[GS] GS impressions/random observations thread.

[PhilBowles]

Dust storms from the Sahara fertilize the Amazon rainforest.

Strangely enough, it wasn't forest tiles on another continent that were being fertilised...

 

[Uberfrog]

Okay. Done with Montezuma in SV. That final step to SV is so tedious. You need to have lots of aluminum or lots of power-generating buildings/improvements. Otherwise 1 light year per turn for 50 turns is a snoozefest.

I was afraid this would be the case. Adding 50 turns to the victory is just an unnecessary elongation, particularly if you've got a comfortable lead.

The laser beam nonsense is a neat idea for those cases where you have two evenly-matched players duking it out for space supremacy. Unfortunately these cases are zero with the AI, and still quite rare in multiplayer (unless you've got an unofficial truce going on in a peaceful builder game). It's a complete waste of development effort, and seems only to have made the endgame more tedious.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I noticed you can't randomize just the beginning or end of a unit's custom name anymore. Just the whole thing.

 

[BarbarianHunter]

World Congress, whatever... I sold most of my votes for 75% of the game.

I did the same thing and achieved a favorable outcome on 2 of 4 measures @ the WC with the other 2 times being neutral for me.

The one complaint is that I don't have the option to abstain or vote for emergencies to be called against me. I had to vote against them. I had two emergency votes called against me for taking cities and both times I was forced to vote against them. The votes were 2 against (me and someone else) and 2 for, so the resolution didn't pass. IMO I missed out on 400 diplomatic favor!

 

[Giskler]

Mali with Scripture can get pretty silly.

 

[pgm123]

The AI seems to think new resources are super valuable:

There appears to be a bug where the AI asks for one when they really mean a lot more. I bet if you set that coal to two, the AI will no longer be interested.

 

[pgm123]

I was afraid this would be the case. Adding 50 turns to the victory is just an unnecessary elongation, particularly if you've got a comfortable lead.

The laser beam nonsense is a neat idea for those cases where you have two evenly-matched players duking it out for space supremacy. Unfortunately these cases are zero with the AI, and still quite rare in multiplayer (unless you've got an unofficial truce going on in a peaceful builder game). It's a complete waste of development effort, and seems only to have made the endgame more tedious.

This was how it was in Civ II. I think the idea at the time was that you still had to reach Alpha Centauri, so the AI would get a chance to destroy you while your ship was flying.

 

[Giskler]

I must say it's quite nice just buying everything with Mali.

 

[jsurpless]

Natual disaster setting of 2 does pretty much nothing. Kinda boring.

I settled near Vesuvius and I had TWO Mega-Collosal eruptions in the 1st 15 turns... man, were those adjacent tiles fertile with science and culture!

 

[Phoenix1595]

Re: Spawn rate for disasters and barbs, an observation:

I have started several games now, all with the same settings, including lvl 2 disasters. I have found that disaster levels and the return of raging barb hordes is really map dependent— sometimes there are a lot of either, and sometimes not as much.

One game, I was on a fairly large continent by myself with no CSs, and not a single barb camp (quit that, knowing it would be the most boring game ever). On others, I play whack-a-mole. The disasters are similar— sometimes they come at you in an even pace, and other times not.

Having been use to the insane levels of barbs on vanilla, I am not terribly concerned with them now— it is easier to deal with them knowing what to expect. As for disasters, I like lvl 2– I get enough to be vigiliant, and I assume that the quiet times may mean a disaster is hitting another end of the corner or the big one is coming.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I'm still playing my first game (marathon speed). And while I had about 7 disasters in my first two hour session (comprising most of the ancient era), I had none during my second two hour session (running into the medieval era). I had kind of forgotten they happen.

 

[Giskler]

AI Netherlands spawned in Polder heaven

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

AI Netherlands spawned in Polder heaven

AI Netherlands always get awesome terrain for Polders. When I play them, I get crap. It makes me jealous.

 

[Sagax]

AI Netherlands spawned in Polder heaven

Watch it fill those with Fisheries instead

 

[Sostratus]

I feel that the tech tree needs to be tweaked to handle oil. Oil is locked behind the refining tech, while infantry are still on replaceable parts. You will almost certainly unlock infantry (and submarines for that matter) well before oil if you go for the top of the tree. Is that a gameplay issue? well, its a bit jarring esp if you tried to go for industrialization/electricity/steam power, that the lower half of the tree is still so disconnected. Whereas military engineering (unlocks niter) is much more "in front of" the niter units of the next two eras.

But it leads to things like, free cities spawn infantry even though you can't make them. Also, flipping a captured CS to you via loyalty still doesn't give you a liberate option- you have to refuse it, take it, then liberate it to restore it.

(I strongly believe infantry shouldn't need oil, btw, but thats for another thread...)

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I feel that the tech tree needs to be tweaked to handle oil. Oil is locked behind the refining tech, while infantry are still on replaceable parts. You will almost certainly unlock infantry (and submarines for that matter) well before oil if you go for the top of the tree. Is that a gameplay issue? well, its a bit jarring esp if you tried to go for industrialization/electricity/steam power, that the lower half of the tree is still so disconnected. Whereas military engineering (unlocks niter) is much more "in front of" the niter units of the next two eras.

But it leads to things like, free cities spawn infantry even though you can't make them. Also, flipping a captured CS to you via loyalty still doesn't give you a liberate option- you have to refuse it, take it, then liberate it to restore it.

(I strongly believe infantry shouldn't need oil, btw, but thats for another thread...)

I think it's on purpose to make you diverge from your tech path a bit and not beeline so much.

 

[Starwars]

It's gonna take me some time to get used to the fact that Military Tactics isn't a leaf tech that I almost never get, haha.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Is anybody else finding the production queue frustrating? I like that it's there, but the lack of a drag facility, the auto-close after adding some items, not being able to queue successive builds (e.g. Campus -> library -> university) and auto-overwriting the current build rather than adding to the queue makes it almost as cumbersome as not having it

Yeah, I had the same thought multiple times about successive builds. CQUI can do that!

 

[h0nk0815]

Is anybody else finding the production queue frustrating? I like that it's there, but the lack of a drag facility, the auto-close after adding some items, not being able to queue successive builds (e.g. Campus -> library -> university) and auto-overwriting the current build rather than adding to the queue makes it almost as cumbersome as not having it

You can drag: click on the item you want to move and it gets attached to the mouse pointer.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I'm still playing my first game (marathon speed). And while I had about 7 disasters in my first two hour session (comprising most of the ancient era), I had none during my second two hour session (running into the medieval era). I had kind of forgotten they happen.

Is there any chance that the probability of disasters is higher for earlier turns and lower for later turns? A few people have commented on seeing lots of disasters early, then fewer later.

It may just be randomness, but there are some reasons to speculate that the chances of natural disasters may have been tuned to decline over time:
1. early turns have always been understood to cover more "real time years" than later turns
2. the production bonuses from disasters get added earlier
3. players get to see the disasters but they're not as devastating in less developed cities
4. later game, human induced disasters kick in, so "natural" ones can be reduced in frequency

File this under pure speculation, but it's just a thought that occurred to me from reading people's comments on their first GS games.