The Civilization 5 Military Academy

[fromar]

Hi MadDjinn and Bibor,

I've really been enjoying your videos. They have made me into a much better player. I have especially learned to PLAN AHEAD.

In this game, I am playing as Oda on Emperor. My long-term plan from the start was to play domination, but I'm not sure where to go from where I am.

I am trying out the new DLC ring map, which is proving pretty difficult. I am situated in the south-eastern corner of the ring. I had two neighbors just to the north of me, Egypt just above and Russia above Egypt. The three of us had a three-way friend loop, but Russia double-crossed Egypt and made an attack. I took the opportunity to dog-pile and attacked Egypt with my Samurai. Unfortunantly, just before taking Egypt's capital, Russia killed the last of Egypt's non-capital cities, so I destroyed Egypt totally and took the diplo hit for it. Russia then moved his army to my border and was friendly for a few turns, then went hostile. I denounced them to goad them into war, and Cathy fell for it and made her attack. I reduced Russia down to one city and made peace.

I control the eastern part of the ring. England is on the North side of the ring and has been hostile most of the game. Denmark is on the Southern ring and is generally neutral.

I am friends with Spain, who is dead-opposite me on the map. I've been aggressively selling lux and strategic resources to the AI, but the friendly AIs are pretty poor.

So here I am trying to tech to rifling and dynamite so I can blow some things up. My tech is ok, but I don't think it's going to keep up with the AIs. I'm up for a Great Scientist in a while. There are only two city states (even though I selected more in the opening - I think it's a bug in the map script), so there's no real purpose in going down the patronage track. I feel that I should tech to rifling and artillery before going to war again, but the closest AI, Elizabeth, is pretty far away, and it will take time to march an army. She may use that time to upgrade her stuff.

I only built two cities, and my capital city (far south) has an armory, barracks, and heroic epic, so all units will come from there. I've been fairly poor most of this game. I'm not sure why since I've been selling as much as I can. I have only recently captured the Egyptian and Russian cities, so I haven't had a chance to turn them into trading post farms.

So my questions are as follows:

• Should I attack England with my current Army or wait to upgrade? They have some wonders I covet and they've hated me most of the game, so I really want to kill them.
• Should I build a second army to take Denmark or just let them be last in my 'loop of doom'?
• How would you win this game?

Notes: Oda, Standard Speed, Emperor, Ring Map, All DLCs are enabled.

 

[ghoultek]

@Bibor and MadDjinn:

I know this may go against this sub-forum's format, but can you post the high res. video commentaries for download? I tend to watch Youtube videos at 720p because I have a high speed connection. However, for some reason (probably just internet congestion) videos can at times buffer load slowly. The long buffer load delay isn't consistent. A video that buffer loaded quickly at Youtube, might not buffer load quickly if the browser cache is cleared and the page is reloaded.

My solution would be just to download the videos and watch them locally via VLC player. Since I can't download the videos at the moment, I load the Youtube page of the video, switch it to 720p, let it begin playing for about 3 seconds, pause the video and let it buffer load over then next 5 to 10 mins. While Flash buffers the video, I go make coffee or tea.

As for the video commentaries you guys are doing great job. I've watched all of the videos at the Civ5MA channel and enjoyed them. Since I ran out of videos at the Civ5MA channel I checked out MadDJinn's Youtube channel and began watching the Aztec Deity series. I'll be checking out Bibor's Youtube channel next, but I'm on video 8 of MadDjinn's Aztec Deity series.

Please keep up the good work.

 

[Habsburg83]

Sorry... I have already posted this in the General discussion forum but I guess it would have been better to place it here. Anyhow again:


Some facts and figures:

