Share Your First BNW Experiences Here

[PhilBowles]

Must me something with play styles. We are getting dramatically different accounts of AI aggression.

In my limited experience with BNW, I can easily see economic warfare being just as valid.

I've been involved in few wars, but there's no shortage of AIs asking me if I want to start a war in my games, and a fair few AI vs. AI wars. The AI seems to prefer to go to war cooperatively now - if you turn down a "X has become a nuisance" request, the AI rarely seems to go it alone and attack that enemy regardless, I'm seeing a lot of intrigue about plots against me (and others) that never seem to come to anything, and the war decs I do see often have two civs declaring on another simultaneously.

 

[ajok]

i was brazil on my first game, take pantheon at t16, take sacred path, now currently at turn 365, two civs in my influence, win world fair, first to take ideology, going to strike poland, he's to agressive, high devensive cultural, and wonder spammed.
play on continents-prince-10 civs(all bnw+france), large

 

[Infested-Jerk]

My gut instinct is that most of the new AIs (which everyone wants to see and experience in-game) get along fairly well altogether.

Throw in someone like England, Spain, France or Greece into the mix, and blood will flow thick.

 

[Tinker]

Finished Scramble for Africa as Belgium, was really fun, even though I don't understand the railroad mechanics (I got a city connection for ~50 hexes, but suddenly when I connect a peripheral city I get the longest route with 27..?). I got the Pedro victory achievement for it, too

 

[PhilBowles]

My gut instinct is that most of the new AIs (which everyone wants to see and experience in-game) get along fairly well altogether.

Throw in someone like England, Spain, France or Greece into the mix, and blood will flow thick.

I've so far encountered only three BNW AIs: Venice (twice), Assyria and the Zulu, two of them the civs you'd expect to be the least passive (and in their game the Zulu did wipe out Morocco before I met either). Assyria was non-aggressive and with a small army, and Shaka less aggressive than Darius (who eventually took both Cusco and Assur). So this probably isn't it. Napoleon's in my current game, but not obviously aggressive (then again he may have had a personality tweak in favour of France's new playstyle. He's not pushing culture, though).

 

[dowd001]

Definetely a lot less war in BNW. Played three games through the industrial age with Shoshone (twice) and Portugal. Huge map, 12 civs, 30 CS. Maps were either continents or small continents. Only ever saw one war between all those civs. Assyria took out the Dutch in my second game on a continent far away from me.

Even had Monty and the Germans sharing borders from the start on on a continent. Germans aggresively settled all around Monty and he never did anything.

I have never been in a war in any of the three games.

I think the bias for preserving trade routes is warping the war tendencies.

Also, maps seem to be doing odd things. Had a small continents map that turned out to be one large continent with 8 Civs shaped like a U, and then a bunch of large islands for the other 4 civs. Maybe that's just a one-ff thing, but fact is I played hundreds of games on small continents and never saw that previously.

 

[Kruppe]

Let me share with you my first experience of the game.

I live in Italy, so yesterday was the BNW-Day. I get home from work, turn on the PC to download from steam and waiting for midnight but... the hard disk breaks.

So tonight I'll have to reinstall everything and download all CIV before I can make my first game.

Damn!

 

[Dunduks]

Venice, Prince, Continents, Standard. Aim cultural or diplomatic win. Very peacefull even with neighbors - Denmark (I had two archers, later upgraded, warrior and scout (both ater given as gift or deleted) and it was enough), Indonesia, Assyria, Polynesia (I was far east and then from east to west), no war for me at all and only some other wars, mostly between Denmark, Indonesia and Assyria. From turn 150 till cultural victory was same as before click fest.

Barbarians ignored my archealogists - ok, it was nice for me, but wrong, esspecially there wasn't other targets for them.

 

[JtW]

Finally! BNW in Europe.

Large map with 9 new civs and France on Prince (I'm a King player). I am playing the Zulu because I am unlikely to play them ever again (I am not a warmonger) and I wanted to try them out. The Shoshone have just founded the World Congress.

