Civilization V

[PZ]

... There's no multiplayer games that equals a group of friends / family around the table playing an old fashioned board game.  ^-^

Indeed - I remember my family sitting around the dinner table playing games like The Game of Life, Monopoly, and Clue

[fragger]

I have fond memories of all of those :-X As a matter of fact, I still have a Monopoly and a Clue (although for some reason it's called "Cluedo" here and I think in Britain). I've still got a Buccaneer game as well. Risk was another old game I used to like, and Stratego.

Binn, that game you described sounds really interesting, I haven't heard of that one. It's good to see that tabletop board games haven't died out completely. And you can still play them during a power outage :-()

There is another relatively recent board game I like based on the Lord of the Rings story. It's produced by Hasbro and is a bit different from most board games because instead of the players competing against each other, they play cooperatively against the game itself. There can be two to five players (works best with four) and each player is a Hobbit (Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, and an optional Fatty Bolger if five play). You must w@&k as a team to get the ring to Mordor and destroy it without Sauron getting his rotten mitts on it. If he does, you all lose. There is one "master" board and four separate "quest" boards (Moria, Helm's Deep, Shelob's Lair and Mordor) which must be played through one after the other in sequence. It's largely a card-driven affair but has plenty of open-ended scope for discussion and tactics. The game does actually make you feel as though you're on a quest as you go along, and it can develop a different atmosphere each time you play. Very innovative and engrossing, and for a board game, surprisingly exciting at times.

Changing the subject for a moment (back to what it was :-()) - I'm currently doing something with Civ that I like to try from time to time. When you're setting up a new game, there is a list of optional "Advanced Rules" which can be independently toggled on or off at the start (can't be changed once the game is on). One of these is "One-City Challenge". If you go for this, and as the name suggests, as a human player you can only ever have one city. The AI players however can still build as many as they like. It certainly is a challenge as you can forget about pulling off any kind of major victory - Military, Scientific, Diplomatic or Cultural, although I've come close to a Cultural victory in one instance. You simply can't get enough money, science or manufacturing capability up to be a serious contender. The "challenge" is mainly to see if you can survive until the turns run out, in 2050 AD.

The last time I tried this, I lost. After fending off Elizabeth I in a series of ruinous conflicts for most of the game, Catherine the Great came along and unexpectedly nuked my one city into radioactive rubble just ten turns before the game's end :D Getting squeezed between two women may sound like nirvana but it ain't when they're both megalomaniacal power-junkies who are bent on taking everything you have away from you...

[Binnatics]

Getting squeezed between two women may sound like nirvana but it ain't when they're both megalomaniacal power-junkies who are bent on taking everything you have away from you...

Good luck then ;)

The Hasbro game where you play coop reminds me of Dungeons and Dragons, a game I played once with a bunch of stoned friends. A game that unfolds completely in your imagination. The spill is the game-master though, one guy that needs to, sort of, imagine the storyline in anticipation of, or during the gameplay.

If you're interested in the Catan game I found an English promotion page where you can get an idea of the game. It is actually called "The Settlers of Catan".

www.catan.com

[Art Blade]

Getting squeezed between two women may sound like nirvana

"In the Buddhist context nirvana refers to the imperturbable stillness of mind after the fires of desire, aversion, and delusion have been finally extinguished. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the divine ground of existence Brahman (Supreme Being) and the experience of blissful egolessness." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana)

Funny.. referencing the quote above, it doesn't sound like nirvana to me. Getting squeezed between two women sounds like just one type of sexual experience to me.  :-D

[PZ]

I remember Risk! One of my favorite games when I was a teenager

[Binnatics]

After being properly squeezed, I think I will have quite some stillness of mind... no cigarette can equal that ^-^

[Art Blade]

 :-()

[fragger]

Well... I didn't mean "Nirvana" in it's literal Buddhist sense, I meant it as the rough, slangy, uninformed Western substitute for heaven ^-^ I do know what Nirvana really means.

[PZ]

Invited another couple over for dinner then played Monopoly - was loads of fun this evening  :-X
Next time we plan to play Clue

[fragger]

Excellent :-X It's great fun to sit around a table with people you love and have a good old-fashioned board game from time to time :) Another board game I like is Trivial Pursuit. Having a head full of otherwise useless information, I tend to do well at that one...

