*Insert parody song here*
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Civ 5 We Hardly Knew Ye [Spoilers]
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Ooh, do the Dropkick Murphys' one.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out. (August 23rd, 2016, 13:21)Commodore Wrote: Ooh, do the Dropkick Murphys' one. I actually don't know the song, only the one line. I googled it and found out it's part of a song. I'll hear it. What can I say about Civ 5? Not much, my last game was actually PBEM 4, where I got pounded by Rowain. In my defense, I moved my settler some 4 turns before settling and I went for Liberty, in a map that couldn't fit more than 4 cities for a looong time (I needed war to get more than that!). Things I've learned in that game: *It's very easy to go broke in Civ 5 BNW, when you don't have AIs to exploit for money. Liberty compounds on this, because you get no free buildings and no +gold on the Capital. *Land caravans suck for generating gold. *Artillery seems to be the key military unit. After that game, I tried to play some SP, but couldn't do it. Not blaming Civ 5 for it, just SP games as a whole. I tried Civ 4 and Endless Legend as well, to no avail. The AIs are just boring. The last SP game I was able to play was Dark Souls 2 - that's one interesting game, really. Anyway, back on topic. What I'm planning to do is another different game. That likely means and Honor or Piety opening. If we get random civs, I'll choose one that synergizes with such an opening. My dream scenario is Germany into Honor, just for the laughs and because I think people will lack on military early (by the way, the german ability is really, really shitty design - a % chance on a UA is just stupid as hell). I thought about looking for some guides on rushing, but screw that, I'll think for myself and come up with some dumb plan. After all, it's Civ 5, so whatever. Dream scenario is rushing Davey; since he wants a map that lets him delve into World affairs early, I'll help him fulfill his dream  .Depending on the Civ, we can try some Piety into Shrine overflow exploits.  Maya would be the best Civ for it.Finally, we could retry the glorious nation of Brazil and the elusive cultural victory! That would likely be a Tradition -> Piety game... Not really sure. The problem with Brazil is that you spend half the game playing just a vanilla Civ. And on Civ 5 PBEEMs, usually, you only get half the game... (August 25th, 2016, 11:06)Rowain Wrote: I will lurk you. And I recommend to not go for culture victory. Yeah, don't worry, I won't do it. There seem to be some strategies to win by culture in MP, revolving around large boosts of Tourism from Futurism (one ideological tenet). But they are boring and I won't go for them. Regarding picks. I looked for some help in the internet to find out why Iroquois were banned. I thought I was missing some important point, like a hidden strategy or something, that could make them broken. But looking at their bonuses, I definetely couldn't see anything. It turns out the guide I looked (which was made based on 6-player FFA MP games, no mods, by a guy who seemed very experienced and knowledgeble) puts Iroquois in the same power tier as Venice, basically saying that you'd be better of without a civ/leader, than playing with them. He actually said it's the worst Civ in the game, because when you get Venice in their games, they can ask for a reload, but you have to stick with Iroquois. Basically, the UA is almost useless, because the bonus from forests/jungles don't mesh with the road bonus (they do for TRs, but not for movement), so either you have a straight up forest corridor between cities or you have to build roads after all. The UU is useless, because the bonus is useless on a unit that nobody builds in MP. The UB is actually worse then the building it replaces, because it loses the +10% prod and keeping forests around is bad (because lumbermills suck for a long time and you lose the chopping boost, which is also important in Civ 5). So, it seems we have only 2 choices...  Japan was regarded as a mid tier pick, I didn't wait for the reasoning, though. Their bonuses seem pretty mediocre, overall, especially considering will be playing a cooked map, likely without a coastal Capital (perhaps if we get a Capital with a lot of atols near it I can think about it ). The fighting bonus from the UA seems interesting, but you don't want to be fighting with wounded units, rather retreating/guarding them, so it's a bit meh.Persia was deemed a god tier civ by the guide, tier 1. The guide had high praise for the Immortal, being a useful spear replacement, which is a common early unit. The higher base strength from the immortal gives it a bonus when taking money/workers from City States, which seems to be a key MP element and which I plan to do (and the healing bonus is useful to take better advantage of your units after dealing with barbs early on). The UA is especially useful because the third movement point in units is extremely valuable, especially on ranged ones -> siege can move, set up and attack with 3 moves, archers can move on a hill and attack with 3 moves and so on. So, it's a good idea to save GArts to use for GAs when you are planning to attack. With a little care, it's possible to enter a permanent GA on the late part of the game, though our MP hardly seems to reach that point. Finally, the UB gives happiness, which is always nice, although it is tied to a building I wouldn't normally think of building (bank, because it requires a market). Overall, Persia seems the best and most interesting/favourable to a diverse play style of the 3 choices, so they are clearly my number 1 choice.
