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Comrade: I won that one (cultural victory), and started a new game on a Tiny 1-continent map. Man, that is COMPLETELY different. When each strategic resource exists in only two places on the map, and two of the luxury resources don't exist at ALL, diplomacy takes on a whole new meaning.
The other beautiful part of this is Corruption. Here's the situation: I'm on Prince level, against the Babylonians, Germans, and Zulus (we form roughly a square, with the Zulus across from me). The Zulus get all uppity, so I attack with four or five Immortals, grabbing two of their cities including the capital. After a bit of settling I've got maybe 10 cities, the Zulus have 3, and the others have 5-6. But, the corruption under Despotism is so bad that cities eight or nine squares from my capital have total corruption! Even when I switch to Democracy the corruption in the ex-Zulu cities is unbearable; I end up putting the Forbidden Palace there (using my only Leader) to solve it. The Babylonians were actually outresearching me at one point. It looks like it really pays to keep your empire from getting too big... I might actually raze more from now on.
The AI could use a little tweaking for wars. I had a border city with only one Musketman, the Babylonians attack it with 10 Archers (end result: 5 dead Archers and an Elite Musketman before my Cavalry arrive and mop up). I've been waiting for an excuse to invade the Babylonians, since they're the only civ with Dye and Wine and they refuse to trade with me. Even knowing I had gunpowder defenders and cavalry, only two of the Babylonian cities have any defenders more advanced than Spearmen! Oh, and the only saltpeter deposit in Babylonian territory was right on the border... they never made musketmen again.
End result: Space Victory; it was funny, I had tanks and mechanized infantry sitting across the border from archers and knights.
The Space Victory has a nice movie. The culture victory has nothing. Haven't seen any of the others yet.
Dissident: my opinions of naval units are pretty simple: Battleships! Carriers are only good on certain maps since re-basing has no range limit. It doesn't look like you can upgrade most naval vessels, so there's not much point in making certain types. Bombardment can be really useful now, but once you get Bombers they can do it just as well (until SAMs). The main reason to make naval vessels is to set up trade routes, although on an archipelago map you might find more use. Also, while Airports eventually allow you to airlift units between cities, for some reason you can't airlift Workers or Settlers, so you'll still need Transports.
Ralf: no, you don't get to work all 20 tiles until your border covers that area (which doesn't always require culture 10; nearby cities give synergistic borders, it's hard to explain). You can't work tiles outside your borders. And there's still the empty continent effect sometimes; on my World game Africa was uninhabited until the 1500s (when all five remaining Civs grabbed a piece at once).
Oh, and there's one thing they added that helps the game tremendously. If your unit attacks a city and loses, you can't reload to change the outcome like in SMAC; it'll play the same way the next time. Either wait a turn or attack with a different unit first. You can't redo a given event over and over until it gives you the result you wanted.
Whew. I needed a break; back to playing... I want to try a Huge game.
The other beautiful part of this is Corruption. Here's the situation: I'm on Prince level, against the Babylonians, Germans, and Zulus (we form roughly a square, with the Zulus across from me). The Zulus get all uppity, so I attack with four or five Immortals, grabbing two of their cities including the capital. After a bit of settling I've got maybe 10 cities, the Zulus have 3, and the others have 5-6. But, the corruption under Despotism is so bad that cities eight or nine squares from my capital have total corruption! Even when I switch to Democracy the corruption in the ex-Zulu cities is unbearable; I end up putting the Forbidden Palace there (using my only Leader) to solve it. The Babylonians were actually outresearching me at one point. It looks like it really pays to keep your empire from getting too big... I might actually raze more from now on.
The AI could use a little tweaking for wars. I had a border city with only one Musketman, the Babylonians attack it with 10 Archers (end result: 5 dead Archers and an Elite Musketman before my Cavalry arrive and mop up). I've been waiting for an excuse to invade the Babylonians, since they're the only civ with Dye and Wine and they refuse to trade with me. Even knowing I had gunpowder defenders and cavalry, only two of the Babylonian cities have any defenders more advanced than Spearmen! Oh, and the only saltpeter deposit in Babylonian territory was right on the border... they never made musketmen again.
End result: Space Victory; it was funny, I had tanks and mechanized infantry sitting across the border from archers and knights.
The Space Victory has a nice movie. The culture victory has nothing. Haven't seen any of the others yet.
Dissident: my opinions of naval units are pretty simple: Battleships! Carriers are only good on certain maps since re-basing has no range limit. It doesn't look like you can upgrade most naval vessels, so there's not much point in making certain types. Bombardment can be really useful now, but once you get Bombers they can do it just as well (until SAMs). The main reason to make naval vessels is to set up trade routes, although on an archipelago map you might find more use. Also, while Airports eventually allow you to airlift units between cities, for some reason you can't airlift Workers or Settlers, so you'll still need Transports.
Ralf: no, you don't get to work all 20 tiles until your border covers that area (which doesn't always require culture 10; nearby cities give synergistic borders, it's hard to explain). You can't work tiles outside your borders. And there's still the empty continent effect sometimes; on my World game Africa was uninhabited until the 1500s (when all five remaining Civs grabbed a piece at once).
Oh, and there's one thing they added that helps the game tremendously. If your unit attacks a city and loses, you can't reload to change the outcome like in SMAC; it'll play the same way the next time. Either wait a turn or attack with a different unit first. You can't redo a given event over and over until it gives you the result you wanted.
Whew. I needed a break; back to playing... I want to try a Huge game.
), so more later.
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