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I just played a tall cultural game with Gandhi. The start was perfect- isolated on a small island. The capital went on a large river with a workable dye and incense and another incense/copper/cotton in the fourth ring, and two workable wheats. The second city was on a smaller river near Mt Sinai with incense and dyes, one wheat and three workable fish, and a third city went on a coastal spot with three incense, no river and two wheat, that specialised in trading posts and gold. The barbs were pretty brutal to begin.

I got most of the cultural wonders without relying on the belief to boost wonders or marble, only the tradition policy, but I had a reasonable number of hills and some useful production opportunities. I also planted lots of great prophets to begin in the capital to churn out faith for a great artist push at the end, but ended up being allied to most of the city states in the world. I used the 1 national happy for every city following your religion, though I never spread it to other ai civs. The social policy trees were tradition, piety, patronage, rationalism, freedom then order. I basically ignored the other civs, no alliances and no open borders, only swapping embassies and trading luxuries.

The game was fun and not a "next turn" marathon as I had decisions to make all the way to the end. Delhi grew to about 38, though curiously both other cities grew to about 28, even though only one had the sanitation river food boost. This effect wasn't observable in the river tiles in the capital until I reloaded the game.....possibly a bug.
 
Playing the Huns right now and killed most the neighbors on my Continent. Sadly I went a little overboard on puppeting. Happiness is fine but social policies is slow. Same with teching but I am on top. 2nd Hardest difficulty. This is a fun game I have going.

First Victim man all those barb units helped and my horse archers golden and 1 ram will do it all.
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Whos next!
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And down goes another.
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All to easy...
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Well another neighbor put down. Need to get off this continent and kill everyone else...
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I am most of the way through a king level perfect world game with Sweden. The farm bonus production didn't seem amazing, but I put farms everywhere to see what would happen. Expanded to five cities on a relatively isolated peninsula. Population and science have exploded (folkskola is very nice, as are observatories in almost all cities) and I have gotten almost every wonder. Everyone seems friendly despite my pathetic military, but I will give the caroleans a go soon on an annoying Ottoman neighbor. I have filled tradition, liberty, nearly filled rationalism, got the farm and specialist bonus from freedom and I am opening the science boost in order. Gold is relatively scarce but I have been able to buy up all the maritime city states by 1800 to further explode my population.

I have noticed that avoiding signing open borders with anyone seems very useful for avoiding war when you have a weak military. Have other people found this is also true?
 
I just played Sweden again on a emperor continents plus map. The start had lots of rivers, sugar and jungles, so I went for a science victory. The capital grew to 34 in the end but I didn't focus on ridiculous growth. I started beside Japan and Mongolia, so war was inevitable. I was friendly with Mongolia so we DOWed Japan together and I was lucky enough to snipe a good luxury city from Japan. Mongolia got their capital, expanded a lot, then finally got tired of me and backstabbed me. By then I had expanded to two other mainland cities (one coastal) and another island colony for some new luxuries near the Danes. I produced a ton of Caroleans and pushed back against Mongolia, taking all their major cities. Nearby isolated Polynesia was a cultural run away that got about half the wonders. They kept sending annoying prophets, so I dowed them as well. Landing my carolean/artillery army was tricky with a minimalist navy. The healing ability was very useful- I could snipe with artillery then finish with the carolean to restore them to full health. It didnt seem to be adding only 50 HP- nearly dead troops would go back to 100% health on a kill. I later DOWed Denmark after they denounced me, then India (always irritating). The remaining civs (Arabia and Babylon) were always friendly, but I nuked them before launching for the fun of it.
 
So is the Beta 2 patch fairly playable? I know I've read about happiness bugs and whatnot. I'm dying to try the Carthage changes. :)
 
I had a single time a leader turned up with millions in happiness, but it never happened to me again. I am keen to try out some of the ideas in the new leaders forum when they are ready, but the beta 2 version has played well for me so far.
 
I'd say fairly so. I didn't see the happiness bug (though I'm not totally sure), I do however have some of the 'changing' yield stuff. Like you need to enter a city to make the UI update and so on.

Generally speaking, I played one Sweden and one Carthage game. I wasn't as impressed by Sweden, the added farm production is pretty straightforward, but the Folkskola was even more a direct buff. I feel like we could do something there with BNW regarding cultural offense (you know, all those Swedish Bands, also: Ikea).

