Civilization 5 playing it Wide

[Zloth]

This loading screen from Expeditions: Rome immediately got a screenshot!

Είμαστε Βάρβαροι! (or maybe switch the two words - Google Translate is unclear)

 

[Brian Boru]

China​

Been messing around with China, I like her UU and UB. Chu-ko-nu is a serious item, a crossbow with 2 shots per turn—unbeatable for a long time. I have yet to find out if the 2 shots stack with the Logistics promo to give it 3 shots—wouldn't that be a game winner!

UB 'Paper Maker' is a Library replacement which gives a great early Gold boost—no maintenance and 2 Gold per turn. Library is an early build for any Civ, so China doesn't need a weird tech order to get their UB.

Empress Greta Garbo

Eye vant too bee a loan
Having trouble getting starts where I have my own landmass with only Raging Barbs for company. Nearby civs mean the Barbs become obsolete quite early, and the civs are a PITA when trying to experiment with various game mechanics and approaches—need to keep variables low to draw valid conclusions.

I've reduced opponents to one in frustration, tried Hemispheres map which gave me my own place. Got a neat XP farming city down early:

I'm not dreaming of killing the Barb camp, it's feeding my Archer and Trireme like it's a candy store

I made a mess of that game tho—'forgot' to build Paper Makers and ended up in financial trouble. Serves me right for such a stupid oversight—got blinded by getting my 3 early Settlers out to provide the 4 early cities I want, but of course that's less of a priority when you have a landmass to yourself.

I've moved onto a Continents map v 1 opponent, but I have the start turn of the XP farming game saved, so will probably go back to it. I'm saving any interesting starts which could prove interesting to experiment with vis a vis different approaches.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm saving any interesting starts

And any great starts too—behold a yum-yum!

I like water-based games, so this is prime for China—Gold from the Crabs, Gold from the Paper Maker, +2 Production on 4 seafood plots with Lighthouse and God of the Sea Pantheon—what could go wrong? I'm the player, that's what But yeah, that'll fund a few more Archers so I can get Workers doing their thing without being constantly Barbed.

<aside>I'm thinking of starting a Civ newspaper—yeah, yeah newspapyrus at first until Printing Press—would a good name for it be Barbed Wire?</aside>

Nice forests for Lumbermill soon—I prioritize its tech Construction for the Composite Bowman en route to the Chu-ko-nu. Nice hills too. Which segues into…

Production is very slow​

I remember this was a second problem I had with Civ5 originally, that it took forever to build anything—like eg once Capital hits 2 pop it's typically ~15 turns to build a Settler, even with Production Focus turned on. Over 10 for Library and Trireme, 6-7 for Archer etc.

I set second city to build The Great Lighthouse from turn #1—it started at 93 turns, this for a Classical Era wonder! Improved a bit with Aristocracy Policy, which boosts all Wonders by 15%, but still city was pop 5 before it finished it.

Maybe I need to place that +6 Production Natural Wonder—King Solomon's Mines—beside capitals in the Advanced Setup mod, hmm…There are a couple of other +Production NatWons also—The Grand Mesa +2 and The Great Barrier Reef +1—which I could scatter in players' regions. Adv Setup allows for multiple copies of NatWons, maybe it's time to experiment with that.

Production is fine once you get going—very approx after turn 150—but damn, the start is dragged out painful. Same with Food & Gold. I guess that's meant to gel with the Happiness constraint in the default game, which severely limits earlier eras expansion.

Well, not for me!
Options are a Good Thing!

 

[Pifanjr]

And any great starts too—behold a yum-yum!

I like water-based games, so this is prime for China—Gold from the Crabs, Gold from the Paper Maker, +2 Production on 4 seafood plots with Lighthouse and God of the Sea Pantheon—what could go wrong? I'm the player, that's what But yeah, that'll fund a few more Archers so I can get Workers doing their thing without being constantly Barbed.

