Civilization V this fall

[Brehvolution]

Last night, Montezuma declared war on me and I was able to easily fend off 5 of his warriors. After they were wiped he pleaded for peace and offered me every cent he had. After that, he was afraid of me for the rest of the game. He even showed up a few turns later and asked for 'compassion on his weak empire'. I lol'd.

[Stoney Mason]

Game is so much fun. For the first time I had a bunch of Civs near me at the start which normally doesn't happen.

So my Civ scheme is normally to expand really quickly and spread myself very thin on the military side and get up on the competition that way. And things were working perfectly. Until the nearby civs realized that and just decided to rape me in the middle of my rapid expansion. It was hilarious.

Game feels different than Civ 4 but I like it. It's simpler but still good old civ.

[pilonv1]

I am becoming disappointed that there's becoming one obvious best build for a successful empire, and it's by exploiting city states. If you just become allied with the Maritime states you get such a food bonus it's obscene once you choose some policies, and there's never a reason to build granaries or farms.

If the AI wasn't stupid I'd be happy with it because you need to to compete with their bonuses at high levels. But currently it's just a matter of outlasting their first wave of troops when they attack (not if, they will declare on you no matter what).

I think I have to shelve this until the first gameplay patch

[Brehvolution]

It's going to take more than one patch. 

[CajoleJuice]

Civ IV + BtS

[archie4208]

I'm also getting kind of bored of this game.  There is an excellent foundation, but the distinguished mentally-challenged AI essentially ruins everything.  I'll probably put it on the back burner until some patches/expansions come out.

I'm reinstalling Civ4 and GalCiv2 right now. 

[DJ_Tet]

Yep, game is fading because it's so broken there's literally no fair challenge.

Really disappointing.  I'm thinking it will take more than a patch too, perhaps the first expansion can fix it.

[Dickie Dee]

I'm not overly disappointed, but I really think I should've waited for a patch and a Steam sale 

[archie4208]

Speaking of a patch:

You guys have been asking for an update about what we're working on to improve the game, and today I am happy to give it to you.

This is the list of updates to the game that the developers have been working on the past couple weeks. This isn't necessarily the complete patch notes for the next patch, but it's what I have so far.

Keep in mind that these are just the first batch of changes that will go in to the first major patch. We're planning more improvements (such as the much-asked-for Hotseat and Pitboss) that will be coming in a later patch.


UI
Fix for production prompt that sometimes appears with newly created puppet states that could stop the player from being able to end the turn.
Aircraft banner corrections – now when you rebase an aircraft, the number will move with it.
Resource icons now come up with Ctrl-R again, instead of sharing the same button with Build Roads.
Selecting a great general will no longer cause yield icons to appear.
Added option to disable auto-unit cycling.
Fix for full-screen game when running dual monitors. Previously, the curser could scroll off the “open” side, and not be able to scroll the map in that direction.
Misc additional fixes to mouse controls, and other interface issues.
Rounded out financial information in the Economic Overview screen. Details now provided on the amount of gold provided by each city, the cost of buildings in each city, etc.
Auto-populate save menu with save file name
Allow selection of other cities by hex from within the city screen
Added detailed trade route info to Economic Overview screen

MODDING
Category list now displays correctly

GAMEPLAY
Workers - Added option to force workers to ignore manually made improvements (so they don’t change what you decide was best for a plot).
Workers - Fixed bug where number of turns to complete were incorrect in build action button tool-tip.
Economy - Fixed bug where players could disband a single unit, and not see the economic return until disbanding 1 more.
Economy – Increased city wealth setting to 25%
Economy – Multiple fixes to the way trade-routes are tabulated and recognized.
Economy - Can now sell Buildings in a city (to help lower maintenance for obsolete buildings later in the game).
Trade – Found and corrected a Trade problem that could cause your Resource inventory to multiply.
City States - Fixed a bug where you could not gift aircraft to city states.
Military - Medic promotion now only provides healing bonus for adjacent units.
Military – Fix for Minuteman movement.
Military – Correct promotions for “archer-like” units (horse archers, chariots).
Military - Embarked units will no longer slow enemy land units
Military - Improved unit cycling logic. Camera will jump around much less.
Balance - Engineers +1 hammer

AI
Military – Better handling of unit need (navy vs land, etc.) .
Military - AI will tend to build ships to deal with blockaded cities more often
Military – Corrected an issue hampering movement of AI armies, especially when in close proximity to enemy forces
Diplomacy – AI will be more reluctant to offer or accept open border agreements with more powerful opponents.
Diplomacy – Fix for never ending deals (peace, research agreements, etc).
City – City specialization and city focus improvements.
City - Cities that are Avoiding Growth will not grow while that option is selected
Workers – Priority of trading posts reduced, and rebalanced priorities on other improvements
Workers – Improved the path-finding mechanic when building route-to roads improved, including a large performance increase when evaluating road-pathing.

