Suggestions for Transition from Civ IV to Civ V?

[SJN]

Hello, all.

I'll start out by admitting that I haven't liked Civ V so far, for the most part. But I'm trying to morph just another Civ V hating post (JAC5HP?) into something useful.

I am trying to have an open mind about Civ V, and there are aspects I like, but I'm struggling to connect with it the way I did to Civ IV. At the same time, I don't want to NOT like Civ V just because it isn't Civ IV.

So, with that in mind, I'd like to describe some high-level game-play issues that I don't like about Civ V and ask some of the more experienced folks to suggest how I could shift my obviously Civ IV-ish viewpoints to better take advantage of what Civ V has to offer. Fair?

I. Diplomacy - Ok, so I got the Civ IV diplomacy system and it made sense to me, right? I mean, matching civics, religion, and so forth would make friends (most of the time). Usually, you could overcome the "our close borders spark tensions" bit with just a little bit of work. But in Civ V I can't get any traction diplomatically. I was playing a game the other day where I was carefully cultivating positive relations with Egypt and Russia (who were also friends). But they got mad at me if I settled within any kind of range of their cities. So, we can't be friends if we're near each other? Also, I would have them yelling at me for getting in a war with an agressive neighbor they didn't like while they themselves were at war with someone else?

And, what else confuses me is that I couldn't get them to be happier with me after they denounced me (backstabbed). I tried to go to war with their enemies, give them gifts, and anything else I could think of.

Again, I'm obviously stuck in a Civ IV mindset. So, what's the Civ V way to approach Diplomacy?

As a side note, I kind of like the City States, but I find it annoying that I have to (largely) use gold to keep them as allies. It doesn't matter what my behavior is like as long as I give them money, huh? That rubs me the wrong way. How do you guys like to manage your city states?

II. Warfare management - For the most part, I like one unit per tile, but there are other aspects of the warfare I can't seem to wrap my head around.
(a) Water transport - I *really* hate moving a large army over a lot of water in civ V. We really couldn't have some type of water transport that can defend itself? Ok, if not, I could deal with that if I could order my military ships to "escort" the embarked units. Because I can't do this, I have to do serious micro-management to move them safely (because a Caravel can somehow destroy my embarked helicopter gunship). How do you guys manage your naval convoys? Do you enjoy this?
(b) No airlifting - Why?
(c) Lack of a "surrendering" system. I didn't think the Civ IV vassaling system was perfect, but I liked it better than these "puppet" cities. Do you Civ V fans prefer to just conquer capitals? Or do you fight until the enemy effectively surrenders by giving you most of his cities? If you do the latter, how do you deal with the unhappiness from suddenly inheriting a bunch of cities? More abstractly, how have you altered your world conquering view from civ IV to civ V?
(d) Military intel - In civ IV, I could view inside cities using espionage to know which cities I should target first. What is your Civ V equivalent?

III. Great People - Compared to their Civ IV equivalents, these guys seem a bit under powered, but again, maybe I'm not catching their Civ V potential. I'm struggling to figure out how to use their special buildings. Again, what is the Civ V viewpoint?

There are other things, but I've probably written too much as is. Still, if you feel like there are more general ideas and concepts I'm missing in playing civ V, please share.

Thanks,

(PS, I apologize because I recognize I'm somewhat duplicating other posts that address these various issues separately. What I'm really trying to get at here is the civ V "vision".)

 

[SuperJay]

Reading your post, I don't think you're suffering from "Civ 4 Vision" to the degree that you seem to think. The diplomacy as it currently stands is still pretty random, with the AI routinely doing completely contradictory things within 10 turns. You'll get yelled at for settling near their borders when they aren't even on the same continent. I don't think there's any way to "look at it differently" and somehow have diplomacy make sense.

Anyway, sorry I can't be much help; I have many of the same problems with the game that you do, I'm just not as charitable about them. Maybe we'll both learn something, here.

 

[lschnarch]

I think your points are valid and you don't have to shift anything.

Shafer_5 lacked from clear conception, meaningful implementation and correct scaling. That's it in a nutshell.

You, as many others, don't like the weak parts of that game. Now, one could say "just look at the bright side of life", but there isn't that much brightness.
Accept grudgingly what is presented to you and keep your awareness of the flaws alive and then decide whether it it worth to keep playing or not.

After all, even Shafer_5 isn't that bad that it couldn't even serve as showroom example of how NOT to make a game sailing under the Civilization flag.

