Sid Meier's Civilisation V Stories

[LaughingGnoll]

So, I picked up Civ 5 a few weeks ago, and ever since then it seems like every game I play ends up having a moment where I say whats going on out loud (to my empty apartment) and realize how hilarious it sounds compared to actual world history.

For example, this morning I played a random game where I ended up being Rome, with England on another continent. The map was Small Continents, map size was for 4 people and 8 city states (I like big empire games, so I always cut the numbers in half or more to taste). So in total, there was me (Rome, England, and 4 city states to start the game. I had always been doing Scientific or Diplomacy victories, so I started the game with the intent to have a Culture victory. However, as soon as England decided that settling the whole continent with 9 cities wasn't enough, she instantly declared war on me after noting that I had almost no army to speak of (I had a few outdated units), so I had to reorganize my entire production to make cannons and musket-units, and ended up holding a choke point between where she had settled on "my continent" to my borders. Despite aggressive negotiations on my part, having offered all my gold, a few cities, and all of my luxury goods, she still was intent on having war, so I used two Great-Generals for citadels and held the line. After that she kept throwing units at my new fort and I ended up winning around 2097.

So please, share your strange, wacky, or awesome Civ5 stories. :)

[AdmiralCheez]

Well, there was one time I inadvertently re-created World War II.
I was playing as the German Empire, and had already conquered France and was starting to take out England and Russia. After a little while, America decided it had enough of me conquering its friends, and declared war. Little did I know, they were the most advanced empire at the time, and had the benefit of building up forces while I fought on three fronts. I lost, getting reduced to two cities.
But since this was Civ V, instead of returning all the lands to their rightful owners, Washington just kept them, and then finished off everyone else. I was only spared because the peace treaty hadn't expired yet.
I started a new game after that.

[A Rainy Knight]

I played a round as Japan on the Earth map where I ended up alone in the Americas with a bunch of city-states while all the other civs were in the Old World. After quite a bit of peaceful development, cue the reverse colonization of the Old World by the New World and the utter destruction of the Native Europeans. :smalltongue:

[Istari]

I played a round as Japan on the Earth map where I ended up alone in the Americas with a bunch of city-states while all the other civs were in the Old World. After quite a bit of peaceful development, cue the reverse colonization of the Old World by the New World and the utter destruction of the Native Europeans. :smalltongue:

I had a similar game as Rome, except I was going for a cultural victory, so other than the two exploration ships that stopped by, I never saw another country before I won. During the game it was hilarious though since I kept getting the status updates of what was going on in Europe.

[Cikomyr]

I wish they would remove the 3 tile limit on city expansion, and simply enforce a geometrical cost for distant expansion.

Anyone ever succeeded as a 1-city empire?

[Dublock]

Anyone ever succeeded as a 1-city empire?

Yes I did, although it was on easy and on duel against Greece. I wanted to whip him for ruining me the previous game :smallamused:

(I was getting close to culture victory and they united Mongols, Britain, and a few more people against me and took a vital city and forced me to switch to complete defensive, I managed to win, but took 100+ more turns for it lol)

[ObadiahtheSlim]

I wish they would remove the 3 tile limit on city expansion, and simply enforce a geometrical cost for distant expansion.

Anyone ever succeeded as a 1-city empire?

It is easy for a duel as the Iriquois. Just build scout, monument, and then three warriors. You should have 4 warriors shortly before you finish researching iron working. Upgrade your 4 warriors to mohawks and then roflstomp your enemy. Your scout finding all the city-states is pretty important if you want the cash for the upgrades.

Edit: Go up the honor tree so you can have a free general to go with your assault.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Before the expansion I played 1 city Empires all the time. With the 4 free aqueducts from completing tradition in Gods and Kings I've been playing 4 city empires more.

I played one city Korea for a while in one game when I was all alone on my continent but then I noticed that I had tanks and everyone else had crossbowmen so I just went on a world conquest spree. Only puppeted states though, so I still only had 1 proper city.


I wish they would remove the 3 tile limit on city expansion, and simply enforce a geometrical cost for distant expansion.


You can expand waaaaay beyond 3 tiles when going for single city cultural victory. You can't work those tiles but even if I could I'd rather have citizens filling specialist slots to give me culture and great people.

