# Civ V: Gods and Kings. Enough to tempt you back?



## The Groke (Jun 14, 2012)

Not played Civ V in a long old while...didn't get nearly as much mileage out of it as I did IV.

Still, the new expansion may fix that. As well as adding religion and espionage, it throws in a fuck-ton of new units, resources, scenarios and Civs and overhauls combat, AI, diplomacy and multiplayer.

Detailed run-down to be found here.


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## Citizen66 (Jun 14, 2012)

Oooh. When's it released? I've played civ 5 loads and think it's the best one. Obviously it wasn't without problems (online multiplayer being the biggest headache of all) but i really liked the 1 unit per tile idea as it forced you to think more about assault strategies  and you could build defensively instead of the stack of death slipping by all and sundry and wiping you out.


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## The Groke (Jun 14, 2012)

Ne





Citizen66 said:


> Oooh. When's it released? I've played civ 5 loads and think it's the best one. Obviously it wasn't without problems (online multiplayer being the biggest headache of all) but i really liked the 1 unit per tile idea as it forced you to think more about assault strategies and you could build defensively instead of the stack of death slipping by all and sundry and wiping you out.


 
Next week! Around 18 quid on Steam as a preorder I think...

I totally agree the combat was streets ahead of previous iterations. I hate Stack of Doom...

Don't get me wrong, I liked it lots...just didn't seem to hold my attention as much as its predecessor.


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## Citizen66 (Jun 14, 2012)

The Groke said:


> Ne
> 
> Next week! Around 18 quid on Steam as a preorder I think...
> 
> ...



Definitely going to preorder it. Like I said, i really enjoyed the game. But for any game to maintain any kind of longivity, it really needs to have a fully functioning multiplayer which, with civ5, was frustrating at best. Especially as the civ5 AI could be pretty dumb at times. Human opponents are always more fun.


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## tommers (Jun 14, 2012)

Civ V is one of those games that I didn't think was great and then I noticed I'd spent 100 odd hours playing it.

18 quid is as bit steep tho!


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## Santino (Jun 14, 2012)

Let me know when someone's been playing it for 10 years.


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## Kid_Eternity (Jun 14, 2012)

Really wasn't impressed with Civ5...gone back to 4 which is still sapping my life....


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## Citizen66 (Jun 15, 2012)

It needs a new injection of life. Those who cut their nose off to spite their face and crept back to the comfort of civ IV early on will have missed the various tweaks to the Social policy tree; which was so dramatic that it changed my strategy to a more successful one. I'm now excited about religion, which looks like a new game affecting modifier tree and Considering what I need to sacrifice from my existing strategy to explore it. Also excited to see if there's a new civ that will turn me away from playing as france; which is my default nation of choice.

Naturally, i've pre-ordered.


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## camouflage (Jun 16, 2012)

The Steam-Punk stuff looks nice.


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## Psychonaut (Jun 16, 2012)

must try desperately to get all my chores done before the 22nd!

A drawback with Civ5 is that it rewards picking a victory early on, and sticking to that. gameplay is duller and less skillful than if you can hold some options open for just the right amount of time before making a momentous decision to switch strategy later on. Then again i cant really remember what Civ4 was like.

It sounds like they tweaked the diplomacy victory which can only be good, i had games where the leading superpower had gold to bribe all the city-states ahead of the UN vote, but didnt.


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## captainmission (Jun 22, 2012)

I've been playing a bit of this today. I got to the begining of the renaissance and thoughts so far are...

Religion seems like a nice addition although not a massive game changer. Having a different currency to spend and shaping your religion in a manner similar to social policies is fun, although it more of a moderate boost to you existing stratergy rather than a path to victory in its own right. I played as the celts who get a big bonus to religion from the start so was powering through  great prophets and religious buildings. I doubt it would be as interesting with less faith generating abilities.
espionage may be interesting. Since i only got first spy upon entering the renaissance i've not had much chance to experiment. But so far i uncovered 'intrigues' - basically plots by rival nations that you can choose to reveal to other ai's. I was spying on bismark, who i was at war with. I uncovered a plot that bismark was building an army to attack haile sallassie. I decicde to reveal this plan to sallassie hoping he'd join the war against Bismark. He didn't but did go from hostile to friendly and offer a research agreement next go. So it seems like espionage could play a big roll in late game diplomacy.
The ai's ability to conduct war is still really bad. In the first celto-prussian war i was able to destroy bismark's entire force of 10 archers and 5 warriors with only city bombardments and one pict warrior (the celt equivilent of a spearman). In the second war (still on going) i've killed about 12 of his more technologically advanced units and lost 2 of mine.  The AI has no idea how to push their advantage and just indicively sends units rush back and forth in my bombardment range.


