Learn & Love Civ5 - Game 01 - Washington (America)

[JesusOnEez]

WARLORD difficulty = lol

Hey! Like I say, ease in gently...if this is a walk over we'll move up a difficulty level for the next one...same pattern as the ALC games.

Plus, again, I was pretty cack at Civ IV given the number of years I played it.

I'll play the first set of turns tonight after all, as I'll be itching for it after a days hard slog at work.

 

[JesusOnEez]

Just me jealous of the PC specced out enough to run it the game on max settings.

I've heard alot of people complain about the game performance, and really, my PC is not that hot.

It's an Intel Core 2 Duo (don't ask me which one). It was a mid range processor when I got it around Christmas 2008 so it's coming up two years old, along with my motherboard, 4Gb RAM. The only upgrade I've had since then is to Windows 7 64-bit from Vista (I'm hoping for a 64-bit CiV executable), and a graphics card boost to a mid range ATi something or other with 1Gb on board...so I think that's doing most of the work.

It plays absolutely fine on my near on two year old machine albeit the graphics card is newer.

However, I haven't played past Longswords so how it'll perform in the latter stages I don't know! Turn times don't seem to change much from the beginning to the middle ages at about 4/5 seconds.

I guess we'll find out soon enough when later screenshots look naff.

 

[Rathelon]

WARLORD difficulty = lol
EDIT: Just me jealous of the PC specced out enough to run it the game on max settings.

Some of us like lower difficulty settings. I could play on Immortal or whatever, but getting steamrolled by barbarians, cheating AI, constant unhappiness, and negative GNP is oh so 'fun'.

 

[SnuggilyD]

What is the general consensus on how quickly you should settle your first city? As in, whats the maximum number of turns should you use exploring before making a final decision? 1 turn, 2 turn?

I'm always afraid of wasting any time and often settle right where I'm started.

 

[JesusOnEez]

From what I've been hearing of the AI in this game, you could probably wander around for 30 turns, settle, and still win.

Honestly though, I've always been a settle in place kind of guy as I want to get going, and it will be through gritted teeth that I move to MaX's suggested starting spot, even though I think he's right!

 

[PestWulf]

This is fun, thanks for the thread Something to think about while reformatting machines at work.

ok, for my input, I would suggest not overlooking the Colossus wonder. With a lighthouse those coast squares will be just as good as a grassland with a trading post on it. at least early on anyway, not sure if a policy or tech changes that as I'm still new to CiV as well.

Another thing you may wish to think about for a faster start is taking those duplicate luxuries and selling one off for 30 turns to another civ for 300 gold or so. This of course requires you to think about how you want to expand.

I personally like to get two scouts out asap so I can find city-states for a 30 to 15gold bump when I discover them and to hopefully find some ruins with a weapon upgrade so that I have bowmen with no terrain movement penalty. I find them to be barbarian encampment killers early on, which again will bump your gold by 30 when you sack one.

Given your +1 sight, I'd definitely push your early advantage. Also keep in mind you have some control over your first Golden age. I like to try and time mine so that I have three good cities up when it pops, to maximize the burst of production and grab a few early wonders I want.

I used to think Civ 4 required a lot of thought and had so many options on how you could develop and specialize until Civ 5. My biggest gripe is the Civ pedia tells you next to nothing about the mechanics of the game in a LOT of categories. But I'm loving it nonetheless.

 

[fantsu]

Get horsemen.
Fast.

 

[JesusOnEez]

Right, I've played a few turns and stopped at the first social policy choice. My games (non of which I've finished) I've always picked a policy, but I know some people think it's a good idea to save culture for later choices. That's why I stopped for discussion so soon.

Choices also need to be made given what I believe to be our situation.

So, I've plopped Washington on the tile most people thought to be the best bet:

I'm researching Pottery heading for Calendar. After a couple of turns I pop the goody hut...er...ruins for:

Given Washington's cheap hex buy up I immediately spend some of the cash on one of the Wine hexes:

My thought process was that if I meet a Civ I can trade Wine for the cash to buy up Settlers for quick expansion...I think that plan may go down the chute...also note I'm building a Scout, which also may turn out to be fruitless.

Further exploration gives us the city state of Hanoi who are Military:

I pop another ruin for 30 Culture, and explore a little further...this is where things get interesting:

Yup, I think we're on Arch Islands...given there's an island to the South of Washington and another Sheep hill you can see peeking through the fog East of Washington, Naval techs are suddenly seeming more urgent...possibly (if this was Civ IV) the Great Lighthouse & Colossus.

So, here you can see the Sheep hiding to the East and a clearer picture of land discovered so far:

Finally, do I pick a Social Policy or save up the points for later?

Discuss!

 

[JesusOnEez]

Oh, and I've purchased one of the Wheat hexes as well.

