Civilization V

[JRD]

Diplomatic victory is my goal this time around. I've been searching the Civilopedia and an online Wiki to see how to plan ahead. It is amazing how much it can change your game choices. :-X

Last time I had so much  gold I was purchasing most of my buildings as the game progessed instead of actually building them. Now I will save that gold to keep City-estates as allies. It means I should be prepared to go to war for them as opposed to what I did last time when I was simply watching them fight without interfering.

I am playimg the Germans, lead by Bismark. Right from start I managed to get a unit upgraded after reaching a ruin and they are my elite fighters right now. Not just that but as I attack any barbarian camp they end up joining my side so I am now with quite a few military units I got for free! That's a great start! I keep playing on a tiny map with settler difficulty to be able to learn all tricks on the game without having to defend myself too often but as soon as I get one of each victory type I'll explore more difficulty options!

[fragger]

Germany is a pretty good choice for this venture. As you've discovered, anytime a German combat unit destroys a Barbarian encampment, there's a good chance that a Barbarian unit will join their side - this is one of the German "Strengths". Those defecting Barbarian units can be upgraded to more advanced units later, just like any other unit. It saves you the time of having to build the units yourself.

Diplomatic Victory is probably the toughest one to pull off. You'll need to get your technology almost all the way up in order to build the United Nations, which then triggers the voting rounds for a Chairman (oops, I meant Chairperson :-()). Voting takes place every twenty turns, or ten, I can't remember just now, and each player and City-State is worth one vote - two if you're the one who built the U.N. Of course one of the other players might build the U.N. first, and this will still trigger the voting rounds, but whichever player does build the U.N. gets an extra vote come election time. You'll need to try to be allied with as many City-States as possible so that they'll vote for you, as you need to tally at least seven votes to win (this is the case on Warlord setting, I don't know if it's different on Settler). A City-State will always vote for its ally, although there is one condition where they may not - see below. The other players will of course vote for themselves. So it's the City-States that hold the balance of power in elections.

Here's that condition I mentioned - if another player attacks and captures a City-State at any point during the game, and if you subsequently capture that City-State and choose to liberate it instead of keeping it for yourself, that City-State will always vote for you in U.N. elections later, even if they're allied with another player at the time. The other players won't be able to sway the City-State from this, no matter how much Gold they give it or how much influence they have with it. The only way they can deprive you of that City-State's vote is if they can recapture it.

I've had games where the other players have captured enough City-States between them for it to be no longer possible for any one player to amass enough votes to win an election, because as soon as a City-State is captured it becomes part of the capturing player's empire and thus can no longer cast a vote. The only way to break that deadlock is to capture and liberate City-States until enough of them have been liberated to provide you with the necessary voting total. Of course, you realize, dis means war :-()

[JRD]

The Germans were a random selection. Im happy with them, getting military units for free does help a lot at this stage of the game. I'm using two or three military units to explore and get rid of any barbarian encampment as soon as I find them. Scouts are good but only for finding stuff, if you have to fight, you're doomed. My trirremes are also very useful at this stage, even if they cannot cross deep ocean.

I figured the diplomatic victory would be a tough one. I'll have to manage my relationship with all City-Estates very well but playing in Settler makes things easier. None of my opponents on my last game were moving fast in the tech tree and no wars were on except for a brief moment near the end when one City-Estate was attacked by the Polynesian but apart from that it was as if they were all letting me win.

I am putting all my efforts into developing the tech tree as fast as I can and so far I am going well. My map spawned a series of relatively big islands so, again, I'm all alone on my own land. The closest two large islands have only City-Estates and I am making sure I'm their only neighbor. It will come in handy when the quests start popping up and I'll be able to maintain good commercial and trading routes with them.

