Civilization V: Brave New World

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Snow Job: May 24, 2006

Muscle Tracer posted:

Truffles are rare mushrooms. Pigs are the symbol because pigs are what you use to find truffles, they have the sense of smell for it. Technically yes they are food, but as an expensive delicacy, not a staple.

Touche, sir.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 19:45

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# ? May 29, 2024 01:51

Super Jay Mann: Nov 6, 2008

Hulk Krogan posted:

Your tourism rating starts off pretty low and balloons drastically in the late game. That's normal.

Basically you want to build as many of the cultural wonders (Sistine Chapel, Broadway, etc) as you can, as well as anything else that gives you great works/artifacts slots, then pump out great artists and archaeologists to produce works to fill those slots. In the meantime you need to tech up to the point where you can build hotels, airports, and broadcast towers, which multiply the tourism output of the city you build them in by a percentage. Building the Internet is pretty helpful too, since it increases your total tourism output by 100% (if I recall correctly).

As for theming, if you see a +0 next to a building/wonder's Great Work slots, hover over it and it will tell you what you need to do to get the themeing bonus, and if you don't have the right works to get it already you can swap with other civs. For example, a museum gives you a bonus for having two works or two artifacts from the same period, but the Louvre requires you to have 3 works from different civs and eras. You still get the +tourism from the works themselves if you don't meet the themeing requirement-you can put three Greek works from the Modern era in the Louvre if you want-you'll just miss out on the bonus tourism.

Edit: well, poo poo. Beaten.

Also to add to this try to get your world religion passed ASAP, assuming you built all your cultural wonders in your capital (as you should) as that gives a flat 50% bonus to tourism in your holy city.

Verviticus posted:

Does the CPU get free wonders? Maria Theresa just got medieval era at turn 86 (presumably guilds) and then built machu picchu on turn 88. She doesn't have any wonders that would make a great engineer and she is full Tradition.

edit: and it probably doesn't need to be said but workshops are medieval era as well.

I believe I read somewhere that one of the "cheats" the AI gets is the ability to divert the accumulated hammers from one production item to another item, so perhaps she was building an earlier wonder and decided to switch to Machu Picchu once she finished Guilds?

# ? Jul 22, 2013 19:48

Verviticus: Mar 13, 2006; I'm just a total piece of shit and I'm not sure why I keep posting on this site. Christ, I have spent years with idiots giving me bad advice about online dating and haven't noticed that the thread I'm in selects for people that can't talk to people worth a damn.

Snow Job posted:

Why the hell do Truffles add only gold to a tile once a camp is up? They are pigs. They are meals on hooves. This early game is hosed because I spent landgrab money to improve a pig tile ASAP and the city still won't grow.

They still add one gold before the camp.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

Do you have an autosave you can upload? I've never noticed anything like that. Every time an AI gets a wonder, it seems to do it legitimately. Well as legitimately as an AI can, what with their bonus beakers and hammers on higher difficulties.

No, sorry, passed it already.

Super Jay Mann posted:

Also to add to this try to get your world religion passed ASAP, assuming you built all your cultural wonders in your capital (as you should) as that gives a flat 50% bonus to tourism in your holy city.

I believe I read somewhere that one of the "cheats" the AI gets is the ability to divert the accumulated hammers from one production item to another item, so perhaps she was building an earlier wonder and decided to switch to Machu Picchu once she finished Guilds?

She had finished Itza at like turn 81? 82? A few turns before she hit medieval. Maybe she was making the Oracle (which I got as a consolation prize) and flipped it.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 19:51

Speedball: Apr 15, 2008

I bet Carthage's free harbors make it much better at trading now. Nobody really talks about them too much but I think they've got some nice all-rounder bonuses, if you're of a mind to use them properly. The mountain pass ability is situational but any civ with the ability to turn on no-clip mode has to be potent under the right circumstances.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 19:52

BadLlama: Jan 13, 2006

So I am thinking my next game I am going to go portugal with all coastal cities with Exploration and Commerce as my policies. I'll probably enable policy saving to be a little cheater, but going to crank out Cargo Ships and their special ship to bring in all the golds I could ever want.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:06

Vengarr: Jun 17, 2010; Smashed before noon

Speedball posted:

I bet Carthage's free harbors make it much better at trading now. Nobody really talks about them too much but I think they've got some nice all-rounder bonuses, if you're of a mind to use them properly. The mountain pass ability is situational but any civ with the ability to turn on no-clip mode has to be potent under the right circumstances.

