Suleiman is actually pretty good after the expansion. Bismarck, on the other hand... I kinda agree with you. Still fun, but kinda underpowered.
I remember seeing a patch note or something and thinking, "huh, Sully is perhaps not objectively the worst Civ ever created now," but I haven't played as him since. Biz is actually not that underpowered IMO, but you have to play him in a very specific way to make it work: Get Honor, murder ALL THE BARBS, and turn the resulting Hunnic horde on your nearest neighbor. Rinse, repeat (or just win however you want because your empire is now enormous). Honor sucking less now helps Biz a lot IMO.
Nate and I played one of our usual games, us and 6 AIs just screwing around to see what happens, and he was Germany. He had an unholy number of Landsknechts mid-game. It was terrible.
The only bad part was picking up Barb Pikemen, since they didn't upgrade into Landsknechts. But I really wasn't paying for any military units at all, and my cities could focus on building other things. Like buildings. And wonders. And wonderful buildings. Upkeep was rough early on. There's that whole unit cap thing which has awful consequences when you go over.
Landsknechts don't fight any better than Pikemen, though, do they? I thought they were just half-cost pikes. Which is awesome.
Yeah, but they don't have the cool German name. And yeah, they're cheap to buy and build as well. But why bother? Those former Barbarian brutes have a ton of upgrades that they carry with them.
Wait, don't you mean barbarian spearmen? Honestly I can't remember. Some of the barbs were upgraded into the LKs. I remember that.
Huh. You're right. I just tried out a game with Bismarck, and spamming those suckers is actually really powerful... even on higher levels. It feels so weird to be the one with a carpet 'o units instead of the AI. "Siege units? Nah... don't bother. We've got the incredible disposable infantry!"
Seeing some recent uptick in activity in this thread brings to mind that this thread is where I miss Gus the most. He really kept things active, and the detailed posts he favored made for good reading too.
While loading up my new xmas iPod I was reminded that the one area where Civ IV still beats the pants off Civ V is the soundtrack. It's not that the Civ V score underperforms in any way, but IV set the bar so high. I miss hearing Miserere as my knights are crossing the countryside to go on a crusade. I love the intro theme for Gods & Kings but vs. Baba Yetu? Civ V had some big shoes to fill!
Short question - do any of you know some nice mods out there by now ? Perhaps something along the lines of Fall from Heaven ?
Not that I'm aware of, though I'm not active on CFC anymore. Something on that scale would likely take a while though, and IIRC the patch that released the DLL source code was just released back in September / October.
It's not on the same scale as FoH, but have you tried the NiGHTS mod? Some people consider it a significant improvement over Civ5. http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=20051
In terms of just outright improvement without changing the game very much, I'm a big fan of CivUp/GEM.
No, I haven't played since a month or so after the original game was out. Just bought the extension, and thought maybe there are by now a few nice mods available. Looking via Google was a bit puzzling, though, so I turned to this thread of nice people. Thanks, will take a look ! And the same to Aaron, of course ! Edit: And extra thanks to you for reminding me of Civfanatics. Not sure how I forgot that site.
Oh yes, I didn't think of a fnished mod/TC. But sometimes just following the development is pretty nice.
I just realized how powerful a strategy a blockade can be. I didn't know, because tha AI never did it to me. But in the G&K Bored Game my income suddenly plummeted and I was running at a wartime deficit (not that I can't sustain it)... Turns out t was the doing of two small ships. Well played, and I learned an important lesson.
I notice that you're moving ships up to do the same thing to me. While it's not crippling in my case, as I've only got two cities on the ocean (out of eight, I think), it's still noticeable.
For any of you who bought Civ V in the Steam sale, I'm starting up a new GMR game in the League of Extraordinary Game Players Forum. The deets: Sans Spaceships Current players signed up: Nate Brian Rubin Hanzii deadbuffalo, who says he might try to play nice this time. McKnight VegasRobb Mysterio I'm thinking to get this thing started by next weekend. Two more players would be ideal, one more would be necessary for a decent game. I'm leaning towards Oval for the map, normal settings elsewhere, unless yous guys wanna try something more bizarre. Owning the Gods and Kings expansion is a must, and having the DLC nations, while not necessary, would give us a lot of additional options. EDIT: Game roster is full.
Actually I moved them up to have some firepower from the seas... the blockade is just added bonus. but in times of peace, they don't block anything even though they're close, right? I have one Trireme, that I simply just couldn't get home because your borders blocked me and you refused open borders early in the game (before you attacked me), so that's more by accident than design.
I'd be up for playing Nate, I just picked up Gods and Kings on the sale and have been looking for an excuse to get back into things. How does it work?
Go to the Giant Multiplayer Robot website and download the client. Instructions are included on the website. I'll send an invite to you. It's run through your steam account, so easy peasy.
