Quick rundown for those not in the know, but they completely redid a LOT of stuff for the better
-HEXES! Yes, no more grid.
-Combat completely changed, one unit per tile, no more auto fights to the death. Combat now works very similar to Advance Wars in terms of the actual combat. Stack of doom gone, now you have frontlines and ranged units that can attack multiple tiles.
-Civics now completely revamped into a 10 tree system where you can invest freely into various ones to unlock further bonuses among them. Shitton more possibilities
-AI acts like a player now and makes decisions on whether or not it will help them win them the game, not because of how much they disapprove of your civic choices
First starcraft 2 and now this, argh my free time
My thoughts:
1. ENOUGH WITH THE TRADING POSTS YOU STUPID WORKERS! I've got a city that barely makes enough food when surrounded by farms, and you come by and replace the farms with trading posts, causing starvation! Even when the focus is set to Food!
2. I giggled the first time I sent a Fighter to kill a Longbowman unit. They all died. 
3. I'm not sure what I think of the fact that you don't need to build transports for land units. I do know what I think of the fact that the AI can kill mine in one hit with a naval unit, but it takes at least two ranged attacks for me to kill one of theirs. 
4. I love how you can buy units with gold, without interrupting production, but how do you hurry something you already started?
5. Man, it takes forever to build stuff. And research it.
6. I wish I could automate city production. I hate being literally yanked away from a war because East Guhungaland Springs wants me to choose whether to build a Market or a Temple next.
7. No road/rail spaghetti! Looks better, but it seems to harm travel times.
8. A hundred bucks for the CE and the manual is a PDF file.
9. Two games and I still haven't seen a bronze deposit.
Any way, more later.
Actually three, as I won't have time on Friday. Too busy partying.
After all my time climbing the difficulties in Civ4 I just cannot automate my workers, ever 
I haven't automated anything (with the possible exception of puppet cities, but there are good reasons to do those) and I probably spend 1/3 the time micro-managing empire building than I did in Civ 4.
The whole game is brilliant, the advisors are actually helpful, and it's fucking beautiful.
Also, the pacing of the game is much improved. Playing a "standard" game in Civ 5 actually gives you enough time between major research points to partake in a war without making your units obsolete before they've even hit the field. I just destroyed Rome + 3 strong city states all in the space of the mid-Medieval to the early Renaissance and never thought my research or production was outpacing my ability to wage war.
And city-states. Oh sweet jesus city states. I love them so much, those needy little bitches. Dr. Gee fucked around with this message on 09-22-2010 at 04:26 PM.
And yeah to city states, at first I was like "Hmm, i dunno" but after dumping gold and killign some barbs for one, my cities are getting a shitton of extra food...
But now Japan declared war on them and they are offering me a giant reward for killing 3 japanese units
This war better be worth it
the entire fucking planet just went to war against me for being too strong. grr. So far so good but I somehow fear a combined force is marching on me that is gonna blot out the damn sun.
The AI is a lot... more interesting now.
I was building up a huge army outside Japan and he suddenly showed up and went "I can see you dipshit, if you are going to attack me just be a man and do it already" so I ended up losing relations with everyone else when I said I wasn't going to attack him and later did
Was actually sort of creepy to see, not what I expect from the AI
Because the idea of Roman legions launching missiles at barbarian hordes fills me with glee.
I mourn for my Helicopter Gunship that got caught in the blast radius of the one Atomic Bomb I set off.
On another note... the endings are... lame. No cinema, just a static image with the Exit to Menu/WJOMT buttons. That and a Demographics screen and a Hall of Fame screen are all you get. Did they run out of development time or something? I loved victories in Civ IV, since you could "watch" the game on the History screen afterwards, and bask in your own awesome.
Not only that... Not only was the spaceship only made of six parts - 3 boosters, engine, stasis chamber, and cockpit, there was no ceremony when you did deliver a part to your capital - you can "see" a tiny graphic of it as part of your city, but that's pretty much it.
Fuck Civilization. I hate it so much but I can never stop playing. I hate it BECAUSE I can never stop playing. Khyron fucked around with this message on 09-24-2010 at 11:34 AM.
Then I realised that Mecca still has the Pyramids, and I wanted my workers to have the boost... so Arabia had to fall.
Next Montezuma started building all kinds of shit near me, encroaching on my territory (I miss the old culture borders, a spread-out empire ends up with asshole AI building in between your cities), so of course he had to go. After I took half his empire he called it quits on the war; the rest of his shit is too far away for me to care.
