Sid Meier's Civilization Series (Main Titles)

Wow, the AI really does only use Ancient and Classical units. That's kind of absurd. It makes winning wars so anticlimactic that War Weariness is the only thing keeping you from Domination victories with every game.

I'm working on a Cultural victory with Kongo at the moment. I'd have already won except that France is also going for Culture, which is making me very annoyed. I'd hate to have to send a giant armada out to sack Paris. It's not that they are in any danger of winning, but they might be able to keep me from it. I'm now building out Theater districts in every city possible to overwhelm them.

Diplomacy is weird sometimes. Declaring colonial wars against Japan and Egypt got everyone denouncing me for being a warmonger, and now I seem to be permanently in the shithouse with all the AI civs. Yet they keep coming to me and asking for gifts. Seriously?

edited 23rd Oct '16 7:07:45 PM by Fighteer

I could've sworn they said something about having a Mac version out in time for the release. Glad I didn't preorder it at any rate, and that the early receptions is good such that I can at least get a hold of it later.

At least I can grin and swoon listening to the soundtrack, much like I did while gearing up to buy Civ V. I love the inspirations in the themes this time around.

Guess I'm going on yet another international music trawl. The emphasis on folk songs makes me really wish there was a wider spread of Civs.

edited 23rd Oct '16 9:03:38 PM by KnownUnknown

Apparently district costs scale with total number of Civics researched, not how many you've built before. Which is why the very first district you can build is likely going to have a boosted cost. This also seems true anecdotally: in my most recent game I focused on military and commerce, never building a single Theater district, and the costs stayed relatively low compared to my production.

I am honestly wondering if it's a good idea to intentionally slow down your own culture growth in order to become that much better at everything else.

edited 24th Oct '16 5:21:07 AM by Clarste

Gah. I'm so frustrated by those "hidden" mechanics. Civ V was at least transparent about when and how the costs of things changed.

I can say that going for production early does seem to be the key to the game. It's insane how much difference Industrial districts make, especially if you lay them out in locations where the radiating bonuses for Factories and Power Plants can hit multiple cities.

So far, the least useful district seems to be Entertainment, since I rarely had a situation where Amenities were permanently low enough to make it needed. Well, that and Aerodromes... given the AI's penchant for fielding Pikemen in the Atomic Era, the case for air superiority was pretty slim. Do they get any smarter at higher difficulties? So far I've won at Warrior with ease and Prince without much trouble.

I feel like some kind of AI patch ought to be forthcoming, and soon.

edited 24th Oct '16 6:14:17 AM by Fighteer

You do get percentage boosts to production and whatnot from having surplus Amenities (why can't they just call it Happiness?), so it's not like it's totally useless, but yeah, it's always been my lowest priority.

...And I just had an epiphany about how to play Japan. Build all your cities in a circle with a single mega-clump of districts in the center, in particular Industry and Entertainment since they can overlap at higher levels.

I feel like the most critical part of performing well at higher difficulties is advance city planning, so you get an idea for where you'll put districts with radiating bonuses very early for maximum overlap.

I suppose that Entertainment districts are most valuable for going after a Domination victory because they can help soak up the War Weariness you get from being on the warpath.

The AI begging for money even though they either hate you or trying to bully you while you have the overwhelming advantage?

Sounds like same old AI bravado... Generally speaking thats when you know when you have the AI by the balls is when they cop an attitude

I just posted a "first impressions" review on my blog.

The no-culture "slingshot" strategy paid off pretty well in a Quick Emperor game. I was Japan using the circle strategy mentioned above, and put no investment into culture at all until I had researched Electricity to get my Electronics Factories into overdrive. By that point each of my cities had already gotten 2-3 districts, and then I just snowballed in well, every single category. I was going for a science victory out of stubbornness mostly, but by the time I finished I had already fully researched both civics and science trees, maxed out all my cities on every single building (and most of them had 30+ population), and I probably could have won a billion times over with any other kind of victory.

I didn't win with culture because I didn't have any art accumulated over the course of the game. Honestly I'm not sure how much being Japan for the Electronics factories or district synergies even mattered: I think building in a circle to put all your factories in the center is probably good idea in general.

edited 24th Oct '16 10:36:07 AM by Clarste

A little thing that might prove interesting when playing as Catherine; in case you felt underwhelmed by her focus on espionage: if an AI civ accepts the 25 gold envoy, you will see both of its agendas. Which makes it much easier to please them, as you know from the get go what they will and won't like (aside from the main agenda which is always known).

Also, you will know a lot about what's happening in foreign lands, and might get an early idea of what everyone's strategies are. Basically, it is a small maphack instead of a clear-cut bonus.

And speaking of agendas, I wish there were some incompatibilities to avoid AI being impossible to please. Like Hojo Tokimune getting the Paranoid Agenda (likes civs that are far away and have weak militaries). Since my military was rather scarce, I kept getting, in a row, the "I am pleased" message from "Paranoid" and the "I am displeased" one from "Bushido" (which favors strong military and culture).

