Civilization V Message Board

Are you in New York? Do you like Civilization V, and art? Stop by the Whitney museum to see Me Playing Civilization, a performance art piece that consists of... a guy playing Civilization V, seven hours a day, five days a week, until May 25th. Read more...

Some mash ups make complete sense . This is not one of them. Read more...

You British and Americans and Germans and Japanese and Greeks and...Babylonians have had it pretty good when it comes to Civilization games. You get to play as your own people. But what about me?Read more...

I spent a lot of time playing Civ IV mods, particularly the splendid Fall From Heaven, but I’ve only tried a couple of alterations to Firaxis’ most recent entry in the series, and don’t think I’ve downloaded a single one since installing the two excellent expansions to the base game. That all changed this weekend, when a post on PC Gamer drew my attention to the work of modder framedarchitecture, who has created several historical scenarios and a huge Forgotten Realms total conversion. The Faerun mod requires the Gods and Kings DLC and will disable Brave New World when used, and it adds just about everything you could want from a Dungeons and Dragons themed Civ game.

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We’ve heard tell of the Steam controller‘s ins and outs (and ups and downs and lefts and rights and Bs and As and starts) from many a developer, but still skepticism reigns. And with good reason: Valve’s haptics-powered Franken-pad is kinda bonkers. But now, at the very least, we can see – with eyes or echolocation – how it functions moment-to-moment. Go below to see it power through Portal 2, Civilization V, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

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Witness the legendary longbowmen of England, capable of firing intracontinental arrows in Civilization V through the English Channel, right into French territory.Read more...

This is surely the worst possible starting position in Civilization V—so bad it hurts. Beginning with the troops scattered in the middle of nowhere is no way to build a successful empire. But, look on the bright side: The location is incredibly defensible against a land attack! And there are lots of crabs nearby.Read more...

