Sid Meier's Civilization Series (Main Titles)

Or if you're a money centric Civ that can an army while focusing on primarily on city infrastructure, only actually producing units occasionally / if the need arises to mobilize your production in that direction.

Or if you know how the game the AI enough to avoid a war until you're ready - which, admittedly, is harder in this game than it was in IV (which also had the Great Wall to make building an army practically unnecessary for half the game unless you had some troubling neighbors). On the other hand, it's easier to win a defensive war with less units in this game - at least against the AI.

Still, Civ has always been a series where you're encouraged to make all your cities a certain degree of self-sufficient, since otherwise they don't end up as useful. Unlike games like say Endless Space or Masters of Orion, where settlements are typically encouraged to have a specific focus first and forgo others until you've got the freedom to do what you want. In this game, since your empire will typically consist of many less cities than the previous ones, arguably even more so.

edited 13th Jan '15 1:02:45 PM by KnownUnknown

What Civs would be rich enough to build infrastructure - which quickly lowers your income - AND buy an army ?

The wealthiest Civ of all is Venice, but infrastructure is not really an issue with them. Unless you got a dream start with a load of luxury to trade, Petra and the Colossus, plus a position that allows you to send Caravans without having to worry about Barbarians, I don't see any Civ that would be rich enough to buy a lot of military units. On tall empires maybe, but on wide ones, if you got an agressive neighbour ?

I've done so with both Morocco and Arabia decently well enough, typically with a "new cities as plans require" mentality - so I can either go tall or wide (I prefer something in between) depending on the situation. I do tend closer to tall, true, but it rarely actually works out that way.

You ninja'd my edit, but the idea isn't to never build units, but to manage your economy (and the infrastructure itself) so that you don't have to focus on unit production and instead focus on infrastructure, unless you have to mobilize your production for war. If you do have to go to war (like, say, for resources or if some jerk is clearly about to attack you), switch to "war mode" well before war breaks out and then switch back when you're done.

If you start next to an aggressive neighbor, then your main focus should be eliminating/crippling them as swiftly as possible, and that colors your playstyle regardless of what kind of Civ you're playing. And yes, going back to your original point: Civ is a game about sacrifices - every decision to build X is a conscious decision not to build Y or Z, which is why when it comes to units I like to have a buffer zone - either with cash or by using a city (usually the captial - I preferred to have multiple ones in IV but that's harder in V) as an effective unit producer while the others are building themselves up.

edited 13th Jan '15 1:27:05 PM by KnownUnknown

Ugh again. I was aiming for a science victory but got a culture victory. Stupid, stupid, stupid obsession with havin every building

Play against Poland. That won't happen by accident, unless yo actively seek out tourism-generating wonders, or Poland get wiped out by someone else (which never happened to me, Casimir is always among the best of my enemies. Compare to Pedro or Theodora, who never are).

The thing with never building units is that depending on the field, buying some to compensate may be far from enough. Attila is obviously the crowning example of "I have 25 units at turn 50", but some others are offenders too. I could mention Shaka, Alexander, Assurbanipal, Augustus among the ones that will have a huge army early on, and many others (Napoleon, Dido, Wu...) among the ones that are highly likely to get a horde if you start looking weak. Ironically, Genghis is one of the easiest ones to manipulate, since je will almost always waste his time trying to take a city-state to not avail, and end up weakened because he is still in his pre-Keshik era. Never had much trouble with Moctezuma, since his jungle bias is not that strong actually.

That still leaves a significant risk to get screwed. However, most of the "peaceful" leaders will make this no-unit policy very much doable. You just can't predict who will be your neighbour.

edited 16th Jan '15 6:07:05 AM by Julep

At lower tech levels, rushing plain just doesn't work, all you need is a couple of well place ranged units to discourage early warmongers.

At higher tech levels it gets better when you can one shot your opponents units at range.

Im just so obsessed with buildings ;_; I cannot not build them

...Play as Rome, I guess?

And if it's getting you victories you don't want, then just disable the victories you don't want to get.

Play as Venice. Little risk of Cultural victory this way.

...Balmung that sounded so logical because I totally forgot those existed. You are now my hero.

You could play as a warmonger Civ, since if you focus on infrastructure and defense with most of those you'll fall behind - at the very least, you're not likely to be getting the Culture victory before anybody else unless you're really good at it.

Again, that's why you balance buying and building units. As I said, in the super early game, if you're near warmongers, you shouldn't be worrying about your economy and should be worrying about making sure you're adequately defended. Likewise, you should be aware of what's going to be a problem and start preparing for it long before war actually breaks out.

You should be prepared for war in general: in other situations, the AI doesn't really take into account economy when deciding if you're weak. They never have. "Aim for a small standing army with the capacity to make a large one when threatened," regardless of if you're using production or money, is a rule of thumb in the Civilization series. Especially in V, when the AI is quick to give up when pushed back a couple times.