Playing as Siam in Gods and Kings I kept restarting until I got a ton of wine by my start location, picked god of festivals and then founded Buddhism with monasteries and papal primacy (later enhanced with swords into plowshares and some useless enhancer that was supposed to make my religion spread further but seemed to have no effect). Using the faith gained from God of Festivals and all my wine I bought a ton of missionaries and converted every city on the continent I was sharing with America and some other guys that America conquored pretty early. Despite being landlocked I eventually researched the ability to embark over oceans and sent my missionaries over the water where they found Germany and Korea both with massive empires in almost perpertual war and the Ottomans and the Arabs barely surviving on the fringes.

I basically just converted every city state there to Buddhism and used patronage + papal primacy to make Siam's bonus go through the roof. My spies were all just out rigging elections. I was eying up a ton of late game wonders like Christo Redentor and the Eiffel Tower but ended up completing the Utopia Project way too early.

[Chromascope3D]

Ah, the joy of getting a science victory while half the Empires are still in the Renaissance, and the other half are still industrializing. Arabia is my favorite empire.

[LaughingGnoll]

Ah, the joy of getting a science victory while half the Empires are still in the Renaissance, and the other half are still industrializing. Arabia is my favorite empire.

How'd you pull that off?

[Chromascope3D]

How'd you pull that off?

Arabia can get a lot of gold quickly. I think I invested in most of the science granting technologies first, used my gold to buy science buildings and research agreements, and invested in Tradition, Commerce, and Rationalism. The only other empire I pissed off was Siam, but I was able to fortify and hold them off, before crushing them in the modern age.

I also remember getting a lot of "Choose a Free Technology," so I always invested in the higher tier ones. :P

[Cikomyr]

I am still waiting for a Fall From Heaven mod to this game... :(

[Mx.Silver]

I am still waiting for a Fall From Heaven mod to this game... :(

I don't think that's happening in the foreseeable future.

[Grue Bait]

I've never played Civ V, but I was looking into it, since most of what I've heard is positive. How does it play?

[ObadiahtheSlim]

I liked the social policies. So much more fun than switching between civics in Civ 4. It feels much more organic and a culturally stagnant civ will have the cool new toys despite a backwards government. It just feels right and is a fun mechanic (win-win).

One Unit Per Tile is a mixed bag. It makes movement and tactics much more interesting. However it can be frustrating when a neutral AI is jamming you and preventing proper movement. Unless the expansion fixed it, the AI never really does a good job moving their units in combat.

I don't care for the civ wide happiness. It makes hitting a happy cap so much more devastating in conquest than the econ crash in civ 4. In civ 4 you just run a specialist econ until your new conquests become productive again and then leverage your now massive economy. In civ 5 you have to wait for the pants-on-head-retarded AI to manage the puppets or you take a culture hit by annexing them.

I also love the move to hexes. Maps feel much more organic with how they can curve.

[Castaras]

I am still waiting for a Fall From Heaven mod to this game... :(

I believe it was mentioned by the developers to not be happening. So while I have Civ 5, I'm sticking with Rise from Erebus (mod of Fall From Heaven) for Civ 4.

[Cikomyr]

My personal feeling regarding Civ V is "at lot of awesome ideas that could be tweaked to something even greater"

For example, the social trees. Love it, bit it suffer the specialization bug: it's just too advantageous to buy all the steps of a single tree right away, rather than pick bits here and there. Was there some sort of cap on the specialization, reaching the end tree would be more rewarding. How how about playstyle gives you some automatic upgrades to certain trees? (ex: for every 5 unit reaching level III, you get an "honor" upgrade, to reflect how your playstyle is reflected in your society)

The aforementionned 3-tile exploitation limit, which I find arbitrary. What if I want an expanding megalopolis? Why not simply make tiles buyout/cultural cost increase geometrically the farther you get from the city center. That way, it feels less like an arbitrary limitation by game mechanic. If you really wanna pay 1000 gold for that tile 5 distance away, be my guest.

Even better if said cost would be dynamic on geographic feature. Ex: it would be easier to expand in fertile lands following a river than through the desert. Desert tile would have a "distance multiplier" of x5 (meaning it would cost 5 times more to expand a tile in desert than in plain, considering same distance).

Building roads would also cut down distance, so youd have ity development naturally growing along roads (and rivers).

I like the current ways of dealing with militaries. Much more fun and tactical than previous games. Although I'd like to have a smaller scale for military movement compared to city tiles, just so the tactical game is more flexible.

