Other Enjoyable Civilization V Games (Immortal and below)

[Nizef]

OECG#102: Push the Elephants

Welcome to Siam. We play as Ram on a large Fractal map with Standard speed. The level is Emperor. If I ever thought that the recent Byzantium start was crazy... this start is even better! You have space to found a good number of cities yourself, however, the idea here is to push the elephants and go for a Domination Victory. You can´t mess this one up. Just push!

 

[raider980]

Hmm, seems like I played Siam recently; was there a GotM with them? But a Dom Victory with Elephants will be different; and nice, especially with a great start. I'm going to have a really hard time not settling on that Silk. Its on a calendar resource, on a river, on a coast. And it keeps wheat in the 1st ring and the salt in the city radius, albeit one tier further. But still I think its worth it. I will move the warrior NE to see if there's anything I will be giving up by going to the silk.

 

[zxcvbob]

Hmm, seems like I played Siam recently; was there a GotM with them? But a Dom Victory with Elephants will be different; and nice, especially with a great start. I'm going to have a really hard time not settling on that Silk. Its on a calendar resource, on a river, on a coast. And it keeps wheat in the 1st ring and the salt in the city radius, albeit one tier further. But still I think its worth it. I will move the warrior NE to see if there's anything I will be giving up by going to the silk.

You're a better player than I am; is the gold from the silk worth more than the hammer from the hill, and the quicker expand to the salt? And I think you can chop the forest for the silk to rush something (I can't remember if a plantation always removes the forest/jungle) I do often settle on jungle or swamp resources because it takes so long to get those hooked up.

 

[Nizef]

You're a better player than I am; is the gold from the silk worth more than the hammer from the hill, and the quicker expand to the salt? And I think you can chop the forest for the silk to rush something (I can't remember if a plantation always removes the forest/jungle) I do often settle on jungle or swamp resources because it takes so long to get those hooked up.

I would suggest that it is more a playing style thing than anything else. For me personnally, I settled in place in this particular case. Coastal hills are strong in general.

 

[raider980]

You're a better player than I am; is the gold from the silk worth more than the hammer from the hill, and the quicker expand to the salt? And I think you can chop the forest for the silk to rush something (I can't remember if a plantation always removes the forest/jungle) I do often settle on jungle or swamp resources because it takes so long to get those hooked up.

I don’t know if the gold is worth more than the hammers; I don’t tend to try and calculate that kind of thing. To me, settling on a calendar lux seems to be better. Because
1. Gets early gold, can buy things early
2. I don’t have to have a worker spend time improving the lux (I’m usually slow to get workers)
3. Once that worker spends all that time improving the lux, it’s a tile I don’t even want to work and that’s annoying lol

 

[zxcvbob]

OECG#102: Push the Elephants

I'm about 360 turns into this one. I went a mixture of Honor, Tradition, and Rationalism, plus the Patronage opener. I settled 4 cities pretty quickly. I tried to not build many wonders, preferring to capture them, but I did get Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens. Built lots of archers and city walls on my 2 cities closest to Monty. When I got composite bows I was going to attack Monty, but of course I didn't have to wait that long. He declared war and swarmed me with units. (they killed all my warriors and spearmen, which was annoying) My cities were never in danger and I destroyed his army with archers and a couple of newly-built composite bows. I upgraded all my archers and pushed back with a half dozen composite bows. I captured his 2 cities (razed Teotihuacan) with a horseman, who would later upgrade to my first elephant. Tenochtitlan had Stonehenge, and a religion with Holy Warriors. That was kinda handy when I had pagodas in all my cities, and I had enough inquisitors stockpiled and didn't want any more great prophets. BTW, inquisitors make great artillery spotters.

Maria was next, and Lisbon was easy to take down with composite bows and elephants. I upgraded to crossbows and puppeted Porto and razed Braga. William was ahead of me in tech and I didn't want to lose all my experienced units trying to capture Amsterdam because it was well fortified, so I beelined Dynamite while my caravels and scouts explored the world. At some point I saw that I could build Statue of Zeus in just 4 turns so I went for it. Also built Forbidden Palace, Notre Dame, the Oracle, and Brandenburg. I annexed Lisbon because the long road thru the swamps connecting the eastern and western parts of my empire was slow and annoying. [edit: I was mistaken about ND, Pedro beat me to it]

