Civ V Beta 1

[Igmod]

By turn 135, I had all 8 CS allied..

Man how do you guys have so much gold. I am trading everything I can away to the AI but can't scratch enough to have more than 2 or 3 CSs at that point.

In a related question, is it better to go Allied with one civ or Friend two?

 

[Xger]

Well you have to take CSs into account also dont you?
So your new city have to account for 30/23 % of you total culture gain, including that from CSs.

Example, if i have a game where my capital gains 100 culture and i get another 100 culture from CSs a new city have to gain almost 66 culture.
Also this adds up over time. Say late in the game you gain 200 culture from CSs and 200 from your capital+puppets. At this point if your second city isnt producing some 133 culture the city aint worth it culturewise.

At higher levels you might not be able to just stick with 1 city, but i cant see how a second city would ever be able to keep up with the rest of your empires culture gain.

It would be quite difficult in most situations to justify the second city. If you are saving up culture, it would most likely never be worth it. But if you are taking each policy as it comes, the second city would just need to instantly (and then maintain) be 23% of your total CPT. To calculate the exact needed (you are unlikely to have an instant wonder for 100% extra) in most cases would be difficult.

Overall, I think the situations where getting the 2nd city being beneficual would be extremely rare, but I wouldn't say they don't exist at all.

 

[Ozbenno]

Well about a day to go and we currently are on 97 entries!! If you're planning an entry hurry on up.

 

[erajah]

Man how do you guys have so much gold. I am trading everything I can away to the AI but can't scratch enough to have more than 2 or 3 CSs at that point.

In a related question, is it better to go Allied with one civ or Friend two?

I played that game (the first 206 turns anyway) before the patch came out. So every luxury I hook up is pretty much worth about 8-10 gpt (240-300 gold for 30 turns). I found that on prince, the limiting factor was usually your opponents having that much gold to trade, but I got lucky with some of the opponents staying in peace mode and having loads of gold.

I haven't played much post patch, but in a cultural game, there's not too much to do with your gold -- all your puppets should be generating a lot of gold, and the only thing remaining is to spend on your capital and buying CS.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I must admit it was fun to play, although Civ V has serious game balance issues. The shift to a Panzer General II type military system (one unit per hex and healthy units can usually survive an attack) was a positive step for the player to use tactics more effectively, but the AIs are pathetic in both military offense and defense. The Social Policy system works well (Most Social Policies can be effective simultaneously), but I'm still not sure what half of them do (primarily those I didn't use in this game). I've got more complaints about the poor data reporting in the Game, especially inconsistencies in the Hammer rate and turns to complete (multiplying them together doesn't match the Hammers remaining in a build).

My goal in this Game was to learn the new Civilization Game System, so my Result (Turn 374 AD 1954 Win) falls far short of the best Results. I settled a second City without knowing this would increase the Culture needed for additional Social Policies. I took control of a Puppet on the coast so I could build a Caravel (embarked units with radius 1 visibility would take longer to find the other continent), so I ended up with 3 Cities. (One city would be better and using embarked units to find the other continent would be OK or just found the Capital on the coast.)

It is frustrating that the best way to win a Cultural Victory in Civilization V is placating the City States and conquering the other Civilizations, including all Capitals except one to avoid the new (trivial) Domination Victory. Using military units offensively to conquer the world in a Cultural Victory should be considered an Exploit far more exploitative that saving Culture and selling/giving/delayed razing of Cities to reduce Social Policy Culture costs.

Result - Turn 374 AD 1954 Win: See attached files below.

Sun Tzu Wu
.

 

[Ozbenno]

Well the first Civ V Beta Gauntlet is now closed.

98 brave souls set out on an Arabian cultural mission but there can be only one winner (and only one 98th place for that matter ).

Civ V Beta 1: Culture, Arabia, Standard, Normal with Arabia
1st youralex 1535
2nd erajah 1545
3rd Neuro 1555

Good work youralex and thanks for everyone who took part in the discussions

 

[youralex]

Good work youralex and thanks for everyone who took part in the discussions

Actually, good work everybody
Especially pagh80, his posts were of great help to me, i was just a good learner
It's a pity he is not among the top3... but I think he will win G2, i can smell it already

 

[pagh80]

congrats on the victory youralex.
I have been wanting to try another culture game and then focus more on GAs like you did, to test it out.
I guess during this gauntlet everyone but you have underestimated their real power, because i was really surprised that you could keep up with only 2 CSs.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

The results so far...