Oh... Finally, if we could get some Erebus-style map. I love Erebus-style maps, they make so much more fun than ye randomized geographical features. Erebus creates chokepoints.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The aforementionned 3-tile exploitation limit, which I find arbitrary. What if I want an expanding megalopolis? Why not simply make tiles buyout/cultural cost increase geometrically the farther you get from the city center. That way, it feels less like an arbitrary limitation by game mechanic. If you really wanna pay 1000 gold for that tile 5 distance away, be my guest.

The culture cost for new tiles does just keep increasing. Its only the gold cost that cuts out.

I like the current ways of dealing with militaries. Much more fun and tactical than previous games. Although I'd like to have a smaller scale for military movement compared to city tiles, just so the tactical game is more flexible.




For example, the social trees. Love it, bit it suffer the specialization bug: it's just too advantageous to buy all the steps of a single tree right away, rather than pick bits here and there. Was there some sort of cap on the specialization, reaching the end tree would be more rewarding.

This is a confused paragraph. One sentence you say there's no point in doing anything other than finishing a tree, next sentence you say there's not much of a reward for finishing them.

Before the expansion, it definitely wasn't worth finishing commerce since the only worthwhile policy there was 3 steps in. Liberty was also pretty meh after you picked the free unit ones. I usually gave up on Patronage since better trees tend to unlock before you finish it.


Oh... Finally, if we could get some Erebus-style map. I love Erebus-style maps, they make so much more fun than ye randomized geographical features. Erebus creates chokepoints.

Whenever I've got a chokepoint it makes things way too easy. They do happen, especially if you choose fractal.

[Cikomyr]

This is a confused paragraph. One sentence you say there's no point in doing anything other than finishing a tree, next sentence you say there's not much of a reward for finishing them.


"Rewarding" in the achivement meaning of the word... More than the powergaming meaning

[Mx.Silver]

"Rewarding" in the achivement meaning of the word...
It's no more or less rewarding than researching a tech or building something. Throwing arbitrary hoops you'd need to jump through would just discourage it and make going for a culture victory a complete pain.
That it encourages specialisation may be kind of the point. It encourages a specific style of development for that game, which can help inform your overall strategy. It actually makes it a bit more of a choice rather than just a case of cherry-picking the best options.

[Artanis]

I just got the game via the Steam sale so I've only played two games, but my favorite moment so far was when I accidentally exterminated the Babylonians. When I took Babylon, I was expecting to have to clean up a couple more cities "behind" it, but then he popped up with the "you wiped me out" dialog. Turns out that all the cities I'd been taking pretty much on a whim on my way to the capital were everything he had.



My thoughts on gameplay*:

*Note: I've played two games, and don't have the expansion, so this is pretty preliminary. Take that as you will.


I liked the social policies. So much more fun than switching between civics in Civ 4. It feels much more organic and a culturally stagnant civ will have the cool new toys despite a backwards government. It just feels right and is a fun mechanic (win-win).

One Unit Per Tile is a mixed bag. It makes movement and tactics much more interesting. However it can be frustrating when a neutral AI is jamming you and preventing proper movement. Unless the expansion fixed it, the AI never really does a good job moving their units in combat.

I don't care for the civ wide happiness. It makes hitting a happy cap so much more devastating in conquest than the econ crash in civ 4. In civ 4 you just run a specialist econ until your new conquests become productive again and then leverage your now massive economy. In civ 5 you have to wait for the pants-on-head-retarded AI to manage the puppets or you take a culture hit by annexing them.

I also love the move to hexes. Maps feel much more organic with how they can curve.
I agree about the social policies. I honestly feel that this is the best social/government/whatever system I've seen since Alpha Centauri.

I like one-per-tile overall, especially since it's a huge boon to me because I've always been a LOT better at small-scale tactics than at grand strategy. I do agree, however, that it has its problems, especially when unit counts rise or you run into choke points because you simply run out of room. Workers also become a problem, especially with route-to orders later in the game simply because 90% of them wind up getting cancelled when trying to railroad up your empire.

As for happiness, I think it's interesting, but not quite right. It can make going to war a real b**** because it seems like taking two or three cities will dump you straight into the red. Of course, it doesn't help that I'm still terrible at managing happiness, but still.

Hexes good! I've always preferred hexes in strategy games...or any games that involve moving on a grid, for that matter. Like you said, it feels more "organic", and it has zero issues with diagonals :smalltongue:



My personal feeling regarding Civ V is "at lot of awesome ideas that could be tweaked to something even greater"

Oh... Finally, if we could get some Erebus-style map. I love Erebus-style maps, they make so much more fun than ye randomized geographical features. Erebus creates chokepoints.

