Civ V is a game about evolutionary growth

[CrimsonEdge]

50% build time on Settlers isn't a big deal in a game where it appears that four cities is probably your best road to victory, having the best culture production to culture inflation ratio.

Those luxery resources are not that common even on abundant settings. I played a game last night where I only had access to two well into AD.

Keeping city states in the green requires a lot of work and isn't some instant gratification. You need a continual influx of gold to keep them happy and producing for you.

This game is quite slow and organic compared to previous civs, it's also A LOT deeper than people realize.

Yep.

Pump the difficulty if you're finding choices to be arbitrary. I guarantee that they are no longer arbitrary if you increase your difficulty up to where you should be playing.

 

[Inspiration]

But in an organic game like this, isn't it also increasingly difficult to make up for previous bad (or not so efficient) decisions? Once you are behind, there is no quick tech, wonder or unit that could get you back up in front again.

Luckily there is a horsehockey AI in both combat as well as diplomacy to level this out I guess.