2641

I think the only foreign trade routes are the 1 time gold/rep dumps you get for using Great Merchants to city states.

2642

Well, the unhappiness from conquest is generated by your victims, not your own people–but the net effect is the same. By the same token, your people don’t care if you commit genocide, which from a historical perspective makes sense up until fairly modern times. Perhaps some penalties for razing should be introduced for Renaissance-era and later civs–it might be the only thing that can stop the razing strategy juggernaut.

2643

I made an arrangment to exchange a couple of luxury items over 30 turns. There were other ways I could have accomplished it (forking over gold/cities/units/etc.) but that was the easiest. It’s all negotiated, so there isn’t anything that by default just trickles cash into your coffers (although you could argue that’s exactly what trading posts do) - you need to give something to get something.

2644

Yes, but to a point.

  1. City-States will declare unending war against you if you invade too many of them (probably 3 or 4). Given that most of those City-States will have Civ allies, it’s not too hard to get the entire world gunning for your ass in Civ V.

  2. The more you warmonger, the worse your rep with the other Civs.

  3. You have to pay for all those units, something not always easily done in Civ V. Fielding a large army does get expensive.

There’s no inherent war weariness in Civ V, but there are curbs to your ability to constantly be at war. In any other Civ game, if you can rampage non-stop you wouldn’t be deterred much from warmongering either. :)

But yeah, overall you can let slip the dogs of war a little easier in Civ V.

2645

Oh, gotcha Dan. Yea I know you can trade gold/resources/etc, I was referring to the actual trade routes themselves from Civ IV. It was one of the perks of keeping open borders / good relations with other civs, because you could make a substantial amount of money off of ocean trade… but also made you vulnerable to blockades.

2646

  1. I’ve been ignoring most of the city states (only conquered one) and taking out the big empires instead.

  2. Doesn’t seem to matter. Despite non-stop aggression on my part, I still have friendly trade relations with the continent I haven’t attacked. I currently have 10 or 11 luxury resources as a result.

  3. True enough!

2647

Okay, playing my first tutorial game. I’ve got a Great General, and the description says that he gives a bonus to units he’s stacked with. Is there a way to attach him (i.e. old style sticky stacking) to my Warrior so I can move them both simultaneously, or do I still have to move them both separately?

2648

I don’t think you can attach him, but you can keep him under a combat unit. You have to move them both separately from what I can tell, maybe there’s a trick I’m not aware of.

He doesn’t just give a bonus to the unit he’s stacked with, though, he effects everything around him. If you hover the mouse over the enemy unit when attacking, you’ll see the bonus listed in the odds calculation.

2649

Played a game as the Aztecs, their ‘bonus culture for every unit killed’ is very clever. If you are not at war, you aren’t getting that delicious trickle of culture, so it really changes your playstyle.

The bonus is so clever, it makes some of the other civilizations look dumb. More, better great generals? Booorrrring.

2650

You obviously haven’t seen the power of a Chinese Great General then. The 45% strength boost they give to strength (including ranged attacks!) is huge.

2651

I wasn’t talking about power and balance. The Chinese bonus merely improves their core competencies. The Aztec bonus is wacky: it breaks the rules makes the game feel different from other civilizations.

Note that I am speaking from ignorance here. I have only played two games, neither with China.

2652

There’s no breakdown because it’s much simpler now! Trade routes exist only between you capital and another of your cities, via road or port. That’s it.

You can also enter trade agreements for resources or gold with other civs but that doesn’t count as a trade route. You do NOT get automatic trade routes or slots for trade routes from open border agreements as in Civ4, just free unit movement.

Please do read the manual – I don’t care what minor inaccuracies it might have, the basics are explained very well. And Civ4 veterans really do need to read it because Civ5 is quite different in many ways (as you can see).

2653

Some multiplayer stuff:

  • Starting up and connecting is a snap. You can “Join” a friend’s game via Steam.

  • Not sure if private games are private when reloading from a save… my friend had somebody keep popping into his game while he was waiting for me. I’m not sure if my friend just didn’t set it up or what…I didn’t have time to test it.

  • Unit movement and combat animations are disabled in MP. For example, when you move a unit it just instantly “teleports” to the destination instead of the nifty hike up the skirts and hoof it over. Combat is the same: instant poof, win or lose…no actual fighting animation.

  • To save your MP game, hit CTRL+S. Took me 10 minutes to figure that out on my own since it ain’t anywhere in the Civilopedia or manual. (coughMPis-tacked-oncough

  • Turns move much faster now since you have a lot fewer units to shuffle around.

that’s it for now

2654

Where can I get a list of the resources I own? Like in Civ4, it was on the city screen, on the right side, in columns for Luxury, Food, and Strategic. I’m not seeing that anywhere…

2655

Strategic resources are listed in their quantities on the top bar.

Hover your cursor over the happiness symbol on that bar to see your luxury resources.

Food resources don’t do anything other than give bonuses to the tile they’re on now.

2656

Along the upper left if you mouse over Happiness you will see which luxury resources you are benefiting from…I dont know that there is a way to see how many of each you have though (which kind of sucks as I think you can trade your last one away for 30 turns…).

For strategic resources you can see a list of available further to the right along that same top strip. But again I dont know how you see totals, that top left area just shows what you have at your disposal.

2657

Strategic resources show up in the info bar across the top as you unlock the techs which reveal them.

By mousing over your happiness rating, you can see a list of luxury goods you have access to (but not how many of each).

Damn, too slow

2658

It shows you how many of each lux resource you have left on the diplo trade screen. So to a first approximation, never trade if you only have one.

2659

Guys, I think Tom Chick was right and the math is f*ed. I’ve been running a deficit for several turns. I finally decided I’d do something about it and make sure soldier costs were correct. My deicit was -5g/turn. So I decided to delete a warrior… and it balanced my budget.

Nowhere do I see anything that says a lowly Warrior costs 5 gold/turn.

2660

I’ve seen weird budget stuff like that too, but assumed it was because I didn’t understand the mechanics behind it. Of course, that wouldn’t be a problem if the game wasn’t so obtuse about displaying some information.