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They're better than HG, because (a) they scale to tech era, and (b) once you're happy with your capital's size (past 30 coastal, past 40 inland, you've probably hit diminishing returns), they can be turned into pure production.
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Oct 13, 2013 00:20
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The Human Crouton posted:Is immortal fun now? I've played an won at it before, but it was such a spreadsheet before. Can I use my Classical era(and previous) uniques to my advantage now, or is it completely composite bow oriented still? Depends on who you start next to I suppose. There's always AI that focus culture and wonders over everything else, they're easy pickings. In my America game I attacked Brazil with trebs and longswords while he had a handful of warriors and comp bows because he was going full wonder whore. But I've also seen AI get huge carpets of doom by then. But I mean, once you get the pop you'll get the tech advantage. Once you have the tech advantage you can kinda screw around and do whatever. Phobophilia posted:They're better than HG, because (a) they scale to tech era, and (b) once you're happy with your capital's size (past 30 coastal, past 40 inland, you've probably hit diminishing returns), they can be turned into pure production. In my Venice space win I think Venice had 54 pop by the end. And a lot of that was junk ocean tiles but who cares? That's more science and I had the happiness to absorb it so why ever stop growing. Fledgling Gulps fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Oct 13, 2013 |
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Oct 13, 2013 00:34
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The Human Crouton posted:Alex is easy mode in single-player. In multi-player: why haven't they killed you yet? It's a mixed human/AI game with my girlfriend and some close friends. More importantly, I have the second largest military because of constant gifts from militaristic city states!
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Oct 13, 2013 00:38
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So I bought the expansion pack this last weekend after owning the game for a while and I'm really trying to get into it. Problem is I'm really really bad at understanding things. I don't know what Civ to pick, what play style I want to pursue, how to set up cities, how far apart they should be, and like a million other little things. I'd love to win a game using trade, diplomacy, or culture but I don't understand how. Is there like a really comprehensive newbie guide I can go through? Do people ever dick around in mumble while they play their games? I'm really new to games like this. Only thing similar I've played and enjoyed was Warlock: Masters of the Arcane but it's a whole lot simpler then this game it seems.
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Oct 13, 2013 00:46
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Rascyc posted:The AI is so easy to pay off to go to war with other people. People keep saying this, but I've literally never been able to pull this off. I suppose I squandered one of my best chances since i never tried as Venice, but not once have I tried it and had it work.
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Oct 13, 2013 01:05
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However, because the MP AI is basically hosed, it'll never DoW on it's own; So if it does, you know another Human is trying to screw with you by paying it off. Go kill them instead.
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Oct 13, 2013 01:10
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Moochewmoo posted:So I bought the expansion pack this last weekend after owning the game for a while and I'm really trying to get into it. Problem is I'm really really bad at understanding things. I don't know what Civ to pick, what play style I want to pursue, how to set up cities, how far apart they should be, and like a million other little things. I'd love to win a game using trade, diplomacy, or culture but I don't understand how. Play the tutorial? Or failing that just play it and see how you get along, and learn from your mistakes. It won't delete itself from your hard drive if you lose a game, promise. Also try to have fun playing the game, you don't have to min/max everything, no one is watching you and no one will yell at you for making a wrong choice.
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Oct 13, 2013 02:51
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canyoneer posted:For all you scrubs who haven't bought Brave New World yet, Newegg has a 70% off coupon that works on digital downloads (including all the DLC). Promo code EMCWXWW235 brings BNW to $9 Is this coupon still working, it's giving me an error message when I try to apply it?
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Oct 13, 2013 03:06
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How do I join my own Pitboss server? I launched it through the SDK but I can't have the host screen and Civ V open at the same time. Help?
