Civ V - Gods and Kings Pre-Order

[Barthheart]

LOL. Well that's good, play with all the bits and see how they work and what they do. Have fun.  8)

[bayonetbrant]

Hey man it's my first game! Truth is I sent the spy to Lhasa during my Monday gaming session, then last night I forgot I did that and attacked. Then I got the message that the election was rigged. Oopsie.

Sort of like US policy in (fill in name of Central American country here) in the 1920s?

[Gusington]

I make it a point to play with my bits regularly to make sure everything is functional.

[TheCommandTent]

I make it a point to play with my bits regularly to make sure everything is functional.

What you do in your own time is your business ...  :o

[Gusington]

Better safe than sorry, you know.

[steve58]

If you haven't picked up Gods+Kings yet, Greenmangaming currently has it for $19.49 (for a Steam key)

http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/us/en/pc/games/strategy/sid-meiers-civilization-v-gods-kings/

[Barthheart]

Steam also has a demo available.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/16870/

Of course you need Civ V to use the demo.

[Gusington]

So do you guys just turtle for the majority of a game that spans all the eras?

There is so much going on I feel like I am missing most of it. The year is ~1750 and I am only in the Renaissance Era, and my peeps are miserable. I have concentrated on advances that I had ignored before but it may be too late. There is also the fact that I simply suck at Civ...

Anyhoo what type of wins do you enjoy going for and how do you go about getting there?

[Barthheart]

Normally I go for science wins. And yes that involves a certain amount of turtling.
Lots of times though I' m just playing to see what happens. No real focus until near the end of the game.

See... I' just enjoy playing the game to watch the flow of possible history. I'm not a power gamer bent on winning all the time.  I only play on prince (normal) level. Not interested in playing on higher levels cause that just gives the AI players more stuff, not making them better.

Maybe I'm just lazy....

[MetalDog]

Space race is the easiest, if any of them can be considered easy.  The difficulty level you pick has something to do with it as well.  I can't get too specific, as all Civ's share common elements, but each iteration has its own quirks.  Lagging behind in Tech is common.  Especially if you don't trade with the other civ's.  The AI will ALWAYS agree to a trade in its favor.  NEVER FOR ANY REASON I CAN THINK OF, will it EVER take a trade in YOUR favor.  You should also have a steady supply of luxuries keeping the populace happy.  Too much war, too much overcrowding, not enough happiness producing buildings will contribute to unhappy populace.

[bayonetbrant]

the difficulty level has a significant effect on your level of happiness for your peeps.

don't neglect the happiness - gather and cultivate as many luxury resources as possible, and sell or trade off all but 1 of each of what you've got.  Also, try to pick up every social policy you can that will increase your happiness.  If you can keep that up high enough, you get multiple golden ages and your overall productivity stays a bit higher.

I've won 2x w/ cultural victories in Civ V.  I'm playing a G&K game right now w/ the Celts and I have a feeling I'm going to end up chasing a space victory just b/c I don't know that I'll get ahead of the culture curve.

[tgb]

I just won a cultural victory as the Byzantines by parleying their religious bonuses into culture.  There was a lot of turtling (I only had 4 cities and only fought two wars, both ending indecisively).  By the last quarter or so of the game, I had a large enough army sitting at my borders that no one messed with me, I had explored everywhere and met everyone, and pretty much just hit "end turn" over and over until I won.

[Gusington]

From everyone's advice above it sounds like turtling is a tried and true Civ V strategy. I think I will try that next.

How do you acquire luxury items from other civs?

BTW I am also playing on Prince [Normal] difficulty...maybe I should have lowered it for this first go around...

[Barthheart]

You need to trade with other civs to get lux's.
They need to have extras and you need to have something they want, like extras of your own.

[bayonetbrant]

Turtling helps keep unhappiness down, but there are other ways to expand.

A major criticism of every Civ since II has been the looooooong endgame long after the winner's pretty well determined based on how far ahead you are.  You can be 50% ahead of next civ on points, but barely in the modern era, and you have to keep playing out to get the win.