I mean, what do you do to please Darwinist Gandhi?

edited 24th Oct '16 1:08:51 PM by Julep

Frankly, given how brokenly bad the AI is right now, I'm not sure any of that matters. Maybe it does on higher difficulties, but pissing off the AI is ludicrously consequence-free if all they can throw at you is hordes of Warriors.

It does when it leads the AI to declare war on you and refuse to making peace. Playing with max War Weariness in all your cities can make the game significantly more difficult, as the rebels scale up with your tech - which means that during a war against France (that I did not start), while Catherine only had Heavy Chariots, Slingers and Spearmen, I got groups of four Pikemen and Crossbowmen spawning near my cities. Those were the units I was using in my army.

Happy AI means an AI that is less likely to declare war on you.

Hmm. I haven't had the AI refuse to offer peace terms with me yet, at least not when I'm crushing them so abjectly. Sometimes the terms have been unacceptable, but then I just crush them and laugh.

Even if they don't accept peace, you can always just crush them permanently. They don't really have a choice in the matter. I mean, yeah, warmonger penalties, but the AI was never going to like you in the first place, and rarely get pissed off enough to actually declare war, no matter how much they denounce you.

That's basically it. The ultimate solution to endless wars is to knock the offending player out of the game. Also note that the AI should also be suffering war weariness penalties on their end, which will cripple their economies as much as yours.

edited 24th Oct '16 1:37:12 PM by Fighteer

I still have the V reflex where killing a player was the best way to get the most hated person in the world. Apparently here it's not as bad, it's just something that takes some getting used to.

I got the "refuses to peace out" behavior in two different games, and twice I was clearly winning. But it's only when you start wearing the Capitol's walls off that suddenly the AI stops being stubborn. And that wasn't even Gorgo, whose agenda means she will be likely to behave like that.

Hmm. I had Frederick sue for peace as soon as I started damaging the defenses of the city he had planted just north of my empire. Again, though, this is all kind of silly until the devs patch the AI's military behavior.

I've had the AI sue for peace at various point. In my latest game as Rome, Peter sued for peace as soon as his attacking force was twarted and legions started walking out of Antium towards Novograd. I refused and he sued for peace when I entered Novograd's surroundings. He sued for peace again when I took Novograd.

Barbarossa only sued for Peace when I took Frankfurt though

I accepted and me and him both started having a good ol fashioned military buildup around the border.

edited 24th Oct '16 1:50:14 PM by Ghilz

I did have AI suing for peace at some points, mind you. But it's the odd case where it refuses to do so that can be incredibly annoying - note that each time the AI declared war, not me. Okay, I didn't try giving away some stuff to get the peace deal but that's because every time I was obviously winning, and I have something of a pride.

Do you suppose the AI is programmed to consider its opponents' war weariness as a factor in negotiations? "I'm winning because your people hate you?"

I don't think so, but I think numbers, more than tech, account for the way the AI evaluates how the war is going. Which means that when it had 15 Slingers & Heavy Chariots against my 8 Pikemen and Crossbowmen, it probably still thought it was winning. So no peace.

Well yeah, if they still have an army why would you expect them to surrender? I think that's your fault, not the AI's. If you want them to surrender, you have to at least threaten one of their cities. "I know I'm winning so the AI should too" is rather poor logic in a computer game.

edited 24th Oct '16 2:53:31 PM by Clarste

Ideally they'd assign some kind of threat score to each unit and tally the numbers on both sides. When their enemy is significantly higher or lower the AI should respond accordingly.

I mean, in the real world a leader thinking "we have an army, but their army vastly outclasses ours" should be considering surrender.

Because I already took one of their cities, and I keep slaughtering their troops without the AI dealing any kind of damage to me?

I mean, I'm not bothered by the AI refusing to sue for peace when on the offensive, I am bothered when it refuses to sue for peace when it is getting rooted and pushed back. Basically, it went as follows:

• Catherine founded a city not far away from my capitol
• She DOW'd
• I started destroying her army
• I started attacking the city, asked for peace twice before taking it (it wasn't very well located), she refused both times
• I took the city, asked for peace, she refused (despite being nowhere near able to retake it, mind)
• Finally, when I started attacking the walls of Paris (her only other city), she sued for peace

The next time, she attacked me again (with a casus belli: I occupied one of her cities) with a swarm of crappy units that allowed my entire army to get 2 or 3 promotions. Once I cleared that I entered her territory and asked for peace, but I had to put Paris in the red for her to sue for peace.

Then I got fed up and formal war'd her when she attacked a CS I was the Suzerain of, and killed her. But before that I was afraid to appear as a warmonger - but if they fixed the "warmonger penalty when you are retaliating" issue from V, then fine by me. I'll know it in the future.

edited 24th Oct '16 3:35:13 PM by Julep