Share Your First BNW Experiences Here

[PhilBowles]

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).

I've done the same (though new vs. "unimproved") with Indonesia and Siam.

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.

Best bit of my first experience with ideology was its stark realism and topical relevance:

Spoiler :

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

I'm liking it a lot, but with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand, it adds a lot of content and variety to the game which makes it a better play experience overall.

But on the other it feels a lot less polished (and has some glaring balance issues with certain policies, ideological tenets, and religious beliefs) - G&K felt like a good, finished game, and Civ V could have stopped there. BNW feels like a game with great potential that's fundamentally unfinished (rather like vanilla, only better).

 

[Calouste]

I'm liking it a lot, but with somewhat mixed feelings. On the one hand, it adds a lot of content and variety to the game which makes it a better play experience overall.

But on the other it feels a lot less polished (and has some glaring balance issues with certain policies, ideological tenets, and religious beliefs) - G&K felt like a good, finished game, and Civ V could have stopped there. BNW feels like a game with great potential that's fundamentally unfinished (rather like vanilla, only better).

IIRC, Firaxis said quite a while ago before BNW even was released that they have a balance patch scheduled for the fall.

 

[Godswood]

Right now I'm playing my first game as the Shoshone. It's... weird. I only managed to get the Zulus as rivals from BNW, though.

Getting gold and rich and whatnot is so easy it hurts, if you play it right. But if you're against Egypt, then forget about being the World Congress host - Ramesses II is a goddamn maniac when it comes to wonders, and he can easily get 10 delegates when the rest of the world has 3, 4 at best. It's insane.

Edit: Found out it's because of the city states delegates, he only got additional 2 because of the wonders. Due to the brand new cultural stuff and whatnot, I decided to skip over the science policy tree... terrible mistake. Crippled my science and left me behind Ramesses - causing me to lose (not to mention that Hiawatha hated my guts and declared an embargo on me, and even Germany and Ethiopia, my only friends, voted "yea" on it, no idea why).

 

[JtW]

Wars get more common as the game goes on (esp with Ideologies).

This is my experience as well. In my game, I was almost the only aggressor early on. Later in the game a real world war began due to the ideological differences.

One nice side effect of AI being less aggressive is that there was no clear runaway in my game. There were 3 AIs who were on par with me. It's much more interesting than fighting against one mega blob of blue French cities a la GnK.

 

[InsanelyApple]

My post from the "Anyone played the scenarios yet" thread.

I played as the Boers in Scramble for Africa. That was more fun than the default game, in my opinion. I met Portugal, England, Germany, and the Zulus within two turns. Everybody liked me, except for the Zulus, so when England asked me to declare war on the Zulus with her, I did. She conquered Ulundi and a southern Zulu city in about 3 turns while I conquered his last city up north.

Around turn 15, I got a DoF with Portugal and had a small trading empire with the Europeans. Then, turn 25, England and Germany denounced me saying they had enough of me. Two turns later, they both declared war. I was unprepared because I wasn't expecting it, but Portugal was still friendly with me so I still had a source of money from trade routes and happiness from luxuries.

After struggling for about 10 turns, the war turned around I got 2 Great Generals. I turned them into citadels to steal Germany's luxuries and coal to get happiness and to trade for needed money. Then Germany made a white peace with me. I only had to deal with England.

I build up some Rifled Cannons and conquered Nobama from the English (who earlier conquered it from the Zulu. Around this time Portugal denounced me even though we still had a DoF and I meet France.

I send my Rifled Cannons and Foreign Volunteers down to the English capital, Cape Town. She had a ton of Rifled Cannons and Ship of the Lines bombarding my units. Within five turns, Cape Town falls with massive causalities on both sides. The very next turn she reconquered Cape Town with an Ironclad I didn't see earlier, but I reconquered it the next turn. Cape Town went down from size 14 to 1 in a matter of turns.

I tried to get peace, but England only wanted peace if I gave back Cape Town and Nobama. (Yeah, your losing the war and you want me to surrender. ) Just to see what would happen, I proposed a white peace and she accepted. (Whatever.)

After the war, the strongest military list popped up and England had the strongest military, around 12000 and I had the second weakest at 3500. I think England would be the laughing stock of Europe after that defeat!

I made a DoF with France a few turns later and got a new trading partner now that I had access to Cargo Ships. By the end of the scenario, I was making so much culture per turn that when I had ten turns left, my next policy would be in nine turns (even though I had no more policies I could adopt), so I had to switch my cities into production focus so they'd stop working the farms. (Boer farms give culture.)

I won the scenario with a score of about 3500. France was second place with about 3200 and England was second from last with a score of about 700. All in all, it was really fun and I recommend you all try non-Europeans in the scenario. The Boers, in my opinion, were way more fun than any European I played as in the scenario.

