Some quick observations on my next game; a prince archipelago map.

1. Started a on a samll island and built 4 cities plus one on a nearby island. So far on wa and it is 1866.
2. Taj Mahal is a great wonder. It gave me a 22 turn golden age. While I building I also built Machu Pichu at the same time and turned those 2 artists into 2 more golden ages, so I had over 40 consecutive turns of a golden age
3. I'm really levaragin city-states. I'm up to 10 allies. I started with the maritimes states to supply my food while my cities built hills and had a production focus.
4. I get the feeling that it is a little easier than Civ4, I'm moving up a level for my next game. I'll probably go for a tech or diplomacy win.

Try another game on a non-water based map and see how you feel. I do agree that Civ V does seem a hair easier (I'm about to finish a game on King level myself that seemed easier than Civ IV's King). The water heavy boards seem to give further advantage to the players though in my opinion. I still don't think the AI understands water strategy too well.

One more thing... I haven't built a single road althought I may build railroads for the production boost.

I got that feeling too. Even into the 1800s I was finding city ruins which allowed me to take a gifted Cavalry and turn into Modern Armor with 2 good city ruins.

Another question. Why can't a stack an embarked military unit with my settler that I'm taking aross the water to another island.

I easily took over 3 of the 4 civs on my continent with (5) Comp Cav that were then upgraded to Knights. I picked up a bunch of workers somehow and set them building a road daisy chaining from my capital way up north. It took a while and they pretty much got all connected within a few turns. My g/t and happiness were hurting and once the trade routes got established, I instantly went from -3 g/t and 1 happiness to 47 g/t and +7 happiness, plus a golden age in there. It's probably a trade-off between what I got and the maintenance for the roads, but at least I can move units from the north quicker.

Regarding Militaristic city-states, the last three units I got were Knights, exactly the latest and greatest unit that I am fighting with! Had gotten a Catapult and a Scout earlier but immediately gifted those to some other city-state.

The only other civ left on my continent are the French. While other civs were easy pushovers, the French has Longswordsmen and Spearmen, and quite a few of them (plus about 6 cities). I don't think I'll have much problems, esp. using the greatly overpowered Insta-Heal, but the 1upt does make combat a lot of fun. Have to pay much more attention to unit placement.

Like everyone playing the game, haven't seen the AI do anything on the water, except for a few Barb Galleys.

I'm a couple techs from Rifling, still in early AD (on Normal speed). Maybe I ought to go over to Astronomy.

Started a new game last night with the Terra map.

The continent is a sort of reversed L sort of shape, kind of. I'm up north along with India and the Iroquois. Down south across the desert is Japan and Siam. On the western part of the continent are Rome, Ottomans and Egypt.

I was trying to keep India and the Iroquois from spreading into 'my' area where I intended to settle so I found myself getting into it with them diplomatically, neither particularly liked me although Gandhi was too timid to do anything, or even say anything. The Iroquois kept mouthing off at me, annoying little pricks.

Anyway, the Japanese and Siamese suddenly DoW'd me and a couple turns later the Iroquois jumped on as well. Siam and Japan only sent one Japanese unit for quite some time so I was easily able to focus my attention on the Iroquois, destroyed their units and as soon as I started to threaten Grand River they gave me a bunch of gold.

So I heal up a few units and then send one of my archers to take a hill with a good view of the stretch of land that my other two remaining enemies will be coming up through from the south. I get on the hill and GOD DAMN! I nearly crapped myself as there were a TON of units there, a good dozen or so in sight.

And Siam did well of surrounding my units, attacking, destroying, and moving healthy units up to the front line while injured units healed. Dunno if that was the AI or just a coincidence.

Anyway they sort of caught me off guard with that massive attack and my units not fully positioned.

Now the only way into my land from the south is a stretch of about, I dunno maybe seven tiles with Philly on one side and Boston on the other.

They split up their attack with the Japanese making moves on Boston to the east and Siam against Philadelphia on the west coast.

I had to split my defense to try and cover both, and took out a good many units before the Japanese switched west and helped Siam take Philly.

