Sid Meier's Civilization Series (Main Titles)

A good one. As in, I was mesmerized for a few moments. It's the first time a female character has ever enthralled me. I mean... Fuck it, just read the relevant part of my post here, and these three posts too.

edited 21st May '15 10:19:37 AM by MarqFJA

I've found that I reach a point, militarily speaking, where I am "in for a penny, in for a pound" — there is no point in beating around the bush and pretending to be friendly with anyone. The only distinction between an AI civ that I am at war with and one that I am not at war with is whether I have sufficient units nearby or have recently accepted tribute in exchange for a peace treaty.

edited 21st May '15 10:42:50 AM by Fighteer

Well, I do think Catherine's is one of the most welcoming leader screens (Half of it is her voice, no doubt, it's charming). Plus, it helps that her comments are friendly more often than not (unlike, say, Augustus or Pachacuti).

I have something like 200 modded civs and haven't played this game without mods since lord knows when.

I'm going to try and play DLC and mod-less.

I've got a ton of modded Civs but haven't actually used any of them yet. My games with the regular Civs always take so long...

I always use my general gameplay mods, though. The unit modpacks, one that makes the ages take longer but not production, one that overhauls religion, etc...

edited 22nd May '15 1:53:02 AM by KnownUnknown

Done. Won a diplo victory as Alexander. Was on the same continent as Arabia, Ottomans and Persia. I was trying to play my part right, constantly stealing everyone's allies and being allied to some awesome guy across the ocean.

Ottomans ate Persia and didn't notice what I was doing til right at the end so they Do W'd me and zerged my city states, luckily they were all armed to the teeth and with the odd Greek artillery they were able to hold out.

Suleiman was a dick throughout the whole game. And I'm not entirely sure what happened over on continent 2, Iroquois screwed England so bad they didn't hit industrial til the 1930s. They didn't live past the 1960s.

The lack of proper trade routes really messed me up at the start.

edited 22nd May '15 7:27:55 AM by Blackcoldren

Why, Yes Napoleon. I WOULD indeed love to crush Dido for you. Why, yes Boudicca, I dont mind that you declare war on Napoleon at all. Why, hello there Theodora. Would you like to join me in crushing China?

Japan hungers.

I'm getting the impression that making a trade demand of another civ literally never works. "I will not be intimidated! If you want open borders, you'll have to come and take them." Lizzie, I have enough nuclear weapons within launching range of your cities to wipe you off the map in a single turn. Take the hint.

That's kind of a constant with this series. It sometimes feels like the Demand Tribute option is only there so that you have an easy way to provoke other races into hating you.

At least in Civ IV other races were almost guaranteed to give you "help" (that is, Tribute when you're friendly) once - usually only once, mind.

I remember there used to be a lot of discussion on ideas for mod civs. Anyone have some favorite already-existent ones?

I recently started poking around in the Steam Workshop; well-made fictional civs seem more interesting to me than ones based on real life. I mean, we've already got 40+ real-world cultures.

Right now I'm having a lot of fun with these:

• Militaires Sans Frontieres (Metal Gear)
• Wolf and Merchant Empire (Spice And Wolf)

Free Civ has some great ones.

I've also really wanted to create a Heptarchy scenario, but I find the English side would be pretty boring and underdone.

There's already a pretty interesting Celtic split mod (Welsh/Irish/Cornish/Pict/Iceni.), which could use Bretons but was otherwise nice. But there aren't really any old English factions except for the 1066 scenario, where the Huscarl special unit is set in the post Viking time-frame which doesn't fit a 500-800 scenario.

Meanwhile, a lot of interesting things could be done with Wessex/Mercia/Northumbrian/Kentish factions.

In general, the Dark Age is a pretty big blindspot for Mod Civs; there's tons of Civs for Antiquity and Late Middle Ages but very few Civs modelled on Roman rump Kingdoms and etc.

I take it as small consolation that I very very rarely give into Computer begging either. Turning them down doesn't hurt relationships that badly, so unless things are already pretty tenuous, I've never found a "bugger off" hurt me too badly; either they love me enough to overlook it or hate me enough that the boost wouldn't save me.

edited 14th Aug '15 4:49:53 PM by Fauxlosophe

Currently have a game as China in the Brave New World expansion going. Going for a cultural victory. Made Jerusalem a puppet recently. Being an immortal ruler is the bomb!

Running an experiment: multiplayer with the Giant Multiplayer Robot. Two big draws here: one, of course, is the prospect of PBEM, letting me run a game in small chunks over the course of a week instead of having to coordinate a bunch of vastly-different schedules.

The other is that it has mod support for multiplayer.

Right now we're not being particularly ambitious; a friend is running Vice Virtuoso's Nanoha civ, while I'm rolling with Russia. If this works out, I foresee...magic.

