Getting back into Civ5, what's changed?

[Kolath]

Friends, I have a humble request for you. Could someone briefly summarize the major things that have changed in the last 8 months or so of patches?

I played Civ5 a bunch when it first came out and got maybe the first 1 or 2 patches. At that time the dominant strategy seemed to be building tons of 2-3 pop cities close together to abuse the maritime city state and per city happiness mechanics. I called it quits after that resolving to come back later after they fixed the game.

From what I understand, they've toned down the CS mechanic quite a bit, as well as further penalizing unhappiness. Have there been any other important changes? What are the dominant strategies nowadays?

I will definitely go back and peruse the patch notes, but I'm looking for a quick summary.

 

[Ravellion]

Friends, I have a humble request for you. Could someone briefly summarize the major things that have changed in the last 8 months or so of patches?

I played Civ5 a bunch when it first came out and got maybe the first 1 or 2 patches. At that time the dominant strategy seemed to be building tons of 2-3 pop cities close together to abuse the maritime city state and per city happiness mechanics. I called it quits after that resolving to come back later after they fixed the game.

From what I understand, they've toned down the CS mechanic quite a bit, as well as further penalizing unhappiness. Have there been any other important changes? What are the dominant strategies nowadays?

I will definitely go back and peruse the patch notes, but I'm looking for a quick summary.

Too much to summarise, really. The policies are totally different. There are some tech tree changes. National wonders have been added or changed place in the tech tree. Stone has been added. Buildings and wonders have been buffed and nerfed. Units have been buffed and nerfed. City State dynamics are different. Policy tree finishers have been implemented. Research agreements are different.

TL,DR: totally different balance, jump in on a difficulty level lower and enjoy the ride.

 

[TommyVern]

There's Stone now!

 

[Kolath]

Haha, okay so totally different. That sounds like fun! I'll give it a whirl.

 

[Deau]

if you had only missed 6 months I would've said only a few tweaks. Since the latest patch...welcome toa complete new game. Enjoy