It is also a chance of getting the hang of combat basics when attacking barbarians. Positioning the right units at the right hexes is the key to success when it comes to fighting and I'm still having some trouble dealing with them.  As a rule of thumb I place infantry and cavalry close to my enemies and ranged weapons right behind them. Warriors and horsemen against infantry, spearmen against cavalry and ranged attacks first! My next game will certainly aim at wiping everybody else from the map.  >:D

[fragger]

Good luck on your mission :-D

If you need to capture anyone else's cities - siege units! Catapults, trebuchets, cannons, etc are invaluable. You need Iron to build any of these (Gods and Kings removed this resource requirement however). You can throw melee units at cities, but they'll get worn down pretty quickly. You can take a city with just melee units, but you'll need a bunch of them, and you'll probably lose a good number of them in the process. Just remember to try and protect the siege units as their defense strength against enemy melee units is lousy.

The modern Artillery unit is a beauty as it has a range of three hexes, and can fire over hills, forests and even mountains as long as at least one friendly unit can "see" the target. But it can't be built until you've discovered Dynamite, which is a ways up there in the tech tree. Artillery units don't require any Strategic Resource to build, and your existing Cannon units can be upgraded to them.

Love your new avatar :-X 8)

[Art Blade]

yep, quite the eye-catcher :)

[JRD]

So I pulled a Diplomatic Victory last night.  :)

Playing on the easiest level (Settler) makes things very easy to achieve. I was keeping track of my opponents progress and they wasn't even trying to win the game. It is good to help you learn the game but makes everything way too easy. At some point I was simply building enough gold to gather the necessary number of City-Estates as allies and didn't have to worry about any of them attacking me or completing the Apollo Program (requirement to achieve a Scientific Victory) or catching up on me on the diplomatic aspect or any of the other ways to win a game in Civ V. It was even boring but on the other hand I could calmly plan and execute and had time to check the result of my decisions throughout the game, which is what I was aiming at.

I will start a new game and go for a Military Victory, camly and gently crushing my opponent's skulls as I march upon their cities.  >:D . I guess this is the aspect I need to improve the most as I am sure once I start moving up on the difficulty levels they will not only start to plan their victory strategy but also start to ruin my plans, so I better be prepared to go to war at any moment.  >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D >:D

[fragger]

Congrats on becoming Chairman, JRD :-D :-X

Sure, things are a lot easier on Settler mode, but that is the best way to learn the game. You'll find that when you up the difficulty level it will affect things like Happiness level (harder to raise and maintain) and longer duration of turns required to make discoveries. The other players won't be such pushovers either :-()

If you want to go for a conquest game, I suggest choosing the Pangaea map style. This will start all players on one big land mass, so you won't have to concern yourself with trying to organize sea-borne invasions. Then you can get straight at 'em >:D

To win a Cultural victory, don't build too many cities, because every city you build pushes up the price of subsequent Social Policies, and once they get too expensive you won't have enough time in the game to collect enough for a shot at the Utopia Project. You can pull off a Cultural Victory with no more than three or four cities. Napoleon is a good leader to choose, as the French get additional Culture points until they discover Steam Power. Focus on Wonders and Social Policies that boost Culture points. The "Piety" branch is a good policy category to adopt as there's some good Culture-boosting policies in there. Allying with Cultural City-States helps too, as you get additional Culture points from them :)

I hope I'm not overloading you with info here, mate :)

[JRD]

No, you are not overloading at all. In fact, now I can follow your tips better since I've been through the game twice. I am keeping this topic as my primary source of information, followed by an online wiki and in third the civilopedia!. Your tips have been extremely valuable in opening my eyes to this game. I don't think I can thank you enough for putting all this effort.  :-X

This game is truly addictive. "Just another turn before I go to bed" and I will be seeing the sun rise very soon.  :-D.