Carthage was pretty disgusting in G&K if you had the right setup. Their main weakness is that their UU's just aren't that special. Quinqueremes are seriously lame, and African War Elephants are support units at best in an era that generally doesn't see much warfare.

While we're talking about old civs, I really wish Rome and America weren't so aggressively terrible. Rome's UA isn't terrible, but it's not great, either--it's clearly to encourage a "Wide and Tall" strategy, but the great weakness for wide civs is happiness, not production. Historically the Legions dominated for 1,000 years, but in Civ 5, swordsmen just do not have much time to work with before they're out of date. And ballistae are completely superfluous.

My idea: replace the Ballista with Roman Baths--a unique building that replaces the Garden and gives +25% GP generation, +happiness, and a Great Work slot (Roman Baths often had gardens and libraries attached to them). Instead of upgrading to Longswordsmen, Legions upgrade to Marian Legions for free and gain additional bonus strength (relative to Longswordsmen).

America is intended to be another wide civ that peaks in the late game, but neither its UA or its UU's really help that goal. It ends up being a very blah, generic civilization.

My idea: replace the Minuteman with the Frontier Fort--a Walls replacement that gives no defense bonus, but costs no upkeep and reduces the culture/gold cost for acquiring tiles for that city. Change the UA to "Monopoly: Each additional copy of a Luxury Resource you already own gives +1 happiness. If you control all copies of a Luxury Resource, each copy gives +2 happiness and +2 Gold."

That way your gameplay would be about cornering the market--just like real American foreign policy :getin:

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:21

Talmonis: Jun 24, 2012; The fairy of forgiveness has removed your red text.

Speaking of terrible UA's; is it me, or is the Mayan UA absolutely terrible? Getting a great person every 300 some odd years doesn't seem all that useful.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:30

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Talmonis posted:

Speaking of terrible UA's; is it me, or is the Mayan UA absolutely terrible? Getting a great person every 300 some odd years doesn't seem all that useful.

It's you. There are FAR worse UAs than that. Couple it with an excellent UB and a useful UU, and you've got a pretty powerful civ.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:32

Varjon: Oct 9, 2012; Comrades, I am discover LSD!

I did it on the off chance the AI can feel pain. :unsmigghh:

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:34

Snow Job: May 24, 2006

Talmonis posted:

Speaking of terrible UA's; is it me, or is the Mayan UA absolutely terrible? Getting a great person every 300 some odd years doesn't seem all that useful.

That UA is actually amazing. More years go by during earlier turns, so you get a lot of free great people if you unlock Theology quickly.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:34

uPen: Jan 25, 2010; Zu Rodina!

Varjon posted:

I did it on the off chance the AI can feel pain.

Totally worth doing now! Snagging that is going to be worth 10-30 GPT for the rest of the game because of the trade route.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:37

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

So, any PerfectWorld3 users out there who can help me? I gave the script another shot yesterday, toning down hill density a lot and mountain density a tad, and it actually started producing pretty decent maps for my tastes. I'll probably want to tone down forest/jungle amounts but it's otherwise pretty good with one exception. Rivers everywhere. It's like my land is zebra striped in rivers. It makes movement a pain and there is just way too much fresh water to go around. Does anyone know what values I can change to reduce the amount of rivers?

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:39

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Varjon posted:

I did it on the off chance the AI can feel pain.

I thought you had to have a desert tile to build Petra?

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:42

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I thought you had to have a desert tile to build Petra?

Look at what his city is on.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:44

Super Jay Mann: Nov 6, 2008

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I thought you had to have a desert tile to build Petra?

His city is founded on a desert tile :ssh:

e: beaten

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:44

Bro Enlai: Nov 9, 2008

Vengarr posted:

My idea: replace the Minuteman with the Frontier Fort--a Walls replacement that gives no defense bonus, but costs no upkeep and reduces the culture/gold cost for acquiring tiles for that city. Change the UA to "Monopoly: Each additional copy of a Luxury Resource you already own gives +1 happiness. If you control all copies of a Luxury Resource, each copy gives +2 happiness and +2 Gold."