I have chosen a random leader and ended up with Hiawatha. I found the fountain of youth early in the game and close to my capital - this gave me some happy-room to expand early in the game. Then (as usual) Washington declared - so I had to take him out. Then Ramsess declared but I wasn't powerful enough to kill him. I defended decently and haven't lost any city to him. Then Rome declared on me so I had to kill them (that worked). Then (all of the sudden) another civ showed up - Ghandi. Not powerful at all back then, way out there on the map so I didn't care. I was first in Literacy, first in soldiers and GNP so I thought - well I will go the apollo-route to win the game. But then the skinny indian got totally crazy. He took out Germany first, then Egypt and kept suggesting to kill off Darius (who is really waaaaaay out there). he wanted to be friends so I said yes (since everyone else hated me for killing Rome). Then I realized that I slipped back in literacy to the second position (difference was just 2 techs but still) and Ghandi was allied with ALL (!) city states... He is also nbr 1 on the scoreboard now. So I thought well - my army is not so weak so I can keep up and defend if he attacks. He didn't seem to have replacable parts but a wicked nbr of artilleries. So, given that he finished Patronage has himeji castle AND the Kremlin, the only option that I had was to kill off some of his allies. I killed now one easily (Southeast) but that pissed him off. He finished the Manhattan Project 2 turns ago but I am 16 turns away from the bomb but I have Nuclear fision already. - BUT(!!!) although my empire is pretty big I have NO(!!!!) Uranium and no city state has uranium I believe... What to do? If I keep killing off city states that crazy dude is going to bomb me away...

Btw:

I have all DLC.s I believe and the only mod I am using is the infoaddict.

You can find the game here:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10580678#post10580678

(interestingly you cannot upload the same attachment twice in different forums)

 

[LaminarFlow]

Game: Pangaea - Large (10 Civs)
Civ: Japan
Difficulty: Prince
The rest of the game settings remain unchanged.


DLCs: All Civ DLCs that I know of.
Mods: InfoAddict (no other mods)

So I was reading Maltz's Bushido - 1 vs 7 Deity thread and wanted to try out some of his tactics (I stress try). Long story short, I rushed out 4 samurai and took out France to the east and part of the Aztecs to the north. At this point I got rifling and promoted my samurai. I bought two more rifleman as well as two cannons. I finished off the Aztecs and moved west and took out Egypt. After Egypt I upped my cannons to artillery and went north for Spain. Spain was easy and didn't put up much of a fight.

So now I'm thinking things are looking pretty good. I moved through the first 4 Civs pretty easily and managed to only lose one of original samurai. Persia is my next target. They sit right next to me (next to the old Aztec empire) apart from a mountain range which I am grateful for. There are only a few openings in the mountain side that borders our empires. As I start to position my army to the north of Persia every Civ in the game decided they wanted a piece of me. Though I'm not too worried about any Civ moving in and taking my cities (I mean it is Prince). I set up north a Persian city and lure in the Persian military, only to be taken out by my artillery. I was getting ready to move in for the kill but I noticed that the Persian city has a whopping 62 defense (seems high to me). I also managed to lose another one of my original samurai in setting up above of the Persian city. Got a little too over zealous and moved too close to the enemy city before I knew it was there.

This is where I'm lost. This is my fourth game of Civ 5 and in each game I usually start to dwindle off in mid-late game. I feel like I'm ok in the opening (though I never really dominated in techs or production) but just struggle with closing it out. The last conquest game I played I barely won and only won since I out-teched the enemy Civs. This is not the case for this game. My question is a pathforward and mid-late/end game strategy. I could probably manage my cities a lot better as well and I think that is part of what is hurting me.

 

[Airey]

Guys, why video?
Videos are slow and boring. Could you please analyze in plaing (and fast) English?

What an unexpected comment. I think it's a quite logical next step for two people that made 30+ videos each on Civilization 5 to make video commentaries.

Keep up the good work guys. Granted, people learn differently. I need to write things down to prioritize my builds. Regardless, watched both videos, they're great.

 

[King_Course]

Allright, here's a game for you to enjoy.

It's an Emperor games playing the Danes on a large Continents+ map, low water.

I have all the DLC.

I am an Emperor player and can win consistently with an early NC + Great Engineer from Meritocracy opening. But lately I have been having my fun upgrading units, and so have tried to get Honor into the mix. And at the same time going for wonders like Colossus and Great Lighthouse (have collosus here). I have enjoyed settling a great merchant and a great general.

These opening have got me struggling with happiness and economics, and victories aren't a given. This particularly game, I had a sprawling Russia to my east, and a warmongering Inca right south. Friendlies to my west. I have been playing the peacekeeper fighting down incas and taking cities he himself had taken from other Civs (he started out taking a Russian, Iroquoi and Indian city and had me completely surrounded, I razed and rebuilt). I had a hell of a time taking Grand River for vital Iron with two beserkers and a General, had to buy Iron from france and build siege, France got conquered while I was building and I had to set up a new deal and rebuild arty. Lost that Arty later as two Inca Longswords went into my Citadel and gave it a good trashing.