Now Siam is building too close to me. In ~20 turns I'll have Radar researched, and I love love love love LOVE bombers in this version of the game. My air force is going to fuck up Siam so bad, I absolutely cannot wait. Sadly, I have fuck all for oil, but I've got aluminum out the ass...
That is, until Rome attacked me a little while ago. I pissed him off by buying a tile that was close to his border.
To make a long story short, while he did capture one of my cities for about half a turn (which is still long enough to strip the improvements, grr); he lost a metric fuckton of units in the process, mostly to my Musketeers. Said musketeers caused Gandhi to shit himself and ask for peace when they started showing up when he attacked me last night.
A few turns later, I had Riflemen chewing up his trebuchets and legions. Needless to say, he was quite happy to accept peace when I offered it to him... I think I'm going for a Culture win, since I'm playing as Napoleon, so I didn't really want any of his cities.
The AI cannot fight wars for crap on Warlord, it seems. Still fun.
This is different than the honor social policy bonus that gives 15% for your units being adjacent to other friendlies. Stacks with each other though.
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Vorago had this to say about Captain Planet:
Protip. Attacking units get a 15% bonus if the unit they are attacking has a 2nd one of your units adjacent to it, on any side. Flanking bonus. Normal combat bonus anyone can get. Rather than have unit A move in and attack then have unit B go in and attack, move both next to the unit firstm then attack, otherwise the first unit doesn't get a flanking bonus,This is different than the honor social policy bonus that gives 15% for your units being adjacent to other friendlies. Stacks with each other though.
What's your opinion of the civ bonuses?
I'd really like to try out the Bushido bonus of Japan, seems like it'd be incredibly powerful to me. My next playthrough I'll do that.
Babylon is laughably easy to dominate tech with, since you're spawning great scientists every 100ish turns or so.
Rome is fun so far, the 25% production bonus was pretty mild early in the game but late-game it really manages to make one hell of a difference. Produce a workshop, windmill, and factory and my cities can crank out buildings like there's no tomorrow.
Is there any wonder or improvement or anything I can use to beat Unhappiness due to Population? If I can do anything at all to reduce it I can end up with an unbeleivable happiness rating and golden ages out the ass.
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Mightion Defensor had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
One problem with automating workers is that there are two settings - On, and Off. You can't tell them to only improve the nearest city, or make a trade network. I'm already sick of looking at trading posts everywhere.
If you go to your Documents, My Games, Civilization 5, and open up 'UserSettings.ini' there's an option to make your workers NOT replace improvements and only build where there are none.
India... yeah, the reduction from population greatly outweighs the increase from cities so, in direct contrast to the intent of the ability, India will inevitably become a map covering juggernaut more often than not.
Japan is all around solid, the cheap ass shit their units can pull off is a complete pain in the ass.
Germany is the zerg rush of Civ. Once multiplayer isn't a bug ridden pile I imagine you will see a lot of people Brute swarming with him.
Rest are pretty good to complete crap (Ottoman's ability is so bad it makes my nuts hurt). Currently trying Arabia, partially for the Arab Trader achievement, but want to try China next for double attacking ChoKuNo.
My arrows will blot out the sun!
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Khyron stopped beating up furries long enough to write:
If you go to your Documents, My Games, Civilization 5, and open up 'UserSettings.ini' there's an option to make your workers NOT replace improvements and only build where there are none.
Also you can make it not play the (mostly) unskippable opening intro in there too.
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From the Book of Armaments, Vorago did read;
Yeah, Babylon is rather broken when abused properly. An academy that soon when techs are under 100 beakers each is outright stupid. Really not sure if them or India is the best, suppose they are broken in different ways.India... yeah, the reduction from population greatly outweighs the increase from cities so, in direct contrast to the intent of the ability, India will inevitably become a map covering juggernaut more often than not.
Japan is all around solid, the cheap ass shit their units can pull off is a complete pain in the ass.
Germany is the zerg rush of Civ. Once multiplayer isn't a bug ridden pile I imagine you will see a lot of people Brute swarming with him.
Rest are pretty good to complete crap (Ottoman's ability is so bad it makes my nuts hurt). Currently trying Arabia, partially for the Arab Trader achievement, but want to try China next for double attacking ChoKuNo.
My arrows will blot out the sun!
I played a game as China once (I use Random leaders)- Chu-No-Ko units are awesome, even more so when they get some promotions. I'd almost say don't upgrade them to riflemen when the time comes.