 

[juiceums]

I don't know if this is the right place for this, but do you think I should be getting 'brave new worlds'? I got G&K recently and haven't played much, so I'm not sure if I want the changes yet. I also want to know whether the additions are worth it or too focused on culture. I've seen the scramble for Africa scenario, and that seems like the best scenario so far. It would be great if anyone could elaborate on the pros/cons of BNW.
Thanks

 

[Buccaneer]

I think one of the conclusions from today was that they succeeded in making the game more accessible. They brought back people that dropped out in vanilla, as well as dropped out in G&K, while keeping nearly all of the core players. They did that by great marketing, more diversity in gameplay and arguably making it an easier game.

 

[Buccaneer]

The other observation is do you remember what the last civs they announced were? Venice and Shoshone, the two civs everyone is playing and talking about. Don't think that's a coincidence.

 

[Cyanfunk]

I've more or less seen a pattern to my Prince games:

1) Crap start, everyone else is somehow in the 90s with their score while I'm at 50

2) National College happens, science ball starts roll

3) Scout/Trireme finds everyone and I start beelining to either Banking or Printing Press (if Ramses is on the map, just go straight to Printing Press because there is no way in hell I'm getting the Forbidden Palace.)

4) World Congress happens, followed immediately by World's Fair

5) CENTURIES UPON CENTURIES OF PEACE, TRADE, AND CULTURAL. TRULY THIS IS THE GOLDEN AGE OF MAN.

6) Modern Era. Pick first Ideology.

7) Everyone else picks Ideology

8) Everyone suddenly wants everyone else dead

9) Mad dash to get gold to buy up City States to game the Congress, maybe irritating people with an archaeologist or two.

10) Somehow avoid getting DoW'd at all and hop right into a cultural or diplomatic victory

I need to move up to King at some point, just need to work on my early game.

 

[Leugi]

Well, finally managed to get into BNW, and finish a game... and I'm amazed!

There is more peace, but it does feel like a progressive thing, the Trade routes change everything... The game is surely more complex and better now... Anyway, I truly enjoyed the game, even though I lost (was trying to hard on a Culture victory).

 

[GhostSalsa]

It still beggars belief (and I raised it when it was first revealed) that no one seems to have thought being able to get 11 food trade routes early in the game would break the system, and even 4 food from caravans is valuable. Conversely, no one seems to have considered that food is worth a lot more than production, making production trade routes all but useless. In practice I actually have found gold trade valuable enough that food trade isn’t all-dominating as I’d feared, but it still needs to be looked at.

It seems from both a balance and realism issue like I ought to have to do sonething to force the cooperation between cities for a food shipment. The Roman republic had wheat shipments hostaged by its own generals, after all.

But rather than yet another policy or boring building to churn out, maybe the game should force me to keep a melee or calvary unit garrisoned in any non-capital city for that city to be able to send food outbound. That adds just a little bit more opportunity cost into my free apples (though it also adds another unneeded indirect reward for peacefulness).

 

[Bandersnatching]

Well, finally managed to get into BNW, and finish a game... and I'm amazed!

There is more peace, but it does feel like a progressive thing, the Trade routes change everything... The game is surely more complex and better now... Anyway, I truly enjoyed the game, even though I lost (was trying to hard on a Culture victory).

I'm seconding everything you wrote, and below is my first real game experience. Out of curiosity - I tried for a cultural victory too, and I am so happy that you aren't tied to a small number of cities to win this way now - I'd like to know who you chose, what you ran up against, and how you ultimately failed.

Okay, wow.
So earlier I posted that I was going to try Morocco. I did, then completely failed to get anything I wanted except an actual income. With that experience under my belt and some more familiarity with the game, I decided to go super-religious with Byzantium early and then go for the cultural victory. It was actually going really well -the Parthenon and Sacred Sites reformation belief really help establish early Tourism - despite my terrible expansion and no military, and by 240 turns in I was friends with everyone, beating even the wonder-spamming Washington in Tourism by a wide margin, and handily winning religion and culture city-state quests, when my Best Ally Forever (BAF) Pachacuti, who had gone Autocracy shortly before, picked the easiest target.
Sure I lost, real hard and real horribly, but that was freaking fun! This game is so much more complex now and I can't wait to figure out the new mechanics and get an understanding of the game in the same way that I had for Gods and Kings.
A full ten stars for Firaxis in my opinion, this expansion is even better than G&K - at least thus far. Even if they do nothing else for Civ5, they did this.

On a final note, the intro screen music is so beautiful, as are the themes for the new civs.

 

[JtW]

I would like to add: so far, it's the first time in Civ5 where I get the same kind of feelings as when I was playing Civ4 BTS: I feel immersed in the story as it unfolds.