Science is moving along very fast in this game, but the AIs are keeping up with me. Brazil picked an ideology just a couple of turns before I did and he picked Autocracy. This was probably a good thing; I picked it too, and his tourism is keeping the Order civs (which also have a lot of tourism) from dragging me down. I did beat him to Prora. Anyway, back to the war effort: William had a *lot* of cities, and he was building riflemen almost as fast as I could kill them, so I don't think I took any casualties at all but the war took a very long time. And my artillery and cavalry (a mix of cav and elephants at this point) were really racking up the promotions. William was the only one who picked Freedom, so I left him alive with a couple of decent coastal cities so he could build Statue of Liberty. Eventually he did, and I declared war and captured his last 2 cities with a battleship and privateer built in Lisbon and my caravels that were finished exploring. The privateer even managed to capture a sea beggar. I razed the city that had no wonders, but at least it did build some polders that were within range of one of my other puppet cities so I grabbed them with a great general then built a trading post on top of the citadel.

My navy was on the wrong side of the isthmus to go after Indonesia so I built/bought another couple of battleships and submarines to attack Jakarta. I captured it with a tank (former elephant.) He put up a good fight too; I think I did lose a couple of units. I just finished wiping him out completely and now it's time to figure out who my next victim is. Probably a quick war with the Incas mainly to raze a city on the isthmus so I can plant a new city in the same place but where it's only 1 tile wide so I can move ships across from one ocean to the other without having to go the long way around. Make peace before pushing all the way to Cusco, then go after France or India next, then a second war with the Inca capture his capital, then Brazil and Mongolia (if Mongolia is still alive, I suspect Pedro will take him out.) I'm building lots of missile cruisers.

I still have 5 capitals to go. Y'all probably would have won by now. Domination on large maps is my weakest game because I try to keep my empire happy and positive cashflow as it sprawls. Pedro has hated me the whole game even though we have the same ideology. He also has the strongest military. I may move him up on the priority list but not eliminate him completely, just take Rio De Janeiro. It would also be good to start a war between him and Gandhi and let them nuke each other.

 

[zxcvbob]

I'm about 360 turns into this one. I went a mixture of Honor, Tradition, and Rationalism, plus the Patronage opener. I settled 4 cities pretty quickly. I tried to not build many wonders, preferring to capture them, but I did get Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens. Built lots of archers and city walls on my 2 cities closest to Monty. When I got composite bows I was going to attack Monty, but of course I didn't have to wait that long. He declared war and swarmed me with units. (they killed all my warriors and spearmen, which was annoying) My cities were never in danger and I destroyed his army with archers and a couple of newly-built composite bows. I upgraded all my archers and pushed back with a half dozen composite bows. I captured his 2 cities (razed Teotihuacan) with a horseman, who would later upgrade to my first elephant. Tenochtitlan had Stonehenge, and a religion with Holy Warriors. That was kinda handy when I had pagodas in all my cities, and I had enough inquisitors stockpiled and didn't want any more great prophets. BTW, inquisitors make great artillery spotters.

Maria was next, and Lisbon was easy to take down with composite bows and elephants. I upgraded to crossbows and puppeted Porto and razed Braga. William was ahead of me in tech and I didn't want to lose all my experienced units trying to capture Amsterdam because it was well fortified, so I beelined Dynamite while my caravels and scouts explored the world. At some point I saw that I could build Statue of Zeus in just 4 turns so I went for it. Also built Forbidden Palace, Notre Dame, the Oracle, and Brandenburg. I annexed Lisbon because the long road thru the swamps connecting the eastern and western parts of my empire was slow and annoying. [edit: I was mistaken about ND, Pedro beat me to it]

Science is moving along very fast in this game, but the AIs are keeping up with me. Brazil picked an ideology just a couple of turns before I did and he picked Autocracy. This was probably a good thing; I picked it too, and his tourism is keeping the Order civs (which also have a lot of tourism) from dragging me down. I did beat him to Prora. Anyway, back to the war effort: William had a *lot* of cities, and he was building riflemen almost as fast as I could kill them, so I don't think I took any casualties at all but the war took a very long time. And my artillery and cavalry (a mix of cav and elephants at this point) were really racking up the promotions. William was the only one who picked Freedom, so I left him alive with a couple of decent coastal cities so he could build Statue of Liberty. Eventually he did, and I declared war and captured his last 2 cities with a battleship and privateer built in Lisbon and my caravels that were finished exploring. The privateer even managed to capture a sea beggar. I razed the city that had no wonders, but at least it did build some polders that were within range of one of my other puppet cities so I grabbed them with a great general then built a trading post on top of the citadel.

