Alright boyz, here we go!!! Civ 5 first impressions & tips thread!

[Ben E Lou]

I haven't tried it yet on it. I'm just assuming so. It's a month or two old, 4GB RAM, dual core, not sure about the graphics setup, but it *looks* good. I'm going to do the installation on it tomorrow morning.

[henry296]

Is there somewhere to see every Civs score? That is one way I figure out where I stand in terms of size / tech.

[Buccaneer]

Not a standings like in Civ4 apparently. You can see your score on the Victory screen and then go to the Diplomacy screen to see the other civs.

My first game is on Prince and already I have a good lead (score-wise) after 20 or so turns.

[MizzouRah]

The game runs fine on my desktop pc, most of the settings are medium or low, but I can play at 1900x1200 on my 24" monitor without must hesitation so far.

I'm still a n00b though and have tons of questions I keep having to look up answers to.

[henry296]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Not a standings like in Civ4 apparently. You can see your score on the Victory screen and then go to the Diplomacy screen to see the other civs.

My first game is on Prince and already I have a good lead (score-wise) after 20 or so turns.

Thanks. The Diplomacy Screen also shows your score so that is what I was looking for.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by henry296

Thanks. The Diplomacy Screen also shows your score so that is what I was looking for.

I had thought so but somehow I am not seeing it.

[Buccaneer]

I am loving the idea of a unit-less city being able to defend itself. Had 3 Brutes surrounding my city while I went off and explored the world (very important to do). A passing Ottoman Spears got one of the Brutes and the others splattered themselves silly until I built a Warrior to finish them off. Going to build a War Chariot along with a melee unit to go Brute Encampment hunting.

[MizzouRah]

I really like the interface.. the game has me rattling off hour by hour, that's for sure.

Need to go to bed.. long day tomorrow, but I want more!

[Abe Sargent]

I love the city state thing

[Alan T]

Just finished my second game, this time moved up on Prince difficulty. It obviously was a little more difficult, but still didn't seem that tough to win.

As France this time, won in the 360th turn with a Domination victory. Score of 2095. (about 1700 lower than my previous victory on Chieftain level).

I am finding the Domination victory seems a little too easy to win. Basically one civ took out all of the opponents on his island while I took out all of my opponents on my side. Then I beat him to the punch when we had the only two capitals left.

I actually was going for a United Nations victory this time to try something different, but could only get 8 of the 9 needed votes. I guess the other city states got destroyed before I could get to the other island. A Culture victory was not going to happen, so that left Domination.

I think the big key is getting good strategic position in the beginning. The first 100 or so turns are vital to make sure that you are strong enough military-wise to keep the other civs honest (or better have the other civs on your island go after each other), while trying to expand just a little bit to cover the ground you need.

Not sure if I'll move up from Prince just yet or try another round to see if I just got lucky twice in a row. I never had a feeling that I was going to lose after the first several hundred turns, but it wasn't a cake walk like the first game.

[Big Fo]

I just played my first ever Internet multiplayer Civ game (any version) with a friend of mine. We played a team game against three AI teams of two civs each, it's going pretty well so far. Planning invasions and what we each research and trade is good fun but we probably should have played on King or whatever the level just above Prince is to make up for the team advantage but my friend hasn't had the chance to try any SP yet. Next time we'll do a normal game without teams.

[SackAttack]

Yes, I want the shiny graphics.

No, I'm not finding this game any less addictive for having played the last 200 turns in strategy view instead of "shiny graphics" view.

That, to me, might be the most impressive bit.

Offhand, anybody else getting the 'trade route broken' message from time to time? I figured it meant road degradation, but only once have I found a missing road, and it wasn't even along the path that would've linked my capital to the city claiming trade route loss.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Yes, I want the shiny graphics.

No, I'm not finding this game any less addictive for having played the last 200 turns in strategy view instead of "shiny graphics" view.

That, to me, might be the most impressive bit.

Offhand, anybody else getting the 'trade route broken' message from time to time? I figured it meant road degradation, but only once have I found a missing road, and it wasn't even along the path that would've linked my capital to the city claiming trade route loss.

I have no idea why it does that. I was getting it a good amount with two cities closest to my capital, and they all had roads and harbors.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Cringer

I have no idea why it does that. I was getting it a good amount with two cities closest to my capital, and they all had roads and harbors.

I do know that the first time I got that message, a road was missing between my capital and a *different* city, and repairing that made the game happy again.

The second time, I couldn't find a single break.

