700 BC, and this just happened to me too. Very silly game mechanic. Like I said in my first post, two upgrades max would make sense.
In terms of gameplay, though, does it make sense that a warrior unit from the beginning of the game can do what six nuclear weapons, costing me somewhere in the neighbourhood of $12,000, could not?
Okay - maybe a city could survive one, or two, or three nuclear detonations. But six?!?
Don’t underestimate the city’s hardy population of Cleve Blakemores!
Rock8man
2844
You don’t have to patch it in yourself. The Babylonians are part of the deluxe edition. If you bought the deluxe edition, then when you entered your key into Steam to activate Civ 5, the Babylonian DLC was part of the package. So no worries.
If you bought the normal pack which offers two future DLCs, then no DLC is available yet, so you can’t do anything right now. Maybe the Babylonian Civ will be offered as DLC to non-deluxe users later, but it isn’t right now.
I’m enjoying the game a ton, but Prince is way too easy. In Civ 4, even on Prince the AI got a huge unit production bonus, which is why it’s cities were always well defended and it could do stuff like attack effectively. In Civ 5, with the much greater unit costs, it seems like the AI is a bit short staffed. My King game it was a little bit better and I actually lost a meagerly defended city to the dreaded Chinese Cho-Ku-Nu rush. I’ve since ratcheted the difficulty up to Emperor and that seems a better fit for me. I don’t mind the AI getting heavy bonuses to keep it competitive if it makes me have to play a better game to win. But judging from the Steam global achievement percentages, it seems most people just want to make their happy little empire and occasionally watch their infantry march over spearmen. I’m curious to see how those statistics change over time.
On any difficulty, the AI seems to make too many archers and not enough front line troops. I’ve used maybe 3 or 4 archers over as many games, I just don’t see the use for them unless you really can’t get any iron for siege weapons. Except for the Cho-Ku-Nu which is a huge pain in the ass with it’s double attack.
I love the city states. But they’re pains in the ass to protect. I haven’t tried much pledging, but I hope the AI Civs react properly to that and leave my fishy Scandinavian friends alone.
Stuff that I really don’t know why it is missing:
Real-world clock/warning timer.
Replay map-curiously there is a folder for replays in /user/docs/mygames/civ5. I want to watch my Civ’s color spread like a virus!
Culture flipping-I miss the old culture bomb, but I guess I can see why it was nerfed.
The AI doesn’t value its units enough and doesn’t use them correctly. As Buffalo says, it will send archers into battle without front-line protection. It will rarely build cavalry, and if it does, it leaves them exposed to spearmen. It’s completely oblivious to being countered (though it does counter your units somewhat decently, usually by simply building a lot of a unit that counters what you have most of - ie, spearmen if you have lots of horsemen).
With the high unit costs, disabling the initial AI army basically guarantees you a win, and if you’re the one who declared war, you should be able to disable the core of that army quickly.
I think the worst aspect of the AI is its inability to appreciate the power of the navy. While on King difficulty, I was having a hard time with a very aggressive French AI. I was trying for a cultural victory and had only three cities, he had 8 or 9. I’d signed an open borders agreement with him (not knowing that’s how the AI judged strength) and he soon declared war. He kept moving in on me and it was all I could do to defend, since his country surrounded me. My only offensive option were two destroyers (later three and a carrier + bombers) I had. I used these to reduce his cities, land a rifleman, raze, and then move on. Though he built his own units, thanks to the massive XP I got from taking down his cities, his destroyers were never competitive. Moreover, he never built them en masse. It was always one or two at a time, so he was quite simply handing me free XP.
McKnight
2848
Deadbuffalo:
The real-world clock is already implemented as a mod. Also keep in mind Civ4 Prince Difficulty does not equal Civ5 Prince Difficulty. Civ5’s Prince is more akin to Noble.
JMR
2849
How soon do you guys accept pacts of cooperation/secrecy with the AI’s? Early in the game so and so will approach me with an offer but he’s asking me to go to 3rd base when he hasn’t even asked me out for coffee yet. How do you decide if doing a pact so early on is in your best interest?
Harbors. If I’m only on one continent and my capital is located away from the coast, building harbors in my coastal cities doesn’t give me the trade bonuses with my capital, right? If the capital is not on the coast then I should build roads from my coastal cities to the capital for the trade bonus?
I was just finishing up my last game as Siam. I dominated most of my continent, leaving only Ghandi clinging to only 3 measly cities. Russia and France had already fallen to my power. Since Rome, Egypt and Germany were overseas, I decided to win via the Space Race to make it logistically easier. But while waiting for the Apollo Program, I cranked out a couple of Giant Death Robots because I wanted to see those bad boys in action.
Ghandi made one too many insults at me and so I unleashed the full power of my Death Robots against him. If you haven’t seen these in action, I can only describe the Giant Death Robots as utter destruction. Lasers, missiles and a whole lot of explosions. It’s pure awesomesauce. Only his capital city (size 19!) even scratched my metal monstrosities. That’ll teach that bald fucker to insult me!
At this point, I decided I needed to see the Giant Death Robots in action again. Offshore was a barbarian encampment. So my Robot waded into the ocean for a quick trip to their island to stomp some barbarian butt.
The next turn, I got a message that my ship had been sunk. Sure enough, I look over and there’s a barbarian Caravel off the coast. Yep, I managed to lose the most powerful and expensive unit in the game - a Giant Death Robot that can destroy cities in a single turn - to a wooden ship that shoots arrows.
I absolutely roared with laughter.
Of course, I vowed to kill all barbarians with my other robot. So he was well escorted to the remaining three known barbarian encampments in the world. At the last one, the turn before my ship was built, he stomped some crossbowmen. And uncovered a unit. About 1,500 years prior, I send a settler across the world to settle in a remote, resource-rich area. He was captured by barbarians and was never heard from again. Until the last turn of the game, when my remaining Death Robot rescued him.