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## FridgeMagnet (Jun 22, 2012)

Having spent a really absurd length of time playing Civ 2, I've tried all of the versions so far and have now just decided not to bother any more. If you've got bored with a previous version, none of the new ones seem to offer anything really new. They're really only updates and expansions - the structure of the game doesn't change at all.


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## Epona (Jun 22, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> It needs a new injection of life. Those who cut their nose off to spite their face and crept back to the comfort of civ IV early on will have missed the various tweaks to the Social policy tree; which was so dramatic that it changed my strategy to a more successful one. I'm now excited about religion, which looks like a new game affecting modifier tree and Considering what I need to sacrifice from my existing strategy to explore it. Also excited to see if there's a new civ that will turn me away from playing as france; which is my default nation of choice.
> 
> Naturally, i've pre-ordered.


 
How is it cutting your nose off to spite your face to stop playing a game that you're simply not enjoying?  And to play one you enjoy instead?  

I'm going to wait to read some (ok, many) user reviews before even considering the expansion.


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## Citizen66 (Jun 22, 2012)

Epona said:


> How is it cutting your nose off to spite your face to stop playing a game that you're simply not enjoying?  And to play one you enjoy instead?
> 
> I'm going to wait to read some (ok, many) user reviews before even considering the expansion.



I don't get what's not enjoyable about it. I found IV boring so horses for courses I guess.

I played for an hour tonight before I had to run for a train. Ethiopia seemed a good civ for a small focused strategy as you get a  20% strength bonus when fighting larger civs (in friendly territory only?)

Faith is just another game modifier really as fridgemagnet said can aid an existing strategy rather than completely game changing. Although I would add that some of the modifiers are location specific ie + culture from jungle tiles or + faith from natural wonders etc. didn't have time to fully explore everything although it still feels very much the same game so if V isn't your thing then I very much doubt the expansion will change your mind. 

I didn't really grasp how your religion spreads though. Is it through wide borders (culture) or do you build missionaries; the help section didn't really shed any light on it when I briefly looked.


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## Epona (Jun 22, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> I don't get what's not enjoyable about it. I found IV boring so horses for courses I guess.


 
They're really quite different games, despite being in the same series - one of them is to my taste, one of them is to your taste, if you have trouble understanding that basic point about different people enjoying different things then I don't know how to go about explaining it to you


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## Citizen66 (Jun 22, 2012)

Epona said:


> They're really quite different games, despite being in the same series - one of them is to my taste, one of them is to your taste, if you have trouble understanding that basic point about different people enjoying different things then I don't know how to go about explaining it to you



Why are you focusing on it? It was a throwaway comment. I haven't drowned your kitten. Relax.


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## camouflage (Jun 23, 2012)

i've gone back to civ3 and will stay there until i've finished at least one game. am i being weird?


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## Citizen66 (Jun 23, 2012)

Nah, i'd love a trip down memory lane.


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## mrs quoad (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm a bit pissed off with Gods & Kings / the App Store. On buying my iMac, I got a £70 app store voucher (IIRC). The first thing I got was Civ 5. Through the App Store.

All the DLC is a fixed price, never discounted. The new DLC is more expensive than it would be on Steam, and - again - I really can't see it being discounted.

It looks as if - instead of sticking with the £25-35 that Civ V cost - it'd almost work out cheaper to re-buy a £7-8 all-in Steam discounted Civ V with *all the expansions*, and wait til they discount G&K, too.

I'm pretty damned sure that the Steam expansion / DLC won't work with the App Store Civ V.

Madface.


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## BigTom (Jun 25, 2012)

I've played a couple of games with the expansion, on easier levels (prince and immortal rather than deity) to learn the changes.

My impressions:

Religion.. seems pretty minor, some bonuses but nothing big, useful in the early game.
 Faith can be used to purchase great people in the late game, with different ones available depending on your social policies, which could be very powerful.  Only realised this on my second game, when i didn't found a religion and thought the faith i was accumulating was pointless, then raised and had almost constant golden ages for the end game 

City states: vast improvement. 
Lots more quests and they all give them, not just the friendly ones. They now ask you to demand tribute rather than destroy another city state.
Influence can be affected by spies and this has an effect as you can use coups to steal a city state.
Units given to you now appear in your territory not theirs. 
You can demand tribute but i haven't done this yet.
Two new city state types are good, giving faith and happiness. 
You are told how much more influence you need to bee the ally of a city state.