Yes, I am just learning all the basics and geting familiar with the Tech Tree, Wonders, Social Policies, Diplomacy and military units moviments before raising the difficulty level a notch. I thought the Pangaea map would be best but wasn't completely sure yet. The sea is an important feature in this game and knowing how to navigate while keeping your non-naval units safe is key to dominate the map. Anyway, I just loaded a random game on Settler, Continets but didn't even move my guys yet so I can start a new one anytime and lose nothing. I still like to have the civilization randomly chosen... except for the time I wanted to build a fierce army and got Hindu led by Ghandi as the random civ to play...  :D ... something didn't feel righ in this set up.  ????

[Art Blade]

 

[JRD]

In order to validate it and to respect democracy as we understand it, here it is

[smg id=7752]

Which lead to the following decision, giving me the role of World Leader. The gold and military aid sent to the 6 City-Estates and the mysterious, however legal, ways in which a few buildings were delivered ahead of schedule had nothing to do with my recent election.  :-D 

[smg id=7753]

Oh, yes, the new avatar... can't decide who looks funnier!! It could very well fit into Monty Python's Ministry of Silly Walk.  ;D

[Art Blade]

 :-D + :-D

[fragger]

  hehehe

I don't think I can thank you enough for putting all this effort.  :-X

No trouble at all! ^-^

I've actually never tried playing as Ghandi. I was never crazy about his Civ's particular attributes, they sound like more trouble than they're worth :-\\

Incidentally (you may have already found this out) if you play a few turns in a new game but don't like the look of things, you can bring up the menu and at the top it will have "Restart Game". If you click on this, it will start a new game with a different map but with the same settings as you last chose, so you won't have to go through all the startup menus again. If you last chose a random leader for yourself and random opponents, it will re-randomize those too :)

[JRD]

Turns out managing an army is far more difficult than I anticipated. I built a small army with range, melee, mounted and siege units, positioned them at the edge of my empire before moving into battle. I also had three units (pikemen, archers and warriors) near my capital in order to defend it plus a Great General and yet a small barbarian unit sneaked into my formation and killed my General!!!!!!!! Those bastards!! 

I am trying to position my units like this: a front line of melee with mounted/cavalry on the sides/back followed by a line of archers and siege which are proteded by mounted and cavalry units. I attack first with archers and siege then send my warriors to the slaughter, with my mounted units assisting them. So far, so good. The thing is that it doesn't play out quite smooth. Even in the Settler difficulty enemy units know how to position themselves and take advantage of the terrain, which I am not good at at this point. I took over one major city from the Russians and somehow the City-Estate of Tyre is now my enemy, killing my scouts........ and to make things worse, they are my neighbors and the city close to them is fairly unprotected which creates a situation where either I move a couple units back, weakening my battle front, or build new military units and place them near this city for protection, in which case I will be growing my population and increasing my already critical Happiness level. Not that they are attacking me at this point but as soon as I raise the difficulty level a notch it will certainly happen.

Now I paid special attention to how big my empire needs to be in order to keep my happiness level up while maintaining a fairly strong military force. I only founded four cities and they were close enough to each other to allow good use of land and resources, build roads and still be safe. Once I took over the first city, I made it a puppet city to keep happiness level at a decent level (near 30) and was hoping to keep it like that before moving in to my next attack. Turns out the Russian ruler, that bitch, wanted peace and offered St. Petesburg as a token of her intentions, which I obviously accepted, so I now have my original four cities plus two puppet ones. Once I started regrouping and upgrading I realised I needed iron to upgrade my existing units and to build new ones and this particular resource is fairly sparse in my empire so I now have a big strategic issue in my hands. No other nation have iron to trade or if they do the ammount is not enough and I cannot depend on this resource from someone else. There is one City Estate that has a huge reserve of iron but I can't trade it with City Estates so my only option would be to take over the City and use their iron but yet another battle front is not on my plans right now. My only alternative was to found another city near one nearby source of iron, which now put my empire with five cities and two puppet cities. As if it wasn't bad enough, when exploring a new continet I attacked a barbarian encampment and the survivors agreed to join my empire as settlers so I now have the opportunity to build another city. They are just sleeping somewhere safe in my territory since killing this unit would grant me zero gold and I don't want to found another city so I don't know what to do with them.  ????