Now that its second expansion is out, Civilization V isn't just one of the best strategy games out there, it's also a lot more complex than it was when it first launched in 2010. To help out newcomers to the game, then, or just those who are upgrading with the expansions, I thought I'd put this guide together, letting you know some of the best tips to keep on top of jerks like Gandhi. This isn't a complete and thorough guide to the entire game; we don't have the space or time for that. Think of these as some golden rules, to help guide you in the right direction. Note also they'll be covering tips for the entire game, not just the latest expansion. START SMALL While it can be tempting to start on a large map, you're better off starting on "small", or even "tiny". The advantage of these sizes is that they not only cut down on the amount of "grinding" you need to do in terms of expanding and building, but they can also be more interesting games, especially if you cram 6-8 civs into them. EXPAND The very first thing you're going to want to do is expand. The most precious thing on a Civilization map is real estate. The more cities you have the more gold and research you'll generate, the bigger your territory the more likely you'll be to own necessary strategic resources. So build settlers early (with the odd worker to build roads between your cities), and when adopting social policies, start with Tradition, which grants expansive bonuses. Don't stop expanding until you start losing money and/or creating unhappiness. FAITH Religion might seem like a bit of fluff, but it can be a powerful diplomatic and cultural weapon, not to mention a good source of happiness for your own people. So as soon as you're done expanding, focus on building shrines and temples so that you can found a religion and start spreading it. If another religion overruns your Civ before you've had a chance to found your own, you'll be at a disadvantage for the rest of the game. RESEARCH It's tough to pick one dominant research path, since it really varies depending on your play style, but related to my expansion point above, I've found the most beneficial to your long-term success is to be the first to get navigation. Whoever can venture across the seas first, potentially finding whole new and empty continents where you can double the size of your empire, has an enormous advantage over those civs stuck in the old country. TRADE Don't ignore the new trade route system in Brave New World. If you've got four available trade routes, build four caravans or cargo ships. If you've twelve, build twelve. You'll not only make buckets of money from this, but it's also a good way to spread your religion. If you can keep trade gold flowing for the majority of the game, by the industrial and modern eras you'll have thousands in gold. GREASE THE PALMS Previously, city-states were something to be tolerated, or even ignored. No longer. Now that they count as voters in the World Congress, the player who can ally themselves with the most city-states has a massive advantage, whether they're actively pursuing a diplomatic victory or just want to screw other players over. The easiest way to do this is ignore their quests and requests, and simply stockpile your trade gold. By the time the World Congress starts getting important later in the game, you can just buy their votes. ROADS Don't just build roads between your cities. Build them densely around areas you muster your armies. Build them on coastal areas between continents you might need to launch an invasion from. Build them to nearby city-states. If you've got open borders treaties with your neighbours, build them to their cities. Why? Because eventually you're going to go to war with them, and conquer them, and having roads in the middle of a war (and everywhere your units are kept, letting them deploy faster) is a huge help. TURTLES While Civilization V offers you a vast variety of military units, for most of the game, you only need a handful. Whenever and wherever you're fighting, a mobile "turtle" mix of infantry (warriors, swordsmen, riflemen, etc) and siege weapons (catapaults, cannons, etc) provide the best mix. Ditto for naval combat. For much of the game you can get by with brute force, amassing an armada of frigates and battleships, which are not only dominant at sea but can also be a huge advantage for coastal warfare. You only need to really diversify (with air support, anti-air weapons and fancy airdrop infantry) once you hit the modern era. DON'T SPY (MUCH) There's always an urge to use your espionage units to spy on other Civs, but just because they're called spies doesn't mean they need to spy. Stealing techs can be slow, and dangerous, and only really useful if there's one Civ way ahead of you. In most other cases, it's better to split your spies between rigging the elections of nearby city-states, helping cement your hold over them, and employing them as diplomats, because buying votes for the World Congress is a lot more important than the odd free tech. BE COOL, MAN There's always the temptation to be a conqueror, constantly invading your neighbours. It's understandable, because it's fun. But if you're playing on a bigger map, with lots of Civs, it's just not worth it. You'll develop a reputation as a bit of a monster, and that's not a reputation you want to have when the modern eras roll around and you need to regularly count on other Civ's votes. RULE, BRITANNIA There's so much variety to be had in the game's Civilizations, so many perks designed to cater to an individual's play style, that saying a single one is better than others would be foolish. My favourite, though, is the English. The +1 naval movement bonus you get is a big help when you're exploring (especially if it's stacked on top of other +1 movement perks like the Great Lighthouse), and the Ships of the Line unit is just a beast. —- That about does it for the groundwork! The beauty of the game, especially since the addition of spies, religion and the World Congress in expansions, is that as complex as it is, there's fun to be had in experimenting and getting your head around the finer details. Until then, though, hopefully these broader points will serve you well!