Great people: slight change, only great artists do golden ages which are 6 turns long. They no longer do culture bomb which is annoying for me as my default game is one city challenge and i used to use them to extend my territory beyond the 5 tile limit to get resources.

Tech tree & victory conditions: the tee has changed substantially, especially in the late game. I'd need to play my default game to see how the balance has changed but you need almost every tech for science win now.  Instinct says it looks better though.
Some wonders have changed what they do so pay attention.

Golden ages give you extra culture (and maybe faith and science, didn't check).

spies are cool but the information they get seems pretty random. Tech stealing works though as does city state stuff.

Research agreements are harder to get now, you have to be friends with the other civ. I relied on these to keep up with them so I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, as my Switzerland strategy to avoid war won't work either, I'll have to make friends and thus enemies.

I'll reserve overall judgement until I've played a couple of games in my usual way. Right now out improves the game but I'm not sure it's worth the money.  Haven't played the steampunk mod though


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## Citizen66 (Jun 25, 2012)

Apparently the great general now culture bombs when he builds a citadel hence the artist losing the ability. Seems a bad swap though. Perhaps you don't strategically want a citadel in the hex where it is required for you to place it to maximise hexs gained from the culture bomb.


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## revol68 (Jun 25, 2012)

Civ5 was good for a bit but the problem is that once you pick a win condition you have to stick right at it or you're fucked, there is little room reacting to events during the game, as such I got bored.


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## captainmission (Jun 25, 2012)

BigTom said:


> Religion.. seems pretty minor, some bonuses but nothing big, useful in the early game.
> Faith can be used to purchase great people in the late game, with different ones available depending on your social policies, which could be very powerful. Only realised this on my second game, when i didn't found a religion and thought the faith i was accumulating was pointless, then raised and had almost constant golden ages for the end game


 
I love this feature; with the 'freedom' social policies and a wonder i'm getting 12 turn golden ages for each great artist. I might even bet my record from stand civ5 of 176 turn golden age.



BigTom said:


> City states: vast improvement.


 
Whilst i like how city states are a bit more than just showering them in gold, whether you can complete a city state quest just seems down to luck. Quests like produce most gold/faith/science just reward the dominant player. In most cases its not possible to drastically ramp up you empires output in 30 turns anyway. And quest like kill barbarians or demand tribute are often just a question of whose got military units nearest that city.



Citizen66 said:


> Apparently the great general now culture bombs when he builds a citadel hence the artist losing the ability. Seems a bad swap though. Perhaps you don't strategically want a citadel in the hex where it is required for you to place it to maximise hexs gained from the culture bomb.


 
I really like this change. I generally only used culture bombing for chopping in to other player territory to steal resources. Doing that makes war a likelyhood. So having a  citadel on your boards helps.


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## Citizen66 (Jun 28, 2012)

Played a bit more but not all the way through yet.

I like it when a trade agreement comes to an end and the civ will contact you to re-establish it. That used to proper piss me off before as you had to keep your eye on the ball with all ending agreements and go through a series of mouse clicks to perform it. Irritating when there's a few on the go so a welcome change that. Also in the diplomacy screen where it says their relationship with you they don't seem to get the hump because you are 'trying to win the game the same way and they don't like it'. Surely diplomatic relations are diplomatic relations. Although The Aztecs have attacked me twice now and it hasn't really informed me as to why on the diplomatic screen. Maybe it's just because he's aggressive. Which isn't really politics but there we are.

Started using a spy too. Spying on the Aztecs who I'm at war with anyway so no bones if I get caught and informed Polynesia that they were preparing to attack them from info gathered which improved my standings with the latter. So a much improved diplomacy feature unless the game decides to go crazy at some point and ignore all of that. I think I'm ahead tech wise so might get my spy on counter-espionage assignments instead.


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## mrs quoad (Jul 10, 2012)

Got a £70 Mac App Store voucher.

And a new MacBook.

Very tempted.

But, tbh, a little bit more tempted to wait until it's slashed on Steam, and then pick up both from there.

