Share Your First BNW Experiences Here

[PhilBowles]

I have had one of the most bizarre starts - a gigantic continent in which, of 12 civs, I've so far encountered 1 city state and William, giving me a huge area to expand into (although William just stole my favoured next city spot, and my "settle the NWs first" approach has left my cities too far to connect to each other with trade).

That makes my trade income very limited, particularly since I so far have no river settlements (that's the spot William stole) - it's improved slightly now I have him to trade with, and just before I shut down last night I met Harun across the sea so should have good trade opportunities there. Unfortunately barbarians are everywhere, making trade routes rather unsafe (I lost the one trading with Samarkand. I know which Reformation belief I want). It certainly makes the early game a struggle when you don't meet the right people (or, well, any people).

Just finished up my first game with Casimir/Poland on Noble with a cultural victory. Strange game I had... I ended up with my own continent, with none of the other 9 new civs I had turned on. My only trading partner was a single CS so I was strapped for cash early (thank you Ducal Stables). Didn't encounter anyone until astrology so I feel like I kind of missed a big part of the opening game.

Hmm, strange. Does anyone know if they've increased map size?

EDIT: Astrology?

IIRC, Dennis Shirk posted in here (or another thread) to say that this is definitely a bug. So hopefully it's something they'll be looking into.

So currently it's actually a disadvantage to protect your settlers (since the barb may attack the unit, and capture the settler by accident, when it would never otherwise attack the settler)?

My settler was attacked (not killed or captured, just hurt) by a barbarian trireme yesterday, while it was embarked.

The code probably doesn't count an embarked settler as a settler, since it can be attacked but not captured.

 

[Zet]

I won a diplo victory as Venice, lost with the Shoshone, and am winning a domination victory with Poland at the moment. On Immortal.

Diplomacy and AI aggressiveness seems fixed. The warmonger civs are still aggressive but I haven't seen anything ridiculous from them like mass attack on turn 40 after marching over half the continent to destroy me just because I exist. The peaceful civs don't attack early without a strong reason, though once they grow to dislike you, they are likely to attack also. Lump sum gold abuse is fixed as well.

 

[PhilBowles]

It feels like high heresy to me, but I might actually try going down the Iron path of the tech tree. Does the AI do this more often now? I've seen Swordsman today, which I feel like have been more scarce since G&K. Better for me, less pokey units to fight cavalry.

Yes, this seems to be the default AI tech path now. It will still build spears and pikes, but in much reduced quantity.

 

[Edgehopper]

Probably have to restart my first game, which was not going so well. Continents, Brazil, King, going for peaceful culture victory. Tried to go for early wonders to boost culture, and kept getting beaten to it--was only able to get the Oracle and the Pyramids. Lost a lot of time beating back an early attack from Montezuma, which Theodora used to get all the ancient and classical stuff first. Without wanting to fight a war, and having to deal with Montezuma, I got held to 4 cities by Theodora's expansion and discovered that it's not so good for a culture victory. Even with the science and culture explosion that Brazil gets when University and Acoustics come along, it wasn't enough to catch up with a massive Austria that beat me to the big Renaissance wonders you need for culture. Have to try again with a different opening strategy.

 

[libertypoint]

My first start playing as China I met myself.

 

[cutelilduck]

tldr: Stopped Zulu rush early game, then took a CS, got labeled as warmonger on my continent, defended and counterpushed Spain, met other continent, labeled as warmonger from them across the world except friend Brazil, took 2 of their caps with Artillery, got global DoW'd, embargoed, and two of my main luxuries banned, Brazil is in background winning very hard with tourism. Don't know if I'll even win.

Interesting note: I went Autocracy, and the other three powers went Order, Order, and Freedom. Thanks to Brazils tourism, and my being also against Order players with OK tourism, I am a whopping -18 happiness down because of my Idealogy.

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Almost finished my first BNW game as Russia on Emperor (6), standard size continents map, standard speed, 7 hour game anticipated to be 9. Civs in the game were hard random, and happened to be Brazil, Portugal, Poland, and Zulu , along with Persia, Spain, and France.

Started next to Shaka, and around turn 150 he decided to start moving a bunch of archers, warriors, and catapults next to my allied city state. I moved my units around the borders and let him take it, then swooped in next turn and liberated them. This happened twice, once with him giving me both of his cities, and the other with my just accepting his surrender with his capital in hand and his last town banished to a barren peninsula north.

I decided to make a stronghold in the middle of my continent, which was literally all eaten up by 3 city states. This was a hard diplo hit when I puppeted the CS, and was the tipping point that got me labeled as a warmonger. On the other side of my continent Spain and France had been fighting, Spain winning when she took Paris.

Eventually I met the other continent, and all of them were fairly equal. They were all initially friendly, but once I defended myself from Spain they all hated me as a warmonger except Brazil. Love you my BR kamarad.

