What was once powerless...

[evanbgood]

...is now powerful! And I love it! I was wondering if anyone else noticed this.

From the moment I picked up Civ V, the combat stuck out to me. Not because of the obvious change to hexes, or the ranged combat, or even the one-unit-per-tile idea. What stuck out to me was that things that I did horribly with in previous Civ games, now are amazing!

The biggest example of this: Navy. In Civ 4, to me, naval units always seemed like they were playing their own game. They couldn't capture cities, they couldn't attack land units, and until late in the game, they couldn't bombard anything, and even then, it was just a way to lower the city's defense stat (and not a particularly good one most of the time). Now, even the first ship in the game is a barbarian-destroying, army flanking, city bombing machine. Naval dominance seems to actually have a point now, and a team of four ships on the shores of a major war seems just as, if not more effective than a team of archers or an artilary unit. Mix the two together and the resulting carnage is quite delicious!

There are some other examples, too. With the massive bonuses granted by exploration, rushing out a scout seems to have replaced the idea of rushing out a worker for chop-rushing in most of my games (I was extremely happy to find chop rushing isn't that great now, but still useful on occasion). Air units and anti-air units also seem to be much more useful, in addition to the whole concept of modern combat being more interesting than "who can make the biggest stack of tanks". Forts and great general citadels also seem to have more use now, thanks to greater terrain "bottlenecking" and the need to protect individual long-range units.

These ideas extend to more than units, as well. Golden ages, for example, are much more than little "bonus" rounds. I actually managed to play Rome with the objective of spending as much time in golden ages as possible, and it worked great! Culture, of course, plays some awesome new roles, and I love how the victory elements tie in with each other (i.e., culture can support a conquest, diplomacy can support culture, science can support... everything). And, of course, the most powerful thing of all: money. Of course income was always useful in all Civ games, but now without sliders to determine everything, cold hard cash can make some game-changing bonuses, buildings in places that would take ages to put there other wise, and armies out of thin air.

The bottom line is that Civ V seems to be going for a much more balanced approach where "wrong" choices are less likely. To anyone having trouble getting a grasp on the new way things work, my advice would be to experiment! Doing things that I wouldn't normally do has created some surprising and entertaining results.

 

[Egnarts]

Navy and air force is HUGE in civ5! I freaking LOVE having an armada of carriers roll over and just annihilate my enemies.

And I agree with your accessment of the importance of building a scout first.. If you don't you can potentialy be giving up on alot of things, it's so essential to get that scout out, i've even considered getting two.

Another thing is the great people, the balance has shifted quite a bit with these. I seem to be getting a TON of em every playthrough, and usualy I save up the scientists for a major tech leap near the industrial or modern era and burn the rest on GAs. The tile improvements imo is a bit silly to say the least, I don't think I'll be using those much at all.

 

[evanbgood]

Another thing is the great people, the balance has shifted quite a bit with these. I seem to be getting a TON of em every playthrough, and usualy I save up the scientists for a major tech leap near the industrial or modern era and burn the rest on GAs. The tile improvements imo is a bit silly to say the least, I don't think I'll be using those much at all.

I forgot about those! I was horrible at GP pumping in Civ 4. For some reason, it just seems to make more logical sense in Civ 5. I wouldn't knock the tile improvements, though. I've gotten some pretty massive boosts from those, especially over time. They really work best in cities that are heavily specialized.

For example, my production city. All cities need some food to grow, so I plopped a manufactury on a tile that was being worked for food. A farm was helping, but when it became a 4 hammer tile, that proved much more useful to that city's goals. Since it was a specialist city, those 4 hammers eventually multiplied many times over, to a boost that probably shaved at least one turn off of every military unit production. Though minor at the time, this was a life saver over time, and eventually helped pump out a super-fast space ship . Commerce too. A customs house on the right river tile outside my financial city caused my GPT to jump from +100 in a golden age to over +150. Even at half that, +25 more GPT is enough to support alliances with at least two city-states. Similarly, landmarks and academies produce bonuses that can't even be found on most other tiles, and can provide big boosts to specialized cities with the right national wonders. Again, it all depends how you're playing, and there are certainly plenty of situations where it's much better to grab a free tech, a fast wonder, a golden age, or a trade boost.

Oh, one other thing I forgot from the list: Fish! With a seaport, improved fish seem to be one of the best tiles in the game. I've had some pretty successful cities surrounded by tundra and mountains, thanks to a few fish tiles.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

The biggest example of this: Navy. In Civ 4, to me, naval units always seemed like they were playing their own game. They couldn't capture cities, they couldn't attack land units, and until late in the game, they couldn't bombard anything, and even then, it was just a way to lower the city's defense stat (and not a particularly good one most of the time).

Unless you considered chemistry + astro lategame, no. Getting forked by naval units = there are cities you can't protect in civ IV. 8 frigates could blast away 60% culture instantly, so were not nearly as gimped as you claim and could support landing parties or in some cases amphibious raids easily enough. Naval dominance in a battle between intelligent players in civ IV meant a W unless they were able to quickly threaten each other on land.

