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Tin Tim posted:Shouldn't have tried to start a war with my buddy Brazil! They have the lowest score anyway and I tried to help them out, so back off I have some bad news: the AI doesn't care if you help it unless you're bringing them back from the dead, if you attack Persia now you'll just be a warmonger. Get ready for Brazil to denounce you and probably ultimately form an international coalition DoW against you 
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Jan 23, 2015 19:25
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Yeah, I wish the civ personalities would be a bit more dynamic but that's how it is. Though, Brazil has like three cities and praised my military might several times, so I expect them to crumble under my foot if it comes to that 
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Jan 23, 2015 20:07
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I have an unusual request. I've looked in the game files, but I couldn't find the native .png file of the German building Hanse, which was patched in a while ago. Can someone find the 256x256 icon of it without the border around it? It might be part of a larger icon index image.
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Jan 24, 2015 03:58
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I'm thinking about making the jump from Emperor to Immortal and I've heard that this is the biggest difficulty leap in the game. Anyone have some tips?
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Jan 24, 2015 04:50
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Immortal and Deity are a crapshoot that suck the fun out of the game. I've mentioned I've played over 1400 hours of this game- I've played every difficulty a bunch of times and emperor is the highest I actually consider fun. The jump to Immortal and Deity largely means being vigilant and optimizing your strategies. There's much less room for sub optimal play, and you're much less likely to be able to wonder spam (at least early on), or get a religion. So get that National College out, complete city state quests, maintain a decent standing army/navy, exploit the AI, and always be on top of things like triggering 'we love the king' days and keeping up with your trade route caps. Just take advantage of every edge you can, because the game you're actually playing is 'catch up with the absurdly unfair lead the AI starts with'. If you can catch up in tech and growth, it's really not that much harder than Emperor.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:08
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V
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Jan 24, 2015 05:16
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^ Also Goonpack2 works great so far. Some weirdness with CTDs around a particular Decision -- a dead Great Artist, I think? But I should be saving more anyway.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:01
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PMed about that- thanks for the heads up
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Jan 24, 2015 06:44
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Poizen Jam posted:Immortal and Deity are a crapshoot that suck the fun out of the game. I 100% agree on Deity but not so much on Immortal. I've played about 450 hours, the majority on Immortal, and I feel like it's the last "true" difficulty in that you play the same way as you used to, but better. Deity is the realm of cheese strategies, insane starts, incredible luck, or all three. Immortal still feels pretty good. You'll never ever get a Great Library though.
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Jan 24, 2015 08:25
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Counterpoint- I've never got the GL on Immortal or Deity, but I've witnessed my girlfriend manage both- more than once on both counts too. I've brought this up in the past but people just kept telling me 'it's not possible' as if I had a reason to lie about it.
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Jan 24, 2015 08:32
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You are dating a wizard.
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Jan 24, 2015 08:35
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majormonotone posted:You are dating a wizard. Only explanation. 
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Jan 24, 2015 08:49
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Poizen Jam posted:Counterpoint- I've never got the GL on Immortal or Deity, but I've witnessed my girlfriend manage both- more than once on both counts too. I've brought this up in the past but people just kept telling me 'it's not possible' as if I had a reason to lie about it. I'm curious about how she's managing to build early wonders like that without crippling her infrastructure. Putting the necessary hammers into the GL in order to get it at that difficulty means you're eating into hammers that could be spent on Settlers and Workers.
