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Erkki

Civ 5 Brave New World

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Didn't see a thread about this (except for the one about the episode).

 

I got really addicted to the game last week. It's the first Civilization game I've played properly (started playing IV last year but for some reason didn't get very far).

 

I'm now doing my best to not play it too much, because it's really hard to stop playing once I've started a game. "just one more turn" is really effective.

 

One thing that is bugging me is how long the games are. I have a general feeling of annoyance about games that take a lot of time lately, as I get older and have less and less time to play games. Even a Quick game with a small map (4 civs) can take an entire day. I heard "5 hours", I think in an Edge article, but I don't see how anyone would complete a game with Normal pace in 5 hours.

 

Wars in late game amplify this by playing stupidly repeating animations for things such as bomber attacks. Made me turn off the animations, but then the other battles become a bit less fun to watch. Generally, a lot of time, esp. during wars, is spent waiting for your next turn.

 

Maybe I should play on the slowest pace just that I don't get the illusion that I *could* complete a game in one or two evenings.

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For me, I kinda like that a game takes me a week or two to get through. I find myself at my job thinking "What am I going to do about Greece." then I come up with a strategy that will take centuries to pull off and play for a few hours when I get home. I like that pace and expect it from this game.

It would be interesting to see how design decisions could offer various paces though. One thing I notice is that I play a lot faster with each match. I used to look around the map a lot before I was willing to cluck "next turn". Now I kinda just trust that everything I need to do will be prompted automatically. So I play more like an executive who is just having questions shot at them and answers them in quick sucession.

The slowness of war is just one more motivation for avoiding it.

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The slowness of war is just one more motivation for avoiding it.

 

This is one of the weirder design decisions in the Civilization series because, at least in the second and third games, war is powerful to the point of complete imbalance. Its biggest disincentive is that it's a lot of clumsy busywork, but if you can stomach it, man. The highest score I ever got in Civ IV was a domination victory. I think it was 479,000 adjusted? My highest non-aggressive was 85,000 adjusted for an extremely lucky Medieval diplomatic victory.

 

There's just not enough downsides to the early elimination of one or two neighbors, although Nick was talking a few episodes back like his bellicose behavior lost a game for him recently? It almost makes me curious enough to bite.

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I want to be able to romance the leaders of the other civs. Dido is looking hot and I didn't get introduced until the 14th century so she's got an exotic appeal. I feel like she isn't willing to trade with me because she just hasn't had a chance to get to know me. I was thinking that I could invite her to the National University I've built in Seoul and see what she says. I'm not concerned about the possibility of her stealing a technology, I just want to get to know her better. I won't bring up any serious issues on our first date, like that Casmir seems to be expanding his military-might by waging an unjust war with England. I feel a little bit responsible for it because I supported his war with France when Napolean was feeding on Venice. But now Casmir is becoming a bully and I'd just like to have someone to talk to about it, someone who might understand. I wouldn't mind putting together a military-escort if she can't afford her own, not that I'm saying she can't, I just don't know (she hasn't even accepted my embassy). I can't imagine that Venice would attack her envoy as she passed by, but in this world of politics, one must take precautions.

Even if things didn't work out, I'd be cool with it. I might say something wrong

or she might just not enjoy Korea. I would understand if I saw "Had a terrible time on your date" in red whenever I moused over her "neutral" status. But who knows, I'm not expecting a defensive pact or anything, just a chance at... I don't know, maybe a declaration of friendship?

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I am having so much fun in my game. I think that I finally have a handle on how to manage my relationships with the other civs and it adds the coolest layer to the game.

I've been bribing Germany, France, and Poland to go to war with each other for the entire match. England and Persia create good buffers between these three military power-houses. I've been maintaining good relationships with everyone through trade and friendships and timely denounciations. When Poland won it's war with France, I bribed Germany to attack Poland. When Poland and Germany reached a peace-agreement, Poland asked if I wanted to go to war with Persia with them. I was like "First of all, don't do that. Second, that would make you as asshole."

I tried to create a defensive-pact with Persia before Poland declared war, but no dice. So I bribed Napolean to start a war with Poland, oddly, they agreed to it. So that bought me some time (which I needed because Germany had a 10 turn peace-treaty and I needed them to attack Poland during this war with France.

