Share Your First BNW Experiences Here

So, still playing my first game (had to go out of town for a few days). The AI is certainly friendlier in the early game, probably due to trade routes. But, that doesn't mean they're passive. Babylon and I teamed up to conquer the Egyptians, and I left them one city. Not too long afterwards, the Ottomans (who had been my friend) declared war.

Luckily, Babylon joined in and I had both a natural choke point & a Babylonian city between him and me. Problem was, I couldn't even get close to Istanbul. Partly due to terrain, partly due to me forgetting to build many ranged units, so his kept chewing me up before I could make progress.

Now, the other continent was basically at war from the time I first discovered them. Monty took out someone's capital (don't remember who), more recently Catherine took out Moscow. Fully expect to see Monty vs. Catherine soon, over there.
 
I think they've got global happiness about right now, with the changes to the effects of unhappiness (reduced production, gold and combat strength for every point of unhappiness, not just at the rare -10 and -20 thresholds) that make it a relevant constraint.

Of course, that's purely your subjective view, as it is mine. We'll just have to agree to disagree. :) You say the happiness constraint is relevant, I found that it hinders what makes Civ fun for me: settling land and then growing my cities. Perhaps we simply find different things appealing in a game of Civ.

It doesn't sound as though you reached the end-game, and yes BNW's mid-game plays similarly to G&K (except that this is the point where you want to start building up Great Works and where - if going for culture victory - the key Wonders are found), so if you didn't like it in G&K it makes sense you won't like it now.

Production does feel faster, but not having looked at production costs (and they're the same at least for the early game) I don't know whether this is an artefact of the longer game time, or the reduced need for units that means I can complete important buildings faster. I do sometimes start running out of things to build in the late game.

Yup. As I made clear earlier, I haven't yet finished a game of BNW because I've gotten bored before then – but I can certainly sympathise with your point re: occasionally running out things to build. Again, I'd guess that this just reflects our different preferences, this time in game pace – I'd like to see more earlier and less later whereas you seem to be content to enjoy waiting longer for your Civ to grow later.

As the old saying goes, you can't please all of the people all of the time. :)
 
My first impression is that it's flat out boring. You're just clicking along to victory as the AI makes no intention of getting in your way and face you with decisions. I feel like a robot playing this game. Utterly disappointed so far.

To be fair I haven't tried Deity yet, but I always got my ass handed to me there before (unless OP start). Maybe it's time to move up.
Then piss someone off. :D I've found that trying to convert someone's cities to your religion tends to make them unhappy with you.
 
Of course, that's purely your subjective view, as it is mine. We'll just have to agree to disagree. :) You say the happiness constraint is relevant, I found that it hinders what makes Civ fun for me: settling land and then growing my cities. Perhaps we simply find different things appealing in a game of Civ.

The whole point of a management mechanic is to limit the speed of expansion and/or growth - local happiness, maintenance/corruption and Civ IV health did exactly the same. I don't object to global happiness for that any more than I object to Civ IV maintenance on the grounds that it punishes me for settling 8 cities within the first 20 turns.

You can still expand and grow; happiness acts to slow the process rather than to prevent it since it's reliant on obtaining luxuries and religious beliefs/policies/Wonders that accumulate over time. In that it's no different from earlier games' mechanics (except corruption, which was a poor design that flat-out punished expansion and could only be mitigated to a limited extent).

You could always play as Indonesia and get 12 happiness for free, and up to 12 more from lux-for-lux trading...

Yup. As I made clear earlier, I haven't yet finished a game of BNW because I've gotten bored before then – but I can certainly sympathise with your point re: occasionally running out things to build. Again, I'd guess that this just reflects our different preferences, this time in game pace – I'd like to see more earlier and less later whereas you seem to be content to enjoy waiting longer for your Civ to grow later.

I actually find the latter much more reflective of the older Civ games, and in a good way - it gives you more time to be immersed in the world and its development, and it feels like a "realistic" process of developing a civilization rather than a frenetic race where your people have no sooner stopped congratulating themselves over the clever idea of the wheel than they're preparing to set off for Alpha Centauri.
 
I like the World Congress, but I'm not convinced by the diplomatic victory system yet. There is still far too much power in the hands of the city states, and too little in the hands of the Civs on their own. If anything, I'd probably change it so the city states held no sway whatsoever in the diplomatic victory vote, leave it up to the Civs themselves to sort it out by extra votes their earned and vote trading. As it stands huge piles of cash can still buy victory directly through the UN.
 
