Rule of thumb is to have the two cities connected by road to be of a size equal to or greater than the number of road tiles between them.

I hook em up anyway, just for defense purposes.

Played with G&K for an hour or so this morning. I'm cautiously optimistic about it. I might end up liking the "forced" direction of your nation after all. I am playing as Rome (I always go "Random" for my nation start) and have two sources of stone in my capital's borders, and when presented with my first Religion-building choice, (I don't know all the terminology yet,) one option out of like 30 was "2 extra religion points per source of stone." It seemed like a very easy choice to pick that one, which seems to set our course as a religious Civ, a direction I wouldn't have necessarily chosen. It seems like there a variety of ways that religion can take you, depending on your resources. That could be rather interesting...

The only thing I'll say about Civ4 vs Civ5/G&K is that Civ4 BtS (which you knew to have been my favorite game for 5 years) was one of those rare games where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. It's astounding how many bad, broken or poorly implemented elements there were in BtS (religion, espionage, vassals, civics, stacks of doom, overabundant resources - just to name a few) but somehow it worked. Civ5 has many far superior elements (wargamers hex, 1upt, SP, limited resources, ranged units, city-states, etc. plus supposedly a much better implementation of religion and espionage now) but the AI hasn't quite learned how to deal with the changes yet (sounds a lot like all those Civ5 ranters). But those elements make the game much more fun for me to play, particularly at a high level.

I don't have the illusion that G&K will "fix everything". Truthfully, I don't want them to fix much - just give me more variety and choices in the game (which they have done). I basically ignore diplomacy (doesn't interest me, never have in civ games) but religion should be interesting. I will turn off espionage as I can't see how that can be in a civ game.

I love the changes in G&K to the new civs, altered tech tree (much needed), Great Persons (very much needed), wonders, SP, city-states (huge changes there) and of course, the rebalanced units and finer-grained combat numbers. I look forward to playing soon.

I've been impressed with that as well. Really like the option to use religion while catering it specifically to what your civ has available.

Thank you... this will probably help me succeed in this game a lot more ;)

dola

Forgot to mention that skipping the opening sequence is MUCH easier now.

Looks like the natives are a bit grumpy. Some game crash issues along with slowdown. I personally have noticed a big increase in the loading time to get to the main menu. In addition, the turn time has increased dramatically. Think there's a memory leak in there somewhere. I went to an old restore point on my computer just to make sure something fishy didn't install on my computer and it's definitely not that. Did notice that there was an extra install this morning for Civ 5 today, so hoping that's a fix.

Seeing as I was getting mid game crashes with vanilla civ 5 I guess I'll resist rolling the dice on this one in the hopes that those kind of issues were fixed then. At least until a couple patches in

New download from Steam this morning helped quite a bit with lag. Much quicker gameplay now.

REALLY like the religion option. Much better implemented than the old religion component in Civ4. It's not the black and white option like in that game.

So, is diplomacy and trading still an empty husk at this point, or have they fleshed it out? I compare Civ 2 to Civ 5 in this regard and cry...

Been playing for a half hour this evening. Some comments...

• Much more robust interaction with City-States
• The more-robust interaction also makes diplomacy more interesting. For example, Japan just demanded tribute from Valletta. Valletta is pissed about it and asks me to denounce Japan. Japan is more powerful than me, so I run the risk of war, but denouncing them gave me 40 influence with Valleta, which is a big deal in the early game. I can see this sort of thing being a place where I have to weigh the pros and cons.
• Just found another diplomacy improvement, also related to C-S interaction. The Chinese have had negative interaction with Venice. The "You Will Pay For THis" vs. "Very well, I won't let this create a divide" has some real punch to it. "You will pay" pisses off China, while "I won't let this create a divide" costs -20 influence with Venice. Me likey.
• Gifted units now show up in your borders, rather than in the C-S borders.

(Overall: I'm impressed so far.)

If you want more of a random map, choose Shuffle.

Shuffle - Everything always random, in one click. Contains all the core map options and landmass types. So you could get a Hot, Arid, Low Sea Level, Continents, or a Temperate, Wet, High Sea Level, Archipelago. Always a surprise waiting!