(Reckon it'll probably be cheaper to re-buy Civ V and get a bundle on the DLC, than it'll ever be to buy Gods and Kings through the MAS  )


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## mrs quoad (Jul 15, 2012)

And if I hadn't gone for an impulse buy, *today* I could be getting Civ V, ALL DLC _and _Gods and Kings for £21 from Steam.

Instead of just Gods and Kings for £21 from the MAS


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## Citizen66 (Jul 15, 2012)

Oh dear.


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## mrs quoad (Jul 15, 2012)

Citizen66 said:


> Oh dear.


Raw wankers on the app store.

And I knew it, too


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## mrs quoad (Jul 21, 2012)

Gods and Kings running at £15 on Steam atm.

First time it's hit a 25% discount, afaict.

If (when, tbf) it goes above 50%, I'm re-buying the whole of Civ V via steam, and fuck be to the App Store!

e2a: Maybe 75%, on reflection


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## captainmission (Mar 19, 2013)

Next expansions has been announced - civ 5: brave new world

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/15/civilization-v-brave-new-world-preview/

New trade system, over hauled culture system and more late game developements. All sounds good.


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## Santino (Mar 19, 2013)

I wonder what's happening in that Civ 2 game.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 21, 2013)

Santino said:


> I wonder what's happening in that Civ 2 game.



The one that guy played for ten years and couldn't win?


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## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 21, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> The one that guy played for ten years and couldn't win?


 
The game that someone else took his saved file and won the game in a few dozen turns?


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## Santino (Mar 21, 2013)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> The game that someone else took his saved file and won the game in a few dozen turns?


Source?


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## Citizen66 (Mar 21, 2013)

Lol, i'm with Santino here.  

I'm fairly sure the game could be completed, with difficulty. But in a 'few dozen' turns?


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## TheHoodedClaw (Mar 21, 2013)

OK, it took 102 in-game years, not sure what the turn length is in 4000 AD:

http://www.reddit.com/r/theeternalwar/comments/uyswv/here_it_is/c50walu

This guy kinda implies that someone else did it in 57 in-game years, but I couldn't find that.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 24, 2013)

captainmission said:


> Next expansions has been announced - civ 5: brave new world
> 
> http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/15/civilization-v-brave-new-world-preview/
> 
> New trade system, over hauled culture system and more late game developements. All sounds good.



Although not mentioned in the article, some of the images show more than one unit per tile so perhaps the've changed the one unit per tile mechanic.


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## captainmission (Mar 24, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Although not mentioned in the article, some of the images show more than one unit per tile so perhaps the've changed the one unit per tile mechanic.


 
I can see a civilian and military unit stacked, but that's always been the case. Is there some with 2 or more of both?


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## Citizen66 (Mar 24, 2013)

captainmission said:


> I can see a civilian and military unit stacked, but that's always been the case. Is there some with 2 or more of both?


 
Oh, derrr. Ignore. I forgot that there's multiple figures displayed for one unit. A recent interview with the game designer had him admitting that he perhaps made a mistake with one unit per hex. I quite like it myself. Certainly requires a lot more thought (from both an attack and defence pov) when it comes to conflict than the stack of doom (which I found boring and unrealistic). I think he said perhaps allowing four units to a tile might be a better compromise thus not going back to stack of doom but also so there's actually room on the map to field large armies.


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## captainmission (Mar 24, 2013)

Jon shaffer- the lead designer - left shortly after the game was released so i doubt he got any input. I was never really in to the military side of civ games. I was quite happy building my little empire of culturally advanced wonder hogging mega cities and if it came to it i'd fight off the enemy hordes with 2 archers and a horse.I didn't like 1upt as it fucked up the economy quite badly and made cities placement not important. I'd agree x tiles  per unit (where x greater than 1 less than infinity) would probably be best. Lots of space 4x games have variable fleet sizes that work quite well


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## Epona (Mar 24, 2013)

captainmission said:


> Next expansions has been announced - civ 5: brave new world
> 
> http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/15/civilization-v-brave-new-world-preview/
> 
> New trade system, over hauled culture system and more late game developements. All sounds good.


 
Now _that_ has piqued my interest.  Looks as if there's some good complex stuff in there, and some new concepts.


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## Citizen66 (Mar 24, 2013)

Perhaps their marketing strategy is to have a sliding scale of complexity? Reel in the newbies with a slimmed down game then crank up the depth with expansions to  maximise profits  keep the hardcore strategy gamers happy.