With Carthage, I knew that starting with a Trireme is lots of fun and I was very happy to find a island just across with 2 ruins and a City State. But of course, one of my rather close neighbours was Kamehameha so before I could produce the workers to take them (via Liberty), he already explored it... :mad: Other than that I like the civ a lot. One tends to be a bit on the light side regarding military, so Lizzy chose to attack me, but was really ineffecutal about it. But then I got around to my Elephant and that was the end of any 'invasion'... I could have probably conquered her city in return, the Elephant does seem to be very good.
 
I just played a Carthage king game on continents plus (young and wet world). Landed in a pile of jungle, so put villages everywhere, got pantheon for jungle food. Korea was to my south, so I expanded a little toward him, then went coastal to all the reasonable islands I could find, scraping along with minimal happiness. Science exploded at education. Got most wonders without marble and didn't pick the tradition policy until very late. I dipped into liberty (happy connected cities), tradition (science and food), filled wealth, then took nationalism for the happy bonus, and finally dipped into patronage, order and rationalism. Korea DOWed late in the game and got wiped out by me. Rush buying with the correct wonders and policies and up to 1000 gpt is very powerful. Eventually went diplomatic for victory in around 1900, but got bored at 1 am pressing next turn for the UN vote when I clearly had every city state in the bag.

The cothon/tyrian purple mechanic is lovely. I wonder if it could be reused for UA/UB etc....perhaps a building that converts a resource into a tradable luxury? I didn't get a chance to use the elephant this time- no war at the time. Carthage is definitely a well put together civ at the moment and a benchmark to aim for with all the other civs.

One thing I have noticed is the dutch are failing to thrive- they throw out dozens of cities that never grow beyond 1 population. Maybe something to do with their AI personality? I don't think I saw one polder too.
 
Nice to read. May I ask which difficulty level?

Carthage might be well-rounded, but it is a very strong civ. There was a discussion in the BNW forums whether one free ressource per city building is too strong, and one user was very adamant that it is. Having played Carthage I'm not so sure for now. It needs investment to pay off and is dependent on your opponents (how many? how militaristic?). And it's of course one that helps the human player more than the AI. Did you feel it was overpowered?
 
The game was at king level. The cothon dye luxuries were powerful to begin but they were very slow to build and expensive to buy, and I very quickly ended up with too many and couldn't sell them all. I think this is a nice trade off to getting free lighthouses. Carthage can produce a lot of money but it needs to be managed very carefully as you expand. Having so many luxuries also changes your decision to go to war since you lose a trading partner. Arabia ends up with a similar problem from duplicate luxuries....like a lot of things in civ it is possible to have too much of a good thing. It has a nice synergy with filling the wealth policy trees to get a bit more happiness from the surplus, but that is no stronger than the happy per city religious beliefs. Overall it balances quite well with having a fairly ordinary UU. I didn't use much of the UA with sending unescorted settlers overseas early on.
 
I just played a king level game with Austria on a pangaea plus map, going for culture. I had the pleasure of finding I was right beside Greece and Mongolia, with Iroquois and Maya nearby. The greeks were oddly friendly, building the great wall and not expanding beyond one city until the late game (I've noticed this in a few games- AI might need adjusting). They were plotting against me before I got an army (according to the iroquois) so I bribed them to attack the iroquois (ain't politics grand?). I had one city with marble and decent hills, so I got the banue/lalibela doublet and got almost every wonder except chichen itza, angkor watt and hanging gardens. I had two stone and a marble at the capital, so I took faith on quarries. I was landlocked so I had to explore with land troops (very slow and painful) to find all the city states. I raced through the usual social policies. Further away was denmark, korea and songhai. Oddly enough a mongolia/maya war led to the razing of a huge section of cities between them that were never resettled. Korea hated me for getting their wonders. I spread my religion (100 gold per conversion) to about half the continent. I had about six holy sites and land marks each before I started using the GPs to pop great works and convert neighbors. I bought up a nearby CS around turn 150, then another at turn 200, massively increasing my military and staving off possible wars. I could have bought more but it wasn't worth it (border contact more likely to start a war).