Huge happiness problems when I took just Madrid and Paris, and let Spain live with a nice two cities right next to me. Decided I was going domination (bad choice), and trekked across the sea when I got Artillery. Quickly took Portugal and Persia, taking only one other city along the way. Gave Brazil the vote to be Congress host, and he loved for that for a while, before eventually plotting the betray me. Every Congress would be a vote to screw me over and a resolution placed by Pedro for his own culture goals. Every Civ would pour votes into chaining up Catherine the Terrible rather than stop Pedro from voting 4 on his simply resolutions.

Then something interesting happened. All the civs in the game except Brazil bum rushed me same turn. They didn't even have units lined up anywhere. I fought for about 30 turns from trickling units and almost lost formation to powerhouse Poland, but I held before I logged off.

Scary thing is that Brazil is doing VERY well, 10k gold, huge tourism, and might be winning soon while I'm stuck wasting my time defending from literally everyone.

 

[BluegrassGeek]

My first experience was looking on youtube and I found a lets play video of BNW.
Thought to myself: But steam doesnt release the game for about 3 days, how is this possible?

Took a little check on the web and found that it was released the 8th of july. Ohhhh the joy that spread through my room was imense! Went on steam and it said 2 days 12 hours to unlock.

Now I'm pissed and wondering if I should cancel and just viking the game since the mods work alot better without steam workshop anyways(except the first week where all the mods worked then it was gone for a month, after that I stopped checking in)

Blame European game stores for releasing on Fridays, instead of Tuesdays.

The expansion is absolutely worth paying for. After waiting months, a few days isn't that bad.

 

[Muskie]

What happens if you use a great artist to create a great work of art but you don't have an art slot available? Does it disappear?

It won't you. Creating a Great Work of Art is the end of your Great Artist, so that option is just greyed out if you don't have space.

You can however build an archelogist, send him off to the corner of the earth, do your dig and when you dig is done discover you can't find an artifact because you have no place to put it, so instead you build a cultural monument in the middle of the arctic where it is of no use to anyone...

Moral of the story always have space for new art and artifects. Bigger empires may become the norm, I stayed at 4 cities and started with Tradition, but although I completed 3 social policies and most of my idelogy I'm not winning culture. You might be better off expanding more if hording art is your goal. Look at the British Museum they brought back cultural treasures from all over the British Empire back when Britain had an empire, they certainly didn't "stay small".

 

[Talcove]

Shaka lost a total of two cities to me because of revolution. I sold both of them to Morocco, mainly because the cities weren't great, I didn't want the happiness hit, and Shaka was too poor to buy them back. I remember on the second city I sold to Morocco they gave me, among other things, 154 gold per turn. My GPT shot up to 423!

The funniest thing is that Shaka still refuses to switch ideologies. More cities for me Morocco.

 

[Emperor Giulio]

Blame European game stores for releasing on Fridays, instead of Tuesdays.

The expansion is absolutely worth paying for. After waiting months, a few days isn't that bad.

Getting it this early in America is a double edged sword. Of course, it's awesome to finally sink my teeth into the game, but trying to get sufficient sleep during the work week is the trade off. With the excitement this high, I was compelled to play till 4 am. I woke up at 7 AM to get to work this morning.

 

[ptoss1]

Brave New World - the real expansion for religion.

 

[Talcove]

Brave New World - the real expansion for religion.

I was surprised how much Trade Routes worked with religion. I was skeptical of Indonesia's candy at first, but looking at my own, Portuguese, cities and how many religions they're getting from Trade Routes, I'd dare say that the candy would be absolutely... Delicious.

 

[Navelgazer]

Ashurbanipal makes learning fun!

 

[Navelgazer]

I was surprised how much Trade Routes worked with religion. I was skeptical of Indonesia's candy at first, but looking at my own, Portuguese, cities and how many religions they're getting from Trade Routes, I'd dare say that the candy would be absolutely... Delicious.

I had the exact same thought playing as Portugal, with Arabia and especially Venice pushing their religions everywhere through trade routes.

 

[ImperialChaos]

BNW is an awesome expansion. That's it for now as I am still playing it. (Too many actual life stuff to deal with )

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

wow, the shoshone are really convenient. i opened with 1 pathfinder and then typical build orders. for the cost of 4 extra turns vs a regular scout I got ruins (at Immortal) that gave me: 2 free techs (AH, trapping), 2 comp bows (both PF upgrades), 30 faith for a pantheon on turn 18 or so, 1 free pop, 2 x 60 faith ruins for a religion before t70, and 100 gold (to rush buy a worker sooner).

im not even sure what kind of vic im going for but ive got crazy amounts of area to settle and no enemies. i have 5 cities and they are each 7+ tiles apart. easily the weirdest part for me was having Venice tell me to stop claiming the land they covet .... except they cant settle any of it.

i only have 1 more civ to find and it will be my first opportunity at WC. still havent figured out how that will impact things yet. i havent tested their Cav replacement yet. so far they are very strong in the early game at higher diffs. choosing your ruins is really powerful.