MULTIPLAYER
Exploit – Fix for gifting unit exploit
Chat – Color-coding, sound alerts, etc., added for in-game chat system, including a larger window.
Deals – Additional deal validation put in place to verify deals before they are committed

MISC
Research treaties that end because you declare war will no longer grant the free tech
Save/Load – Fix for corrupted saves being experienced by some players in late-game.
Map - Huge map crash-during-load fix that were reported on some specific systems.
Map – Terrain caching fix that could cause problems for certain video cards (the “glowing red orbs” seen on the map are an indicator of this).
Map – Fix for the low res terrain that appears the first time the game is run (terrain tiles would not load in anything but low-res the first time you play on some computer configurations)
Strategic View – Crash fix for units rendering in background.
Strategic View – Fix for selecting units either standing on a city plot, or garrisoned in the city plot.
Eyefinity – Better handling of leader scenes when using Eyefinity displays.
Tutorials – Many tutorial tweaks and adjustments.
Multiple crash fixes.


When the patch is actually released (no ETA right now; I'm working on that!) I'll unstick and close this thread.

No ETA right now, though. 

[DJ_Tet]

Fix for production prompt that sometimes appears with newly created puppet states that could stop the player from being able to end the turn.
Economy - Fixed bug where players could disband a single unit, and not see the economic return until disbanding 1 more.
City - Cities that are Avoiding Growth will not grow while that option is selected
Tutorials – Many tutorial tweaks and adjustments.

Good start.  I've personally seen the top three and I'm not even a big 'bug hunter' type of gamer. 

Doesn't really address a lot of core issues I've been having with the game but hopefully they are working on that as well. 

[Brehvolution]

The giant death robot is no joke. I wish I could have seen the faces of Montezuma's people when that thing rose from the ocean while they are still using sticks for spears. The GDR coupled with 2 stealth bombers is devastating. I didn't plan on a domination victory, but I might as well go for it.

[pilonv1]

2K Games announces plans to release new DLC for Sid Meier's Civilization V next week on October 25. They will offer a Mongols Civilization and Scenario Pack that will be free to all owners of the turn-based strategy sequel as well as sales of a Babylonian Civilization Pack for $4.99 USD which was included for free with the Civilization V Digital Deluxe Edition.

GENGHIS~!

New patch additions too

# City - Make sure Puppets don't construct buildings that require Resources. (new 10/14)
# City - Add a Puppet city strategy that turns off training buildings and emphasizes gold. (new 10/14)
# Military – Defensive tactical AI update. When you are at war and threatening an enemy city, the AI will better utilize the garrison, as well as the surrounding terrain in defense of the target city. (new 10/20)

[archie4208]

I wish the patch would come sooner rather than later.  I've given up on the game for now because of the distinguished mentally-challenged AI.

[pilonv1]

There's talk of it coming next week with the DLC.

[archie4208]

Patch just came out.  I was browsing online and I got a popup that the game just finished patching. 

[pilonv1]

Steam servers are too busy

edit: apparently save games are incompatible.

[Stoney Mason]

December Patch - Full Change List
Greetings Civ Forumers!

This morning I have a very exciting bit of info to give to you: The final complete list of changes going in to the next patch. I decided to create a fresh thread for this so it'll be easier for people to see the discussion of this version of the changes.

This patch is expected to release ahead of the DLC next week, so that means on or before December 16th.

Oh, and apologies for these patch notes not listing which changes are new since the last update; this is a rewritten list with all of the changes, and also provides more details about a lot of the items that you guys have been asking about.

