Sleepdance

Civilization 5

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So, would anyone be interested in a screenshot filled (Links, mind you. What I have in mind would explode the page), semi-in character write up of a massive Civ 5 game?

The main rational behind this is for people that haven't decided on Civ 5 yet to get a little help. And laughing at other people being miserable failures is always fun. (I'd likely play on Immortal or the one before and die miserably.)

So, what say you?! (No throwing your ears at me, please.)

Edit For An Additional Thought: Maybe I could do it on our first MP session, even. Then it'll be 8 crazy humans, instead of a crazy human talking to himself.

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i love after-action reports. i say go for it.

and we should also set up some multiplayer games. i'd even be down if play by e-mail was in.

quick aside, i wish more 4x games would drop traditional multiplayer in favor of what i think sword of the stars did. each player is given the same challenge to play on their own and they're scored based on how well they did.

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Fun Fact: I started one tile away from the settlers of Oslo. He never built a city with his settler. I captured his workers. End of the Ottoman Empire.

Dubya tee eff?

Edit: This also occurred for Kulya Lempore, or however that's spelled.

Edited by Orvidos

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Fun Fact: I started one tile away from the settlers of Oslo. He never built a city with his settler. I captured his workers. End of the Ottoman Empire.

Dubya tee eff?

Edit: This also occurred for Kulya Lempore, or however that's spelled.

LOL it's Kuala Lumpur

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LOL it's Kuala Lumpur

Thank you. I am the fail.

So I guess I will add to my racial slight counter for the month and phrase this indelicately.

After all the goobledegook that everyone speaks (which, mind you, is really interesting to listen to, due to a little trick my brain does), it's almost a culture shock to hit England/The United States for the first time and have English pass through your brain.

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it is until you want to actually use the it. for instance, auto-explore is one of the hidden options for a scout. if i want to talk to someone or compare scores, i've got to open the diplomacy menu which can take up a good third of the play space. even switching production in a city is going to open a similarly sized menu.

i compare that to civ 4 where the interface is set in stone; anything you want to do is going to use an element that's always on screen. the civ 5 approach only adds more clicks and more clutter.

I don't want to straight up say you're wrong, because there is a subjective element to it, but from a usability stand point they're adopting best practices. You have been trained to use a complex interface, so you find the streamlined one worse.

I'm not too sure about the multiplayer chat interface though, that doesn't sound good though.

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Finished my second game, this time a sweet diplomatic victory. I chose Siam because of the city-state bonuses and I let the AI conquer some of the city-states. Then I went to the rescue and liberated them, which counts as an automatic vote in the end. I rushed the globalization tech to build the UN, I was done with the game before the 1850s.

Now I want to play as Ghandi and see if I can win a game with a single city with as much micromanagement as possible.

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You have been trained to use a complex interface, so you find the streamlined one worse.

i don't think that's the case at all. i think the problem is that civ 5's interface isn't streamlined. my understanding of streamlining a 4x interface is making information easier to find and easier to read. civ 5 does neither better than civ 4.

i've yet to find one thing that can be done in fewer clicks than civ 4. just mousing over a unit in civ 4 tells me everything i need to know about it from health to movement to combat bonuses. i've got to click each unit in civ 5 and then mouse over the little icons to get the same information and i can't do that to enemy units. i have to click a button to show a production queue and then another button to add things to the queue. it took me about five minutes to realize i had to open a tab to manage my city's tiles and it wasn't until about my third game that i realized there was another tab to manage my great people. and what happens when you have these tabs open? you've got to scroll to see the rest of your city information.

if the interface works for you that's rad. but i am completely unable to see the case for civ 5's supposed streamlining.

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I have to agree with the interface not being better. It's prettier, but not better. For example, I have no idea if there's a way to find out people's relations with each other, so I can't tell who else is at war with who.

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I think the idea behind the interface is to not overwhelm people. The information is there if you dig, and it really isn't much of a pain to go through an extra few clicks to get information.

However, I'll agree that there is some important stuff I can't find such as detailed diplomatic standings for other countries.

My biggest gripe so far is that I can't figure out how to custom name cities. A thing of mine for Civ 3 and 4 was calling my Civ "Democratic Republic of Cascadia", and naming my cities Olympia, Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, Whistler, Eugene, etc... Always loved that.

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My biggest gripe so far is that I can't figure out how to custom name cities.

Click on the city name to get to the city view. In the city view to the lower right of the name in the top centre it says edit in small letters. Click there to rename your city.

