Man, I'm bad at this game. Most of the civs were at least an era ahead of me for most of the game on Warlord. I think it's because I don't like having lots of cities, and don't expand much.
I only had 6 cities, and only two were really productive. One of them was annexed, one was a puppet, and one of them I only made on a tiny strip of land because another civ was blocking the path of my ships. I refrained from building much on a lot of my cities, though, because the building maintenance costs didn't seem worth it.What difficulty level were you playing on? The AI do expand faster compared to vanilla CIV V, which is where the mods main challenge comes from. At the same time, they're much more open to diplomacy and less hostile during the first 100 or so turns, so there'll be less stepping on the AI's toes regarding them disliking you for expanding.
If you prefer to play a tall game (6-8 cities on standard - anything less will be very difficult barring loads of puppet cities), then Rationalism is an early must as far as policy branches go. After adopting Rationalism make sure to play a specialist economy and take the policy under Rationalism that gives bonus science to specialists.
Also - mines generate +1 science each, which can also make a difference in the early game when you're getting up your Apothecaries and Libraries. Taking out Barb camps is also very important when playing tall empires, as these units automatically join your side without the happiness penalty of normal units (until they're upgraded) which can play a huge role in allowing for early expansion.
It'll take some time to get the hang of things, but overall there's lots of different paths you can take, and while the AI does expand faster than in vanilla, I'd say there's also more options at your disposal to play a viable tall strategy as of the latest version compared to vanilla.
I only had 6 cities, and only two were really productive. One of them was annexed, one was a puppet, and one of them I only made on a tiny strip of land because another civ was blocking the path of my ships. I refrained from building much on a lot of my cities, though, because the building maintenance costs didn't seem worth it.
I managed to hang around between 200 to 300 gold per round later in the game, nearly 1000 during an oligarchy, after dumping all my points in commerce and having a generous location for my capital. I'm guessing it's not supposed to be like vanilla where there generally no reason not to build something though. Also, do puppet cities have maintenance costs?The Commerce branch is really solid in the early game, as it offsets the maintenance of early buildings by having them generate +1 gold each. Also important to keep in mind, Trading Posts give an extra +1 gold if they're built right beside a city - which can really pay off in the early game as well.
also: gladiators.explorers, i think.assassin unit needs an icon - i play in tile mode, and the unit is totally invisible. which is great (he's an assassin, after all), except that it's not.
That's kind of funny. I'll try and fix that for v11.9. Any other units becoming invisible?
Thanks very much to everyone who has dedicated hard work to developing this fantastic mod.
I've been having a lot of fun with this.
However, I wonder if there is a list somewhere which explains all the changes to Civilization leader traits. Unfortunately, this is not listed in the description on the first page of this thread, and I cannot find such a list anywhere.
I would like to know what all the leader special abilities are now. For example, I noticed that Japan no longer gets the Bushido trait where your units attack at full strength even when injured.
Also I noticed that the Aztec Sacrificial Captives has been changed from
"Sacrificial Captives: Gives culture for each enemy unit killed"
to:
"25% strength bonus when fighting enemies inside your own borders and 30% discount on gold maintenance"
I understand why these changes were made, but I'm having a hard time figuring out the pros and cons of each civilization without some sort of master list that explains all these changes. It would be awesome if this list of changes could be added to the OP. I suppose the only other alternative would be to start a dozen new games playing as every available Civ?
Many thanks!
Does this mod still not support laptop resolutions? I quit it due to research screen not displaying correctly on 1366x768
I'll see if I can bump them up a bit on the tree for v11.9. The problem is that if you beeline them, they will appear at more or less the proper timeframe, it's just in my experience based on saves people have sent me, players generally focus on the land-military tech routes, which leaves the naval routes lagging behind.