Civilization 5 Rants Thread

[pilot00]

From my experience, yes, this does the trick when you're on your last unit. As for why it's an issue, that's a good question.

Good luck finding the last unit to move when fighting on three fronts and on two different continents though

 

[Sync]

Still waiting for the 'most moddable civ ever'. Was the reason why I bought it, and the game failed to deliver.

 

[CivFan22]

Nah, I'm very happy with Civ V. The only thing I would have added was the ability to make vassal states, but I think the world congress has that covered. It will add dialog between civilizations that I felt was much needed. For not everyone wants to get in heated wars. It be a great way to prevent ugly wars.

On the whole I just hope the mechanics are adjusted so all the civs can expand healthily and win. But I'm sure they are hard at work on that. Though only thing that truly disgusts me is The lack of Italy... But I've already expressed myself on that one. Never the less, Brave New World looks like it will be awesome!

 

[Sincro]

Since I didn't want to make a thread for a whiney in-game rant...

Playing prince level, using the laptop so I can't play big maps, thus a 4-civ map, 8 CS, using babylon. Opponents are Alex, Oda, Sule. I have crappy land near the cap, but I'm still able to get a size 10 city with 3 GS planted, skipped GL (which ended up going to Oda on turn 200...) and went for NC yadda yadda yadda. Attack greece first, take an outlying city then his cap no prob, make peace, purge his holy city, and send my semi-promoted units up towards Oda. Halfway there but before I dow him, Oda finishes the Great Wall. I didn't think much of it at the time, but that one thing caused all the rest of the problems. I normally build the GW as a denial wonder, and after this experience, I'll never skip doing it ever again.

My forces: 9 crossbows, 3 swords, 2 pikes, 2 great generals. No horse units, cause neither Alex's nor my territory had any horses. His forces: exposed capital with 3 tiles of culture depth, 2 outlying pikes, and a single comp bowman forted in the city.

I open by killing both pikes then positioning my units so 6 CB will enter bombard range at once. GG on both sides to support everyone. Next turn we move in, but none of my CBs can shoot yet due to GW. He kills a CB outright and damages another with what is probably a bought treb that appeared the previous turn. Move swords adjacent, 4 CBs fire, retreat wounded CB, move 2 spare CBs into position, one is able to shoot immediately, the other needs one more turn. He kills another CB outright, badly wounds another with the treb. I check with the swords, they'll do like 12 points of damage in return for being taken down about 60 hp. I hold off cause I have to have one alive to take the city. I elect to not retreat, and 5 CBs, including the wounded one, fire. The city is now at about half health. Next turn he kills the wounded cb and also kills another fresh one. Now I only have 5 left, the city is back to nearly 70% health and I can see there's no way this is going to work in my favor, so I broker a peace deal.

I don't even know what I could have done differently. He got no unit help from other cities. I actually thought I had super overkill. Rebuild and take some cover promos for the CBs? I kept hoping he'd shoot at the swords, because they can at least take a round of fire before being killed, but he totally ignored em. I've honestly never seen anything like that before.

-S

 

[Aristos]

Since I didn't want to make a thread for a whiney in-game rant...

Playing prince level, using the laptop so I can't play big maps, thus a 4-civ map, 8 CS, using babylon. Opponents are Alex, Oda, Sule. I have crappy land near the cap, but I'm still able to get a size 10 city with 3 GS planted, skipped GL (which ended up going to Oda on turn 200...) and went for NC yadda yadda yadda. Attack greece first, take an outlying city then his cap no prob, make peace, purge his holy city, and send my semi-promoted units up towards Oda. Halfway there but before I dow him, Oda finishes the Great Wall. I didn't think much of it at the time, but that one thing caused all the rest of the problems. I normally build the GW as a denial wonder, and after this experience, I'll never skip doing it ever again.

My forces: 9 crossbows, 3 swords, 2 pikes, 2 great generals. No horse units, cause neither Alex's nor my territory had any horses. His forces: exposed capital with 3 tiles of culture depth, 2 outlying pikes, and a single comp bowman forted in the city.

I open by killing both pikes then positioning my units so 6 CB will enter bombard range at once. GG on both sides to support everyone. Next turn we move in, but none of my CBs can shoot yet due to GW. He kills a CB outright and damages another with what is probably a bought treb that appeared the previous turn. Move swords adjacent, 4 CBs fire, retreat wounded CB, move 2 spare CBs into position, one is able to shoot immediately, the other needs one more turn. He kills another CB outright, badly wounds another with the treb. I check with the swords, they'll do like 12 points of damage in return for being taken down about 60 hp. I hold off cause I have to have one alive to take the city. I elect to not retreat, and 5 CBs, including the wounded one, fire. The city is now at about half health. Next turn he kills the wounded cb and also kills another fresh one. Now I only have 5 left, the city is back to nearly 70% health and I can see there's no way this is going to work in my favor, so I broker a peace deal.