Without further ado:


[AI]

[TACTICAL AI]
Proper evaluation of which enemy units can reach my units next turn.
Sorting enemy targets (within a class) by damage.
Combine bombardment fire from cities with other ranged fire where possible.
Never target a city for a ranged attack when they are already at (or going to be at) 1 health.
Have the tactical AI be more aggressive about fortifying units that aren't moving anyways.
Make all forms of guarding improvements the lowest priority tactical AI moves.
Don't mark tiles adjacent to enemy at sea as good for flank attacks -- there is no flanking at sea.
Update to tactical AI pillaging code - now prioritize enemy land resources and trade routes (never regular mines or farms). Always uses the check to make sure AI is not trying to pillage in an enemy dominance zone. Barbarians will still target everything.
Never use ranged units to provide flank bonuses.
Reduce chance of AI civs making "suicide" attacks.
Changes to better protect the capital or any city with an enemy within 5 tiles.

[VICTORY]
AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory (bribing City States) if they are wealthy.
AI will be more aggressive about building Spaceship parts when going for Science victory.

[CIVS]
Tweak a few leader settings to be more likely to use their traits.
Adjust Napoleon to make more likely to go for culture.

[COMBAT/UNITS]
AI will not use Horse as defenders on hills as much.
AI will often build more defensive troops.
AI will more aggressively hunt barbs in the early game.
Slightly more naval units.
AI will now build ranged and mobile units more in line with the flavor settings for the team - in general, this means more mobile units.
AI now builds, deploys, and uses air units more effectively.
Allow AI to build more units if above Prince.
AI will be more likely to build and bring siege units in a city attack.
Better nuke targeting by AI.
Won't build AA if no air threat.
Allow AI or automated human explorers to move to edge of sight range and then explore again.

[EXPLORATION/EXPANSION]
AI will emphasize getting an Ocean going explorer unit when the time comes.
AI slightly more likely to settle off home continent.
AI should colonize other continents regularly.
AI second wave expansion more aggressive.
Improve the AI's chances of setting up protected bombard attacks.
Settlers: should handle watery maps better.
AI will grab goody huts on other land masses.
AI will grab empty barb camps more often.

[WORKERS/CITY AI]
Large Cities should be more willing to build happiness and gold buildings.
Workers prioritize repair builds higher than other builds.
AI will be more likely to build a wall on any city that was an original capital.
Builder tasking now calculates yields appropriately during golden ages and weighs tiles according to how much stuff they provide overall as well as their maximum yield of a certain type.
More likely to build up economy early.
Multiple worker AI improvements.

[MISC]
Factor GS into flavors more.
Disband obsolete units even if not losing money.
Upgrade units a bit more.
Tweak flavors of policies a bit.
Have AI factor Grand Strategy into picking policies.
AI will factor grand strategy into tech choices a bit more.
AI don't send a barb expedition if defenses are critical.
AI less likely to pick a city on an inland sea for serious naval production.
Additional pathfinder optimization.

[GAMEPLAY]

[CITY/BUILDINGS]
Added "National Treasury" national wonder, which requires Markets in all cities. Provides +8 Gold per turn to the city in which it's built.
Added “Circus Maximus” national wonder, which requires Colosseums in all cities.. Provides 5 Happiness.
Library now has no specialist slots.
Wat now has two specialist slots.
Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
Research Lab has two specialist slots.
Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.
Watermill now provides +2 good and +1 production for 2 gold maintenance.
Paper Maker now has no specialist slots.
Circus now has +2 happiness and no maintenance.
Theatre now has +5 happiness.
Stadium now has +5 happiness.
Reduced production cost and maintenance for the Courthouse.
Courthouse can now be purchased in a city (although it is expensive).
Removed maintenance from city defense buildings (Walls, Castle, Military Base).
City defense buildings now help cities heal.
Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology.
Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city).
Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes.
Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this).
Ironworks now gives 10 hammers instead of a % bonus.
National College now gives +5 science in addition to the % bonus.
Hermitage gives 5 culture in addition to its previous bonus.
Raze/Unraze exploit fixed.
Cities being razed are unhappy about it (only during the razing process).
Cities heal more quickly.