I wonder if the rage some people have about the lack of aggression isn't caused by the fact that Civ5 was basically a war game until now. In Civ4, you wouldn't fight all the time. You would build and develop. That's what civilization is all about, after all. BNW gives me that feeling back. Which is awesome.

 

[ptoss1]

I would like to add: so far, it's the first time in Civ5 where I get the same kind of feelings as when I was playing Civ4 BTS: I feel immersed in the story as it unfolds.

I wonder if the rage some people have about the lack of aggression isn't caused by the fact that Civ5 was basically a war game until now. In Civ4, you wouldn't fight all the time. You would build and develop. That's what civilization is all about, after all. BNW gives me that feeling back. Which is awesome.

NOT A WAR GAME

Spoiler :

Look how beautiful they are so evenly spaced out. After I razed like 5 cities.

 

[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.

I now think I'm going to have to say some very rude words to the Romans and the Vikings as they insist on asking for embassies in the same turn.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

My first impression of BNW is overwhelmingly positive.

I had my doubts if they the new mechanics would merge well with the rest of the game - and they do. Apart from a few balance issues I haven't found ANYTHING to complain about.

The world congress is a brilliant tool that can lead to vastly different modifiers in most games. So much botential in SP and MP games. The first truly working UN in a CIV game yet.

Trade routes do not only serve as money makers, but are also of strategic importance for faith spreading. Before BNW there was rarely a reason why I would want to fight barbs outside my capital - now I have to secure my trade routes. I am actually much more connected to my own territory and the surroundings.

The new culture game is fantastic. While warmongers tinker with their order of battle for war, peaceful players can now arrange their works. I feared there might be too much micromanagement involved, but it honestly never felt that way. It is so easy to switch around stuff and once you know what buildings need which combination, you don't even need tooltips most of the time.

Tourism, ideologies, the reworked SP trees, the new early game economy, new wonders, new CIVs, new AI behaviour, all that stuff is just great.
I really like how the game shifted to a more balanced approach on peace vs. war.

Great job, Fireaxis!
This addon finally turned CIV5 into a great game that is 100% worth of the civilization title.

 

[seancolorado]

The other observation is do you remember what the last civs they announced were? Venice and Shoshone, the two civs everyone is playing and talking about. Don't think that's a coincidence.

You could make the argument that people are talking about them because they were announced so recently, so they never had the time to sit and dry under the CivFanatics sun

At least for Shoshone. Venice by default of "hybercubeness" would have always created talking points

 

[Liufeng]

Well, I really loved this first game I've done.
I used Poland, because of its versatily, Prince difficulty, 8 civs, and aimed for space victory.

We were divided between three big islands. I shared mine with Montezuma and Maria-Theresa, The second had Ashurbanipal, Maria and Enrico Dandolo, while the third had Pedro II and Kamehameha.

Surprisingly, Montezuma never attacked me (maybe because my army was always superior to his), but he totally destroyed Maria-Theresa. So, we were buds until ideologies come, and I, picking up freedom, he took order, until his people got to wear jeans and listen to pop music.

Ashurbanipal steam rolled Maria, Enrico and evry CS in his island, making him supreme leader of it but never leaving it.

Pedro was a BIG GIGANTIC pain in the ass. First, he did not stopped building wonders. And second, his huge tourism which affected one of my cities, despite its high culture, and caused unhappiness. He dilliked me A LOT because I made propositions he disliked, built wonders he coveted, different ideologies.

I was the leader of the WC during the whole game, seconded by Kamehameha, who tried to ban my resources several times. I won space victory, but I could easily have won several times by WC.
Overall, I loved it.

 

[CornPlanter]

Standard map, continents, epic speed, Immortal difficulty, Ottoman empire, late victory in 2nd attempt (~1940). Slaughtered everyone but Denmark (was about to finish them off) and a tiny Austrian "empire" of 3 or 4 cities, but happened to win Diplomacy before I was done with them. Victory screen was priceless: "You will be always remembered as the one who brought peace to the world". History is written by the victors indeed


Overall, I like it so much more than G+K, leave alone vanilla. Truly a good game, finally.

 

[JustinianIV]

Standard map, continents, epic speed, Immortal difficulty, Ottoman empire, late victory in 2nd attempt (~1940). Slaughtered everyone but Denmark (was about to finish them off) and a tiny Austrian "empire" of 3 or 4 cities, but happened to win Diplomacy before I was done with them. Victory screen was priceless: "You will be always remembered as the one who brought peace to the world". History is written by the victors indeed


Overall, I like it so much more than G+K, leave alone vanilla. Truly a good game, finally.

I'm glad you had a good time and enjoy it more than GnK, but where you even trying for a Diplo victory? If I was going for a DV and unintentionally got another VC, I don't know if that would feel good. Like when you get an accidental checkmate in chess.