I haven't messed with navies in V much, but a quick look demonstrates that they'll probably remain important any time you need overseas influence.

With the massive bonuses granted by exploration, rushing out a scout seems to have replaced the idea of rushing out a worker for chop-rushing in most of my games (I was extremely happy to find chop rushing isn't that great now, but still useful on occasion).

City ruins are pretty broken, nobody in competitive play could make a case for them...they're more drastic than goody huts, but not as ill-conceived as the random event implementation.

Air units and anti-air units also seem to be much more useful, in addition to the whole concept of modern combat being more interesting than "who can make the biggest stack of tanks". Forts and great general citadels also seem to have more use now, thanks to greater terrain "bottlenecking" and the need to protect individual long-range units.

You are indicating a severe lack of knowledge of modern warfare in civ IV. Air mattered a LOT. Potentially to a game-breaking degree when you bypassed the "air units/tile" rule using carriers. Tanks/bombers and nukes/paras were some of the most consistently devastating offensive setups in the game, if it lasted long.

These ideas extend to more than units, as well. Golden ages, for example, are much more than little "bonus" rounds. I actually managed to play Rome with the objective of spending as much time in golden ages as possible, and it worked great! Culture, of course, plays some awesome new roles, and I love how the victory elements tie in with each other (i.e., culture can support a conquest, diplomacy can support culture, science can support... everything). And, of course, the most powerful thing of all: money. Of course income was always useful in all Civ games, but now without sliders to determine everything, cold hard cash can make some game-changing bonuses, buildings in places that would take ages to put there other wise, and armies out of thin air.

The economy changes are welcome, and V seems a lot less ticky-tack and annoying about it than previous installments.

 

[Egnarts]

Unless you considered chemistry + astro lategame, no. Getting forked by naval units = there are cities you can't protect in civ IV. 8 frigates could blast away 60% culture instantly, so were not nearly as gimped as you claim and could support landing parties or in some cases amphibious raids easily enough. Naval dominance in a battle between intelligent players in civ IV meant a W unless they were able to quickly threaten each other on land.

Sure sure, but that's not the same as killing off units and cities outright, hence it's gotten more powerfull when really, it was pretty weak in IV comparetivly. Same goes for air units.

 

[dannythefool]

Don't forget that ships can (and could in Civ IV) block trade routes and can take away a good chunk of workable food tiles from a coastal city, with no good way to counter them without a navy of your own.

 

[evanbgood]

Don't forget that ships can (and could in Civ IV) block trade routes and can take away a good chunk of workable food tiles from a coastal city, with no good way to counter them without a navy of your own.

If they're close enough, I've taken out a fair share of ships with cannons and archers. It's kind of bad-AI reliant, though.

Sure sure, but that's not the same as killing off units and cities outright, hence it's gotten more powerfull when really, it was pretty weak in IV comparetivly. Same goes for air units.

Yep, that was pretty much my point. And keep in mind, I'm not playing this game from the super-competitive angle. My observations are from the point of view of an average Civ player, and to me, fielding a navy or a good bomber squad is a whole lot more intuitive and possible for someone who hasn't mastered every angle of the game before.

 

[DalekDavros]

Oh, one other thing I forgot from the list: Fish! With a seaport, improved fish seem to be one of the best tiles in the game. I've had some pretty successful cities surrounded by tundra and mountains, thanks to a few fish tiles.

I've found them a bit underwhelming. Unless you have a lot of sea resources clustered together, the seaport doesn't seem like it's worth the cost.

City ruins are pretty broken, nobody in competitive play could make a case for them...they're more drastic than goody huts.

They seemed powerful at lower levels, but at a high difficulty level they seem to just give me "crudely drawn maps" and the location of barb encampments about 80% of the time. Can't speak for MP.

Don't forget that ships can (and could in Civ IV) block trade routes and can take away a good chunk of workable food tiles from a coastal city, with no good way to counter them without a navy of your own.

They theoretically could block trade in Civ IV, but with the road spam in that game it was unlikely to do much good if a civ had more that 2-3 coastal cities. A privateer rush worked fairly well based on cost vs. return, but once frigates hit the scene I never really found it worthwhile.

 

[dannythefool]

If they're close enough, I've taken out a fair share of ships with cannons and archers. It's kind of bad-AI reliant, though.

From what I've seen it depends on how many ships the AI has. I've seen it cycle destroyers in front of my largely undefended, but high strength coastal city in OCC games and avoid losing any of them. I've also seen it more or less park one right in front of it and let it just sit there; my guess is that if it only has one, it thinks it's more important to block my harbour than keep the ship. As I had no navy to speak of, it would not have needed it to fight me.

But of course it's wrong that it even tries to block trade routes if I only have one city.

 

[dannythefool]

They seemed powerful at lower levels, but at a high difficulty level they seem to just give me "crudely drawn maps" and the location of barb encampments about 80% of the time. Can't speak for MP.

This is the same with huts in Civ IV... you only get the useful stuff on low difficulty settings.