I agree that Civ V has a lot of stuff that is almost awesome. Like it's great on paper, but just isn't quite there yet.

I'm starting to hate hate HATE chokepoints in this game. I've always been very aggressive when it comes to combat in TBS games, typically "defending" my stuff by killing everything before it gets there :smalltongue: However, trying to cram an entire army through a 2-wide isthmus is a pain and a half. And don't get me started on trying to do it when the target has the Great Wall, too.




All in all, Civ V is a pretty good game, but one that's taking some getting used to. I still find myself in the Civ IV mindset a lot, which no doubt contributes to my difficulties regarding happiness management. So far I've played as Russia (worked reasonably well for me) and Rome (Legions come far too early for me to use right), and I'm trying to decide between Japan (Bushido!) and the Iroquois (forest-roads!) for my next game.

Also: does anybody have any suggestions regarding happiness management? Thus far I've been far too dependent the "happiness from garrisons and wall-type stuff" social policies for my liking :smallconfused:

[Dublock]

Back in 2 I was able to actually win higher difficulties on combat.

Now in 5? I can't, I spend to much time on science, culture, and the economy, why when I am playing a multiple player game with them (it doesn't even matter what game lol) they know they can count on me to fund their war machine.

On happiness management, what difficulty level are you playing on? The easier ones give you a happiness bonus and for me it slightly changes on what to focus on.

In general culture and happiness goes hand in hand. The Coliseum line is a must have in your cities if you are having trouble (A series of improvements that build off of each other, unlocking by having the previous one and the needed tech).

City states can be very useful in happiness mangement if you have the spare coin or got a mission you can do, because if you establish yourselves as allies, then you get access to their resources and each luxury one adds to the happiness.

If you are capturing cities, go ahead and make them puppet states, much less of an impact on overall happiness (since its pooled in this game) and then make them full fledged cities once you can handle it.

[Artanis]

I've been playing Warlord difficulty :smallredface:

[Cikomyr]

Oh, another thing I think the devs should develop a bit more.

Resources. Luxury resources and food resource.

First, Food resource currently serve no other purpose than simply a tile bonus. FAIL, I believe. It would be nice to allocate these resources as extra food supply to some key cities. Like Cabot setting fishing towns in Newfoundland to feed England.

And Luxury resources, like Food resources, shouldnt be simply "have or not". They really hit the mark great with their quantitative strategic resources, with nodes that can be larger or smaller.

The same thing should apply for food resources and luxury resources, and luxury resources should be stackable, with a degrading economic efficiency. Ex: with 1 spice, you have +1 happiness. With 2 spices, you still have +1 happiness. With 3 spice, you have +2 happiness.

With 6 spices, you have +3. With 10, you have +4, etc..

You could even make it depend on the # of cities or population you have. something like # spice/10 Empire Population. So large empires need large quantities of resources.

[Cikomyr]

Just in the middle of my first game of Gods and Kings.

I love the religion system. Feels kinda neat to have progressive religion development, from pantheonic to an already established religion.

Am playing as the Greeks, I wish to do a small scale trade empire that relies on boatload of City States allies.

The fun thing is, my initial starting location was in the middle of tundra hinterland, and there was a very large and rich area of the map covered by tundra. I was planning to stay away until I took the Dance of the Aurora belief system. I thus now intend to be a highly religious civ!! :-)

Not sure if I should take the religious benefit that increase my standing with city states or the one 1 gold/4followers.

[Mx.Silver]

Also: does anybody have any suggestions regarding happiness management? Thus far I've been far too dependent the "happiness from garrisons and wall-type stuff" social policies for my liking :smallconfused:
As Dublock said, the coliseum line is worth pursuing (as is the Circus Maximus, if you're willing to slow your expansion to get it). City states are good, especially Mercantile ones - getting one to ally status can basically leave you set for most of the game, especially on the lower difficulties. Finding natural wonders will give you a bonus, more so if you get one inside your borders. There a few world wonders you can build that help too (Notre Dame in particular gives you a flat +10 bonus).
Some social policies can help, both Tradition and Liberty have policies that can offset happiness costs and give you a bonus (as can Peity, iirc). Religion can be good too, as all the beliefs (barring Enhancer) have options to boost happiness.
Luxury resources are a staple, and don't forget you can trade other civs to get access to some of theirs (even if you're planning to destroy them later on). Lastly there's the question of what to do with your captured cities. Puppet mode is good, but note that Razing's penalty does drop-off as time progresses as well.

