First Impressions

When will they make the "set up game" so it presets with the last options you made?

I grow a little tired of changing 8-10 settings each time I restart a game to get a fun starting location.


Other than that, this expansion is GREAT! For the first time I'm playing CiV BEYOND medieval ages because it's just a lot of fun. In vanilla I never played beyond medieval because I found the game to become horrific at that point. It was simply unplayable for me...

It took 2 years for CiV to become fun for me but at least I gave a Civ game to play again :)

Go back from the Advanced Settings screen to the main setup screen and start the game from there. That will save your settings. If you start from the Advanced Settings screen, it will only apply those settings to the current game.
 
is monti always bathorsehocky-insane?

in my current standard/earth/immortal game, the germans shared intruige with me of an imminent sneak attack by monty on me, so I DOW'd preemptively and got several AIs to help.
~12 turns later, I take one of his cities; he refuses peace.
~10 turns later, I take another city; still no peace.
...
~50 turns later, I have taken 5 cities, inflicted heavy damage - he's no longer a real threat in any battlefield - and i have even managed to get a techlead on him.
FINALLY Monty is willing to settle for peace. His terms: all my gold, all my ressources, the 5 cities I've conquered, as well as 8 of my "original" cities. :crazyeye:

btw: getting AIs to DOW on each other seems much too easy/cheap:
- most often the equivalent of 1 or 2 luxuries seem to suffice.
- you don't have to join in the war
- these deals seem to remain secret? (no diplo-modifiers like "you made X DOW on us")

might have to try in another game if inciting wars is enough to keep the AIs busy, while I watch & build in peace :)

It's easy to get people to DOW monty unless he has a large military advantage over them because he is generally hated by all after his multiple sneak attacks/backstabs/etc. However, it's often impossible to get even a allied civ to attack another if you are in the lead and/or the other civ has a weaker military than the civ you want them to attack. Plus, often a civ can't be bribed to attack another at all unless he was already planning the attack, anyway.
 
Religion is underpowered as hell. After 3-4 games, it is pretty much a luck of the draw. Get the right terrain early, match the bonus, then it MIGHT help you pull away some what. The founder beliefs are God awful. There is no point getting a second prophet unless you get him super early and have super flexibility. Enough of that rant. Will play another game later tonight and see if I am still right.

Espionage is effective, just way too limited. Naval changes are good. That is all... for now.

I'm currently winning an immortal game, due largely to my superior religion. Cathedrals (or Pagodas/Mosques)+ holy warriors is ridiculous.
 
Loving it :D Truly the best changes are those underneath...

See anything out of ordinary in the picture? :) (tip: it's under diplomacy overview)

The biggest difference in diplo IMO is that I can now actually play the AI diplo game with them and beat them at it. Before it was such a random mess for me I could never catch up with their odd behavior whatever I tried. Now however... Look at the pic. 9civs besides me and everyone loves me. 7 out of 9 DoFs! Soon to be all 9/9.


I am quite pleased with G&K I must say.

SickFak, I'm glad to see you enjoying Civ5 finally. But I must say that while it appears you had fun playing AI diplo game, I would ask to what purpose? You probably already have the game won since you just neutralized all of your opponents with a few mouse clicks.
 
SickFak, I'm glad to see you enjoying Civ5 finally. But I must say that while it appears you had fun playing AI diplo game, I would ask to what purpose? You probably already have the game won since you just neutralized all of your opponents with a few mouse clicks.

Thanks.
Yes indeed, and it was fun doing so, like you put it, neutralizing all my opponents with a few mouse clicks assured me a peaceful culture victory or even Space if I'd focus on catching up with Arabia. Doubtful anyone will try to backstab at this point (if they did, the fate of Genghis would await). Pretty much can buy my way out in anything, with Church Property + Initiation Rites, there was always a big chunk of extra cash flow. The game will probably become stale and a bit boring before I reach a victory condition, so I might not finish, but really it was always like that, with civ4 too, there was a point where victory was assured, and after that it was quite stale and unexciting.