The Scout has one turn left, but although I think he's going to be pretty pointless, I may as well finish him for when he can embark and look elsewhere. Worker is next on the agenda.

 

[gdoggcasey]

I don't know how important that sheep over on the east is, I would not worry about it, but I'mnot that good .

I do see what looks like a great place to put a city up north near the deer, wine, and fish are on the coast, but then again, I dont know how bad 2 desert tiles for you city is.

And if your going for a quick expansion I would say you should pick up Liberty now as that stuff only really helps early on, but thats when it matters.

 

[Nilzor]

I'd say explore the land more until you know for sure wether or not this is an island (a small one). If it is: save the policy for the medieval age and go for commerce. If not, go for liberty right away as it will allow you for a more rapid expansion on this continent.

Btw: Your SN - from the old Amiga demo?

 

[JesusOnEez]

Btw: Your SN - from the old Amiga demo?

Spot on.

 

[Nilzor]

Spot on.

Cool - not going to derail the thread here, but this brings back memories I never even had an Amiga, but saw the demo at a friend of mine's and had the soundtrack on my PC - which I at that time thought was AWESOME (and it was ..: "Hinch heinch Humf.. Rolf here" .. or something..

 

[CYZ]

That's the best starting position I've seen so far. Does difficulty affect starting position you think or just luck?

I'd love to play along, is there any way to play the same map with the same starting location on a higher difficulty?

 

[ZombieBiskit]

I shadowed this game...

Spoiler :

Completed in 2019 with culture victory. Really could have gone any way as I was ahead in everything by miles, just did culture because I was feeling lazy and wanted to sit back. Managed to avoid war entirely through the whole game, just sat back and watched the culture flow. 500 per turn for most of the game. Absolutely silly.

I settled in place which I later figured out was not the correct option, and placed two more cities on the starting island and a fourth one off to the island two to the right. Immediately tried to befriend Japan as I felt like they were the most likely to come attack, not that I was too concerned that they would actually accomplish anything if they did. Aside from the Iroquois being dominated by Persia early on, there was mostly world peace throughout the entire time.

Kinda wonder if the AI really knows how to play island maps yet...

 

[JesusOnEez]

That's the best starting position I've seen so far. Does difficulty affect starting position you think or just luck?

I'd love to play along, is there any way to play the same map with the same starting location on a higher difficulty?

Don't know if I'm honest...I know you can save maps which I can do for you if you want...if you can then set your game setting and use this specific map I don't know. I guess you can but you won't get the same starting position as that'd be random (I guess the map just saves the world shape, not where everything...resources, city states etc actually starts).

As an aside, I fully expect us to go through this game and walk it...with so much advice to come it should be pretty easy, but, this is really to learn the mechanics, find out some tricks and get used to the game, primarily for my own selfish needs, but hopefully it'll be useful for others. Depending on how easy we walk this game will decide to do another game with jumping a difficulty or two.

I'll play and post some more tonight, and will be looking to save the policy change until I know whether I'm on Arch Islands as I suspect, or not..should only take a few more turns to figure that out. If we are on Arch Islands, it'll be a fairly slow start to the game before we get to Astronomy (or is it Navigation in CiV) and can start jumping up and down on people.

I don't want this first game of mine to be a peaceful love in either. I want to beat people up.

 

[CYZ]

It could be fun to play the same map from a different position, but I'll wait out for the second round.

I'm quite sure it's an arch map, either that or a really strangely formed continent map. But those don't have many islands usually.

I think you should go for commerce and use your scout to island hop to find new continents asap.

 

[SnuggilyD]

Regarding Social Policies:

Just as much for the thread as for my own learning.

If it does turn out to be an island:

Liberty is a waste because you won't be doing much expansion.
Honour is a waste as you likely won't encounter many, if any, barbarians.

...but what about Tradition. Clearly Commerce is going to be huge in general, but Tradition gives you a food bonus in your capital. There are no maritime city states on the island either. Or do you figure that with all those resources, the extra food just isn't going to be necessary.

 

[Jaaboo]

I'd go for the tradition opening here. Washington is a great city, might as well make it better with the food upgrades & the wonder building bonuses. Obviously, optics will be a target tech to explore what looks like islands to your east. With this capital, though, a CS slingshot isn't a bad idea. It'll get those nice riverside tiles amped up fast.

To do the CS slingshot, you have to have the following researched before you build the Great Library;

Animal Husbandry > Trapping
Pottery > Writing (duh) > Philosophy
You'll probably want to squeeze Mining & Calendar in there as well (you should be able to hit Stonehenge on the way).

Another likely candidate is The Colossus (Bronze Working) to boost Washington's gold output on water tiles.

 

[gdoggcasey]

I've only played one island map so far, so I don't know if the size of the islands might vary, but in the one I played, the islands were big enough for MAYBE 2 cities if you put them on opposite coasts. I'm thinking its a continents map right now.