CiV (Demo) is out

[juggernaut]

On a side note, the music in the Civ5 Skid Row installer is fucking amazing.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqfeFHsYx8

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

For those of you who bought the retail version, does it come with a print manual?

I'm about 150 turns into my first real game, and I'm having a whole lot fun. So much so that Civ V is a definite purchase once I have some extra money. And if there is a printed manual, I'll be sure to get the retail version.

 

[poocolator]

I did like the terrain/cities. Especially liked how the cities would overflow into adjacent hexes once they grew large enough. The improvements though are a little wonky. What the hell is up with trading posts, ffs?

 

[attackfighter]

The Aztec ability definately isn't OP, it only gets you 3 culture per killed unit and since you're only killing a unit every 20+ turns (on marathon) it really doesn't work out to much.

The French ability otth gets you 2 culture per city every single turn, so it's about 500% more efficient.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

For those of you who bought the retail version, does it come with a print manual?

I'm about 150 turns into my first real game, and I'm having a whole lot fun. So much so that Civ V is a definite purchase once I have some extra money. And if there is a printed manual, I'll be sure to get the retail version.

There isn't. They say it's to save the environment, and apparently donate some chunk of money from the game to a charity of your choosing. Not sure how you choose but that's what I hear.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

There isn't. They say it's to save the environment, and apparently donate some chunk of money from the game to a charity of your choosing. Not sure how you choose but that's what I hear.

When printed books disappear and our only option is to stare at a glowing rectangle to read a .pdf file, I'll be fucking done with this world.

 

[mahdi]

Retail version does come with a tech tree poster but no manual. I expect the trading post will be one of the first things modded when the sdk is released. They look like big top pee wee FFS.

War time A.I. is balls at least on Prince. It seems to have no idea how to retreat or conserve a small backup force. All you really have to do is fight defensively until his troops stop coming, then invade because you know he doesn't have anything left. The A.I. will then check its military score (pretty much 0 at this point) against yours, determine it can't win, and surrender everything it owns to you. Maybe this doesn't happen on higher difficulty I don't know.

Also, you only get to vote for a charity, not donate actual money. I voted for the Islam one

 

[Grunker]

For those of you who bought the retail version, does it come with a print manual?

I'm about 150 turns into my first real game, and I'm having a whole lot fun. So much so that Civ V is a definite purchase once I have some extra money. And if there is a printed manual, I'll be sure to get the retail version.

There isn't. They say it's to save the environment, and apparently donate some chunk of money from the game to a charity of your choosing. Not sure how you choose but that's what I hear.

Nice one!

 

[Malakal]

My experiences from playing on the Emperor:
- there is always one runaway AI with better tech and wonders
- zones of control make wars much more fun and reasonable
- raiding is harder (zoe) but VERY profitable and with increased gold value many times was I tempted to declare wars just to pillage
- I like gold-science based economy, hammers were always a strange and silly thing to measure value with
- wars are fun but rather easy, AI is unfortunately dumb

Some civs have weak abilities but insanely powerful special buildings so I would wait with judging Japan. For example China got library that not only does the same as normal but adds 3 gold each turn too (4-1 maintance) and that is not even the most powerful one (I think that would be those cheap happiness and culture ones).

The real limiter to expansion now is happiness with buildings giving it very expensive, luxury resources giving fixed ammount of 5 (enough for 5 pops) and negative happiness giving -75% population growth and combat penalties. For now I cant figure how to ebat it, I either run out of money or happiness.

 

[Twinkle]

On a side note, the music in the Civ5 Skid Row installer is fucking amazing.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqfeFHsYx8

SKIDROW is inclining. Indeed BTW is the crack proper and all?

 

[kris]

The Aztec ability definately isn't OP, it only gets you 3 culture per killed unit and since you're only killing a unit every 20+ turns (on marathon) it really doesn't work out to much.

The French ability otth gets you 2 culture per city every single turn, so it's about 500% more efficient.

The French on a first and maybe even second glance looks to have the best ability. Esapecially on a bigger map with more cities.