One or two turns later I was able to destroy the last units in the area, but had to recover a bit to try and take Philadelphia. Siam sent a few more units, a few more fights, but eventually I retook the city and then forced a peace from Siam.

The Japanese were a little more stubborn but I got peace from them eventually to.

All in all, it was very fun.

I'm not sure if the AI was just going all clever on me or if it was just a coincidence.

When the Japanese laid off Boston and moved on Philly, I was just preparing my counter-attack and was overloading north of Boston with cavalry, hoping to swoop down from the NE and sweep up all the units while keeping my archers in the NW raining down death upon the Siamese.

So that may be why the Japanese moved. Dunno.

It was fun though. :D

Here's a couple screenshots. The first shows why I love hexes and 1upt. The French had just taken the Aztec capital (before I got my units in place). I got four Knights in place ready to declare war on France, plus a Great General. They have three Spearmen (including the one embarked) plus a Longswordsmen and an Archer. I moved the Great General one hex so the three Knights would get the bonus (plus the 15% for Honor). The Knight on the right went into the forest to take on the Spears and with the bonuses, eliminated them (surprisingly). The next Knight got the Archers with no problems. The other Knight took on the Spears sitting on a hill and managed to inflict 7/10 damage while taking 5/10. But the secret weapon was the Scout coming in and finishing those Spears off. I left the Longswordmen alone, the attacked the next turn and then the Hoplites finished them off.



The second screenshot is just the next turn, showing off. That means I will have to jump up to level 6 for my next game.

After that, took a couple of turns to get the capital and then quite a few more French units came out of the mists. Slowly pressed forward, using Insta-Heal when appropriate, facing three French cities in the cloud and then Napoleon sued for peace, offering me his kingdom for my horse.

I used harbors to create my trade routes instead of roads.

Right now I'm getting 42 gold per turn, 17 happiness, 175 culture and 283 science from just 5 cities.

I'm researching Compass now, I think I should have made that an early priority.

Is anyone else playing Marathon speed? I keep reading stories that seem like people are finishing games in just a few gaming sessions (or just one). I'm still on my first game, and it's far from decided. I haven't even made contact with everyone yet. (Huge map, small continents.)

A few impressions:

• Diplomacy is striking me as bizarre. An opponent hates me, fights a bitter war with me, then wants to snuggle up and be friends, then attacks again, then wants to snuggle up and be friends. Rinse. Repeat.
• Diplomacy also isn't transparent enough. I have no real idea how I'm doing, or if something I did affected the relationship. I miss the easy little numbers from Civ4.
• No-stacking rule is great. I like the strategic options it creates with some narrow strips of land.
• Maybe it's just how my game is going, but right now I'm having to play purely reactively. Elizabeth attacks from the north, so I send nearly all my troops northward. Iroquois come from the SW, so they go there. Then Catherine comes from the SE, and I turn my attention there. I haven't had a breather to build up my armies or focus on econ for several days of gaming now.
• Man, so many of those policies look absolutely delicious. Great to have to make hard decisions in that arena--especially at Marathon where it's 60 or so turns between 'em right now.
• Gold is, uh, a little more useful than in previous versions. My current game is what it is, so I can't really focus on it heavily, but I certainly will in my next one.
• I used religion heavily in Civ4, but I'm not really missing it in Civ5.
• Espionage annoyed me in Civ4. Glad it's gone.
• Given that I *haven't* met everyone, I have this fear that our always-at-war continent may be woefully behind the rest of the world. I have this picture of one or two powers' Knights taking over the continent, only to be notice an aircraft carrier parked off the coast, and a cadre of tanks and marines following it. :D

Yep.

I've read stories about playing on Marathon. One of the earlier thoughts was to take your Civ4 speed and go down one. Don't recall why.

Probably impatience. It definitely feels slower. I don't know turn numbers from Civ4, but fwiw, I'm on turn 589, and it's 1388AD.