[UNITS/PROMOTIONS]
Cavalry can now go obsolete with Combustion.
Stealth bombers cannot use carriers.
Only allow one upgrade per unit from a goody hut.
Add second embarkation promotion ("Defensive Embarkation").
Amount of damage done during naval combat increased.
All melee horse units get penalty attacking cities.
Increased city attack penalty for mounted and armor units to 50% (from 40%).
Lancers (and Lancer UUs) upgrade to helicopter.
Lowered combat value of Horseman and Companion Cavalry.
Promotions must be picked the turn they're earned.
Can no longer promote a unit that has fought during the turn (instead, the promotion comes up the beginning of the following turn).
Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities.
Reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities.
Reduced some combat bonuses: flanking (15 to 10), Great Generals (25 to 20), Discipline (15 to 10), Military Tradition (2x to 1.5x).
Remove requirement for aluminum on Mobile SAM.
Lower open terrain penalty to 10% .
Marsh is now 3 moves to enter (Chariots do not move quickly through it anymore).
Cavalry now upgrade to tanks.

[CITY STATES]
Reduced bonuses from Maritime city-states - Friends: +2 food in capital, +0 food in other cities - Allies: +3 food in capital, +1 food in other cities
Only the first 3 units gifted to a city-state will earn Influence now.
Killing a barb inside a city-state's territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty.

[HAPPINESS]
If an empire reaches -20 Happiness, it goes into revolt, and rebels start appearing throughout the empire, based on the number of cities.
Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age reduced.
Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age now increases as the number of cities in the empire goes up.

[POLICIES]
Landed Elite (Tradition Branch) now reduces culture cost of border growth by 2/3.
Monarchy (Tradition Branch) now provides +1 Gold per 2 pop in the Capital..
Liberty now provides a Settler training bonus to only the capital, and not every city.
Tradition now provides +50% growth in the capital.
Theocracy now reduces Unhappiness by 25% .
Reformation now gives a 10-turn GA.
Adopting Rationalism now gives a 4-turn GA.

[TECH TREE]
Add link between Military Science and Dynamite.
Add link between Civil Service and Education.
Add link between Economics and Scientific Theory.
Add link between Chivalry and Acoustics.
Research overflow now works correctly (extra beakers after completing a tech will rollover to the next tech).

[GENERAL]
Fixed bug where clicking on a city plot wouldn't select the garrison.
Natural wonders now award culture (if worked) and happiness (if in border) if that trait is assigned to a wonder in XML.
Players must now always adopt Policies immediately, and cannot defer picking until later.
Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). Razing cities will not raise your policy cost ceiling.
Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition from 20 to 15.
3 new Natural Wonders and rarity code for both base game and New World scenario.
Reduced points from Wonders (40 to 25) & Cities (10 to , increased points for pop by 1 (3 to 4).

[DIPLOMACY]
AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request, etc.).
Not agreeing to a friend's request now results in a relations hit.
Third party AIs can now respond when a player makes a DoF or denounces someone. What they say is based on the situation - e.g. if you make friends with someone they don't like, they'll scold you.
AI leaders will now sometimes ask their friends to denounce one of their enemies as a show of support, and refusing to denounce someone when an AI asks can now make them very upset.
AI is now capable of denouncing friends (aka, backstabbing) and added backstabbing info to diplo overview screen.

[UI]
Add XP bar for air units, do not allow XP for air units attacking a city that is already down to its last hit-point.
Change ActivePlayer's name to "You" in single player in score list.
Added game option to disable automated workers from removing features.
Fixed bug where Happiness from garrisoned units wasn't being listed in Happiness info tooltip.
Load Map function will now display correct size and type of saved map.
New “Angry Genghis” loading screen (replaces the “fluffy-bunny Genghis” loading screen).
Added setup options to allow players to defer choosing Policies and Promotions right away.
Show the river penalty when attacking city across river (the penalty was there but was not being shown in the preview).
Global politics screen updated to reflect new diplo system.
Can no longer Force End Turn (shift-enter) through blocking notifications. CAN now use it to skip over units which need orders.
Multiple tweaks and bug fixes.


[MISC]
Fix small bugs with adding long roads around existing features.
Fixed bombard arrow across world wrap.

[MODDING]
Parent category counts now include counts of child categories.
Selecting/deselecting a category now automatically selects/deselects it's children and its parent.
Tweaked category name truncation to better fit names.
Hide categories w/ no children and a count of 0.
Added support for fallback languages (if mod is not translated, fall-back to English so text keys are not showing).
The pager for the installed mods tab of the mods browser is now displayed in the correct location.
Long values for properties such as "Special Thanks" will no longer extend past the edge browser frame.
Categories refresh much faster now in the mods browser.
Multiple additional tweaks and fixes to the mod browser.
Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units.
Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality.
Fixed "Reload Landmark System" mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in "ArtDefine_Landmarks".
Multiple SDK updates (new version to go live shortly).

