First Impressions

[Heinage]

Do Civs tend to choose culturally historically relevant religions whenever possible?

I.e. Will japan and china try to get Shintoism, Confucianism, or Buddhism? Or are they just as likely to go for Judaism even if the other options are available?

 

[rastak]

Do Civs tend to choose culturally historically relevant religions whenever possible?

I.e. Will japan and china try to get Shintoism, Confucianism, or Buddhism? Or are they just as likely to go for Judaism even if the other options are available?

You mean they pick the cultural historical name? Because the name you pick means nothing in the game.

 

[smallfish]

Do Civs tend to choose culturally historically relevant religions whenever possible?

I.e. Will japan and china try to get Shintoism, Confucianism, or Buddhism? Or are they just as likely to go for Judaism even if the other options are available?

In my game, Isabella picked Christianity, Askia picked Islam and Darius picked Zoroastrianism

 

[Alloran]

I'm having a similar experience. Wu chose Taoism in the one game she was in, in all three games Harun has gone with Islam, Korea just took Confusionism in my new game, and Ghandi has picked Hinduism. If it's not programmed, that's that really strong coincidence.

 

[Ekmek]

their historic religions are their first choice if available. if not its random.

Though I wished Isabella picked buddhism just to laugh at civ4

 

[Ellye]

AI now remember trades.

They will
- Renew gold for lux deals (240 gold for a lux)
- Renew lux for lux deals (same lux as before)
- Renew gpt for lux deals (they will use the exact same gpt you set up initially ie: 5gpt for a lux because I was selling it cheap, but AI asked for it again -- I didn't try raising my price the 2nd time)
- Suggest gold for open borders (if you've done this before to get cash )

That's fantastic! Such a simple change, but little things like this add up to make the game much more enjoyable overall.

 

[D712]

Two hours in, I have to say I've found it better than expected! Some of the mediocre reviews had me concerned so I didn't have my hopes as high as I did a couple months ago. But in my first game (with Byzantine), I found religion to be an extremely fun feature that adds a ton of customization and replayability to the game. Obviously I'm not far enough in yet to have gotten to espionage, but the new city-states and the improved quests are fun too.

People who questioned the strength of Byzantine's UA were wrong too. They get to activate their extra belief when they get their first great prophet and found their religion, and the amount of options they get to choose from is very large. Religion in their hands is essentially more powerful than in anyone else's since they have more options of what they can do with it. Their UUs seem pretty good too, but I'll know more about that later as I'm just building up a force to begin my Holy War.

After reading some other comments, I wanted to add some more info: also having money problems, but that will likely be dealt with soon as my religion spreads and I get some markets up. Happiness has not been a problem yet either, but will likely become one as I begin conquering. So I think those things will even out eventually. I have an absurd amount of salt, but only Austria will buy it from me.

I'm playing on King, btw. Score-wise I'm winning out of the 4 civs on my continent, but there are another 4 that I have not met yet as well. There were three civs who founded pantheons before me, but I discovered the first religion, thanks to befriending the Vatican City and building Stonehenge.

This is identical to how I am playing my first game, haha. I have the third most popular religion, but I may be wrong because of my conquest of Japan.

I found the AI to be MUCH more aggressive. I originally planned on playing a cultural-religious game, but as I developed my religion, it was impossible to not get declared war on. This forced me to go into military over-drive, thus putting both culture and science on the back burner. I lost a city, regained it, then took Japan's capital twice (their original and second cities). Currently still at war with Rome, who is very far South and is the strongest civ in my game, yet refuses to send any units to attack. We've been fighting for a few centuries now.

Espionage has helped my game tremendously. Being able to steal techs kept my up to date scientifically, even though I was waging holy wars with Japan. I found the intrigue system to be fantastic, and has allowed me to develop some strong friendships with Ethiopia, Germany, and The Netherlands. My only complaints are that rigging city state elections don't give your agents any experience points. I feel that they should, considering how long they have to be there to make any difference in your relations.