Walls already cost no upkeep...

# ? Jul 22, 2013 20:59

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

A wall-based UB that removes the defensive bonuses would instantly become the most worthless unique in the entire game. It would need a godly special trait to offset that terrible drawback.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:02

Varjon: Oct 9, 2012; Comrades, I am discover LSD!

However, being able to construct a Fort in half the time with increased defense and combat bonus for adjacent units would be pretty boss, and you can keep the Frontier Fort name.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:06

Triskelli: Sep 27, 2011; I AM A SKELETON
WITH VERY HIGH
STANDARDS

I remember seeing a Civfanatics idea for Rome where the Ballista is replaced with a unique improvement, the Via Praetoriae. Just a special type of road that costs half-maintenance, takes half as long to build. The Legions are probably the strongest Swordsmen UU, but they suffer the same disadvantages as every swordsman which is a problem with the game itself, not the unit. Rome is actually pretty solid all things considered, if you're experiencing a happiness roadblock then build a Colosseum in every city with a bonus.

America, once again, isn't as terrible as people make it out to be, it's just that the benefits come late and the best part of its UA (+1 sight) sounds completely underwhelming on paper.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:16

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

So, back to PW3 for a bit...

code:

--percent of river junctions that are large enough to become rivers.
mconst.riverPercent = 0.19

Do I raise or lower this to get fewer rivers? The problem with these variables is that they're so inconsistent. They're all labeled in the same way but for some you have to raise the value to get less of a thing, while for others raising it gets more of the thing. Like, for hillsPercent, you actually raise that to get fewer hills. And then there's stuff like:

code:

--This value is multiplied by each river step. Values greater than one favor
--watershed size. Values less than one favor actual rain amount.
mconst.riverRainCheatFactor = 1.6

What does this even mean? This file is so drat cryptic.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:20

James The 1st: Feb 23, 2013

I believe it was posted at CFC that Firaxis hinted in the last Polycast that they would be adjusting Japan and America's UAs in the next patch.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:20

Speedball: Apr 15, 2008

Triskelli posted:

America, once again, isn't as terrible as people make it out to be, it's just that the benefits come late and the best part of its UA (+1 sight) sounds completely underwhelming on paper.

America's UA lets me see and snatch up ancient ruins like crazy early-game. The Shoshone may be able to pick their upgrades, but the Americans can actually see them before anyone else does, plus it's great for either seeing an ambush or setting one.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:21

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Yeah, I think Rome's UA is pretty solid honestly. Your capital tends to be a production powerhouse (except for that one Brazil game where I started in the heart of a vast jungle), so being able to build things quickly there to give a bonus to newer, less production-centered cities can get you up and running that much faster, I think. Even if it isn't necessarily a huge competitive edge, it certainly feels good.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:21

alansmithee: Jan 25, 2007; Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!

I've recently started playing this after not touching a Civ game since III. I've won fairly easily on Warlord and Prince, so I'm trying King now to see if I can handle it. I do have a few mechanics/general questions, though:

1. Why is Petra so good? From what I can understand, it just seems to turn desert tiles into plains equivalents? Or am I missing something?

2. I saw people talking about Jungles being great, but don't they really hurt your production? I built a jungle city, but it seemed to take forever for any building to actually complete. Or do you just leave it bare besides science buildings/growth? If it matters, I was trying to play with only 4 cities, so I was building up each as much as possible.

3. I've noticed I seem to be very slow with expansion. Typically only 2 cities by turn 100 or so (sometimes 3 with Liberty). Is this normal? Should I be aiming to move faster? It seems with trying to rush for Great Library, plus building a starting army/granary I never have time to put out a settler before then (on top of halting your growth).

4. Is there a general list/guide of what civs are considered good/average/bad? I assume you can beat the computer with nearly anything, but it would still be nice to see what people consider strong (and why).

