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Civilization games general

Last posted Jan 27, 2013 at 10:15PM EST. Added Jan 25, 2013 at 11:25PM EST
17 posts from 9 users

Ok, so I hear that pretty much everyone on this site has Civ V and such, so let's get the community posting about it, organizing games, venting about the AI, talking about Spearman beats Tank, and posting images of Civ stuff.

>Deity
>One city
>Space victory
>All victory conditions
>nosuitablereactionimage.jpg

Anyways, the Civilization games have always been some of my favorites. Being the young whippersnapper I am, I didn't get into them until Civ III, but III, IV and V have all been incredible. Really, short of the graphics in IV and the AI in V, each game has been nothing but an improvement on the previous.

Have to say, I really love Civ V. The hexagonal tiles, limit of one military unit per tile and ranged attacks make the game actually have a tactical side, as opposed to lumping together one gadjillion units in a single stack and right clicking a city until you capture it. Even if the AI isn't stellar at times, it makes it challenging enough on the player's side to make up for it. That and the whole resource system and the removal of naval transports and a combat system that doesn't guarantee the destruction of one unit and all the other fun stuff make it my favorite by far.

Edit

Yeah, the diplomacy kind of sucks. Too much wanton betrayal. It isn't that it makes the game too hard or anything, it's just that it's not particularly realistic when you can't hold an alliance for more than a few years.

Last edited Jan 26, 2013 at 02:47AM EST

ExudesAffluence wrote:

>Deity
>One city
>Space victory
>All victory conditions
>nosuitablereactionimage.jpg

Anyways, the Civilization games have always been some of my favorites. Being the young whippersnapper I am, I didn't get into them until Civ III, but III, IV and V have all been incredible. Really, short of the graphics in IV and the AI in V, each game has been nothing but an improvement on the previous.

Have to say, I really love Civ V. The hexagonal tiles, limit of one military unit per tile and ranged attacks make the game actually have a tactical side, as opposed to lumping together one gadjillion units in a single stack and right clicking a city until you capture it. Even if the AI isn't stellar at times, it makes it challenging enough on the player's side to make up for it. That and the whole resource system and the removal of naval transports and a combat system that doesn't guarantee the destruction of one unit and all the other fun stuff make it my favorite by far.

Edit

Yeah, the diplomacy kind of sucks. Too much wanton betrayal. It isn't that it makes the game too hard or anything, it's just that it's not particularly realistic when you can't hold an alliance for more than a few years.

Diplomacy in Civ V ought to be improved more, though no game by anyone has ever really done it yet.

Also, Prince isn't balanced because the AI plays on Chieftain, always.

I don't really fault the diplomatic AI in Civ 5.

Most games have been terrible in this regard, most notably Civ IV and 3 as well as the Total War series.

I once tried to play CiV5 online with some folks but the netcode was incredibly bad. We couldn't finish the game.

I actually am one of the few who don't own any of the Civ games, and I regret this almost every single day. My dad, however, is a different story. He has all of the games, and has been playing them for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, I thought of it as one of those "boring old people games" but I suppose that's because I didn't understand it very much. When my dad is sitting on the couch (where he has a computer setup) he is either napping, on facebook, or playing Civ. So I think it's safe to say he's a fan.

Ah, this is the thread I've been waiting for! I've only played Civ 4, so I'm not sure of its (dis)advantages over 5. Although I haven't gotten up to Noble difficulty yet, and that might change things, I find the UN victory to be far easier than the other ones, followed by the space victory. The culture victory seems like it would require more time than in given, and the domination victory seems like it would only work on a very small map.

I love Civ. I've played II, III, and IV. I'm currently enjoying playing the Civ IV expansion called Beyond the Sword…it adds a lot of interesting stuff, including new races, units, buildings, and "events".

Also:

opspe wrote:

I love Civ. I've played II, III, and IV. I'm currently enjoying playing the Civ IV expansion called Beyond the Sword…it adds a lot of interesting stuff, including new races, units, buildings, and "events".

Also:

"I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing, and he seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed." -Gandhi

"He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honour by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully. When violence is offered in self-defence or for the defence of the defenceless, it is an act of bravery far better than cowardly submission." -Gandhi

"Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonour." -Gandhi

He changed though, but in his earlier years Gandhi was a prick, and a racist too.

Just a curiosity, how would you guys rate the individual Civ titles?

I never played Civ 1 or 2 much so I can't comment, my introduction with the series was with Part III and I've played Civ 4 and 5 as well as revolution.

My thoughts are as follows:

Civilization 3: My first Civ. What a glorious day…I still love this game. The isometric 2D graphics still look charming and the gameplay was easy to pick up and play. I think some Civ 2 hardcores hated it but I had nothing to compare it with. It had a few problems though:

1. Stack of Doom syndrome. One big stack of murder units and you won.

2. Pollution was annoying as fuck.

3. Isometric 2D means the map gets cluttered as you add railroads, roads, and a whole bunch of shit on top of the map.

But otherwise? I love it.

Civilization 4: Ugh….this is my least liked of the titles. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it but I felt it has quite a few flaws compared to Civ 3.

1. It was the first 3D Civ 4 and it shows, it looked okay when it came out but now its aged horribly.

2. It still had the murder stack of doom in there.

3.Culture dictating borders…..CULTURE DICTATING BORDERS….CULTURE DICTATING BORDERS!

WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY?WHY?

Not only that but conquering a city reverts its Culture to Zero! meaning the borders shrink to just immediately around that city. But if you capture a city by flipping it culturally? YOU GET TO KEEP ALL THAT CITY'S CULTURE!

This just breaks the game for me. This combined with stacks just makes this the most unappealing game to actually have a military in. You just need enough to defend yourself and culture flip everything else. No don't conquer the city, don't collect 200$, don't pass go. Just keep building wonders and culture enhancing buildings to cause entire nations to join you.

The logic of that just boggles the mind.

Civilization 5: Now this is more like it! We finally have HEXES! NO MORE SUPER STACKS! FREEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Wait….where did Religion go? Where did espionage go? WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME FIRAXIS?

Luckily, religion and espionage were added in the Gods and Kings expansion and with that addition Civ 5 is my favourite Civ but it does have some problems:

1. Diplomacy AI is stupid as fuck.

2. WAAAAY too much bite sized DLC. Sure, the Game of the Year addition gives you all of them but it just feels like milking.

3. City States are more annoying than interesting. I hate having to keep bribing them to stay on their good sides but they lose influence WAY too fast. I wish there was a way to attract them to your sphere of influence and use them in diplomacy (For example, like how North Korea is within China's sphere of influence)


So that's my wall o' text. Anyone else want to share theirs?

I'm not sharing a giant block of text but I'll say that I'd like to see multiple leaders per Civ like in IV, like playing different eras of a Civ. Sure, you can play England, but I'd really like to play the whole UK, as a different leader, or to play a more modern China, etc. Playing Wu Zetian's China with tanks and stuff is different than playing Mao's China with tanks and stuff, not that Mao was even a good leader. (Maybe they could put Deng in instead)

But yeah, Civ V only has one modern leader, and that kind of sucks.

Hopefully we'll get more when One World comes out.

Katie C. wrote:

I'm not sharing a giant block of text but I'll say that I'd like to see multiple leaders per Civ like in IV, like playing different eras of a Civ. Sure, you can play England, but I'd really like to play the whole UK, as a different leader, or to play a more modern China, etc. Playing Wu Zetian's China with tanks and stuff is different than playing Mao's China with tanks and stuff, not that Mao was even a good leader. (Maybe they could put Deng in instead)

But yeah, Civ V only has one modern leader, and that kind of sucks.

Hopefully we'll get more when One World comes out.

That would be nice, but you have to remember that not everyone is a history buff. For your example, far more people are going to recognize Mao Zedong as a modern Chinese leader than Deng Xiaoping, say.

And that's one reason I kind of liked Civ IV: Beyond the Sword; they added people kike Mansa Musa, Suryavarman II, Zara Yaqob, and Pakal. Gives it a less eurocentric feel.

Heard Journey's soundtrack was being nominated for a grammy, also heard that a song called "Baba Yetu" was the only other game music ever nominated for a grammy (Which it won), looked up the song and was promptly blown away.



Fucking gorgeous.

Last edited Jan 27, 2013 at 08:26PM EST

@Opspe:
Mansa Musa is hella awesome. Spiritual/Financial is one of the best combinations of traits in my opinion. Then again, I'm no expert.
@burning_phoenix:
The units in Civ 4 look kind of lame. lame, especially because they're three times as big as cities. I appreciate the little building models shown inside cities though, and the wonder building and victory condition animations are pretty pretty.

opspe wrote:

That would be nice, but you have to remember that not everyone is a history buff. For your example, far more people are going to recognize Mao Zedong as a modern Chinese leader than Deng Xiaoping, say.

And that's one reason I kind of liked Civ IV: Beyond the Sword; they added people kike Mansa Musa, Suryavarman II, Zara Yaqob, and Pakal. Gives it a less eurocentric feel.

Mansa Musa was in vanilla.

CLYDE (Joe's Nightmare) wrote:

Gonna try playing Freeciv.

I do not usually play strategy games, but I'll give this one a try before dismissing all of them.

Any advice for a complete beginner?

In bullet form:

  • Freeciv is the Civ 2 ruleset plus a few tweaks. If you've played Civ 2, you'll slide right in.
  • Since you haven't (it helps to read what I'm replying to), make your first game on a map with no enemies to learn the ropes. Generally:
    • use Settlers to build cities, use Cities to build units such as Workers and more Settlers, use Workers to build roads and irrigation to improve your cities, and use the Help menu to read as much documentation as possible.
    • When you start playing against an AI, you will want to get City Walls up as soon as possible and to have Phalanx defenders behind them.
    • Roads produce Trade which gives you science and money. Science gives you better units and city improvements. Money can be used to buy a unit or building on the next turn without waiting for production to build up.
    • Mining is generally only useful on hills and mountains.
  • The new Worker unit can build roads and irrigation without the Food cost of settlers. You get them after researching Pottery.
  • Diplomacy AI is nonexistent. If the AI declares war on you, they will likely stay at war the whole game and anyone they ally with will declare war on you.
  • Learn to use city build worklists to save time, and to use the cities menu to add items to the front of an existing worklist, for example Select All → Add to front of worklist → Barracks II
  • Learn some of the server commands like "/set techlevel 5" and "/set aifill 10" to tweak the game settings.
Last edited Jan 27, 2013 at 10:25PM EST
Skeletor-sm

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