...

64 Sun Tzu Wu 1953

My Win was turn 274 / AD 1954.

Why not list the Win turn rather than year? Nothing in Civ 5 is based on years as far as I can tell. In Civ 4 at least the year was meaningful to the Game as Culture per turn for culture buildings and Wonders would double after a Millennium.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Ozbenno]

My Win was turn 274 / AD 1954.

My mistake, corrected

Why not list the Win turn rather than year? Nothing in Civ 5 is based on years as far as I can tell. In Civ 4 at least the year was meaningful to the Game as Culture per turn for culture buildings and Wonders would double after a Millennium.

This has come up a couple of times, we are looking into what is the best way to display entries.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Here's the link to the post where Neuro described his Game and posted his starting and final game saves:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9751008&postcount=380

The error message I get after waiting for the file to load is attached below.

I'm using the standard DVD version of Civilization V, updated to version 1.0.0.621 via Steam.

Did anyone else have trouble loading these save files?

Sun Tzu Wu
.

 

[Ozbenno]

Can't access the saves from work but have you tried this tool that was to stop crashes between deluxe and standard versions.

 

[Neuro]

Here's the link to the post where Neuro described his Game and posted his starting and final game saves:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9751008&postcount=380

The error message I get after waiting for the file to load is attached below.

I'm using the standard DVD version of Civilization V, updated to version 1.0.0.621 via Steam.

Did anyone else have trouble loading these save files?

Sun Tzu Wu
.

I'm using the Deluxe version, and Babylon was one of the AI civs that game, so that might be the issue.

 

[Xicivilian]

I think so, because I also had issues with it. And the tool did not help.
So it should be good now, with the new DLC!

 

[erajah]

congrats on the victory youralex.
I have been wanting to try another culture game and then focus more on GAs like you did, to test it out.
I guess during this gauntlet everyone but you have underestimated their real power, because i was really surprised that you could keep up with only 2 CSs.

First, congratz to youralex!

Second, I agree with pagh80 here -- I don't understand why CiV stripped out so many of the statistical features that were in Civ4. I would've loved to see a Culture Per Turn graph for youralex's victory (and even my own games).

 

[Igmod]

I just wanted to say thanks to Pagh80 and others that shared so many valuable tips. I did not submit my games but I learned a great deal from the discussion in this thread. Now on to Beta 2!.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Can't access the saves from work but have you tried this tool that was to stop crashes between deluxe and standard versions.

No, the script is not able to convert the save files into a form Civ Std 1.0.0.621 can read without aborting. You can see progress of conversion attempts in the above quoted thread.

Thanks for your assistance, Ozbenno. This simply seems to be a case where Take 2 really screwed up. There's no excuse for such utter blunders. At the very least, Civ V should not crash when reading a valid Game Save file, or even an invalid Game Save file for that matter. It should also report what is wrong with the Game Save file, like requires Deluxe Civ 5 to load a game containing Babylon or other DLC Civs. It should also tell you what you need to do to load the Game Save file, like telling you how to get the Babylon DLC Civ.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Jeddius]

Just a question to clarify things...I have been wondering how to load/view the files that are being posted on this thread. I thought you were supposed to use Cow's replay viewer...but it sounds like you just load those files and view them through the game?

Sorry to sound like a noob...

Thanks,

Jed

 

[Ozbenno]

Just a question to clarify things...I have been wondering how to load/view the files that are being posted on this thread. I thought you were supposed to use Cow's replay viewer...but it sounds like you just load those files and view them through the game?

You should be able to just load them from the main menu of the game. Some saves are generated from the deluxe version and have Babylon included so might not be able to be opened by you, but most should.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

You should be able to just load them from the main menu of the game. Some saves are generated from the deluxe version and have Babylon included so might not be able to be opened by you, but most should.

Correct. Civ V will not load a Game that contains a Civ (either Player or Opponent) that the Game lacks. For example, if you have the Standard Civ V Game without DLC Babylon Civ, you will not be able to load a Game that contains DLC Babylon Civ. In fact, as of Civ V patch 1.0.0.621, not only does the load fail, it hangs the Game and you may need Task Manager to kill it; Civ V should at least gracefully fail to load a Game when your Game lacks a Civ in it and it should tell you the reason it failed (Missing Civ X). These are all very basic things that all professional software developers should do, but the Civ V developers somehow forgot to do them or worst were told to finish some bell or whistle instead by their management.

Sun Tzu Wu