I think a normal game is longer. A standard game in Civ5 is now 500 turns vs. 400 in Civ4

I looked at the GameSpeed xml file in BtS and Civ5 and they are the same:
Marathon=1500
Epic=750
Normal=500

There are lots of opinions on why Civ5 seems slower.

Saw might what be another bug. I'm getting the 50 production bonus for railroads with no railroads. Does a harbor do the same thing.

Finished my current game with 1949 diplomatic victory.

I only play on marathon. As it is, things still go too fast for me. Unless your unique unit is late game you don't get much use out of them before suddenly it's obsolete.

Oh...and one more thing:

I disagree that militaristic city/states are useless. At least in my game, they've been *very* useful. More often than not, they've been building a unit with the latest technology. In fact, Almaty built and gifted a knight to me before I could build one myself.

I think this is one reason why the Aztec are a lousy nation to play, because their unit is useless before you even meet anyone, let alone actually gave enough military units to do something.

I like France's units - both have long periods of use. And both upgrade all the way to Mechanized Infantry when they get long in the tooth

...and just now, my second musketman ever was a gift. I'd call that useful. :p

Didn't realize that you get gold for disbanding units. Very nice use of the extra workers I have after improving everything I can. I'll keep a few around for later discoveries...

I only play on marathon as well. I don't see the issue with units becoming obsolete too soon. Things seem to hang around a bit.

My game is far from over, but I'm a fairly cautious player early on, focusing on production and growth. My military is typically strong enough to play defense, although in my current game I went on the offensive when Egypt placed a city near my borders (which effectively kept me from growing because I was along the coast). I took two cities and got a nice peace settlement.

Loving the game. I was a huge Civ 4 fan, but I think this one is a tick better.

Do you keep your military forces pretty strong? I still find myself gifting or disbanding almost every unit a military state gives me. Either it puts me too much over the maintenance level or it is a useless unit for me. However admittedly, I almost always keep a pretty close to full force around as I find the AI to be pretty aggressive to me on higher levels if I expand too close to them.

Well, keep in mind that this is my first game, it's on marathon, and I'm surrounded on three sides by hostile AIs. ;) The answer to your first question is "I keep my military forces as strong as I possibly can, keeping in mind that I am constantly having to replace ones lost in battle." It is taking 30-40 turns for me to build good units in most cities, so getting on every 17 turns from one city-state, and every 20 turns from another is HUGE.

That might be another difference. I've been playing faster paced games, just because I've been trying a bunch of different strategies to see what I like the best. So I'm finding no problem getting troops fast (I actually usually just buy troops as I need them though instead of building them). On a slower game, that might be a bigger issue I assume.

reduced graphic settings to Medium, no crashes in two hours of gaming with LAN play.

Speaking of the three sides, I *might* be able to take out Liz up north, and reduce that to two. That's my immediate objective.

Doesn't it seem wonky that the gift is every 17 turns whether it's normal or marathon?

I'm loving this game. The military aspect is much more manageable IMO. I also have a much easier time understanding why unhappiness and drops in income occur. I also think it's easier than Civ4, but I thought that was overly-difficult, so I prefer this level of difficulty.

Speaking of AI issues, there's very little land left that I know of. *MAYBE* there's enough for one more city on our continent. I'm halfway into England, and I've encountered *four* English settlers hanging out. Looks like the AI doesn't know very well when to stop building those suckers.

I've never encountered 4 settlers sitting around, but I've noticed the AI likes to keep one handy at all times at least. They seem to wait and wait and wait for some opening somewhere (razed town, or whatever) that they can slip a city in.

Of the 11 city-states I am allied with, I think 3-4 of them are Militaristic. Do get some good units (Knights and Musk), some clunkers (Scout and Catapults). I gift the ones I do not need, as well as disband most of the workers I get during my battles.

Last night, I embarked 4 Knights and a Great General to the other continent and started in on the Americans until I got tired of fighting. Been doing battles all weekend and while fun, it's actually boring because the outcome is inevitable. I started the game doing wonders and social policies, then switched to military; I think now I'm going to work on the peaceful techs and see I can get culture way up. Or maybe a science victory.