My navy was on the wrong side of the isthmus to go after Indonesia so I built/bought another couple of battleships and submarines to attack Jakarta. I captured it with a tank (former elephant.) He put up a good fight too; I think I did lose a couple of units. I just finished wiping him out completely and now it's time to figure out who my next victim is. Probably a quick war with the Incas mainly to raze a city on the isthmus so I can plant a new city in the same place but where it's only 1 tile wide so I can move ships across from one ocean to the other without having to go the long way around. Make peace before pushing all the way to Cusco, then go after France or India next, then a second war with the Inca capture his capital, then Brazil and Mongolia (if Mongolia is still alive, I suspect Pedro will take him out.) I'm building lots of missile cruisers.

I still have 5 capitals to go. Y'all probably would have won by now. Domination on large maps is my weakest game because I try to keep my empire happy and positive cashflow as it sprawls. Pedro has hated me the whole game even though we have the same ideology. He also has the strongest military. I may move him up on the priority list but not eliminate him completely, just take Rio De Janeiro. It would also be good to start a war between him and Gandhi and let them nuke each other.

I finally finished this one. Turn 447. I bribed the Inca to attack India and let them fight a bit (no nukes, unfortunately), then I declared war on the Inca and captured a bunch of crappy cities and razed most of them. Then I made peace and he gave me most of his good cities (and I razed most of them, although I stopped razing Machu when it got down to about 8 pop -- down from 28) Meanwhile I declared war on Gandhi and took all but one of his cities. He did have atomic bombs but they were on a carrier which I found and sank before he could use them. While all this was going on, Pedro was on a rampage and wiped out the Mongols and all the French cities he could reach (there are I think 2 small French outposts left far away from Paris; one of them is next to Lisbon)

I waited for Machu to come out of rebellion before I declared war on Pedro because I wanted to annex it and buy a bomb shelter; it already had an airport. The war with Brazil took a while because he had so many bombers and quite a few nukes so one at a time he was killing my veteran units. My jet fighters would kill 3 or 4 of his bombers and he'd magically have 3 or 4 new ones. I finally took the hint and quit working on stupid stuff like the International Games and started building and buying stealth bombers. Also once his nukes were depleted (he even obliterated one of my cities with a nuclear missile) it was safe to bring my highly-promoted rocket artillery over and that really sped things up. I'm going to JOMT because there are a few more Brazilian cities i want to capture but that won't take very long at this point. Also I can probably stop razing Salvador and clean up the fallout...

 

[zxcvbob]

OECG#103: Does it seem crowded in here to you?
I just finished a really interesting game. It's similar to the current GOTM in that it's Carthage on a small continents map, but the difficulty is Emperor and the map turned out to be really weird. I was at war for most of the game, although I only declared one brief war in the early renaissance to capture a prophet that travelled all the way across the globe to try to convert my holy city before I could generate an inquisitor. (that's all I did; captured the prophet to make a holy site, ignored the situation for10 turns, and settled peace) The AI's kept declaring war on me and each time I had to punish them for it; I ended up with 3 capitals besides my own, and friends with the AI I stole a prophet from. Eventually I got a science victory, but you might go in a different direction. I was also culturally dominant over all but one at the end, but I don't want to give any details because those would be spoilers. Enjoy!

Edited to add a clever title. There are only 7 civs on a standard sized map so there should be plenty of elbow room, but you'll meet a neighbor almost immediately. When I played it the whole game seemed crowded and everybody coveted each other's lands.

 

[venice]

I'm playing 102 now, and I think it's clear to settle coast hill, although I am biased by the fact that it's much better defensively against boats, which doesn't matter in single but does in multi. That being said, SIP still must be best here in my book because moving wastes a turn and moves you away from your growth tiles (the salt) which is really bad in general, but especially on a map size that practically forces you to go liberty to get the most out of your lands, as liberty border growth is very slow. Right now I'm pretty peaceful, around turn 120, I settled 7 cities and am planning on starting the frigate murder soon.