Then, in one turn, Persia, England, and Germany asked me to join them in declaring war with Poland. Everytime of them popped up on the discuss-screen I shouted "Yes!" it was awesome. In ten turns I need to build an army that can take back polish-controlled London. Casmir III is going to get nerfed. This game is so much fun.

Is there a way to support a rebellion or revolt or whatever in an occupied city?

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I need to play it more before commenting, but I came to say that I bought the physical copy of this since it was a tenner cheaper than steam and it came with a huge poster size tech tree and policy tree. Awesome. I had forgotten things like that existed!

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I'm playing on a Pangea that is basically divided into two hemispheres by a huge series of mountain ranges that are really only passable via the far north and south of the continent. I dominated the western side by conquering the every civ except Korea, who are my bros and who help buffer against the Roman juggernaut which is slowly taking over the east. Caesar is just generally being an asshole, so I've been looking for reasons to go to war with him. Problem is, to get to him I have to bribe the city states in the hilly passes or take the long way through Korea. So when Caesar declared war on Korea I jumped at the opportunity to kill some Romans. At first I was just going to help Sejong defend, but then I got a little bit ambitious and thought that while Caesar is busy duking it out with Sejong, I'd snake my troops through the mountains and come up behind him, where I could liberate the poorly defended former Aztec lands. So I built up a large group of state-of-the art troops (musketmen and lancers) and started snaking my way through Cape Town. I didn't have enough money to bribe them, and they had no pertinent quest, so needless to say, they weren't pleased with my massive train of military units passing through their territory uninvited. It was fun to watch their impotent rage as they looked on helplessly as I used them as a welcome mat into Rome's back door. However, it turns out I probably should have my plan out more thouroughly, because after 50+ years of marching through the mountains my formerly state-of-the-art army wasn't looking quite so shiny. Also, Rome seemed to have gotten wise to my plan, because by the time I got to Tlatelolco, Caesar had stacked tiles full of riflemen and gattling gunners. My troops must not have liked the looks of that, because they decided  they'd rather spend 50 more years in the mountains than get mowed down in the trenches. I like to think that the leaders of Cape Town were just starting to re-gain their cool, thinking they'd gotten rid of me when the massive troop-train re-entered their borders going the other way.

 

I haven't forgotten about the War of Aztec Liberation. My next plan is to plant a city in the uninhabited desert to just south of Cape Town, and then try out this new airlift feature... this isn't over, you Roman bastard!

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Air-lift? I just got triplanes and bombers. This is my first match with Brave New World. Do I get to look forward to air-lifts? What's it do?

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This is actually my first BNW game too, but apparently once you research radar, you can build airports which allow you to move troops instantly between cities. I haven't actually tried it yet, so I'm not totally sure how it works.

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Playing as Venice. I'm loving the world congress, mostly since I control it. The two remaining superpowers just declared war in me however so I might be in trouble. Eep.

The congress ass much intrigue. I'm going to start a game on a larger map next to see how having more vying powers heats things up.

Edit: any tips on the victory type I should be looking at with Venice? I'm an economic powerhouse but I'm not sure how to leverage that properly.

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I love the World Congress. I don't have much control over it, but just seeing what proposals the other civs want, gives them so much more character to me. Watching Poland try to establish Hinduism as a world religion after we all decided to embargo Poland was so awkward and pitiful looking. Watching the most powerful military propose something so self-indulgent, and then seeing that they were the only ones who voted for it, really affected how I view them.

I haven't had all that much experience with it yet, but I haven't seen any interesting vote trading going on. Maybe it is happening and I don't realize it, but thus far, everyone's vote for host of the World Congress has been for themselves. When it's near equal, I decide the winner by just voting for someone besides myself. I want to see civs vote for someone who can win, but likely will propose things in their interest. It could be measured with similarities in luxury resources, ideologies, religion, science, culture, military, number of city-state alliances, friendships, denouncements, and overall score.

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I proposed the religion I founded as world religion and then immediately aggressively converted my neighbour Rome to my side. Our combined votes passed it but it sure did piss off England and Japan. Whoot.

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Pro-tip:

If Poland is bombing your troops with 16 planes stationed at one city, go into the options menu and turn on "quick combat (singleplayer)".