[Chubby]

just saw something new from diplomacy:

playing a continents map, 4 civs, I'm Japan. Each continent has 2 civs and a bunch of city states on it. My continent has a 1 tile connecting path inthe middle with myself on one endand the Romans onthe other end. Thru exploring early on I saw that at the Roman end of the one tile wide connecting path there was a mountain range that creates a chokepoint getting into the 1 tile wide connecting pathso I set up my 2nd city there but set back so that I could set up a chokepoint path of death for the eventual Roman invasion.

I set up a spearman and 2 archers to defend the chokepoint and lo and behold, that fucker invades me as I just started taking out the only city state on my half of the continent. I lose the spearman quick as I was out-teched, drop one archer into the city and soon lose the other archer. Because of the choke point tho, i hold them off while upgrading the garrisoned archer to a crossbowman.

I made quick work of the city state and moveall my forces (a swordsman, 2 Samurai, a crossbowman and a catapult) where I begin to destroy any Roman forces who dare make it into the chokepoint path of death. This is where I see the thing I have never seen before.

I had been trying to get peace form the start of when Rome declared war on us to no avail. Once I set up the chokepoint path of death I stopped trying to end the war. Eventually, Rome offered peace and I tried to get all their gold (500) and they said no. 5-10 turns later, same thing only this time they had 700 gold but still no dice. Then like 10-15 turns later...

Rome offered peace AND open borders on them only AND pretty much all their gold (800) AND like 25 gold per turn AND all luxury resources AND all their good resources (like 7 iron and all their horses).

I natrually excepted and started a scout to scout their territory for my invasion in 10 turns while I'm still getting all their resources for another 20 turns after that

[Vince, Pt. II]

Nice, complete capitulation. I like it.

[Galaril]

Originally Posted by Chubby

just saw something new from diplomacy:

playing a continents map, 4 civs, I'm Japan. Each continent has 2 civs and a bunch of city states on it. My continent has a 1 tile connecting path inthe middle with myself on one endand the Romans onthe other end. Thru exploring early on I saw that at the Roman end of the one tile wide connecting path there was a mountain range that creates a chokepoint getting into the 1 tile wide connecting pathso I set up my 2nd city there but set back so that I could set up a chokepoint path of death for the eventual Roman invasion.

I set up a spearman and 2 archers to defend the chokepoint and lo and behold, that fucker invades me as I just started taking out the only city state on my half of the continent. I lose the spearman quick as I was out-teched, drop one archer into the city and soon lose the other archer. Because of the choke point tho, i hold them off while upgrading the garrisoned archer to a crossbowman.

I made quick work of the city state and moveall my forces (a swordsman, 2 Samurai, a crossbowman and a catapult) where I begin to destroy any Roman forces who dare make it into the chokepoint path of death. This is where I see the thing I have never seen before.

I had been trying to get peace form the start of when Rome declared war on us to no avail. Once I set up the chokepoint path of death I stopped trying to end the war. Eventually, Rome offered peace and I tried to get all their gold (500) and they said no. 5-10 turns later, same thing only this time they had 700 gold but still no dice. Then like 10-15 turns later...

Rome offered peace AND open borders on them only AND pretty much all their gold (800) AND like 25 gold per turn AND all luxury resources AND all their good resources (like 7 iron and all their horses).

I natrually excepted and started a scout to scout their territory for my invasion in 10 turns while I'm still getting all their resources for another 20 turns after that

Holy shit who is there leader Jimmie Carter?

[Abe Sargent]

I had the "Peace Trety, can't DOW for the rest of the game" bug as well in y first go through.

[GrantDawg]

I picked this up today. Any early mod suggestions?

[Buccaneer]

Why are you looking for an early mod? Is there something you would like to see different? That determines what kind of mod to suggest. But I would suggest learning the game and its mechanics, which I am still doing despite some bugs.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Why are you looking for an early mod? Is there something you would like to see different? That determines what kind of mod to suggest. But I would suggest learning the game and its mechanics, which I am still doing despite some bugs.

I was just curiuos if someone had tweaked stuff already. Usually someone will come with a more "real" feeling game within a few days of games like this coming out.

[Abe Sargent]

I'm beginning to miss things like espionage, religion, and government

[RainMaker]

Is there a reason they dumped religion? Seems like an important part of civilization.

[Abe Sargent]

They do have the social values thingie. It sort of replaces governemnt a little, but its really different and only a few are mutually exclusive. I was Communist, Liberty and Freedom all at the same time with it.

I do like them, I just would like to see the names changed and government, religion and especially espionage added back in.

Also, the lack of different land improvements that we had in Civ 4 makes everybody's land look the same after getting improved, and more things there would help.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Is there a reason they dumped religion? Seems like an important part of civilization.

