Civilization V Solo Reports

[T-hawk]

The AIs are so ignorable in my games in large part because I design the setup that way, like how Inland Sea means few potential invasion fronts and Emperor difficulty is just below the threshold where AIs ever pose a realistic threat. Immortal is significantly less fun going up against the AI carpet of units. I've still never seriously tried a Deity game, which might be something left to do, though I've never really enjoyed super high difficulty of AI cheats. Unlike Civ 4, the AIs are too dumb to consider as credible game players. They are goombas, there to be stomped on, not to pretend any sort of equality with the human player.

I hate that selling resources + buying workers/settlers is the only right solution for the early game. A civ game where you don't build your own workers or settlers strikes me the wrong way. I hate how saving up gold and purchasing stuff is the best choice in most situations. Accumulate gold -> spend gold on stuff -> win game. I hate that so much of the strategy in Civ5 is little more than knowing how to amass as much gold as possible and then what the optimal things to spend it on happens to be.

The only part of that I mind is the stupidity of the AIs, blowing out their treasury for resources they never need. It's still kind of shocking Firaxis has never dealt with that, although maybe they figure players would riot if the freebie money got canned in a patch. But other than that, there's nothing wrong with resource acquisition and selling as part of a Civ game. Back in the days of Civ 2 and especially SMAC, the early game was about precisely cash rushing constantly, always grabbing the next little bit of snowbally advantage. I've done that before and still like solving it with Civ 5 too.

Goody huts, I hear you, SMAC was badly distorted by those too and even Civ 4 could offer a big swing on certain tech pops. But tone down the power level too much and you lose the one-more-turn compulsion to find and pop the next one. The culture huts wouldn't be interesting if they gave only 5 culture. And exploration would be much less interesting without them; always remember that the casual players and reviewers don't care so much about the underlying balance and love receiving free stuff. I guess the best solution is pretty much what Civ 4 did, strongly ramp them down with difficulty level, let the rubes on Noble pop settlers but keep the gamebreakers out of Emperor.

But at any rate, they're part of Civ 5 and I'm playing the game as it is, not how I might wish it were. Abusing them is part of optimal play. You simply can't set any speed record without a culture pop or two.

Also culture pops used to be a bad thing, because it would mess up your timing. You'd have to purposefully slow down your culture generation so that your research can keep up and you don't end up wasting a policy because the one you wanted wasn't unlocked yet.

Was that ever true in the early game? I didn't follow Civ 5 much at its launch, but I know the social policy trees were redesigned several times. Tradition and Liberty are both strong enough now that you always want to fill them ASAP.