5. Is it possible to be aggressive early and effective (or more accurately, how is it possible to do so)? Even on King, it seems every time I've tried to do any early rush I just miss all early wonders, end up behind in tech and city development, and at best end up with a couple of mediocre cities (and a continent pissed at me). I've tried with Zulu (going for their upgrade building then pumping bows/spearmen), Huns (battering ram), and a couple others, and it just always seems I'm further behind than if I'd have just researched/built normally. Especially Zulu, since Impi are relatively far down.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:32

nimby: Nov 4, 2009; The pinnacle of cloud computing.

alansmithee posted:

Why is Petra so good? From what I can understand, it just seems to turn desert tiles into plains equivalents? Or am I missing something?

It adds +1 food/hammer to all desert tiles except floodplains. This includes hills, so all your desert mines get a food bonus.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:33

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

Speedball posted:

America's UA lets me see and snatch up ancient ruins like crazy early-game. The Shoshone may be able to pick their upgrades, but the Americans can actually see them before anyone else does, plus it's great for either seeing an ambush or setting one.

It's just the borders part of it that is a bit underwhelming. The extra sight is definitely a good bonus, but that's really the only noteworthy part about America right now and it's not good enough to carry them. It's nothing that a scout with a single promotion can't do. I do agree that sight range is undervalued in general though. It's really just that most of BNW's civs are pretty overpowered and now there's a general want to buff up some of the more lacking vanilla civs up to that level.

nimby posted:

It adds +1 food/hammer to all desert tiles except floodplains. This includes hills, so all your desert mines get a food bonus.

Yeah, the thing to take note is that desert hills are already equivalent to plains hills. Petra makes them 1f3h by default. If they're by a source of fresh water like a river or an oasis, you can very quickly get them to 3f3h in the early game. That makes them into pretty fantastic tiles. Desert wheat is also pretty good with Petra. Desert sheep hills are fantastic (4f4h with fertilizer and a stable).

Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jul 22, 2013

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:34

misguided rage: Jun 15, 2010; God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title

nimby posted:

It adds +1 food/hammer to all desert tiles except floodplains. This includes hills, so all your desert mines get a food bonus.

And it also gives you an extra trade route, which is incredibly good.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:36

nimby: Nov 4, 2009; The pinnacle of cloud computing.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

It's just the borders part of it that is a bit underwhelming. The extra sight is definitely a good bonus, but that's really the only noteworthy part about America right now and it's not good enough to carry them. It's nothing that a scout with a single promotion can't do.

America can get that upgrade to have scouts with 4 vision!

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:38

BadLlama: Jan 13, 2006

If you want to go for a super tall civ is rushing to hanging gardens a viable thing instead of going straight to great library?

As for the American trait if you have the Angkor Wat you can chuck settlers at open territory later game, setup a city and just buy the poo poo out of territory everywhere and its pretty hilarious.

BadLlama fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jul 22, 2013

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:42

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

BadLlama posted:

If you want to go for a super tall civ is rushing to hanging gardens a viable thing instead of going straight to great library?

As for the American trait if you have the Angkor Wat you can chuck settlers at open territory later game, setup a city and just buy the poo poo out of territory everywhere and its pretty hilarious.

On Emperor+ I rarely even make a pass at the GL and usually do aim for the gardens if I'm going tall, but I still wouldn't skip over Writing.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:51

Peas and Rice: Jul 14, 2004; Honor and profit.

Does the game just end in 2100 like it used to? I'm at around 1903 or so, I'm definitely the most advanced civ, but I'm only just now on electricity.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:54

JayMax: Jun 14, 2007; Hard-nosed gentleman

Peas and Rice posted:

Does the game just end in 2100 like it used to? I'm at around 1903 or so, I'm definitely the most advanced civ, but I'm only just now on electricity.

2050, unless you changed the settings.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:55

Jastiger: Oct 11, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

So I started a huge scale game as Assyria and wanted to give these fabled Siege Towers a go. BABLAM, two and an archer took out like 4 cities! The pillaging of a tech is ridiculously useful too. It allowed me to ignore sea going tech in favor of others and it kept me in the game. Plus the Siege towers themselves can take cities! Holy moly!

However it's really stupid that they lose a lot of their bonuses once you upgrade. I made a few into trebs and they immediately sucked. I can see maybe not giving the adjacent bonus, but they lost their city damage bonus! I literally crippled my own ability to wage war and it was really stupid. They should fix that.