[SERIALIZATION/SAVES]
Fixed save format which causes saves to increase the memory footprint of the game drastically when loading frequently over the course of the game. This heightened the risk of late-game our of memory crashes significantly.

http://forums.2kgames.com/showthread.php?99880-December-Patch-Full-Change-List

[Brehvolution]

Just updated last night and it just feels better now. Maybe Frag will play it now. 

[Smooth Groove]

I really want to play CIV V but I'm waiting for Nvidia to optimize the SLI performance.  The game runs really well on 1 card but barely improves with another. 

[pilonv1]

Spain and Incan pack is out.

$7.50 for US
$8.99 for Australians

[Mandark]

If anyone's still playing this, have they fixed the Angkor Wat?

[naff]

I really want to play CIV V but I'm waiting for Nvidia to optimize the SLI performance.  The game runs really well on 1 card but barely improves with another. 

^ Hardware enthusiast posing as a gamer

[Smooth Groove]

Why can't I be both?  I just want to get the most out of my hardware.  It's not like the game inherently won't work with mult-GPU configs since AMD already got it working great. 

[Shaka Khan]

I have an extremely noobish question, so bear with me: when I discover iron ore (2 iron) and instruct some workers to mine, is that all I'm getting out of this mine, just two ores and that's it? I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether resources work as they do in other RTSes (namely Age of series) where you gain a lot resources from a panel over a period of time, or not.

[Great Rumbler]

Once the iron is mined, it's yours forever.

[Shaka Khan]

And that renders that mine useless? I mean I mined to iron ores and used them to upgrade two units, and now I have nada, so is that it? I really hope not, they're almost not worth the trouble.

[Great Rumbler]

No, the iron's always there. You will always have two iron, no matter what you do.

[Shaka Khan]

So I can upgrade or build anything that requires iron as much as I want? as much as I want that to be true, there has to be a limit lol.

[Great Rumbler]

Unless the building needs 3 iron to upgrade, you're good.

[Shaka Khan]

that's awesome, and quite unrealistic, but awesome nonetheless. Thanks GR, you're a doll.

[Brehvolution]

I've started wars for iron. If you have a 6 iron and I got none and no prospects,

It's one of the reasons why I research for iron pretty quickly. It effects the placement of my 3rd and 4th cities.

[pilonv1]

that's awesome, and quite unrealistic, but awesome nonetheless. Thanks GR, you're a doll.

Just make sure you don't lose the mine.

[Shaka Khan]

Ok, so far so good.

Now for another noobish question regarding the three resources: food, production, and gold.

Food: is it the same as iron, where every tile my city covers that has the food symbol, a single unit of food is added? because if reading this correctly, it does, but then every citizen born subtracts two units of food, right? (and citizens have no relation to workers, am I correct?)

Production: derp. No idea. I just cover more tiles that have their symbols and hope everything goes well. Does it have any factors that deceases its pool like food and golf?

Gold: I'm guessing tiles with gold contribute to my income per turn?

Lastly, a question regarding all three: do I collect/start collecting these resources the minute my cities cover them, or when workers are assigned to them? holy shit why did I buy this game I'm not even grasping the simplest concepts of the game. Thought it'd be more akin to other RTSes. Excuse me, I'm gonna lie in bed in a fetal position.

[Dickie Dee]

Food/Production/gold production depends on the land-type. Plains give 2 units food per turn. Desert gives 0 food, etc. Rivers give increased gold, etc. (check out terrain types in the civilopedia) You then modify that with improvments your workers make through unlocked techs like farms, mines, etc.

Lastly, a question regarding all three: do I collect/start collecting these resources the minute my cities cover them, or when workers are assigned to them? holy shit why did I buy this game I'm not even grasping the simplest concepts of the game. Thought it'd be more akin to other RTSes. Excuse me, I'm gonna lie in bed in a fetal position.

Basic food/production/gold is collected when (on your city screen) one of your citizens is assigned to that tile.

Other special resources are acquired when you build the required improvment over it and connect to it with a road.

[Stoney Mason]

Gonna start playing this again tonight. I took a break once I found out that patch was coming.