I absolutly agree with Persia. In fact I'm surprised they aren't banned.
+50% Golden Ages are fine Add Cichen Itza and you can stay golden for a long time  Markets ( and Banks) are a nice way to avoid going broke. And the +2 happiness are nice (faster golden ages or bigger cities). About Japan: The "fights as if it is at full strength"-UA can be a real nuisance for your opponents. If you are attacked you seldom have the luxury to protect your wounded. And Japan would fit with your 'go Honor first plan'. But be warned going Honor first is clearly subpar to tradition. If you want to give Liberty another shot. It can work with Persia (if you don't wander around for 4 turns  ). In short Persia is fine , flexible and maybe puts a bulls-eye on your back.
I have been watching a lot of the Civ 5 MP guides (the guy who makes them is called Filthy Robot, he's a little talkative, but he seems to really know what he's talking about and much of his MP points correlate to what I've experienced), and the Liberty vs. Tradition one is particularly enlightning (I bring this subject because of your suggestion of going Liberty). The best point he made, in my opinion, was that Liberty has a lot more conditions that need to be fulfilled for it to be better than Tradition (lots of luxes, lots of land, uncontested/defensible land), but you have just a small time frame in which to make the decision about where to go. He said that, for an optimal Liberty game (and you have to make it optimal to compete against Tradition), you need to open with scout -> monument, because you need to reach Collective Rule (the settler SP) as fast as possible, and start spamming settlers after that. But that's like 3/4 turns into the game, in quick speed, so you need to decide between Liberty vs. Tradition without almost no map knowledge to base the decision on. Considering Tradition is better 90% of the time (because most maps don't support Liberty play style), going Liberty is usually a big gambit, since you don't know yet if you are on a map that supports it.
In this particular game, we were promissed a map that works with Liberty, so I expect that it'll have diverse luxuries and a decent amount of land. But there's a problem: a lot of Liberty's strength, as presented by the guide, is based on faith generation. Liberty empires produce way more faith than tradition ones, especially on the needed conditions. Here's the problems: first, another player can choose, and will likely choose, Ethiopia, which is basically a guaranteed first pantheon and religion, so we won't get the best options, making faith less appealing. Second, the big advantage of faith is buying late game Great People, especially scientists for bulbing, after you accumulated lots of faith. But our games here don't last that long and I think playing for this advantage would end up being an investment that we won't receive the profits from. The more I think about it, the more I feel Civ 5 ought to be played in random maps. Of course, in a PBEM game like this one, it's hard to expect a player to be happy to play 1 year of a terrible opening position. But on real time MP, where you get a quick game after the previous one, a bad start once in a while doesn't matter that much. If we have, let's say, a mirrored Capital with gems on it, the guy who gets the first pantheons has an enormous advantage over the other ones, due to the one right choice. And there's no strategy about this, either Ethiopia gets it, or the guy who lucks out into a religious CS. In a random game, this inequalities may end up evening out, but on a cooked map, some inequalities will stay and some will go away, which might end up being detrimental. That was a lot of stream of thought, but here's the gist of it: *I don't think we want Liberty, except for having fun in trying it out. I think I played my Liberty game very badly in PBEM 4, now that I read more about it (I should have stagnated cities way earlier and planted more of them; should have settled taking into account the fact that Liberty borders expand very slowly, thus prioritizing prod tiles), so it might indeed be fun to try again. *Real time, random maps MP seems the best way to play Civ 5 and no wonder it's the most popular MP game type (I think). But I can't meet the need of playing a game for 4/5 hours straight, and the idea of click wars to win battles doesn't really suit me.
Any questions about Civ 5 from lurkers avid to learn a game that will be dead in three months?
 I don't have the expertise to answer them, but I'm looking at guides from people that do. The truth of the matter is that I'm feeling like shit this past week and the Civ 5 videos are a great way to make my mind (and my time) fly away. So I guess now is the best moment to have such a discussion.
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