It was cheesy and gamey in Civ4, espionage was even worse. But I heard the religions were supposed to be in Civ5 but didn't make the cut. If they do add it for an expansion pack, I hope it would compliment the social policies instead of some generic culture and gold boosts (which the game does not need more of).

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

It was cheesy and gamey in Civ4, espionage was even worse. But I heard the religions were supposed to be in Civ5 but didn't make the cut. If they do add it for an expansion pack, I hope it would compliment the social policies instead of some generic culture and gold boosts (which the game does not need more of).

It was originally in the game and it got pulled out. Apolyton posted what they found:

Apolyton Civilization Site - Gamefiles show: Religion was removed from Civilization V!

[Abe Sargent]

I think a religious victory would have been mega cool

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

SkipIntroVideo = 0

Making this change will produce a black screen for about 30 seconds with no activity before you get to the main menu.

Also, if you wait about 3-5 seconds and then hit Enter, it will skip past the opening movie.

[Abe Sargent]

I really question some things in this game. For example, roads cost gold to maintain, but forts? Why is that? I don;t get that at all. I mean, I'm sure there is some game based reason for it, like forts suck and are rarely used so let's not make them worse or something, but it feels unnatural.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

It was cheesy and gamey in Civ4

If by "cheesy and gamey" you mean it was really cool, I'd agree

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

I really question some things in this game. For example, roads cost gold to maintain, but forts? Why is that? I don;t get that at all. I mean, I'm sure there is some game based reason for it, like forts suck and are rarely used so let's not make them worse or something, but it feels unnatural.

To keep you from plopping them all over the place, not using them for 2000 years, and then just retreating into them when an army comes by?

A 2000-year old fort with no maintenance in all that time probably wouldn't be all that useful.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

To keep you from plopping them all over the place, not using them for 2000 years, and then just retreating into them when an army comes by?

A 2000-year old fort with no maintenance in all that time probably wouldn't be all that useful.

No, SA, my point was that forts DON'T require gold to maintain. Thus the inconsistency I mentioned. To be fair, I wasn't very clear, but the context clues from the last sentance back that.

[Abe Sargent]

I like most of the new stuff though. I adore City States. I love buying land. I enjoy the social policies. And I like natural wonders, even if the game has like 10 and that's it, so I'm seeing the same ones over and over again. Hexes, great idea.

[Izulde]

I downloaded the demo but it won't play. It doesn't show up in Steam even after I go through Setup and when I choose Add Game to Steam, it asks me for a passkey.

...WTF would I have a passkey for a DEMO?

[Alan T]

My third game didn't go as well as the first two.

It led me to two observations:

1) Iroquois really have lousy special unit/building/etc.
2) When there is no iron anywhere near you but everyone else on your continent has plenty of iron it really stacks the cards against you.

I held in until the end, hoping for a culture victory, but just couldn't keep up with the Egyptians, whom ended up finally taking my capital when there were just two of us left.

Ok a third observation: I have yet to see a single game make it until even flight much less space race. Are you all seeing the same? All three games were domination victories.

[Vince, Pt. II]

Originally Posted by Alan T

My third game didn't go as well as the first two.

It led me to two observations:

1) Iroquois really have lousy special unit/building/etc.
2) When there is no iron anywhere near you but everyone else on your continent has plenty of iron it really stacks the cards against you.

I held in until the end, hoping for a culture victory, but just couldn't keep up with the Egyptians, whom ended up finally taking my capital when there were just two of us left.

Ok a third observation: I have yet to see a single game make it until even flight much less space race. Are you all seeing the same? All three games were domination victories.

I'm still only in my first game, but I can definitely see strategic resources being a major issue. Were any city-states near Iron? In my current (first) game, I only had 2 Iron resources, and I've made an arrangement with a city-state to up that to 8. If I wasn't able to do that (and it's going to be expensive to keep it up), I'd be at a severe disadvantage.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Alan T

My third game didn't go as well as the first two.

It led me to two observations:

1) Iroquois really have lousy special unit/building/etc.
2) When there is no iron anywhere near you but everyone else on your continent has plenty of iron it really stacks the cards against you.

I held in until the end, hoping for a culture victory, but just couldn't keep up with the Egyptians, whom ended up finally taking my capital when there were just two of us left.

Ok a third observation: I have yet to see a single game make it until even flight much less space race. Are you all seeing the same? All three games were domination victories.

I had a diplomatic vicotry in a game where I was a permanent ally of Japan and they took one continent, and I took another, and I didn;t want to wage war against them, so I just found and allied with all of the city states on these various islands. Plus I never conquered the three on my continent, so I won. I had about 12 future techs in that game. Ended 2012

[Passacaglia]

They brought back future techs?