I guess you really have to see how those Civs are before entering into any pact. The secret pacts don’t seem to last a huge amount of time, and don’t really force you into anything overt (far as I can tell). Essentially it allows you to ally with someone without having to support them publicly (in times of war, for instance). In a few ways I guess it’s a pretty weak alliance, considering.
Harbors. If I’m only on one continent and my capital is located away from the coast, building harbors in my coastal cities doesn’t give me the trade bonuses with my capital, right? If the capital is not on the coast then I should build roads from my coastal cities to the capital for the trade bonus?
I think you’re correct here–harbors if you’re a continent apart (or separated by other borders), roads otherwise.
— Alan
roBurky
2852
Unless I have plans to do unfriendly things to a civ, I’ll always accept pacts of cooperation. Pacts of secrecy I will only accept if I didn’t want to trade with the civ in question anyway - because they’re too powerful, or I’m planning on going to war with them. Otherwise I like to keep my trading options open, so I refuse.
The description of the harbour building makes it sound like it’s a very abstracted thing - build harbour, always get a trade route to your capital. But I think it’s not as simple as that - it behaves more how you would expect it to. Any city with a harbour counts as having a trade connection to any other city with a harbour.
So if your capital city is away from the coast, to get a trade route to a city on another island, you need a road connection to a coastal city, a harbour on that city, and then a city with a harbour on the other island.
That’s how it seemed to work on a recent game for me. Just building a harbour got me nothing. But having a harbour on a distant city, and a harbour on a city already connected to the capital got the distant city connected.
Therlun
2853
Can puppets actually lose you gold? Do you pay their upkeep?
Because they build all buildings (even barracks and stuff… which they can’t use) their building upkeep might be considerable.
Razgon
2854
I’m bored with Civ 5 I have to admit.
Does anyone know when the modding tools will be released so we can coerce Kael to make a fall from heaven game for Civ5?
LeeAbe
2855
If you don’t like the core game of 5, wouldn’t you be better off with FFH on Civ 4?
Razgon
2856
I love the UI and clean look of Civ 5 - its very slick, and I see great possibilities in it, but the game itself doesnt appeal to me.
doesnt say much about the game though, and I’m not dissing it. I havent liked a civ game very much since Civ 1 and 2, but I love some of the mods made for Civ 4 like Dune Wars, Planetfall and Fall from heaven in particular.
My first games have all been peaceful, so I got my German on and with Bismark have embarked upon a history of conquest.
I really do love the combat system. As I was pushing into Iroquois territory I was constantly fretting about the gaps opening up in my front. Maneuver and terrain and supporting fire are crucial!
After wiping out Egypt and making the Persians and Iroquois sue for peace, I’ve turned my army on Rome. Caesar, that prick, decided to let all our nicey nice agreements expire, at which point it’s infantry and cavalry against his obsolete legions! Veni, Vidi, Vici, bitch!
Orangist
2858
That is historically accurate.
pg1
2859
Totally agree. I’ve had some ridiculous trades like trading 7 luxury for 1. Trade AI seems off or broken. Also having to create more cities to get those resources is a bit weird in this Civ since out of all the Civs so far this one seems most viable with few cities yet resources for war are super important.
Also, don’t know if this could be considered bad AI behaviour but I’ve been playing as China, already on Industrial Age and with a huge army and India/Egypt/England, all on the Renaissance Age, keep randomly insulting me… death wish? More like sheer idiocy.
Yep, had that happen too. I crushed Russia took most her cities and she had two left, then she was calling me a “city state”, WTF? Deathwish for sure.
The more I’ve played now the less I like it overall. I love city states and the new combat model. This Civ seems to be at it’s best when you are constantly fighting, go Japan! Other things seem worse to me however and buildings/wonders take forever and seem weak. Balance all around seems off. City states don’t adjust their gold demands even if the game is more Civs or a larger/smaller map, etc. That just seems stupid. Getting gold to pay them is near impossible on small maps but a piece of cake on larger ones. Diplomacy seems almost non-existent and makes no sense. In every game I’ve played so far it seems the AI gangs up on me and I often end up having multiple AIs declare on me at once despite not even being the strongest Civ. Can’t tell you how annoying it is to be declared on by another AI just as the tide turned in the first war. Why would the AI declare on the stronger Civ? You’d think they’d go for easy spoils of the losing Civ with a weak army. I usually end up winning vs them both but it’s just annoying and seems to happen at random without any warning.
roBurky
2860
For my current game, I’m playing as the Greeks on an archipelago map, King difficulty, legendary start. I made the decision at the start to never settle any new cities, and to puppet any cities I happen to conquer. I did add more city states to the game, which could possible be considered cheating when playing as Alexander. But the maps have all felt very empty to me so far.
It’s 1590 AD now, and it’s working incredibly well. I invested in the patronage social policies before going heavy on recruiting city states. But right now Athens is getting about +15 food from city states, allowing it to run a full rack of specialists, and still masses of food left over.
I’ve been focusing on the cultural city states, and am getting +120 culture from them now, being spent on the base social policy costs as I still have only one city under my control.
Early on, America was trying to conquer Brussels, and I came in to help them. Almost all of the units I fought that war with were ones gifted to me by military city states. I saved Brussels, which has made them a permanent ally - my influence with them never degrades. I conquered Washington’s three cities, and kept them as puppets. They provide a little over half of my gold now, and are the source of the bribes that keep all my city state allies happy.
Singapore’s asking for help against Egypt now. I’ve been scouting them out, and their army is mostly spearmen and chariots, with a few longswordmen. Which seems like it would easily counter my ragtag militia of horsemen and archers (and one pikemen) the city states have given me.