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## captainmission (Mar 25, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> Perhaps their marketing strategy is to have a sliding scale of complexity? Reel in the newbies with a slimmed down game then crank up the depth with expansions to  maximise profits  keep the hardcore strategy gamers happy.


 
hasn't this always been the nature of expansion packs and sequels? Part of the reason civ5 got such a mauling my sections of the fan base was they were comparing it to Civ4: BtS rather than civ4 at lauch, which was a much simpler game.


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## Citizen66 (Apr 4, 2013)

Anyone played with any of the mods?

This WW2 conversion looks interesting:



About to give Hulfgars Industrial Warfare one a whirl. 

There's also a post modern mod that adds onto that mod.


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## Epona (Apr 5, 2013)

captainmission said:


> Part of the reason civ5 got such a mauling my sections of the fan base was they were comparing it to Civ4: BtS rather than civ4 at lauch, which was a much simpler game.


 
No, because some of us aren't idiots, bought both CIV 4 and CIV 5 on release, have memories, and can count.

Just some CIV series basics for comparison: Excluding "Future Tech" (the final repeatable tech on the tech tree in each game), vanilla CIV 4 without expansions had 85 techs, vanilla CIV 5 had 73. That doesn't seem like such a huge difference until you compare buildings (ignoring unique replacement buildings for various civilisations, so as not to count the same building twice) - vanilla CIV 4 had 69 buildings you could build in your cities, CIV 5 had 46 which is a large difference.

Some of the people giving CIV 5 a mauling actually have the manuals and wall charts for both games as purchased on release day right in front of them and can easily confirm that vanilla CIV 5 IS slimmed down in comparison to vanilla, unexpanded, CIV 4.


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## The Groke (Apr 5, 2013)

Looking forward to this. I think Civ V with Gods and Kings turned out to be a really decent game and a worthy episode in the series. Took a while to get there mind.

I would never want to go back to Stack O Doom again.


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## Citizen66 (Apr 6, 2013)

Epona said:


> Some of the people giving CIV 5 a mauling actually have the manuals and wall charts for both games as purchased on release day right in front of them and can easily confirm that vanilla CIV 5 IS slimmed down in comparison to vanilla, unexpanded, CIV 4.


 
Still annoying when people slate games without even playing them though. Having the manuals doesn't mean much. Yes it has less buildings. Does that mean it's less enjoyable? Fair play if you've actually played it and don't like it though. But that isn't what you're saying.


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## Buddy Bradley (Apr 7, 2013)

Never played Civ, but I am looking forward to this: http://www.ageofempires.com/age2.html


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## captainmission (Apr 7, 2013)

Epona said:


> Some of the people giving CIV 5 a mauling actually have the manuals and wall charts for both games as purchased on release day right in front of them and can easily confirm that vanilla CIV 5 IS slimmed down in comparison to vanilla, unexpanded, CIV 4.


 
All that really show is you can count... albeit badly. 21 of civ4 buildings were 3 religious buildings in the 7 religious flavours. But even so you can't say all that much meaningful about the complexity of a game purely by the number of things in it. Nor does having more systems make the game more complicated- civ4 has a great example of a simplified mechanic (removing separate attack and defense values) leading to more complicated game (using archers and pikemen on the attack, axemen on the defense became viable). Nor does being complex mean good- else call to power 2 would be seen as the pinacle of the civ series. 

My point was that civ4 was a simpler game than civ4 BTS. But i'll take issue with claims that civ5 was a simpler game. At launch it was a worse game than civ4 (although still a solid title), but it wasn't a 'dumbed down' version of the civ series.


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## Remus Harbank (Apr 11, 2013)

after years of hesitation (and having played Civ in all its incarnations) I finally bought CIV 5 GaK over Easter. The bad news is it's crap. The AI is all over the place, the graphics look manky, the economic aspects are laughable, the 'social policies' (whatever that means) rudimentary, the religion addition half baked, the tech tree barren, the hex based warfare less intriguing than a game of UNO, the espionage system tacked on, the voiceacting fun yet repetitive and slightly buggy, the amphibious unit function hysterical, the wonder movies badly painted stills.

The good news is I won't be wasting thousands of hours on it, like I did with Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, CTP2 and CIV 4 BTS.