 

[venice]

Alright, I finished #102 Siam with a turn 234 domination victory. Pretty nice game, as I usually tend not to go domination on large maps like this, even when it's a quick and fun win condition. I went into this game with a plan, kill everything with boats, and I'm pleased to say that I was quite successful. I played peacefully early, took out monty with xbows, portugal, indonesia, and india with frigates, and the rest with a combination of +1 range battleships and cavalry, artillery, and by the end, rocket artillery. Lots of culture to go around this game as well, as I went full liberty with 3 points of exploration and patronage opener, before going full rationalism and autocracy mix to the end. Despite my natural urge to grow all of my cities massively for no reason, I managed to contain myself and pretty much stagnated my cities with trading posts around turn 150 or so, which, combined with a golden age that stretched from frigate era to nearly the end of the game, gave me the gold to end things quickly by airlifting about 10 units across the ocean to Mongolia's terrible second city so I could cut through brazil and france. Overall, nice map, lots of fun to play a naval focused but not naval exclusive domination game.

 

[venice]

I just played #103, Carthage to a turn 161 domination victory, with the 2 nearest capitals taken through comp bows, the next 4 through galleass, and the last through frigates. As is common in such games, I used multiple armies, capturing the last 3 capitals within 6-7 turns of each other after a slower early game conquest. Carthage's UA and UU really helped with happiness and gold, and early exploration respectively, as somehow the extra 3 combat strength triremes actually made escaping the barb galley and trireme swarms significantly easier, and city connections for free and phenominally good, and the harbors themselves gave me free happiness once I got my third point of exploration. Other than the slight annoyance of not having quick combat on, this was a pretty smooth game, with no capital unshootable by at least 3 2 range units, and a few +1 range galleass giving me a little bump near the end. Overall, a nice game!

Edit: It definitely seemed crowded early on, and with poor land for long term growth I felt like conquest and dom vic were my best shot

 

[zxcvbob]

OECG#104: Where are the luxuries?
I played this one yesterday and it was interesting. We play as Shaka. The difficulty is King, and raging barbarians is enabled. I used the Hellblazers map script (version 8) to setup the game, and it's supposed to be 8 civs and 16 city states on a continents map with standard resources. Something went wrong. First thing I noticed was no luxuries near my starting location. I don't want to give anything else away; assuming it saves and load okay you'll figure it out quicker than I did. I got a culture victory on turn 400-something (the mid 400s) and was pleased with that; I was about 20 techs ahead of the AIs.

I settled a city in the atomic era specifically to build Petra because I saw that no one had built it, then it wasn't available. ("why is he settling cities that late in the game?" you may ask. It was my first expo and I wanted the free monument and aqueduct) I think Petra must have been built on the other continent and got razed before I met anyone there.

 

[Nizef]

OECG#105 Good starts give a good feeling, part 1

This time we play as the Shoshone on a large Fractal map. The level is Emperor. Go in any direction and just enjoy the ride.

 

[Nizef]

OECG#106 Good starts give a good feeling, part 2

This time we play as Korea on a large Contients map and the level is Emperor. Once again, go in any direction and enjoy yourself. However, here you also have to have the largest number of cities by the end of the game. How you do it, is up to you.

 

[zxcvbob]

OECG#105 Good starts give a good feeling, part 1 (and #106 part 2)

Did my horrible start game inspire these?

 

[Nizef]

Did my horrible start game inspire these?

Ha-ha. No, I had them in store but just didn´t have the time to post them. I hope you will enjoy them.

 

[zxcvbob]

I played #106 last night. It took a long time for me to figure out where to settle; I ended up settling in place. I settled Busan on the coast to the north in the desert and I think Petra was the second thing I built there. I just had the 2 cities for a while, then settled on the truffles to the west, and the island just to the east. Truffle City had decent production but not enough food so I had to send it caravans of pineapples for a while to keep it from starving. Four-city Tradition (plus the Honor opener) for much of the game.

William was annoying, settling crappy little cities everywhere 3 tiles away from where I wanted to place one or too close to my existing cities. And the missionary spam, even though they didn't try to convert my cities they converted all the cities around me. He also beat me to the Great Lighthouse by 1 turn.

I intended to capture Kyoto with turtle boats but Napoleon beat me to it, almost wiping out Japan. Indonesia then put Oda out of his misery about a dozen turns later.

I explored the world with a couple of privateers and a frigate, but on a large map that still took forever. I'd hoped to capture a barbarian caravel or two with my privateers but that didn't happen. William founded the world congress *many* turns after I'd researched Printing Press. Much later in the game I did capture quite a few barbarian privateers with my own privateer that had been upgraded to a destroyer.