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Jan 24, 2015 08:54
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It's a big risk and requires the stars to align (ie. It's likelier on a small or smaller game with less wonder happy Civs, a good start, and a couple good goodie huts) but she pulls it off maybe 10-20% of the time on deity. More than I thought possible. Sheinitially found out it was possible while restarting for an optimal start for the deity achievement, but managed to fine tune the strategy enough that she can get it ~50% on Immortal and nearly guaranteed on anything less than that. Even when she misses it it's usually by no more than 2 or 3 turns- unless like Egypt is in the game in which case it's a lost cause usually. And yes this is the same woman I mentioned earlier that uses a tradition/liberty hybrid. But as you can see from the 10-20% of the time, it's still basically a poo poo strategy to count on for Deity.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:06
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Poizen Jam posted:It's a big risk and requires the stars to align (ie. It's likelier on a small or smaller game with less wonder happy Civs, a good start, and a couple good goodie huts) but she pulls it off maybe 10-20% of the time on deity. More than I thought possible. Sheinitially found out it was possible while restarting for an optimal start for the deity achievement, but managed to fine tune the strategy enough that she can get it ~50% on Immortal and nearly guaranteed on anything less than that. Even when she misses it it's usually by no more than 2 or 3 turns- unless like Egypt is in the game in which case it's a lost cause usually. Well, yes, it is possible, but I'm more interested in her overall strategy. How is she dealing with the opportunity cost of essentially wasting hammers on the GL? About the only possible benefit is doing a Philosophy slingshot for a capital only National College, but that would involve putting off settling new cities, which is generally a bad idea. Calculating it, based on Quick Speed turn count (rough estimates, I've never tried getting the GL on Deity): Assuming you beeline Writing, you should have it around turn 15 or so, which allows you build the GL around turn 30 assuming at least one chopped forest, 33 to 35 if not. Building the NC would take about another 20-15 turns, which means you've pushed into turn 50 plus without building any Settlers, Workers, or a Granary. I don't see how this is workable long term when you should be building Settlers around turn 15-17.
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Jan 24, 2015 09:29
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The philosophy slingshot is precisely what she does, and she often parlays that into another combo- usually Oracle -> Liberty finisher -> a Great a Engineer -> hanging gardens/chichen itza/Petra. I rarely build settlers as quick as you suggest, even in high level play. I can very often get my NC out before my first settler or as my first settler is travelling to his/her destination, even without the GL slingshot- but I pretty much hard build 2 settlers immediately after and buy my 3rd. It may not work as well in high level competitive multiplayer play, I'll admit, but she's more than competent against the AI or small games among friends/mixed AI + friendly games. Edit: she usually manages 2 forests chopped- going for the hybrid build gives her access to that early worker without having to put one in the build queue. She'll pick up God King for additional help too if she gets a pantheon, PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 09:49
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Yeah, you shouldn't base any strategy on early wonders unless you're playing on easy difficulties or you're OK with restarting a lot. You're basically gambling that the AI won't bother to build them, and it loves to build wonders. I'd advise you to get some expansion cities built before you get the National College - you need to get in on the initial land grab or you might be stuck building cities that don't give you additional luxuries by the time you eventually get around to it. Do be careful not to OVER expand, though - you're at risk of getting the "we believe you are building cities too aggressively!" diplomatic penalty if you exceed 150% of the number of cities an AI has, so only build a third city if you see that an AI has two already, and only build a fourth if you see an AI with three. Early wars can really strangle your start, so it's worth avoiding them if you can.
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Jan 24, 2015 13:13
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Poizen Jam posted:The philosophy slingshot is precisely what she does, and she often parlays that into another combo- usually Oracle -> Liberty finisher -> a Great a Engineer -> hanging gardens/chichen itza/Petra. Is this Poland only? Even with +culture civs/pantheons it is unlikely that you'd be able to have a finisher ready to go for Oracle if you were splitting picks between two policy trees.
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Jan 24, 2015 15:25
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Gabriel Pope posted:Is this Poland only? Even with +culture civs/pantheons it is unlikely that you'd be able to have a finisher ready to go for Oracle if you were splitting picks between two policy trees. My guess is it starts with a Tradition opener just to power-culture her way through Liberty, then when she's done with Liberty she picks up more Tradition before something more tempting appears.
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Jan 24, 2015 16:36
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KKKlean Energy posted:My guess is it starts with a Tradition opener just to power-culture her way through Liberty, then when she's done with Liberty she picks up more Tradition before something more tempting appears. You got it. She always picks the tradition opener first. And keep in mind building the oracle is pushed off until after the GL, NC, and basic infrastructure are built so she has lots of opportunity to power through Liberty. Oracle is a really, really low priority wonder to the AI it seems. Gort: I appreciate the input but I've fielded just about every strategy and policy combination I can think of and I just happen to like a really hard NC push at one or two cities (or the money to insta-buy a library). If you're posting that as a general message on strategy to everyone they're good points though. PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 17:30
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I've never really played much Civilization, but I've played a lot of the Total War games, but I thought I'd try a game with more focus on world building stuff. Which Civilization game should I try?