The changes and additions to the military were awesome. I'm stunned. The fluidity among the upgrades for units was epic. I thoroughly enjoyed the WWI Bombers. They made taking Kyoto possible even though my military was smaller. I wish there was an in between step from Cavalry to Land-ships, though. They become useless upon discovery of WWI Infantry, even though I believe cavalry played a part in said real-world war.

Pros: Religions is fun, espionage can be VERY helpful, and the military overhaul was worth it

Cons: Espionage needs to be tweaked with respect to city-state rigging and experience, you can fall quite far behind in tech if left neglected

Definitely a success, Firaxis/2K. Two thumbs up.

 

[binhthuy71]

My first game is mostly about experimenting with all of the new goodies. I am paying particular attention to Religion. So far, it seems that spreading your religion to a CS it doesn't seem to have much of an effect on your influence with them. On the other hand, the more believers you have the more Faith points you get and I'm only in the Renaissance so spreading the faith doesn't do any harm. I have been given a quest by a friendly but non-allied CS to spread my religion to them and fulfilling a quest definitely does add to your influence.

 

[daviiadams]

I will need Palace Additions and Government Buildings + a few others to be re-done, i actually have the mods from old modbuddy but they don't work for G+K... not sure why.

I'm trying to sort out GB, as it's gone odd since the latest patch (unable to test with G&K yet) but I'm struggling to nail down what's causing the issues - I've done a load of stuff on it since it first went up, but appears to be something to do with the GPList UI.

 

[Gucumatz]

Playing a large game as the Maya (Who else ?)
-Emperor
-10 Civs
-6 religions


- Austria was performing coups and elections in a couple of city states... pissing off everyone near her who wanted those same city states. Sweden, Ethiopia, and the Byzantines all warred her, and crushed her (left her as an OCC with her cap)

- I am doing Tilted Axis large continents (10 civs), a lot of desert and tundra on my map and Petra is a really powerful wonder if you can great engineer it in some otherwise crappy looking desert area.

===========

So I opened up going liberty and went 4 cities on my small continent. I built pyramids first in all of them and built stonehenge and the pyramids in my capital. I then proceeded to head towoards galleases.

I used them and a small army (composites/catapults/pikes/swords) to attack Denmark on the coast of a nearby large continent that was with shallow water. Carthage was attacking Denmark and I attacked from the sea/flanks taking 3 cities while carthage took 2. I then proceeded to hold a line of swords and my solitary pike as the Carthaginian elephants surrounded my new borders. I then warred Dido, and hit and run with my great admiral bonus (got it from long count) to take city after city from Dido while my small army held the line against her larger army.

============

I was like 4th or 5th to build my Pantheon, and I chose the +4 faith per natural wonder (I had the great barrier reef on my 2nd city, so could get +8 faith) and was able to get my religion 2nd on Emperor (after Ethiopia started Christianity) and founded Zoroastrianism

======

Maya spies are named after gods !

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Naval AI seems lacking at the moment. Standard Game Pace and am at 1650 A.D. atm. I have used all but one of my baktun great people. I didn't research Theology early enough to try and get 8 great people just to see what would happen. Still have the Great Scientist in spare.

==============

Also an impression... I used a great prophet to completely destroy the religion of the Dutch (They were Hindus), and removed all influence of Hinduism in his civ. 40-50 turns later all of the Dutch cities were Hindu again . I don't even know how he did that - not one of the followers of a city were Hindu, so if he bought a missionary they would be Zoroastrian I thought? Somehow... I think the Dutch cheated. His religion was already enhanced - so seems like the AI cheated somehow. No influence were on his cities, but somehow he was able to recover his influence...

 

[Sharku]

First impressions I've noticed is the every AI computer opponent hates you forever the instant
you go to war with someone. Its really annoying actually.
Liberty is as powerful as ever and Order has been buffed even more lol.
While Piety is basically dead.

 

[binhthuy71]

That's fantastic! Such a simple change, but little things like this add up to make the game much more enjoyable overall.