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Vorago had this to say about Captain Planet:
Also you can make it not play the (mostly) unskippable opening intro in there too.
The intro movie is the loading screen.
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Tarquinn spewed forth this undeniable truth:
The intro movie is the loading screen.
Yeah, uh, went from having to watch the full 3 min thing every time to, hmmm, 10 seconds to the menu?
I razed three Japanese cities with them by nver taking damage... move in, fire, move back. They wear an unwalled city down in about 5 attacks and the city cannot counterattack if the camels are on open ground. Repeat. When he fielded a massive army I just kept falling back while laying into them with arrows till I hit my own territory, at which point the roads let me move entire screens around while firing, any unit anywhere overexposed was just dead.
Japan bent over and handed me everything for peace twice thanks entirely to dem camels. Vorago fucked around with this message on 09-28-2010 at 12:49 PM.
4 Legions + 2 Ballista = any city dead in 1 turn.
First turn I unloaded with the missiles. Those things are fucking awesome now. I did some truly incredible damage. Then the jet fighters and bombers opened up on the enemy; afterwards there was little for the ground forces to do. They mostly had to go after workers (Helicopter Gunships destroy, not capture, workers. Found this out the hard way!), since the choppers conquered the cities easily enough.
Three turns in and I had conquered six cities in the north (I razed two, gave away one because it had jack-all and now the Ottomans worship at my feet, and kept the others for the nearby resources) and three to the east (Two of which I razed and the third I gave to the Songhai).
Three more turns and Siam was a memory. Bombers and Jet Fighters are ungodly, and the helicopters are just so fucking versatile I can't get enough. The only threats left on the continent are Montezuma whom I crushed early on and has no real power left, Ottomans who Siam had down to 1 city left (I gave him a couple but he's effectively my bitch anytime I want), and Songhai who was in the same trouble with Siam until I helped out.
My current world had 3 large continents and 1 small. The small has nothing but city states so I'm not going to bother, Japan has their continent to themselves and they're my current research partner so I'm saving him for last, which leaves the Egypt/Greece/India continent as my next target. Once I build up my newly gained cities, it's time to go over and violate india for Sugar. That'll keep my cities 100% in 'we love the king day' since that'll give me every single luxury there is.
Problem is, I have a larger army than I have a use for now, and it's causing me to run at a loss. I don't want to disband them because they're all highly promoted, and that bastard Gandhi is still there, and he already attacked me once.
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Vorago's unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
Yeah, uh, went from having to watch the full 3 min thing every time to, hmmm, 10 seconds to the menu?
So, uh, I simply hit the escape key ten seconds into the video and, hmmm, I am at the menu.
Uh oh.
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ACES! Another post by Tarquinn:
So, uh, I simply hit the escape key ten seconds into the video and, hmmm, I am at the menu.
Very common bug, many, MANY people are/were unable to skip the intro video
How very creepily accurate.
I am the king of my continent but he, he has god damn 11 times the military I do, with a gold intake of +630 a turn, had a bankroll of 11,000gold at one point when I went into a trade window with him
He made the UN (I am at 2nd place with 5 wonders, he has 21) and after this first vote failed due to all the city states abstaining, he has begun one by one killing off all the city states to narrow the vote
I actually voted for him, he likes me, my hope is that he comes over to my continent to deal with my stubborn japan neighbor.
I think he had a MASSIVE chain of golden ages to account for his gold. I also think he overdid it. Before quitting this morning, he had 300 gold left with a per turn of NEGATIVE 380
Not sure what the exact effects of that are but I bet they aren't good. Civ 4 had units self destruct to balance it, not sure if that will still occur or what. I will also be happy for buildings falling apart. Bastard has +98 happiness with somewhere in the area of 25 cities :\
I'm making atomic bombs. Lots. I got Uranium out the ass.
My only prayer is that between his crashing economy and hopefully overextending into Japan I can turn half his continent into a parking lot and catch him by surprise.
Doubt I will beat him to a tech win though, unless I can do a doom drop on his capital and physically prevent him from finishing the ship
quote:
Vorago wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Very common bug, many, MANY people are/were unable to skip the intro video
Okay then. 
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This one time, at Vorago camp:
I think he had a MASSIVE chain of golden ages to account for his gold. I also think he overdid it. Before quitting this morning, he had 300 gold left with a per turn of NEGATIVE 380
At first science output gets throttled by a comparable amount to your gold loss. Then the units start going.