 

[elthrasher]

Just so you have a response from someone who doesn't completely hate the game...

Diplomacy has gotten somewhat better in the patch, but yeah it's kind of like dealing with crazy people. "Ooh, I like you so much!" Then you smile and it's all "WHY ARE YOU SMILING AT ME!!!" At least you don't have a 98% chance of getting a DoW from your war allies anymore. Basically I play nice in the early game so I can fetch good prices for my luxuries and distract a rival or two with a war, then get the blessing to take out an opponent or two to increase my empire. Soon everybody hates me, but they can't do anything about it and I no longer need them for anything.

Diplomacy was more predictable in Civ4, but also more important. You don't need the research agreements in Civ5 and you don't really need allies once you establish yourself as a power. The AI will hate you (and frequently tell you so) but won't really do anything to you if you keep your military up to par.

For war, I recommend playing Pangaea maps if you want to fight. The AI handles it better and you don't have to deal with embarkation. A lot of Civ5 players do Pangaea only.

Airlifting would be nice. Maybe it'll be included at some point.

There's no vassal system, but the AI will ragequit by offering you all of its cities, resources and gold, just keeping one city. It's actually kind of insane because normally when you conquer a city, it loses half its population, but when the AI gives you a city, it gives you the full pop city. Last night Napoleon gave me about 35 pop in cities. Brought me to -18 happiness, but well worth it. So the feature is pretty much there, but I don't know if it's a good one. Maybe teach the AI to negotiate a little bit better.

Scientists and engineers are good GP, but in general GP are mostly just good for starting golden ages. Golden ages are very strong in this game and late in the game it can be possible to string a number of them together. I was in golden age for something like 70+ turns as Rome. The GP tile improvements are horrible unless you get them very early. I pretty much use artists and merchants for golden ages only. Especially merchants. I can burn him for 500 gold or I can get a 4-12 turn golden age where I'm making something like 150 or more extra gpt as well as a lot of extra production. Gee, tough choice.

 

[SuperJay]

Just so you have a response from someone who doesn't completely hate the game...

Please don't insinuate that I completely hate the game just because I left the pom-poms at home. This is getting really wearying; it's like in everyone else's eyes, you either totally hate the game or you're completely in love with it. That gets old. My response was genuine and honest; I wish I could offer him the help he is looking for, but I can't, so I'm looking to some intelligent Civ5 fans to provide some actual guidance to the OP. So far, you're the only one who's risen to that challenge.

 

[da_Vinci]

My comments come from someone who thinks Civ V has its problems, and seems less immersive and with fewer gameplay options than Civ IV (at least in its current state). Civ V is less an evolution from IV and more of a detour. But, I have not stopped playing it, since it is different (still enjoying the novelty), and since I hope it will evolve to live up to its ancestors. I play V just like I play Total War ... it's something different.

Also, my post-135 patch play has been limited, so some comments may relate more to the "interpatch" state of the game.

Diplomacy: In my initial games, I didn't pay much attention to diplomacy. More recently, I have been doing more luxury resource trading, and more research agreements (sometimes gifting cash so the other side has enough). Sometimes that seems to keep some AI friendly (or at least not hostile) for most of the game, although I assume that if I get big enough, they will all be hostile eventually.

Most recent approach has been to cultivate city state alliances all game using the two patronage policies that maximize the yield of gold gifts. That and satisfying their various "quests". Bought in this way, city states are the vassals of Civ V.

Warfare: Not much to say about no airlift, vulnerable embarked units, no city intel (the embarked scout in V is the exploring workboat from IV). Well, I guess on intel, you can puppet a city to see into it, and then either keep puppet, annex, or raze later.

Who says there is no surrendering system in V? If you whack an AI hard enough, It might give you half or more of its remaining cities. Sounds like surrender to me!

Regarding happiness, there are two ways to expand geographically that I am aware of: ICS (infinite city sprawl), or what I think is more accurately here ISCS (infinite SMALL city sprawl) where you found a lot of cities, but keep them small in size so that each city can manage its unhappiness with a colosseum and maybe a circus. Work non-food tiles to arrest growth. I have not used this approach myself. The fact that post patch some happy buildings only affect local happiness may make this trickier to do.