I'll take a shot at playing if there's still room. First timer, so if it's anything like Dominions I imagine I'll get rolled up pretty quick :)
Nate, considering the issue that's now cropping up in a few of the GMR games (i.e., crashing while loading a turn or the game hanging after ending a turn) making them unplayable, please replace me with VegasRobb. I don't feel comfortable donating an additional $5 to GMR while this game-ending bug skitters about.
I don't know, I've noticed a pretty big slow down in my single player games now whenever the auto save occurs. I think it's more likely a Civ 5 issue than a GMR issue, but I haven't tried playing a Civ 5 single player game since the Fall patch or so.
FWIW, I haven't noticed anything like that with regards to my single player auto-saves. They seem to be working fine. Which is good, since I have it set to autosave every turn.
Oh, sure--everyone wants a piece of me. ;-) I'm currently playing in 5 GMR games, three of which are unplayable, due to the bug. So I'd need to donate an additional $5 to GMR for 5 additional slots to play in Nate's game. Since Nate's game will eventually become unplayable until the bug's fixed (if ever), it doesn't strike me as a wise investment. Besides, Nate's game is already full. :-)
Apparently I need to send you a nice, crisp, five dollar bill. And we could probably fit a 7th player if you wanted.
Thanks for the offer, but you need that 5 bucks for more games, amiright?! The GMR teams deserves another $5 from me, since I've received at least $10 worth of enjoyment from the fruits of their labor. So I guess I'm back in, but I'll be targeting VegasRobb, 'cause I find his fondness towards me creepy.
So how do people gain influence with city states? My latest game is on King (first time) with the Greeks, and their unique ability let's them influence city-states more readily. But it's like 500-1000g just to get them to be allies, which seems like a lot.
Yeah. And once you've made some very good friends by repeated questing (some quest are literally "be better than the other nations in X demographic", which you're trying to do anyway) you can ask them for tributes, that you then use to bribe others. So when City-state X want you to connect porcelain to your trade network, you ask City-state Y for a tribute which you bribe City-state Z, who happens to have porcelain, with.
Definitely, it really is all about the CS quests. I find that I often gain influence with a certain CS without even trying, because I build a Wonder they wanted, spawn a specific GP, accumulate more science / culture / faith in 40 turns than anyone else, or connected a luxury resource like Gems. Unless you are straight up rolling in cash, you probably just want to purchase favor in limited amounts, to either bump up your 'cushion' of influence with current allies (insurance against election hijinks from enemy spies in the CS, for example), or to push a CS from friendship to ally status. Sometimes I do buy off a CS outright (if I'm rich) solely to temporarily deprive an enemy of their luxuries and strategic resources, without the intention of keeping them on as a long-term ally. Other random tips: - Promising protection will raise the 'floor' of influence by 10. - Patronage tree is your friend, especially as Alexander. - Hit your Diplomacy window often to check which CSes have quests within your reach. - Choose your CS allies wisely, according to their location, CS type (aka the benefits you derive - Maritime = food, etc), and attitude. - Influence with Hostile city-states will degrade faster than Neutral or Friendly. - Mouse over the quest icons in the CS screen to get details on their quests. - Declaring war on two CSes will cause all CSes in the world to dislike you... or declare war? I think this has changed. - Demand tribute sparingly, as it tends to hurt your standing with other city-states (though one rival CS might give you a quest to do so). - Deploy a spy to a CS to rig elections (increasing your influence and decreasing everyone else's) and, if they're allied elsewhere, stage a coup to displace the rival civ as the CS ally.
A CS will eventually complain about nearby barbarian encampments and ask you to destroy them. For maximum influence, wait until the CS makes a formal request before destroying the encampment. As a bonus, you can "farm" barbarians near the CS border for additional influence. In theory you can also liberate captured workers to gain additional influence, but most of the time I prefer to keep the worker.
I played that game out to turn 150 and got destroyed; I'm not used to King. I gather going with a totally minimal military is not viable, huh?
Yeah, that invites disaster. Several of the AIs will definitely attack you if you build little military, and once they start to get production bonuses... Having a bit more than one unit per city is generally enough to be safe, provided you're connected by roads, have some cash on hand or resources to sell to buy units quickly, and act as soon as you see them prepare. Cities provide enough firepower that you can get away with less than an invader. Generally you can run military light early on, right up until your neighbors run out of space to settle.
As for City States: - Make sure you protect them beforehand long enough for the slow +10 influence to kick in. - Milk quests when you can, as others have said up thread. Barbarian defense quests are the easiest to milk, and even farm. - Returning their enslaved workers helps! Generally it's tempting to be a slaver early on though. - You can declare war to enslave a worker once and only piss of that State. Twice and you'll piss off some of the others too! - Get the religion that raises their minimum friendless and stack it with patronage and the Greeks if you really want to pursue it. - Focus on a strong economy so you can afford to spend gold to make the last jump from friend to ally. If you really want to pursue city states you'll be spending a bundle of cash. The bonuses can be well worth it though! Especially the rare resource City States which net a ton of happiness.
