Civ V Impressions

[exoriority]

well I asked about Civ V previously.

Got the game now from holiday sale and I can say that I really enjoy it so much.

I do play Sid Meier's games within the dos era, and seems that his games style doesn't change much. It feels like typical Sid Meier's game (specially Railroad Tycoon and Pirates!), with random campaign and open-world-ish with no-obvious goal (ending/objective) except being the dominant leader.

Like in Pirates, when you decided to retire, the game told the story about how well did you go afterwards. I dunno about Civ V yet, I havent actually finish a round or anything. And I don't know what exactly is the victory conditions. Should I conquered each and every civilizations?

There's no boss fight or real story/progressive campaign in it (for example Panzer General 3D or heroes of might and magic series). But the game gives generic missions with an addition of randomness just like in those sandbox games.

I enjoyed the game so much tho. Just last night I play at about 7 pm and when I take a look at my clock it's 5 am already. God damn.

I might add, this game really reminds me of Genghis Khan back at the dos era. But I wouldn't mind some extra shiny stuffs to reflect 2012 gaming era. In genghis khan you can have offsprings and such. With new successors, train your army and such.

this is my first playtrough, and I have recorded 11 hours already. oh my gosh.

There're some minor annoyance tho :
- The cinematics are the best yet, but the rendered in game art are lame.
- Some civs displayed animated sequence when you're on diplomatic discussion with them, some displayed prerendered still images?
- The complain was Civ V kinda streamlined, but as a guy who never touched Civ series this game is addictive.
- Also, when AI is doing its turns, the game crawling and freezes up, specially when playing on huge map.
- A session could take a while.
- Confusing tutorial, confusing goal

So questions :
- Some people said it feels similar to Total War series. How similar? What makes these two different, apart from real time battle in total war probably.
- What are heroes for (you know, those general units, scientists, etc)? How to use em properly? So far I only use em to bring my civ to golden age.
- And what does golden age actually do?
- What is the victory condition on this game?

edit : Does this game will actually goes into modern age era? Because I went to renaisance and that's it. I can't seem to take my civilization further.

Yes it can, you can research aircraft, artilerry, infantry etc. Damn this game is huge.

[SapphireBullets]

Originally Posted by exoriority

So questions :
- Some people said it feels similar to Total War series. How similar? What makes these two different, apart from real time battle in total war probably.
- What are heroes for (you know, those general units, scientists, etc)? How to use em properly? So far I only use em to bring my civ to golden age.
- And what does golden age actually do?
- What is the victory condition on this game?

Can't comment on Total War.

Okay, there are a few types of great person and they can all do a few actions:
-Start a Golden Age
All great people get this option. It produces a golden age for a few turns. The more times you use this the shorter each age will be.

Great Scientists:
-Can instantly discover one new technology for you. Best used to skip the longer research times.
-Can build an Academy tile improvement. When worked like a farm or mine by your citizens, this will produce a lot of science.

Great Artists:
-Can "Culture Bomb" a small area, centred on their hex with a one-hex radius, causing it to become part of your territory. This can be used to grab a lot of hexes quickly or steal territory from other nations or city states. (This will jarate them off though.)
-Can build a Monument, which can be worked for a lot of Culture.

Great Engineers
-Can "Rush" production, instantly providing you with a major contribution towards a city's current project. This is usually enough to get you a Wonder in one shot or at least cut construction time significantly.
-Can build a "Manufactory" which can be worked for a lot of Production.

Great Merchants
-Can perform a "Trade Mission" to a city state, which will net you a lot of gold and increase your diplomatic relationship with them.
-Can be build a "Customs House" which can be worked for a lot of Gold.

Great Generals.
-Provide a combat strength bonus to nearby units in a two hex radius.
-Can build a Citadel which provides units standing inside a defensive bonus.


Golden Ages, while in effect, provide a boost to all tiles which produce Gold or Production.


Win conditions:
-Conquer your foes and be the last civilization to hold on to your original capital. Basically, capture all the uncaptured capitals of rival civilizations and don't lose yours.
-Build the UN wonder to trigger voting for a World Leader election, which relies on the favour you've gained from other Civs and City States.
-Complete five branches of Social Policies and then build the "Utopia Project" to win a Cultural Victory.
-Build the "Apollo Program", then research and build all the necessary parts for a space ship and send them into orbit from your capital to win the Science Victory.
-Play until the game time runs out and be the one with the most points. (You can see these on the Diplomacy Menu.)

Hope that helps!

[exoriority]

Very detailed! Rep +! edit : oops can't rep yet.

The first playthrough was too massive for me, my computer crawled like hell just to wait for the AI turns.

But on smaller maps and fewer opponents the game was very smooth. I won by domination. I learn the general game mechanics now.

I think RTSes should learn from Civ V in terms of SP gameplay. Skirmish, terrain generator and such. Since most campaign on RTS are a joke (supreme commander 2). Therefore the prolonged, attractive SP gameplay + MP gameplay.

One more thing what's culture and science for anyway? They both doesn't seem do quite much.

[SapphireBullets]

Culture has multiple uses.

Firstly, the total culture your civ generates per turn goes towards your next Social Policy. The amount you need and how much you've accumulated towards it is listed at the top of the screen.

Policies get progressively more expensive as you achieve more (Though "Free" policies from wonders and such don't seem to count towards this) and the more cities you have the more your next policy will cost. Certain Wonders and Social Policies can effect the cost per policy.

