Serdoa and Civ 5 - a love/hate story in 0 acts

[Serdoa]

First post nonsense... oh wait, thats not necessary any longer.

[TheHumanHydra]

So ... tell us about your Civ V experience!

[Serdoa]

Checked my steam-profile and it states a playtime of a whooping 47 hours. Not sure if thats correct, I did play a vanilla-game to completion (spaceship) if I remember correctly, but that figure sure is in the right ballpark. So my experience is kinda non-existent. And I have even less when it comes to the expansion. Played it once till I got spies and was already bored at that point, so never really look what one can do with them.

Now, that sounds bad going into this game, but I imagine that much of the SP-knowledge isn't carrying over very well into MP anyway. You can't simply sell resources and start a RA-abuse. Having a tech-disadvantage might be more severe than in SP. Settling only for resources might not be enough (though I guess that one is a great topic to discuss and disagree about). Also apart from davy no one seems to have that much experience anyway. So I am not that scared, but I also don't value my chances very high to win this. Maybe 5%

For the actual game, I think the most important parts are still

- managing your happy resources
- understanding war and scouting
- finding out how to get production

Especially the last point seems the most severe for me. But that might be a misconception. I hope I can find some reads on the value of buildings in Civ5. Finding some ideas about what I actually should do, besides hitting end turn till I can build a spaceship or conquer the whole world, wouldn't hurt either.

[Serdoa]

Starting screenie:



Seems the snipping tool from Windows 7 isn't working with Civ5, maybe it is the fullscreen mode? Have to test that, because taking screenies with the screenshot-buttong and than cropping them is not what I want to do. And I would like to report on this game a little bit, especially as I myself have no clue what I am doing.

As for the start itself: I think that is considered a good start yes? 2x Stone, 2x Silver, 1x Marble (which basically gives me Egypts UA for free) and Cattle. Not that I know how to play that, but for now I research Mining -> Masonry and will take it from there. AH would be nice for the cattle but I don't have it in the BFC right now and won't get it before earliest T11. And I won't have a worker before T15+ I think, so yeah, I makes no difference what I research right now it seems.

But I still don't understand tile yields in Civ5. Are the improvements unimportant because it just adds 1 food or 1 hammer - or are they important because you get in total at best a 3 yield, making +1 yield an increase of 33%? What with city growth? Faster is better, but does it make sense to work farms to grow bigger before you work your "good tiles"? If I remember correctly, the growth formula is having pretty steep increases, which makes it better to settle two cities each 4 pop than one with 8 right?

[BRickAstley]

Coming from a completely unknowing perspective, resources look like they're helpful. Where did you settle/scout?

[TheHumanHydra]

Have to test that, because taking screenies with the screenshot-buttong ...

Gotta love those but-tongs.

Er, anyway, I know nothing about Civ V, so be prepared for some very newbish questions.

[T-hawk]

As for the start itself: I think that is considered a good start yes? 2x Stone, 2x Silver, 1x Marble (which basically gives me Egypts UA for free) and Cattle. Not that I know how to play that, but for now I research Mining -> Masonry and will take it from there.

It's good except for a glaring lack of food. It'll take forever to grow to sizes 4 and 5 to work all those resources. Third-ring tiles take forever to acquire; you won't have the cattle for 100+ turns unless you buy the tiles or found another city nearer it.

But I still don't understand tile yields in Civ5. Are the improvements unimportant because it just adds 1 food or 1 hammer - or are they important because you get in total at best a 3 yield, making +1 yield an increase of 33%?

The latter. The +1 yield isn't just an increase of 33%, it's much bigger once you subtract out the sustenance cost. A plain grassland does nothing but feed its own laborer and indirectly produce one beaker. A 2-1-0 improved tile produces the one beaker and one hammer, which is worth something like triple the beaker alone.

What with city growth? Faster is better, but does it make sense to work farms to grow bigger before you work your "good tiles"? If I remember correctly, the growth formula is having pretty steep increases, which makes it better to settle two cities each 4 pop than one with 8 right?