I don't even know what I could have done differently. He got no unit help from other cities. I actually thought I had super overkill. Rebuild and take some cover promos for the CBs? I kept hoping he'd shoot at the swords, because they can at least take a round of fire before being killed, but he totally ignored em. I've honestly never seen anything like that before.

-S

I am one of the ranters of the early hour, but:

How is this a rant? If the AI played like that, you should be happy. Kudos to the AI for doing what it had to do to defeat your invading army. In fact, we have to accept that this claim here is, when turned upside down, one of our complaints against the AI (that we can hold an entire army with a city and one ranged unit inside). Well, as this example shows, it's not that easy even for a human.

 

[Ygorl]

I've gotten to the point where playing on Emperor difficulty feels trivial. Deity requires more optimization than I'm usually willing to invest in the game (and gives little wiggle room for fooling around). Immortal feels right (and I've enjoyed many happy victories and my share of demoralizing defeats on this level).

HOWEVER...

It feels like the only way to win is to build a big army, lots of cities, and expand rapidly and aggressively. If I don't do this (or even if I do) there are always 1-2 AI nations that just roll over their neighbors. Seems like there's no way to compete as a nation focused on culture, technology, etc. with a computer player that has swallowed up its five nearest neighbors and is therefore going to either steamroll me or out-tech me.

Are there diplomatic tricks that I can play to keep one bully from overwhelming all its neighbors? Am I just bad at playing non-expansionist strategies, and if I were better I'd be able to compete? Is my complaint only happening because I'm playing an epic-pace game? I can imagine conquest being slower relative to progress on normal pace, but I feel like it takes so long just to fill in the world at that speed.

Note that when I say non-expansionist, I'm not talking dogmatically... E.g. my current game I started as India on a fairly small but resource-rich continent with four other civs (on the biggest map size). I thought, "Hey! Great! I'll go for a cultural victory!" Quickly built four cities in beautiful locations, they were developing into a happy and cultured nation... Then the Celts attacked me. I fought them off, and as the balance of war shifted in my direction, Siam engulfed the Celts, wiping them out entirely. Then China attacked me. Same story, except Siam only took maybe half of China's territory. Then England attacked me. Siam didn't have a good way to get to England, fortunately, and I took and puppeted several English cities before Liz sued for peace on very favorable terms. Now China has just attacked me again, I annihilated her initial wave of troops and am starting to push back, but Siam again is swallowing her territory from behind. At this point, Siam controls over half the continent, has twice the score of anyone else in the game (and three times the score of anyone else on the continent) and is a full tech age ahead of everyone else.

To restate succinctly: Is there anything I can do to keep 1-2 AI players from becoming runaway superpowers? Or anything I can do to counter them short of becoming a runaway superpower myself?

 

[Unresolved]

I've gotten to the point where playing on Emperor difficulty feels trivial. Deity requires more optimization than I'm usually willing to invest in the game (and gives little wiggle room for fooling around). Immortal feels right (and I've enjoyed many happy victories and my share of demoralizing defeats on this level).

HOWEVER...

It feels like the only way to win is to build a big army, lots of cities, and expand rapidly and aggressively. If I don't do this (or even if I do) there are always 1-2 AI nations that just roll over their neighbors. Seems like there's no way to compete as a nation focused on culture, technology, etc. with a computer player that has swallowed up its five nearest neighbors and is therefore going to either steamroll me or out-tech me.

Are there diplomatic tricks that I can play to keep one bully from overwhelming all its neighbors? Am I just bad at playing non-expansionist strategies, and if I were better I'd be able to compete? Is my complaint only happening because I'm playing an epic-pace game? I can imagine conquest being slower relative to progress on normal pace, but I feel like it takes so long just to fill in the world at that speed.

Note that when I say non-expansionist, I'm not talking dogmatically... E.g. my current game I started as India on a fairly small but resource-rich continent with four other civs (on the biggest map size). I thought, "Hey! Great! I'll go for a cultural victory!" Quickly built four cities in beautiful locations, they were developing into a happy and cultured nation... Then the Celts attacked me. I fought them off, and as the balance of war shifted in my direction, Siam engulfed the Celts, wiping them out entirely. Then China attacked me. Same story, except Siam only took maybe half of China's territory. Then England attacked me. Siam didn't have a good way to get to England, fortunately, and I took and puppeted several English cities before Liz sued for peace on very favorable terms. Now China has just attacked me again, I annihilated her initial wave of troops and am starting to push back, but Siam again is swallowing her territory from behind. At this point, Siam controls over half the continent, has twice the score of anyone else in the game (and three times the score of anyone else on the continent) and is a full tech age ahead of everyone else.