I settled 2 more cities late, one on a spot freed up when Napoleon razed a badly-placed Dutch city. They quickly grew up to be fine cities. I was racing towards a science victory, but I had to stop because "you also have to have the largest number of cities by the end of the game." Napoleon had 15 cities and I just had 6. As I've probably hinted, he had been on a rampage the whole game, although he never threatened me, perhaps because I had the Great Wall and he'd have to attack me by land. Although I was 10 techs ahead of him, he defended well and the war was taking a long time. Meanwhile I won the International Games, built CN Tower, Great Firewall, Pentagon, and most of the spaceship parts, just marking time. It finally occurred to me to *buy* a few more stealth bombers so I could take his cities and pick off the defenders faster. Once I did that he was ready to give me a couple of cities in a peace deal. It probably helped that I had built an atomic bomb in one of my smaller cities that had pretty good production but not enough to contribute to the spaceship. On turn 352 (right after the peace treaty with France) I had one turn left to build the next-to-last spaceship part, so I bought the last part and added them both on turn 353 for the win. I had 11 cities, France and Morocco each had 9 cities, and nobody else was even close. You'll notice that Japan is back in the game because I liberated Satsuma.

 

[Nizef]

OECG#107 For Queen and Country

After two Salt starts, it is time for something different. The map is a large Continents map and the speed is Standard and the level is Emperor. We play as England and you can go in any direction. However, given the history of England, you should go for a war assisted win regardless of your direction. Enjoy!

 

[zxcvbob]

OECG#107 For Queen and Country

After two Salt starts, it is time for something different. The map is a large Continents map and the speed is Standard and the level is Emperor. We play as England and you can go in any direction. However, given the history of England, you should go for a war assisted win regardless of your direction. Enjoy!

That was fun, and satisfyingly violent. Diplomatic victory on turn 377. I needed 44 votes and I had 46 on my own plus William voted for me. I was also well on the way to a culture victory, and I was building my first spaceship part. (I should not have wasted the production on the space program)

I took out Indonesia with galleasses and longbows (captured Jakarta with a pike) as much as anything because he had a little iron and I didn't have any. Then tried to play mostly-peaceful. I did not get a religion; usually I do but they went *fast* this time. I tried to build Hagia Sophia anyway but I got beat to it by 2 turns. Then the AIs kept converting my cities. I was able to buy a couple of pagodas and a research lab, and I could have bought several scientists or engineers but I didn't need any. Rome and the Aztecs declared a joint war against me in the modern era. Monty had the largest military and Caesar was several techs ahead of me at that point. It didn't work out well for either of them. I used 2 of my great scientists to rush Flight and Electronics and upgraded my SOTLs -- which were pretty well promoted from the war with Indonesia and an earlier skirmish with Rome -- to battleships. By the end of the game I had 5 capitals, but everyone still liked me; I proposed UN resolutions that they liked, I didn't totally eliminate Monty or Caesar, and I liberated 2 Dutch cities and several city states.

I just realized I could have built a Grand Temple in Jakarta since it was a holy city.

 

[zxcvbob]

OECG#107 For Queen and Country

After two Salt starts, it is time for something different. The map is a large Continents map and the speed is Standard and the level is Emperor. We play as England and you can go in any direction. However, given the history of England, you should go for a war assisted win regardless of your direction. Enjoy!

I've played this a couple of times. It's amazing how small changes early in the game can hugely change the outcome, I think just by influencing the random number generator. Settling another city towards (but not really "forward settling) Monty caused him to declare war on me, which was really stupid because the city was hard to approach and easily defended. After I destroyed his whole army, I went on the offense and razed most of his cities and took Tenochtitlan.

The most interesting one, I did the same thing except I opened Honor for my second policy before finishing the Tradition tree. Monty asked me to join him in a war against William and I said yes; then I avoided William except to kill one of his scouts that wandered into my territory. Monty destroyed William, I destroyed Gajah Mada, and I thought everything was going well until I met Rome and realized Caesar was a dozen techs ahead of me and had very high tourism already and was allied to most of the CSs. For a while in the modern era I was at -55 happiness from ideology pressure (but actual happiness only got down to -1). I had to declare war while Rome's military was twice as strong as mine, and I captured Rome and a few other Roman cities and liberated Rio de Janeiro. When fighting a mostly naval war, it's good to be England. Then it was safe to proceed with a rather late science victory.