My impressions so far:
* love the new Theme Music!
* it's the first time in Civ5 where I had to sell buildings because of money deficit - my only neighbor was Napoleon and I DOWed early to try out those Ikanda promotions (I gobbled him up over the course of 3 wars) so my trading options were very slim for half the time. And I had massive money problems
* if you get good trading partners, you start to swim in gold
* I love how trade affected my decisions: I had to keep my wars with Napoleon short to replenish my coffers by trading with him. I settled on another continent to get better trading partners. Etc.
* I love the new barbarians
* the Ikanda promotions and the Impi are absolutely exceptional. I've never had so much fun waging war
* the game feels slower in general
* I like the reduced SP penalties: there is more freedom in choosing between wide or tall
* I like the new setup of SPs and the fact that there is less focus on completing SP trees
* The trade seems to be limiting the general warmongering somewhat
* In my game, as in a lot of comments here, Poland is absolutely dominating - I am Polish so I am not going to complain - I wonder if their abilities are too strong or if their flavors are so effective

 

[Resipsa]

Second play through I chose Venice and rolled an island map/Immortal. Decent start I have pearls and diamonds as luxuries and wine in the fourth ring. Opened Monument, Shrine, Scout, Worker, Tremene, Library, and then . . . the Colossus for even more trade routes (bought a trade boat while building).

Going to go down the tradition SP tree.

I realize going for Colossus may have been a mistake since there are multiple barbarian camps spawning all around my island and I really cant get out any trade routes.

Used GMoV to take nearest CS.

Closest neighbor is Monty, I can't connect any other trade routes to CS without risking pillaging so I start trading with him lots of barbs spawning so I start building more tremenes before establishing more trade routes.

Monty and CS adjacent to Monty receive 3 trading routes AND promptly DOW on me and pillage my trade Routes

Monty attacks with 4 Tremenes and 3 swords, I have a CB, Pikeman, 5 Tremenes (I needed that many to protect my trade routes that were pillaged)

Monty's attack is crushed in 3 turns and he sues for peace offering 2 Luxeries and 11 gpt. I Counter offer for that plus the 600 gold he received from pillaging my trade routes 3 turns ago.

Monty declines, so now he's gonna die. I had to got to work but my efforts at a peaceful game are going down the tub I guess I'll be warmongering tonight.

 

[RockTheCazbah87]

Started my first game as Brazil on Prince - and unusually for me at this level (a lot of people are saying similar things) I'm really struggling!

An early war with Attila forced back a lot of production and I've had Ramesses (go figure) and Boudicca snag most of the early wonders. Enrico also pinching a few like the cheeky devil he is.

Since then, at about 210 turns I'm 7th of 8 in score (both Casimir and Washington were eliminated by Alexander), struggling for tech, struggling with unhappiness too.

And my game keeps crashing so I'm considering starting fresh. But still... love what I've seen so far!

 

[PhilBowles]

Definetely a lot less war in BNW. Played three games through the industrial age with Shoshone (twice) and Portugal. Huge map, 12 civs, 30 CS. Maps were either continents or small continents. Only ever saw one war between all those civs. Assyria took out the Dutch in my second game on a continent far away from me.

Even had Monty and the Germans sharing borders from the start on on a continent. Germans aggresively settled all around Monty and he never did anything.

I have never been in a war in any of the three games.

I think the bias for preserving trade routes is warping the war tendencies.

Also, maps seem to be doing odd things. Had a small continents map that turned out to be one large continent with 8 Civs shaped like a U, and then a bunch of large islands for the other 4 civs. Maybe that's just a one-ff thing, but fact is I played hundreds of games on small continents and never saw that previously.

I'm hesitant to suggest this because I've been playing so far on Emperor, below my G&K standard Immortal, so this may be more normal than I realise. However, I'm not seeing all that many AI units, and despite producing only a few of my own - while low - I'm not often at the bottom of the list army-wise. The AI has always based its war decisions mainly on unit numbers. Do we know if it now gets or produces fewer units (as, with the greater importance of non-military production, I'd expect to be the case)?