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I can't believe they haven't fixed the bomber speed yet. At first it was comically annoying but it quickly becomes annoying-annoying.

 

You can try this mod:

 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=83056827

 

Not sure if it works with BNW though.

 

 

I love the World Congress. I don't have much control over it, but just seeing what proposals the other civs want, gives them so much more character to me. Watching Poland try to establish Hinduism as a world religion after we all decided to embargo Poland was so awkward and pitiful looking. Watching the most powerful military propose something so self-indulgent, and then seeing that they were the only ones who voted for it, really affected how I view them.
I haven't had all that much experience with it yet, but I haven't seen any interesting vote trading going on. Maybe it is happening and I don't realize it, but thus far, everyone's vote for host of the World Congress has been for themselves. When it's near equal, I decide the winner by just voting for someone besides myself. I want to see civs vote for someone who can win, but likely will propose things in their interest. It could be measured with similarities in luxury resources, ideologies, religion, science, culture, military, number of city-state alliances, friendships, denouncements, and overall score.

 

You totally hit the nail on the head about the world congress. It gives the other leaders so much more personality and makes them a lot more fun to hate/be friends with. The idealogy system is a ton of fun in that regard also. Caeser is trying to create an autocratic world-empire in my game. So I'm trying to band together a freedom loving alliance by liberating his conquered cities. Hopefully I'll gain enough friends to embargo him at the next WC.

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Yeah I found out it just ends trade routes, but they can still sell their luxuries. It might be better to try to get one of their luxuries banned instead.

 

So maybe you guys already knew this, but I just figured it out. When the world congress is about to vote, if you have diplomats in a civ's capital, you can use the trade screen to try to get them to vote for a specific proposal by bribing them with gold or luxuries or whatever. It's pretty helpful, and I think that's how you're supposed to become the WC host if you're not the leader in raw delegates.

 

I'm wondering why everyone suddenly hates me. I had kind of a weird situation going on where a city in the middle of Rome's empire decided to join my civ, but I didn't really want to deal with it. So I made it a puppet and then immediately sold it to Babylon. I don't know if that was the reason though. I even retook one of Korea's cities from Rome and liberated it, and a few turns later Sejong is denouncing me even though we've been friends since the Classical era. I thought I was a nice guy!

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I wonder how to attract diplomats to my capital so I can sell my votes.

Was Rome super unhappy? Was the city in the middle of Rome's empire wanting to join you a result of the rebellion mechanic? Details, give us the hawt stuff. I want to know how it happened. Dish!

Edit: also, just to make sure you know, you can mouse over the "guarded/neutral/friendly" statuses to see why other civs like or dislike you.

Second edit: I found this page that explains how ideologies, tourism, and happiness can create the dissenting cities that want to join (or leave) your ideology.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Ideology_

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I've been building up a huge amount of tourism via great works for most of the game now, but I didn't even realize this expansion had added culture flipping until it happened. There wasn't really any warning, I just got confronted with the annex/puppet/raze screen as if I had conquered a city. I soon realized what had happened though, and I knew that I didn't want to deal with the -12 happiness with which the city had burdened me. This was coupled with the fact that I was at war with Rome and knew I couldn't defend the city, so while I was touched that the good Roman citizens thought so highly of Brazilian Freedom, I knew I'd have to get rid of them fast. So basically I went around peddling Antium to the highest bidder, which turned out to be Hammurabi. He must have thought it was a great deal, but my ambassador was totally snickering to himself on the way back. "Have fun with that one, buddy!". I imagine the Atiumites wouldn't be too pleased if they realized I sold their city for less than the cost of a worker.

 

While this was going on, I liberated the Korean city which Rome had taken from Sejong as part of their peace terms. It was on my border, so I wasn't solely with Sejong's well-being in mind that I handed it back to him. After all that I was finally able to sue for peace for favorable terms.

 

Around this time Korea adopted Order, so that might explain why they denounced me. Maybe their denunciation pushed the rest of the world over the edge, and that's why I was denounced by everyone else.

 

Either way, Brazil has a reputation to restore. Hopefully I can convince Sejong to adopt Freedom. Korea was my buddy, and they were also a good buffer against the rest of the world becoming envious of my territory.

