Civ 5, My impressions Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Backgammon]

So, I'v had a few hours to play Civ 5. Wow, very different from Civ 4 and previous. Very.

You have waaaay less units now. This makes sense since multiple units can't be on the same tile. A handful of units is all you need. But you have to use them wisely. Now that long range units really are long range, shotting a few tiles away, warefare becomes much more tactical. Positioning your units and ensuring they support each other is crucial. Positioning is everything. This makes combat feel more involved than building up many units and crushing your enemy with superior firepower. It's a good change. Oh, you also now have far fewer units. Like, your swordsmen are good for a looong time. So you're really not cranking them out constantly, a few here and there is sufficient. Which is good, because compre to Civ 4, cities build buildings and units at a snail's pace.

Next up, gone is the blanketing of the entire map with cities and cultural borders. The map is a hodge-podge of cities here and there. Small empires of a few cities are somewhat viable, due to mechanisms that exponentially punish large empires. I say punish, but not really. Everything slows down the more cities you have, but then you have more cities that produce stuff, so in a way it balances out. Big is still better in the end, of course, but when you'Re small, all is not lost.

City-states (AI controlled strong 1-city empires) are interesting. If you get in nice with them, they give you resources as well as bonuses. So for example, I have one providing me with extra culture and more importantly the Iron I need to fuel my wars. It's a pain in the ass to have to maintain the relationship, but it's an interesting strategic element. I *could* conquer them, but then I'd lose the cultural bonus they give me, though I'd have control of the Iron.

And resources... well, you need 1 Iron per unit (swordsman, cavalry, etc) you want to build. So it's a huge, huge strategic element to get your hands on as much as you can while depriving the enemy. It's cool.

Overall, shockingly different, but I have to say I like it. Cause honestly, if they had made Civ 4.5, there'd be no point, right? A new game is a good thing.

(edited the "can't" - thanks Yerameyahu)

[Karoline]

I've got to say that I really love the fact that cities can actually defend themselves. I love how my loan city managed to fend off about 10+ American troops long enough that they actually paid me to accept a peace treaty. I had like maybe 5 troops in total, and most of them were really far away from that particular city

[StealthSigma]

I've got to say that I really love the fact that cities can actually defend themselves. I love how my loan city managed to fend off about 10+ American troops long enough that they actually paid me to accept a peace treaty. I had like maybe 5 troops in total, and most of them were really far away from that particular city

That's rather impressive. Unless your city was heavily invested in the buildings that raise your defense score or the troops were attacking in series rather then en mass, 10 troops would have been able to easily capture the city in 2-3 turns (barring any extreme difference in unit tech levels).

[Karoline]

That's rather impressive. Unless your city was heavily invested in the buildings that raise your defense score or the troops were attacking in series rather then en mass, 10 troops would have been able to easily capture the city in 2-3 turns (barring any extreme difference in unit tech levels).

I think it had something to do with it still being fairly early in the game, and my city was a quite large population. I think population was 12 or so, and they mostly had spearmen and such. On the few attacks they did with their melee troops they did 1 damage and took 5+. Overall they just weren't very aggressive with the attack. I'm not sure if it was because they were trying to starve me out, or because the difficulty was only set to 2. They didn't even fire with their archers all the time, often just repositioning them. I wonder if the fact that they had 12ish units trying to attack a single city was messing with the AI's movement. Oh, I did have a trireme and a horseman in the city as well. My horseman wasn't allowed to attack though, which kind of sucked.

[StealthSigma]

I think it had something to do with it still being fairly early in the game, and my city was a quite large population. I think population was 12 or so, and they mostly had spearmen and such. On the few attacks they did with their melee troops they did 1 damage and took 5+. Overall they just weren't very aggressive with the attack. I'm not sure if it was because they were trying to starve me out, or because the difficulty was only set to 2. They didn't even fire with their archers all the time, often just repositioning them. I wonder if the fact that they had 12ish units trying to attack a single city was messing with the AI's movement. Oh, I did have a trireme and a horseman in the city as well. My horseman wasn't allowed to attack though, which kind of sucked.

Your horseman was probably garrisoned. If the unit shield is on the left side, it's garrisoned. If the unit shield is on the right side, it isn't.

I just played a game last night (continents). with 8 AI total. Somehow I landed on a continent featuring myself and India. The remaining 6 AI were all on the other continent. Once I saw this, I cranked my production over to a metric crapton of Spearman and Iroquois Warriors (along with a few warriors as I was waiting for my 2nd city's production value to go up due to population increases). During this time, India expanded to about 5 cities total (kind of crazy early expansion for an AI). I positioned all my units for a hit on India's capital for two reasons. The first reason, and primary one, was that this was the highest defense city. I knew my casualty rate would be higher attacking it, hence why I massed a bunch of Iroquois Warriors and Spearmen, but some of my units would get valuable experience and India would draw back most of its military units to defend the city. The second reason is that the AI tends to be a lot more compromising in negotiating a peace treaty after you knock out its capital. After taking out their capital, they offered me a peace treaty that gave me all but one of their remaining cities (which happened to be tucked directly between my two cities borders touched). I took it and promptly ordered those cities razed (they were in poor positions, or suffered severe overlap with another city). You can't raze the capital, but it was positioned nicely so that there wasn't any overlapping with my cities and likely wouldn't overlap with other cities I would be building. After the peace treaty expired, I declared war on India and took the last city for razing.

Now I'm the only civilization on my continent leaving the other 6 AI to compete with each other.

[pbangarth]

Now I'm the only civilization on my continent leaving the other 6 AI to compete with each other.

So I guess you will be concentrating on your navy, huh?

[StealthSigma]

So I guess you will be concentrating on your navy, huh?

No point, it's a combination of city building and research since I only enabled a scientific victory. A continent is a bit large to protect with an early navy and the other 6 civs will be mostly occupied with each other.

[Dumori]

No point, it's a combination of city building and research since I only enabled a scientific victory. A continent is a bit large to protect with an early navy and the other 6 civs will be mostly occupied with each other.

Just build a navy any way you don't want some coalition or super power to try and crush you or such. Sure it might limit your victory lenght but even dediaation one cit to a navy could help a lot if you position your fleet as a deterrent and maybe even let you strike out if you need more land/resources.

[StealthSigma]

Just build a navy any way you don't want some coalition or super power to try and crush you or such. Sure it might limit your victory lenght but even dediaation one cit to a navy could help a lot if you position your fleet as a deterrent and maybe even let you strike out if you need more land/resources.

Didn't need to. When I own the continent, I don't need to spend gold on strategically buying tiles. If I need a navy or army I just buy it up. The only egress onto my territory ended up by an opponent was when they slipped a settler through the one gap in my coastline of territory to establish a city. Once I achieved my science victory I went to town on the AI. I dropped nukes on their cities, then unleashed an army of Giant Death Robots to squash any remaining resistance. It also turned out that the map featured 3 continents rather than two. So it was 2 Civs, 3 Civs, 3 Civs per continent.