This may just be an unintended consequence of the new game mechanics - the game now requires extra investment in trade units and buildings, culture buildings, and religious buildings (and the AI is definitely going for religion more aggressively; late game it's also more inclined to spam archaeologists than units). The AI now needs to be coded to prioritise these kinds of things to be competitive with humans using them.

The knock-on effect, however, is that unit production is depressed. When the AI has fewer units, it's more reluctant to declare war because its code tells it only to declare war when it has a substantial military advantage. Maybe it rarely reaches that stage now. This would explain why the AI seems as happy as ever to plot and to ask for help going to war, but reluctant to actually go to war alone - it counts its ally's military towards its own with a joint war declaration, and maybe that's the only circumstance in which it will usually be militarily strong enough to go to war.

If this is the case, then in short the AI won't have changed, it just won't be getting the cue telling it "I now have enough units to attack".

Second play through I chose Venice and rolled an island map/Immortal. Decent start I have pearls and diamonds as luxuries and wine in the fourth ring. Opened Monument, Shrine, Scout, Worker, Tremene, Library, and then . . . the Colossus for even more trade routes (bought a trade boat while building).

Going to go down the tradition SP tree.

With that start I'd really advise going for Piety to ensure you can pick Tears of the Gods - since pearls and gems seem to cluster, you're basically guaranteed quick religion with no further effort on your part. Since I rushed to it myself, I have no idea how strongly the AI favours this belief, however.

I realize going for Colossus may have been a mistake since there are multiple barbarian camps spawning all around my island and I really cant get out any trade routes.

Once there, the Colossus is free and lasts all game (notably unlike its real-world counterpart); with a particularly desirable Wonder there's rarely any harm in going for it as long as you can more or less rely on getting it. And as Venice you'll get a lot of use from it.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Just won my first victory as a Free Cultural France... surprised that on Warlord the AI doesn't put up much of a fight for Culture dominance, but I did fall quickly behind in tech (yes, on Warlord). I was surprised to see both Freedom and Protestantism passed as World Ideology/Religion (both of which I was the leader of, surprisingly Protestantism wasn't dominant in ANY other civ)

Loved the Arechology and the Culture/Tourism game, it enhances what you need to do, i.e spread your religion for example. Worst part? Got 2 bsods, but downgrading drivers seem to have helped so far. Can't wait to win a Science victory as Poland tomorrow!

 

[Loerwyn]

I'm not particularly 'great' at Civ, so I can't really go into details...

But I'm playing as Isabella right now, just went to war with Arabia whilst allying myself with Boudicca. I seem to be doing okay, but I've not noticed many of the BNW features, though I have just been given a chance to build a Writer's Guild and before I went to war with Arabia they did randomly set up a trade caravan with me.

It was worth the £18 I paid for the introduction music/theme alone, however.

 

[tomoliop]

Just barely won with Poland and Immortal SV. Like two or three turns before Dido's cultural. Late game became quite interesting, but those turn times... still as horrible... I for one like that you can stay easily friends through whole game with many civs.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Truthfully I think turn times gotten worse since BNW's release.

 

[Silmarillion]

I... am pretty crushed right now, so I really apologize for my negativity. However... I have 2002 hours on Civ 5 on Steam by now and have beaten Immortal with every Civ. I have counted the days till BNW for three months now, this was my most anticipated thing all year. And now... wow.

Maybe I was influenced by all the "All AIs are super peaceful" posts here, but for my first, long anticipated BNW game, I chose to play peacefully (which I haven't done... ever, I guess, definitely not on Immortal), also because I was super hyped for all the new additions to Culture and diplomacy.

I immediately became super best friends with everyone on my continent and everything was great... getting my first ever Great Work felt really awesome. I was badly behind in tech and my friends were building up ridiculous armies, but I truly believed all the posts I had read about them never attacking...