Usually I tend towards a standing army that's too big, to be honest, which comes naturally to me (I tend to pair buying units with building a bunch of units in my production capital every once and spreading them throughout the kingdom) as long as I have the income to support it. It also helps avoid war in general, because the AI will avoid attacking you outright unless they're nutso like Atilla.

edited 16th Jan '15 3:44:25 PM by KnownUnknown

I love when the AI attacks me, because it gives me a chance to earn XP for my units without getting warmonger penalties. Having a smaller standing army frees up income that can go towards increasing production so you can churn 'em out like crazy when you need to.

/ I love AI's warmongering in Civ5; I tend to keep a handful of Specials and/or Archers with high production or gold. Nothing is sweeter than watching A.I.s assume weakness then crumble against a single well defended city (especially to the point where they start offering their own).

Especially when I'm going culture and they happen to have some shiny paintings of their own...

edited 16th Jan '15 4:19:01 PM by Fauxlosophe

It's a nice contrast to Civ IV, where the AI tended to declare war only when they were certain they could get some kind of victory in the turn they declared it, even if they had no hope of winning the war itself. Though taking a city in one turn is a lot harder in this game anyway.

edited 16th Jan '15 6:44:07 PM by KnownUnknown

Holy crap I am loving the Songhai.

I am probably loving more the fact that I got in a ridiculously advantaged position. Desert. Loads of flooded rivers. Marble, 4 cottons and wheat. Then I completed the Petra. on my capital surrounded by desert...you do the math.

Songhai are great. I do them when I'm goofing around and want to be a warmonger;

Tonnes of free gold for killing Barbarians and sacking cities?

Fast moving cavalry with no penalty for saking these cities?

And a faith bonus that I can throw into Holy Warriors?

Sold.

Honour and Piety combo makes them pretty great and Medieval Era they really shine. Once it gets competative, Songhai sort of gets outshined since their ability sort of seems more oriented towards helping to snowball an attack by giving you gold to either put into economy or spawn more mercenaries buuut Huns and Zulu have an easier time getting off the ground and Civs with economic/empire building specialities tend to be even safer than that.

edited 19th Jan '15 9:12:15 AM by Fauxlosophe

The gold is amazing, specially since I tend to play with raging barbies on. Only way I can pop a settler faster is if I was spain and found el dorado!

Listening through the soundtrack of the game again, and realized I hadn't heard England's War theme all the way through despite often being told I should.

Much like Sweden's themes, man does that song get really good partway through. Gotta love Civ V's soundtrack. Well, gotta love Civ's music in general, really.

edited 19th Jan '15 11:15:08 AM by KnownUnknown

Ooh, we talking about tracks we like? Obligatory mention of the Hunnic war theme.

Favorite peace music: Songhai, Ethiopia; favorite war music: Shoshone, Brazil.

(Honorable mentions: Mongol peace, Shoshone peace, Brazilian peace)

Also some good background music: Elipse, Our Town, American Dreams (Europe), The Dynasty Begins (Asia).

edited 19th Jan '15 11:39:24 PM by Blueeyedrat

I just adore this game's soundtrack in general. The idea of taking traditional melodies from a wide array of cultures and arranging them for orchestra is one that really needs to be done more - every song is like a fusion of different cultural conventions and sounds.

Plus, the way the songs in this game are arranged is typically not just adapting the melody but performing it in a dramatic, climactic way. Quite a bit of the music in the game feels like it's arranged for film, to accompany scenes of war, majesty and prosperity - like if history were scored by John Williams.

I hope they keep going with the idea of using historical/cultural melodies as the motifs of the races... though I do miss the old Civ 1-4 "of dubious connection to the actual cultures they represent" themes too. I'd kind of like hearing some of those set to orchestra too, maybe as general background tracks.

If I were to pick a top set for me, I suppose it goes:

Peace:

• Pocatello
• Gajah Mada
• Askia
• Sejong
• Willem

War:

• Pocatello
• Atilla
• Gustavus
• Suleiman
• Willem

Though there are a ton of others, too. Harald's Peace Theme, both of Pachacuti's themes... - hell, pretty much all of it with a few exceptions. But Pocatello's music FTW. Both of his themes embody exactly what's best about the Civ V sountrack as a whole, imo at least.

edited 20th Jan '15 1:29:44 AM by KnownUnknown

Shaka's war theme is epic.

It's funny; I enjoy the music in Civ V (and all the Civ games) passively — I'm rarely consciously aware of it.

Ugh. Shaka's War Theme gets kind of exhausting after hearing SHAKA SHAKA SHAKA for the billionth time though.

I love the themes for when you are talking to the Civs...I miss the CIV IV music for Joao, The Celts, and it was always fun to hear the Marselleise in one way or the other whne talking to France

Also there was this one song in Civ III...fuck I need to look it up but it was orgasmic. just the idle music in there. Nnngh. Miss it so hard.

edited 20th Jan '15 6:41:06 AM by Aszur