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## Artaxerxes (Apr 11, 2013)

Remus Harbank said:


> after years of hesitation (and having played Civ in all its incarnations) I finally bought CIV 5 GaK over Easter. The bad news is it's crap. The AI is all over the place, the graphics look manky, the economic aspects are laughable, the 'social policies' (whatever that means) rudimentary, the religion addition half baked, the tech tree barren, the hex based warfare less intriguing than a game of UNO, the espionage system tacked on, the voiceacting fun yet repetitive and slightly buggy, the amphibious unit function hysterical, the wonder movies badly painted stills.
> 
> The good news is I won't be wasting thousands of hours on it, like I did with Civ1, Civ2, Civ3, CTP2 and CIV 4 BTS.


 
Buy Alpha Centauri instead


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## The Groke (May 4, 2013)

20 Minutes of gameplay and chat for the new expansion,

Suddenly much more excited by the trade and archaeology aspects!


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## The Groke (May 4, 2013)

...and the revamped cultural victory looks much, much better.


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## Dillinger4 (May 4, 2013)

archaeology


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## The Groke (May 4, 2013)

Dillinger4 said:


> archaeology


 
I am pleased they took the easy route and made the unit look like Indiana...


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## Dillinger4 (May 4, 2013)

Just finished watching that video. Looks like there are loads of great features in this expansion!

I have been playing G&K a bit recently. It is alright but I think this is going to be great


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## Citizen66 (May 4, 2013)

When's it due for release?


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## The Groke (May 4, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> When's it due for release?


 
July 12th for non-Americans I believe.


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## Frumious B. (Jun 4, 2013)

I'm a bit of a noob. Just standard Civ5 for me, with one mod to speed up the aircraft because I got bored of waiting for the stealth bombers to do their thing. I'm slowly working out what's what and may actually win my current game at King level, which would make a change from losing at turn 380 to a civ with triple my score. Assuming I DO win, any recommendations on what to try next? Maybe I should just give it up - it takes so long on a middling laptop, and there's so much nerdy statistical stuff that I often wonder what else I could be achieving with all that brain work.


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## Citizen66 (Jun 8, 2013)

Civ V Gold Edition currently 75% off on Steam for anyone wanting to get everything so far cheaply.


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## Psychonaut (Jun 9, 2013)

Frumious B. said:


> Assuming I DO win, any recommendations on what to try next? Maybe I should just give it up - it takes so long on a middling laptop, and there's so much nerdy statistical stuff that I often wonder what else I could be achieving with all that brain work.


 
swing trading


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## The Groke (Jul 7, 2013)

So the more previews and "Let's Play's" of Brave New World I watch, the more excited I am and the more I understand quite how much _stuff_ is in this add-on.

Have pre-ordered (yes, will I never learn) and am keenly awaiting the release.


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## The Groke (Jul 12, 2013)

Well, well worth the money IMHO.

Completely revamps the game, makes the late game as relevant as the start and adds a wealth of new and interesting ways to interact with your opponents and achieve victory.

Also seems to make the AI a little more rational as well.

Recommended.


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## captainmission (Jul 14, 2013)

I've played through a couple of games now and am really enjoying it. The new trade systems great, i'm having fun curating my museums and the world congress has some nice options (shame it's controlled by pumping gold into city states though).

I am finding winning cultural victories really easy though. I have dropped down a difficult level or two - to prince and king- to try out the new features. But even so i find i'm winning before most other civs have even picked an ideology, which is a shame cos wanted everyone to defect to the workers paradise of morocco. 

Also the AI seems to have become utterly craven. My first game was 5,8000 yrs of uninterrupted peace. My second i had two wars in which i killed off the enemy forces as the try to invade my cities and before i even mounted a counter attack they surrendered ceding  a decent sized city to me.


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## Jackobi (Jul 22, 2013)

I have a Brave New World game on the go at the moment and trying to win a cultural victory. It's the standalone version so am I missing any content, or anything by not having Civ V and other expansions installed?


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## captainmission (Jul 22, 2013)

i think you just miss out on the god and kings and DLC playable civs.


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## Citizen66 (Jul 22, 2013)

Ive pre-ordered but haven't had chance to download yet. 

What are the new civs like? Any decent ones?


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## captainmission (Jul 22, 2013)

Venice is the most notable one - double trade routes, but you can't build settlers - only puppet other cities by invasion or use a great merchant to take over city states.


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## Citizen66 (Jul 22, 2013)

Can they still gain a settler from s social policy though?


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## captainmission (Jul 22, 2013)

no they get a merchant of Venice (great merchant) instead.


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## Jackobi (Jul 24, 2013)

captainmission said:


> i think you just miss out on the god and kings and DLC playable civs.


 
Thanks, I now have all expansions and DLCs, it adds a lot to the game.