Then, within one turn of each other, two of my Superfriends declared on me. Turns out a lovingly crafted "Oncle Tom's Cabin", gotten through crippling my production in the capital for innummerable turns, is no match for thirty composite bows. Even if I had done nothing but crank out military units for the entire game (which would have meant no gold, even less science, no culture), I couldn't have matched those armies.

Well, that was six hours of my life wasted. I guess tomorrow it's back to good old non-stop killing everyone, because apparently, that's still the only way for me to win on Immortal.

Again, really sorry for the rant, but... wow, I was so psyched for the game, you wouldn't believe.

 

[Calouste]

Don't get me wrong, sometimes you'll need (or at least want) a production trade route for a specific purpose, it's just that overall it's by far the weakest of the three types, and not helped by the fact that it's also the latest - it can help cities get started, but Metal Casting comes too late for this for tall empires.

The only purpose I have seen so far for the production trade routes is to send them to your capital to speed up wonder production. There is a bunch of late Medieval into Renaissance wonders (Notre Dame, Sistine Chapel etc.) for which it is well timed.

 

[Calouste]

Second play through I chose Venice and rolled an island map/Immortal. Decent start I have pearls and diamonds as luxuries and wine in the fourth ring. Opened Monument, Shrine, Scout, Worker, Tremene, Library, and then . . . the Colossus for even more trade routes (bought a trade boat while building).

Going to go down the tradition SP tree.

I realize going for Colossus may have been a mistake since there are multiple barbarian camps spawning all around my island and I really cant get out any trade routes.

Used GMoV to take nearest CS.

Closest neighbor is Monty, I can't connect any other trade routes to CS without risking pillaging so I start trading with him lots of barbs spawning so I start building more tremenes before establishing more trade routes.

Monty and CS adjacent to Monty receive 3 trading routes AND promptly DOW on me and pillage my trade Routes

Monty attacks with 4 Tremenes and 3 swords, I have a CB, Pikeman, 5 Tremenes (I needed that many to protect my trade routes that were pillaged)

Monty's attack is crushed in 3 turns and he sues for peace offering 2 Luxeries and 11 gpt. I Counter offer for that plus the 600 gold he received from pillaging my trade routes 3 turns ago.

Monty declines, so now he's gonna die. I had to got to work but my efforts at a peaceful game are going down the tub I guess I'll be warmongering tonight.

I've gone off starting with a Monument if I plan to go for Tradition. Thing is that a free Amphitheatre from Legalism isn't really that useful before you have your Writers' Guild up and running (and you have the National Epic for a Great Writing slot as well), so I'd rather use the early hammers for a Worker or two Scouts, depending on the lay of the land, and get the free Monument from Legalism.

 

[ImperialChaos]

From 'Murica, with Love:

Spoiler :

Anyway, now that I finally got a full sitting of the game I can post my impressions. After playing as an improved civ (France) I went with an unimproved one (America). America got a slight buff in the sense that it can see early land trade routes and, since money is harder to come by, the cheap tile buying is useful as well. Still, a culture and especially ideological overhaul would have been a good addition. Nonetheless, the expansion is pretty good.

The beginning is such a pain because there are so many decisions you have to make with limited money. As the game goes on it gets interesting. The tourism/culture system is fun if you do it right. Ideology system is my favorite addition (beside X-Com). It was awesome to see an Order city flip over to mine (ironically a Chinese city to America's) through civil resistance. The World Congress/UN is very interesting, too. Secret diplomatic deals and espionage is sweet.

Out of control barbs and MoV's get annoying. My America game had a lot more conflict this time, so I don't know if it's an entire AI overhaul or it depends on the civs you play with. There is a definite aggressive nerf, though. I guess it's due to what BNW focuses on - diplomacy, tourism, etc. Wars get more common as the game goes on (esp with Ideologies).


Overall a good expansion to make Civ V more interesting in the latter game.