Secondly, the Culture generated by individual cities determines how fast your territory expands. (If you click on a city, the pink-highlighted hexes will be the next possible areas to be claimed through culture.) Again, certain wonders can effect this.

Culture is generated in cities depending on certain buildings and wonders. Monuments and some natural wonders (like Mount Fuji) also generate culture if worked.

Sometimes culture can be generated without cities, such as the opening policy on the Honour track and Montezuma's Sacrificial Captives ability. This doesn't go towards a city's territory expansion but does go towards social policies.

Hope that helps!

[exoriority]

It surely helps! Thanks!

[CloudCover]

The diplomacy screens of leaders show up as actual animations or pictures because of your graphics settings I believe. The most graphic intensive (with lots of moving color and stuff) show up as pictures, while the easy-to-render movies show up as movies, since they usually don't have as much moving. So Montezuma would probably show up as a picture, while Ramses may be a movie. You can change these to show only movies in your graphics settings.

[exoriority]

I'm not sure about that. Because I set everything at high. But that's just minor annoyance for me, doesn't really change the fact that this game is great.

Anyways another minor technical problem.

Why can't I skip the intro movie, my mouse cursor is hovering above it and I can't press esc or click or anything. I have to screw around with alt tab and I don't know what I did the movie stops and went to the menu screen.

It's like this and I have to do that everytime I play the game.

[xGRKx Hitman]

Wait until when the son enters the tent and hit enter, thatsd the start phase for when you can skip the rest of the scene that ive figured out and get to the main menu.

[RW42]

This is a quote from Sticky in his pinned thread at the top of this forum:

5# Civilization V Crashes on Startup, Skip Intro Movie
If your game keeps on crashing at the initial stages of the game like the start up screen or the first loading screen, you may want to try following workarounds.
1. Go to

“My Documents\My Games\Sid Meiers Civilization 5\”

and open usersettings.ini in Notepad. About 15 lines down you will find “SkipIntroVideo = 0″. Make this value 1. This will skip the intro video and you will be directly enter to the game menu. Again, make sure that you have the latest drivers and you reboot the PC after driver install and editing the ini file.

2. Navigate to

Steam/SteamApps/common/Sid Meier’s Civilization V/DirectX

and run Dxsetup.exe. if you are using Dx10/11, try running the game using DirectX 9 also upgrade your DirectX drivers.

Really a helpful guide. This tip alone saved me a lot of time spent re-watching the into!

ENJOY
PS : Make your next game a duel.

[SapphireBullets]

Actually, I think the game is just loading in the background while the intro movie plays. Just press Esc once it starts and it'll cut off once your game is loaded.

(I've got a pretty decent PC and this can vary by a few seconds either way but it usually finishes as the son is coming in.)

[exoriority]

^ yea, suprisingly the game don't have loading screen at the startup.

I guess they use the cinematic for loading, which is quite clever. Rather than staring at the progress bar and tips and tricks better make great first impressions with very well done cinematics. That'll keep the player excitement quite boosted.

[Matheau]

Originally Posted by exoriority

So questions :
- Some people said it feels similar to Total War series. How similar? What makes these two different, apart from real time battle in total war probably.

I wouldn't say it is that similar. On a superficial level, the campaign map aspects of Total War games are similar to Civilization, but that is about it. However, the only way to win any Total War campaign I've seen basically requires you to beat almost everyone else, so there isn't really any "non-combat" oriented mechanics. Maybe it's a little more similar if you solely play Civilization to win by defeating all the other factions, but you definitely have a lot more viable styles of gameplay in Civilization then Total War.

Total War isn't a Civilization like game with real time strategy battles added. Total War is a real time strategy battle game with a somewhat Civilization like campaign system that revolves entirely around your military.

[exoriority]

ah okay. I think winning the other victory condition on Civ V would take quite loooong time to do, and newcomer wouldn't be able to achieve most of other victory conditions for quite awhile.

I don't like shogun theme anyway. Hopefully they re do another medieval themed total war.

BTW GoTY Civ doesn't feel any difference with the vanilla version eh? Except for more civs and maps and/or scenarios.

Civs doesn't feel that much different one another anyway and maps the game randomly generate it everytime you play.

So I might add those who haven't touch any civ series before should've fetch the vanilla version.

[Matheau]

Originally Posted by exoriority

ah okay. I think winning the other victory condition on Civ V would take quite loooong time to do, and newcomer wouldn't be able to achieve most of other victory conditions for quite awhile.

I don't like shogun theme anyway. Hopefully they re do another medieval themed total war.

BTW GoTY Civ doesn't feel any difference with the vanilla version eh? Except for more civs and maps and/or scenarios.

Civs doesn't feel that much different one another anyway and maps the game randomly generate it everytime you play.

So I might add those who haven't touch any civ series before should've fetch the vanilla version.

It really depends on the map. On very small maps on low difficulties without a lot of continent breakup, conquest is the easiest method to win, but that is about it.

I don't really get the GotY complaint though. That's what it does. That's what it says it does. That's what virtually every GotY edition for any game does.

[gingerbill]

Originally Posted by exoriority

ah okay. I think winning the other victory condition on Civ V would take quite loooong time to do, and newcomer wouldn't be able to achieve most of other victory conditions for quite awhile..

i find the diffrent victory conditions reasonably well done in CIV 5 , they do make you play the game diffrent . Culture win is fun , give it a go.