Then piss someone off. :D I've found that trying to convert someone's cities to your religion tends to make them unhappy with you.

I provoked Alex into declaring on me in my last game. I settled two cities (for a total of six) into him after NC and sent a prophet to Athens, holy city of Eastern Orthodoxy or whatever that new religion was. I also pledged to protect his surrounding CSs. Finally he came for me with Longswords, Knights and Comp Cavs. However, he had only settled two cities and was actually spamming trading posts in the woods surrounding Athens. Come on, he used to expand like crazy and declare as soon as he had his UUs going. Even on Prince I expect three very quick cities from him, nevermind Immortal.
 
The whole point of a management mechanic is to limit the speed of expansion and/or growth - local happiness, maintenance/corruption and Civ IV health did exactly the same.

Agreed. Like you, I'm also very aware of what game mechanics like global happiness in Civ 5 and local happiness and health in Civ 4 brought to each game.

Since you raise the issue, I have two (once again purely subjective) issues dealing with the global happiness mechanic in BNW:

(i) It forces me to make a choice between going wide and going tall that I don't find particularly attractive. This compares with the local happiness mechanic employed in Civ 4 which allowed me to settle as much land as I could grab and then be able to work a critical mass of tiles in each city. By contrast – and returning to the topic of the thread - I found the result of the global happiness mechanic in BNW was to limit the number of cities I could settle (which indirectly caps the number of actions I can perform each turn) and the number of hexes I could work in each city. This in turn put a cap on production and gold earning capacity that resulted in construction proceeding too slowly for my purely subjective tastes.

(ii) There has of course been much debate about the merits of global happiness as a game mechanic since the launch of vanilla. However, what I've found interesting in my very limited BNW experience to date is that the global happiness constraint also seems harsher than I remember in G&K. Now perhaps my memory is faulty or my sample of two BNW starts is way too small, but I seem to recall a period during my G&K gaming time when the global happiness constraint was a little less binding than I've found in BNW. Indeed, I seem to recall at one point that happiness was rather too abundant in G&K's mid-late game.

To put all of this another way, the key issue is really in this sentence here:

You can still expand and grow; happiness acts to slow the process rather than to prevent it since it's reliant on obtaining luxuries and religious beliefs/policies/Wonders that accumulate over time. In that it's no different from earlier games' mechanics...

After all, you're right to suggest that you can indeed still “expand and grow” under BNW's global happiness mechanic. However, you seem to be rather overlooking the variation in the time delay to expansion, production and gold generating capacity that can be caused by employing different (ie. local versus global) happiness constraints, or by simply varying the severity of the global happiness constraint in BNW. Put simply, it is these variations and the impact that they can have on the appeal of a game to the gamer which mean that you are quite incorrect to say that BNW's global happiness mechanic is no different to earlier game's mechanics. They are attempts to solve the same problem as you point out – but they can have very different in-game effects.

Now returning to the topic of the thread, this is why my initial impressions of BNW's global happiness mechanic were that it put a limit in place on the rate of expansion and growth which I found slower than I enjoy spending a game playing. As a result, my initial BNW impressions left me wondering whether there's in fact scope to at least ease the constraint slightly in the early game without necessarily making happiness too abundant in the mid-late game. It's certainly something I'll be looking to see if the modding community does once again.

Much comment too meanwhile has also been passed about the maintenance mechanic used in Civ 4 and how it compares to the global happiness mechanic used in BNW. Both of course are different mechanics which can be used to curtail ICS, but again, both have very different in-game effects. This of course is very noticeable to those like myself, who like to build infrastructure in their cities, which BNW charges you gold to construct much of. Fortunately, once again returning to topic, this cost can now be accommodated a little easier with the introduction of gold from BNW's trade routes. But of course, it remains true that gold spent on building maintenance is then not available to purchase other infrastructure, which impacts the rate at which a gamer can build infrastructure in their cities. Once again, this is something that I've seen addressed in mods for vanilla and G&K (by marginally increasing the availability of early game gold), and I'll be looking to see if the same is done in any BNW based mods.

You could always play as Indonesia and get 12 happiness for free, and up to 12 more from lux-for-lux trading...

That's an interesting thought. Thanks for that, I'll look into it. :)

I actually find the latter much more reflective of the older Civ games, and in a good way - it gives you more time to be immersed in the world and its development, and it feels like a "realistic" process of developing a civilization rather than a frenetic race where your people have no sooner stopped congratulating themselves over the clever idea of the wheel than they're preparing to set off for Alpha Centauri.