I never got a chance to try the unique units, though I made a few. +50% flanking sounds powerful. The coffee house came too late to do much, though I did get one in the capital a few turns before building utopia. The unique ability is definitely unique but you have to use it with care.
 
Mongolia is a lot of fun to play. I actually have to force myself not to play them because I thoroughly enjoy the +1 movement to mounted and vanguard units. In fact, it may be a bit much to have BOTH unit types (that both already specialize in movement) with that particular bonus. I do enjoy zipping across the map in record speed. I must admit that I never noticed a difference between Khan's and regular generals, but used them all the same.

Carthage can be fun on the right map. I love playing navy-based nations but I don't love archipelago maps. It makes it too easy and the landmasses are just tiny. I wish the Lakes maps included more water to cover up land, but even the largest body of water option leaves humongous gaps between nations. Anyways, Carthage is especially fun when you're on a map that allows you take advantage of the civilian trait, but I find it not so much fun until your a bit ways down the tech tree. I tend to play on epic/immortal so that can take quite a while... I think the Carthage luxury good is a bit OP when you consider no one else can produce it so it's an automatic sell.

I played as Spain and even after reseeding liberally I could never get placed near a natural wonder. I played anyways and it was just a normal nation... Didn't feel like I was playing a different leader at all.

Playing Siam right now. Finally got my elephant units and they're kicking ass. China and Mongolia got into it because Mongols are expansive s and China is super touchy. Anyways, didn't notice that the Mongols settled their seventh city RIGHT by China, and they apparently intended to invade them. So I unwittingly allied them both on the same turn (they were the ones that asked me) and subsequently caused them both to declare war on ME. I've been holding them both off my borders for about 30-40 turns and FINALLY got the Chang Suek and they are just RAMPAGING through all my enemies' units. ^_^ The Mongols keep asking for my biggest city as a peace offering and I'm like "you haven't even managed to cross the borders... why do you think I'll give that to you?" From my own exploration it's likely due to their under-estimating (AI mechanic) my military strength.
 
Keep in mind that the civ changes weren't finished. Spain was supposed to get a "get faith on conquest" UA + UU spread their religion to conquered cities remodel which would make them play differently. (Though I personally would have thought combat bonus vs CS + double NW yields would be more fun, but that suits another civ as well)

And yes, the peace talks for the AI function over your military strength (unit count). It doesn't take into account your past success and your territory which is a major flaw in civ 5. It's a vanilla problem though. What it basically means that you are better off just building a few more units to get them to peace talks (if you don't want to conquer them). It's a pity.
 
mitsho said:
Keep in mind that the civ changes weren't finished. Spain was supposed to get a "get faith on conquest" UA + UU spread their religion to conquered cities remodel which would make them play differently. (Though I personally would have thought combat bonus vs CS + double NW yields would be more fun, but that suits another civ as well)

And yes, the peace talks for the AI function over your military strength (unit count). It doesn't take into account your past success and your territory which is a major flaw in civ 5. It's a vanilla problem though. What it basically means that you are better off just building a few more units to get them to peace talks (if you don't want to conquer them). It's a pity.
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Yeah, I see that on the leader table for Spain and am interested in how that will turn out. I liked that conquistadors could settle as it was a safer way to build new cities, so I'll likely switch that back when it is switched to holy sites. I wouldn't mind Spain just getting a UB like most everyone else, but I have no suggestions on what they would be.

As far as peace talks, I would say another big problems is how losses also don't get considered by the AI, at least not in the way we would. After losing about a hundred (not exaggerating; elephants destroy archers) combat units, the Mongolia AI SHOULD be discouraged from continuing to war. The way the AI sees it now, the dozen small cities they have created keep their number of units fairly constant so nothing about the war changes even if they, in game metric, have lost thousands of men and killed only one of my units. :P

I wonder if adding a function that changes their war state, war goal, and peace offer/accept variables based on units lost would cause a desirable change. It should count for something, men don't keep fighting if everyone dies in every wave. Even though it would lead to peace quickly, I don't think it'll change too much in the long-run as they'll likely end up declaring war again if they still have a large army. But a twenty turn break would be most welcome for most, I imagine.
 
I agree, but I don't think it's that easy to change otherwise there would be a mod improving those things which to my knowledge there isn't.