Improving greatly upon the base game while bringing new, fun things to the table? Yep, that's how expansions should work. In fact, that's how Civilization V: Brave New World works. After Gods & Kings, Brave New World is the second big expansion to hit Firaxis' turn-based strategy game, bringing with it nine new civilizations and a bevy of improvements and new features. But are they good new features? Well, these six folks seem to think so. GamesRadar Civilization V has always had a problem: most of the fun is front-loaded. Finding your place in the world is the height of the game's enjoyment, and the feeling you get when you build your first ocean-faring vessel—breaking into the dark blue and seeing what else is out there in the world—is unparalleled. Once you've seen all there is to see things become fairly routine, and you set about either destroying or improving the world as you see fit. It's this problem that Civilization V: Brave New World attempts to fix—helping stead the downward decline that every Civ match takes once you leave the Renaissance Era. While it doesn't solve it completely, it seamlessly provides plenty of improvements to help make for longer, more enjoyable games. Polygon Along with a number of new playable civilizations to match Gods & Kings—nine, to be specific—Brave New World adds major game mechanics and makes substantive tweaks and layers on additional minor elements. And all of these changes are enough to make Civilization 5 the final realization of the Civ-as-wargame dream. Brave New World's new civs are more than new faces on some reshuffled bonuses—they’re both thematically different and in some cases fundamentally different, from a strategic perspective. The Venetians and Shoshone in particular radically changed the way I played Civilization 5—though they might just break it. The Escapist The new interesting civs and their unique units make up for the lack of new military units in Brave New World, but only barely. Building your own X-Com Squad is certainly a nice nod to the other dev team at Firaxis, but the unit comes far too late to make a huge impact on your game beyond a, "Hey, that's neat." The new bazooka unit completes the ranged unit line in the modern era, but Firaxis wisely believes the evened-out power curve of units in the last expansion did not need to be tinkered with further. You could certainly argue that's true, but it would have been fun to wage war with new units. Game Informer The revamped cultural victory path is the best part of Brave New World. Splitting the new tourism rating off of the existing empire-wide culture score lets empires pursuing cultural hegemony engage in a slew of new interactions that otherwise-occupied nations can safely ignore while focusing on their own goals. Saturating the world with explorers digging up ancient artifacts once Archaeology is discovered creates new diplomatic pressures and production priorities that are more fun to navigate than the old "build a bunch of Museums, beeline for Radio, and mash end turn" cultural victory. Segregating cultural Great Person generation from the others is a wonderful change that lets one to three cities focus on that, and removes the punishing need for cultural nations to focus exclusively on artist specialists. The cultural endgame is much better delineated in the tech tree, so a culture-pursuing empire develops quite differently than any other as it must invest in expensive late-game buildings to multiply its tourism score. IGN Everything in Brave New World pushes towards the direction of having more interaction between civs, of broadening the context for strategic decision-making. For instance, caravans and cargo ships now ply the trade lanes between empires, generating gold and extra research for both civilizations. But that’s not the only thing they carry: trade routes also spread religion between cities, and make each side of the trade relationship more susceptible to tourism influence. It lends an interesting dynamic to these exchanges: the gold generated might be more than offset by the way trade opens the door to religious and cultural influence and gives less technologically advanced civilizations a bonus to their research, helping them catch up to you. GameSpot Beyond the open-ended single-player "campaigns" and multiplayer matches that have become the staples of the series are various prebuilt scenarios chronicling specific eras of history. Brave New World features two such modes covering the American Civil War, and the second European wave of colonization and the Scramble for Africa. As the peoples of the world are still struggling to slough off the legacy of the late 19th century, these scenarios offer a tasteful, informative, and fun perspective on humanity's ambivalent relationship with colonialism, imperialism, and human exploitation. Kotaku I thought Gods & Kings had done enough to turn Civilization V into the best game in the series. The advances made here, turning trade, diplomacy and culture into things you can actually manage, go so much further. In addressing some of the series' longest-standing issues, such as long periods of inactivity and less appealing pursuits of victory, Firaxis have turned Civilization V into one of the best strategy games of all time, regardless of how you want to play the game. Top image courtesy of Gergő Vas. Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