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Jan 24, 2015 20:11
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Boz0r posted:I've never really played much Civilization, but I've played a lot of the Total War games, but I thought I'd try a game with more focus on world building stuff. Which Civilization game should I try? Civ V + expansions (G+K and BNW). They might sell them as a Complete Pack on Steam with the DLC included, and it goes on sale pretty frequently. If you want something cheaper, there's also Civ IV, which is also good.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:20
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Boz0r posted:I've never really played much Civilization, but I've played a lot of the Total War games, but I thought I'd try a game with more focus on world building stuff. Which Civilization game should I try? It's basically a toss-up between Civ4 and Civ5. Civ4 has arguably more competent AI, and its AI also roleplays (thus, you can make actual friends, while Civ5 AI merely goes between hatting your guts and tolerating your existence). The building system is also more in-depth -- cities are specialized, and you have to balance population vs. health and happiness. Civ5 in contrast makes a lot of simplifications to gameplay mechanics, while at the same time making warfare more than just "mash your army into the enemy's army until one side falls over". It's more accessible than Civ4, no question. And of course it's more modern and has better quality-of-life features. I wouldn't get Beyond Earth yet; it hasn't had the requisite two expansions needed to make any Civ game bearable.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:22
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Civ4 has arguably more competent AI, and its AI also roleplays (thus, you can make actual friends, while Civ5 AI merely goes between hatting your guts and tolerating your existence). This is probably the best way I've heard it put.
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Jan 24, 2015 21:33
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The other way to put it is that you can actually understand what the Civ IV AI does or what they want. An AI whose actions you can't understand is essentially indistinguishable from a random oracle.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:04
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Civ V is by far better as a virtual board game than Civ IV. I think the mechanics are way more intuitive and easy to grasp. Not only that, but in a strictly multiplayer context I think it blows Civ IV out of the water, since most of the AI issues disappear and political intrigue reappears. Having said that, I think Civ IV may edge it out if you're a nation builder/role player type. Largely because of the fact diplomacy is pretty schizophrenic (less so than in the past), the AI so bad, and the less robust mod system of Civ V(ie, you'll never get a working equivalent of Rhyse).
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Jan 24, 2015 22:15
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Poizen Jam posted:Civ V is by far better as a virtual board game than Civ IV. I think the mechanics are way more intuitive and easy to grasp. Not only that, but in a strictly multiplayer context I think it blows Civ IV out of the water, since most of the AI issues disappear and political intrigue reappears. Speaking of that, how is the Civilization board game?
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Jan 24, 2015 22:16
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Smoking Crow posted:Speaking of that, how is the Civilization board game? Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game is apparently poo poo, Avalon Hill's Civilization is good if you're into Civilization. e: Through The Ages is generally thought of as the best Civ board game.
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Jan 24, 2015 22:24
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Poizen Jam posted:Rhyse You monster, you made me look for news about a Civ5 version: quote:July 5, 2012: 
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Jan 24, 2015 22:31
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Poizen Jam posted:Civ V is by far better as a virtual board game than Civ IV. I think the mechanics are way more intuitive and easy to grasp. Not only that, but in a strictly multiplayer context I think it blows Civ IV out of the water, since most of the AI issues disappear and political intrigue reappears. I'll say that Civ5 makes a better diplomacy game than Civ4. However, Civ4 makes a better elimination game than Civ5. Land fills in and borders get tight during the early-midgame, so everyone is constantly jostling for advantages over their neighbours. Weaker players are gobbled up by stronger ones, primarily because land is power. Civ5 is more turtley, meaning more players last until the lategame, where they can make some kind of diplomatic contribution to the world stage,
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Jan 24, 2015 23:13
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But I find Civ V much more satisfying militarily, since Civ IV combat is a story of "poo poo, you have 30 riflemen in that stack and I only have 20 in mine."
