Ekmek
on steam: ekmek_e
ok, my impressions from my first competed game on my usual difficulty level: King (I could have sworn I chose King for my 1st game, but it somehow ended up being chieftain >.> had to wait for my second game to see how it looked at the usual level).
Aztecs, king, standard continents, low sea level, 3 extra AIs, culture win.
Spoiler :I built 1 city and puppeted everything else, going for my typical wide puppet empire. I usually build more than 1 city, but I was right in the middle with everyone expanding toward me, and I was going for culture anyway, so I decided what the hell.
by the end I had grabbed 4 French cities (removing them from the game), 3 Russian cities, 3 American cities at first, then finally the 4th (taking them out), 3 greek cities, and 2 Chinese cities. Total:17 cities, all but 1 puppets.
--Happiness is definitely harder to manage. I would not want to play this strategy on a larger map. I managed to keep it under -10 most of the time, and it tended to fluctuate around the -7-2 mark. I think most of my ability to manage it came from TP'ing everything I puppeted and building no farms except in my capitol. I think with the new patch you can have a a fair number of cities (17 in my case, don't think I could have had more than 20 if I tried) or well developed cities, but you can't have both anymore. I had to TP so those cities would stay small.
That 1 happiness for every 10 citizens in a city policy? Maaaaan, that sucks for wide puppet empires. I took it because I needed to fill out tradition. This was in the late game, and I watched it add 5 happiness to my empire >.>
I build Notre Dame which was a nice help, but I hate the idea of a wonder being necessary. And speaking of wonders....
--hanging gardens. So good. Soooooo good. So good. For the first time ever in a civ game I actually care about that wonder now. I managed to build it, i think just by luck, and holy crap. I switched to production focus and watched my city pound out buildings, units, and wonders like crazy, all while still growing with no problem. Notre Dame, Porcelain Tower, Pyramids, Christ statue, Hagia sophia, great library, the crappy gate just because I could.... I don't even remember all of what I built. I only GE rushed two wonders. And any units or buildings I didn't want to build, I bought. Because money...
--money was ridiculous. I suppose that's from TP'ing everything that wasn't my capitol. I was getting 600+ gpt without golden ages. The huge downside of my game was that my 1 city wasn't coastal, so the only way I could find CS's not on my continent was to put a scout in the water to autoexplore. Not very effective. I could have won so much sooner if I had more culture CS's to buy off. It would have been no problem, because I was loaded. Anytime I needed to I could buy an army that didn't fear God. That was nice because...
--Dogpiiiiilllllleeeeeee. Holy crap, dogpile. I only saw this once before, back when I first bought the game and massive chain-denouncing was a thing. even my longtime friendly trading partner Hiawatha joined in (he actually tried to hit me harder than anyone). After that I removed Washington from the game, since everyone hated me anyway. The only person who stayed friendly, and I am still shocked, was Elizabeth. She's usually always guarded just by default, but she just loved me this time for some reason. The dogpile was no problem to fend off, but I have never seen them do this to someone trying to win via culture before. I hope it's a fluke and it's still possible to go for a VC without that happening in every game, although in this game it actually gave me something to do while waiting (too bad the culture gains for kills was negligible at this point). And speaking of AI behavior...
--Now there are more positive modifiers, but somehow it's even harder to be friends with the AI now. I guess I actually have to try if I want to play diplomacy, and being on another continent isn't enough to make someone a BFF now. Also, why is the "we traded recently" modifier so rare? I never saw it when I did all that trading with Hiawatha and Liz. I only see it /sometimes/ when I sue for peace.
--As I said, King is my usual and I did not have any more trouble than usual winning the game. Didn't have to drop a difficulty level, but I suspect that warning was more for people who tend to play on deity.
--Last thoughts: I hate the fact that puppets don't prioritize monuments. A resource is just out of reach? Suckeeeeerrrrrrrr, have fun waiting 100 turns before the city is making any culture.
Puppet empires are still doable, but you can't encourage them to grow with farms and I'm not sure how many more I could have puppeted had there been more cities on my land to puppet. I think the original intention of the game was "puppet at first and then annex when you're ready," and the devs once again are saying "people are playing the game differently than the one way we want them to? Can't have that!!!!" Obviously annexing would have given me a big happiness boost even without Police State, but I was trying to win via culture so that was a no for me.
I love diplo being pushed back. Now every game need not be a diplo victory because "it's there."
I don't think puppets prioritize walls quite like they used to either. I waited until late in the game to take that last honor policy that gives happiness for defensive buildings. I thought I'd see a big spike in happiness, but instead I only got an extra 7. Not horrible, but not what I was expecting.
why did you go wide and tradition? Isnt tradition for TALL empires and liberty for wide?
In my game (it was prince tough) I was more of a builder and had all of the civs friendly except I got backstabbed once.