(I'd argue that the whole unit mechanism of civ5 is screwed up since it doesn't actually matter for war success how many units you have, but how many you can produce. This way, gameplay doesn't reward long-plan thinking (in regard of units). But that's another topic.)

The manual trigger you're suggesting sounds promising (if it's doable), but I fear it may also lead to unexpected results. From my observations, there's often the case that the upper level AI has changed its goals for the games but the lower level tactical AI can't make peace since the conditions are not favourable to them (army > human army; even though they haven't made progress for the last 50 turns). As soon as my power grows (often through simply upgrading the units) and we can make peace, their stance changes to friendly, since their new game goal is aligned with my playstyle... (or warmongers like warmongers which I now am since I took one of their citis...). It's the basic diplomacy that's screwed up since vanilla.

I hope that civ6 can go away from these things (since AI will never be up to par) and more into the roleplaying side of things. That's just easier... (but now I am really off topic :))
 
Just played a king, donut (desert centre) map as Askia. The faster ranged units blend beautifully with strong knights for a very fun game. Obviously went for conquest and attacked anyone who got in my way. As with most conquest games the last few capitals are a drag, so I didn't keep going to the bitter end, but had three weak civs left to conquer by turn 220. The healing beside friendly cities belief is lovely for a war monger but you have to carefully cycle units, so having extra mobility on your main forces has good synergy.

I noticed an odd bug when surrounding a city. City health would be almost zero, but when I clicked on some nearby units of mine it went back to 50% during my turn.

An idea-one possible way to balance carthage would be to make the tyrian purples worth less money to sell compared to other luxuries.
 
I have just started four different games with america on king level, standard size, different maps, some with extra space for rapid expansion to try out the UA. Each time I found the extra movement, sight and happiness useful but every time I got bored and discontinued. It seems odd since the abilities synergise well. In principle each need to be actively used, but I get the feeling there is nothing different enough about any of them to make america feel all that different from any other civ. More movement/more happy/more sight is just a vague moar feeling for me. Has anyone else played this america lately and had similar impressions?
 
Just an idea for a better UA for America. What about a reward for expansion that means you have to keep expanding or sink into misery? You could have a temporary boost to happiness for each new city that is founded. This should give a very different play style where endless expansion builds up momentum and needs to keep rolling.
 
mitsho said:
I agree, but I don't think it's that easy to change otherwise there would be a mod improving those things which to my knowledge there isn't.

(I'd argue that the whole unit mechanism of civ5 is screwed up since it doesn't actually matter for war success how many units you have, but how many you can produce. This way, gameplay doesn't reward long-plan thinking (in regard of units). But that's another topic.)

The manual trigger you're suggesting sounds promising (if it's doable), but I fear it may also lead to unexpected results. From my observations, there's often the case that the upper level AI has changed its goals for the games but the lower level tactical AI can't make peace since the conditions are not favourable to them (army > human army; even though they haven't made progress for the last 50 turns). As soon as my power grows (often through simply upgrading the units) and we can make peace, their stance changes to friendly, since their new game goal is aligned with my playstyle... (or warmongers like warmongers which I now am since I took one of their citis...). It's the basic diplomacy that's screwed up since vanilla.

I hope that civ6 can go away from these things (since AI will never be up to par) and more into the roleplaying side of things. That's just easier... (but now I am really off topic :))
Click to expand...

You're right. The mechanics they've weaved for diplomacy are too complex for one change to make much of a difference. Or one change can have a cascade of alterations that is hard to pinpoint. Unfortunately this game reminds us that complexity doesn't amount to sophistication.

And isn't it frustrating! This game has so much promise and so much that DOES work... but one of the most important features (diplomacy) is unreliable, to say the least.

And I think the suggestion towards America comes from a logical place: their boons are only noticeable during times of expansion but don't have much of a lasting effect once expanded. But I'll have to admit now that the expansionist nations are always a thorn in my side; they spread their resources thin and still find it necessary to covet the lands of others and usually even expand to claim resources they don't even harvest. With that said, I wouldn't want to give the AI ANOTHER reason to expand. They do a fine job on their own, much to my dismay. And happiness is one of the things that keeps them a tad in check, as they can't rapidly populate their multitude of cities without consequences.

I really like the pioneer idea, but it does feel a bit lacking in long-term effects. It's certainly not as noticeable as a +1 movement to military units.
 
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