Starting virtues beyond Prosperty?

[mnf]

True. CivBE takes conquest to a whole new level of trivialness.

 

[Question]

I thought the point of peaceful expansion is that you end up with much more developed cities since you are building buildings and wonders instead of units?

 

[kingsbury]

I thought the point of peaceful expansion is that you end up with much more developed cities since you are building buildings and wonders instead of units?

and the point of conquest is that you smash other people's developed cities and wonders

Would you rather be the kid who has to protect the lunch money his mommy gave him or the kid who steals other people's lunch money?

 

[Question]

In a simple 1v1 situation, sure, the guy spamming military units will win.

But its usually not that simple...i mean what if he successfully defends against your units by using terrain + ranged unit spam? You have a large army doing nothing but eating up energy. Meanwhile hes out teching and outbuilding you.

Or you might have a wall of miasma or constnatly respawning aliens in your way.

Its still pretty easy to defend a city with a relatively smaller force.

 

[kingsbury]

You have a large army doing nothing but eating up energy. Meanwhile hes out teching and outbuilding you.

The trick is to constantly be on the offensive or pausing briefly for unit upgrades. If your military is standing around doing nothing then you are doing it the wrong way.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

If I see two o more expedition sites in my vicinity I tend to start with Foresight -> Field Research and afterwards either go Frugality -> Workforce Initiative or Labor Logistics -> Commdization (or Central Planing) if I'm starved for resources and energy.
I genrally prefer Industry over Prosperity. Eudaemonia and Magnasanti are both about equally good ways to ensure positive health while expanding , but Magnasanti has better virtues leading up to it.

 

[Vidszhite]

I've actually had a lot of good games with Might. Science for aliens and nest kills is amazing early on, and the affinity boost gets you those unit upgrades fast. Yeah I still get prosperity for the early colonist, but might is a great way to turn soldiers into beakers, which makes it much easier to get rid of pesky neighbors. Not like civ 5 where if you warmongered, you were pretty much saying "F science and culture."

Sadly, might is no good if you want to befriend the aliens, but you'd only need to do that if you were planning on not building an army and letting the aliens be your defense.

 

[Matthew.]

I really like the virtue trees. One of the improvements from Civ 5, IMO. From what I've played so far, they offer decent choice.

Prosperity will still be good if/when trade-routes get nerfed, of course.

Knowledge tree is the science tree *cough* Rationalism *cough*, and I am confident it can hold its own, since science is always king.

Might, being the "burn everything to the ground" tree, seems to me to be a huge step up from Honor/Autocracy. You still get the usual perks, but science from aliens, replacing settlements with your own upon destroying them, and experience towards affinity levels means the warmonger can get through the early game and keep up without needing to give up the on the warmonger tree itself.

Industry seems like it may be the odd one out, but I see it as the jack-of-all-trades tree. Military upgrades and CS bribes are no longer existent, so all that extra energy rolling in can be used to rush purchase buildings and units on the fly. Production boosts on top of it offers even more flexibility. Once the city queue is empty due to high energy/production, there is a ton of freedom. Need more science? Set cities on production ~> science. Want a growth boost? Set cities on production ~> food. Need quick military? Purchase and churn out units at blazing speeds.

On top of all this, there are extra rewards from mixing and matching.

Obviously there will be an "optimal" tree, but at a glance the virtues on the whole seem better balanced than Civ 5's policies.

 

[Iskiab]

I've been sick since the game came out so I've been playing the game a ton. I think knowledge with some industry is the best.

When you play on the higher difficulties I don't think city spam will work. On higher difficulty the computer civs start with a lot more techs and military units, plus they're a lot more aggressive. If you found a city anywhere near them expect a war where they'll have 10+ units and you might have 2. It's also typical for at least a couple of computer civs to start very close to you limiting your expansion room.

 

[kingsbury]

If you found a city anywhere near them expect a war where they'll have 10+ units and you might have 2. It's also typical for at least a couple of computer civs to start very close to you limiting your expansion room.

I agree with this statement. People like to pretend its easy to stomp apollo/deity by just building a lot of cities, but more often than not I have found the ai will declare war on you at the worst possible times.

 

[BSPollux]

People like to pretend its easy to stomp apollo/deity by just building a lot of cities, but more often than not I have found the ai will declare war on you at the worst possible times.

