[SPOILERS] HAK tries Civ5 for the first time before it becomes obsolete

[T-hawk]

The F4 diplomacy screen has a tab that shows current deals. I assume it should still work in MP.

Also one of the info panels in the upper-left area of the main screen (where it most usually shows your current research) has something that lists your resources and imports/exports.

[HitAnyKey]

So I'm likely going to move in and attack Nic either next turn or the turn after.  I have a mechanics question since this is like one of the first times I've done war type stuff in this version of the game.



Where exactly does my catapult need to be in order to reach that city past that forest and hills that are around it.  Do I need to have it right next to the forest tile there?  Or can it be on the Cattle or the hill that my Sword is currently on?  I have a lot of ranged units closing in from that direction and I need to understand where I can put them such that they can either reach the composite bowman on his Iron hill tile or reach the city itself.
I'm sure he is fully aware I'm going to attack him.  I have too many units visible next to those borders for him to not know.  His borders extending all the way to those Truffles (that he just finished improving) certainly has proved to be a difficulty in moving units around.  Later I'll try to make note of where I'll move each unit, if I have time before the turn comes back.

[T-hawk]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking without more of a visual map, but here's some answers: the catapult definitely can't shoot Adwa from the cattle or the hill your sword is on because that's three tiles away and cats have a range of 2.

The cat also can't shoot Adwa from any of the following tiles because there are hills/forest in the way: SW-SW from Adwa, SW-SE, SE-SE, E-SE (west of the truffles), E-E.

[HitAnyKey]

Damn, yeah that's what I was asking. So I screwed up. None of my units I have in that area (archers or catapult) can hit the city. So now I need to spend time sending them to the NE side of the city to attack from there. But I suppose I'll need to do the DOW before then since it'll just be easier to send them straight through his territory to those spots. Otherwise it'll take way too many turns to bring the units back around through my own borders. And I'm sure he already knows the attack is coming.

[HitAnyKey]

So the turn before I moved in on Nicolai, yuri also declared war on him.  So that worked out well.  But everything else, not so much.
The terrain around that city just sucks for me.  First I didn't realize about the fact that my catapults and archers can't attack the city from the south or southeast (because of the forests and hills).  Then there's the matter that the whole north outside of his borders is mostly marsh, which also limits movement (which I didn't fully realize until it was too late).
So last turn I had moved one of my catapults onto the hill next to his city, which he in turn bombarded with the city and killed.  I kind of expected that, and I'm ok with him targeting that with the city instead of one of my other units.  He also killed my southern wounded Slinger with one of his Bowman.



I then moved all sorts of stuff closer to his city again this turn, and nearly killed (but sadly didn't) his northern Bowman and wounded his southern one.  



I'm expecting him to use his southern bowman & chariot archer to kill one of my swords.  If he uses one of them to kill that wounded Slinger, I'll actually be happy with him wasting the turn to do so.  If he doesn't, I'll use my slinger to retaliate.  I did use my western Sword to pillage his Iron, which also healed it the rest of the way since it had apparently gotten wounded by something.  The pillaging also nicely gave me 25 gold, which will help offset the deficit I'm in right now.
I'm also hoping he uses his city to kill my next catapult, which will allow my other units to do stuff.  I'm also hoping he uses his near dead bowman to kill my other near dead Slinger rather than use it to wound something else.  But if he doesn't, then my Slinger will help hit the city and when he dies my other Bowman will move in to take his place.

Cusco is finishing a 3rd Sword this turn, and Machu is 4 turns from a Pikeman with Tiwanaku being 5 turns from a Pikeman.
If I can take this city, my plan is to raze it so I can build a new city on the tile 1W of the Truffles.

I also finish my next Incense plantation as of the end of this turn, so I'll then accept the trade request I've been sitting on from yuri.  He was offering me something (I forget what) that I didn't have for one of my Incense, but I didn't have any extra.  But now I'll accept it.
I'm also finishing that mine near Cuzco, so that'll give the city another point of production.

Hopefully yuri is keeping his busy enough in the north such that he doesn't have much else in the way of reinforcements coming my way.  I fell to 3rd in Power, so I'm hoping it's yuri who is ahead of me and not Nicolai.

[HitAnyKey]

So I haven't posted in awhile because things have gotten a little stressful and crazy IRL so other than playing the turns I haven't really been spending much time on the game, but suffice to say nothing went well. I exchanged a bunch of units back and forth with Nic, and was not able to even come close to trying to take the city. I've pulled back mostly while I regroup and rethink, but basically don't know what I'm going to do. And honestly, I don't really care so much at the moment. I had some fun trying to figure out the military mechanics for this version of the game, and supremely messing myself up by not knowing certain aspects. So I'll just keep making military, and I'm sending my settler to settle that open land to my NE simply so I can have another city to make units with. But other than that, no clue.
Oh, the one fun thing I did was use my Great General to build a Citadel in the near-middle of the area between us such that it gave me control of the Truffles that he had improved. But that's about the extent of my successes.

[HitAnyKey]

I'm ready to concede this game as I'm no longer having any fun at all with it. After my failed attempt at attacking Nic, I pulled back and regrouped and then decided I might have a little bit of fun trying to take that city state of Milan in the south. But that has gone even worse than when I attacked Nic because he sent his bazillion Crossbows down to attack me while I surrounded the Milan city. I've dropped from #1 to #3 in Power in just the past couple turns:



I bombarded the city again this turn and pulled back one of my heavily wounded Crossbows, but my lone pikeman in the area still has it being a Costly Attack against the city. I'm sure he'll end up being dead in a few turns too. Plus Nic is now sending Crossbows towards my borders, for which I have no defense for. I did this attack mostly out of boredom, so it's not a huge deal.



I've decided I just don't like or understand combat in this new version of Civ. It doesn't help that I just haven't had the desire to even put any time into thinking about this game or learning this version of Civ either. I also don't understand how any Civ can ever not be negative on economy. I've put off building just about every building, because they all have maintenance which will make me go negative even faster. I built one Marketplace, but it didn't really seem to help a whole lot. I still have like no Barracks and no Libraries and such...all things I would have previously already had built by now. And I don't see how I could have been able to build them and not go broke.

In either case, next month my wife & I will be on a trip to Israel from the 18th through 28th. So even if the others decide to keep the game going, it'll have to be on hold during that time unless someone else is willing to take it over (or I switch it over to AI during that time). I'll post about this in main thread either later today or tomorrow or something. Just figured I'd post here first.

Maybe I'll try some SP of this game one of these years (so as not to completely waste the fact that my wife bought it for me for Xmas a couple years ago), but right now I'm more focused on playing Mass Effect 1 (and then 2 and 3) since she nudged me to play those while she waits for Andromeda to come out (which we already have pre-ordered for her )

[T-hawk]

Yeah, economy is kind of a mess in Civ 5 BNW. You're supposed to use gold caravans, but they just don't produce enough. Road city connections are essential but that generally just goes from disaster to still-negative. Trading posts are terrible until the boosts from Economics tech and a Golden Age, and then still mediocre. In single-player games you sell resources to the AIs for cash. The Monarchy social policy is actually one of the bigger gold sources available.

[chumchu]

Generally the gold maintenance is not that high in Civ V but in MP with larger armies and no AI to trade with you have to come up with some solution to pay for maintence. The easy ones are religion, always working your luxury tiles and policies and wonders like monarchy, theocracy, wagon trains or Macchu Picchu. If that does not suffice you may have to devote more resources to the problem by specializing a city with many luxuries by giving it a market, trading posts and an external trade route. This usually solves it but that city will not be as productive as the rest of your empire so it is a big trade-off.