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Jan 25, 2015 06:07
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I much prefer Civ V's combat, but I grew up playing Advance Wars so it was really natural for me. In fact if they borrow a few more things from Advance Wars (units tend to move more tiles per turn and have much greater variability in range- but also minimum ranges) I think it'd make it even better. I know it's a little silly since bowmen can already shoot over the English channel in earth maps, but combat's kind of abstracted anyway. Edit: \/ It does. And BNW really brought the entire game together. I'd been playing since Vanilla and I feel each expansion served as a gold standard of what an expansion should offer; more of the same (Civs, units, buildings), fine tuning of old mechanics, and some new ones. PoizenJam fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jan 25, 2015 |
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Jan 25, 2015 06:37
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civ 5 owns
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Jan 25, 2015 06:38
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Smol posted:The other way to put it is that you can actually understand what the Civ IV AI does or what they want. An AI whose actions you can't understand is essentially indistinguishable from a random oracle. While this was true at launch Civ V's AI is actually very predictable these days.
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Jan 25, 2015 06:43
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I'm still not a huge fan of Civ V's kinda half-assed attempt at tactical combat. It's rarely satisfying to fight AI armies at any point in the game because they will always have more units than you and won't know what to do with them, so engagements, whether attacking or defending, boil down to whether you have enough existing manpower and resources to tread water and win your war via attrition, and on a wider level whether attempting to outlast your opponent will compromise your empire management long-term, the part of the game that actually matters. There's no "tactics" involved there, it's the most crude form of risk-reward evaluation; will Civilization X kill faster than Civilization Y can reinforce? At least with SoD the entire affair is generally straightforward and I don't have to play a really basic and super janky version of Advance Wars to advance a conflict that in all likelihood was decided a dozen turns before anyone pressed "Declare War". I do think you CAN make a pretty fun and deep tactical strategy game with Civ V's engine, I just don't think you can attach an actual Civ game to it. The design principles don't mesh well.
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Jan 25, 2015 07:20
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They mesh fine if humans are at the helm. It's AI that messes that up. Of course there's an argument to be made the creators need to consider whether AI can handle the features they implement- otherwise you get SimCity 5.
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Jan 25, 2015 07:48
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Stuff I wish this game had from Civ4: -Random Events -Actual relationships with other Civs -The religion system Everything else is great, especially combat. Civ 4 combat is best summed up as 'who has the most amount of siege weaponry'. That's still kind of true in Civ 5, but not as strongly. Whoever said combat needs to be more like advance wars is so right though.
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Jan 25, 2015 07:53
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Poizen Jam posted:They mesh fine if humans are at the helm. It's AI that messes that up. Of course there's an argument to be made the creators need to consider whether AI can handle the features they implement- otherwise you get SimCity 5. No, combat is perhaps even worse in multiplayer. The idea of Civ V's combat looks good on paper but it doesn't really work, due to a combination of terrible unit balance (ranged reigns supreme, all hail the archer blob), and deep turn-based 1upt combat not actually working very well on maps the scale of Civ V. I think Endless Legend could be a pretty good compromise system, although I'm unhappy with the lack of control you have in that game. Dr. Video Games 0031 fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Jan 25, 2015 |
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Jan 25, 2015 07:53
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Civ4 MP combat has a surprising amount of sophistication, based around jockeying for a good position that gives you the initiative on your opponent. On the defence, you achieve that with careful positioning of your cities and cultural borders and roads. On the offence, you use cavalry units to fork cities and stacks and kill siege units, and try to attack your opponent while the majority of units are out of position. Yes, a stack of more units beats a stack of fewer units out on the field, but first you need to position your units right, and secondly you don't need to fight on the field and can always force your opponent into a disadvantageous trade. Civ5 is dominated by archer blobs, but good positioning is still well rewarded if you can get a good flank/firing line going, and can hit them with the initiative. The "multiple hits to kill a unit" does hurt the game, as someone with a critical mass of units can smash an opponent's army, while the victim can do nothing more than scratch the victor for hp that can be healed for zero hammer cost in a few turns.
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Jan 25, 2015 08:08
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Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:No, combat is perhaps even worse in multiplayer. The idea of Civ V's combat looks good on paper but it doesn't really work, due to a combination of terrible unit balance (ranged reigns supreme, all hail the archer blob), and deep turn-based 1upt combat not actually working very well on maps the scale of Civ V. "Artillery is the god of war." - Joseph Stalin
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Jan 25, 2015 08:51
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