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Oct 13, 2013 03:36
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NZAmoeba posted:Play the tutorial? Or failing that just play it and see how you get along, and learn from your mistakes. I normally hate the "play and learn from your mistakes!" advice because it's really unhelpful in some cases because there may be a billion potential problems and you don't know which is the wrong one. But in this case it's very true. Start playing from a low difficulty level, it's daunting because a lot of this people play on Emperor as the "normal" difficulty, but that's seriously not the norm. Knock the difficulty down to Chieftain if you have to (But not settler. That one is so easy it'll teach you bad habits). From there just work your way up. Was the game so easy you gave up before finishing? Then definitely raise it. Did it provide a suitable challenge? Stick to that difficulty trying to improve yourself.
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Oct 13, 2013 03:40
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I'd really suggest Prince as the lowest level to learn on and anything below that is so easy as to teach you bad habits. e: Unless you've actually never played a Civ game before, then you might want to start on Chieftain. I prefer actually playing my game to putting dozens of hours into studying it, but if studying is your thing looking up some video LPs won't lead you wrong either.
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Oct 13, 2013 03:57
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Eric the Mauve posted:I'd really suggest Prince as the lowest level to learn on and anything below that is so easy as to teach you bad habits. I'm finding that I need to dial down to Prince to play new, weird civs like Venice, or to understand the new culture stuff. It really lessens the shittiness of certain AIs, and when I'm trying to learn how to play a new, different civ I really don't want to have to deal with a runaway Hiawatha out-everything-ing me.
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Oct 13, 2013 04:02
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Moochewmoo posted:So I bought the expansion pack this last weekend after owning the game for a while and I'm really trying to get into it. Problem is I'm really really bad at understanding things. I don't know what Civ to pick, what play style I want to pursue, how to set up cities, how far apart they should be, and like a million other little things. I'd love to win a game using trade, diplomacy, or culture but I don't understand how. As someone who first played a Civilization game just a couple months ago, I recommend the tutorials, then a lower difficulty setting. I wouldn't bother with the "learn as you play" tutorial, because it honestly isn't any different than playing on the lowest difficulty, except you don't get the satisfaction of winning. Then you can ask the thread to explain topics the in-game guide doesn't help much with. For me, the guide didn't make citizen management and tile improvements clear, but between this thread and a moment of sudden understanding during play, I finally got the hang of it and am working my way up to higher difficulties (on Prince now). In short, tutorials to teach the basics and a low level game so you can get how it comes together, but still with the chance of winning. What are the bad habits you guys are saying you pick up from the low difficulty settings? I need to make sure I'm not doing those.
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Oct 13, 2013 04:57
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Andorra posted:What are the bad habits you guys are saying you pick up from the low difficulty settings? I need to make sure I'm not doing those. On low difficulties you can attempt to build every single wonder and will beat the computer to it, whereas on prince and higher it gets riskier and riskier to bother building a wonder. So you might get into the habit of prioritizing building wonders instead of more practical things like troops or regular buildings.
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Oct 13, 2013 05:02
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Eric the Mauve posted:I'd really suggest Prince as the lowest level to learn on and anything below that is so easy as to teach you bad habits. Oh yeah if you're familiar with Civ in theory Prince might be ok to start but i really feel like if youre new to the series even Prince can be overwhelming. Speedball posted:On low difficulties you can attempt to build every single wonder and will beat the computer to it, whereas on prince and higher it gets riskier and riskier to bother building a wonder. So you might get into the habit of prioritizing building wonders instead of more practical things like troops or regular buildings. Yeah in general you will not be punished for making "Bad decisions" at lower difficulties which is how you learn. If youre playing and get DOWed and lose because your army is terrible, you learned "ok, next time I need a better army". If you're able to handle every opposition with 2 warriors and an archer into the Renaissance, you wont learn to build a better army. Also specifically Settler difficulty does stuff not even Chieftain does. Settler will give you workers and settlers from ruins, and the AI literally cannot declare war on you.
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Oct 13, 2013 05:27
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RagnarokAngel posted:Oh yeah if you're familiar with Civ in theory Prince might be ok to start but i really feel like if youre new to the series even Prince can be overwhelming.