Big questions ahead of my now. How to grow my army without lowering happiness level? I am building as many wonders and buildings that generate happiness as possible but it is still around 20, which I believe is too low. I will certainly play another game or two aiming at a Dominance victory after this one. Both other victory types were pretty straight forward with relatively small mpires to take care of, it was more of a tech and diplomatic game. Military plays completely different now.



I haven't seen the "Restart Game" option yet. Is it at the same menu as the save/quick save/load/exit screen?

[fragger]

Those Barbarians are cunning buggers... You should always try to stack a General with a combat unit if you can. If the General (or any Great Person) is in a space by himself and an enemy unit enters that space, the General will be lost. They are technically non-combat units, so they can't fight - they just fall down and die :-()

If I remember correctly, on Settler mode every Luxury resource you gain access to earns six Happiness points. I usually play on Warlord mode, and then it's only four, and with every next level of difficulty it goes down by one. On the hardest difficulty setting I think you actually start off with unhappiness already and you have to try to get it up from the start ??? It's a tough ask. There are some Social Policies that will enhance Happiness, it's worth going into the SP screen and hovering the mouse over the policies to see which ones do so. For instance there's one in the "Honor" branch which will add one Happiness point for every defensive structure you build, such as Walls and Castles, and another one somewhere that will add a Happiness point for every city that has a garrisoned unit in it. Each Natural Wonder you find on the map will also add a permanent Happiness point. Keep an eye out for the Great Barrier Reef if it appears on your map (not all possible Natural Wonders appear on every map). It takes up two sea hexes and each of those hexes counts as a separate Happiness point.

Regarding that spare Settler unit you got, if you want to get rid of it, try moving it into one of your cities and then get rid of it - you might get some gold for it. I've noticed that if I delete a combat unit in a city I get some dough for it. I don't know if it works for a freebie non-combat unit though... Maybe do a save before you try it and see what happens. Getting that extra Settler unit the way you did only happens on Settler mode, I think. I've never seen it happen on any other setting. I never actually played on Settler as I was already very familiar with the Civ games when I picked up V so I started on the next setting, Chieftain. Occasionally I'll play on Prince mode and I find it tough. And there are four more settings above that! I tried playing on King once and I got my butt well and truly kicked.

The only way you can get a Strategic or Luxury resource from a City-State is by becoming allied with it, as you can't trade for it the same way you do with the other players. If another player is already allied with a City-State that you want to get a resource from, the only way you can do it is to gain more influence with that City-State than the other player has, which means parting with a bunch of Gold or trying to complete as many of the City-State's quests as you can. Once you're allied, if the City-State has, say, an Iron resource value of six points, then you will also receive six Iron points. Whatever they have, you will also get.

A tip for protecting your Cities - garrison a ranged unit of some sort in each one, if you can. Then if the City is attacked, the City itself can be made to shoot at one enemy unit each turn, and your ranged garrisoned unit can also shoot in the same turn. The garrisoned unit itself can't be attacked while it's in the City - enemies can only attack the City it's in, so it has some protection.

The AI plays the game pretty well and knows how to use the terrain to best advantage. I don't know if you're aware of it, but units in forest, jungle, hill or swamp hexes get a defensive bonus when they're attacked (natural cover). They also get a defensive bonus if they're attacked from across a river. Conversely, a unit gets a combat strength increase if it attacks from a hill hex and the target is in the open (the attacking unit has the "high ground" advantage). Every time a unit survives a fight, regardless of whether it was attacking or defending, it gets awarded some XPs. When it accumulates enough XPs you get to choose a "promotion" for it. The promotions are actually in the form of special abilities, such as the "Drill" promotion (the unit gets a 20% combat strength increase when fighting in rough terrain such as forests and jungles) or the "Shock" promotion (the unit gets a 20% combat strength increase when fighting in open terrain). There are other kinds of promotions, depending on unit type. Some of the promotions can be improved upon, e.g. Drill I, Drill II, Drill III, each of which cumulatively add another 20% combat strength when fighting in rough terrain. The Civilopedia has a rundown on all the promotions.