I played the expansion for about 4 hours last night and I have to say I'm liking it - a lot - so far. The whole religion aspect gives a new dimension to the game, though one I don't fully understand yet. But still, it's a new "arrow in the quiver" and a pretty large on at that. I'm just now getting to some espionage, but that looks a little more tacked on since you don't even play that from the regular map. But given the annoyances with spying in Civ 4, maybe that's not a bad thing. The new tech tree offers some good choices so I don't feel as constrained as before.

But it's not just the new toys. It's the whole host of tweaks that matter the most. Like the free settler bonus in the Liberty tree. Because it's buried deeper, it's no longer the "chop rush/Oracle" strategy of Civ V - you know, the automatic one you lead off with every time. Or that siege units don't take resources, allowing a resource-poor nation to actually mount an attack. Or the new bowmen, which fills a needed gap. Or the unit HPs being increased to 100 - it's not THAT different, but it does change things somewhat - battles feel a touch more epic. Siege weapons are now awesome against cities, but so unbelievably weak against regular units. You got to get them in, set up and you will lose one or two during the course of a city siege. All of those little changes make sense and improve the same in a myriad of ways. I don't think I've stumbled across one yet that I didn't think improved the original game.

REX has been the dominant strategy in every Civ. I think Civ V probably gives players the most options if they don't want to REX than any in the series. And for those of us who like to build large, expansive empires, at least it's a little easier now. Before, with happiness so damned scarce, anything more than 4-5 cities was often impossible. But resources are still grouped, so REXing still requires trading partners to pull off. That requires diplomacy and having some friends, something that wasn't always necessary in prior versions of the Civ series. So you still can't expand willy-nilly, but it is a bit easier now. That helps for those of us who really like city specialization.

The AI still isn't great, but I think it's improved. Suleiman launched a very early attack on one of my cities. It happened that the city was relatively undefended, so I got to watch him set up his units around the city. He set up everything right. Of course, what he didn't count on was my units coming from other cities on the flanks of his attacks (my units happened to be above and below that city, so I didn't come from behind it as any opponent would expect). When I simultaneously hit him on both sides, he was in big trouble and I quickly decimated his units. He was smart enough to pull back and sue for peace before I launched a counterattack - gave me some gold and some resources and then quickly asked for a statement of friendship. I thought that was pretty decently smart of the AI - it knew that it was in a bad way and decided to cut it's losses before I could counterattack and make things much worse. And since I was worried about the Austrians to my north, I took the deal.

But it's still not great. Later on, I took on the Austrians and they were pretty pathetic. I pretty much rolled them. Of course, they had been in a few conflicts and with only a couple of cities, there wasn't much they could do. The AI had a couple of chances to take out a couple of my archers, but then again they'd have lost those units the next turn, so I'm not sure if that was just bad AI or just a very weak opponent.

Overall - I'm having a great time. I liked Civ V (I had 100 hours in it after all), but this just feels more "complete". I have more choices and I don't feel locked into one or two paths. I can REX again, but I'm still limited by the happiness. I'll need another 20 hours or so to make a final determination, but so far so good.

Austria's Unique Ability sure comes in handy. I'd just finished a Golden Age so I had a lot of gold on hand when I finished researching the technology that reveals aluminum on the map. Despite having the second largest land area of the remaining five civilizations (began with eight) I didn't have any in my territory or any in a nearby area that could be settled.

But with that UA I just threw some money at Belgrade to become their allies then paid the 500 gold for the diplomatic marriage and like that, I have a new, size 13 city with no unhappiness penalties for annexation that has an 8 aluminum resource in its radius. This might be a bit too powerful really.

Bought Gods anf Kings this morning, but I don't see anywhere on Steam to download it. It is like my games list didn't get refreshed after I bought it.

Anyone ever have that problem?

EDIT - Nevermind. Since it is DLC, I have to access it from within the game.

Big Fo, Austria is turning to be nice overpowered for the reasons you gave. The Huns too if you can get a quick start on ramming.

Overpowered?


I was able to build a super city in the desert.

I founded Philly in a nice spot in the desert, very very hilly with a couple of mountains, two flat desert hexes with flood plains (one of which I founded it on) and two wheat hexes on the outskirts of the cities reach. I also had some iron and I think some stone within reach. Well, I mined the heck out of those hills, built a couple of farms to feed folks, and overall had a decently productive city and more importantly, iron which I didn't have anywhere else.