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Oct 13, 2013 06:03
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Fledgling Gulps posted:In my Venice space win I think Venice had 54 pop by the end. And a lot of that was junk ocean tiles but who cares? That's more science and I had the happiness to absorb it so why ever stop growing. Well, Venice is special, the rest of its empire will be puppet cities, and those have a science malus. So it's awkward. Not to mention the classic strategy for fast space wins is to build up a stockpile of great scientists and use them all to bulb through the last couple of techs. Unfortunately, with Venice, you'll be accidentally popping out useless Great Merchants thanks to city states being on Gold focus and working merchant specialists. So, in general, Venice isn't great for Space either. In general, Venice can be fun because it forces all your attention onto a single city (make games much quicker and focused to play), but it's not actually a very powerful civ to play as.
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Oct 13, 2013 06:52
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I just had a barbarian camp spawn under one of my units, which was odd enough. Then I had a barbarian camp (with three horsemen!) spawn in between two cities, immediately devouring my trade routes and also having three horsemen suddenly there was bad news because of pillaging.
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Oct 13, 2013 08:29
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Okay, here's my problem: I cannot do military poo poo at all. I can defend my own territory well enough, but it seems like when I try to attack another city I just get steamrolled no matter what I do. This is on prince, which you guys make sound like the easiest thing in the game. What am I missing?
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Oct 13, 2013 08:49
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Ariong posted:Okay, here's my problem: I cannot do military poo poo at all. I can defend my own territory well enough, but it seems like when I try to attack another city I just get steamrolled no matter what I do. This is on prince, which you guys make sound like the easiest thing in the game. What am I missing? Bring more guys than you think is necessary. Try to surround cities and time how you bring catapults into range; try to get them all into firing position at once so that even if the city attacks one, the rest can start blowing down its walls.
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Oct 13, 2013 09:18
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Ariong posted:Okay, here's my problem: I cannot do military poo poo at all. I can defend my own territory well enough, but it seems like when I try to attack another city I just get steamrolled no matter what I do. This is on prince, which you guys make sound like the easiest thing in the game. What am I missing? Being properly prepared is of huge importance. When attacking a city, time is the most important thing - the city will be regenerating its hitpoints every turn, while your own units healing is limited. For this reason, you want to spend as few turns in range of the enemy city as possible while you bring it down. You might be under the impression that melee units are good for attacking cities. They aren't. The city will be shooting them every turn since the AI judges melee to be the greatest threat to its city (which it sort of is and sort of isn't - you can't take a city without a melee unit, but its ranged units that actually knock a city down to the point where it can be captured) so you can't afford for them to be taking damage when they attack the city unless they're actually going to take the city. For this reason, a reasonable force to attack a city unprotected by enemy units is about four ranged or siege units, and two or so melee units. The units should all move within range of the city in the same turn, preferably shooting in the same turn that they moved. This isn't always possible, but it is the ideal. Melee units should move close to the city and fortify, ready to get shot at. Then it's just a case of shooting the city four times a turn while trying to keep your units alive. If a unit gets hurt for more than 25 damage, have it pillage the tile it's sitting on - instant 25 HP back! If a unit is going to die on the next turn, retreat it back to your territory and have it heal up, and preferably replace it with another unit of the same type so you can continue hammering the city. There are basically three "difficulty levels" when it comes to taking a city. There's the base, empty city, which is pretty easy to take. Then there's the city with an archer in it, which can be pretty painful as a combination of archer+city can often kill a unit in a single turn, preventing you from retreating or pillaging to heal the unit. Finally, there's the horror which is a city with an archer and a ranged ship garrisoned in it, which can be a meatgrinding nightmare to take. The nice thing is that you can do this yourself - if you think there's a war coming, put a galleass or later ranged ship in the city as well as an archer, then you can kill loads of enemy units as they