Just looking at my last post - I hope I didn't come across as being peeved or defensive, because I'm not. Sometimes I forget that English with all its corruptions, hijacked foreign words and slang distortions is not the first language of everyone here :) Just explaining my usage of the word :-()

Anyway, whether it would be heaven or not would depend on the kinds of women you were stuck between... :-\\ 8-X

[Art Blade]

No worries :) We use Nirvana in a wrong way, too, as in "to disappear into Nirvana," which I know is identical in both languages, and we both mean to fall into oblivion or just to vanish :-D

whether it would be heaven or not would depend on the kinds of women you were stuck between... :-\\ 8-X

There goes a perfectly shaped dream..

[fragger]

 

[fragger]

Actually, it's happening again in this game. I elected to start the game with three randomly-generated opponents, and now Empress Wu Zetian of China and Theodora of Byzantium are constantly trying to nick my precious little bit of land from me, attacking me from both sides. As if they don't have enough land already, the greedy devils. I'm holding them off by dint of an excellent natural defensive position, but it's a never-ending scrap. It ain't half costing them though.

You know you're a miserable wretch when your only friend in the world is Attila the Hun :-D

The difficulty with playing the "One City Challenge" option is that you invariably get left behind technologically, because with only one city you can only generate so much money and science. And since Wu just got The Bomb while I'm still struggling through the middle of the Industrial Era, I'm expecting a nuke to land on me any time soon.

But this is why they call it a challenge.

[Art Blade]

you need to counter him with your medieval means. Breed your weapon of choice and send him a gift called Black Death  >:D

[fragger]

 >:D :-X

I didn't do so well this time. The Chinese launched a colonisation spaceship in turn 473 (2036 AD) and won the game. On the plus side, I didn't get nuked...

[smg id=7732 align=center width=600]

Still, the One City Challenge is a fun way to play, and it really is a challenge.

[Art Blade]

long live reincarnation  :-D

[fragger]

hehehe :-D

[JRD]

It reminds me I have to get back to this game one of these days. I enjoyed it but didn't finish my first game. Something is still missing for me to get hooked but I guess it is there somewhere, it's just a matter of time.

[PZ]

It reminds me I have to get back to this game one of these days. I enjoyed it but didn't finish my first game. Something is still missing for me to get hooked but I guess it is there somewhere, it's just a matter of time.

I have one of the Civ games as well, and fragger's posts remind me that I might just appreciate another go even though I did not finish my game either.

My problem is that  have quite a few favorite old games that I would like to open again, and not that much time.  I'm the kind of guy that likes to watch favorite old movies repeatedly, so playing favorite games over is like becoming reacquainted with an old friend.

[fragger]

I think maybe I took to Civ V so eagerly because I've been playing this series of games since Civ II, about - holy moley - close to twenty years ago :o I've played Civ II, Alpha Centauri, Civilization: Call To Power, Civ III, and Civ IV (very briefly because I actually hated that one).

Maybe these games are an acquired taste, or maybe you just have to be of a certain gaming mindset to enjoy them. Bear in mind too that they are a bit of a learn, but not ridiculously so, and Civ V is very accessible with an excellent, informative and well-designed UI. I picked Civ V up quickly because I've been playing the franchise for so long and was already well acquainted with the basic principles. Even so, just because a game is a Civ derivative it doesn't mean I'll like it myself. As you may recall I started playing Civ: Beyond Earth recently and just couldn't take to it at all, so I don't exactly have a blind devotion to the series.

If you guys do decide to have another go at it, be aware that there have been several updates over the last couple of years so be ready for some downloading from Steam. The good news is that the DLs are fairly short and complete relatively quickly (unlike those from some - ahem - software companies I could mention). They are worth doing though as they do improve the gameplay and add a swag of cool new stuff.

Here are a couple of tips for picking up the game:

Don't immediately go for a big map with too many AI opponents first time around. From the main menu, go Single Player > Setup Game. At the bottom of the window that appears, there is a button marked "Advanced Setup". Click on that, and a new window will appear that gives you heaps of options for setting up a new game. On the right is a list of different map sizes and styles. Choose a "Tiny" map size and choose either "Continents" or "Archipelago" as the map style, and choose the easiest difficulty setting: "Settler". "Tiny" doesn't sound like a very big map, but trust me, it's plenty big enough. Maps in Civ V are pretty darned big. A "Continents" map (two large land masses with a smattering of islands of varying sizes) will generally start with you and one opponent on one large land mass, with the two remaining Civs on another, but you might get lucky and have a land mass all to yourself which will allow you to get to grips with things without having to worry about being attacked or intruded upon for a while. An "Archipelago" map (lots of much smaller land masses) will pretty much guarantee that you'll start on your own landmass, but it will usually be only big enough for two or three cities before you'll have to expand overseas. Leave all the other settings alone. If you go for a huge, sprawling map with lots of opponents you won't have much of a prayer.