Then I noticed the Petra wonder...dunno if it's new or if I just forgot about it as I hadn't played CivV in awhile. But man...after building Petra in that city...it's freaking epic now.

I know Civ 4 is a great game, but I'm not sure I could ever go back after playing one that doesn't have unit stacking. It's one of the things from the old game that bothered me to no end.

Really enjoying G&K. Definitely freshens up the game and fixes some things that bothered me.

I totally agree. I love Civ 4. There are few games, if any, that I spent more time playing. The idea of going back to unit stacking, however, holds absolutely zero appeal.

I just finished my first game last year. It was a small map with 6 nations and 12 city-states on prince level. I ended up as China. I ended up steam rolling my opponents winning before I even researched railroads. That was even when my first settler was captured by the barbs.

I ended up finding the 1st religion and very quickly almost all of city-states were allies. Once I got a dominant position I won every question about most culture, faith or technology. I played pretty similar to the base civ game which I hadn't played in a year. Basically, I expanded quickly and allied with as many city-states as possible. Also, once I got a couple of puppets they really help bring in the gold.

One thing that was odd, was that after I conquered Maya which was the 3rd civ I beat, there were two wheat hexes that weren't improved.

I also ended up with so much faith I didn't know what to do. Is it a benefit to convert your opponents to your faith. I would assume the get the benefits, but what does the founder get?

Next I need to try a game with some more civs, because small civ games can be easy because there are so many wonders you don't have a huge risk in trying to build one.

The Huns are just silly early game with the battering ram.

With excess Faith points, it all depends on the beliefs you chose. In all cases, you can buy a GP wihen finishing any of the last 4 Social Policies. As far as beliefs, choose the ones that allow you to buy stuff with Faith, as oppose to the happiness or cultural ones. Being able to buy military units with Faith is cool, for example.

RainMake, HB: I came to that conclusion right after Civ5 came out. I used to play a lot of tradition wargames and that's the exact template they used. Despite the glaring weaknesses of the initial release, just trying to navigate the hex-based terrain was not only challenging, but immensely fun. What it would take a SoD two turns to bulldoze a way into a capital, now can take many turns in a dense area.

Saw this posted elsewhere.

I think the best way I can sum up the improvement (to me) with the G&K addition is this - before, I would start a Civ, play for maybe 100-150 turns and it was pretty fun. Would save, go back to 'life'. Then next time I fired up Civ, I'd invariably say, eh, screw it, and start a new Civ. Now, I feel very compelled to return and complete. It has much more of the 'one more turn...' feel to it now.

Hopefully they can take care of some of the lag, though. Turn times have definitely amped up.

Wanted to open a discussion on what your favorite civs are. Everyone seems to hate America but I love being able to buy tiles at half price. Polynesia is also a favorite as I can get out and explore right away.

America, I believe, started out one of the weaker civs upon release but then got much more popular when they realized the importance of buying cheap tiles and scouting. Then, they discovered some great strategies for bombers and America has the best one, so it vaulted to a solid mid-range civ.

I did Polynesia once on an archipelago map but found that beyond popping ruins (which had diminishing returns), there weren't much I could do with them. They probably play better on other maps, plus I think archipelago is not an easy map to play.

France is my favorite civ, but in civ games I'm generally a culture whore.

I think archipelago is the easiest maps to play because the AI never builds a sufficient Navy. They hang on to outdated units far too long and you can storm through them gaining valuable experience.

I would think G&K makes a difference since they increased/changed naval builds and combat substantially.

Ironic.

I like America and France. I started with the Celtics with the expansion.

My problem is, I can't seem to get beyond the mid game without starting over.

Man, this game is SO much better with the new expansion. Just a lot more options available. I feel like I'm able to play better with the new options because I can control the direction of my civ a bit more than in the original version.

A patch has just been released

[PREVIOUS SAVES]
Older saves with DLC leaders (including Genghis) will no longer "shift" when loaded into the patched game.