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A multiplayer game definitely needs to happen. We were also talking about this in the failed Civ IV Pitboss thread :violin:.

We need to find a day that most people are free (probably Saturday or Sunday since most people don't work/go to school) since we're looking at a game session lasting for several hours. What day is best for you guys?

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I have to agree with the interface not being better. It's prettier, but not better. For example, I have no idea if there's a way to find out people's relations with each other, so I can't tell who else is at war with who.

Eeeeee, I know this one! It's one of the drop-down menus from the little scroll to the left of the three primary world checkers. I just. . .don't remember which one.

As for times for play, I am up for whenever. I can work my paltry schedule into whatever I please.

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i don't think that's the case at all. i think the problem is that civ 5's interface isn't streamlined. my understanding of streamlining a 4x interface is making information easier to find and easier to read. civ 5 does neither better than civ 4.

i've yet to find one thing that can be done in fewer clicks than civ 4. just mousing over a unit in civ 4 tells me everything i need to know about it from health to movement to combat bonuses. i've got to click each unit in civ 5 and then mouse over the little icons to get the same information and i can't do that to enemy units. i have to click a button to show a production queue and then another button to add things to the queue. it took me about five minutes to realize i had to open a tab to manage my city's tiles and it wasn't until about my third game that i realized there was another tab to manage my great people. and what happens when you have these tabs open? you've got to scroll to see the rest of your city information.

if the interface works for you that's rad. but i am completely unable to see the case for civ 5's supposed streamlining.

Streamlining is optimizing repetitive functions by weighting them with more importance than other less common workflows. For example, a units action menu, has given priority to things like move and attack, while leaving less common actions bellow the fold. They've also created a contextual action area in the lower right, swapping in suggested actions, which not only makes the game easier to play, but easier to learn.

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I have no real opinions on the interface. Both of them work for me. (IV and V)

Also, Squid.

To the left of the three world managing buttons (Diplomacy and the other two),

open the drop-down list and open Diplomatic Overview. Inside this window, up at top, click Global Politics.

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Something I've been trying to figure out is whether there's a way to change a city's production without going into the city screen and then clicking the production button. The production frame itself is separate to the city screen so I PRESUME there's a way, but since right-click menus are gone now, I'm not sure what it is.

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There is, in the bar that has the name of the city on top of it, if you click the right part you can change production.

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To answer a previous thread question:

Yes, Bismark is the new Montezuma. All the way.

Fuck Bismark.

Edit:

A little AAR I just gave to jennoa while on the topic of leader AI personality mid-game adjustment.

So.

Alexander and Bismark get into a bit of a border war (sans actual declaration) over on the left hand side of my continent, while I'm busy mopping up Remhakahaan (gods, Indo-Asian names!) on the right. Alexander goes "Hey, want to help me murder Bismark?" I've already had three seperate offers to this effect so far. Catherine, George and the Saudi Arabian fellow (Well don't I feel racist now) have already come to me saying "Please, kill this guy."

So I check. Alexander can actually pull it off with my help, so I say "Yeah." This leads to, about 170 turns later, Alexander and Catherine being wiped out, Bismark down to two cities and me controlling most of the continent.(Mind you, I still haven't MET half the AI by this time.)

So I go after Bismark's second to last city. He comes up with a plea for peace. I take him for everything he has. Sadly, he has a giant land mass on the other side of the map So he's nice to me for about another 100 turns, and then this gigantic fleet comes sailing into the coast and begins to destroy everything.

In short, Bismark went;

- Super expansion asshole.

- Playing for time.

- Wiping the floor with my remains.

In a single game. So I'm fairly pleased with it.

Edited by Orvidos

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I finished another game, 4am again...

This time a cultural victory as Ghandi with only 3 cities at Prince difficulty. And there's actually an achievement for that...

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Finished my first game last night. I was going militaristic with the ruskies because I could get a uranium bonus later for nukes, but I got trapped on my continent(africa) and didn't have an army to invade, and somehow I built too much and drove myself into debt, and by the time I recovered, Greece was rolling all over me :(

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Ahah, the Helsinki personality is "Irrational".

You know, I'm actually not that pleased of our being reduced to a city state (esp. Helsinki, which is a relatively new city). I mean, we're the opposite really, a small population but a largish area. I would've preferred no Finland to this. It just feels off.

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I just had a thought last night while my civ was out tech-ing the other civilizations. Now that the stacks of doom are gone, I'm actually interested in playing scenarios.

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