approach. Taking cities is much harder when they're actually being guarded by additional enemy units (EG: A city with an archer in it as well as a couple of other units standing around). If you focus on the city, the units will mess you up. If you focus on the units, the city will mess you up. Generally speaking, you don't want to get in this situation, but if you have no choice, kill the units. You get to choose when you engage a city, but units can come at you. Generally speaking, you don't want to engage a city until the enemy army is mostly subdued. This means that the early stages of a war often involve you standing off from enemy territory, out of range of their cities, shooting their units as they approach. I've noticed that this strategy doesn't work so well on Quick speed, as the AI can just pump out an endless carpet of units (particularly later in the game) but on Standard and longer, you can really whittle their military down until it's depleted of units, then go conquering. This is one of the reasons Quick is the hardest speed and slower speeds are progressively easier, the other being the fact that XP doesn't scale by game speed. One important thing to know about cities is that if they have zero hitpoints, they cannot win a fight against a melee unit, no matter how damaged the unit is. So feel free to take the city with a completely obsolete unit, or with a unit that only has 20 HP remaining or something. The unit might well end up with 1 HP, but it can heal up in 4 turns in the city. ----- There are a number of things that modify how easy it is to take cities. First is any kind of range 3 ranged unit. These can just sit at 3 distance from a city and shoot it every turn until it has no hitpoints, at which point you rush in a fast unit (EG: Horseman, knight, lancer, tank) and take the city. This is basically the playstyle that occurs once Artillery units enter the game. Move a fast unit into range of the city so you can see the city, have all your artillery shell the city, then move the fast unit out of range of the city again. Repeat until the city has no hitpoints, then move in. Bombers use basically the same playstyle, but have more range. If the enemy has fighter planes, air sweep the area with your own fighters until the enemy ones are all dead or not intercepting, then bomb the city to 0 HP and take it with a tank. You can get the range 3 gimmick earlier than artillery. Longbowmen (England) have 3 range out of the gate. A unit with sufficient XP can get a +1 range promotion - do this by choosing the "more combat strength in rough/clear terrain" promotion 3 times, then you should be able to get +1 range on the unit. (You can also get the other overpowered promotion which lets you shoot twice in a turn) Make sure you pick the SAME terrain type all three times - 2 "rough terrain" and 1 "clear terrain" promotion will not unlock the +1 range or double attack promotions. The Mongols and Arabs have unique units that make taking cities easy as well. The Keshik and Camel Archer are ranged units that can move after they shoot. This means they can approach to range 2 on the enemy city, shoot, then retreat back to range 3, meaning the city never gets a chance to shoot them. The Huns and Assyrians get early "melee siege" units - the Huns get a battering ram and the Assyrians get a siege tower. Both are excellent - just roll them up to the enemy city and attack it, they'll be through in three or four attacks. The Assyrian siege tower even gives your other units 50% more power attacking cities when the tower is adjacent to the city, so these guys are perfect for early city taking. ----- TL;DR: Make sure you have at least 4 ranged/siege units and 2 melee units before attacking a city. Pillage tiles or retreat units if they get hurt. Only attack the city in melee once it has 0 HP. Don't attack a city guarded by more than 1 unit unless you have overwhelming superiority. City attacks are very easy post-artillery, or if you have a Unique Unit that makes city attacking easy.
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Oct 13, 2013 09:24
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Always use at least two siege towers as they give the city attack bonus to each other.
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Oct 13, 2013 11:12
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El Pollo Blanco posted:Is this coupon still working, it's giving me an error message when I try to apply it?
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Oct 13, 2013 12:59
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So some mod or another is causing my game to crash whenever I try to reload a save. Is there any way to figure out which mod it is, aside from starting new games with one more mod enabled than the previous one until I find the mod that's being a problem?
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Oct 13, 2013 15:28
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I'm getting frustrated with this science. I see people saying they win science by 1800 or some nonsense. I went all food, with a few wars in between major eras, and I'm still stiting at 342 science at turn 269. (1795 Normal speed). How in the hell do you guys do this mega science stuff?