Once again, this is purely your subjective view of course. And once again, not everyone has the same utility function as you. What you regard as time to become immersed in the game others may well regard as time spent endlessly clicking end turn.


EDIT: One last thought. If you really do wish to continue to discuss the mechanics employed by Civ 5 / BNW and Civ 4 in greater detail - although I'm not exactly sure what we could add to the reams that have already been written on the subject - may I suggest that we move that discussion to another thread to avoid derailing this one?
 
I like the World Congress, but I'm not convinced by the diplomatic victory system yet. There is still far too much power in the hands of the city states, and too little in the hands of the Civs on their own. If anything, I'd probably change it so the city states held no sway whatsoever in the diplomatic victory vote, leave it up to the Civs themselves to sort it out by extra votes their earned and vote trading. As it stands huge piles of cash can still buy victory directly through the UN.

Easy fix: rename the UN the International Whaling Commission and you have a perfect reflection of reality.
 
I flipped Constantinople away from the runaway, Arabia, and liberated it back to the Byzantines. Arabia's thousand year long war, all for nought.
 
Played as Morocco because I wanted to try something trade focused. Pangea sandstorm map. I founded a religion which I think was a mistake. I always have founded a religion and my reasoning this time was that trade routes help spread religion, but it won't really helf Morocco more than anyone else so that was faulty reasoning. Asyria was on it's way with siege towers but I saw them well in advance. They skipped my second city because it was in mountains on a hill next to jungles with a river. Only three adjacent tiles so it wasn't a good target. I took out the army. Not long after Assyria became by best friend. I managed to screw up getting either of the wonders that grant extra trade routes. I blame religion and taking piety. Unnecessary distraction. I keep forgetting I don't have to found a religion to get benefits of one. it was all about the shrine in Civ4, that's what makes me think I should found one. I decided to try for a culture victory for dumb reasons. Morocco gets culture for trade routes, but it's only one culture each. Not something to base a strategy on., especially with Brazil around. They attacked me but I survived and then waged several wars to take their capital and wonders. I took tradition, piety, some commerce, aesthetics and freedom. Shouldn't have taken piety because it cost me commerce. I should have used my money to go for diplomatic victory. I made very good use of the casabah but the UU never saw action. I built them up but by that point I was 1st in military and no one would want to fight them.

I won but only because I was on prince instead of king like I normally would. I just made too many mistakes. I usually win on king which makes me think it's early game mistakes that trip me up because when I start I feel it's difficult enough but if I never lose it probably isn't.

Something I noticed is UU being around a long time after they're obsolete. I saw siege towers in the modern age. I think the AI might be a little too attached to their UU and don't upgrade when they should.

Next game I'll choose a civ that has nothing that works well with religion and not go out of my way to found one and just see what happens when I leave that all up to the AI.
 
Played, emperor, Venice, standard, quick. I had so much money and only 3 cities for most of the game, I allied up with Darius after giving him free truffles for the whole game. Only two wars were declared against me, first one by Carthage who brought 5 Caravels and a rifleman who I crushed with 2 or 3 frigates. I still think the AI does poorly at naval fighting. Other was Austria who just took a city the Celts gave to me when Darius wanted me to go on the war path with him, so i didn't care what she did with it. I won with diplomatic victory, I was somewhat disappointing how easy it was. I did it on the first Vote for world leader I had enough money to easily ally every CS There was only 1 that I was challenged on. Germany told me to stay out of it, I had to pour influence in to around 400 everything else was pretty easy at 200. I had host delegate bonus, maybe I had the ideology also I could vote in anything I wanted so I probably did. No one else voted for me and I just won. I really hope there is a change to the instant buying of city state influence, that's the big issue I see with the diplomatic victory atm. I had a lot of fun though loved the expansion.
 
So far, I'm really enjoying this game. It feels far more organic, especially how the ideologies work.

In my most recent game, I played as France to go for a culture victory. I stuck with three cities for the duration of the game pumping production into Paris in order to build those wonders with theming bonuses. By the end of the game Paris was producing upwards of 600 culture/tourism. Given that I had chosen Freedom, I watched the entire world suffer from revolution, until by the end, everyone but my closest neighbor, Byzantium, and the Maya across the continent had converted. I had gotten influence with everyone but Poland, who had the largest empire, when Byzantium and the Maya back stabbed me.