Conquer and puppet is the second approach. Annexation adds too much insta-unhappy and that courthouse, which can't be bought, takes a long time to build. So conquer and annex is rough on happiness. I find that if I am careful about policy choices, what new luxury resources come with a new puppet, and conquering more mature cities (who have happiness buildings in place), I can keep happiness above -10 while expanding by conquest.

You think great people are underpowered in V compared to IV? Maybe they seem harder to get, but once you get them, wow! GS will insta-bulb the tech of your choice on the tree, and not just part of the late techs, but all of it. Any Gpers or GG will give you some turns of a Golden Age all by itself. I can't say I have ever done anything with a GS except bulb ... the local science building seems weak by comparison (and not like the academy in the bureau captial in IV). Great artist doesn't seem that useful to me ... any I get usually become golden ages. Haven't gotten many Great Merchants.

Basically, I recognize that V is very different from IV. I try to understand those differences, and then play within those differences. As a GOTM player here, I have a mindset to trying to optimize play within the universe the game provides, and so I can get satisfaction from V in that way. One problem I see with V, especially the puppeting approach, is that in some ways, you are a spectator in your own empire (not in control of most of your empire if you found 3-4 and puppet the rest, which you must to if you want to grab social policies).

Hope that is useful.

Addendum: @ SuperJay: I get that you don't hate V and yet aren't blind to its flaws. That is where I am coming from too. Although maybe I am playing V more than you are ... are you still playing any V?

dV

 

[elthrasher]

Please don't insinuate that I completely hate the game just because I left the pom-poms at home. This is getting really wearying; it's like in everyone else's eyes, you either totally hate the game or you're completely in love with it. That gets old. My response was genuine and honest; I wish I could offer him the help he is looking for, but I can't, so I'm looking to some intelligent Civ5 fans to provide some actual guidance to the OP. So far, you're the only one who's risen to that challenge.

Ah, I knew I should've used a smiley or something. I meant nothing by it. Friends? You're really great! WHY ARE YOU SMILING AT ME?!?!?!!!

 

[elthrasher]

(d) Military intel - In civ IV, I could view inside cities using espionage to know which cities I should target first. What is your Civ V equivalent?

Whoops, missed this one. If you're planning a war, you can just buy open borders from your target for the piddling sum of 50 gold. Send a scout in and look around. For laughs, park your scout on a resource the AI would like to improve (ideally a strategic one).

Later in the game, the AI will wise up and not sell you open borders for any sum. Seriously, I've offered like 7 luxuries and 1000 gold for open borders after having abused this trick a couple of times. There's something the AI is kind of smart about. Smarter would be to take my 1000 gold and use it to buy units to beat my head in, but oh well.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Suggestions for Transition from Civ IV to Civ V?

Lobotomy.

 

[franlato]

My way of understanding the diplomacy is that they've tried to emulate a human player. That mean that they try to win the best they can and everything is modulated by it. You don't have and can't really be ally with anybody. Anything diplomatic in the game is there because the civ that decided to do that think it will help her win. That means that, like other said, if you want people not to declare war on you, you need to be enough intimidating.

AI can team up because they think you are going to win and think they can prevent you from it. They can do that event if the tooltip is showing "Friend" as a status. Usually, if an AI has the "domination" victory as the victory they try to achieve, it will be friend just long enough to trow huge number of military units in an attempt to take your capital.

Your best bet to have real friend in the game is to be able to see wich one of the AI makes other afraid and then trying to team up with other AI to destroy them. Then again, you will be friend just for the time being.

Keep in mind that what i'm saying is that I think that's what they wanted to go for, it's not 100% there yet and an AI will never be as remotely bright as a human, espacially if you have computing constraint. But the way I see it, Civ V is more of a competitive game (even with AI) then a "Simulation" game. In civ IV, everybody had their personnality and many of the AI could never win other ways then by score even with no human playing.

You have to see it has : "this computer can win and not me" and not "will I win this game? (with the computer being part of the setting, as the map is)"

That's the way I see it.

 

[SJN]

Well, I have to say, the responses have been interesting.

I found this advice unsatisfying:

"For war, I recommend playing Pangaea maps if you want to fight. The AI handles it better and you don't have to deal with embarkation. A lot of Civ5 players do Pangaea only."

because I loved naval combat in Civ IV. I still haven't seen a good response to my naval transport complaint.

I'm trying to be open minded about the "unofficial surrenders" that you have in Civ V that a number of you guys commented on. It's true that I wish there was something similar to vassals, but I'm going to keep playing the game forcing "rage quits" and see if I can adapt myself to that way of thinking.