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## The Groke (Jul 24, 2013)

Jackobi said:


> Thanks, I now have all expansions and DLCs, it adds a lot to the game.


 
Oh indeed - to the point where it almost feels like a full blown sequel when compared to vanilla.

I think those that previously denounced the original-flavoured Civ V (see what I did there) in comparison to Civ IV, forget just how much Warlords and By The Sword added to the base game and weren't really comparing Apples/Apples.


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## Buddy Bradley (Dec 19, 2013)

Bump.

Downloaded this a while ago and couldn't really get into it. Gave it another go tonight ... I think I must be missing something, because it's sooooo dull. Unit creation is interminably slow, so you spend so long with only 3-4 units to work with; movement is snail-like and fiddly; and none of the decisions around technologies to research or dealing with other cities you come across seem to make any difference to the game. I played for over an hour tonight and managed to destroy 2 Barbarian units. Woo, go me. 

What am I missing? I like strategy games, I played a lot of AoE 2 and Crusader Kings - what's the magic switch that makes Civ V fun to play?


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## Citizen66 (Dec 19, 2013)

Remember it's a game that you need to set up.

What level were you playing it on? If you didn't change any settings and were playing chieftan that's designed for noobs. You need to be at least prince. What world type was it? If you're stuck on some island with nobody else about it's no good. Pangea gives the best levels of aggression as everyone is fighting over the same land and resources.

Game speed is also a factor. I find anything other that 'quick' to be desperately slow in civ v although I always found the normal setting to be fine in civ iv. You can also select crazy amounts of barbarians in the options although I find the amount in the settings described above bad enough. You can also add more civs without changing the map size if you want it to become more fraught.

I think your problem is probably game speed though. Change it to quick. Some people like epic  because you're stuck with your decisions for longer but I'm the kind of guy that likes a game done and dusted in less than ten hours...


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## Citizen66 (Dec 19, 2013)

Buddy Bradley said:


> I played for over an hour tonight



That isn't really a long time though!  but change some settings.

Also don't play on a massive world as the AI decision making can slow things down too.


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## BigTom (Dec 19, 2013)

Yes to game speed being quick, normal is way too slow, I can't imagine playing on epic.

I've never much enjoyed playing any civ on a war footing, I usually play to one of the other victories (the new culture victory is much better than the old one and that's the one I enjoy most).

I'm not a typical civ player though ime  like civ 4 I never played harder than the easiest level and was just trying to find a more efficient way to victory, that was mostly cos I lost far too much time to trying to win civ 3 on Sid difficulty and not wanting to repeat it chasing that on civ4


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## Citizen66 (Dec 19, 2013)

Also build patterns.

There's a few different strategies but i usually build a scout first and send him off exploring. Then, depending on resources I'll look at researching whatever techs are needed to exploit local happiness providing stuff (luxury resources) and build either a library (get the science started) or a faith or culture building. Then I build a worker or two to exploit those techs I'm researching and then think about territory expansion - building warrior and settler combinations. There's loads to do. I have no Idea why you got bored.


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## Citizen66 (Dec 19, 2013)

Buddy Bradley said:


> Unit creation is interminably slow



Well this depends on many factors such as where you've placed your city and how you've exploited its resources. Also how many cities you have and the buildings within them. There's usually a build speed bonus for your first city (your capital) and further bonuses can be had through social policies (culture), but if you build it in the middle of a flat desert don't expect it to thrive. Hills and forests give the best production (and defensive) bonuses, but don't entirely surround your city with them or it'll hit your city's ability to grow as building farms on hills doesn't really exploit them to their potential (unless by rivers) and chopping down forests for farms means you then can't build lumber mills to exploit production bonuses. Jungle gives a science bonus with the university iirc. I like jungle tiles but again not to be surrounded by them. Tundra isn't worth a wank. Desert less so unless a hill or by a river. Oil turns up there in later game though.... Hovering your mouse should display what resources tiles yield. You can also click on a handy resource map somewhere on the bottom right of the screen. Going inside a built city will show you the resources of the local tiles. There's lots of ways to find out the information.

My strategy, if available, is to build my first city on a hill next to a river within sight of three luxury resources.  The game usually makes this an option but not always. Sometimes the hill isn't there or it makes me not get the three luxury resources. The river not being there is a massive blow though. Rivers equate to successful fast growing cities. If there's no river then build it next to a coast - but not at a cost of losing the three luxury resources.

