Someone give Aldeth oxygen...(Civilization 5)

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Like I said, Civ and TW games offer completely different experiences. If you actually like controlling the battles, Civ is not for you. In fact, in Civ, the battles are purely a mathematical construct. Two idenitcal units in a setting where neither one has a terrain bonus or an attack bonus, you have exactly a 50% chance of winning the battle.

That's totally different than in TW where if you have two approximately equally matched armies facing off, you will not only win more than 50% of the time, you'll usually drive the computer AI from the battlefield and win a very clear victory. Heck, in TW games, even if you are outmatched on paper, you can usually win the day with superior tactics. I routinely win battles where the power bar favors the AI.

I also agree with Barmy that it's frustrating to play Civ on normal game speed, where by the time you have your invasion stack ready to go, they have been made obsolete by superior technology. That's why I can only play Civ on Epic game speed, where it takes 3-4 times as long to research a new technology, and each turn only takes about 1/3 or 1/4 as long in game time. Since it still takes about the same length of time to build units, you actually can build an army and use it for a while before it is surpassed by a superior unit.

The one point where I disagree is with city placement. While it's theoretically possible to put a city on any land square, you'd never build a city in the middle of a desert or in the tundra just for the sake of having a city there. Everything in Civ has upkeep costs, and the upkeep costs of cities are significant. Not only would a city built in such a location cost more to support than it would produce, it would never grow to any significant size due to food shortages.

 

That just made me think about something, what about Vegas or Dubai. There a cities in the modern day that would have shortages if they tried to solely rely on local resources.

But transportation keep them well fed and supplied. This may change if transportation costs shoot up but it means it is arguably possible, in the real world, to build desert cities.


PS It may sound dumb and is a bit off topic but why I'm I still being told I was defeated when I opted to retire early in a BtS senario after becoming the largest/highest rated nation on the map?!

 

Don't they have water supplies in desert cities? Getting food from elsewhere works but water is trickier.

Pplr if you retire from a game you forfeit that game. You have to leave the game without retiring to avoid this. To retire is just to give up on the game.

 

I've been wondering if I was and/or missing (looked for but didn't find) an objective that I needed to fulfill in order to win.

Now I know better.

To an extent this may make it more boring because I have to look for ways to pass the time/turns but, on the other hand, this may add pressure because I want to pull ___ off and may not have time to do it.... we'll see.

 

Or you could use your strategic advantage to work towards a conquest/domination/diplomatic or space victory (culture requires some planning). Winning by the score is not a very satisfying way to achieve victory. I actually turn the "time" option off (playing custom games you can pick the victory types you want or don't want) so I can keep playing if I need a few more turns and don't have to worry about the game ending in 2050 (not that most of my games get that far in the 21st century).

 

Kind of old topic to give a boost, but I thought that the people here might be interested in learning that a demo, and the system requirements have been announced.

I'm kind of disappointed about the announcement that Steam will be used as DRM. Seems like I'll have to let this one pass me by.

This video for Civ V gave me a good laugh

 

I have lost far too many years of my life to the Civilization series (all 4 of the main series, plus Call to Power, plus expansions). I really shouldn't dare to buy Civ V. I should self-ban myself.

But it hasn't worked with the previous versions so why should I expect to be able to resist this one?

 

IGN gave it a 9.0. It looks fantastic. Don't make me be the first of us to buy it. Anyone? Aldeth?

 

I need to upgrade my PC - I cannot even run it on the machine I have now...

 

Might I suggest?

http://www.sorcerers.net/forums/showthread.php?p=732749#post732749

 

The only way I could get this is if it came with a free device that stopped time. I am going to have to avoid getting it lest I get sucked into a million hours of gametime that can only be filled if give up on sleep.

 

The requirements are ridiculous. I would have to buy a new system, get through the hassle to prevent the Windows installation from destroying my Linux setup, and then reinstall everything.. again. I'll wait a few years before I play this game.

 

All I can say it's awesome. Had some problems with my 'old' 8800 GTS card, and had to lower the graphics quite a bit to the point it looked worse than IV

Other than that I'm enjoying it way more than I did IV. Hexes are great, City states are so important and I am actually finding myself saying the classic line again; just one more turn, then I'll go sleep.

 

Keep the comments coming, I am going to get it in the near future but still enjoying SC2 quite a bit.

 

I've installed the demo, it looks good but the steam thing is a bother. The one unit per tile limit is a bit of a hassle (I like huge armies in IV).

I'm not that impressed with the new features but to be honest I'm not in the mood to play games right now so that may account for it.

 

Really? WTF? Having more than one unit per tile was a feature all the way back in the origianl Civ IIRC. Does that include cities as well?

 

One unit per tile is supposed to encourage more tactical military manoeuvres.

 

And yes, that includes cities as well. But apparently they get more defensive bonuses now, and artillery can now shoot across one hex, if I'm not mistaken.

 

I for one welcome this change. In Civ 4 battles were often won and lost based on who created the biggest "stack of doom." I never thought having hundreds of units occupying the same tile was very sensible (this disdain, however, was casually set aside whenever it was time to trounce Ghengis Khan ). None of the reviewers I've read have complained about its absence.

 

Cities only get one unit but they can defend themselves. It's rather weird and HB is correct it moves the focus on a tactical level.

I like big stacks because it's epic and because I'm a Marathon Huge/Large maps player.

What DR says is correct but although numbers matters there are other relevant elements like stack composition and experience in Civ IV (mainly the fact that a stack has to be mixed to be effective, siege units matter a lot and some promotions make a huge difference -first strikes for instance).

I've had games in which Ragnar, Shaka or Ghengis Khan came at me with a very large number of units (even more when playing mods like Fall From Heaven 2) but going for the opposite and a one unit per tile limitation seems to be too much IMO. There has to be other ways to limit the overkill effect of stacks of death without resorting to such a drastic limitation.

Civ V is definitely a different game. Judging by the demo it has some great potential and some features are excellent (the implementation of civics is a nice change) but I'll be waiting to see how it evolves and how it fleshes out before getting the game (it took years for Civ IV to reach its potential).

Besides the requirements for Civ 5 are pretty steep so in the meantime I'll stick to Civ IV and mods (Fall From Heaven 2, Rise From Erebus, The History of Three Kingdoms, Sword of Islam, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization to name just a few).