I thought this was one of the most insightful comments:

"My way of understanding the diplomacy is that they've tried to emulate a human player."

I can see your point, there and I appreciate the insight. I'm not super happy about it, but it gives me another point of view to consider while playing the game. I mean, you could have an AI player that decides to win diplomatically by creating a super alliance (e.g., a UN voting bloc kind of thing, or allowing for alliances and winning by alliance). I think alliances can give unique flavors to a game whether you want to win by war or peace.

But again, as I said, I'm kind of stuck in a Civ IV mindset. Again, the comments on the AI acting like a human player helped me think differently.

More? Keep them coming. I'm enjoying them.

-- SJN

 

[Ymir9]

It might be better to think of Civ V as Civ III-2.
I think it really feels a lot more like Civ III than its predecessor, not necessarily in a bad way.

 

[Guardian_PL]

My way of understanding the diplomacy is that they've tried to emulate a human player. That mean that they try to win the best they can and everything is modulated by it. You don't have and can't really be ally with anybody. Anything diplomatic in the game is there because the civ that decided to do that think it will help her win. That means that, like other said, if you want people not to declare war on you, you need to be enough intimidating.

AI can team up because they think you are going to win and think they can prevent you from it. They can do that event if the tooltip is showing "Friend" as a status. Usually, if an AI has the "domination" victory as the victory they try to achieve, it will be friend just long enough to trow huge number of military units in an attempt to take your capital.

Your best bet to have real friend in the game is to be able to see wich one of the AI makes other afraid and then trying to team up with other AI to destroy them. Then again, you will be friend just for the time being.

Keep in mind that what i'm saying is that I think that's what they wanted to go for, it's not 100% there yet and an AI will never be as remotely bright as a human, espacially if you have computing constraint. But the way I see it, Civ V is more of a competitive game (even with AI) then a "Simulation" game. In civ IV, everybody had their personnality and many of the AI could never win other ways then by score even with no human playing.

You have to see it has : "this computer can win and not me" and not "will I win this game? (with the computer being part of the setting, as the map is)"

That's the way I see it.

I'm sorry but how I wish your approach was true...

The AI is playing like human. Mentally ill human. Countless times my army count was huge, I didn't declare or waged any wars and yet still braindead-programmed AI had "oh noes! This one is leading the score, kill kill kill! " suicided on me. I get it if it would dogpile on me with few others, but declaring without a snowball chance in hell to even damage me is nothing but a suicide.

Other continent-based civilizations "seeing that you're amassing troops near our borders" because they have several scouts jamming all your routes.

Destroying centuries-long diplomatic relations due to some knee-jerk reaction like "you've built too many wonders" or going from Friendly to Hostile and back within like ten turns is simply idiotic and completely breaks suspension of disbelief to me.

The whole idea of Diplomatic win is broken beyond redemption (bribe City States and you win), but on top of that the AI just sits there with bazillion of gold and is letting you win every time.


I wouldn't mind if the AI would play to win if it could put up a fight. But it can't, it behaves like some ADHD kid in a sandbox, spewing some offensive nonsense while offering you a toy few moments later.

 

[Dralix]

If you go into Civ V thinking about it like Civ IV, you'll probably be disappointed. It's a different game, and needs to be treated as such. The way you played in IV might not work so well in V.

The AI definitely plays to win, and plays more like a human player would, but it doesn't necessarily do it well. Some people like the fact that the AI plays like a human and plays to win, some don't. Sounds like you're leaning towards not liking it. It definitely impacts diplomacy. One thing to keep in mind about Civ V is that while you can form long lasting alliances, there is no alliance victory. In the end, there can be only one. That might lead to long time friends suddenly DoWing you for "no apparent reason." The reason is that they want to prevent you from winning. This can lead to frustration. Again, some people like this, some don't, but understanding the AI mindset goes a long way I think.

 

[franlato]

I never said it was that good at it. Also, I think the AI in civ V is kind of like the Civ Rev's AI. In civ rev the AI will not give you a chance. She want to win too much. All that I said talks about intention, not how good it is. Let's be clear, if we want a really good AI, the game will take 30 minutes between turns analyzing all the data.