Are you an entire noob to civ then or just civ v? There's massive depth to it compared with crusader kings really. You need to think about building your cities, where to place them strategically in terms of defence and resources and make sure they pump out enough juice to support your military but without ignoring growth or science. Faith and culture are both massively useful too but not game breaking if you ignore them. You can't really play it as a military game without first understanding the city building and resource gathering mechanics. Well you can, but you'll get buried fairly quickly. You need to be ahead of the curve.


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## Buddy Bradley (Dec 20, 2013)

Citizen66 said:


> What level were you playing it on? If you didn't change any settings and were playing chieftan that's designed for noobs.


It was the default settings - the one above total noob. Didn't change anything else.



> I think your problem is probably game speed though. Change it to quick. Some people like epic  because you're stuck with your decisions for longer but I'm the kind of guy that likes a game done and dusted in less than ten hours...


What difference does that make - does it change how many turns it takes to build units? I found that the slowest aspect of the game - dishing out moves to a few units and then doing that 6-10 times before I get another unit to slow me down even more...



Citizen66 said:


> Are you an entire noob to civ then or just civ v? There's massive depth to it compared with crusader kings really. You need to think about building your cities, where to place them strategically in terms of defence and resources and make sure they pump out enough juice to support your military but without ignoring growth or science. Faith and culture are both massively useful too but not game breaking if you ignore them. You can't really play it as a military game without first understanding the city building and resource gathering mechanics. Well you can, but you'll get buried fairly quickly. You need to be ahead of the curve.


Never played a previous Civ game, but spent years playing Age of Empires - I assumed they would be kind of similar in scope/tone/strategy.


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## Citizen66 (Dec 20, 2013)

Well AoE is real time strategy whilst civ is turn based. Settle near a hill and build a mine on it and you'll get a bonus towards production which helps speed up your production queue. But setting the game to 'quick' is probably an idea too.

You're basically complaining about a game that you haven't taken the time to learn yet.


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## ruffneck23 (Jul 11, 2014)

so , I bought this in the steam sale at xmas, for about 8 quid with all DLC in a moment of madness.

I fired it up for the first time yesterday, 12 hours later Id finished my first tiny campaign. I see what people say about losing hours to it. 

Im now playing on a standard map using the earth as a template.

Admittedly I wasn't very nice in the first game, wiping everyone out. Although i wasted loads of time not knowing knowing to steal cities properly Doh. Now i'm a peaceful bloke trying to reach the stars.

And i'm loving it although very late to the party


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## Citizen66 (Jul 11, 2014)

What difficulty are you playing it on? You wanna play prince or harder really.


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## ruffneck23 (Jul 11, 2014)

I'm not sure tbh I was more chuffed when I found out I could set the game loads of ways, tis only my second game. Don't think it's that hard so probably on easy .


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## ruffneck23 (Jul 12, 2014)

Was playing on chieften 16 hours with a science win and didn't invade anyone.

Now to try a tiny map on prince. I really cant quite believe how addicted I've got


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## Citizen66 (Jul 12, 2014)

ruffneck23 said:


> Was playing on chieften 16 hours with a science win and didn't invade anyone.
> 
> Now to try a tiny map on prince. I really cant quite believe how addicted I've got


It is addictive. Also a complete time sink which can be a good or bad thing depending on how much spare time you have. As soon as you start playing King or above you do have to start thinking about strategies a bit more. Prince is slightly easier than King but a lot tougher than Chieftan. It'll be a lot more of a challenge to win it. You need to keep a close eye on your closest neighbours as that's who you're most likely to get aggro off over land and border disputes. My early game strategy tends to ignore wonders and rush longswordmen and try to take out neighbouring cities with those and archers.


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## ruffneck23 (Jul 12, 2014)

Cool,cheers for the tips


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## Kaka Tim (Oct 30, 2015)

I thought the original Civ 5 sucked big time. But i download civ 5 complete a couple of months ago and Im still playing it a lot. I like how varied the games can be and how the which civ you choose makes a big difference. It is now a worthy successor to Civ 4. Although XCOM squad and the giant death robot are a bit silly.


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## Kaka Tim (Oct 30, 2015)

A bit of a gamey tip this - set the settings to "raging barbarians" - then pick the initial honour civic early on - this gives you a combat advantage over barbarians and - this is the best bit - you get culture each time you kill one. Build a few archers and you can roam around dispatching barbs and farming culture (and often becoming bezzie mates with city states at the same time).


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