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First victory as Venice, but it was on the middle difficulty. The world congress was great, but it found it too easy to dominate on this difficulty so i ended up just picking random luxuries to embargo after everything i wanted was passed.

One thing i loved was that the whole world dynamic shifted as resolutions and ideologies slowly got introduced. Early on I was allied with the Huns and Japan, with Indonesia and England snapping at my diplomats. Later, Japan and The Huns went for autorocacy, while Indonesia and I both ended up picking freedom and my resolutions started to aligns other his wishes. Just in time for me to get double tourism bonus and crush his puny artists in fact. Whoot.

But we were friends when the victory screen rolled in.

Unexpectedly flipped two cities as well.

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Well, that was an epic game. I feel pretty successful even though I didn't win.
One thing that kinda bummed me out was that I couldn't finish my spaceship after a winner was declared. That was quite a blow to national pride. I love Civ 5, I wonder how long I should wait before starting another game, that one took me a while. Go KOREA! FIGHTING!

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So within a month of finishing that Korea game last September, I started a new one as Austria. I didn't make it very far in, I met about five or so of the other civs, founded five cities and lost one to the Aztecs. The Aztecs took that city so fast and with so many troops, it was bad times. But after Montezuma captured it and razed it, I was able to bribe for peace and I tried to go back to life as normal. Rob Zacny sometimes mentions how once he is disabled in Civ, he isn't motivated enough to continue. I was convinced that I didn't care about winning, but when the Ottomans sent settlers into the area that my surviving cities surrounded, and once we entered a war when I murdered those settlers, I just couldn't continue. Everyone seemed so much stronger than me. My biggest accomplishment was a religion based on quarries. I lost interest in the game.

Yesterday, I loaded the save and role-played as someone who had just now inherited the Austrian throne. The war with the Ottomans was over (I guess I must have played at least one session inbetween that time) and I was able to see the ability rather than the disability of the scenario.

I asked around for friends and became friends with Spain (who is in the other side of the world) and Russia (my northern neighbor, there was a huge jungle buffering us). Like I said, the best thing I had going for me was my religion, so I started building shrines and temples in all my cities. Then the Great Miracle happened. I build some world-wonder that gave me three missionaries and (possibly another wonder soon after?) that made it so all missionaries coming from my capital could proselytize three times instead of just once. I got kinda excited and started getting a little bit preachy.

I quickly covered the western hesmisphere with my faith. I don't even think they have that many quarries, but let's face it; this is the one true faith. The only thing they had heard about over there was Zorastrianism. I searched for its holy city and found none. I assume that the heathens were worshipping a dead religion that was based somewhere that Montezuma probably captured and razed. Something neat happened during the evangelization in the West, a great prophet of the quarry religion was capture by barbarians. I had to negotiate open-borders with two other civs to get my strike force over there to free him. It was an ordeal. As it was happening, I liked to imagine already-bearded guy getting a longer beard praying to a stone in the camp saying "Things are hard right now, but like with the quarries, great things come from hard things." We freed him and immediately spread as much faith in that region as is possible. To this day, that half of the world worships the quarry so hard that if I wanted to change my own religion, I couldn't dueto the amount of religious pressure over there.

So at this point in the game, I'm just negotiating as many defensive-pacts as. I can and only one small skirmish broke out. I was able to focus on religion. I see that Islam is the big deal to the East so I start sending my missionaries to the Ottoman Empire on a regular basis. But it's a losing battle because Egyptian Islam's holy-city is (like) 8 tiles away from the Ottomans. This is where things got interesting.

Austria's ability is that it can annex city-states for 500-600 gold if they've been allies for five turns. My empire is bordered on the east by three city-states lined up along the southern coast of a world-wide landmass. The last of those three cities is Bratislava which is about 6 tiles away from the Ottaman's southern-most city. My plan was this:

-annex Bratislava

-missionary the shit out of Bratislava

-change all of the orgin cities of my four caravans to Bratislava.

-make sure no one starts worshipping any false idols in Bratislava by keeping an inquisitor stationed there at all times (using them when necessary)

Now all of my trade-route decisions are motivated by faith. I've completely converted the Ottomans (my religion's pressure is higher in all their cities) and I'm starting to influence Egypt's eastern neighbors. It's pretty awesome.