Many people at civfanatics dont play the games, they solve them. Its all about the state of mind you're in. Often enough you will see people spot a possible abuse, use it to no end and afterwards coplain that the game is too easy, while the obvious solution "dont like it, dont use it" is allways available.

 

[The_Reckoning]

Many people at civfanatics dont play the games, they solve them. Its all about the state of mind you're in. Often enough you will see people spot a possible abuse, use it to no end and afterwards coplain that the game is too easy, while the obvious solution "dont like it, dont use it" is allways available.

Deliberately gimping yourself because the game isn't well balanced isn't fun for a lot of people.

We're not exploiting bugs here. We're just making all the decisions which help us win. The term for someone who doesn't do that is "scrub", and they tend to be worse at games in general for it.

 

[mnf]

Deliberately gimping yourself because the game isn't well balanced isn't fun for a lot of people.

We're not exploiting bugs here. We're just making all the decisions which help us win. The term for someone who doesn't do that is "scrub", and they tend to be worse at games in general for it.

Some people play to win, some people play for the sake of playing. Just because there are people who chose to gimp themselves by not taking advantage of the most advantageous aspects of a game, does not make them newbies, or as you say, "scrubs".

In fact, deliberately gimping oneself to make the game harder is often associated with skill; while always taking the least resistance path and always making use of the most advantageous advantages, is a trait often associated with newbies, or as you say, "scrubs".


Let's keep it civil. Keep the ad hominem attacks out of discussions.

 

[BSPollux]

Deliberately gimping yourself because the game isn't well balanced isn't fun for a lot of people.

We're not exploiting bugs here. We're just making all the decisions which help us win. The term for someone who doesn't do that is "scrub", and they tend to be worse at games in general for it.

You can't be worse/bad at a game. A games purpose is to entertain. You can be bad in a competition, though.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Deliberately gimping yourself because the game isn't well balanced isn't fun for a lot of people.

We're not exploiting bugs here. We're just making all the decisions which help us win. The term for someone who doesn't do that is "scrub", and they tend to be worse at games in general for it.

If someone doesn't play the way I like to play they're a scrub!

 

[Question]

The trick is to constantly be on the offensive or pausing briefly for unit upgrades. If your military is standing around doing nothing then you are doing it the wrong way.

I find it difficult to take strength 35+ cities with just gunners though, and thats easy to get with just rocket battery/perimeter defence. Your ranged units take way too much damage.

 

[kingsbury]

Many people at civfanatics dont play the games, they solve them. Its all about the state of mind you're in. Often enough you will see people spot a possible abuse, use it to no end and afterwards coplain that the game is too easy, while the obvious solution "dont like it, dont use it" is allways available.

I don't quite understand what you are saying, and I think you missed my point. I'm saying that the easiest way to win on apollo on a consistent basis is to play with a warmonger strategy. I was talking about the people that think its easy and simple to peacefully expand on the highest difficulty level and not build any military units and have the ai just not declare war on you.

I find it difficult to take strength 35+ cities with just gunners though, and thats easy to get with just rocket battery/perimeter defence. Your ranged units take way too much damage.

You need to attack before turn 70 and take out any rovers etc. beforehand that attack. You may lose one or two units in the process, but if you are rushing you should constantly be building new units so replacing lost ones is not a big issue. One strategy that helps is to attack in flat land so you can move into city range on one turn, fire, then have a unit behind that one that will move into that location the next turn while you move the first unit in a hex next to the city. Like I said, if you lose 1-3 units attacking a capital but take it, it is definitely worth it in the long term.

 

[Matthew.]

Please, please tell me you are at least referring to multi-player. Both CiV and BE has passive AI which sits back and watches you win any victory of your choice, so being "elite" simply boils down to clicking on techs in a certain order. Throwing around the word "scrub" in such a scenario is hilarious, since more often it is reserved for competitive environments. You know, with competition.

 

[mnf]

I wouldn't mind if there are Civilization tournaments! I find it fascinating to watch how other people see things and make decisions.

 

[kingsbury]

Civ is not a multiplayer game, it is not balanced or designed as a multiplayer game. If you want multiplayer, play a fps, moba, or mmorpg.

And the people that say civ is extremely easy are usually just internet trolls who don't regularly win/play on the highest difficulty setting unless under ideal settings.