A unit's current experience level is indicated by the blue progress bar shown here. Hovering the pointer over it will tell you exactly how many XPs the unit has, and how many it needs to earn its next promotion:
[smg id=7762]

A combat unit starts on experience level one. When it accumulates its first ten XPs, it moves up to level two experience. Accumulating another thirty XPs gets it to level three, another sixty XPs gets it level four, and so on. Every time a unit reaches a new experience level it earns a promotion, which you choose for it. When you build a Barracks in a city, any ground unit that is subsequently built in that city starts on level two, i.e. starts with a promotion (actually the Barracks gives new units 15 XPs, but this is enough to get to level two and thus a promotion). Building an Armory in that city, and later a Military Academy (each add another 15 XPs) will produce ground units already on Level Three (start with two promotions). If you can build the Heroic Epic (need a Barracks in every city first) AND the Brandenburg Gate Wonder in the same city along with the aforementioned Buildings, units built there will start on level four, with three promotions, right off the bat. It's a good combo of Wonders to try and get in the same city.

Anyway, I'm really enjoying reading about your experiences, JRD. I can almost see what's going on, as though I'm playing it myself :)

About the Restart Game option - it appears to go away at some point once you're into a game. I'm not sure when it happens exactly, possibly after you establish your first city. I have a game about halfway through at the moment and I just checked, and no, I don't see it there either. Ordinarily it appears at the top of the menu when you click on the "Menu" option from inside the game. I'll have to look into that a bit more and try to figure out what triggers it to go away.

[JRD]

Ahh... generals.... that makes sense. They are not meant to fight, those old geezer on camouflage pajamas.   

I've started to raze cities instead of making them puppets. It seems like the best option now that I have so many cities to look after. I could very well go on and just attack the next empire to go for the Domination Victory but I am taking my time and wiping all cities as a way to learn to better position my units. A 2 hexes moving range on a turn based game is very demanding in terms of strategy. It can make the difference between win or defeat. I'm looking forward to see some attack helicopters in action though.  >:D

Having one range unit garrisoned inside a city is a great tip, thanks a lot. I didn't know you could fire from inside a city.  :-X . Also, nice tip about resources from City-Estates. I didn't know how to get them. So if a City-Estate has iron and I gift them money I will add that resource to my network? Same for all resources they have? Their importance keeps growing as I learn about them on the game.  8)

I have noticed that you have a very complex upgrading and training system for all your units. I am keeping my oldest, better trained units very well guarded and putting some newbies ahead of the front to draw enemy fire and only then move in with my well trained guys.

Amazing how it mimics real life combat and strategy. This is a very well thought out game. I like how the details are everywhere, from the table top board game look to the complex diplomatic and warfare micromanaging aspect. You were right, it makes any Age of Empires game looks like a chaotic, misguided and poorly developed game if you consider how much thought has to be put into Civ V to achieve any objective. No dragging a box around all units and sending them into battle. It brings the whole strategy game concept into a whole new level!  :-X

[fragger]

Razing captured cities that you don't need can indeed save you Gold and Happiness. You can't raze City-States or other players' Capitals though, you have to either make them Puppets or Annex them. I always make captured cities Puppets to start with until things stabilize a bit. You can always Annex them later if you want, which you need to do if you want to have any control over what gets built and done there.

You've probably noticed that when a combat unit ends it's turn in a City it automatically garrisons itself there. If you want to make it fire, you need to click on it to "wake it up". Otherwise it won't do anything. Once you no longer need it to fire, click on the "Fortify" icon (or just hit "f") and it will re-garrison itself.

