Sid Meier's Civilization Series (Main Titles)

It takes a while to build up experienced spies, but I find that once I have 3-4 master spies (and the Intelligence Agency, I never build its alternatives) I'm able to steal thousands of gold and half of my tech boosts quite reliably. I always give the novices the easiest missions to train them, and it helps to put more than one spy in the same city so they benefit from having sources. (It feels so perverse to win Aid Requests by gifting leaders the same money I stole off them.)

The Sistine Chapel is treated like a painting, one that can be moved from one exhibition building to another, and not you know part of an actual building. I guess they wanted something from Michelangelo that wasn't a sculpture, but all his best known paintings are murals so they were stuck. The real implausibility with this art theft is that you see "Your delegate reports that X was stolen by an unknown spy", but the fact that the work immediately appears in your trading menu means everyone would know who took it. The only way it would work would be by making it look like an ordinary crime and then staging a police raid where it is found again. (This is a problem many real art thieves run into when they try to sell their goods.)

It's true that the AI often moves works around, but I think it's because of its own whims rather than a targeted effort to prevent theft. I suggest targeting a theatre with several works.

I always level up my Spies just for defending my science or financial districts.

Clearly what I need to do more is complain since I managed to steal a Work just fine yesterday

I've found it's usually easier to throw some money/excess luxury goods/outdated strategic resources at the AI if I want their Great Works.

I only ever bother to defend my main spaceport or a city that has just been struck. Otherwise I have few spies and too much to defend, and much more to gain from offensive operations. However I wonder why we don't have the option to stall production in a city. Lawyers could do so in Call to Power, and it would be a powerful tool when competing for wonders.

They are willing to trade them up to a point. Once an AI decides on a culture victory, it will refuse to trade Works for anything. And if it decides on any other victory, it will quickly sell off its Works. So I find that the by time I'm ready to start buying them, they are either holding fast onto them or have none left. Might be my playstyle.

The only two times I've seen the AI not trade the player for Great Works is if you don't have any space or if the player is on the verge of cultutral victory.

As for spies, making sure to build the Intelligence Agency and getting a spy with the promotion to boost you spies, and the one policy card that increases spy level on offensive missions can make spies go far. The biggest issue for me is just finding the time to want to build them, even if they are very powerful units.

Okay got another Cultural Victory, this time with Ludwig. Tested Spies once again aaaand I robbed them blind.

For the first time, I came upon a map with two continents (or groups of continents in game terms) that had no coast connection. For everyone but Norway and Maori (who were playing, as it happens, but I was Russia) half the world was inaccessible until Cartography. I had thought the generator avoids that. Otherwise it was a very compact Continents map.

In which Door Monster comes out with another great Civilization video, this time looking at how crazy it would really be to have a Civilization-style history.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 28th 2024 at 6:51:30 AM

Why specify "(Main Titles)" on the title? Is talking about Colonization or Civilization Revolution a bannable offense?

Civilization Revolution was a spin off title not really counted as a proper civ game

Man, even in water maps it feels like Norway is underpowered compared to Maori or Indonesia.

I wish it was possible to tell the AI not to do something (like attack someone else). That's the point of diplomacy and international institutions. Instead the only recourse is to declare war after they have done so.

Has anyone ever killed a fighter that counted as such (that is not by taking over its base)? The AI never sends them in to attack if they're not at full health, and I never see air defence being enough to down it in one pass.

Could the map generator create its own emergent natural wonders? Like whatever mountain range has the most contiguous tiles is designated "Roof of the world" and one tile becomes the tallest mountain with higher adjacency bonuses to holy sites and campuses. Or the longest river, or the island most distant from any other land.

It was decision made with there was big mix of Late Civ V and early Civ VI mixed in with discussion of Beyond Earth. It was decided to split stuff like Beyond Earth and SMAC off into their own threads.

Tried out Julius, that Barbarian raid skill is really OP, plus the EXP bonuses. Lets you pump out Settlers really fast early on, without even touching the Ancestral Hall. So I went for Warlord's Throne instead. Domination victory is as slow as always but still very fun to grind the AI to bits. Still have around 8 civs to go.