I was fooled by a couple of tier lists thinking that America was in a weak tier. After trying them, I have to say that while not as overpowered as, say, Arabia or Poland, they still are an excellent civilization. Their early game is surprisingly good, the sight bonus makes their Scouts incredible.

In particular, communist America is so strong in late game. You buy tiles for next to no money, you gather truckloads of luxuries and strategic resources and use it to fuel your wars with your excellent soldiers (UU that keep their bonuses on upgrades are so great, and these ones are especially handy to, ironically, fight wars in hostile areas). And I haven't even reached the bombers yet.

edited 19th Sep '15 3:25:42 AM by Julep

Communist America is better in gameplay than Democratic America... Now this is some hilarious irony.

Would you guys say that Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri is a well-known game? Maybe even famous?

edited 20th Sep '15 9:26:53 AM by MarqFJA

Yeah, I think so. Though not to the same extent of Master Of Orion, Alpha Centauri was one of the most influential games of his genre - and you get that same expectation from gamers as Mo O that newer 4Xes of its type have to be in some way similar to it, otherwise they're not true examples of the genre or something.

It's not as well known outside of gamers and developers themselves as Civilization itself, though.

edited 20th Sep '15 8:20:58 PM by KnownUnknown

I would call it a cult game more than a famous game.

It's famous I'd say.

@America in Civ5 Tiers: I think the reason the US is so sorely underestimated is that the Shoshone have a much stronger city placement game.

The US ability to buy tiles, bolstered by Culture boosting religions/policies with the Angkor Wat (and others: Sistine is great, for example) can lead to truly troubling city growth rates, but it takes time; either to wait for cities to grow or to advance far enough for these effects to kick in.

Shoshone meanwhile place cities with 14 tiles right off the bat and can do huge land-grabs with city spamming right off the bat. Though there is some room for dispute, the Pathfinder seems like a better unit generally than the Minute Man. If you're playing a wide game, Shoshone are generally going to be better. The Great-General Bonus is nice for the States, but it's not necessary either.

As a result, the US gets written off like as the Poor man's Shoshone, which I'd say is the main cause for it being so vastly underrated.

Here's one play style for the Yanks that I'd actually like to see done (and I may try it myself now that I've mentioned it):

American Tall Empire with an Aggressive Culture

This would make them sort of opposites to the Shoshone; instead of planting down 5-6 cities to get a group of let's say, 12 resources, the Americans could comfortably get it with three large cities. You could comfortably connect the borders of cities that are 10 tiles away from eachother.

Typically, the fear with this is that enemies will settle there first, but if you throw out a few Warriors and Cavalry (and account for the +1 Lo S), you could effectively have a large zone of control and war with nearby Civs for free Workers (and maybe raid tile improvements for extra cash). Throw in Great Generals and you've got effective Landgrabs.

Social Policies could be Tradition (Bonus Culture and City Growth) and Commerce with either Honour or Patronage depending on which one you wanted to focus. Liberty in the long run would probably be the most flexible bet for this build.

edited 23rd Sep '15 3:40:17 PM by Fauxlosophe

The Pathfinder is a tremendously strong unit in the early game because you can use it to upgrade itself to stronger ranged units than are available to other civs off the bat.

I should clarify; I was making the claim that most people will argue that the Pathfinder is just generally better/more useful than a Minute Man. In so far as, any Civilization would do better if they had Pathfinder as a UU in place of a Minute Man.

For a particularly aggressive playstyle, the Minute Man's spammability for Great General points, plus a free promotion seems like it could conceivably be more useful even compared to the big early boons of the Pathfinder.

Generally though, yeah; PF is probably one of the best units in the game.

The thing is, I think the best American unit is the American Scout, not the Minuteman. The Sight bonus on a Scout is a tremendous help to spot ruins, and saves a lot of turns by avoiding losing time in deadends and spotting hills from far away to further erase the fog of war. And if you fight barbarians you can reach 3 sight which becomes ridiculous.

The Minuteman is mostly good because it keeps its upgrades when improved. Usually, you get them at a time where happiness is still scarce so waging war is rather complicated.

I don't disagree with you, but I was comparing the U Us. Similarly, I think I'd take Pathfinders over US Scouts; the sight is a huge boon but Shoshone get to really take advantage of the ruins that they do find where Americans can be stuck with discovering Barbarian camps.

Though I am wondering if any one could give me an opinion on the playability of this? Looking it over; I was confused on some points but I think it's feasible.

Though, this might just turn the US into a Poor Man's Russia with a more aggressive bent.

So, I have a problem. I've downloaded the Rising Sun pack of modded Civs off of Steam, but it's not showing up in my mods list. I can see it in my list of subscribed items on Steam, but if I check the list of mods in the "Mods" folder, it's not there. Anyone have a solution that might work?