...So if a City-Estate has iron and I gift them money I will add that resource to my network? Same for all resources they have?

Only if you give it enough Gold and/or do quests for it to earn enough influence points to achieve Allied status. There are five types of diplomatic status that you can have with City-States: Allied, Friends, Neutral, Hostile, and War. City-States are always Neutral to you unless something changes to alter that status. The horizontal progress bar under the City-State name indicates your current status with them. This will look a little different in your game because the expansions packs enhance this display a little, but it works the same way.

[smg id=7763]

Here, I'm allied with Belgrade, as shown by the cyan-coloured bar under its name. The colour of the bar shows the diplomatic status: cyan for Allied, green for Friends, red for Hostile or War. When you're neutral with them, the bar doesn't appear at all (but it does show up as grey after Gods and Kings EXP is installed).

By default, you need to earn 30 influence points with a City-State to become Friends, and 60 to become Allies. There are Social Policies that can help with these numbers, under the "Patronage" branch. When you click on a City-State name and the diplomatic window appears, if you click on "Give a Gift" (or however it's worded) another panel will open showing how much Gold you can choose to give. and how much influence it will buy. Give them enough Gold to earn over 60 influence points and you will become Allied - then you'll get their resources, both Strategic and Luxury. But even if you're Allied with them, if another player comes along and gives them even more Gold or otherwise earns more influence points with the City-State than you have, the City-State will switch its allegiance to that other player and the resources will stop coming to you. A City-State can only be allied with one player at a time. Whoever has the most influence points with the City-State gets the alliance and thus the goods.

But it doesn't last, because with every turn that passes, your influence drops by one point. If you've been Allied with a City-State and your influence points fall below 60, you will cease being Allied and will then be merely Friends (and you will no longer get the resources), and if it falls below 30 you will cease being Friends and will become Neutral again. You can only get their resources when you're Allied with them. When you're Friends you can still pass freely through their territory and you will still get bonuses in the form of Gold plus one Food for each of your cities from Maritime City-States (these have a little ship's wheel next to their names), Cultural points from Cultural City-States (have a pen-and-quill icon) and an occasional free combat unit from Militaristic City-States (have two crossed swords). In the pic above, the crossed-swords icon indicates that Belgrade is a Militaristic City-State. You won't see anything like the "yin-yang" icon in your game, this is something that only appears with the Gods and Kings EXP (it indicates their religious leanings - long story).

If you're Neutral with a City-State but one of your units ends its turn inside their borders, they become Hostile and a little bit of red appears in their status bar, plus a message appears warning you that you are trespassing. For every subsequent turn that your unit ends its turn inside their borders or just stays there, the red in the bar will creep up a bit more. If the bar fills completely with red, you will be at War with them (of course if you attack them you will also be at War :-()) But once you move your unit out of their borders, the red will go down a bit each turn until it disappears and you become Neutral again. Only when you're Friends or Allied with a City-State can you move your units through their lands without trespassing. If you're at War with a City-State, the red in the bar will not decrease, it will stay full of red - you need to do something else to rectify this, see below.

Incidentally, if you hover the pointer over a Friendly or Allied City-State name, a pop-up will appear telling you how many influence points you currently have with them. If you're Allied, it will display something like "Belgrade is currently Allied: 96/60", meaning that you have 96 influence points but when it drops below 60 you will no longer be Allied. In this example, it means that you will be Allied for another 36 turns, because it drops by one per turn. Of course if you give them more Gold or do a mission for them it will bump the influence points back up. You need to keep it above 60 to remain Allies.

If another player is at war with you, any City-States that they're allied with will also be at war with you and their status bar will be completely red. If you and the hostile player make peace with each other, the City-State will still be in a state of war with you. You then need to click on the City-State, and there will be a "Make Peace" option there. Click on this to make peace with the City-State. Its status bar will initially still be red but will then decrease over time, until you're Neutral again - unless hostilities resume.