Edit: Glorious victory achieved. I've never used Military Engineers as much as this game. Silos honestly feel a little silly but then again that's on me for having 25 nukes to throw.

Honestly it's kinda annoying how good the mech is lol. Mostly cause of it's movement speed though, bombers and tanks are pretty serviceable by themselves, it's just that the radiation is a little bit annoying.

Edited by alekos23 on Apr 6th 2024 at 8:21:02 PM

I finally got Stonehenge built playing on Deity... and it was pointless because all the prophets were already claimed. I actually managed in another game to grab one of those for-prophet organisations, but I have to wonder if the cost in faith is worth it. The unintuitive way to use apostles (use all but three of their spreads then bring them back to evangelise, or use all but one and then keep them as a fighting force) and broken pathfinding in enemy territory makes spreading the faith tedious.

Is the "Hic Sunt Dragones" normal/dark dedication ever useful in the Industrial or Modern eras? I usually have the continents and wonders found by then. It also amuses me how higher difficulty always speeds up the march of history, like the Industrial era starting in 900 AD.

A World Congress resolution gave everyone a nuclear and two thermonuclear bombs, and Saladin decided to use them against me. It's a spectacular sight, but what made me laugh was that they used two against the same city on successive turns. It wasn't even my biggest city nor the one closest to them, they didn't bother trying to capture it afterwards. But then an emergency was declared that culminated in me taking their capital, so it all worked out. And just to try it I used one of my own a few turns before winning (Diplomatic Victory, haha).

I came close to a Religious victory, playing on Deity and Huge. I had two religions wiped out and three others marginalised in their own empires. After the easy job of converting my own empire and nearby city-states, my approach was: train up plenty of apostles, but don't use the last spread (unless they are at risk of dying in theological combat). Target one Holy City at a time, sending in a wave of apostles (and a guru or two) until it converts. At that point, the AI responds (and usually triggers an Emergency) by sending in its own units to convert it back. So I station my apostles around it, kill the incoming inquisitors and reinforce the conversion. If the Emergency fails, the city sends out a wave of religious pressure. Then I target any other large city they have with a holy site, so they can't train any new units. Once that is done, move to the next Holy City.

Now I find that the AI is able to recover a few times, find new units, and convert it back, but once converted it's much easier to take back. In fact the most tedious and faith-intensive part was after the Holy Cities, when I had to convert two huge empires that had been converted by others (including one religion from a vanquished empire; I like the idea of a legacy living on like that). Since they had no stake in this, there were no missionaries to hunt down and kill, so it had to be done the hard way.

I was hoping to get hallyu, as Rock Bands can convert large cities much more quickly and cheaply, but before that happened someone else won diplomatically. Is there a way to see Diplomatic Point tallies in the World Congress session screen? It would help a lot. But I know I can win this way, at least.

The hardest part of Religion on high difficulty is claiming a Prophet in the first place - unless you play as Arabia, as I did (and still, getting one so late meant the religion was at risk of being wiped out before I could spread it).

Everyone and their mother's AI always seem to rush building Stonehenge.

AI often tries for a Religious victory, even if they don't have any skill at it.

Temple of Artemis or bust!

I once built Stonehenge but all the Prophets had been claimed. It ended up a useless ornament.

I don't know if the AI ever aims for a victory, it certainly spreads any religion it founds but it hits the same problem as Domination: victory requires a concerted effort where you focus your power outside your borders, which the AI just can't handle. That Theological Combat favours units on their own territory makes established religions inherently stable.

One irony is that seeking a Religious Victory doesn't lead to the whole world following one religion; it leads to every empire having an eclectic mix of faiths with one having a possibly thin majority in each.

Hmm, does the game usually take longer to load if you've got a bunch of new mods? I mean I know my PC's enough of a potato as is lol.

I generally play with a light smattering of mods and it doesn't take too long.

Hm, guess it was the Steel And Thunder bunch. First time I ever saw the unhandled exception error.