Civ V Announced

[Timbuk2]

Aye, there's a fine balancing act to be found in this game. Number of cities, size of army, growth, wealth and happiness are all nicely intertwined.

I haven't yet had more than ten units in any game, which is a pretty small number.

But my gamestyle, in CivIV at least, was to concentrate totally on building my economic empire and striving to be the first to research tanks. I would then switch to major military production, and roll my mighty machines over cowering enemy nations. Well, nations with whom I was best of friends till that point.

Am attempting to do the same in Civ5, but so far it seems you cannot leave yourself too weak, and have to spend a certain level on military might. Otherwise the AI notices your lack and will attack.

~

Didn't install the beta drivers yet, no. Was saving 'em for backup if the crashes continued, but they have stopped, for now at least.

Normally have latest drivers but don't go for betas generally. Have a niggling fear that betas will mess my system up somehow.

~

How are you finding the end of turn processing Zizzi? Taking a long time?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Zizzi

End of turn doesn't take that long with a large map. And I don't really have a high end pc. Never more than 10 seconds.

About drivers and crashes. Yesterday the game gfx crashed again. Rebooted the computer but the gfx wouldn't come back to normal. Inserted card into another system and same result, so my card was botched as well. Luckily I knew my mate just bought a shiny new beast of a card and had a 220 GT lying about, which I'm using right now. No crashes have occured in 3 hours of playing.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Civ V is going to need a bit of tweaking on the higher levels

These are from the Deity level

Spoiler:

[EyeKhan]

wtf - the whole fuckin' world's an armed camp.

[Nessus]

Just like in real life!

[EyeKhan]

There's realism problems with keeping it 1 unit/ hex on a map of that scale. Hexes, zones of control, stacking penalties, indirect fire are all superb aspects for a turn-based tactical combat game. But Civ's scope is too big for that.

Its a major design flaw, I think.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well, it's better than the stacks of doom which demanded 0 tactics. Just stack and attack. Which is why the AI was able to handle that.

So, the choice is no tactics no brains combat which the AI can do, or potentially fun tactical combat which the AI is unable to counter, except for unit spamming.

Since better AI seems to be a pipe dream in all games.

[NGS]

I'm liking the random knights scattered among the paratroopers & tanks there. What's the point in all those units anyway? To expose the game's "flaw"? Honestly if you can't seal the deal before it gets to that point you deserve the stalemate.

One thing I'm hating is the way you lose open borders. I was all ready to undermine my ally by declaring war on him with a 3rd party in 10 turns. I had open borders so my units were perfectly placed right before the attack. Then, on the turn before the war I lost open borders, and all my units were immediately moved outside of his empire, ruining my plan and making the war a lot more tedious than it had to be.

[littlelolligagged]

I had a problem with the AI ignoring barbarians, while I had to deal with them in the early game - and then once I was scattered all over the place whichever one it was would declare war.

[Wraith]

I'm liking the random knights scattered among the paratroopers & tanks there. What's the point in all those units anyway? To expose the game's "flaw"? Honestly if you can't seal the deal before it gets to that point you deserve the stalemate.

One thing I'm hating is the way you lose open borders. I was all ready to undermine my ally by declaring war on him with a 3rd party in 10 turns. I had open borders so my units were perfectly placed right before the attack. Then, on the turn before the war I lost open borders, and all my units were immediately moved outside of his empire, ruining my plan and making the war a lot more tedious than it had to be.

Going from open borders->war is pretty cheesy anyways.

So, multiplayer: Is this happening or what? Comeon people, lolli and NGS are in, and who could possibly want to pass up an opportunity to play with the beautiful, sexy, and intelligent NGS?

[littlelolligagged]

I think they are all scared to play against you. I know I am.

[Wraith]

I suspected that if I could get everyone to agree to an FFA for all the backstabbing fun, everyone would gang up on me, but then in the end realize that they should have really ganged up on Ziggy.

[littlelolligagged]

Well, convince people to try it, then.

Use your powers of persuasion. You do have those, right?

[Wraith]

My powers of persuasion are pathetic. You're much better at that sorta thing than I am. Perhaps you could show me how it's done, so I can do it on my own next time?

[Nessus]

OLOL

[littlelolligagged]

My powers of persuasion are pathetic. You're much better at that sorta thing than I am. Perhaps you could show me how it's done, so I can do it on my own next time?

Impressive attempt. Probably would have worked on anyone but me.

[Wraith]

See? I'm no good at it. Teach me!

[littlelolligagged]

It'll cost you.

[Wraith]

I'll give you 3.

[littlelolligagged]

Make it 5.

[Wraith]

Alright, fine.

[littlelolligagged]

There was your lesson. Did you learn anything from it?


You know Bukaroo - I'll probably completely suck at playing multiplayer. I'm no good at all at these games; I just think they are fun to play. And yes, it's nice to be able to restart when the maps and placement just suck and the game blows, but I think the entertainment value out of a bunch of us nutjobs playing together will make up for it.

I'm not taking no for an answer here, girls. You don't want to make me cry, do you?

[EyeKhan]

So I abandoned my first game because it was too easy and therefore boring. Game 2 is on a large Pangea on king difficulty as the Brits. So far the only major challenge has been cash. Apparently I'm not earning enough of it. For a while everyone was unhappy, so I went theocracy on them and built a coleseum. But money is still a problem.

[NGS]

So, multiplayer: Is this happening or what? Comeon people, lolli and NGS are in, and who could possibly want to pass up an opportunity to play with the beautiful, sexy, and intelligent NGS?

This will do wonders for my esteem problems.

Like I was saying though, it may be better to go co-op against the AI. Maybe it won't be too tough but it's good bonding nonetheless.

[LittleFuzzy]

So apparently my father picked up a copy for my mother for her birthday yesterday. You need Steam to install your PHYSICAL copy of the game? And even after you've installed the game you can't actually access and play it without Steam running on your computer? Am I understanding this correctly?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Not sure whether you need it after it's installed, but you do need it for installing.

I'm not game for multiplayer, I could be talked into a succession game

[littlelolligagged]

So apparently my father picked up a copy for my mother for her birthday yesterday. You need Steam to install your PHYSICAL copy of the game? And even after you've installed the game you can't actually access and play it without Steam running on your computer? Am I understanding this correctly?

You've got it. I found that exceedingly annoying, if I had read this somewhere ahead of time I would have just bought a digital copy.

Not sure whether you need it after it's installed, but you do need it for installing.

I'm not game for multiplayer, I could be talked into a succession game

What do you have against multiplayer?

[Ziggy Stardust]

YWhat do you have against multiplayer?

Lots.

I usually play short sessions, in the weekends I have social obligations (read: pussywhipped by gf), workdays I only have the odd hour to play, the thing I like about TBS is that I can tinker and fuck around with citizen placement for hours before pressing end turn, I can't stand AI's so I feel no remorse crushing them while you guys are all far to cuddly for trebuchet target practise and I'm scared that Wraith beats me with some no-brain early Jaguar rush strategy and I'll never hear the end of it.

And that's just for starters.

[Khendraja'aro]

Not to mention the Timezone problem.

[littlelolligagged]

That's why Wraithy suggested a weekend, so that it would be easier to pick a time that could work for everyone.

He never sleeps, after all.