It's mostly been Civ 5: BNW. It's difficult to remember my first experiences with Civ 5 back in September 2019 but easy as well due to a common theme: I settled on the Shoshone as my go to civilization and they became my fave by far.
Yep, their capital is Moson Kahni. So lots of playing quite peacefully and being so indisputably powerful through land and tech that I just won naturally. They have an ability I loved in Civ: they started with twice as many tiles pre-bought when you settle a city. Thus your first city has huge potential and is ready to develop quick, with workers. Each city you found can just claim more valuable land than the enemy.
One of the toughest things is the switch from stacks of doom to one unit per tile (1UPT). It takes some getting used to and am honestly still getting around it. No more Waterloos to decide the fate of empires in one turn, no more glorious three pronged advances, no more tactical parties here and there while one big stack does the business. Nope, now its a whole lot of traffic jams. Seriously. It didn't affect me too much in my first playthrough back in 2019 as I played very peacefully. In addition to ending stacks of doom, it pushed the focus away from war. Huge.
The focus now seems to shift more toward diplomatic, science, cultural and if it comes to it, time victories. Conquest/domination by capturing all enemy capitals is less encouraged. Mainly the huge penalty associated with conquering cities. With a global happiness stat instead of by-city as it was in Civ 4, you need to be just as careful if not more so. In 4 if happiness dropped in a city you could always just whip the population down or hurry a happiness building or whatever. Here it can be fatal empire-wide.
Didn't stop me from killing people!
Irresistable Shoshone. They were almost too good. Haven't played them at all in 2020, opting to play various different civs for experience AND the achievements, of course. The Shoshone get two unique units - a scout that can choose what benefit it gets from tribal huts (sorry, ancient ruins) and a cavalry that was decent but upgraded into really fast tanks.
Haven't seen this guy in a while. Seemed I was always fighting him before. Here he is bowing down to my culture. Way more fun to develop in this game by some margin compared to Civ 4, which was only fun for its challenge. 3 cities to max culture took a long time and care. Here, in 5, it also takes a lot but there are more routes.
Had to start playing a lot of Archipelago maps as the laptop was slowing even in 2019.
Getting Merchants of Venice as the Shoshone. Instead of civics in Civ 4 its all about policies and just like them they are my fave part of Civ 5! I used to always go Liberty but am seeing the benefits of Tradition as I get better and more experienced, but it is generally thought of as more boring and safe. I usually shun Piety but have had very fun games with Honor, killing barbarians for culture and later gold. Later I usually get Patronage to court city states, independent AI players on the map that provide a host of benefits if befriended. Exploration and Aesthetics are good trees too, but Rationalism like Tradition is considered S tier but I find it boring.
Ah, my Venice game. I tried to win a duel versus Germany and lost eventually. Note the smoking ruins of my improvements.
Gods, the citadel creep in the lower left by Germany. Disaster.
Attempts to play differently in 2020.
They did a really good job of replacing the events of Civ 4. I still miss them slightly, but they were a mixed bag. These are more take it or leave it. One replacement is the competition to build the World's Fair, International Games and the International Space Station. Nice rewards if participated in.
Killing spies. Good to see soem things never change.
Interesting ways to measure power and other stats. Like in 2 and 4, it pays to keep a close eye on demographics and these alerts.
I do really like the World Congress. I usually participate and take over as best as I can. Can be a bit annoying when all the good stuff is gone and you just spend your time proposing meaningless stuff. Can be extremely useful if playing more aggressively, I can see that. An embargo on one player you plan on attacking next could be huge.
Love the end of transport ships at last and replacement with embarkment. Makes way more sense. Feel like I saw it a long time ago. Empire Earth?
My Brazil game. Though a culturally strong civ, there's an achievement for going diplomatic. It seems I have 34 votes but need 35. I think this is the game I gave Rio de Janeiro to somebody so they'd vote me over the line on the last turn.
March-April 2020. Trying my hand at the scenarios. Here I am as Japan in the conquest of Korea.
Really cool as you start with a pile of units and Korea is empty. Reminded me of Britannia.
Trying to capture Beijing. They kept wiping out my melee units before I could get them in range. Eventually managed to surround and take it, winning the scenario.
April 12th 2020. I had to play as the Confederacy first. The Union let met sit outside DC and shell it without retaliation.
Played the Chinese side on Deity difficulty. Was never very tough but consistently challenging nonetheless. Lot of this - taking out Japanese embarked units with my navy.
Using my triremes to defend the Chinese coast, running Caravels through embarked units and slowly but surely reconquering Korea for the Koreans.
I managed to hold the line all game, even against this massive Manchurian attack. Liaoyang never fell but Seoul did, sadly, very late in the game. I won anyway!
One of the last scenarios I played for the moment is the Paradise DLC with 4 Polynesian civs vying for control. All you have to do is amass enough cultural policies (3 full trees) to win. The game devolved pretty quickly into just building the Moai improvement everywhere and as many cities as possible.
The almost-full trees.
My fave win in this was being constantly a policy behind the leader until I got the Honor one that lets you get triple culture from killing units. Just killed a load of enemy soldiers in a world war of sorts to win.
Moai everywhere on the coast. I got every achievement in this DLC anyway.
What does the future hold? This scenario, for one. There's also a rake of others I have to give a go. It is a whole new way to play: I tend to like the regular gameplay of Civ4 too much to bother with the scenarios in that. Also, the lure of achievements. Also also, tiring of Civ 5 regular gameplay a bit.
Though it's very good, Civ 5 still outshone by Civ 4. But there is plenty, PLENTY of great new stuff added. I have Civ 6 in my library so will probably end up giving that a go in a few weeks/months.