One of the things to make Civ5 successful for me is that I don't want the game to be another military rush, esp. combined with the lack of AI defenses and stupidity. That was what Civ4 ended up being. Not only do I wish that the patches with significantly alter the balance militarily but to strengthen the value of buildings and wonders to where you have to make a hard choice of whether to build a small army or to build up culture, happiness, gold, GP, etc.

I finished a game where I was allies of an adjacent military c state for most of the game, and it made all of my military for me, I didn;t make any myself, instead focusing on growth and the occasional naval unit. I was happy with it.

I've seen that a bunch too, the one hidden settler ready to go.

I just got the game on Friday. So far, two times entering the Renaissance, two crashes.

Is the crashing happening because of computers or because the game sucks?

I haven't had a single crash and Steam says I have played 53 hours.

Same here. Steam says I have played 91 hours and no crashes.

Probably related to specific hardware/software settings that Civ V has a problem with if someone is having crashes.

Crashes still happen in multiplayer for me, but after turning down graphics to medium, they happen a lot less.

Most up to date graphics drivers seem to solve a lot of issues.

Eh, my computer is below the min. specs and I haven't had a single crash, and the game runs fine.

I had freezes when playing huge maps, but I updated my video drivers which were way overdue and haven't had any issues since.

Interesting. If this is correct, that's not wonky; it's plain dumb. And that would explain the discrepancy about the usefulness of this, too. Even in my most productive cities, there's very little of use that I can build in 17 turns on Marathon level. I've now gotten my "first" of several different unit types through gifts, despite the fact that the moment I research a tech that gives a new unit, I set at least one city to work building said new unit. I'm just getting them faster from city-states than I can hope to produce them. I don't know what 17 turns represents in the faster-moving levels, but it just makes sense that without any scaling there, it'll be most valuable on marathon.

I haven't timed it, but it certainly seems longer than 17 turns on epic.

Started another game on Prince. This time it was continents. I did a good job of taking the lead among the 4 Civs on my continent. Once i discovered the other continent America had dominated wiping out 2 of hte other civs, plus some city-states and the 3rd civ is on life support. We'll see if I can manage a culture or tech victory, but I'm definitely behind.

I've found so far in my games on King level that I actually benefit from not wiping out my opponents. I actually need them for various things it seems and overextending myself cripples my civilization if I do it too quickly.

I have lately found striking through their hearts, ripping out their capital and one or two other of their best cities and then settling for a huge peace settlement works best.

I then have the best resources (or multiples), the best land, and 2 or 3 opponents that aren't going to be able to muster anything of a challenge. Their lands are split apart and often can't form trade routes, they have lousy land or positioning. I then sell those resources back to them every 30 turns for extra cash as well.

Tried the demo for CiV after playing only the patched vanilla Civ4 - the demo made me buy straight away, but the Warlords & BTS packs for 4.

First impressions were that I didn't like the 1upt for non-fighting units, didin't like the 1upt for narrow passes, diplomacy was just weird (guess I'd get used to that though), hated the GUI, menus, etc, hated only one unit in each city

Really liked range attacks, but preferred religion over civics, and the speed of Civ4

I may well revisit CiV in a year or so when all patched up with mods as I am sure it will be better then.

OK, I'm pissed. I'm on vacation and can't access CivV because I can't connect to Steam (I don't know why - might be some sort of firewall issue or something), Anyway, I thought I didn't need Steam or to be online to play the game after the first time I fired it up? WTF! This pisses me off to no end.

Well I've started playing on my older computer and while it's slow later on, it's been working.

Is anyone else finding this game pretty easy? I thought there was all this talk about making the AI much smarter. But all I'm seeing is that they make stupid decisions throughout and seem to bite themselves in the ass when they don't need to. The game just seems really easy on levels that gave me a challenge in Civ IV.

And that sums it up for the initial release of Civ5. A lot of discussions as to why that it and despite all of whining about missing Civ4 features, it's not that. The game was designed to attact a more casual gamer audience (and they succeeded) but it will be interesting to see where Firaxis goes with the major patches. I think the game boils down to the AI not being able to build and use units effectively and cannot determine accurate cost/benefits when chosing to build. The game has a lot of fun elements and it is fun to play but it's hard not to win or be winning.

