Sarkus
2721
For some reason I’m seeing CTD’s all of a sudden on my new game as Greece. It’s happened twice in the last few hours. I guess that’s a sign that I need to stop for the night. ;-)
Mazuo
2722
YMMV. I have seen AI opponents position troops reasonably well with ranged behind melee and then move in with and without open borders.
If it wastes 250 gold of mine it must also waste the AI’s gold, right? I was a richer civ by far than the one who did this to me, I was pulling in around 50g-100g per turn at this time.
Could be bugged there, though I’ve seen richer civs use this tactic against poorer ones fairly effectively. He also may have been less concerned with losing his own money if his military was already superior.
My cities were quite a way away from theirs. The closest new cities I founded ones were within 3-5 hexes away and they had room to expand in other areas too.
3-5 hexes away from their outlying borders or from the city itself. Because if you built a city 3 hexes away from one of theirs, they will be rightfully angered.
If the AI doesn’t give you good relations for doing various “positive” things for them, especially things the AI players themselves want or the game suggests doing then what is the point of diplomacy?
I think the crux is ‘positive’ things. If it sees the research agreement as a ploy to make you go broke, correct or not in its arithmetic or logic, the AI is not going to be happy friends with you because you fell into its trap. The AI is rough in parts, but I’m just not seeing the sloppy disaster you seem to be indicating. The worst I’ve seen in regards to friendly AIs suddenly declaring war is when one makes the mistake of building scientific and cultural wonderlands without any military to defend it. I’ve done that a few times myself and the AI admittedly doesn’t care how nice you’ve been, it sees you’re unguarded and decides to attack.
But I have successfully brokered research pacts that came to fruition, plenty of trading agreements that went multiple terms, etc. I haven’t made it as far as allies working together in war against another Civ, so it’s very possible they’re not as good at that.
Clicking the production icon on the banner won’t let you edit the queue, chosing a building or unit that way will in fact remove the queue completely. And yes, scrolling is a pretty big deal once you get a larger amount of cities to manage. It’s not just the production though, there are other things as well that require more clicks to do the same. There is worker relocation inside cities, diplomacy needs you to open up another panel and some unit actions are hidden at first.
The specifics of road and railroad movement bonuses. The Civolopedia entry mentions that they “improve movement,” but not by how much. Roads appear to be 1/2 movement point per hex; I haven’t built any railroads yet so I don’t know for certain what it is.
metta
2725
I’ve worked a ton this week, so have been sitting in front of Civ V late at night, in a slight daze, letting it wash over me. So, that may be part of it, but I’m actually kind of bored by it.
It’s gorgeous, and Hexytime! is a nice addition, providing broader combat options, but why can’t I tell what the other Civs are thinking or doing or why they feel the way they do about me? I feel like I’m missing a big chunk of game information and, as I play, the other Civs all just blend together in my mind. How do I make meaningful decisions about you, Elizabeth? Are you gearing up to invade me? Why should we be friends? Also, I think the City States are a nice idea but beru fend! they get on my tits. Is there any way (apart from killing them) to stop them yapping on and on about every little thing that enters their heads?
Without deeper diplomacy I feel like I’m flying blind and can’t make long-term plans because I just don’t know anything: how big is China getting? How long have Germany and Persia been at war and why? Who is a threat? Who is a friend? I have no clue. You know how in Civ Revolution, the diplo is bullshit and everyone is a warmonger whom you can’t count on to remain loyal? Well, Civ V feels a bit like that: I’ve no idea who anyone is or what they’re doing so I’ll either turtle up and do my own culture/sci thing, or I’ll roll a big war machine over everyone in sight. I’m not seeing any nuance here.
At the moment, playing Civ V is like being at a cocktail party: everyone else is a self-involved wanker, prattling on about their needs, no one will tell me anything useful or interesting, and I stand by the bar, bored and wishing I was somewhere else.
schurem
2726
blatantly stolen from kotaku because its fuckin awesome:
click it bitches!
Alright, THAT was awesome :)
After my first six full hours of the game, I’m not ready to offer a review, but just my opinions on the subjects at hand.