The whole concept of City-States was introduced with Civ V - earlier versions of the game didn't have these. It's a great innovation to the gameplay as Alliances with City-States can make quite a difference to the outcome of things. One thing that's not obvious - if you go around attacking and capturing City-States, and if you do this too often, the other City-States will actually all rise up and declare war on you and you can never make peace with them again, and they'll stay like that for the rest of the game. So you need to be judicious if you plan to capture City-States. Don't do too many too quickly, unless the idea of being at war with all of them doesn't bother you :-()

[Art Blade]

this isn't real life so you may as well be careful.  :-D

[fragger]

 :-D

[JRD]

A steep learning curve!

Settler is not difficult at all, it has been pointed out here a few times. And yet my army took some beating from one of the other three civilizations on my map. I had previously erased all signs of the Russians quite easily, without losing a single unit. The other two are the Arabs and Aztecs. While the Aztecs are hardly present in game, having founded only their capital and nothing else, the Arabs have been growing their empire quite fast. After kicking Catherina's a$$ out of the game I aimed at the Arabians since they were geographically closer (and having nothing to worry about coming from Montezuma) and started my attack. The first two cities were quite easy but as soon as I approached Mecca things got messy. Their city was built close to mountain hexes surrounded by forrsts which significantly hampers any army's progress. Not only that but also they have another two or three cities not too far apart so once I start positioning my siege and range units I inevitably had to sustain damage from both Mecca and these other cities plus their army.

It made for a very interesting combat. I'm glad I found someone willing to put up a fight and still leave me alone on my own empire so I can manouver my army and still face the consequences. As it turns out two out of my three archers were lost plus two infantry. One of my siege weapons (cannons at this point) was in really bad shape but I was lucky to have the second one gifted to me by one Militaristic City-Estated I'm allied with (again, thanks fragger for pointing out this nice tip  :-X ) which made the attack quite easy after I managed to move it to the battle front.

I have to say, the strategic aspect of this game is fantastic.  :-X . Having to think about how to place and move your units considering the enemy's position plus terrain constrains makes for an amazing combat. It became clear to me how and why I lost m units and I will certainly play another game or two aiming at a Domination Victory in order to  lear better before playing on harder difficulty levels.  8)

[fragger]

Nice read JRD :-X I knew you'd pick the game up quickly though, being the very bright guy you are :)

The AI cultures play the game pretty well and seem to know just where to hit you. They're also fairly adept at predicting your moves and often seem to sense when you're planning to attack them. I once had a game where I started on one land mass with two other cultures, one on either side of me. I decided that this land wasn't going to be big enough for the three of us so I attacked one of them, the French. Big mistake... The French and the other culture, the Japanese, allied and ganged up on me. One would attack me from one side, and if I sent forces to check them, the other culture would take advantage and attack me from the other side. Then they'd switch. I was fighting a losing battle the whole time, constantly having to replace lost units and thus not getting the chance to establish any useful Buildings let alone Wonders, which in turn inhibited my financial, cultural and scientific progress. They kept tying up my time and stalling my progress with frequent attacks, while helping each other to advance, and I ultimately got squeezed out.

Some Cultures are expansionist and some aren't. I don't think it tells you anywhere which are which, you only find out by playing against them. I know that Arabia, America and Greece are among the most expansionist ones and they love to snap up territory quickly once they get a few well established cities going. The Greek leader, Alexander, seems especially prone to declaring war on you at the drop of a hat should you build anywhere near his cities, or in lands which he considers to be his, which seems to be a lot of them, the megalomaniac.

The leaders all have rudimentary personalities. Some are aggressive and some are passive, some are cautious and some are rash, some are expansionist and some are perfectionist, in varying combinations. It's interesting how they act towards you depending on how you're progressing and what sort of personality they have. If they're bigger and more advanced than you are, they tend to be friendly and magnanimous, but if you grow and start to rival them in money, tech or military strength they get edgy and less tolerant. If you surpass them they start getting petulant and threatening, or if you're way bigger then them they can be downright afraid of you.

