Civilization V: Gods & Kings (PC/Mac)

I didn't see a thread for the vanilla release so I thought I'll add this. Gods & Kings is due out next week and will add a few things to the main game, like religion and espionage.

I played a bit of Civ V when it came out and found it to be lacking. It just wasn't a very good strategy game, let alone a good Civ game. Has it gotten any better? Is anyone here planning on getting the expansion pack? I'm considering it, but competition is surprisingly fierce in the strategy game segment at the moment (SoaSE: Rebellion, Warlock Masters of the Arcane, Fallen Enchantress, etc.).

Even though I saw it for sale very cheap, I still couldn't justify pulling the trigger on Civ V. I played a little of IV, but it didn't grab me like II did (or even like the SNES version of the first game). I'd also be interested in hearing if this is worth playing over, say, Alpha Centauri, which costs about six bucks and which I've never played.

Is any game worth playing over Alpha Centauri? It's debatable.

And I totally forgot the SNES got a Civ.

I've heard that Civ 5 is better after the patches but the new battle system is still kind of a mess. Before launch, I was thinking it would be more of a hex-based Advance Wars instead of the stack of doom system from earlier games. It didn't turn out very well in practice.

I really haven't read enough about the expansion to know if it fixes the problems but this sort of thing only becomes apparent after release.

You might want to look into Endless Space, by the way.

Have you tried Warlock?

I liked what I played of the demo and I probably would have picked it up if it wasn't for a few other 4X games that are coming out soon. That and I expected Paradox to make it their new Magicka-style DLC dumping ground.

I've heard that the full version is more wargame than traditional 4X. Diplomacy is almost nonexistent.

I got back into Civilization V over the past week and can say that it has improved markedly. The main problem at this point with combat is the limited space that the no-overlap rules create. In previous Civilization games, you had to focus on military for around 20 turns to have a hope of amassing an effective force. Now, you can often crank out a full army in half that - not to mention the extremely low cost (relative to your economic strength if you are playing at all halfway decent) of just purchasing units. This makes any war with the AI a bit of a joke. If you're playing defensively, you can safely ignore them until after they declare war on you and then just buy an army to beat them down. If you're playing offensively, it's really easy to take the AI apart city by city, since you can easily block reinforcements. Hell, you can even block AI expansion! In my last game, I used a line of warriors to cut off every AI from the upper half of the continent until I had fully settled it. To really fix Civilization V, the AI has to be made aware of douchebag tactics like this, as well as to simply get better at the economic side so that it can buy armies as easily as humans.

I thought you guys might enjoy this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comme...vilization_ii/

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I've been playing the same game of Civ II for 10 years. Though long outdated, I grew fascinated with this particular game because by the time Civ III was released, I was already well into the distant future. I then thought that it might be interesting to see just how far into the future I could get and see what the ramifications would be. Naturally I play other games and have a life, but I often return to this game when I'm not doing anything and carry on. The results are as follows.

The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation.
There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands.

-The ice caps have melted over 20 times (somehow) due primarily to the many nuclear wars. As a result, every inch of land in the world that isn't a mountain is inundated swamp land, useless to farming. Most of which is irradiated anyway.

-As a result, big cities are a thing of the distant past. Roughly 90% of the worlds population (at it's peak 2000 years ago) has died either from nuclear annihilation or famine caused by the global warming that has left absolutely zero arable land to farm. Engineers (late game worker units) are always busy continuously building roads so that new armies can reach the front lines. Roads that are destroyed the very next turn when the enemy goes. So there isn't any time to clear swamps or clean up the nuclear fallout.

-Only 3 super massive nations are left. The Celts (me), The Vikings, And the Americans. Between the three of us, we have conquered all the other nations that have ever existed and assimilated them into our respective empires.

-You've heard of the 100 year war? Try the 1700 year war. The three remaining nations have been locked in an eternal death struggle for almost 2000 years. Peace seems to be impossible. Every time a cease fire is signed, the Vikings will surprise attack me or the Americans the very next turn, often with nuclear weapons. Even when the U.N forces a peace treaty. So I can only assume that peace will come only when they're wiped out. It is this that perpetuates the war ad infinitum. Have any of you old Civ II players out there ever had this problem in the post-late game?

-Because of SDI, ICBMS are usually only used against armies outside of cities. Instead, cities are constantly attacked by spies who plant nuclear devices which then detonate (something I greatly miss from later civ games). Usually the down side to this is that every nation in the world declares war on you. But this is already the case so its no longer a deterrent to anyone. My self included.

-The only governments left are two theocracies and myself, a communist state. I wanted to stay a democracy, but the Senate would always over-rule me when I wanted to declare war before the Vikings did. This would delay my attack and render my turn and often my plans useless. And of course the Vikings would then break the cease fire like clockwork the very next turn. Something I also miss in later civ games is a little internal politics. Anyway, I was forced to do away with democracy roughly a thousand years ago because it was endangering my empire. But of course the people hate me now and every few years since then, there are massive guerrilla (late game barbarians) uprisings in the heart of my empire that I have to deal with which saps resources from the war effort.

-The military stalemate is air tight. The post-late game in civ II is perfectly balanced because all remaining nations already have all the technologies so there is no advantage. And there are so many units at once on the map that you could lose 20 tank units and not have your lines dented because you have a constant stream moving to the front. This also means that cities are not only tiny towns full of starving people, but that you can never improve the city. "So you want a granary so you can eat? Sorry; I have to build another tank instead. Maybe next time."

-My goal for the next few years is to try and end the war and thus use the engineers to clear swamps and fallout so that farming may resume. I want to rebuild the world. But I'm not sure how. If any of you old Civ II players have any advice, I'm listening.

Edit: -Wow guys. Thanks for all your support. I had no idea this post would get this kind of response. -I'll be sure to keep you guys updated on my efforts. Whether here on Reddit, or a blog, or both. -Turns out a whole subreddit has been dedicated to ending this war. It's at /r/theeternalwar

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Originally Posted by Diff-chan

Have you tried Warlock?

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I have. It's a simpler version of Civ V, but I think that's a good thing as it cuts out the tedium of managing workers and such. It also doesn't take forever to load up like Civ V. Got it for $10 and thought it was well worth it.

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Originally Posted by Thief Silver

I thought you guys might enjoy this:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comme...vilization_ii/

[/b]

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Yea I saw this. I haven't played Civ 2 in probably about 14 years but it was my favorite PC game of that era, and that was a great era for PC games. Apparently the dude uploaded his save so people are running with it. From what I've read the stalemate is easy to break if you switch to Fundamentalism (Civ 2's government system is really lame) but people are playing as other Civs, etc.

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Originally Posted by AaronChance

I have. It's a simpler version of Civ V, but I think that's a good thing as it cuts out the tedium of managing workers and such. It also doesn't take forever to load up like Civ V. Got it for $10 and thought it was well worth it.

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Sounds good. Maybe I'll wait a few months. Paradox games improve rapidly.

If anyone is thinking of picking this up, you can get a good discount from http://greenmangaming.com by using voucher code THEET-ERNAL-WAR15

$22.95. The code is only good for another 20 hours or so.

Amazon has Civ V on sale this week for $15.