I was terribly outclassed, but I got volunteer army, started upgrading them to infantry and was able to hold them off, while still being bombarded by artillery and bombers. I built a coalition against them, getting an embargo in the World Congress, and getting most of the world to declare war on them. I also had this Paratrooper unit who was an absolute champion. I would fly him in to pillage strategic and luxury resources and then walk him back to the border to launch him again. Doing this I was able to cut off their supply to oil which pretty much stopped their bombers.

I had built the Manhattan project midway through the war. The final turning point was two atomic bombs popping simultaneously. Both immediately sued for peace, offering a city even. Then it was just a matter of mopping up. The World Games brought my tourism up to a thousand plus, and a few great musicians later Poland succumbed to my culture.

I love how organic this game felt. It seems like Nuclear weapons have been changed in this game to actually be useful as a deterrent (but I'm not sure if that was the case before.) Diplomacy is infinitely more interesting, especially being able to do things like set an embargo on a warmonger.
 
After another game or two:

1) Russia is buffed. Discovering Iron at Bronze Working helps significantly with their UA. The odds of, in a 4-city start, landing at least 2 Horse and 2 Iron aren't bad, and that helps substantially with the early game.

2) Hanging Garden for Indonesia is incredible. Free Candi, plus the HG benefits is amazing.

3) Found AI Poland with Lake Victoria not far from capital. Their 2nd city promptly went right beside it, and their population soon was twice everyone else's.

4) Happiness is now a bit more of an issue. When G&K took away happiness from Piety (no more happiness for temples), it at least off-set that with Mercantile CSes. Now, BNW has taken away happiness from science buildings (Rationalism). Specifically, mid-game happiness is where I find the most problems, especially because, while ideologies were given extra ways to increase happiness, they tend not to appear until rather late; 3 factories, or Modern Era is a long time to wait. Happiness from SPs is now heavily front-loaded to Tradition, Liberty, and Honor, at least until the late game. And the only alternative to waiting is to go probably too deep into commercialism for the happiness-per-lux. I now feel more at the mercy of what CSes spawned into the game, because without Mercantile, the best I can do is hopefully have enough luxes of my own to trade (not often the case) to keep growing.
 
Right, so I just finished my third game, this time as Poland. If at the first game I lost and at the second one I won by a small margin, then this time, I completely dominated.

I spawned next to Assyria, and by turn 70, set up my cities. Ashurbanipal was somewhat of a dick at first, since he settled Nimrud a couple of tiles away from Warsaw, but it was okay and didn't bother me. Slowly, but surely, I set up my infrastructure, and worked to improve relationships with Assyria. Then the Netherlands were quickly wiped out partly by Assyria and by the Zulus - Shaka then took Amsterdam from Assyria, and started a bitter cold war between the Zulus and Assyria. Kamehameha and the Polynesians were comfy on their south-west part of the Island, and Kamehameha settled Samoa on the other continent.

I found the first religion, and made sure EVERYONE on my island followed it. It was, needless to say, quite glorious to see bitter enemies embrace Eastern Orthodoxy and "pay taxes" (tithe). Poland's Solidarity enabled me to complete both Rationalism and Piety, which was helpful.

I took the technological lead early, somehow ("somehow" because when I settled Łódź, I feared I've made a mistake - it was not one, I found out later on). I took my time exploring, and was greeted by the hostile England (hostile because I built some wonders). Then I stumbled across Portugal, the Iroquois, and Byzantium. After some more exploration, I found Pachacuti and and the Incas on their own island, with their own religion.

This made me the first host, but Pedro II quickly took over with his civil states. Long story short, Shaka eventually waged war against Ashur, and then came over to pester me. I was two-three eras ahead of him, and sent some artillery (which become rocket artillery mid-way) with infantries against him (funny thing, but the infantries were all upgraded foreign legions from the Freedom tenets which I got once Shaka declared war). After some time, I wiped him out completely, and restored the Netherlands, even giving them Rotterdam for free. During the war, I've made sure my ideology was Freedom and that it's the official one - Shaka was the second to ideology, and chose Order. His people revolted and he was forced to choose Freedom as well.

About ten turns before the world leader elections, I've literally bought off all of the city states:

Spoiler :


I had 28 delegates, out of the needed 27, and then I've won a diplomatic victory, but I felt like I could win in any way (even via conquest, but that'd just be stupid of me).
 

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I've played enough games (and partial ones) to know that the AI is more pragmatic about warring, but still declares regularly.