Try disabling/unplugging your network card. It will probably be fine with letting you play offline if you have no network connection at all, I imagine.

That's really odd, KSyrup. I installed it on a laptop and was able to play just fine on an airplane without any available internet connection.

Turn on Steam and use the Go Offline function.

IIRC, Steam should still be active, just in Offline Mode.

I can't get on Steam to change it to offline mode.

If you don't have an internet connection, running Steam should trigger the "Go Offline" option.

What happens when you try running Steam?

It gives me an error about not being able to connect.

I have an internet connection, so I don't know what the problem is.

Maybe try turning off your internet connection?

Must be the firewall wherever you are connected.

You need to be disconnected from the internet in order to trigger the Go Offline option when starting Steam.

Try disabling your Network Card Connection via Networking in your Control Panel.

Then try Steam again.

Now all of this has got me mildly curious. Did I just get lucky to be able to play on the plane with no issues? I mean, I didn't toggle modes or do any other fancy-dancy stuff. I just hit the little Civ5 icon on my desktop, and the game loaded up.

You were auto-hooked up to the plane's pay-per-hour WiFi. Expect a large bill any day now.

It's odd. Last night I ran into the same problem Ksyrup is having with Steam. For the first time, I was unable to start Steam in an off-line mode. I was connected to the internet at my house and every time I tried to launch Steam, it would try to connect and then give me an error message saying it couldn't connect and to check my internet connection or go to the Steamworks page.

I re-booted, same thing. No option at all to work in the off-line mode.

I managed to fix this by going to www.steampowered.com and logging into the webiste with my user name and password. As soon as I logged in, my Steam fired right up and I was connected and had full access to all of my stuff.

I have no idea why this happened, but it worked.

In the past, I have always been given an option to start in "off-line mode" if Steam couldn't connect to the internet. Not sure why I didn't have that option this time around.

Unlike most of my Steam games, I don't have a desktop Icon for Civ V. I was never given the option the make one during the installation process or I would have. I think the reason is because I pre-loaded the game and then installed it, as opposed to just installing without a pre-load. I had issues with "Left 4 Dead 2" when I pre-loaded it. I am done doing that.

Any idea how to make a Desktop icon now?

Oh wait. Now that I think about it, the DVD was/is still in there. That may have made a difference.

Go to your Steam games library, right click on the game, select create desktop shortcut. Is that what you were asking?

Yes. Thanks!

I was able to play on my laptop while on a plane last Tuesday afternoon. I haven't tried since, but I didn't have any issues last week.

Sigh, I had predicted stuff like this. I hope you guys get the Steam problems resolved. It is inconceivable to me that a third-party product could prevent you from playing a single-player game.

Hope you guys work out your steam issues. I'm not a fan of steam myself, but luckily haven't had any further problems with steam since the whole issue I had at the civ V launch when I needed to change the steam server I connected to.


As far as the game goes, I just realized how easy it is to "steal" a diplomatic victory in the right condition. On my recent game, playing on King level, I took over my continent that contained 4 civs as the Americans. The other continent was completely dominated by the Persians with only 3 civs on it. I don't know how the Persians did it, but they hit future era in the 1800s (right when i got to modern era). They had 12,000 gold and gaining 550 gold per turn. I had a pretty solid setup, but nothing to compare to that.

I had more people, production and land then them but they were so far ahead in technology and finances that I ruled out the ability to beat them in a space victory or even domination victory. (I probably could do domination victory if I focused on military techs and a pinpoint strike on their capital but am actually tired of domination victories). I was too large to get a culture victory. Even though I was about 100 points behind them, I didn't think I would be able to catch up to their score for a time victory, even if I held out that long from all other victory conditions, which was unlikely.