[Artanis]

As Dublock said, the coliseum line is worth pursuing (as is the Circus Maximus, if you're willing to slow your expansion to get it). City states are good, especially Mercantile ones - getting one to ally status can basically leave you set for most of the game, especially on the lower difficulties. Finding natural wonders will give you a bonus, more so if you get one inside your borders. There a few world wonders you can build that help too (Notre Dame in particular gives you a flat +10 bonus).
Some social policies can help, both Tradition and Liberty have policies that can offset happiness costs and give you a bonus (as can Peity, iirc). Religion can be good too, as all the beliefs (barring Enhancer) have options to boost happiness.
Luxury resources are a staple, and don't forget you can trade other civs to get access to some of theirs (even if you're planning to destroy them later on). Lastly there's the question of what to do with your captured cities. Puppet mode is good, but note that Razing's penalty does drop-off as time progresses as well.
I'm doing pretty much all of that (except razing, haven't done any of that yet), and don't have G&K, so religion isn't an option atm.

I think my biggest problem has been that overexpansion doesn't cause an economic crash anymore. I'm so used to expanding until I run out of money that I find myself with enough money and not nearly enough happiness. My last game, I forced myself just to watch the happiness meter instead of my income for when to stop making new cities. Between that and using Japan (Bushido was ridiculously useful, and Samurai's free promotion meant a TON of Blitz later on), my last game went a hell of a lot better :smallsmile:

[Cikomyr]

Finally, after much time spent in prayers, the Greek Hegemony came together and creates Demeter's Kiss, a religion aimed at contemplating the sweat of your labor and always inviting your fellow Demeterians to your tables.

The Faith feeds the poors (+1 food by temples/shrines) and argue that giving only means something when you already few to begin with (Tithe + Tundra gives me faith).

(though the mix of Tundra and food providing would be a good idea).

Demeter's Kiss spread throughout the whole continent. The Ethiopians made the first spiritual innways with their Christian faith, and only long after her city joined in the Kiss did the English sparked a strange religion named Buddhism.

Nevertheless, the Kiss spreaded far and wide, and beside a short instance of a Christian prophet converting Sydney and coming close to the Kiss's Holy City of Sparta did violence occurred. Greek Hoplites captures said prophet (who ironically was freaking useless as he could only spread Christianity), provoking the only conflict the Hegemony ever known. Luckily, the Ethiopians realized how badly outmatched they were by not only the Hegemony, but also it's 7 allied City-states.

Travellinh across the ocean allowed for the meeting of far and distant civilizations. The Huns just been converted, the Hegemkny secured the alliance of even more City-States locked in the middle of these strange lands, and the missionaries are already en route to bring them the Kiss.

(seriously, Greek + Patronage means that a few of my allies CS have 200 influence, and not degrading!!! I started milking tribute constantly out f Hanoi and Monaco.)

I like the snowballing effect religion have. Beyond the first 2-3 missionaries and the Christian's religious assault, my faith spreaded itself fast and wide, especially when the other civs built cities, which got hooked on the Kiss. I hope to create the same effect on the Main continent.

Probably going to aim for diplo or cultural victory..

[Artanis]

Another story! (as opposed to gameplay questions :smalltongue:)

Last night, I attacked Polynesia over iron because they had six of the twelve iron I could see. That's right, twelve iron in the entire known world. My blitzkrieg, led by the four Samurai that I could actually construct, beat the hell out of them so quickly and so thoroughly that he gave me all his money, all his resources, Open Borders, and every non-capital city that was worth anything.

I took the deal.

BAM!, my happy-o-meter instantly dropped to -27 :smalleek:

Thankfully, I somehow managed to claw my way back to -9 in three or four turns, but damn was it ever a shock.

[Closet_Skeleton]

(seriously, Greek + Patronage means that a few of my allies CS have 200 influence, and not degrading!!! I started milking tribute constantly out f Hanoi and Monaco.)

Greece is a pain as an enemy but I vastly prefer Siam and its extra bonus from allies over being slightly less likely to lose my allies. Of course in a Greece vs Siam situation Greece wins, but Siam is just way better over all and its unique building never goes obsolete unlike Hoplites and Companion Cavalry (which Greece should never use anyway since they should have enough militaristic city state allies to not need to waste any production on units themselves).