Anyway, he has shown to be a tough nut to crack with his Great Wall, Songhai has grown amibitious, and my caravels have discovered that Nebucadnezar is heavy Patronage, lots of Citystates and have run away. Right south of me my friend Mahatma is spewing out wonders like crazy. I myself have been beaten to every single good one, have an engineer ready aiming for Statue of Liberty.

I want to keep playing the "peacekeeper", weakening opposition and being proactive towards competion, while upgrading my military units and building myself a spaceship. I have only now begun to get abit of real income, and am wondering if it can be turned around. I'm not sure if Nebucadnezar has won the game. Lizzy and Songhai aren't really my worries.

 

[Wildcat67]

I hope I'm not out of line for posting this as my first post, just found this site and it has already made me a much better player. I thought I'd share this interesting game I've been playing. But along with that, show proof of how these videos have made me a better player.

The first game save was saved right before I found this site and these videos. The second one is the same game, but a few hundred turns later AFTER I applied some lessons that I learned from these videos. The turnaround is huge and had I been playing this way the whole time I'd of won by now.

What I find interesting is that I have the most land, the most GNP and can out produce everyone, but I'm just a touch behind two other Civs in the tech race. So here I am with all this power to win a domination victory, but they got better units and tiny empires.

Who has the advantage? I should note this is only my 3rd game on Civ 5 on Prince difficulty, continents, standard game speed I'm Germany. The second save is right after I destroyed Greece and fended off Rome (who nuked Athens) even though I was outnumbered and out teched by them in the battle.

View attachment Bismarck_0322 AD-1902.Civ5Save

View attachment Bismarck_0386 AD-1966.Civ5Save

 

[eyezonh1m]

Please critique my civ 5 saved with babylon. Difficulty is set to immortal. Industral era reached. Map standard terra. Early game I did a baby steal rush and took out germany first then proceeded to america. Currently I'm in my third war taking out japan. I think I got this in the bag with my huge tech lead and CS allies. You guys rock, thanks for helping people get better.

 

[zerotwo]

Sirs!

I would like to appeal for a moment of your time to help me with a problem I have run in to a couple of times while practicing a more... attentive style of play in Civ 5 (i.e. playing on Prince-King in preparation for playing higher difficulties).

The overarching issues I seem to be running in to are lack of g/pt and non-existent happiness resources. The last four or five games I have launched have had only 2 unique happiness resources within the nearby area, and the games seem populated with AIs infuriated by the idea that I might have wine to spare!

The game I am submitting to you, well, I spent a huge number of early turns building wonders simply because they were the only things that didn't cost gold maintenance!

-- Submission - Samurai in '36

The map I am submitting to you has only two unusual settings;
I have chosen sparse resources because in every game I don't chose sparse resources I basically get nothing anyway, I also figure it is best to learn in an environment where resources are very scarce.
I have chosen high sea level. I don't know why I just did. Not even sure what it does, really. (Probably that sweet mountain range)
It's also on Quick, but I don't know if that is an "unusual" setting.

Recap of the overall game

I was choked for money early so never invested in tech, figuring I would war my way to victory. Initially I planned to attack Harun Al-Rashid because he appeared to be making friends all over the map with his sweet loads of cash, but every time I landed and declared war the defense in his capital doubled the next turn from 19 to 38, so I figured he was rush-buying defenses.

So I reloaded 10 saves earlier and went around the other side of the continent to Elizabeth. Lo and behold defense went from 12 to 30 the turn I landed. Sigh. I gave up and killed the very unfriendly CS at the top of the continent and then hit whatever tech was required for Samurai, so I upgraded all of my swordsmen and built a catapult. The only way I was going to take down a city like London was with Samurai!

I marched down the west side of the continent, conquering the English and another warring CS there, got to the bottom of the map and took out Russia's only city picking up a helluva lot of wonders on the way.

That's when I hit a snag. I scattered my units north to batter away Harun's riflemen and infantry and left a handful to defend the southern pass, donating a GG to protect the line for good!