I love the look. I even managed to turn off graphics and turn everything into a gorgeus drawn Art Deco boardgame… but that was because I dropped a book on the keyboard, so I don’t know how I did it (Esc. turned everything back on).
I really like the UI. I find information on the city screen so much easier to find and everything is just a few clicks away… but it did take a while to get used too.
(I remember hating the Civiliopedia in IV and arguing UI a lot with Tom, until Soren Johnson turned up and agreed with the objections… and a few days later a patch improved the Civliopedia).
I haven’t seen the AI do really stupid stuff… but it hasn’t impressed either. I usually play on standard difficulty, but it looks like I’m winning with no effort here in my first game.
The new combat is a major improvement - but of course if the AI turns out to be completely unable to take advantage of it, that needs change.
I really like City States and enjoy how the make a world consist of not just super powers and barbarians. Having Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen as small rich countries sending me food and iron for being such a awesome guy adds something to the game. It’s still an abstraction, but it’s the idea of the world also having small nations with some role to play.
I’ve always found diplomacy the weakest part of any Civ game, but like others, I’m really dissapointed with the lack of information on offer here. Bismarch keeps telling me it’s a shame that some empires acts as bullies, but I have no idea, what in particular he’s reffering to or what consequences him telling it to me (for the fourth time now) has.
This is the only thing I’m downright disappointed with so far.
There is no assemble spaceship option on my parts, no matter which one I park in Washington. Oh well.
The city state messages seem pretty functional to me - “I need X” or “you’re about to lose this Civ.” On the other hand, Hiawatha was constantly taking over the entire screen just to tell me I’m inspiring. It’s like Lizard King’s comment about Bismark’s complaints, it’s useless and opaque. If you’re going to call, at least have a trade proposal or a demand or something.
Also, what the heck do “cooperation pacts” do? They don’t seem to have any actual effect in game.
I know Lizard King, and I, sir, am no Lizard King…
Also it’s not like you need to read city state messages - you get every information you need on mouse over of the message icon and can just right click to make it go away.
- those icons on the right is another part of the UI I really like.
Therlun
2732
I think it’s funny how the German ability was questioned, while the Ottoman ability (50% chance to convert barbarian SHIPS +25 gold) is not only less useful IMO, but also seems to not work. After fighting perhaps a dozen pirate ships I didn’t board one. Maybe because ships (up until industrial at least) have only a ranged attack and there is no ship to ship combat that can trigger the Ottoman ability…
razarok
2733
I pretty much agree with this. Just finished my first ever civ game at 253 turns (normal difficulty) and had no trouble whatsoever conquering the entire world with my bushido samurais. There was barely any resistance, except for the final country and its two city states; siam, warsaw and rio de janeiro.
I think I might need to up the difficulty a bit for the next game, but so far I can see myself really enjoying this series from now on. I just hope there will be some proper patching fixing some of the smaller issues.
Per official 2K people/person:
A Pact of Cooperation will get you better deals with that AI player provided that you reciprocate. It’s an option meant to foster a positive relationship.
Likewise, a Pact of Secrecy (where the AI asks you to work against another Civ) will also build a better relationship, provided you actually follow through, and do not cooporate with the target Civ.
Lorini
2735
How exactly do you queue production?
On the city screen, lower right, there’s a checkbox marked “show production queue” or something like that. When you check it, that city’s production mode changes to queue-based. You can add projects to the queue and move around their position within the queue.
The game just auto-patched again. Is there any place we can look for patch notes?
Anyone get the can’t declare war bug? Computer foolishly attacked me, so I’ve been slowly waging war against it. I grab a city or two, accept their offer of peace, wait 10 turns and build happy shit, then resume attacking.
But now the latest peace treaty expired 50+ turns ago and it won’t let me declare war. I have no agreements with civ, and nothing with any other civs except trade and research agreements.
What gives?
I’ve played for 23 hours (according to Steam) and I’ve not had a single crash. Seriously. And I’ve been multitasking like crazy, running Civ 5 on my left screen while constantly doing other things on my right screen.
Just crazy impressed with the stability for me.
Hah, I love the sight gags. In the section of the song about spreading your equally valid religions he has a Fox News scroll with the headline “Muslims Still Here.” Brilliant!