This has made Bratislava the absolute focal point of the game. It's a city connected to my empire only by harbors, inbetween me, Russia, the Ottomans, the Egyptians, and the Shoshone. It has all of my caravans going through it and probably a few from other empires. The Ottomans are constantly flexing like they are going to take it, but the Egyptians want it just as much. I've filled it with troops and all of my defense-pacts are based on what is in Bratislava's best interest. I have one diplomat in Egypt and on in the Ottoman Empire, just so that I can spread their nefarious plans to the other civs and in some cases to each other.

I just love this game so much. It's so different than my other play-throughs. I never imagined that a city-state that I annexed through diplomatic marriage in order to spread my quarry religion would become the focal point of 3/4 of the world's diplomatic decisions. It's so cool.

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Now all of my trade-route decisions are motivated by faith. I've completely converted the Ottomans (my religion's pressure is higher in all their cities) and I'm starting to influence Egypt's eastern neighbors. It's pretty awesome.

This has made Bratislava the absolute focal point of the game. It's a city connected to my empire only by harbors, inbetween me, Russia, the Ottomans, the Egyptians, and the Shoshone. It has all of my caravans going through it and probably a few from other empires. The Ottomans are constantly flexing like they are going to take it, but the Egyptians want it just as much. I've filled it with troops and all of my defense-pacts are based on what is in Bratislava's best interest. I have one diplomat in Egypt and on in the Ottoman Empire, just so that I can spread their nefarious plans to the other civs and in some cases to each other.

I just love this game so much. It's so different than my other play-throughs. I never imagined that a city-state that I annexed through diplomatic marriage in order to spread my quarry religion would become the focal point of 3/4 of the world's diplomatic decisions. It's so cool.

 

That's really fascinating, clyde. In all the games I've played, I've never found religion profitable enough to proselytize beyond my own cities and allied city-states. It's great that you found a reason to push it anyway. Are you finding any payoffs beyond the emergent narrative?

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A big part of it is that I don't know how the other civ's personalities are programmed and I'm filling in the blanks. Thus far, no one with a quarry-religion majority has started a war with me. I don't know how much of that is because of the religion's influence, how much is due to me acting like those with the quarry-religion are more likely to be friends, and how much is just random luck. The thing is that even if religion is a very small amount of influence on the alliances, my ignorance and assumptions about the game's mechanics are allowing me to make decisions which end up strengthening alliances with those of similar religion anyway (through more flexibility in what I'm willing to give them in trade and such). How appropriate, that religion in Civ 5 only works of you have faith in it.

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I've been playing the game very peaceably; so when the Inca (who have only attacked the Aztecs at the beginning of the match (they deserved it) amassed two rows of modern troops at my borders, and when my spies informed me that they were preparing to attack Vienna, I was confused. Sure I have blocked their access to most of the other Civs with my closed borders, but maybe they should give me a fair deal on luxuy goods once in a while, maybe they shouldn't have started their own religion. But war? C'mon. I'm the best thing these Civs have going for them. If it wasn't for my obsession with defensive-pacts, they would all be at each other's throats the entire game. Spain and the Shoshone would be wiped off the map! I've kept the peace and constantly propped up the smaller nations with sweet deals, caravans, and a religion that rocks.

When I saw the signs of needless violence on my western border, I checked to make sure I had as many defensive pacts as possible. I think Russia's had slipped. We did the paperwork and got that cleared up. I hit "Next Turn" and Russia denounced the Inca. That was cool of them. I didn't ask them to do that. I figured I should do it too; solidarity. The nation of Austria DENOUNCES the Inca.

Then something special happened. Spain denounced the Inca; the Shoshone denounced the Inca; the Celts denounced the Inca. I haven't felt this way from NPC's interaction since the goodbyes at the end of Dragon Age:Origins. It actually made me feel a tinge of being appreciated.

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I'm finishing up this war of aggression instigated by the Inca. I'm pillaging every luxury-resource they have in order to make their poultaion unhappy. By doing so, I will recieve a tourism-bonus which hopefully will eventually get them to wear my blue-jeans and listen to my rock-music.I came across this documentary in which dispossessed aboriginies adopt  American heavy-metal bands to express tribal idenitities; it and my Civ 5 culture-win plans are informing each other.

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