So that left diplomatic victory as my best option. This was one of the first times they didn't kill off all of the city states. In fact, 15 city states were around (perhaps that is the full number we started with even). I had 6 in my control, he had 5 in his. 9 were needed for diplomatic victory plus the United nations. I bee-lined for Globalization, but just as I teched it, Persia actually finished building the United Nations. Since he had over 10,000 gold, I was pretty scared of what would happen next. 9 turns passed though, and I concentrated on saving up my money. I had about 3800 gold saved, and 1 turn before the first UN election, I poached 3 of Persia's city states to get my total of 9 and then hit next turn.

That led to the Diplomatic victory for me by the skin of my teeth.

The question I have to ask is , with that much money why didn't Persia bury the city states in money so I couldn't poach them. I guess a limitation of the AI. That is three straight wins at King level though. I'm debating moving up another level or not. I actually started looking at the achievements, and am finding those kind of neat. I am 38/120 right now, and might try to see how many of them I can knock out while on King level :)

AlanT, that was an amazing win, congrats. I would be shatting bricks during those 9 turns (as the AI can bribe CS but not too wisely, apparently).


You too, huh?

In my game, I got a clear shot at China's capital via embarking (imagine me in Tallahassee and the cap is Tampa). But I want to try out something and will send most of my forces overland.

Yep. The primary reason I still haven't bought the game.

I know for me, I don't believe I'll be in situations where I need to play the game without having an internet connection. So, I don't have this to worry about too much.

Even if I did, I don't think I would let this sort of thing prevent me from buying it. I'll still get to enjoy the game, just not as much as I want if you run into this situation often.

For me, I guess it doesn't really matter. I play a few text sims, and the latest version of Civ. That's it. The DVD is in my drive right now, and there's a fair chance it stays there until the first expansion pack comes out. ;)

Even though it doesn't have to be in the drive? ;)

Well, just speculating about whether that's why I was able to play on the plane without jumping through any hoops.

Plus, why would I take it out?

Shrug.

No reason to if you're not using the drive for something else, I guess.

Just saying I don't think the game actually uses the disc for anything once Steam has downloaded the game.

That is interesting. I recall that the DVD had no game executable files, except to install and to start Steam. I also wonder if you were in off-line mode prior to your trip? This is my first experience with this since all I play are Civ, FBCB and OOTP. Come to think of it, I like the idea of eLicense more than I do Steam.

No idea on that one. Seems odd that I would be, given that all I did was install it on the laptop while I was packing, made sure it would open, then shut it down, finished packing, walked out the door, and opened it again on the plane and played.

Came back to it a little while ago, fired up the computer, and it now works. I didn't do anything differently. However, a bit of lurking on a Steam support forum suggests that people were getting the same error yesterday and linked it to the release of the Left 4 Dead 2 demo on Steam. If true - an unrelated demo offered through Steam prevented me from playing a single player CivV game - then Steam can suck my left nut. That is fucking ridiculous.

I just had a similar vicotry. It was a prince continents game with 8 civs (4 on each one). Washington dominated the other island wiping out everyone except for about 3 Japan cities including the city-states.

One my island, I basically wiped out India, leaving them with 1 city. Siam wiped out Germany, but the city-states were left along except for one. i ended up as an ally with all city-states. There was one that I hadn't met yet. I won a diplomatic victory after Washington entered the Future Era when I was still in Moden.

Ok, I'll admit that I am wrong about militaristic city-states.

In a game yesterday, I was Greece, so I decided to play up the city-state aspect and make use of that special ability. It so happened the two city-states that I started out next to were both Militaristic. So I decided what the heck, why not and allied them early on. I built alot of my strategy (including choosing the entire policy tree to benefit city-states relationships) in fostering my city state relations with them and any other city-state I encountered.

The game ended up being my best game yet. Even though I was on King level, I ended with a score of somewhere around 4500. (most of my wins have been between 2800-3500 for the most part). I built my first two warriors earlier on, but then don't think I built another unit the entire time. I just upgraded the units I got as I went and used that cash instead.

I still got a bunch of useless spearmen/scouts/etc that I just disbanded, but it was a bigger boost then I had assumed it would be.