I did learn an important tactic I'll be using from now on; I'll destroy my enemies diplomatically before taking them down, unless I'm playing pure aggressive domination... which I never really do.
 
That strategy works some times, but spawn in between greece and mongolia and see how well it works out.

Then you would do the hybrid game - go pure aggressive on both of them and then settle down peacefully. I would say 80% of my games, even going back to Civ2(?) at least Civ4, were like this. Always take out your closest neighbors because 1) they will cause you trouble, 2) you want their capitals as your 3rd and 4th cities, and 3) you need their lands as a buffer.
 
Loving it :D Truly the best changes are those underneath...

See anything out of ordinary in the picture? :) (tip: it's under diplomacy overview)...

...I am quite pleased with G&K I must say.

Taking a diplo hit with Civ Y because you didn't forgive their friend, Civ Z, for spying on you? As if Civ5 needed another negative diplo modifier.
 
Taking a diplo hit with Civ Y because you didn't forgive their friend, Civ Z, for spying on you? As if Civ5 needed another negative diplo modifier.
IMO it makes sense. As things stand, I think CiV balances out the modifiers, with one, albeit big, exception - the warmonger thing.
 
IMO it makes sense. As things stand, I think CiV balances out the modifiers, with one, albeit big, exception - the warmonger thing.

I'll locate the appropriate xml file(s) and import them into Excel to see if that offers any insights into the number and weight of the diplo modifiers. How the modifiers are affected by leader traits may remain guesswork until my Lua-fu is stronger.
 
It's easy to get people to DOW monty unless he has a large military advantage over them because he is generally hated by all after his multiple sneak attacks/backstabs/etc. However, it's often impossible to get even a allied civ to attack another if you are in the lead and/or the other civ has a weaker military than the civ you want them to attack.
agreed

Plus, often a civ can't be bribed to attack another at all unless he was already planning the attack, anyway.
not my experience. yes, sometimes a civ can't be bribed to DOW, mostly because they are friends with the target, or they are already engaged somewhere else, but in my experience pretty much any "meh." -relationship can be turned into war very cheaply.


it's probably a very stupid question, I must have missed something, but HOW do people wage massive wars (especially with multiple ALLIES) in a 1UPT environment? I mean:
- shuffling my units around: somewhat unnecessarily boring, but no problem.
- strategically placing my units vs an enemy: involves some planning, so far, so good.
- having my armies, my CS's armies, an AI-ally's armies and the armies of the AI's CS, all trying to attack the same enemy city (maybe with a few enemy units and enemy CS units thrown into the mix): WTF? how do you deal with that?

just had a case where I could have taken a city in 1 turn - all my ranged units in place, could get city health to 0 in 1 turn - but all hexes leading into the city were either impassable or blocked by allies (whom I didn't want to capture *my* shiny new city :))
took ~30 turns until finally a hex opened up... please tell me I'm missing something:confused:
 
ah and one more thing re: 1upt.

all the CS that have survived till atomic/information age now seem to have literally EVERY hex of their territory filled with a unit. and they're not shy about sending out ships either.
common experience? intended behavior? (not that it's much of a problem, but by now several CS have bigger armies than half of the AICivs...)
 
Taking a diplo hit with Civ Y because you didn't forgive their friend, Civ Z, for spying on you? As if Civ5 needed another negative diplo modifier.

What? I'm not following... :)
 
just had a case where I could have taken a city in 1 turn - all my ranged units in place, could get city health to 0 in 1 turn - but all hexes leading into the city were either impassable or blocked by allies (whom I didn't want to capture *my* shiny new city :))
took ~30 turns until finally a hex opened up... please tell me I'm missing something:confused:

You just have to had better speed and get there (or defeated them) a little sooner - which is part of the strategy and fun in fighting a wargame. I had something similar happen in my last game. I was fighting a capital and an AI joined in. I stepped out of the way to let their range units in (not the melee ones), let the AI do the dirty work but kept a unit right next to the capital for the conquest. I don't find anything tedious about 1upt because it's like a grand geopolitical chessboard. I would suggest watching MadDjinn's LP video (like Rome) in how to deal with late game warfare.
 
