Civilization V

[Art Blade]

are you going to surprise yourself, then?  :-()

"So am I" was almost as good as, "how would I know what I meant before I've heard what I said?" :-D

[fragger]

 :-D

Whether I agree with my opinion is another matter :-()

[Art Blade]

I'll have to remember to forget you ever said that.  :-D

[PZ]

 

[fragger]

For anyone who likes Civ V or is thinking about taking it up, there's lots - and I mean lots - of useful stuff on this site:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/index.php

These Civ lovers have wrung the absolute dickens out of the game. From what I've seen so far, which admittedly isn't a lot since it's a pretty massive site,  they generally seem to be a pretty cordial and helpful bunch of people. And a big bunch it is - there appears to be over 269,000 members, but I suspect there may be a few bots among them. Then again, they've got half a million threads and have had over 13 million posts ??? In just a few skimmings of the Civ V section I've come across all kinds of hints, tips and strategies that never occurred to me before and stuff I wasn't aware of. But that's the nature of this game - the scope for strategic experimentation is huge.

They have topics on all the Civ-series games going all the way back to the original (1991 under MS-DOS / Win 3.1 - them were the days) as well as Beyond Earth and some Civ spin-off titles like Revolution and Colonization, and a few other games.

Definitely for fanatics :-()

[PZ]

Impressive - sounds even more significant than the ArmA site  ???

[JRD]

Yet another fantastic tip for getting the most out of this game.  :-X

Nice one about Austria too, nice catch.  :)

[fragger]

Cheers :)

Some of the Unique Strengths of the new Civs that come with the EXPs are quite interesting. An innovative one is the Mayan Unique Strength - The Long Count.
[smg id=7991 align=center width=600]

Once the Maya discover Theology, thenceforth every 394 game years (years that is, not game turns) one "B'ak'tun" of the Long Count completes and they get a choice of a free Great Person. Each type of Great Person can only be chosen once using this method, however. But getting some freebie Greats does come in handy. It can be extra advantageous if you discover Theology early because the free Great People will be earned faster due to the fact that in the early game, turns represent a greater number of years than they do later on.

Also after discovering Theology the calendar date at the top of the screen changes to a Mayan one, so it looks like this:
[smg id=7992]

Instead of showing years, it shows the Mayan Long Count date format. Here, the date is shown as:

11 K'in (@1 day) . 0 Winal (@20 days) . 5 Tun (@360-day "year") . 11 K'atun (@20 "years") . 6 B'ak'tun (@394 "years").

To make it even more bewildering (and brain-bending if you're trying to w@&k it out in your head), the Long Count calendar was calculated in a weird not-quite-base-20 format. From Wikipedia:

Rather than using a base-10 scheme, like Western numbering, the Long Count days were tallied in a modified base-20 scheme. Thus 0.0.0.1.5 is equal to 25, and 0.0.0.2.0 is equal to 40. The Long Count is not pure base-20, however, since the second digit from the right rolls over to zero when it reaches 18. Thus 0.0.1.0.0 does not represent 400 days, but rather only 360 days. And 0.0.0.17.19 represents 359 days.

???

You don't have to bend your brain trying to convert the date in your head though - hovering the pointer over the calendar bar will show the "normal" year date as the rest of the world knows it. Phew... The Long Count date format doesn't have any particular significance in gameplay turns (other than generating Great People) but it's a cool touch. And if you really want to challenge yourself you can try to w@&k the date out in your head...

[PZ]

Dang, fragger, I admire your ability to dive into the intricacies of the game.  Same with AB and others in GTA with the stock markets.

I'm afraid that I'm a bit too dim to do much more than is required in a simplistic game like FC2, which is likely one reason it is my favorite game of all time.

[fragger]

Thanks PZ :) I can get into stuff like that in Civ, but the stock market aspects of GTA don't appeal to me, just as anything to do with finance doesn't appeal to me in real life. I'm happy just to have some dough in the bank :-()

[Art Blade]

PZ, I am willing to bet a year's salary that you're not too dim. I think that those subjects you highlighted are just not in your sphere of interest but once you've found something that really interests you, you'll be at least close enough to already sniff the scent of a Nobel Prize  :-D

[PZ]

You're too kind, AB  ^-^

[fragger]

PZ, Art's just telling it like it is. I think you're one of the brightest people here :)

[PZ]

Thanks fragger - your comment makes an old guy feel not so old and worn out  ^-^

[Art Blade]

erm, we were talking about your brightness. Your age, however, uhm.. :-()

[PZ]

 

[fragger]

 8-X :-D

Speaking of brightness (or dimness) I listed the Long Count date sequence back-to-front in my earlier post because I forgot that the Maya read from right to left. Not that it matters a huge deal :-D

[Art Blade]

 :-()

[PZ]