I think, by default, if the first time around you simply choose "Start Game" from the main menu, Civ will start you on a Standard-size "Continents" map with eight players (including yourself) and "normal" difficulty. This really is too much for a first go, and even for a seasoned player, it's tough. I always play on a "Tiny" map against three AIs and 8 City-States, and I play on "Warlord" difficulty setting (the third of eight settings). This provides a good challenge while still giving me a fighting chance. You can increase/decrease the number of City-States and add/delete AI opponents in the Advanced Setup window, however there is a limit depending on map size. You can choose specific Civs as you opponents, or have the game pick them at random. Some Civs are more hostile and aggressive than others. I recommend choosing between India, Siam, Arabia, Persia, Iroquois or Egypt as your first opponents as these Civs tend to be less expansionist and warlike. No guarantees, however - they may still come after you.

Don't try to go throwing up too many cities too early as this will bring your Happiness level down quickly (one of the chief contributors to unhappiness is population growth). You can still get by if your Happiness level drops to zero or even a bit below, but if you don't address it in some way it will eventually start having an adverse effect on the functioning of your cities. Constructing particular buildings, achieving certain Wonders and unlocking the right Social Policies can help get your Happiness level back up, as can gaining access to new Luxury resources, either by building cities near them and working them, or by trading for them with other Civs or City-States. Every new "Natural Wonder" that you uncover through exploration will permanently add 1 to your Happiness level. Maintaining Happiness can be tricky early on, but it's possible to get it up quite high if you make the right choices. I've had it up to almost 200 in one game, and have gotten it well over 100 in some others. Waging war will also bring it down, but it can be gotten back up once the war is over and you consolidate things. I've managed to fight wars and still keep the Happiness level well up.

Spitting out too many Units too early might cost you too much Gold in support. Every unit and building you produce costs you maintenance, which comes out of your Imperial coffers, and churning out units becomes expensive until you develop the technologies to start building Marketplaces, Banks, etc to boost your economy. There is a limit to how many Units you can have at any one time depending on how big your empire gets. There is a "base" number of total permissible Units (dependent on difficulty setting - 10 Units on "Settler"). After that, each new city you found can support 3 extra Units (on Settler) and then you can have 1 more unit for every 2 Citizens that grow in each city. You can actually exceed your total permissible number of Units, but this will start having an adverse effect on your Production capabilities (this figures - too many people in the ranks means not enough people to do the civilian w@&k). So the bigger and more populous your empire becomes, the more units you can have. Regardless of difficulty setting, every unit you produce will cost you 1 Gold per turn to support, which comes out of your Treasury.

Like any management exercise, Civ V is all about maintaining a workable balance of everything. Remember that it's not a contest to see who can build the most cities or create the biggest empire - it's about how well you can manage things. You can win a game with just three or four cities, and without firing a shot. And even if you want win by conquest, you only need to capture the other players' capital cities, not every single city they have. Last player still in possession of his/her capital city wins (your capital being the very first city you build in the game).

Enough for now. There are some excellent Civ V Wikis online, and there is always the in-game "Civilopedia" for information (click on the "Help" button near top-right of the main game screen).

And there's me. I think I can safely assert that I would be the Civ go-to guy here at OWG (blushes modestly) :-D

[Art Blade]

 :-D

+1 :-X for that massive essay, fragger  :)

[fragger]

Thanks Art :) I got carried away...

[PZ]

Excellent post, fragger  :-X +1 for all the useful startup information.

I just checked and I have Civ V, and one of these days while between games I'll probably start it up and your tips will be quite handy  ;)

[fragger]

Thanks PZ :)

[JRD]

As I am feeling a little slow to any action/adventure/3rd person or FPS game at the moment I decided to give Civ V another go.

I remember now what put me off the game last time. I don't quite get how all units w@&k. I can move workers from one tile to another then my build options are gone. Ok, I've used all movements for that unit at that turn. What I expect is to have the options back when next turn starts but it seems I am missing something as the options are not available to me. Either I am not researching what I need in order to have my workers doing/building what I want or they are not being whipped... err.... paid enough to do so.

I also do have one great General that doesn't seem to do much to me (as expected). He can build a citadel but I can't make him do it and i don't know why to be honest. Also I am still struggling with the heavily layered menus and options but this sure takes some time to get used to so I'll keep playing and see if I get comfortable sometime soon.

Anyway, fragger... great tips. I am following your hints and making some progress. This game is fun!  :-X