 

[Muty]

On a side note, the music in the Civ5 Skid Row installer is fucking amazing.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqfeFHsYx8

SKIDROW is inclining. Indeed BTW is the crack proper and all?

Proper, it even works in multiplayer if you hex edit steamclient.dll to match your steam login

Retail version does come with a tech tree poster but no manual. I expect the trading post will be one of the first things modded when the sdk is released.

You mean they didn't release it already? I really want to hear what their excuse for not releasing it will be this time. Don't worry you'll get a new DLC to remedy this "problem" very soon.

 

[Mortmal]

The Aztec ability definately isn't OP, it only gets you 3 culture per killed unit and since you're only killing a unit every 20+ turns (on marathon) it really doesn't work out to much.

The French ability otth gets you 2 culture per city every single turn, so it's about 500% more efficient.

The French on a first and maybe even second glance looks to have the best ability. Esapecially on a bigger map with more cities.

The civilisations are clearly not balanced, i take it as extra challenge, the aztec one i s a bit lackluster you dont kill that many units to make it matter, but the jaguar unit i very nice, i spammed them at the beginning and wipped out 3 starting civs, they have a nice jungle bonus and heal faster.
I am not sure french advantage is the best, the 25% on wonder production you gt with ramses 2 is really nice and allow to dominate early and get all early wonders.

 

[RK47]

Played it, and yes. Japan is amazing with unit attack powers punching city defenses open with 2-3 half strength units. I grew bored after making a runaway lead with riflemen and cannons at 1100 AD.

I restarted as Arabs and got a 50 gold per turn empire and bought off city states alliances. It's broken folks, with the Culture bonus and luxuries + free units from military states, there's really nothing stopping me from just focusing on settling everywhere and spam trading posts to spread the wealth around.

They screwed the pooch with early game AI. Do not even bother building armies early game if you don't want to go to war. The rival civs will not war you no matter what, unless you settle too close to them. By then you can setup a sweet city bombardment and with a few powerful iron melee units, you can keep your empire safe, no problemo.

I also question some of the civ bonuses, Arabs gaining 1 gold per trade route is pathetic when you consider one tile of road cost 1 gold per turn to upkeep. BUT the Bazaar is sweet as hell, it duplicates the local luxury resources the city has. So if it has dye for 5 ppl, it doubles it to 10!

Happy turbans for everyone!

Biggest gripe so far: You can tech up 3-4 times before building a single war unit from a derived technology. Makes no goddamn sense, but it made gold more important since upgrading units is the only viable way to keep your army up to date.

 

[Destroid]

I am not sure french advantage is the best, the 25% on wonder production you gt with ramses 2 is really nice and allow to dominate early and get all early wonders.

Sounds just like playing RON, those Egyptian fuckers always got all the wonders.

 

[HanoverF]

So far I've only played Aztec and the Iroquois. For the Aztec I was stuck on a island with a city-state so the bonus did jack squat. The Iroquois bonus is pretty good, but map dependent, Forests in your borders act like roads, once you can build lumber mills (with longhouses) your production is insane, like spamming workshops with state property in Civ4.

Montezuma is the most epic looking leader though.

 

[anus_pounder]

Gandhi, whats he got? Also, is there an in-game encyclopedia and all that? If yes, did they recycle the same notes from CiV IV (leader bios etc..)

 

[Joghurt]

Playing my first game as Japan and got to Renaissance era. The game was pretty much walk in the park. I was focusing on science and didn't have a big army. Had like 2 Samurai units and 1 Crossboman unit in the region when stupid french decided to attack me. I really think that Samurai units along with Japanese Bushido bonus are overpowerd. I managed to wipe out around 6 French Longsordman units and around the same amount of ranged units.

I think I'm gonna restart the game as something more challenging.

 

[HanoverF]

Gandhi gets more from lots of cities, less for large population, war elephants, and a wall addition that adds more defense and culture.

 

[Metro]

Just a procedural note: anyone who has played the Civ series before probably won't be challenged by anything below Emperor level. That said it does seem the AI has been made more passive in the early game which is a shame because that's when I have the most fun -- boredom sets in during the modern age.