I'm still wrestling with that myself. In general, I think 3-food farms aren't worth working past about size 6, but 4-food farms post Civil Service / Fertilizer are good up to size 16 or so.

Two size-4 cities is 134 food of growth; one size-8 city is 297. Pretty big difference, but the former also needed the 106h settler and a 100h colosseum to support the happy. Civ 5 actually got to a state pretty well balanced between adding new cities and growing existing ones.

[Serdoa]

Thank you T-hawk. I did move one SE so to have the cattle in 2nd ring.

And I realized only now when I tried to come up with a micro-plan that I do actually have an interesting puzzle in front of me. On the one hand I want to build the Monument to get more Policies quicker. On the other hand with the Tradition opener I would get it for free. BUT if I do build it first I'll get instead a Amphitheater for free, thats definitely better, especially as I want to research Drama and Poetry early to get to Theology. I also want to get into the Classical Era quickly to open up the Piety-tree, for half-price Pyramids, as I want those in every city.

So looking first at this I thought it is easy because the research-path is pretty much Pottery -> Writing -> Drama and Poetry. 173 science total. But obviously I also need Mining -> Masonry and AH. "Fortunately" I don't need Calendar because my city is on a grassland, so I'll never be able to build Stone Works. Gah... thats really a dumb thing that the city has to be on a hill for that building. Otherwise I would have gotten +4 production (+1 for building, 3 additional for the resources) and +1 happy. Anyhow, Mining and Masonry are another 54 science and AH another 22. Total of 249 science necessary for all those techs. And I'll do something around 7 - when I am finally pop 4, which will take forever. So around T50 would be my guess for all techs.

And thats when the puzzle starts. Probably only for me as I have no experience in Civ5... What to do in which order? Does it help to get another city early (read: T25)? It does not feel so in the SP-games I did to get a feel for the game. Mostly I seem to miss some sort of protective unit for the settler, I seem to miss workers to improve anything in the new city and I don't feel I actually do gain anything by planting it down.

I think for now I will follow the Monument -> Worker plan and will finish the worker T12. I should have my first policy (Tradition opener) by EOT9. Next EOT13. Third by EOT19. Fourth by EOT31 if I don't plant a second city till then. Second policy should be the +2 food +10% growth in the capital. I should have Cattle by that turn in the city-radius already (at worst I buy it for 30 gold) so I will have +5.5 food per turn. With a Granary 7.7. Hm... Stone needs a Quarry, so I have to get 54 science. I'll get 4 in the first 5 turns, 5 in the next 7, thats a total of 55. So I can have Masonry when the worker pops, but I can't have Masonry and AH. But that takes ~4 more turns, what the worker needs for a Quarry or a Pasture anyhow, so the decision has just to be to I want to work a 2/2/0 tile or a 4/0/0 tile. The latter is better I'd guess, growing to 3 on it while improving the stone to work both.

What I still need to decide is if I really want to delay the Pyramid in the capital till I get to Piety. I do kinda need the +2 science and more importantly I think it will give me the edge on getting a pantheon first. And I probably want to be to have the free choice. On the other hand there are 3 beliefs that are worth it imo:

- Fertility Rites: +10% growth empire-wide
- Goddess of Love: +1 happy in every city above 6 pop
- Ancestor Rites: +1 culture from Shrines (though that is definitely worse than the other two I'd guess)

And Monument of the Gods (+15% production for Ancient/Classical wonders) might be a situational important wonder. With Marble and Tradition-policy I'd get up to 45% bonus on wonders. The question is only are there enough to make it worth it. What I doubt tbh. There are a few nice looking ones, but nothing like Pyramids or TGLighthouse in Civ4 it seems. Hanging Gardens would be nice though, especially for that capital.

T-Hawk, some questions if you don't mind:

1.) The UA from the Mayas, getting GP, does that work on every kind of GP or are GG and GAdmirals not included? If they are included thats a total of 7 GP one can get. So I should have Theology latest around 1200 BC right? 3 GP till 0AD, 4 more till 1600 AD.