 

[Pazyryk]

Like you and many others, I had an initial dislike of civ5 after playing through a couple games. After more games and a lot of thought, I blame this on two things (about equal in importance): 1) There are some legitimate and serious flaws in the game including ICS-always-wins and poor tactical AI (although strategic level AI is very good). 2) It is quite a bit more difficult than civ4 to understand how consequences flow from your actions. I won't discuss #1 except to say that you don't have to ICS if you don’t want to win that way (the AI doesn't ICS). But I will discuss #2 and give some suggestions below.

Here is the key difference between civ4 and civ5: In civ4, consequences of your actions are immediate, obvious and (usually) reversible. In civ5, consequences are delayed, harder to understand, and often irreversible. That seems to be the philosophy in many different parts of the game, including city development, splitting of research and income (removal of slider) and diplomacy. It's pretty much up to the individual whether this means "deeper" gameplay or just defective game design. I happen to think the former, but I can understand how many just don't like it. Here are some thoughts on different aspects of the game.

Diplomacy. Contrary to many posts here, you can win a space or culture victory with no AIs DOW on you (with no or few wars in the whole game, if that’s what you like). I’ve done it many times. There are three things you can never do and one that you can almost never do:

1. You cannot be weak and stay at peace. (Exception: if geographically isolated you can in early to mid-game, but not late game.)
2. You cannot be friends with everyone.
3. You cannot have a growing USSR-size empire and be loved.
4. It’s possible, but very very rare for neighbors to get along over long periods. It’s quite definitely impossible if you violate rule #1. Even if you don’t, however, it’s probably best to assume ahead of time that relations with neighbors will be hostile.

Now you can argue until you're blue in the face that these are unrealistic or unfun. Whatever. If your strategy involves violating any of the 4 rules above, you will only be frustrated in your efforts. Given rules above, I have three diplomacy “modes” that I use:

• Conqueror: This is really the "no diplomacy" option. Maybe you can get a resource trade early on. But once you get going, forget it. There is little you can get from diplomacy, so don’t bother.
• Neutral player: Don&#8217;t be friends or enemies with anyone. Works if empire stays smallish (< 6 cities before 1 AD on standard map). AIs will stay Neutral or Friendly with you, allowing equitable resource and research pact trades (which you will need to make up for a smallish empire). You will probably fight with neighbors on and off, but you can pretty much maintain peace with other civ's (as long as you observe rule #1) even as you approach a space or culture victory.
• Manipulator: Pick friends and enemies carefully (remembering #4 above). This is tricky but it is possible to keep the world at war, so that you are only fighting half the world rather than all of it.

Great people. They are pretty powerful, especially scientists (as others have noted). Don&#8217;t bother with the improvements (these need to be buffed). Timing is important, but this was true in civ4 so I don&#8217;t see much difference here.

City development. Playing a builder style is harder than in civ4, but quite possible (at least up to Immortal difficulty, not sure about Deity). In civ4, this was all about slider management. Libraries were always better (and markets worthless) when you were 100% research (early game). You could then play slider micromanagement in mid-game to get a massive city development burst (rush buying). These tricks were easy to master and the effects could be seen pretty much immediately. The other thing about civ4 was that (if you were pushing a builder strategy) it was pretty easy to build everything in every city, so there wasn&#8217;t much need for any planning. In civ5, it&#8217;s much harder to keep up on building construction, so you have to prioritize more. Also, effects are very delayed. If you push culture buildings, you can really push the borders out (to 4 tile rings, even) but this will only occur long long after you build these buildings. Likewise, you can really get into a cash deficit or lag in research, but this only happens long after you neglected to build markets or libraries (and there is no slider to immediately correct the situation). Again, it's a bit harder to understand than civ4, but much deeper in my opinion.

Warfare. I don&#8217;t have much to say here, as I play about 80% as builder and only occasionally have the patience to go all conquest. I find conquest equally tedious in civ4 and in civ5 (although more challenging in civ5 after the new patch). Moving unit around just takes a lot of time, and the slow performance of civ5 makes this pretty grueling.

 

[franlato]

Like you and many others, I had an initial dislike of civ5 after playing through a couple games. After more games and a lot of thought, I blame this on two things (about equal in importance): 1) There are some legitimate and serious flaws in the game including ICS-always-wins and poor tactical AI (although strategic level AI is very good). 2) It is quite a bit more difficult than civ4 to understand how consequences flow from your actions. I won't discuss #1 except to say that you don't have to ICS if you don’t want to win that way (the AI doesn't ICS). But I will discuss #2 and give some suggestions below.