It works good! I started trading gems on slightly favorable terms (For him) to Askia early in the game. He has been back as regular as clockwork to renew the deal. Same with the DoF that we signed as soon as it was available. We're now in the Renaissance and although Askia has slapped the daylights out of a couple civs we're still on good terms despite my mid-pack military. As a side note, Askia has yet to ask for anything under the DoF even though I have at times had an extra lux resource and/or a decent gold pile.

A welcome feature indeed.

 

[smallfish]

First impressions I've noticed is the every AI computer opponent hates you forever the instant
you go to war with someone. Its really annoying actually.

They do?

I mean, if by "instant" you mean crushing an entire civilization with a surprise dow attack, then joining in a coalition backstab against a former friend, AND THEN backstabbing your longtime friend just for her wonderspam capital (not to mention taking Autocracy when everyone else is Order)...

I'll be pretty guarded too.

 

[Sharku]

No I mean going to war once and having every computer opponent still hating you
literally 3000 year later.

 

[smallfish]

No I mean going to war once and having every computer opponent hate you
literally 3000 year later.

Never noticed that; all that aforementioned above happened over the course of the 19th and 20th Century, which except for Austria's 300-year vendetta against my free-wheeling spying antics (and denouncements), is pretty natural.

e: do stuff that'll boost your rep with them, like sharing info on a sneak attack

 

[Putmalk]

First impressions I've noticed is the every AI computer opponent hates you forever the instant you go to war with someone.

Not true, I went to war with two civilizations, and conquered city-state and capitals, and I still managed to repair relationships with civilizations, and by two eras later, I have a mutual friend and a few acquaintances.

AI will forget wars after a while....

First impressions? AI makes very questionable strategic decisions (Washington declares war on me after going on a war craze, but doesn't send an adequate force to destroy me, after it's gone, I have free reign through his territory and then cripple him, doubling my empire).

England navy is verrry powerful, Privateer + 5 Ship of the Lines can conquer any coastal city (no walls, 2 turns, walls, 6 turns), Industrial Era cities.

English extra spy is nice, lets me steal technologies at a faster rate than others.

AI should be building more navy, especially if an enemy is capturing their cities with a navy. Ship of the Line vs. Trireme = one shot. In fact, Washington didn't have Astronomy at that time, so he should prioritize more navy.

Taking cities is incredibly hard now...walls + castle takes about 5 turns of prep + 6 turns of combat to actually take it...even then, you need a lot of reinforcements. This would be nice if Walls and Castle weren't so cheap to build...every city can get them, I'd expect stalemates after a while. Might improve with fighters/bombers, I haven't gotten there yet.

About to hit Modern Era around 1870 AD, Standard Speed, King Difficulty.

 

[Cel.erity]

First impressions, I really love the expansion. Most of my praises have been voiced already, so let me just share my actual game experience.

I wanted to play around with the new features, but unlike most people here, I experimented with something a little bit different: militaristic CSes. I figured I'd do something crazy, so I went on Immortal, picked Sweden, and allied with two nearby CSes as soon as I could. One of them had the gift of Mohawk Warriors, so I went Iron Working, and ended up with a pretty reasonable 3 city/6 sword rush timing plus a couple of Mohawks to make it more effective.

Unfortunately...sword rushes kind of suck now. Learned that the hard way. But despite that, my gifts kept kicking in, and eventually I was able to overtake my neighbor after just building a couple of catapults to support. I allied a 3rd militaristic CS. The gifts kept rolling all game, and they were actually good! I never had to spend any hammers on units, I got way more than I needed, so I was able to construct all the key buildings in my cities as well as go for some wonders that wouldn't be possible under a traditional domination strat. I even supplemented this with a ton of faith and spread my religion like crazy. Eventually won the game easily on turn ~240 with an army full of gifted units.