Now perhaps a big part of this was being Greek plus the policy traits I chose significantly reduced the amount of money I had to put in to keep the city states as allies, which made it worth it.. but I just figured that I would post here about the game.

Don't disband them, gift them to another city-state. They don't have to move to be gifted.

Well, I was disbanding them for the 30 gold or so they gave in my territory.

That makes sense, tended not focus on gold since I get so much of it through various means.

Ok, this is neat :)


Here is a conversion of my last Greece game to html format for a html replay :)

http://www.fool-x.net/civ/greece.html

Hmm, you can't see the Babylon in that for some reason. they were in there as well.


Edit: ok fixed it

FWIW, Im back to playing FM'10

That's cool, but are you supposed to be able to see the map as well? All I see is a tan background and the hexes as cities grow, etc. It would be better if I could see the map.

I thought I had seen the map before, but guess it has just been the hexes. I agree would be neater if it had the map too

I've been playing it on and off, still trying to figure the optimal early strategy. How about some of you posts your top tips for the less fortunate?

Edward, what type of victory are you interested in?

The German ability seems way overpowered. Between converting barbarian camps and two militaristic allies I easily have the most powerful military in the world and I've only built one land unit.

Desipte many flaws and problems with the game (it does have the potential to be a great game), I think they did a good job on the diversity of civilizations/leaders. I think you can win, various ways, with any of them. But of course, some are much better than others. Here is one person's view on the leaders, which I tend to agree with more than some of the views:


The other thing about Bismark is that he definitely becomes over-powered playing at Marathon.

One of the key things when thinking about early Unique Units is their upgradability. Most of them, whether strong or weak early, do have good upgrade paths and their bonuses are kept throughout (which may be partially nerfed in the first major patch, along with the dozens of other over-powered stuff). I took Greek's Comp Cav (dubbed the Four Horsemen Wonder since they can single-handedly conquer everything) to a Knight and then to a Cav.

I've started a new game, as the Babylonians, so I can work on growing fewer cities to a big size and ramping up production. Did lousy at that in my first long game.

I agree with Bismark (Germany's) UA being not as useful as Jphillips thinks. Maybe it is another case of me preferring to play on small maps and faster paced games, but Barbarians usually are wiped out after a fairly short period of time. After that it is fairly worthless.

Regarding Alexander in Buc's list, I mentioned previously that my best game ever so far was using him. The City States UA is no joke. I didn't even build any Companion Calvary either (which are very overpowered), since all of my units in that game were gifted to me. So if I had those, I imagine it would have been even easier.

So far I agree Greece has been the easiest game so far. (I've played I think 10 or so different leaders thus far.) My least favorite was Hiawatha

I have a high personal interest in playing Hiawatha and with a standard bias start, he does end up in a huge forest. I've read that with certain improvements and the Longhouse, no one can out-produce him, and that the Mohawks are good, esp. upgrading. That intrigues me but I haven't heard a lot of good things from those that actually played him.

I pretty much put alot of random in my games, just to make sure I try different leaders in different conditions. So the one or two times I have played him, I had hardly any woods around. So I am sure that influenced my decision.

Up to 51 achievements unlocked now. I unlocked a ton today in one game. Finally beat the game in a one city challenge. The one city challenge seems tougher to me in Civ V than it was in Civ IV, but maybe it is just circumstances (no iron or coal anywhere near me or any of the city states, but my rival civs had plenty of both).

Managed a cultural victory for the first time, unlocking that achievement as well as several of the complete policy tree achievements. This was also the last victory condition I had to beat, so unlocked the achievement for winning a game in all methods too.

I decided to play a different style of game this time, focusing on military. I've just finished wiping out my entire continent, but Siam has done the same thing on theirs. However, they have already reached the modern age, while I'm just about to reach the industrial age. I had some happiness issues while expanding that slowed my growth and science. Either I try for a tech victory or do my best to attack him once I can build a navy.

New Civ- Mongols and scenarios coming next week in Free DLC:Sid Meier's Civilization V DLC Next Week - Blue's News Story