Civilization V

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Anakin McFly
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Civilization V

Post by Anakin McFly »

What are your strategies? I've been playing it like a noob.
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sikax
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Re: Civilization V

Post by sikax »

Get at least two military guys right away to ward off barbarians. Get as many Wonders of the World as you can. Make like 75% of your tiles farms for the first few centuries (just focus on food, whether it be farms or fish or whatever). Depending on the map you chose and how many opponents you have, you'll either want to expand by founding several cities of generally equal size or focus on your capital for a while. I mean, most things you do depend on specific factors. Do you have any specific questions?
The agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
Anakin McFly
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Re: Civilization V

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> Get at least two military guys right away to ward off barbarians.

Would it be better to get a worker first for tile improvements, or would the loss in time be negligible since there won't be enough citizens to work the other tiles? What about scouts for exploring while the warriors defend the city?

I just found out about city specialisation yesterday - what are good combinations? e.g. food-focused cities seems to go well with science, since citizens produce science, but I'm not so sure about the others; production and culture, maybe?
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CashRules
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Re: Civilization V

Post by CashRules »

The best strategy is to throw it away and get a copy of Civilization IV instead.
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Anakin McFly
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Re: Civilization V

Post by Anakin McFly »

When I first started playing Civ V, I remember complaining somewhere about how Civ IV was so much better. But it's been ages, and the main things I now remember about Civ IV is that 1) the graphics were less awesome; 2) things were narrated by Leonard Nimoy.
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CashRules
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Re: Civilization V

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The best thing about Civ IV is it's actually a Civilization game. Civ V is not. Even Civ III was better than Civ V. I've been playing this series since the beginning and this is the second most disappointing edition in the history of computer game franchises. The only one worse is Master of Orion III. Literally the only thing Civ V got right is hexagonal tiles but doing one thing right doesn't make up for completely screwing up everything else.
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Anakin McFly
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Re: Civilization V

Post by Anakin McFly »

I went searching and found Civ I, II and III but not IV. [sad5] One of these days I'm going to have to reorganize my family's game collection.
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sikax
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Re: Civilization V

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I've only ever played V, so no comment on if it's a good Civ game or not. It is fun as hell, though, for someone ignorant of the rest of the series.
Anakin McFly wrote:> Get at least two military guys right away to ward off barbarians.

Would it be better to get a worker first for tile improvements, or would the loss in time be negligible since there won't be enough citizens to work the other tiles? What about scouts for exploring while the warriors defend the city?
Yeah, you can wait on a worker for a while. You have to discover the necessary technology to cultivate farms and such anyway. I never have scouts; they are useless. Your first focus is your capital, at least at the beginning. Exploring can wait. You can always send any military personnel to explore, anyway.
Anakin McFly wrote:I just found out about city specialisation yesterday - what are good combinations? e.g. food-focused cities seems to go well with science, since citizens produce science, but I'm not so sure about the others; production and culture, maybe?
I do food at the beginning so I can grow. Then once I found other cities, I'll change their specialization based on what resources they have. Like, if I found a city whose land includes two or three gold mines, I'll make its focus on something other than gold, since it already has plenty, ya know? Those specializations really don't matter anything after a certain point, assuming your cities have become significant metropolitans.

Most every decision depends on the map and your resources.
The agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
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sikax
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Re: Civilization V

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Or just turn off the barbarians! If it weren't for the barbarians, you wouldn't need any military for like 1000 years.
The agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
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CashRules
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Re: Civilization V

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sikax wrote:Or just turn off the barbarians! If it weren't for the barbarians, you wouldn't need any military for like 1000 years.
Which would give the human player an unfair advantage over the AI in every game of the series. The AI is never programmed to account for changes in the basic rules so it will continue to build units/buildings as though there are barbarians waiting to storm the gates. Of course, I don't guess there is really any such thing as an unfair advantage in a game against a computer program but just be aware that any change makes it easier to win if the AI is not programmed to account for that change. Also, the uselessness of scouts/explorers is just another reason to hate this fake version of Civ. In Civ IV they are very useful right up until the end of the game. You never need a lot of them, but three or four explorers as medics gives you cheap fast healing without having to waste the medic promotions on actual military units thus lowering the combat effectiveness of those units. Also, scouts to hit the goody huts can give you a tech and financial advantage quite early. Civ IV has its own drawbacks, the fact that mountains are useless being a major sticking point with me, but most of those problems can be addressed by mods and several mods improve the game in ways that don't handicap the AI.

Anyway, for anyone who enjoys any incarnation of Civ, here is the best site for Civ players and it includes a lot of good strategy suggestions for every game:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/index.php

Be aware that most of the strategy suggestions are for games on standard size maps or smaller and that site is kind of clannish in that they refuse to budge from their belief that modern era unique units and buildings are useless because the game should be won before then. If anybody playing a huge map at marathon speed says the American and German unique units/buildings are useless in either Civ III or Civ IV it's because they've never actually played huge maps often enough to have a clue what they are talking about. Playing either of those two versions with a huge map against an AI controlled American or German Civ on another continent (so you don't have the option to eliminate them early) is going to leave you in serious danger of getting a beatdown by Panzers or F-15s/Navy Seals. The solution for huge maps: play as the Americans or Germans. [none]
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sikax
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Re: Civilization V

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Yeah, eliminating barbarians makes it far too easy, but it could be advantageous just as a kind of tutorial, getting a feel for timing and whatnot without having to defend your city every turn.

When I play big serious maps I am almost always Russia and always win. America is also super strong, and I've played them too, but Russia is better.

Also, yeah, Anakin, I second the appreciation of mods. There are a lot for Civ V that fix a lot of the inherent issues. More nations, better options, more realistic game play. Check some out as well as expansions like Brave New World and, uh....dang I can't remember the other one...Gods and Kings, I want to say. Something like that.
The agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.
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CashRules
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Re: Civilization V

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Any Civ game is better when you have both expansions. With II, III, and IV I waited until both expansions were released and the game was available in one complete package before even buying the game at all. You also need to make sure you have the latest patch to fix any bugs and there are a lot of bugs in any unpatched game. There was actually a bug in Civ III that caused France to lose all its cities as soon as you captured one specific city, I can't remember for sure but I think it only happened if you captured Marseilles and it was a coastal city. I laughed when it happened to me one time as I rolled the Panzers into France. There was also a bug that caused F-15s to be unbeatable in certain situations. They're almost unbeatable anyway but the bug made it impossible for an F-15 to lose a fight against enemy jet fighters if both were land based instead of carrier based.
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Cinemachinery
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Re: Civilization V

Post by Cinemachinery »

The answer is "Force Sid Meyer to make a sequel to Alpha Centauri".
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CashRules
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Re: Civilization V

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Cinemachinery wrote:The answer is "Force Sid Meyer to make a sequel to Alpha Centauri".
Meier [none]
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Cinemachinery
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Re: Civilization V

Post by Cinemachinery »

[none] Whatever- my post is correct in spirit if not function.
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Anakin McFly
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Re: Civilization V

Post by Anakin McFly »

I hear there's a CIv 6 in the works...
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