Among the Advanced Rules is a toggle which enables you to randomize the Leaders' personalities. I've never actually tried that. I usually play with opposing cultures randomized, unless I want to try to get some payback against a particular one for what they did to me in a previous game >:D, so I like to go with their standard personalities. That way I can have an idea of what to expect when I finally find out who I'm up against, and prepare accordingly.

On the subject of Advanced Rules, one box that I like to tick is "Disable Start Bias". By default this is turned off (Start Bias enabled) and the game will start you in an area of the map where the terrain roughly imitates the historical land type of the Culture you choose to play as, e.g. play as Arabia and it will start you with lots of desert around, play as England and it will start you on a smaller land mass and on a cooler part of the map, etc. Disabling Start Bias removes this function so that you won't know what type of terrain you'll find around your starting area.

[JRD]

Some Cultures are expansionist and some aren't. I don't think it tells you anywhere which are which, you only find out by playing against them. I know that Arabia, America and Greece are among the most expansionist ones and they love to snap up territory quickly once they get a few well established cities going. The Greek leader, Alexander, seems especially prone to declaring war on you at the drop of a hat should you build anywhere near his cities, or in lands which he considers to be his, which seems to be a lot of them, the megalomaniac.

I found this online wiki with lots of information and strategy guides. Good read for a newbie like me. Maybe you can find something useful as well.

You can find things like the image below from Darius, who I'm playing as right now.

[smg id=7766]

See the "Preferred Victory" box. It tells you pretty much what sort of victory the AI may try to go for or if you are the one playing with that particular civilization what leverage your unique ability can give you. It doesn't necessarily means what the AI will do during their turns but rather what the civilization were good at during their historic period that made them famous. See what they say about Alexander The Great:

Alexander will normally try either a diplomatic or domination victory.

Alexander is very bold and often hostile, and he will likely declare war on every civilization he meets

I seems in line with your impressions.  :-X

[Art Blade]

sounds strange to me that Alexander the Great "will likely declare war on every civilization he meets" and "will normally try a domination victory" but at the time "will normally try a diplomatic victory."

To me that sounds like complete opposite mindsets. If he is so bold and hostile and declares war on everyone he meets, how can that be consistent with diplomacy? ????

[JRD]

First you prove yourself as the dominant militaristic force of the globe, outgunning each and every other nation and mercylessly crushing your enemies, then you build dimplomatic relations with the remaining others and make friends with everybody who has something you are interested in such as oil or strategic locations.   :-()

Quite a realistic model I may add.......  ::)

[Art Blade]

 ??? :-(

[JRD]

Seriously though. The quote I found says "Alexander will normally try either a diplomatic or domination victory"... either/or. it means this civilization may grow and try to leave peacefully through diplomacy or just go for a domination victory, not necessarily both at the same time.

As for my last post, history has several examples of dominating civilizations such as Romans, British, French and more recently the US international policy model. My American friends here, please don't take any offense to that statement, it is merely an observation of how the government deals with foreign affairs, it's not a secret. Wars are fought, mostly, with many interests in the background. Whoever is invading wants something, whoever is being invaded is, at first, simply defending themselves but it probably didn't start with the invasion itself. It may as well be the case of an invading force liberating a nation as has happened before with US soldiers liberating France and changing the course of WWII. Any other nation taking sides will do so with something in mind as well. It is not necessarily wrong, its just how things are.

Civ V depicts such model quite well. If you need something you can either take it or negotiate it. Take it and there will be consequences. If you are not prepared, you will lose friends and may have to face war. Negotiate and you will have to give something back. If you don't have anything interesting to trade then you will try to expand, as peacefully as possible, into places where you can find tradeable resources. Strategic locations are very important and once oil and aluminum are revealed in the game all your strategy may change.