Steam informs me that I've spent approximately 580 hours playing Civilization V. Part of me wonders how many of those hours are me restarting any given new game trying to find a decent starting map.

The game is difficult enough even on the 'easier' game settings that I refuse to play a map that doesn't at least give me a moderate to fast starting production and at least one recovered advanced technology from spooky ruins. :)

Side note: If you have the Brave New World expansion, you can build and deploy X-Com combat squads after researching Nanotechnology. Good luck, Commander.

Brian

LAST EDITED ON Jul-11-14 AT 03:47 PM (EDT)
 
>Steam informs me that I've spent approximately 580 hours playing
>Civilization V. Part of me wonders how many of those hours are me
>restarting any given new game trying to find a decent starting map.
>
>The game is difficult enough even on the 'easier' game settings that I
>refuse to play a map that doesn't at least give me a moderate to fast
>starting production and at least one recovered advanced technology
>from spooky ruins. :)

I've found Civ V to be not that difficult, honestly. Of course, all my victories have been cultural ones, because the CPU tends not to go for the cultural wonders as quickly, and they don't know how to defend against that sort of attack.

>Side note: If you have the Brave New World expansion, you can build
>and deploy X-Com combat squads after researching Nanotechnology.
>Good luck, Commander.

There's even an achievement for having an XCOM squad go from 100 HP to 0 in one turn: That's XCOM baby!

>There's even an achievement for having an XCOM squad go from 100 HP to
>0 in one turn: That's XCOM baby!

Anthy sighed wistfully. "It's so true."

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

BNW does ramp up the difficulty from G&K quite a lot, removing almost all the gold yields from tiles and replacing it with the Trade Route mechanic, which I tend to have a lot of problems with whenever I play against England or France because they will backstab you through a DoF, declare war, and plunder all the trade routes that were going through their territory, leaving your economy resembling that of the Weimar Republic. Also, it brings Shaka back. He has one of the best UUs in the game (it being that holiest of treasures, a Pikeman that upgrades to something worth bloody using) and boy howdy, does he like to use 'em!

Of course, good luck winning on any difficulty setting if you've got the Korea DLC and they get an isolated start. It's not that Korea can into space, it's that Korea will into space, and they will do so really bloody fast because the UA is something that the AI can abuse like a redheaded stepchild because of the production bonuses it gets. Sejong is an absolute nightmare to deal with on Deity, at least in my experience. I recall one game in which he was running away with things, so I decided to nuke his arse back to the Stone Age. He still won a science victory, despite my having reduced Seoul to a crater with a couple of super mutants in it and taking a couple of his other ones, just because he was so far ahead to begin with. Not that I'm bitter about it or anything.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I miss my meds. I miss my doctor. I miss functionality.

>Steam informs me that I've spent approximately 580 hours playing
>Civilization V. Part of me wonders how many of those hours are me
>restarting any given new game trying to find a decent starting map.

Probably more than you'd like to count, if you're anything like me. Or you get to turn ~50 (fast timescale) and have to restart because there's 4-5 barbarians surrounding your single city.

One thing I wish the game did have was natural disasters; not that it needs to be any harder, but it just feels weird without them, especially if you're looking at Krakatoa and 1883 ticks by with no "kaboom!". Maybe add in a promotion for Workers to counteract disasters. Or, to run with the X-COM angle, add "alien incursion" to the list of natural disasters starting in the 1950s, and a garrisoned X-COM squad prevents that.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

If you're having trouble starting out, I recommend the Shoshone, whose insanely long reach and ability to dictate what goodie huts give them is... uh... well, it's a bit broken in my opinion, but that's just me.

Venice is also useful; you only ever have the one city and the game is real good about making damn sure its on a usable ocean site.

-Merc
Keep Rat

Babylon is the broken Civ, imo- Walls of Babylon give 2x the normal hp to a city *and* a ranged attack boost, and oh yeah, free Great Scientist when you research *Writing*. Plop that dude down as an academy and you just run away with the tech lead. They're not geared towards any one specific victory condition, but when you're matching Submarines against Caravels and Tanks against Musketmen, the choice is pretty much yours.

"This is probably a stupid question, but . . ."

I generally play as the Maya. One, I love starting with a ranged unit in hand. And two, conquering the world with the Maya is just so anti-colonialistict satisfying.

Brian

If anti-colonialism brings you the warm and fuzzies, I believe this modded Civ may delight. Also, it doesn't break any more! =]

Much.

---
"She's old, she's lame, she's barren too, // "She's not worth feed or hay, // "But I'll give her this," - he blew smoke at me - // "She was something in her day." -- Garnet Rogers, Small Victory

FiMFiction.net: we might accept blatant porn involving the cast of My Little Pony but as God is my witness we have standards.

I'm not pimping this out because I worked on one of the other civs in the modpack, nosiree Bob...