Here is the key difference between civ4 and civ5: In civ4, consequences of your actions are immediate, obvious and (usually) reversible. In civ5, consequences are delayed, harder to understand, and often irreversible. That seems to be the philosophy in many different parts of the game, including city development, splitting of research and income (removal of slider) and diplomacy. It's pretty much up to the individual whether this means "deeper" gameplay or just defective game design. I happen to think the former, but I can understand how many just don't like it. Here are some thoughts on different aspects of the game.

Diplomacy. Contrary to many posts here, you can win a space or culture victory with no AIs DOW on you (with no or few wars in the whole game, if that’s what you like). I’ve done it many times. There are three things you can never do and one that you can almost never do:

1. You cannot be weak and stay at peace. (Exception: if geographically isolated you can in early to mid-game, but not late game.)
2. You cannot be friends with everyone.
3. You cannot have a growing USSR-size empire and be loved.
4. It’s possible, but very very rare for neighbors to get along over long periods. It’s quite definitely impossible if you violate rule #1. Even if you don’t, however, it’s probably best to assume ahead of time that relations with neighbors will be hostile.

Now you can argue until you're blue in the face that these are unrealistic or unfun. Whatever. If your strategy involves violating any of the 4 rules above, you will only be frustrated in your efforts. Given rules above, I have three diplomacy “modes” that I use:

• Conqueror: This is really the "no diplomacy" option. Maybe you can get a resource trade early on. But once you get going, forget it. There is little you can get from diplomacy, so don’t bother.
• Neutral player: Don’t be friends or enemies with anyone. Works if empire stays smallish (< 6 cities before 1 AD on standard map). AIs will stay Neutral or Friendly with you, allowing equitable resource and research pact trades (which you will need to make up for a smallish empire). You will probably fight with neighbors on and off, but you can pretty much maintain peace with other civ's (as long as you observe rule #1) even as you approach a space or culture victory.
• Manipulator: Pick friends and enemies carefully (remembering #4 above). This is tricky but it is possible to keep the world at war, so that you are only fighting half the world rather than all of it.

Great people. They are pretty powerful, especially scientists (as others have noted). Don’t bother with the improvements (these need to be buffed). Timing is important, but this was true in civ4 so I don’t see much difference here.

City development. Playing a builder style is harder than in civ4, but quite possible (at least up to Immortal difficulty, not sure about Deity). In civ4, this was all about slider management. Libraries were always better (and markets worthless) when you were 100% research (early game). You could then play slider micromanagement in mid-game to get a massive city development burst (rush buying). These tricks were easy to master and the effects could be seen pretty much immediately. The other thing about civ4 was that (if you were pushing a builder strategy) it was pretty easy to build everything in every city, so there wasn’t much need for any planning. In civ5, it’s much harder to keep up on building construction, so you have to prioritize more. Also, effects are very delayed. If you push culture buildings, you can really push the borders out (to 4 tile rings, even) but this will only occur long long after you build these buildings. Likewise, you can really get into a cash deficit or lag in research, but this only happens long after you neglected to build markets or libraries (and there is no slider to immediately correct the situation). Again, it's a bit harder to understand than civ4, but much deeper in my opinion.

Warfare. I don’t have much to say here, as I play about 80% as builder and only occasionally have the patience to go all conquest. I find conquest equally tedious in civ4 and in civ5 (although more challenging in civ5 after the new patch). Moving unit around just takes a lot of time, and the slow performance of civ5 makes this pretty grueling.

really good analysis

 

[Isikien]

My recommendation is to play mods, the vanilla game is very unstable and a little unpredictable for most.

But if I was to give a general idea:

Diplomacy:

I don't think I can draw a sensible comparison. Pre-patch it was literal schitzophrenia, with the AI declaring for no goddamned reason then desiring peace, or turning hostile at random. Post-patch, it's three parts last stand and one part manipulation.

The reason why I refer to it as 'three parts last stand' is because you have to be geared up to fight the AI en-masse in the endgame IF your plan to win is coming to fruition. You can avoid it very effectively early and mid game but late game you will find the AI will start to chain denounce you, starting with trade embargoes and leading to war declarations very soon after

This means that no matter how good your relations were, a killswitch will be flipped in the AI's approach to you. It is avoidable but only on the most minimal level. You have to sadly accept that everybody in the game will spontaneously hate you. This is simply because the AI will not want you to win.