2.) Again, UA from the Mayas: Do those GP count against the GP-counter or are they really free?

3.) How does the Aqueduct work? The Game Info description states that 40% food is carried over after a citizen is born and the Strategy description states that it decreases the amount of food needed by 40%. Thats obviously two different things, and taking the steep increase in food costs for growth into account it makes a big difference.

4.) Hanging Gardens: It states it will give a Garden for free in the city it is built at. Even if that city does not have water access? Or do I need that for Hanging Gardens anyhow and they only forgot to state it in the description?

[Serdoa]

Ok, so tech-costs are for whatever reason not the same as in my testgame. It has the same settings (Pangaea, Small, Quick) but obviously there is more that influences tech-costs. So as reference for myself:

AH, Mining, Pottery: 23
Masonry, Writing, Calendar, BW, TW, Trapping, Sailing: 36
Optics: 56
Maths, Construction, HBR: 70
Drama and Poetry, Philosophy: 117
Theology: 184

On to the turn-report. First an overview of what I scouted so far:



I will take the ruins next to my warrior next turn and probably move the turn next onto the hill in the south. Or further east if I see something interesting there. It seems there is jungle down south and east and I remember that this is somehow good for science, not that I know why. Anyone has an idea?

As for my city: The next tile that will be taken via culture is the grassland silver, at least if I can believe the indicators from the city screen. Is there any way to know which tile will be taken after? Also, I know I need 10 culture for that tile, what I should have by T7 or T8 (depending if culture or poduction happens first). But how much costs the next one? Especially taking into account that I should have the tradition-opener soon afterwards as well, which gives a discount on the culture needed for new tiles (though it doesn't state how much - as with so many systems in Civ5, it makes it hard to plan around it because it obfuscates for no reason important information; and no, I don't think a new player would be overwhelmed if it stated "-33% culture is needed" instead of "less culture is needed").

I though about getting a spreadsheet created to help me with city and empire management, but the few formulas I did find (culture necessary for new policies) are not really making sense for me tbh. It seems you need on normal speed 25, 30, 60 and 115 culture for policy no.1,2,3 and 4. If you have one city. But on Quick it is not "simply" those numbers * 0.67. Instead the first policy is 15 (thats 60%), 20 (thats 66.6%), 40 (again 66.6%) and I think the last was 70, though I'm not sure any longer. And I also don't know if that will hold true for this game or if it will be different like with the tech-costs. T-Hawk, do you have a formula for this or simply know the Quick-speed numbers?

Demos:



Someone has 5 food to my 4. Thats understandable for me. But someone also has 7 (!) production to my 5. I work a 2/1 tile and I think the best unimproved tile to find is a 2-hammer tile at the start. And that together with the palace and center-tile should at most give 6. Do you get a bonus-hammer if you settle on a hill?

GNP I also don't understand fully. That seems to only show the gold per turn number, ignoring culture, science etc. I guess someone has a 2/0/3 or 1/1/3 tile and therefore has settled near a river?

[SadGit]

Sorry a bit late for some of these comments.

Setling on hill gives plus one hammer, so very worth it. The "grassland" part of the stoneworks means flat green tile so hills, desert, brown tiles all allow it as I recall it. Monument first can be a good opener, but normally you would want a scout after that. Even with teccing mining your worker wont have enough to do besides silly farms on grassland. As for settling one off the coast...thats normally something the AI does.
A potentially stronger start would have been: warr scouts turn 0 the hill SE SE of settler to see if there is more food to the E/SE. There isnt so settler moves SW W to the silver hill. Hopes to see food tiles in the first two rings. Settling here gives +1 hammer, connects silver on teching mining for happy, while keeping all but the cow in its rings. I know its too late for that now, but in Civ V moving/delaying the city is not so bad even if its two turns -> superior city.
For your later cities you should look for river or at least two tiles as well as either prod or lux. Remember adding the extra copies of lux is less important than in single player. There will be trade with the others, but it wont boost your growth since its lux for lux rather than a cash machine you hit every 30 turns. And in Civ V building with gold is so much better than hammers.