Been away for a week, so I haven't had that much experience with G&K yet. But I'm loving it. The amount of improvements and the new additions are awesome.

So far I've been playing with the Netherlands, the Byzantines and Austria. I haven't finished a game with Austria yet, but I'm really loving the Dutch civ.
The UA highly motivates you to trade and that works out perfectly: every game I am able to spread my territory rapidly and develop my civilizations fast. Its kind of ironic that so far the amount of happiness has been my biggest limit with the Dutch civ so far. I always try to balance that out by choosing gold- and production improving religions, which in turn I can use to get Colosseums etc. faster.
The navy improvements are sweet, unlike in Vanilla I actually spend time building a navy and use them to wreck havoc at the coastlines of other civs. I also really like all of the new unique civ-sounds, though I would still very appreciate it if the game plays it more often than just once.
I disagree with others that the Espionage system is too limited. Of course it can be expanded more (I'd also appreciate it if my spy could tell the exact size of the enemies army), but influencing CS, gathering knowledge about other civ's movements and sharing information with others can be very powerful and handy. Especially in the later eras, when you have access to more spies.

Its not all happy-happy though, there are things that have disappointed me. First it is the AI during combat. This has certainly improved in a good way but still has quite some weaknesses. I've had Carthage's army walking around my borders for 20 turns before attacking me, how obvious can you be?
Another thing is the relevance of religion in diplomacy. There's too many religions that can be picked, out of 8 civs 7 can choose one and nobody wants to lose his or her own religion. You would have to spend massive time in expanding your religion in other civs, hoping that they won't start their own. If you're bit too relaxed, the religion's spreading is too slow and before you know it you've hit the Industrial era and the diplomatic bonus is no longer relevant.
The last thing would be the upgrades to lancers. I can understand that its historically correct and I find it pretty cool but those units are just too limited in their capacity in defending/attacking different types of units.
And I also find it a bit strange that an civ can feel insulted if you tell them to stop spying on you. If you've bought some cookies and you've caught someone eating them, wouldn't it make sense that you're the one that's upset?
 
You just have to had better speed and get there (or defeated them) a little sooner
I agree in principal - still that's not always possible: Just conquered Aztecs taking up all of Asia from West to East, taking every city in a generation-long war. When I finally arrived at their last city (in western asia) 100+turns later, of course it was already surrounded. no way I could have gotten there. (especially since it was not a war I *wanted*

- which is part of the strategy and fun in fighting a wargame.
yes.
but for me, civ has never been just a wargame - it'(wa)s so much more.
(which might be the reason I am quite disappointed in V vs IV bts/rom/and)

I would suggest watching MadDjinn's LP video (like Rome) in how to deal with late game warfare.
will do, thanks for the suggestion!
 
The new CS quest system adds a ton of fun peacetime push and pull that is just fantastic. A CS that would make a really nice ally wants culture, you are aiming for a spaceship victory but have many GA slots available, do you delay your growth/production/beakers/GS? You get several of those kinds of decisions per game now. Much success.

I've been loving the religion thing, though there isn't all that much gameplay tbh. The panth/found/enhance picks are big strategy points, after that the spreading is rather mechanical. Some of the picks need to be rebalanced a bit as the bottom of the barrel picks are a little too poor.

I'd like to see options available to win favor with other Great Civs in peacetime, there aren't many ways to gain favor from them except the usual civ5 vanilla list + religion and hoping that's enough (it often isn't). There should be a way I can spend my time/resources to improve relations with a Civ I want to be buddy-buddy with.

