What should I do now (for fun?)

[KevinLandwaster]

Hi everyone. It's my first post on this forum. (and happy holidays.)

I just (finally) beat the game (Domination) for the first time on all the default settings: Prince, 8 civs, 16 city states, continents (there were 4!). I've gotten all the other victory types except Diplomatic (that's just too boring imo).

What would be a fun challenge for a newbie like myself? I'm thinking about trying a higher difficulty or putting a lot more civs in the game, like maybe the max. These are obvious ideas, so I'm wondering if I've overlooked some other win scenarios that might be more fun.

 

[LordBalkoth]

I'd definitely suggest upping the difficulty. I'd consider Prince to be effectively "easy" in Civ V. Emperor would be "normal," Immortal "hard," and Deity "very hard."

 

[KevinLandwaster]

I decided to play a more true-to-life respresentation of world conquest. I put the difficulty on Emperor, chose the world map and max number of civs.

I like to build up my settlements and capital until I can get artillery. by this time I will probably have more advanced units than most AI opponents, and I will just keep passing everyone in tech. My strategy is to push tech as much as possible for an edge in battles.

 

[LordBalkoth]

Science is definitely an important factor in Civ. Conquering effectively requires a tech edge on units, highly promoted units, or both.

 

[cazaderonus]

I decided to play a more true-to-life respresentation of world conquest. I put the difficulty on Emperor, chose the world map and max number of civs.

I like to build up my settlements and capital until I can get artillery. by this time I will probably have more advanced units than most AI opponents, and I will just keep passing everyone in tech. My strategy is to push tech as much as possible for an edge in battles.

Carefull. The difference between emperor and prince is pretty big. If you dont know the classic mecanics of science growth (National college asap, one or two academies, locking every scientific specialist, rationalism policies and saving your Great scientists forlate game tech) you might be surprised by the AIs science progression.

Oh, and diplomatic victory isnt boring

 

[Mahasona]

A fun game for me is Zulu domination.

Liberty, Pyramids, fast unique promotions, quick tough units, lots of worker pillaging - whats not to like? Oh - and pangea map to speed things along.

 

[KevinLandwaster]

Carefull. The difference between emperor and prince is pretty big. If you dont know the classic mecanics of science growth (National college asap, one or two academies, locking every scientific specialist, rationalism policies and saving your Great scientists forlate game tech) you might be surprised by the AIs science progression.

I went to Emperor because I had a ridiculous edge in tech on Prince. I was using Modern armored tanks against horse-mounted medieval units.

So far on Emperor I am slightly ahead on tech and several eras ahead of some of the AIs. I put a big focus on getting those great scientists, consequently, I tend to pick Babylon as my civ. I also focus a lot on population growth and getting all the science buildings. I try to keep the science specialists working whenever possible. I basically turtle my empire until around the WWII era, getting social policies and all the tech buildings and wonders.

I had to restart, though, because I was waiting up to 5 minutes between turns, so now I only have 6 civs in the game. On the restart, I got to the information age, and was sending my army to capture the final capital for the win, then Pocatello sent about 25 units (I kid you not) into one of the capitals I had captured. I had left it completely unguarded right on Pocatello's border. I won't make that mistake again.

 

[liv]

Several eras ahead may indicate you are ready for Immortal.
It seems like your style of science and growth is very suited for those higher difficulties.

 

[Sclb]

The gap between emperor and prince is no where as large as the gap between immortal/deity or emperor/immortal. Just keep bumping up difficulty until you hit a wall, then learn how to optimize and play better on that difficulty.

 

[KevinLandwaster]

I decided to start over with another Emperor game on the Earth map, this time with 8 civs (the standard). It put me (Babylon) right about where it should be historically, in northern Africa, but it spawned Pocatello right next to me in Africa. His population growth was keeping pace with me, but my tech eventually passed him, and I took one of his three cities. He sent a swordsman after one of my modern infantry and I was like "This guy is getting medieval on my ass."