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Oct 13, 2013 17:43
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Jolan posted:So some mod or another is causing my game to crash whenever I try to reload a save. Is there any way to figure out which mod it is, aside from starting new games with one more mod enabled than the previous one until I find the mod that's being a problem? This happens to me a fair bit, I usually am either doing one of two things: 1) I'm not going back into the Mod menu to reload the save. It's stupid, but it happens. 2) Read all of the mods you have active for their "known issues" or "incompatibilities", second part to this would be to read the latest comments to see if anything was broken. Unfortunately, from what I understand, if a mod decides to stop working you won't be able to continue that save 
I produce Hearthstone Highlights which is a series of 1-5min videos on Hearthstone cards! Click here to see the playlist!
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Oct 13, 2013 17:46
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Jastiger posted:I'm getting frustrated with this science. I see people saying they win science by 1800 or some nonsense. I went all food, with a few wars in between major eras, and I'm still stiting at 342 science at turn 269. (1795 Normal speed). How in the hell do you guys do this mega science stuff? Hmm, I wonder if there is any mechanic to make science wins faster in higher difficulties? I'm mediocre at Civ V but I remember back in 4 stronger players would always progress in science far, far faster than weaker ones---not because they were better (though that was a part of it too) but because in higher difficulties, the AI teched faster, so the human could snag more technologies through trading. There's no trading in 5, and research agreements are less of a big deal, but I wonder if there's any similar mechanic going on that indirectly amps research in higher difficulties.
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Oct 13, 2013 18:04
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nrook posted:Hmm, I wonder if there is any mechanic to make science wins faster in higher difficulties? I'm mediocre at Civ V but I remember back in 4 stronger players would always progress in science far, far faster than weaker ones---not because they were better (though that was a part of it too) but because in higher difficulties, the AI teched faster, so the human could snag more technologies through trading. There's no trading in 5, and research agreements are less of a big deal, but I wonder if there's any similar mechanic going on that indirectly amps research in higher difficulties. Spies. And the science from trade routes.
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Oct 13, 2013 18:11
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Jastiger posted:I'm getting frustrated with this science. I see people saying they win science by 1800 or some nonsense. I went all food, with a few wars in between major eras, and I'm still stiting at 342 science at turn 269. (1795 Normal speed). How in the hell do you guys do this mega science stuff? that's a pretty low number if you've been actively trying for science. Have you built the national college? Universities everywhere? Working scientist specialists and planting academies? what was your route through the tech tree? I'll usually prioritize education before doubling back for military/production techs. Science boosting social policies are also important. Open rationalism asap even if you intend to finish another tree first. The patronage policy that gives science is good too. Finally, if you can try to settle next to mountains and jungle but not at the expense of food.
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Oct 13, 2013 18:11
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Yeah, if you haven't gone Rationalism and taken everything in it that increases beaker output (which is all but 2 of the policies, I think) you're just mucking about. You could post your savefile and we could tear it to shreds, if you like 
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Oct 13, 2013 19:10
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Well I didn't get rationalism I finished commerce first. I don't have any external trade routes, but if I did it was only like one, maybe two beakers. I have two academies by my capital, NC, uh universities and public schools, a jungle and observatory city and a large pop capital. I got drug into massive wars early so they definitely effected science progression, but not really my breaker output. I'd share my save file but I don't know how.
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Oct 13, 2013 19:18
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Jastiger posted:Well I didn't get rationalism I finished commerce first. Whoops. I think we have our diagnosis. Rationalism is HUGE for science. quote:I'd share my save file but I don't know how. Go to C:\Users\*Your username here*\Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 5\Saves\single They should be in there, but I don't think you need much more advice than "Go Rationalism ASAP, dummy".
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Oct 13, 2013 19:21
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Yeah, making sure to get the Rationalism policies is important. The flat percent bonuses are great, but then stacking the science from every specialist on top of that is amazing, especially when your capital is so huge that you have to be running specialists.