The AI seems as well-balanced as it has been in a long time, with no civ OP or UP (as defined by requiring change). Scores in my game tend to cluster. I've also noticed that two of those civs that were supposedly outclassed by new ones - America and Germany - continue to excel in the hands of the AI. That's because they are bteer focused on science, etc, than other divs. They may not be as much fun as they used to be in human hands, but that's not enough reason to change them.
 
Here's a good example of decision making in the early game. Playing Shoshone on Immortal, I am on a small continent with the Americans and two other city-states. I made the hard choice of Tradition vs. Liberty (calculated it was best to take Tradition opener then go into Liberty). I settled a sweet spot near Washington for my second city and that triggered the expected coveted land warning. I have lots of gems but had to use my gold reserves to upgrade four Archers to Comp Bows. When I did that, the one maritime city-state that I was allied with (due to barbarian and trade route request) was running out and I wanted to keep their food and dyes for happiness. I quickly built a cargo ship and sent it to New York. That triggered a DoF request from Washington and I was able to sell a gems and used the gold to save the city-state alliance. I like when a plan comes together. :)

Addendum: I did something similar a second time. I timed the Liberty finisher when the city-state hit 60 and they had a Great Artist quest. I chose one and got back up in influence.

Small victories when you are on a landmass with only one other civ and two city-states and no one can cross oceans yet.
 
I'm finding Emperor quite tough. The aggressive settler civs (America, Russia, Assyria, etc) are annoying because they keep pumping out settlers. If I tell them to stop, they of course dislike me more. I feel like settling more is an imperative for the human player on higher difficulty levels, and that irks me.

Attached is a save game where with MANY Polish cities I am still struggling to get enough science to beat the other AI. Happiness is a big issue, as is food generally. Borders are expanding at a decent pace, but hardly at the pace of my nearby neighbor Spain. Also, I survived DOWs from Polynesia and Russia (both paid tribute to me at the war's conclusion, but I took none of their cities).

If anyone has suggestions for how I can play more efficiently, that would be much appreciated. :)
 
I'm finding Emperor quite tough. The aggressive settler civs (America, Russia, Assyria, etc) are annoying because they keep pumping out settlers. If I tell them to stop, they of course dislike me more. I feel like settling more is an imperative for the human player on higher difficulty levels, and that irks me.

Attached is a save game where with MANY Polish cities I am still struggling to get enough science to beat the other AI. Happiness is a big issue, as is food generally. Borders are expanding at a decent pace, but hardly at the pace of my nearby neighbor Spain. Also, I survived DOWs from Polynesia and Russia (both paid tribute to me at the war's conclusion, but I took none of their cities).

If anyone has suggestions for how I can play more efficiently, that would be much appreciated. :)

In case you didn't know, tech cost goes up with the number of cities you have now.
 
I'm finding Emperor quite tough. The aggressive settler civs (America, Russia, Assyria, etc) are annoying because they keep pumping out settlers. If I tell them to stop, they of course dislike me more. I feel like settling more is an imperative for the human player on higher difficulty levels, and that irks me.

Attached is a save game where with MANY Polish cities I am still struggling to get enough science to beat the other AI. Happiness is a big issue, as is food generally. Borders are expanding at a decent pace, but hardly at the pace of my nearby neighbor Spain. Also, I survived DOWs from Polynesia and Russia (both paid tribute to me at the war's conclusion, but I took none of their cities).

If anyone has suggestions for how I can play more efficiently, that would be much appreciated. :)

Not much you can do about the excessive settling, besides taking an initial aggressive forward site... but you knew that already.

I just won a Science game on Immortal, but didn't become the tech leader until the low 200's, after focusing on it in the 150's or so. I didn't break 1000 bpt until the 300's (partly due to an anti-science initiative). But I won, because the AI doesn't seem focused on it. Are you saying you are teching worse than on G&K, or flat-out losing the space race?

The obvious early strategy you can take with BNW is to feed yourself with early caravans. That aside, take a look at tommynt's excellent Poland strategy guide in the Strategy section. It stresses (among other things) dipping in and out of Tradition and Liberty as the game requires.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=501378
 
Zulu is just filthy.

If you spend the first part of the game not warmongering at all, you can build up an insane infrastructure which, when combined with Heroic Epic and the Honor tree, allows you to spam ludicrously powerful Impis and units. Take your continent more swiftly than you would with, say, a Huns early war start - particularly because of the money you save from the UA
 
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