The manipulation part is a bit of a gamble. Basically if you choose to, you can incite civs into wars to weaken foes. This will either force foes into a stalemate and buy you time to continue teching up (rare), allows you to join in as a third party and get some cities (makes you an even bigger candidate for AI dogpile later on) or ends up creating a massive AI (this can have consequences, you don't want the strong absorbing the weak). In any case, the AI will still gun for you late game.

City state diplomacy is ok. Protecting city states at wartime is a lot of fun, but peacetime managment is pretty asanine, boiling down to either doing bizzare missions that only affect relations to outright bribing every goddamn city state on the map. Usually its the latter that works much better.

Warfare: I find it a lot of fun. AI isn't very good at it and it takes a lot of micromanagement to use yourself but it adds a tactical feel to the game rather than moving massive superstacks around that can blitz cities in a couple of turns.

Think tactically, keep your army layered so your strong frontline troops cover your ranged units. Forts can also be very useful, particularly on useless tiles in your empire's frontiers (desert tiles for example). Use bonuses such as great generals and increased defense in your city borders to your advantage. There are a couple of policies and wonders that increase defensive strength.

City development: It's hugely underwhelming in this game. Buildings don't have as many subtle nuances as they did in CivIV. Resources such as cows, sheep etc are just poorly implemented resources that have no use apart from an early food boost. Even luxuries have strikingly poor yields aside from minted gold and silver improvements, and buildings that were previously more detailed like the granary, temple and the colouseum just offer generic food, culture and happiness bonuses respectively. Now this irks me but I can imagine for people who like small empires and who like fine-tuning their cities it is nothing less than a complete farce. On top of this, ancient and classical era buildings are woeful in quantity, usually boiling down to either a granary or monument build followed by a library.

The basic tile improvements are a saving grace for city management. However, you really only get three flavours, a burgeoning mass-populated specialist city, a production based wonderspam or military spam city or a barely growing trade outpost coin producing city. There is a forth kind of city you can get with the social policy tradition, a super capital that can specialise in all three. But that's really all there is to it. No more crazy city strategies like National Epic-National Park Great Person farms or Globe Theatre Draft cities. That in itself is a boring prospect for a lot of long time players.

Simply put, if you came from CivIV you will be sorely disappointed with city specialisation. It is one of the most terrible aspects of the game.

Great People: The one thing I liked that they added was the fact that great people can create special tile improvements. These can be very useful in long term games, but again they just offer bigger yields of their respective profession. With the exception of the GA's monument which is pretty unique as a tile improvement that produces culture, and the Great General's super fortress, all the others are just super-sized versions of their respective tile improvements (Yes, even GS', which can easily be supplanted by a massive population and using GS' for bulbing instead)

Hope that helps

 

[SJN]

Warfare: I find it a lot of fun. AI isn't very good at it and it takes a lot of micromanagement to use yourself but it adds a tactical feel to the game rather than moving massive superstacks around that can blitz cities in a couple of turns.

Think tactically, keep your army layered so your strong frontline troops cover your ranged units. Forts can also be very useful, particularly on useless tiles in your empire's frontiers (desert tiles for example). Use bonuses such as great generals and increased defense in your city borders to your advantage. There are a couple of policies and wonders that increase defensive strength.

Yeah, I'm capable of playing Civ V, I'm just not *enjoying* it much yet. Well, when I say "capable", I should qualify it with stating that I'm a mediocre Civ IV player, and a novice Civ V player. But even though I was never a master of Civ IV (never got past Monarch), I really, really enjoyed the game.

Take warfare as you describe it here. I do love some of the tactical thinking the game added in, and I get how to use the troops. I know how to put front-line defenders in front of ranged attackers, and I enjoy that aspect of it. It's all the stuff I have to do with troops before and after a battle. I've never been a "micro" guy (hence the reason I never got above Monarch in Civ IV) and I prefer to think big-picture strategies. If there was one complaint I had about Civ IV it was that it didn't allow *enough* big picture options.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind occasional micro management, such as micro management of a battle, or a couple of key cities. But it bores me to tears to have to micro manage everything. And the fact that I now have to micro manage unit transport across the waters is enough reason for me to stop playing almost alone.

I keep playing the vanilla game for now, though, because I want to make sure I really give it a fair try before I just go back to playing Civ IV (especially legends of revolution... now there's a fun game). And I keep watching the mods to see if there is something that really tickles me.