<aside>I'm thinking of starting a Civ newspaper—yeah, yeah newspapyrus at first until Printing Press—would a good name for it be Barbed Wire?</aside>

Nice forests for Lumbermill soon—I prioritize its tech Construction for the Composite Bowman en route to the Chu-ko-nu. Nice hills too. Which segues into…

Production is very slow​

I remember this was a second problem I had with Civ5 originally, that it took forever to build anything—like eg once Capital hits 2 pop it's typically ~15 turns to build a Settler, even with Production Focus turned on. Over 10 for Library and Trireme, 6-7 for Archer etc.

I set second city to build The Great Lighthouse from turn #1—it started at 93 turns, this for a Classical Era wonder! Improved a bit with Aristocracy Policy, which boosts all Wonders by 15%, but still city was pop 5 before it finished it.

Maybe I need to place that +6 Production Natural Wonder—King Solomon's Mines—beside capitals in the Advanced Setup mod, hmm…There are a couple of other +Production NatWons also—The Grand Mesa +2 and The Great Barrier Reef +1—which I could scatter in players' regions. Adv Setup allows for multiple copies of NatWons, maybe it's time to experiment with that.

Production is fine once you get going—very approx after turn 150—but damn, the start is dragged out painful. Same with Food & Gold. I guess that's meant to gel with the Happiness constraint in the default game, which severely limits earlier eras expansion.

Well, not for me!
Options are a Good Thing!

What speed do you normally play at? I'm guessing Normal?

My wife doesn't play anything but Quick, exactly because it takes too long to get anything done otherwise.

 

[Hveðrungr]

I actually liked playing it on slower speeds because it meant that I had time to use my new units. Otherwise, by the time I'd built a new unit I'd researched something that made it obsolete.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm guessing Normal

You winna cookie

As I mentioned, once it gets going it's fine, so Quick would be too headlong at that stage—stuff going obsolete before it's had a chance to impact the situation decreases the strategic depth.
ETA: Like Loki said

I actually liked playing it on slower speeds

I played some Civ4 on Marathon when I was learning the military side of things, and played quite a few Epic games all thru first ~5 years—pacing on 4 was about right imo, whereas 5 seems unbalanced.

Barb Boats

I miss Dromons! I must've sank ~15 Barb boats so far, they're camped on a small island just south of the yum-yum pic, and have filled it with land units so there's no room for any more. So every spawn is a boat, often 5-6 visible at a time My Archers are also racking up the XP.

It's easy enough, only one hairy encounter when 3 of theirs attacked one of my Triremes on the same turn. But still, needing to churn out 3 Triremes just to defend…

Not using City defensive ability

Is it Barrage or Bombard? Whatever, I'm only having the garrisoned Archers fire now, so they get the max of +2 XPs from more shots.

4 Ruins = 2 Scouts

This applies only if you use the mod to give promo choice to all Scouts.

If you expect to get 4 Ruins, build a second Scout first. First promo the 1st Scout grabs is the Upgrade Weaponry one, which makes it an Archer BUT retains the Scouts abilities. 2nd and 3rd promos are your choice—I take Culture, then Tech or Gold—and have the 2nd Scout make the 4th discovery, and pick the Upgrade Weaponry again.

Ruin choices cycle every 3 turns, so what you pick first won't show again until 4th, etc.

It's a significant advantage having 2 ultra-mobile Archers in hilly or forested or marshy or jungle terrain. They can withdraw one tile from all chasing melee and still fire a ranged barrage, and the melee won't be able to hit them next turn—rinse and repeat for loadsa XP.

 

[Pifanjr]

I actually liked playing it on slower speeds because it meant that I had time to use my new units. Otherwise, by the time I'd built a new unit I'd researched something that made it obsolete.

War is my least favourite part of the game, so I don't really care about whether units are obsolete. I typically have a tiny army until someone attacks, at which point I churn out a whole bunch of units in a couple of turns.

 

[Brian Boru]

Adv Setup allows for multiple copies of NatWons, maybe it's time to experiment with that.

Experiment started, got the +6 Production Natural Wonder—King Solomon's Mines—beside my capital.

Barb AI​

I hope this was deliberate:

The two NE and SE of me appeared the turn before, and I figured I could take 'em handily enough. Then guy at E shows up and pins me there!

So I reload and move 1 tile E off the coast to provide an escape route. Which results in…

Yeah, dead next turn

As I said, hope it was deliberate—nice trap by the Barbs!