Spies should maybe warn you of potential strong/heavy diplo hits you would take, even if it mostly informs you of their personality that most guys in this forum have learned from playing so many games. Or maybe there could be unique relationships: "Spies report England prizes her alliance with brussels more than her other CS allies. If you ally brussels, she will likely denounce you." or "Songhai may be allied with Ragusa, but is unconcerned about their future relationship. If you ally Ragusa, you will not be hassled." That kinda thing.

Spies are quite fun but were such a let-down from what they could've been. The new tech lines are amazing. My only complaint is trading posts at guilds really messes up early game rushes (unpillaged farms in puppets for 10s of turns when you're already light on science and happy makes me want to scream). The new wonders aren't bad.

All in all though, I feel like this expansion was money well spent. And I'm cheap and poor:)

The rest of 'what I want of spies rant' (cut for thread purity):
Spoiler :


The spy system. Let me first say the tech rubber band works and makes the game a lot more playable against runaway Civs if you work the spy game right, bravo. However, the spy system is rather hollow and it kills me because there is so much potential. The intrigue is the big let down. In the previous example, I want to stage a coup to put France as the ally of brussels so that England, their neighbor, will see France competing with her over city-states, and DOW him, launch her fleet at him and I can drop off my army into her capital by sea unhassled for a huge peace deal. Diplomacy!

Maybe there can be unique intensity levels of each Green/Red diplomacy option that spies can clue you in on. "Spies have found Germany vigilant on their borders, and expanding near them will have massive repercussions (for the next 25 turns double the negative diplo hit)" Maybe temporary double strength diplo hits - positive or negative. "Recent reports say that England greatly desires copper, and will pay triple for it, but if you give it to her at regular price, she'll do more deals with us later." Once I DOF a good friend I've been nice to all game, why can't I ask them to stop renewing a luxury trade to someone else and trade it to me instead for a mild diplo hit? Just some food for thought.
 
I am beginning to believe they stuck some magical line of code in the expansion that says "Whatever map this player wants, give them the opposite". I select 5 billion years as the age and I get huge bunches of mountain ranges. If I select arid for rainfall, I get a crap load of jungles and forests. If I ask for continents I get landmasses with little lines of land going off like spokes in a bycycle wheel. This is much more prevalent now than it used to be before the expansion. I realize you don't always get what you ask for, but now it seems like those mapping options in the advanced start up are completely useless.
 
IMO it makes sense. As things stand, I think CiV balances out the modifiers, with one, albeit big, exception - the warmonger thing.

I just like the sheer numbers of modifiers that can come up at times - in one game I seemed to have nearly every modifier going - positive, negative and neutral - with Ramkhamhaeng, including negatives for spreading religion and ordering them not to spy on me, and a positive for forgiving them for spying.
 
While being a great expansion, I have noticed some things that I would like to point out and see if anyone else has noticed these and also do tell if you have noticed some other stuff related.

1. Happiness seems to be much easier to control the longer the game goes, with the combination of powerful policies like protectionism, humanism, order tree and religion + wonders like Eiffel Tower. I often had 40-70 happiness in Emperor all the while spamming colonies as Spain, just because I could.

2. I also seem to get consistently tons of gold after renaissance. In all my games I have gotten around 250 - 400 gold per turn on emperor and I'm not a master in this game. Is this a lot of gold or normal? Seems like a lot to me. Might just be my style since I usually go for commerce (but I don't spam trading posts, usually farms and mines and occassional trading post.

3. Also AI seems to lose a lot of ground the more the game progresses. I struggle in starts with challenging AI on emperor but on REN-IND I become too much of a economic powerhouse that the AI can't handle. I overwhelm them later on with my science, gpt and production. Can AI handle the late game well enough? Does it build factories asap and production boosting buildings? Or does it keep building mediocre units most of the game with low production and not utilize the gold well enough?

4. Some AIs seem to get totally paralyzed and won't even improve their capitals improvements such as stones and other. I captured Egypt's capital on Emperor and it was the saddes capital I've seen in a while, something that I expected to see in 2000 BC when in fact it was 800 AD.
 
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