The problem at hand

I am 10,000 km behind in technology, but I have a wealthy and productive empire with a large number of stolen wonders in it.

My neighbour and competition, Harun Al-Rashid has artillery and infantry and cities with 50 defenses... I figure I need Bombers to start taking down cities like that... I am worried that if I take the time to research them that Harun's going to win a diplomacy victory.

Montezuma is a real military threat, but he's so far away and he IS Civilization AI (meaning he can't fight on water, when have they ever?) score competition and a recent "survey of the world" thing I've learned he has roughly 4x to 5x the "pointy sticks" that I do. He may also have any number of industrial cities capable of beating me to a science victory.

Additional

If you gents take me up on my request, could you answer a couple of specific questions for me?

If my civilization winds up gold starved, what victory path would be best to chose?

If my civilization winds up happiness starved, what victory path would be best to chose?

If the enemy AI civilizations insist on bringing me constant war, how do I prevent my Civ from falling into technology backwardness?



Thank you very much for your time and consideration even if I don't make it!

 

[arsenalfandan]

Hey Guys, great work on the videos so far...

The details of my game are -
Emperor Difficulty
Pangea Map
Tiny Map
4 Civs - America, Rome and Siam
I am playing as Oda (Japan)
I do not own any DLC

I have attached my saved game in which I have had the American AI settle a city right in the middle of my own cities. I am currently on bad terms with my immediate neighbour - Rome. America are my friendliest Civ. Should I attack now and potentially have a fight on two fronts or leave the new American city to grow?

I could see the American settler looking for somewhere to settle before he did and bought up a load of land to prevent him from settling in certain places, was this a good tactic, or was it money wasted?

I started off looking for a domination victory but lost my way slightly with unit production and social policies whilst allying city states to fend off attacks from the Romans.

I'm sure there are plenty of improvements I can make to my game play and I hope you can show me some of them!

Thanks!

 

[anandus]

I just wanted to say these videos are great and helpful. Excellent job, guys!

 

[southpw11]

I agree, just stumbled upon this post and it's a great idea and very helpful.

I play on king and have a decent win ratio at this difficulty. In watching 2 vids, so far my takeaways so far:
- never/seldom use default city mgmt
- need overall tighter mgmt of cities (city specialization, type of GP creation, etc.)
- be wary of diplo hits (something I never payed attention to before)
- civs allying with CSs are potentially going for diplo victory's (I always thought they were going for cultural)

 

[muxec]

I learned to click avoid growth in my cities before going for major conquest.

 

[civ5win]

Hi Guys hoping ur weekend is going good.

( I am also first time poster, so hi to all)
Game is set as Harald at immortal, continents, 6 players.
The cheats i enabled are policy saving and upgrade saving for units and quick battle and start at medieval era.
all dlc are included.
I normally go for domination win, i was forced in to diplomatic once and science once at emperor level. otherwise every thing else has been won as domination.
I am planning to win domination. As soon as i get to stealth, thats all i am going to use and burn through cities.I extremely lazy in navy and dont have much to speak of. I explored a lot so all civs and cs are found.

I have beat the crap out of couples of civs and just waiting to get healthy again and build my stealth bombers.

What do u think? what would be quickest way? where do i stand strategy wise?

Thanks for the great job done in the past keep it up.

 

[gudenlau]

Hello.

Continents, 8 players, epic, deity, politics and promotion saving.

So I think i got a good start on my game. Khan DoWed me at turn 30ish. Did manage to survive after my capitol was in the red. Managed to capture 2 workers and in the end he wanted peace and offered me ALOT of gold. DoWed me again and same thing happened.(without the workers) Used the gold to buy two city states and rush buyed 2 libraries. Hoping to have some luck with the tierem I am building.
Regards to politics I am thinking of getting 50% RAs then continue in tradition. Thoughts?

Getting education then astronomy. I am planning on hurry production on the PT. Should I go for ND after or is it too late?
Siam looks strong. How should I deal with him?
After the peace is done i am planning on getting the capitol of khan for the pearls. or will the other players hate me too much?
Should I keep the puppeted city?
Should I get the a city west for Boston?

Thanks in advance.

PS Whats up with Khan not getting the pearls?

 

[i_imperator]

Is this still going or have you guys taken a break from civ v? Just wondering...