Then, sadly as it is for one used to taking out those huge loans to buy workers, I built a worker. The build order was scout - scout - shrine. I got ruins for a map, barbarians, and one population nothing major like culture or faith. Good enough to use Desert Folklore but nothing crazy. I got this, which seems just about what I wanted. I set it to Hot climate, looking to make use of Desert Folklore as usual, but this time I resolved to play the very first map rather than start-scumming. Emperor difficulty as usual, the sweet spot with competent AIs but not insane carpets of units.įor the map setup, I went with my old favorite of Inland Sea. I'm not confident that it's enough in the late game to compare with something better for an earlier growth curve, but it's an obvious way to go and I'm filthy-casualing this one. For a civilization pick, I went with the new France, double theming bonus for tourism. That would be the new Tourism culture victory. What direction should I go with a first game? Well, there's one pretty obvious direction, and one that also might stand up to optimize through a few more replays. Here's a report of my very first BNW game. I picked up Civ 5 Brave New World on a Steam sale a while back, and hadn't gotten around to playing it, but the Holy Warriors succession game at Realms Beyond got me going. All Firaxis seems to have up its sleeve are Band-Aids.Hi everyone. That tactic is no different from how the studio has approached the problem before, like when Firaxis increased the minimum distance between founded cities and decreased the amount of lump sum gold another nation would accept for a luxury resource. It’s just far too easy to keep your nation content, and thus, it’s again always in your interest to spam as many cities as possible.įiraxis’ only ideas are to make this strategy more difficult to employ, such as requiring the player to make a declaration of friendship in order to trade for lump sums of gold, which is one of the easiest ways to quickly buy up city-states.
I’m convinced now that not even Firaxis (this being the studio’s second attempt) can correct the mistake of using happiness as the only growth limiter. None of the other additions - not the new civilizations you can play nor the ideologies sandwiched into the revamped social policy system nor the archeological digs you can uncover - do anything to fix this fundamental flaw in the design. And with that, trade routes make it easier you to rather conveniently avoid the only growth limiter in the game: a negative civilization-wide happiness rating. By making it easier to earn gold, Firaxis has made buying the allegiance of city-states easier, which bestow all kinds of bonuses - most important of which are food and happiness. Sometimes, you’ll also earn science or religious influence, depending on where you’re sending your caravans or cargo ships. The new trade routes allow you to gather easy gold. Just as I wrote then, the heart of Civ V makes for a terribly uninteresting strategy game, and the new additions, once again, at best don’t address the problem at all and at worst exasperate the issue.
It’s telling that I wrote the above subhead before going back to look at my review of the last expansion, Gods and Kings, which has a nearly identical introduction to that game’s “What You Won’t Like” section. (What the … ?) But the World Congress at least adds some extra flavor to these otherwise vanilla interactions.
Guess who held a grudge against me for that? Yes, the Zulu. I lied, saying they were just passing through because I didn’t want to jump-start the fight without the Zulu. After amassing my forces at the Egyptian border, Ramesses II asked what my armies were doing. In one game, I made a promise to the Zulu to join their war plans against Egypt in 10 turns. You can also try to sway your rivals to vote your way through traditional negotiation before the ballots are cast.ĭiplomacy is still a little wonky. Your proposal and voting decisions can have long-term effects on your relationships with other civilizations. The Congress plays well into diplomacy, too, where other leaders have their own preferences.