ReusableGore
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2005
- Messages
- 28
Summary: I am very impressed with the game. It is everything I wanted and more. But there are some areas that could be improved.
I finally completed my first game tonight.
Settings were: Prince, Standard Map, Normal Speed, Continents.
I picked the Romans to start with because I always prefer Rome if they are an option.
I steamrolled the AI off my continent fairly fast. They never seemed to anticipate my attacks even when I was massing five or more units on their borders. They never had more than two military units to counter me. And they never garrisoned any cities, so taking a city was easy, too easy it seemed.
I had an odd situation with the city states mid game. I was only allied with one Maritime state, it was all I could afford. Well, five other city states that I had no dealings with all decided they wanted Venice destroyed. My troops were marching by so I made a detour and brought Venice under my control. Next turn I was well beyond max allied points with all five city states that wanted Venice gone. It was a huge boost for me, almost game breaking I felt. I don't know if it was just a unique situation that will not repeat itself, but I was able to stay allied with all five of those city states for the rest of the game with very little investment on my part.
After taking control of my continent I made the huge mistake of trying to annex most of my puppet states in one turn. I ended up losing all my gold, and limping along at around -150 gold and -11 Happiness for about thirty turns until I could get Courthouses built. The turn after I solved that problem, a city state dropped out of allied status with me and cut off 3/4ths of my empires trade routes. My gold was -150 again.
I limped to the 500 turn mark and won a score victory. The only reason I survived was the great people the city states were giving me. I would pop a golden age, get around 2k gold, and then let it drain away before starting another golden age.
Along the way I saw a lot of cool wonders/techs/buildings that I wished I was in a position to utilize. While it may not be as complex as Civ IV is now, it has more than enough complexity to accommodate just about any play-style you could want to try. Personally I think Civ IV was a bit bloated. They seem to have removed just enough from Civ V to make it engaging instead of intimidating.
Pros:
1UPT is great, I don't know if I will ever be able to go back. Having to make tactical decisions about movement and troop placement adds much needed depth to Civ combat.
I love the new Social Policies. I don't miss religion at all. Having to pick and choose what trees to advance down based on the style of play for this particular game was a lot of fun. I ended up making choices that I think did really well, but all the trees I bypassed looked just as good. I look forward to experimenting with them.
I like the city states. I was more protective of or aggressive towards specific city states than I was towards AI opponents.
Cons:
The combat AI on Prince was terrible. I lost perhaps two units the entire game. Perhaps it was because I focused all of my resources on an early military and they did not. But at the very least I would expect them to put up some meager defenses.
Diplomacy seems... lacking. I found myself flat out ignoring any demands or requests the AI made of me. At the start I would agree to pacts, but I never saw any change in the game so I stopped bothering. Again, this may have been because I was the most aggressive player in the game, but I did not feel like the AI had any personality.
I finally completed my first game tonight.
Settings were: Prince, Standard Map, Normal Speed, Continents.
I picked the Romans to start with because I always prefer Rome if they are an option.
I steamrolled the AI off my continent fairly fast. They never seemed to anticipate my attacks even when I was massing five or more units on their borders. They never had more than two military units to counter me. And they never garrisoned any cities, so taking a city was easy, too easy it seemed.
I had an odd situation with the city states mid game. I was only allied with one Maritime state, it was all I could afford. Well, five other city states that I had no dealings with all decided they wanted Venice destroyed. My troops were marching by so I made a detour and brought Venice under my control. Next turn I was well beyond max allied points with all five city states that wanted Venice gone. It was a huge boost for me, almost game breaking I felt. I don't know if it was just a unique situation that will not repeat itself, but I was able to stay allied with all five of those city states for the rest of the game with very little investment on my part.
After taking control of my continent I made the huge mistake of trying to annex most of my puppet states in one turn. I ended up losing all my gold, and limping along at around -150 gold and -11 Happiness for about thirty turns until I could get Courthouses built. The turn after I solved that problem, a city state dropped out of allied status with me and cut off 3/4ths of my empires trade routes. My gold was -150 again.
I limped to the 500 turn mark and won a score victory. The only reason I survived was the great people the city states were giving me. I would pop a golden age, get around 2k gold, and then let it drain away before starting another golden age.
Along the way I saw a lot of cool wonders/techs/buildings that I wished I was in a position to utilize. While it may not be as complex as Civ IV is now, it has more than enough complexity to accommodate just about any play-style you could want to try. Personally I think Civ IV was a bit bloated. They seem to have removed just enough from Civ V to make it engaging instead of intimidating.
Pros:
1UPT is great, I don't know if I will ever be able to go back. Having to make tactical decisions about movement and troop placement adds much needed depth to Civ combat.
I love the new Social Policies. I don't miss religion at all. Having to pick and choose what trees to advance down based on the style of play for this particular game was a lot of fun. I ended up making choices that I think did really well, but all the trees I bypassed looked just as good. I look forward to experimenting with them.
I like the city states. I was more protective of or aggressive towards specific city states than I was towards AI opponents.
Cons:
The combat AI on Prince was terrible. I lost perhaps two units the entire game. Perhaps it was because I focused all of my resources on an early military and they did not. But at the very least I would expect them to put up some meager defenses.
Diplomacy seems... lacking. I found myself flat out ignoring any demands or requests the AI made of me. At the start I would agree to pacts, but I never saw any change in the game so I stopped bothering. Again, this may have been because I was the most aggressive player in the game, but I did not feel like the AI had any personality.