To restate succinctly: Is there anything I can do to keep 1-2 AI players from becoming runaway superpowers? Or anything I can do to counter them short of becoming a runaway superpower myself?

There are indeed ways to play Immortal relatively peacefully. The best way is to be bribing the AI to DoW each other a lot. Not only does this keep them from fighting you, but they'll weaken themselves too. But don't let an AI who is running away, or on the verge of running away, fight a sole weak civ. That'll just cause the runaway to get even bigger. You need to get multiple AI's to war with the runaway at the same time. Getting 2 runaways to fight each other is the best option since they'll likely stalemate and just stagnate their growth.

An alternative is to far out-tech the AI in such a way that an Immortal AI simply can't win before you launch. This generally requires a sub-250(on standard speed) SV or UN vote and you'll always win. If you do this, your units will be a few eras ahead by the end of the game and the AI will generally just avoid DoWing you. If they do DoW, then your units should steamroll theirs, even with small numbers. It's pretty satisfying to kill crossbows with mechanized infrantry .

I've played many games on Immortal where I only have my original 6 CB at the end of the game. Sometimes even less.

 

[Aaron90495]

There are indeed ways to play Immortal relatively peacefully. The best way is to be bribing the AI to DoW each other a lot. Not only does this keep them from fighting you, but they'll weaken themselves too. But don't let an AI who is running away, or on the verge of running away, fight a sole weak civ. That'll just cause the runaway to get even bigger. You need to get multiple AI's to war with the runaway at the same time. Getting 2 runaways to fight each other is the best option since they'll likely stalemate and just stagnate their growth.

An alternative is to far out-tech the AI in such a way that an Immortal AI simply can't win before you launch. This generally requires a sub-250(on standard speed) SV or UN vote and you'll always win. If you do this, your units will be a few eras ahead by the end of the game and the AI will generally just avoid DoWing you. If they do DoW, then your units should steamroll theirs, even with small numbers. It's pretty satisfying to kill crossbows with mechanized infrantry .

I've played many games on Immortal where I only have my original 6 CB at the end of the game. Sometimes even less.

Pretty much this. Play your diplomatic cards correctly, and you can win peacefully even on Deity (although that's obviously tougher).

 

[Thormodr]

Still waiting for the 'most moddable civ ever'. Was the reason why I bought it, and the game failed to deliver.

Yeah, Civilization 5 certainly didn't deliver on that front. Now they've moved on to Civilization: Beyond Dearth or whatever it's called. (Dearth being Civilization 5's inadequacy in almost every way)

I'd have preferred Civ VI but as long as Beyond Dearth doesn't follow in the footsteps on Civilization 5, I'll be encouraged.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

I'd have preferred Civ VI but as long as Beyond Dearth doesn't follow in the footsteps on Civilization 5, I'll be encouraged.

Prepare to be discouraged, it's the same codebase with a few tweaks - I don't expect it to be substantially different than Civ 5.

 

[Teproc]

Yeah, Civilization 5 certainly didn't deliver on that front. Now they've moved on to Civilization: Beyond Dearth or whatever it's called. (Dearth being Civilization 5's inadequacy in almost every way)

I'd have preferred Civ VI but as long as Beyond Dearth doesn't follow in the footsteps on Civilization 5, I'll be encouraged.

If yuo hated CiV, you won't like Beyond Earth. It's a spin off, basically.

 

[OBRkenobi]

Though only thing that truly disgusts me is The lack of Italy...

italy is rome if you know anything about history

 

[reddishrecue]

Rome is Italy's capital.

 

[Thormodr]

Thanks for the warnings people.
I have watched some preview videos and it sadly appears that Civilization: Beyond Dearth is basically Civilization 5 with a sci-fi theme pasted on.

What an insult to the legacy of SMAC.

 

[reddishrecue]

But SMAC happened along time ago. Im hoping its ok to continue to play older games when newer games come out.

 

[Thormodr]

But SMAC happened along time ago. Im hoping its ok to continue to play older games when newer games come out.

Definitely. SMAC is still a classic.

 

[shaglio]

Sorry, wrong thread

 

[Sessy]

I wish there's a religious victory where you have to have all civs to have your religion as the major religion.

 

[Horsemask]

I wish there's a religious victory where you have to have all civs to have your religion as the major religion.

I believe there is a mod that inserts a "Religious Victory" condition.

 

[reddishrecue]

Definitely. SMAC is still a classic.

But sometimes you want to also use your time using the more modern games. Using vanilla games can make newer games seem obsolete sometimes.