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Oct 13, 2013 19:24
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Gort posted:Whoops. I think we have our diagnosis. Rationalism is HUGE for science. I'm going to post it anyways to see if it would make that big a deal in the first place. If I still am crappy on science even with rationalism, I want to know what to do properly. Where is a good place to upload my save file for analysis?
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Oct 13, 2013 19:33
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Throw it up on Mediafire or something similar.
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Oct 13, 2013 19:37
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When I was a kid the original Civilization was my favorite game, so after reading this thread and the LP:s I picked up Civ V + G&K, and later BNW. Since I only played on the easiest setting as a kid, both the LP:s and this thread have been a great help helping me get my stuff together. Thanks thread!
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Oct 13, 2013 21:18
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Ah cool. Here is the link. http://www.mediafire.com/download/7l28pxvg7kbgl17/QuickSave.Civ5Save Its well into the game after I've been kind of forced into a domination victory and have just researched education. I'm working on artillery now to get the domination complete. I really wanted to try the science strategy Dr Video Games had mentioned earlier. My capital got huge fast, but I am no where near a science victory at this point. Even if I missed rationalism, I fail to see exactly how I could have done science any faster. I did build wonders early because I literally had nothing else to build for stretches at a time since I was focusing on food and science so much.
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Oct 13, 2013 22:14
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Well, you're going to win anyway, because everyone else are tiny and even more backwards. Well, the obvious reason your science rate is terrible is because all your cities are puppets. Puppets are terrible for science, and they don't prioritise building lib/unis/schools. And you can't grow your "real" cities because you lack happiness and can't trade for more because everyone hates you. Also, you went Autocracy. Unlike Freedom (which can boost academies) or Order (which gives factories +25% science), Autocracy doesn't help. So I wouldn't sweat having relatively low science vs other people benchmark.
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Oct 13, 2013 22:46
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Jastiger posted:Ah cool. Here is the link. You let yourself get distracted. You say you got dragged into wars, but how? If you aren't actually being invaded, then there is often little reason to take military action. Don't take other cities at all unless that city is in an incredibly good location. You say you got forced into a domination victory but you had a choice and chose domination over science the moment you started taking other cities. That increases your tech costs, reduces the number of partners for research agreements, and tanks your happiness which kills growth. You're supposed to make others fight your wars for you. Also, to illustrate how big Rationalism is, if you had free thought, secularism, and a happy empire, you'd have 492 science right now. If you weren't conquering cities, you wouldn't have needed protectionism.
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Oct 13, 2013 22:58
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Phobophilia posted:Well, you're going to win anyway, because everyone else are tiny and even more backwards. Well I went Autocracy just before saving that because as I said, I'm kind of forced into a domination victory at this point. I know I'm well ahead, I'm more concerned about doing better in general. I want to hit those 1800 science victories, you know? The first few cities I captured I did not puppet. Most of the new additions are extra puppets because they have a luxury resource. Happiness is a problem because yeah, everyone hates me and I can't trade. Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:You let yourself get distracted. You say you got dragged into wars, but how? If you aren't actually being invaded, then there is often little reason to take military action. Don't take other cities at all unless that city is in an incredibly good location. You say you got forced into a domination victory but you had a choice and chose domination over science the moment you started taking other cities. That increases your tech costs, reduces the number of partners for research agreements, and tanks your happiness which kills growth. You're supposed to make others fight your wars for you. Well I actually only took ONE city and everything went downhill. I was friends with nearby Brazil and Carthage (they had a city nearby) and things were fine. Then Indonesia kept sending great prophet after great prophet to my capital, even though I told him to stop. I was relying on my religious tenants in order to boost happiness and growth. He kept erasing that, so I did the only thing I could do....went and kicked his rear end in order to preserve my faith. Then I was going to be done. But as soon as I took ONE city, ONE city!, everyone dogpiled me and I was a huge warmonger. What should I do in those situations? Also, is 492 good for that time period?
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Oct 13, 2013 23:01
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