[CRASH FIXES]
If a user does not have a religion, and receives a religion from another Civ, setting the "automated faith purchase" option could previously cause a crash when the purchase tries to fire for either the player, or the AI.
Fixed an issue where a user could click on a city banner during the AI turn, and the game could crash depending what AI process is happening at the time of the "click".
Into the Renaissance
If an AI player has open borders and a friendly relationship with another Civ, they would sometimes send a Great Admiral to park in their city. If the city tries to purchase a civilian unit while the Great Admiral is parked there, the game could crash. This is corrected.
Scenario hang
There was a chance that when you won a scenario, the game could hang. This has been corrected
Fixed an issue where any user with special characters in their Windows name will be unable to load saves.
If a player has Steam in "offline mode", and clicks on Mods, into the modding area and then backs out, the game could crash. This is now corrected.
Game Hang on turn 0
After patching, many have reported being unable to interact with units or end the first turn. This is now corrected.
Game could previously hang on "Unit Needs Orders" after the player clicks next turn. This has been corrected, and the camera snap has been fixed.
A crash that could occur in Hot Seat if the game core threading had been disabled is fixed.

[BUG FIXES]
Fall of Rome Scenario
Golden Ages were switched to providing bonus culture earlier in project. We've removed the culture bonus from Golden Ages for the scenario.
Open Borders that do not exist
If the AI is trying to renew an open borders agreement, but has something more important to talk about in the queue, the system would still record the Open Borders agreement as being active (even though it is not actually in place). This has been corrected.
Military Caste (+2 culture from garrison) was not working correctly. Whenever a civilian unit embarks, bulbs, or is deleted, it subtracted 2 culture, and kept adding up each time this happened, leaving the city at permanent negative culture. This has been corrected.
The "Peace Loving" belief was not functioning. This has been corrected.
When cities bombard attacking units, death animations would now play correctly.

I just had a funny thing happen to me in the original game- I was playing as Nebuchadnezzar II, and was gifted a great person from Vienna through having that social policy active. The turn before, I'd convinced Genghis Khan to give them peace, one turn after he declared war on them. The funny part is that the GP they gave me was the Khan, Mongolia's unique great general unit. Don't know if it was random, or if Mongolia being the invaders had something to do with it (Vienna definitely didn't capture any units, that much I know).

I'm playing as Bismarck in the expansion pack and also got gifted Khan Great Generals. Genghis Khan isn't even in this game.

Yes, that's a feature where you can get a civ's UU from a city-state regardless if they are in the game or not. I think it's pretty cool. Also, if you mouse over the city-state, it will tell you what kind of UU or GP it can give you, I believe. For example, if you are deciding between two city-states to ally, look at which one can give you a better unit.

Any of you play a multiplayer game using GMR:

Want an easy way to play Civ V online? Say hello to Giant Multiplayer Robot! - Civilization Fanatics' Forums

Sounds like fun.

Any idea why I can't save my game in progress in Civ 5? There is no option on the menu screen. I did a file check via Steam and it did fine 2 files that it needed to reinstall, hopefully that was it.

I bought Civ 5 a long time ago and I finally have some time to dig into it a little bit over the next couple of weeks.

I'll start on the easiest level and then go up from there.

Edit: I'm getting Civ IV and Civ V confused

start game again, but with out tutorial being active... i did the same thing and by not enabling tutorial i was able to save..

I'm in if people are okay with a slow pace. How many people could we get in, do you think?

Yeah I did that last time, but will check just to make sure.

I'm getting ready to buy G&K but do most of you Civ faithful buy all the DLC too?

I see Steam has a map pack bundle for $4.99 is it worth it?

I bought Gods and Kings but haven't bought any of the DLC so far. If I do buy any in the future it will be extra civilizations and not maps.

+1

I've bought everything except the map packs.

I really do love the Gods and Kings expansion. I have noticed, however, that since I installed the expansion the time between turns in the later years really becomes quite significant.

I always play a random civ. And, for whatever reason, whenever I get Ghandi I always end up playing one of my most warlike and aggressive games. I don't mean to, but it just seems to happen that way. Circumstances force my poor Ghandi into being a blood-thirsty warmongerer.

Thanks.. I just bought Gods and Kings.. it's going to be a late night/early morning again.