 

[HemlockMartinis]

Just finished a diplomatic victory as Venice at King on Standard. I think it was the most fun I've ever had playing Civ. I tried going for a cultural victory but couldn't pull it off - I'm still not sure how Tourism works, but I sure wasn't producing enough of it. Indonesia also didn't help matters much: they kept purging my attempts to spread my religion -- I had chosen Tithe for the gold -- and got Hinduism chosen as the world religion, built a few wonders I needed like the Uffizi, and nearly conquered my two most trade-vital puppets.

By the Industrial Age, I gave up on Culture except when I could screw Indonesia over. I adopted Freedom and shifted my trade routes to the city-states (I only took over about a third of them with MoVs, mainly for strategic trade locations). Brazil had the Congress but had also chosen Freedom, while most of the city-states were allied with Portugal (Order) or Morocco (also Freedom). I used Treaty Organization to gradually take control of Portugal's allies and bankrupted myself bribing the Zulu to vote for me for the World Ideology. From there I just steadily Treaty Organization'd and bribed my way into control of every city-state on the map. Portugal and Assyria DOW'd in the Atomic Age but two turns later I won the UN vote.

I'm blown away by how much fun this expansion is so far. Venice is brilliantly designed. It's an economic powerhouse but not without weaknesses: spreading out to get key trade routes leaves you extremely vulnerable, and not being able to buy Archaeologists puts you at a severe cultural disadvantage. Ideologies/Tenets and Trade Routes added a whole new level of complexity and strategic depth to the game. The World Congress is fantastically executed. And best of all, the AI seems to finally grasp how the systems work. I'm going to try the Scramble for Africa scenario next I think.

 

[teakbois]

My first game:
Havent played Civ V in a long time, and its such a drastic difference from playing Civ IV cavemen 2 cosmos.

Decided to play King, with Poland. Started on a crowded map with 4 city states, Mongols, Siam, and Greece all discovered by turn 40 or so. Both Siam and Atilla crowd me with their second city. Turn 75 or so, Alex declares. I had 3 archers and a warrior at this point, but figure it would be fine. until the next turn i see 3 battering rams and a Horse Archer on my border

Yep, my first game I got STOMPED.

 

[rastak]

Finished my game minutes ago that I started on launch night. Prince level. Absolutely epic game.

I started as Shoshone on a Continents Plus map. but ended up boxed in. Zulu to the north, Assyrians just north of them and Arabia to the south. Fought several wars with Zulu and Assyrians, they started them all. Ended up with two Zulu cities and eventually Assyria wiped the Zulus out.

Meanwhile France wiped out Venice and a bunch of other stuff.....definately the warmonger of the game. Arabia lost most of his cities to France and hated his guts the rest of the game. 1000 years later he was still ing about France. I met the rest and Portugal was the powerhouse. She was a royal pain in the arse the entire game. She went Autocracy as did France. I went order and got my ideology well before everyone else. Brazil went Freedom. Everyone erlse pretty much went Order after I forced through Order as the world ideology. It cost me something like 7000 to buy the votes.....I had money issues the rest of the game.

At any rate, Portugal had tons of money and controlled the world congress vote eventually repealing Order as the congress decree. She ruled the congress with an iron fist. She was universaly hated. France had a big city defect to me due to Ideology pressure. I took all his great works and then gifted him back the city since it would have meant war for sure. He immediately switched to Order then complimented me on my ideology choice...lol.

That left two Order holdouts and two backward civs with no ideology that were WAY behind. Morocco and Arabia who basically kept the congress from forming the UN for years. Probably saved me the game. As the end game approached I could clearly see Portugal was going to win the UN leader vote. I threw everything I had across the ocean and attacked her capitol. I took and retook it three times. It was a ferocious fight. The world leader vote came up and I figured that was it. She failed to win by three votes. Honestly it was hilarious. When I first attacked her EVERY SINGLE CIV said "it's not just me that feels this way about Portugal". Everyone hated her.


With time now on my side I wiped her off the map, her back broken once her capitol and 11 wonder fell for the last time. With her gone, I was sure to win the UN leader vote. With four turns remaining the end game screen popped up. Comon Firaxis, do you know how anti-climactic that is?

At any rate, I eventually figured out it was a time victory and one very tense game. Hugely fun game that ended up about 12 hours in time to play. Just fired up a standard map with Indonesia, hope it's as fun as the one I just finished.

 

[ScubaSteveWA]

I have been playing a game as Portugal and it seems the Feitoria is only able to be built until the Industrial era? I just advanced into the next era and have lost my ability to build them, even had one that was in the process of being built canceled and I can't continue it. Can anyone confirm this? Seems downright insane you could only have this ability for a little as 1 tech level (since it unlocks at navigation). I only had time to set two up in city-states.