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Civilization V - England vs The World AAR Discussion

Sunflash

By Sunflash
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Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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(Alternate topic description: 'Sid with a vengeance!')

 

So I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm something of a Civilization fan. I'm not that good a player, mind you, but I have enjoyed the daylights out of III and IV. Been one of those who've cried when a barbarian archer got lucky with a combat roll and beat my helicopter, even(shut up I was like 10 at the time or something, jeez).

 

One of the things Sid has done through the last few iterations of Civilization is practically jump from game-concept to game-concept. While I admit I don't really recall much of three, I do know four was fairly different; introducing Vasselage, Great People(I think? I should really look this stuff up some time)/Great Warlords, and several back-end game concepts that I won't bother going into right now mainly because I only understand half of them!

 

It should come to no surprise to a veteran Civ player, then, than five made just as impressive changes to the system. Of most obvious note is the new tile layout (hexagon-ish, from the square-ish previously), but there are several other changes: Vassels have been removed from the game, Great people have been refined(Warlords are now called Generals, and arn't attached to indivual units anymore), City-States were introduced(special one-city civs, basically), the Religion concept was thrown you, Social Policies are implemented(civ-wide specialization, basically)...The list goes on.

 

I've been playing for about three-four weeks now, and have decided that while V isn't quite perfect yet (AI still has LOTS of trouble on island maps :P ) and there are still bugs lying around that have yet to be squashed, it is still a VERY good game.

 

Of note, however, is that I'm fairly sure it would be easier for someone new to Civilization to pick up and play V, compared to a IV veteran. This is because they haven't really created a decent tutorial yet(for instance, you no longer have to connect resources to a city by road, just build the improvment over it. No mention of that in the 'tutorial'.)

 

Still all in all, certainly worth picking up if you're interested/got the cash. More details possible to those that ask, just trying to keep from flooding the board. :)

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Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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By all means, flood the board. I can't play it thanks to the limitations of hamster-powered PCs (mine), so I might as well enjoy it vicariously.

 

 

I /might/ be able to be convinced to try to do an AAR for a detail-glutton like yourself, sir! :P

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Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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The main problem with a Civ V AAR is there are SO MANY freaking ways to play(also, win) the game, it's amazingly stupid. @.@

 

For starters, there's several 'speeds' of Civ. Quick, Normal, Epic, Marathon. The difference is as you go left-to-right in that list, the production/research costs as well as the build-time for tile-improvments keep getting higher and higher, so it takes longer and longer to do things. Personally I prefer 'Epic', but if I were to do an AAR I might consider doing it on 'normal' speed just so it doesn't take near as long!

 

VIctory conditions: Time - Highest score at the end of the game (2025 AD, I think?); Domination - Last Civ to be in control of their Captial, not just alive, wins the game; Cultural - First Civ to fill out 5 Social Policy branches and then build the Utopia project wins the game(More detail on this later); Science - First Civ to build the good 'ole Space Ship and launch it wins the game; and finally Diplomatic - Build the United Nations, and garner enough votes from other Civs and (more likely) City-States(another post for these later!) to be declared grand high hoo-bah and rule the world!

 

Any or All of these conditions can be active at any time, and dependign on what kind of win you want to go for determines both what Civ would be best, and the tactics used(Such as size/number of cities, which Social Polices to go after, your desired tech-research, etc).

 

Want a Cultural victory? You'll be playing small, as every natural or annexed city(IE City where you control the building/unit production) increased the cost of adding another part of a Social Policy branch by 30%! You can offset this slightly by only puppeting captured cities, but then you don't get to choose it's production and such.

 

Science is based off of population and bonuses from buildings (which, iirc, only give % bonuses; like +30% science of whatever the city is currently producing), so a Science victory would require lots of population and the happiness rescources to keep them happy. This also helps determine what reserach you'll go for first, as some buildings give happiness instead of another bonus(They usually have higher maitence cost, however).

 

City-States will /always/ vote for their Ally in a UN election, while most Civs will vote for themselves. Ergo, a Diplomatic victory demands that you buddy up to every City-State you can; which takes alot of gold and generally is helped by a spefiac Social Policy branch(Greece, btw, is deadly at this). City-states are good for just about any situation, but are REQUIRED for a Diplomatic victory.

 

Domination/Conquest is about how you would expect it; however while some critics have claimed it to be 'dumbed down', it's actually quite dangerous against an evil AI/devious human. Say you've captured 6/9 capitals, and are working on the last two while the third stays out of the way and tries to build up a defense...as far as you knew. Suddenly, number 3 launches a vicious first-strike on your captial just as you capture the other two. This leaves number 3 with the last capital, and the victory!

And of course, just becaust a Civ doesn't have it's Captial doesn't mean its out of the game, either; so they could come back if you don't finish them off and recapture their own, or even just gank yours at the last second to deny you the victory.

 

 

So in order to do an AAR, I think I'd prefer to let you guys pick the map-type, then choose from a list of Civs I'd pick(based on the map-type), and let the top-two/three Victory conditions called for be used.

 

OR I may just throw it all out the window and do it my way, I 'unno. :P Anyhow TURKEY DAY TIME!!! Have a good one folks!

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Space Voyager Colonel

Space Voyager

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The main problem with a Civ V AAR is there are SO MANY freaking ways to play(also, win) the game, it's amazingly stupid. @.@

Just a thought; in the case of my SotS AARs it turned out best to not care about how many options there are but select the one I wanted to play and do it. You need to have fun playing it after all. Also not everybody can give you a good suggestion as some of us don't even know the game.

 

Trying to present the game as a whole is a reviewer's job, AAR is (IMO) supposed to present a single playthrough, a pebble in the game's mosaic in the case of most good strategy games.

 

Sure, telling us readers what could be done and why when a strategic decision is made is all very welcome, your thoughts on an issue are what makes the decision really interesting.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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Ohjeez the update is here! I'll spend the rest of the work-week toying with and getting familear with the changes ala school of hard knocks; then I'll spend the weekend launching this madhouse. Stay tuned!(or should I do a new thread for it shriek so many choices!)
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Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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Newsflash! Major update to Civ V just rolled out. I've glanced over the changes, and it seems some of it may have royally screwed my plan of action in the AAR! D:

 

I'll be spending the next day or two digesting and comparing to see what might work and might not, but argh. If it's not one thing...

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Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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*throws a wrench in the system*

 

No, we're not drowned it yet! However I have a spontanous wedding to get over with, nevermind my Civ V install giving me fits! I think I've about got it fixed, video driver only half-updated the last time I tried.

 

If not by the weekend, next monday! Or bust! (Some skulls)

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Sunflash Lieutenant

Sunflash

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SO guys.

 

Civ V just updated today.

Not that big a deal, although it looks like some of the changes would screw me over fairly well.

 

A problem has arisen, however, in that my save-game has managed to become corrupt. Crashes no matter how I try to load it, or on what machine.

 

Dunno what to say at this point. Will look into another or something, but...ugh.

 

Sorry gents. :/

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silencer_pl Captain

silencer_pl

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Have you tried DX9 - I know you are running on DX10 (Monte picture shows it) and I had bad experience with CIV V in DX10.

 

@FullAuto.

 

You can backup bad it is game fault. I once had all saves got corrupted even the starting autosaves. And with this civ you can have plenty autosaves - even for each turn. It is not that files are corrupted it is simply game that fails to read them.

 

Too bad Sunflush - you had a good start and a touch with the pen for AAR.

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