none look scarier.

 

[PhilBowles]

I "remember" lumbermills adding a lot of production -- now it is just +1.

The nightmarish quality of Monty refers to the first time I saw his animation. I haven't met all the toons in the game yet, but I am hoping that none look scarier.

You might want to avoid Askia... Oda looks pretty harsh as well.

Lumbermills used to add +1, which improved over time as technologies advanced (or was that workshops?) All tiles provide less basic production in Civ V, I presume largely because you can work more of them rather than just the tiles in your city radius. Trading posts add +1 gold, and don't grow into towns that produce more as villages did in Civ IV. In the context of the new game, lumbermills are a good improvement - as I say, they're your only option for increasing tile production in non-mineable terrain.

 

[Ranos]

1) Probably not.

2) The main problem with city expansion is the global happiness Civ V uses. To continue to expand, you need to develope the luxury resources in your capital and found new cities near different luxuries if possible and if not, near the same ones you already have allowing you to trade them to other civs for resources they have. (Unlike Civ 4, the AI will accept a 1 for 1 trade as long as they are friendly toward you)

You also need to make sure you are building Happiness buildings - Coloseum, Circus (if you have Horses or Ivory), Stone Works (if you have Stone), etc. Also complete one Policy tree at a time since every tree has at least one policy that increases happiness.

If you can save up enough gold, you can also become allies with City States. Every CS will have a luxury resource within their borders and there are usually two luxuries that you can only get from a CS.

Part of the problem might also be that you are trying to expand too quickly. In Civ 4, you could build cities as fast as you could pump out Settlers. Civ 5 doesn't work the same way. You need to grow your first city a bit (but not too much) and then build the second. Grow that one a bit too and then build the third when you have enough excess happiness.

Check out the War Academy for some more information on some of this stuff.

3) They aren't as good as they were in Civ 4. Iirc, in 4 they gave you +2 right away, another +1 with a renaissance tech and another +1 with an Industrial tech. In 5, they only give you +1 right away and another +1 later. While this might seem a bit bad, it really isn't. Mines also only give +1 with another +1 later. You don't need as much production as you did in Civ 4 to build things so none of this is a problem really.

And as has been said, since you can no longer build workshops, watermills or windmills all over the place, Lumbermills are the only way other than mines to increase your production.

4) Monty is the worst I think. Some of the others are a bit freaky but Monty is the most psycho. He also acts the way he looks.

Good luck!