 

[Raghar]

I also question some of the civ bonuses, Arabs gaining 1 gold per trade route is pathetic when you consider one tile of road cost 1 gold per turn to upkeep.

Use harbor.

1 gold per route basically pays part of maintenance costs.

Also, is there an in-game encyclopedia and all that?

Yes, and is even searchable.



So far huge maps and unit maintenance costs are not going well together. Removing 6 units caused jump up by about 80+ gp. The trouble is great generals (and workers) are units too... (Also there is that small problem with exploration and sea domination.)[/b]

 

[Malakal]

Just won my first emperor game as Russians. AI sucks overall BUT did show few interesting moves.

One great move from AI was coordinated invasion by about 8 units made by water right in the weak spot of my empire. Lost 5-6 cities before managing to stop their attack.

AI uses combat bonuses (flanking etc) nicely but is incompetent in the bigger view of war.

After much struggling (my empire was classical russian one: vast areas of desert and tundra with few sweet spots for cities, plenty of resources though) when finally my score began challenging the first runaway AI I was gangbanged by three out of four remaining civs and survived only because of natural chokepoint protecting me. Won by domination since after wiping out hordes of enemies there was no sense to make peace. I thinkt hat few mods or patches/expansions will fix what is broken.

 

[MapMan]

Proper, it even works in multiplayer if you hex edit steamclient.dll to match your steam login

Is this shit for real? As in, you edit in new, empty acc details and you can play online with anyone? If yes, thats good news for those who dont like to remove from inventory.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Played one game as Japan on whatever is the normal difficulty so I am now an expert on all things Civilization :monocle:

By far the stupidest thing was the empire-wide happiness. Its just plain dumbing down and it makes me facepalm just thinking about it.

The Policy bonuses are a bit silly, but I don't really have a problem with it. Probably could be balanced better or had tradeoffs or w/e, but the concept is OK.

The new combat system would be half decent if the enemy AI wasn't dumbfuck retarded. Contrary to Skyway's rambling it isn't completely unit strength vs unit strength, everything gets bonuses and penalties. My main beef with this part is that its all hidden from you. Somehow my crossbowmen completely wrecked Musketeers and everything prior, but riflemen and cannons are pretty much invincible to them and you have no knowledge of this until you select your crossbowmen and mouse over the opposing units to see the difference.

Playing my first game as Japan and got to Renaissance era. The game was pretty much walk in the park. I was focusing on science and didn't have a big army. Had like 2 Samurai units and 1 Crossboman unit in the region when stupid french decided to attack me. I really think that Samurai units along with Japanese Bushido bonus are overpowerd. I managed to wipe out around 6 French Longsordman units and around the same amount of ranged units.

I think I'm gonna restart the game as something more challenging.

Yeah, this, a thousand times this. Partially due to overpowered Samurai, partially due to Bushido, partially due to overpowered great general bonus, partially due to overpowered unit upgrades (heal every turn? Really? WTF?), but mostly due to AI ineptitude at any kind of tactical battle.

For me, Germany had 2x the score of me and controlled 2/3rds of the map. 4 Crossbowmen + 2 Samurai held off literally 50 or so enemy units without any losses and barely taking a scratch. It was entirely ridiculous. Now that the enemy can't attack with stacks of units as long as your ranged units can kill theirs in one shot, you will never die. And thats it. I imagine that the civs with unique units that can shoot/move or shoot with range 3 are potentially even more abusable, the AI won't know how to deal with them at all.

Also the AI ability to launch amphibious assaults was kind of cool, but then I reminded myself that units can jesus walk over water in Civ 5 so I'm not exactly impressed.


Overall, meh. Dumbed down for consoletards but possibly good for what it is. Civilization was never exactly my cup of tea and Civ V isn't doing much to change that. At this point the game feels more like a starcraft RTS clone then a simulation.

 

[Muty]

Proper, it even works in multiplayer if you hex edit steamclient.dll to match your steam login

Is this shit for real? As in, you edit in new, empty acc details and you can play online with anyone? If yes, thats good news for those who dont like to remove from inventory.

I thought it is a joke too, but it works. Check the comments at some of the reputable digital distribution sites for the full solution.