Jeitinho Brasileiro! - Ichabod's Civ5 PBEM4 Spoiler Thread

[Ichabod]

If you remember the ancient history of this game, you know I spent some 4/5 turns walking my settler before settling. Why? Well, here's the picture of my starting land. It may seem stupid looking at it, it's not a bad Capital, right? Well, the only resources I could see with my intial scouting was the 2 wines and tundar furs. Well, no 3 yield tile to start feels really, really weak, so I went walking. Of course, I missed the 2 cows, which would make my Capital somewhat decent...

I ended up with this Capital.




River, wheat and hills are good. No happy resources is crippling to the point of unplayability... But, what could I do? There was only one decent spot in my vicinity, and my settler missed it. It ended up being my 2nd city:




Two happies, but no river... For this map, it's very strong, believe me.

I settled 3 more cities:




This one was on top of a Citrus resource, which makes the icon disappear.




This one was on top of a incense resource, again making the icon disappear.




This one was for the salt resource, but Yuris captured it and resettled it. I'm about to take it for me once again, getting my revenge. I'm not sure if I'll raze his city and replant or keep it...

Why do I have a spare settler? Well, I was thinking of settling a new city, but there's simply no place to do it. The only happy resource left is this one:




But I have no gold to buy a WB, so I'd eat up like 20 turns of unhappiness before being able to improve it... So, why build a city at all? There's really no point...




This terrain is pretty good, right? Well, I can't settle it, because there's no happy. It may seem I'm exhagerating, but I'm only surviving the happiness problems because I caught a break and finished Notre Dame, which gives +10 happiness. Otherwise, I couldn't even grow my 5 cities.

I actually have 2 CS alliances. But, since I allied them from the random quests influence (which I actively pursued going after barbs and wonders), I couln't really choose them. And I ended up allied with a CS that has incense and one that has furs, which are resources I already have. Well, Civ 5 randomness at its best... Because buying CSs is impossible in BNW -> You have no gold, because TRs suck and you need to spend all your gold in happiness buildings. For a long time, TRs actually gave something like 2/3 gold tops... That's just bad, bad, bad design...

A lot of this is because I went liberty, just to see how it compares to Tradition. Well, it really doesn't. You need the free buildings + gold from Tradition. And this map (well, Civ 5 maps as a whole) makes expanding impossible, due to scarce happy resources, so Liberty just sucks compared to Tradition. There's no way to play around a bad map on Civ 5 -> you just roll over and die, that's it.




My Capital. I got screwed in GP generation because liberty finisher counts as a spawned GP for GPP cost. Yes, I should have thought about it, but forgot. It's stupid, though, very stupid. One GEng rushed NC, the other was settled for a Manufactory.




These demos don't matter -> I can't grow, my happiness will end. Yuris was leading the game by far, according to the demos, but I coordinated a dogpile with Azza, which hopefully will end up in the capture of Yaroslav and bring him back to the pack a bit. Azza signed peace this turn, but I think I can take the city from Yuris and hold my ground against his main army, helped by my newly spawned GG.

Now, Rowain is perhaps in a leading position. Well, if I can sign peace with Yuris, my plan is to attack him. The frustrating thing is that I won't have any gain by doing it. We share much of the happy resources and the happy hit will be unbearable... Yes, your hands are always tied in Civ 5. There's simply no way to go from here: I can't grow, I can't attack anyone...

I'm hoping my spies can steal techs to get me from my tech deficit (I'm beelining military techs and going for the espionage economy). Espionage is actually worse than Civ 4. I'm actually going to get a bunch of free tech with no investment whatsoever. I haven't even reached the renaissance era for spies, I just get them because Rowain/Yuris reached it...




Carthage. If I capture this city, i'll likely end up with 15 unhapiness... And then what?

Well, that's Civ 5 PBEM 4 for you. I'm having fun with this game, don't get me wrong, but there's just nothing to do in it...

[Dreylin]

Well, that's Civ 5 PBEM 4 for you. I'm having fun with this game, don't get me wrong, but there's just nothing to do in it...

Fixed that for you.

[wetbandit]

It's a weird game; I see some skilled players play quick speed games over eight hours or so on twitch and it seems entertaining to play (aside from first-to-clickfests). I don't know that it lends itself to PBEM and other formats.

[Meiz]

Looks painful. I guess you don't have any trade opportunities with Azza?

[Ichabod]

Looks painful. I guess you don't have any trade opportunities with Azza?

I'm actually trading wine for cotton and incense + fur (UI says I have 1 of each, but I get second copies from CSs) for dyes with Azza (I'm giving him a 2 for 1 because the UI showed that he only had one dye connected - perhaps he has a second source from a CS, which stupidly doesn't show in the UI). Also, wine for gems with Rowain. Yuris refused every cooperation with me, even after he attacked me and we signed peace (I kept trying).

Here's another complain, since I'm the one initiating all the deals, the deals always end on the interturn of my turns, which makes me lose a turn of the benefits of the deal unavoidably. Same thing with TRs...

