This is the Dawning of a New Ancient Era

[conmcb25]

Well I played for about three hours last night and just got out of the Ancient Era.

I got to agree with Yahweh Sabaoth, the whole ERA felt a LOT different.

They (Firaxis, Breakaway)may have done this one right!

I remember seeing one AI city right by a volcano and I didn't seem to see too many but then, I just had one in my area and avoided it.

I did all my seetings in the middle but went with Pangea (sp?)

More later right now I really gotta work! (dam RL getting in the way of CIV! )

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Well, I played quite a bit more this morning. About 9 to 10 inconclusive games. No one game longer than 15 minutes. Should I have given up each game? No. But I was dissappointed by having the almost-glorious games I got in the last two days be followed by standard nonsense...

...A few tips:

- Curraghs are like scouts. Use discretion when using the numeric keypad to make sure you don't accidently tap your curragh into unsafe waters. I did this 3 times this morning!

- Still build warriors. Ok, those curraghs and scouts can do a lot of work for you - especially the curraghs. But there's still barbarians in the game.

...A few things I noticed:

- Curraghs and Scouts are NOT necessarily the be-all end-all of the game I was first impressed they would be.

- Does it take LONGER to mine now? It seems to take a lot longer, or maybe I'm just completely insane.

- Shizzle my nizzle. You WILL be the first to get Philosophy, almost no matter what. Just go ahead and research it.

- Alphabet is now a widespread starting tech. But it's still very very valuable in AI estimation. I got a whole sleiugh of techs trading away Alphabet. But I would recommend trading it away for whatever you can get when you meet a civ - but there's a whole lot of other civs with alphabet in the world now.

- Damn, those agricultural civs can grow! Lordy! I gave the Celts a brief shot this morning and quit when I realized they were on an "Australia" (tiny continent). But I intend to give them their due. In the hands of the AI, the Celts seem fairly impressive - which irks me, as I found them often too impressive in PTW as well, although for a different reason - too large an army in PTW, too large in population and REXing in Conquests.

- The Dutch totally rock. The Dutch may very well be a "super civ". In the hands of the AI, I've seen a mix of tiny Netherlands and huge Netherlands.

This morning I gave up WAY too easily a number of times. I just wanted to screw around mostly, so it's no big deal. This weekend (hopefully - RL is pretty hectic for me these days) I will sit down and play out either the Dutch, Spanish, Celts or English through the Ancient Era at least.

Please, everyone, continue jotting down impressions here...

[TheArsenal]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

- The Dutch totally rock. The Dutch may very well be a "super civ". In the hands of the AI, I've seen a mix of tiny Netherlands and huge Netherlands.

It sounds like you used the same attention deficit disorder method of checking out the game I did. I played each new civ for a handful of turns, then turned my full attention to what I was most interested in: the Pac WWII conquest.

I have to agree with you that the Dutch feel pretty strong, at least in the early part of the quick games I played. I did not get as far as the Swiss Mercenary, but on paper it is obviously a good UU. The Seafaring trait over all seems to be fairly strong for large random maps. The curragh gives a much better feel of the world than with land units alone, no matter what type of map, and beating other civs to first contact is always advantageous in trade - and there was no question I definitely had a better understanding of the globe than any AI who doesn't explore by sea as vigorously (patch?). It does change the build order decision process quite a bit as well. I had to decide what ratio of land scouting to sea scouting I wanted and decide how to balance that with settler building and city buildings.

I saw no abundance of volcanoes, just a handful on a large map. Based on the proximity of cities near them however, the AI doesn’t seem to be afraid of lava filled streets. Almost every desert I saw contained at least one Oasis, often more, which turned out to be quite a few on my maps. Tobacco seemed to be in abundance as well. And, it is probably just a random map generation fluke, but iron looked to be in scarcity. As I love to play Persia, this gave me pause.

[Stuie]

Zeus/Templars

These things are very cool.

I'm playing the Byzantines for my first game (180x180, 31 Civs , Monarch). I had no iron, and a rather strong Egypt to my south (with pikemen/Med Inf). What to do? What to do?

I started a pre-build while researching Chivalry, and ta-da!! Knights Templar becomes my first successful wonder build, and Crusaders start appearing every five turns. Luckily I also found a Civ way to my south (using a trusty Curragh) that was willing to trade Iron, so finally the assault on Egypt began with Crusaders supplemented by some hastily built knights. Throw in some trebuchets and I had a rollicking good time relieving Egypt of several cities.

Then I notice patch after patch on the mini-map turning German blue! They had beaten me to Zeus ages ago, and the next thing I know there are two stacks of Ancient Cavalry on my doorstep.... all with five or six hitpoints.

Luckily I used a Greek defense (as in, ally with Germany vs. Greece) to distract the Germans. I thought this would break the Greeks, and leave the Germans to deal with later. WRONG. The Greeks slaughtered the Germans and I ended up having to sue for peace at slightly unreasonable terms.

Did I mention I'm having FUN?

[DCMike]

I've just started my first game on a large map, haven't explored much at all and already discovered 3 volcanoes. Two of those have already erupted and one of those is already active again! Cool eruption graphics by the way!

[Saint Marcus]

is REXing too easy now with the Agricultural trait? Seems a tad unbalancing (both in the hands of AI and human players).

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

The AI agricultural powers I've seen often REX like mad. On the other hand, I saw the Americans REX like mad in general. I even saw the Germans - normally quite pathetic - REX quite well. It could just be that the AI is better at REXing now.

But agricultural does seem to make it very, very easy for the human to expand as well. This would seem to make the Celts and Sumerians superb civs on a large map - assuming the AI does as good a job with culture now as I presume it does.

[Stuie]

I haven't noticed the Agricultural Civs doing particularly well in my game. But the map is kind of crowded, and the Celts were stuck on a little tiny island.

[Toaster4k]

How did you manage to play with 31 civs in the same map? ican only play vs 11 other civs

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Toaster4k
How did you manage to play with 31 civs in the same map? ican only play vs 11 other civs

You need to use the editor. On the "World Size" tab, just change the number of Civs to 31.

Only thing is, you need a decent size map to do this or you will quickly run out of room. Also you need to lower the start distance on the same tab, or the game will not be able to place all the Civs and some will end up right next to each other.

I used a map size of 180x180, lowered the start distance to 18, and played the game on large continents.

[Toaster4k]

thanks, ill try it as soon as my GF finish using my PC. i dont want to try this on a p200 mmx with 64 meg of ram :/

[Stuie]

Tell her to get the hell off your computer!!! That should be C3C only.

[Toaster4k]

i dont wish to declare a war without at elast 2 mutual protection pact, cause if it prove to be a wrong decision, briding with fur for a peace treaty might be to much for my minister of finace (my wallet)

[Theseus]

Wow.

[eric2075]

My first Conquest game is at Emperor as the Sumerians. I was kind of hurrying through it and got so far behind I was starting to think I should give it up. But I got caught up and now I'm the tech leader in the middle of the midievel age.

I'm not used to being able to research on my own at this point and still keep up but somehow I think I'm doing it.

I like my first impression of Conquests because I think it's going to be easier for the builder. Maybe a little easier in general.