Now, I'm not saying this is an amazing strat, but the fact that it was even possible on Immortal makes me giddy. Things in the game that should reward you actually do feel rewarding, which is awesome, and the pacing is spot on. Also can't tell you how much fun it is to march across the map with an army of trebuchets, longswords, legions, and mohawk warriors (Elephants and Janissaries came later). As Sweden.

 

[binhthuy71]

This is too funny not to share. I'm playing my first G&K game. I chose Carthage, Tiny Islands map. When it came time to found a religion I took Buddhism from those religions that remained. Meanwhile, two of my Quinqueremes were off auto-exploring. Vatican City is among the CS that I've met so far. On my last turn of the evening Vatican City just presented me with a quest to spread my religion to them.

"And now, his Holiness the Bodhisattva Benedict XVI."

 

[smallfish]

Taking cities is incredibly hard now...walls + castle takes about 5 turns of prep + 6 turns of combat to actually take it...even then, you need a lot of reinforcements. This would be nice if Walls and Castle weren't so cheap to build...every city can get them, I'd expect stalemates after a while. Might improve with fighters/bombers, I haven't gotten there yet.

About to hit Modern Era around 1870 AD, Standard Speed, King Difficulty.

For cities with less than 100-def, having four Logistics Bombers in addition to your own artillery would do wonders.

Anything more than 100-def, like say... 157-def, and you'll prolly need 8 Logistics Bombers. And of course those melee meatshields to take them. It won't hurt if those meatshields were backed up by rocket artilleries too!

e: don't waste your siege bombers on land units other than workers. Even embarked machine guns can destroy your precious Logistics Bomber in a turn, so prioritize their promotions.

 

[ahawk]

My first impressions (Standard difficulty):

1) I used to get lazy if I was far ahead, and I'd just start burning every GP for a GA. Now that only the Great Artist can start a GA, I find myself a little less lazy.

2) I've said it in one other thread already, but the extra health for all units drastically helps the AI. Now, when the AI sends the units piece-meal into battle, they last long enough to form an actual line and mount some sort of threat against my ranged units.

3) The gatling isn't what I expected. Most of the ranged units have a combat strength less than the ranged strength, and the gatling has a 36 for both. I guess since it only has 1 range, maybe that's fair, but I still can't help but feel odd since the last few games I've rushed to gatlings and, fairly effectively, sent off a mostly gatling army off to victory.

4) Sort of don't like Spies not being actual units. From a user interface perspective, Espionage has been done well, but simplicity isn't always the same thing as fun. I actually liked having to move the spies, pick the shortest route to a city, and anticipate how enemy spies might move on my roads. It's nitpicking, though, so it's not a serious problem.

5) You can buy Great People through Faith. With the right Social Policies, I can buy an Engineer, a Scientist, etc. That's going to take getting used to, and I can see it being a love-it-or-hate-it thing for people.

6) Load times for turns are still reasonable for me. I have a mediocre CPU, great GPU, and Windows XP, and I can still run a Standard map pretty well. In fact, maps load up quicker when I start a game than they did in vanilla. But for some unknown reason, the overall game loads much slower (I say unknown, but I'm sure it has to do with more content and overhauled mechanics taking considerable extra memory).

7) The AI isn't significantly better. I still get Settlers and Workers put right infront of my army when I am at war with the owners of those units. I still see ranged units leading the charge, at times. And the AI still holds too many units back when it should know that my whole army is coming at them (even on maps where it's just me and 1 AI, they still hold units back).

8) Is it me, or does the tech tree seem like it takes fewer turns per tech? Obviously they added a bunch, so maybe they shortened the amount of turns needed to gain a tech, but even so I find myself often way ahead of where I should be. With just a RA or two, even without Rationalism or Porcelain Tower, I end up with Great War Inf in 1500?

9) The game moves a little slower than it did in vanilla. And that's a good thing. Religious belief bonuses take some time in deciding, and diplomacy is where it should have been at to begin with in vanilla. Much more to do.

10) and finally... I don't know if G&K is the greatest expansion ever, or if it just feels like it because most of what it adds should have been there already and I've been waiting so long to get it.