  :-X

[fragger]

Got into a bit of Civving after a month or two of three-deeing. I needed to play with some toys after trying to make some :-()

Here's a player-generated snafu which I've bumbled into perpetrating a couple of times. First, a bit of background info, bear with me:

At the start of each turn, the program will cycle through all units you have which are eligible for movement in the current turn. It will pick the first eligible unit in the list, centre it on the screen, put an animated circle around it and await your instructions (you can immediately start scrolling the map around and away from that unit, and hitting "c" will re-centre the map on it - or you can just scroll back to it). If you don't want to move the unit just yet, you can hit "w", that unit will be moved to the end of the list and the program will come back to it after cycling through the remaining eligibles. You can also hit the space bar and that will temporarily cancel that unit's move for this turn, although if you change your mind you can scroll or minimap-jump back to the unit, click on it to reactivate it, and then move it.

To move a unit, the easiest way is to hold down the RMB and move the cursor around the map. It will continually update as you go, showing you the route the selected unit will take to get to whichever hex the pointer is currently over and how many turns the unit will take to get there. As soon as you let go of the RMB, the selected unit will begin its move to that hex (or you can cancel and start again). If the move entails multiple turns, and if in a subsequent turn you change your mind, you can click on the unit before it makes its next move and cancel the order - it will then stay where it is and you can give it a new order. A unit that has been given a multi-turn move order won't actually carry out each successive move until the end of each turn, which gives you a chance to click on it and cancel the move if you want - however you have to find the unit yourself because the program won't centre the map on such units until they get to wherever you sent them.

So, a couple of times now there's been a unit selected and awaiting orders, but I've scrolled away to look at something elsewhere on the map. I've then inadvertently pressed the RMB after scrolling the map quite a distance away from where the unit is, and being such a faithfully obedient little unit it has dutifully began moving to wherever I've accidentally clicked without me noticing - until like 24 turns later when it has announced itself from some far-flung corner of the world at the end of its mystery tour. Or, I've left a unit somewhere, forgotten about it until several turns later when I've remembered it, only to scroll to where it was and find it gone. I thought it was a program glitch at first, until some time later when the unit gleefully announced itself from the surprise vacation I sent it on - halfway around the world and at the very bottom of the map, wondering why in the blazes it was sent there but too poignantly loyal to question orders.

I like to call this ham-fisted technique "Accidental Tourism" :-()

There is an easy way to find a unit that's been unknowingly sent AWOL however. You can bring up a list of all units, double-click on the one in question and the map will centre on it, which is how I've managed to track down the occasional one that I've inadvertently made go walkabout. That's provided I actually notice it's missing before it calls home from Ultima Thule...

[Stiku]

That is not the only way to "lose" your pawns in the game, Ive got a bad habit of garrison units inside the cities, and then trying to find these units , and I don't remember where I placed them.

[fragger]

 :-D

[fragger]

I've just been playing a bit of Civ V when I remembered a cool little Easter egg that popped up once in Civ III.

A quick bit of info: There was a special optional rule in Civ III called "Regicide". It could only be selected at the beginning of a new game, and when enabled each culture's leader would appear in the game as an actual unit which could be moved around on the map just like any other unit, instead of just appearing as an animated head in the Diplomatic screen (the Leader units would look like who they were supposed to be - a little Napoleon, a little Cleopatra, etc., in their correct historical garb. They were kind of cute actually). The Leader units could actually fight as combat units, so if you liked you could in effect personally lead your troops into battle. Of course, if a Leader unit got killed, that player was out of the game. This allowed for an additional Victory condition - if you could bump off all other players' Leader units, so that you were the last Leader standing, you won the game (any other Victory types you'd selected at the start of the game would still be in effect if you didn't do this).

There was a further variant called "Mass Regicide". Same deal, but instead of a single Leader unit, each player would have seven - seven Julius Caesar units, seven Abraham Lincoln units, and so on. Then you had to find and kill all seven of another player's Leaders to eliminate that player. The Leaders could be hidden in cities, could be out in the field with the troops, could be squirreled away in some remote location - they could be moved freely around the map as the player pleased.

So one day I fired up a saved Mass Regicide game and I'd been about halfway through it when I'd saved. I got a bit of a surprise to see that all seven of my Leader units had turned into little Elvis Presleys. WTF? I thought. I'd expected to see seven little Catherine the Greats, instead I had seven little gyrating Elvises. When I clicked on one and moved him, he made a comment - something about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I put another one into Fortified mode and he responded with a Presleyan "Thank you verra murch".

Then the light went on. I checked the date: January 8, the date of Elvis' birthday. When I played the game the next day, the Elvises were gone and the Catherines were back.

I thought that was pretty cool little egg 8)

[PZ]

 :-X

[Art Blade]

nice  :-X :)