[henry296]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

They brought back future techs?

They were in Civ4

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by henry296

They were in Civ4

Ah, okay. I guess I never got that far. The few times I went "all the way" I think the game was won on points before anyone could get to them.

[bhlloy]

I just won a space race victory in about 2040 where at least 7 of the 12 nations still had their capital so it's not necessarily a race to see who can eliminate everyone else on their continent every time. Just seems to be most of the time

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Vince, Pt. II

I'm still only in my first game, but I can definitely see strategic resources being a major issue. Were any city-states near Iron? In my current (first) game, I only had 2 Iron resources, and I've made an arrangement with a city-state to up that to 8. If I wasn't able to do that (and it's going to be expensive to keep it up), I'd be at a severe disadvantage.

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

I had a diplomatic vicotry in a game where I was a permanent ally of Japan and they took one continent, and I took another, and I didn;t want to wage war against them, so I just found and allied with all of the city states on these various islands. Plus I never conquered the three on my continent, so I won. I had about 12 future techs in that game. Ended 2012

The city states don't last long in my three games so far. I tried for a diplomatic victory in my 2nd game and found that every single city state on the other continent had been destroyed, so had to settle for a domination victory when I was one state short.

The only way city states seem to survive in my games is if I destroy the rival civs before they destroy the city states. In my third game with 0 iron, that ended up being impossible for me.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by Alan T

The city states don't last long in my three games so far. I tried for a diplomatic victory in my 2nd game and found that every single city state on the other continent had been destroyed, so had to settle for a domination victory when I was one state short.

The only way city states seem to survive in my games is if I destroy the rival civs before they destroy the city states. In my third game with 0 iron, that ended up being impossible for me.

Remember, you can release a City State if you capture it in war from another civ, and then it will always vote for you in a diplomatic victory.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

Remember, you can release a City State if you capture it in war from another civ, and then it will always vote for you in a diplomatic victory.

Probably not if it's destroyed -- seems like you shouldn't be able to destroy a city-state, or at least if you do, there should be some kind of penalty.

[Jughead Spock]

I'm loving the game. But I'm hating that it keeps wanting to not load - ie, freezes as soon as it's at the point of starting a game. Will just keep troubleshooting that part, but the game itself is fun as hell. Love the one unit per hex and limited resources.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

Remember, you can release a City State if you capture it in war from another civ, and then it will always vote for you in a diplomatic victory.

Ah, yes I keep letting that slip my mind.

[Izulde]

Tried the demo and had a lot of fun. I took Persia and was in the middle of a defensive war with England when time ran out. I was a little disappointed I apparently wasn't the first to discover Writing, as I didn't get the free technology I thought I would (I did, however, get one for the Great Library).

With this new combat system, I don't think I'd ever play any of the previous Civs again. That's how awesome it is and how tedious the stacks of doom would be after that.

I was in the middle of making Dublin my homeboy, working on building a road network from Persepolis to Dublin when the war broke out. Truth is, we probably would have been over-run by sheer numbers because I didn't do an adequate job of army preparation (although I did have a horseman being quickly built in my capital, I probably would have lost my second city).

So tempting to buy the full version...

[Big Fo]

re: how much research progress Civs have made by the end of the game

1st game - Warlord level - I won a Domination Victory in the mid 1900s. I was about halfway through the Modern Era (like bombers and battleships but not jet fighters or missile cruisers) while the other Civs that hadn't been wiped out were in the Industrial Era.

2nd game - Prince level - I won a Scientific Victory in 2041. I had two future techs, two competitors had completed the Apollo Program, a few others were in the Modern Era while the bottom feeders will still in the Industrial Era. Unfortunately nobody would declare war on me late in the game so I didn't get to see the Giant Death Robot in action.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Probably not if it's destroyed -- seems like you shouldn't be able to destroy a city-state, or at least if you do, there should be some kind of penalty.

I was under the impression you couldn't, since you can't raze capitals and city-states are kind of de facto capitals.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

2nd game - Prince level - I won a Scientific Victory in 2041. I had two future techs, two competitors had completed the Apollo Program, a few others were in the Modern Era while the bottom feeders will still in the Industrial Era. Unfortunately nobody would declare war on me late in the game so I didn't get to see the Giant Death Robot in action.

I just won a Technological Victory in 2025 as Rome. My game sounds different than yours though. As the norm almost everyone was bloodthirsty and it ended up being just myself and one other civ plus a third civ that was barely holding on.

I was the only one to complete the Apollo program, but I also had absolutely 0 coal or uranium (and almost 0 oil) on my continent. So that led my technological victory choice as I didn't really have much in the way of transatlantic fleet without any modern resources.