On another note, I ended up losing the game to Poland. I was taking back Babylon to get some extra delegates in the world congress, and Poland literally put units in front of mine after I reduced it, and blocked me from capturing the city. That was some crazy AI right there, has anyone else seen this happen? An opposing civ blocking your capture of a city that you've done all the work assaulting?

Anyway, Poland was bros with literally everyone and ended up winning a diplomatic victory as my units closed in on his capital. It really irks me that he was able to be friends with literally everyone and it handed him the victory. He ran away on a separate continent while I was stymied cleaning out mine. What really took the longest time was Venice. He had bought a city state WAAAAYYY far away so I had to chase him down to take his Freedom loving self out so I had a drop in unhappiness as I was Autocracy. Really the only thing that kept me back so long was indeed my unhappiness in the earlier ages.

A few questions in addition to the one above, is it better to puppet a city that has a luxury resource or just raze it anyways? Is that a net happiness gain or loss? Is it better to run melee units at a city or just wait until you can get artillery? How does one really have success with a domination victory on a huge map? It seemed that even if my wars went perfectly, the literally time to travel the world would have let the enemies build up enough to make it very difficult for me (endless AI bombers, grawr).

# ? Jul 22, 2013 21:59

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

JayMax posted:

2050, unless you changed the settings.

I always turn that off. It seems like such a boring way to end the game, and all my games usually end with a proper victory condition around that time anyway, I'm not even sure why it's there. Maybe there are circumstances which could result in a prolonged stalemate that a max turn condition would prevent, but I've never seen it happen, somebody's usually winning by then.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:00

Dr. Video Games 0031: Jul 17, 2004

Gabriel Pope posted:

On Emperor+ I rarely even make a pass at the GL and usually do aim for the gardens if I'm going tall, but I still wouldn't skip over Writing.

On King you have a decent shot at getting the GL but on Emperor it's a crapshoot, and on Immortal it's basically impossible. The only time I'll try for the GL on Emperor is if I get writing from a ruin early on. Otherwise even if you can get it, you have to sacrifice so much early game development to do it, and a free tech is rarely worth that. Just get that free tech later with espionage or something.

I kind of wish the Great Library was pushed back in the tech tree. It would be more useful in the Classical era I feel, it would make more thematic/historical sense, and it would be possible to go for it without killing your early game on a couple of the later difficulties. In Civ IV it was in Literature (came after writing and aesthetics, aesthetics came sooner), which made sense to me.

Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 22:06 on Jul 22, 2013

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:02

Peas and Rice: Jul 14, 2004; Honor and profit.

JayMax posted:

2050, unless you changed the settings.

Welp even discovering new techs at around 7 turns, I'm still boned.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:02

Selklubber: Jul 11, 2010

Is there a way to run this game as an observer? It would be funny putting AI on crazy maps and see the reaction.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:11

Speedball: Apr 15, 2008

Does anyone ever try to go liberty and tradition? I feel like that might be the way to get the most out of Venice, to be honest.

Oh: I just realized another reason to build land units on an archipelago map. To capture and destroy barbarian encampments, otherwise they'll make lots of galleys that destroy your shipping routes.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:14

Jabarto: Apr 7, 2007; I could do with your...assistance.

Speedball posted:

Does anyone ever try to go liberty and tradition? I feel like that might be the way to get the most out of Venice, to be honest.

Oh: I just realized another reason to build land units on an archipelago map. To capture and destroy barbarian encampments, otherwise they'll make lots of galleys that destroy your shipping routes.

I've tried Liberty and Tradition before. I'm not sure it's worth it; you get some monster cities but you miss out on a lot of the specialized bonuses from Commerce, Rationalism and Aesthetics.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:17

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# ? May 29, 2024 01:51

Ainsley McTree: Feb 19, 2004

Selklubber posted:

Is there a way to run this game as an observer? It would be funny putting AI on crazy maps and see the reaction.

Perhaps you could mod the game to give warriors +100000000 line of sight so you can see the whole map, settle some island in the arctic that the AI will never bother to invade, and then just sit back and watch. I dunno if there are hard limits to what mods can do, though. And it's also likely that having full vision of everything all the time always would change the AI's behavior.

# ? Jul 22, 2013 22:19

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