It may sound like I'm complaining because I can't win the game, but it's not that. I'm actually frustrated because I feel this game could be really, really fun, if it only let me do things I want to do. I planned a dogpile in Yuris, Azza backed off and let me alone, I took Yuris a peg down and Rowain got the lead, that's all nice. Now I want to attack Rowain and I wonder if Yuris will ever get off my foot after this attack. That's all the ingredients for a great game. But it's all moot because there's no happiness... If Rowain and the CSs had different happy resources from mine, this game could be great. But since that's not the case, the bad game design owns me and I can't do anything.

So, in the end, Civ 5 is filled with stupid "why no one patched this yet" bugs (the citizen that gets automated, repairing enemy improvements, UI not showing happy resources from CSs), frustrating mechanics (the way the game handles end of turn, the way deals end, the fact you can only make one diplomatic offer per turn) and bad design on key parts of the game (the game is incredibly map dependent, due to water and happiness, even though most yields are always the same; expanding is bad). Couple that with the fact that Civ 5 Map Editor is impossible to understand and you have a game that seems to actively pursue the end of MP gameplay.

There are a lot of things that work in this game (combat, for one, I find very interesting), but the game does its best to not let you enjoy them.

[Ichabod]

It's a weird game; I see some skilled players play quick speed games over eight hours or so on twitch and it seems entertaining to play (aside from first-to-clickfests). I don't know that it lends itself to PBEM and other formats.

I bet these games play a lot like Starcraft (at least what I think starcraft is). The openings are always the same, just a preparation for a military showdown. Actually, those can be fun, but it's not exactly what I'd call a 4X game, more like a RTS (first-to-clickfests make the analogy even more accurate, I guess).

Do they play duels only or are there some FFAs?

[wetbandit]

The prime format that people stream is a 6 person ffa. Someone even made a balance mod that changed much of the policies which makes the game better (i.e. encouraging expansion by making happiness easier to obtain, tradition not the One Right Choice) imo. I don't think it plays like starcraft, or how I remember playing starcraft, but there are a lot of things to do in a 60-90 second window that can make the game fast paced.

[Ichabod]

I captured the city, with a granary + workshop + library inside. It also already has my religion (it had 1 follower for 5 citizens, but the pop went down to 2 and it auto converted). So, I decided to keep it. Went down to 1 happy, but salt is about to come online. I also have the Grand Circus left to build.



1 health left! Yuris targetted my healthy horseman and killed it in the interturn, instead of my redlined composite bowman. But I had moved another horseman near the city last turn, to be sure I could take it. I lost a spearman, a catapult and a horseman in this war. I killed 4 composite bowmen, I tihnk, plus some garbage scouts and warriors. I sent a peace offer, Yuris probably won't accept. Well, I'm fielding crossbows to defend, so I don't think he can do me much harm.



Azza is trying to kill and steal the CS quest from that camp. I don't think he can do it, except if he has a promotion. Not sure if the barbs move before him or after, too... Well, there's nothing I can do. I can't declare war on him, because I'd be owned by the unhappiness.



Machu Pichu finally solved my gold problems. I only managed to get it because of the mountain requirement. I'm way behind in tech to get first to bonuses...



I'm almost finishing gunpowder, but I decided to wait to buy another missionary. I have the +20 influence from CSs SP and the religious tenet that gives +15 influence for CSs with my religion. So, I'm friends with all CSs that follow my religion. I want to buy more missionaries (at least one more) before going to Renaissance era, so I'll get optics (for exploration) and theology (so I can steal education from Rowain) before finishing gunpowder (I'll steal education from Rowain). After that, likely chemistry and an attack on Rowain/Yuris...

I should probably have gone for Printing Press instead of gunpowder, to allow more happiness (zoos) and try to fix my bad economy/science. But I screwed up... Well, now I'm commited to the attack on Rowain. I think he'll keep going for the goodies in the tech tree (he entered renaissance through Acoustics, not really sure why), so perhaps cannons + muskets + crossbows can catch him offguard. It significantly easier to capture cities from human players than the AI, since they never build walls...

We'll see... At least I avenged my captured city.

[Ichabod]

The prime format that people stream is a 6 person ffa. Someone even made a balance mod that changed much of the policies which makes the game better (i.e. encouraging expansion by making happiness easier to obtain, tradition not the One Right Choice) imo. I don't think it plays like starcraft, or how I remember playing starcraft, but there are a lot of things to do in a 60-90 second window that can make the game fast paced.

It sounds pretty fun, actually. A pity there's the fast-click in combat thing going on. Otherwise, I'd actually try to set something up, if it's possible to play such a game in more than one session.

[Meiz]

Btw. thanks for the updates, makes following the game "slightly" more interesting I hope you keep it up, especially for the war turns.

Well, now I'm commited to the attack on Rowain. I think he'll keep going for the goodies in the tech tree (he entered renaissance through Acoustics, not really sure why)

I'd guess he wanted to get a quick start on Rationalism, and Acoustics is often the easiest route to get there.

Do you have any scientists coming up for some quick bulbing towards more advanced military units?
Edit: Oh yeah, kind of hard to get scientists before education