It's gonna be tough, though, because Poland has most of the western hemisphere and he is close behind me in tech - and I only have 4 cities right now.

 

[ldvhl]

Giant Continents on Marathon.

Also, mods. There are many, many good mods to try out.

 

[KevinLandwaster]

I like the idea of marathon, because the passage of time makes more sense in proportion to things like exploration and battles. Also, if you build up science and production enough, you can far outpace the historical timeline for tech eras, which I feel should be a goal if you want to be good at the game. The only reason I don't do it is the wait time between turns. If I had a system that could process turns in less than 10 seconds in the later eras I might try it.

 

[KevinLandwaster]

Once I'm done with Emperor, I might try immortal, but probably on a pangea map.

 

[GenjiKhan]

One thing I always do to increase difficulties without raising the level is turning on the "Razing Barbarians" option . It almost feels like you always start a game with Shaka at your doorsteps' .

 

[elniallo]

One thing I always do to increase difficulties without raising the level is turning on the "Razing Barbarians" option . It almost feels like you always start a game with Shaka at your doorsteps' .

I've always had raging barbs on, keeps the early game interesting. Is a pain when they nab one of your scouts though

 

[Primacide]

In the spirit of the OP: may I suggest trying some new civs under optimal conditions? You have played Babylon a lot - you should check out fun combinations like the inca on a highlands map or the British on an archipelago (water/island) map. Try playing Polynesia on a terra map - you sail your first settler to the other continent where there is no competition and go liberty. Also try playing as Siam with 41 CS. You'll never have bigger cities! These combinations let you try new things as a player without necessarily jumping up the difficulty.

 

[Illianor123]

Well, Babylon is possibly one of the easiest civs (for science, along with Korea and certain Incan starts). Try other civs, and ones in non-optimal conditions.

Try Attila, and have some quick wars.

Try England on an island map and enjoy having a super fast navy, and bemoan the poor naval AI.


There are mods that enable true starting locations on Eath maps. The one i generally use is called something like Yet (not) Another True Earth Start Location Map Pack.

Also I find that Raging Barbarians doesn't make things harder, it just makes the early game more interesting and requires a few more units, but this is counter acted by the AI having a much more difficult time due to the barbs.

 

[beetle]

I tend to pick Babylon as my civ.

I think that is why you are asking what should you do now! There are 43 civs, each one with a distinct unique ability and one or more fun units. Once you find the difficulty level that is right for you, there is quite a lot to experiment with. But you really limit that potential by replaying the same civ. This was quite different for me from my experience with III and IV -- with those iterations of the series, I did not find it engaging at all to try all of the different leaders -- they were just too similar to each other.

The problem with shifting to marathon, or even with using smaller maps, is that you will not experience the complete game as designed. Getting through most (or all) of the tech tree implies that you have gone through all the phases of the game and had a full experience. The pacing really is interesting. But you will pretty much only get that from standard settings when you are not running away with the game. The developers have done a very nice job with the play balance.

 

[GenjiKhan]

Also I find that Raging Barbarians doesn't make things harder, it just makes the early game more interesting and requires a few more units, but this is counter acted by the AI having a much more difficult time due to the barbs.

What if you pick civilizations for the AI to play that aren't punished heavily with Raging Barbarians? Like early warmongers(Aztec, Germany, Japan, Ottoman, etc) or Tall oriented civs(China, Ethiopia, Egypt, etc.)?

 

[Redaxe]

Try some of the Meso/south-American civs - they're always fun

Maya's, Inca's, Aztecs - the music is awesome.
Emperor/Immortal is probably your skill level. You can probably handle a lot of Immortal games, where it gets disappointing though is that once you play Immortal/Diety many strategies and Wonders are no longer viable so you have less and less choices in how to play.
For instance if you are used to building the Great Library to slingshot to Philosophy for an early National College that strategy is almost completely impossible to achieve above Emperor and if you fail at it, then it will probably cost you the game.