There are those who feel that Civilization V, as it was first released, was a little thin. The game's first expansion, Gods & Kings, addressed some of that criticism. Its second, Brave New World, transforms the game into one of the best the PC has ever seen. It does the things you'd expect from a major expansion. There are nine new civilizations, new units, new buildings and new wonders. But then it goes and does so much more, and does it in a way that, when you look back on 2010's original effort, you'll think you're now playing the sequel. Let's start with the biggest and most important additions. Brave New World completely alters the way culture, diplomacy and trade are handled. Culture is no longer simply a modifier that expands your borders, and trade isn't just a magic money connection between two cities. Instead, they're now a part of the game world. To establish trade routes, you need to build land (caravans) or sea (cargo ship) units and have them actually move to the cities they're trading with. This doesn't just see money change hands, but is also a new (and effective) means of spreading other things, like religion. These units are always on the map, can be tracked, and in times of war attacked and seized by you (or your enemies). The idea of culture also gets its own land units. A new introduction to the series, Archaeologists, appear later in the game and are able to travel the world visiting special sites, which in a neat touch are based on ancient in-game events or locations like old battles or barbarian camps. These units can either build landmarks commemorating the event or, if a site is outside your territory, you can make like the British Museum and steal the stuff, putting it on display back home. Great Artists have now been broken down into three types: Great Writers, Great Artists and Great Musicians, with all three able to attach their works to a city like a perk, increasing its cultural worth. The Great Musicians can even go on tour, similar to the religious missionaries, travelling the map spreading your culture and helping increase your "tourism" score. Below is a video showing this sort of stuff in action. "Tourism" isn't the greatest term for what's really a new tally measuring your cultural might. The more wonders you build, the more great works your artists put on show, the higher this score gets, and later in the game this gets important. Why? I'll get to that in a minute. First up, though, the way all these units work is fantastic. Civilization has long offered you the possibility of a cultural victory but it's always been the most boring path available. Military action always gave you battles to plan, units to move, things to do; the pursuit of cultural victory, meanwhile, left you doing little but hitting "next turn" 500 times in a row. Now, however, you've got something to keep you busy! Which is important not just for cultural players, but for all players in the mid-game lull, once the races for religion and expansion are over and before the modern world's military showdowns have begun. Archaeologists can sneak around raiding tombs, musicians can tour the land spreading culture, your trade empire can reach out and literally touch every corner of the globe. You're almost as busy as a more hostile player, but with none of the bloodshed. There's a point to this. Get your culture score big enough and you'll start influencing other civilizations, whose leaders will solemnly approach you and tell you their people are now "wearing your blue jeans". Influence enough civilizations and you'll be granted a cultural victory. You can compare and compete with civilizations pursuing other means of victory via another big new feature, the World Congress. Beginning in early times as an infrequent get-together and eventually evolving into the United Nations, it's a way for every civilization in the game to meet and enact global laws and policies, as you'll see in the video below. Have an enemy who's more powerful? You can try and enact a trade embargo, hitting their back pocket. Industrious and/or after some cultural benefit? You can elect to hold Civilization's versions of the World's Fair and Olympics. Peaceful players can even try and get global laws passed taxing standing military units, which can cripple larger powers. Motions live and die on the number of votes they receive, but what's cool is that you can lobby behind the scenes - via the regular diplomacy screen - to assemble voting blocs. I had an instance playing as Japan where I was a global superpower, but I was in some ways too powerful; other civs frequently ganged up and tried to cripple me by blocking my own proposals and enacting others to restrict me. There's a bigger point to this as well. Late in the game, votes can be taken to elect a "world leader". If you can wrangle enough of the votes to win - and it takes a lot, so you'll need to be smart - you'll be granted diplomatic victory. All of this helps lend the expansion some feelings the series has long been missing: the sensations of community and power. Thanks to Civ V's wonky AI, alliances and friendships often felt artificial and fickle; now, while they're still far from perfect, the formality and importance of the World Congress really brings everyone together. Power, meanwhile, is reflected in the way you can see and control your new units. It's one thing seeing your bank balance trickle upwards, it's another to get to see your trade network in the flesh. It's also supremely satisfying to be a global superpower at the World Congress, able to exert your will over other players. Being in the top position of an arbitrary points leaderboard had long been the game's only way of measuring success, reliant on size and strength, but now, even the smallest civs can work their way to the big table through culture, diplomacy and trade. Note that I've really so far only touched on the game's biggest and most important additions. There are plenty more. Your civilization's religion is joined late in the game by a chosen ideology (essentially democracy, fascism and communism), which is not only a further means of alienating/allying with other civilizations, but also of customising your strengths, as like with religion your ideology lets you augment your civilization with bonuses and perks, some of them - like the ability to double your output of strategic resources - ridiculously powerful. There's also a new civilization that's a radical departure from the way the game is normally played. Usually, a new faction simply means a few new units, but the addition of Venice to the game is a great challenge for seasoned players, as after you establish your capital you're forbidden from building or annexing cities. You can only create puppets from conquered enemies, meaning in most cases you're reliant on diplomacy and trade, though if you really must expand your Great Merchants can buy entire city states. There are only really two areas that Brave New World fails to impress. The first is the way trade actually affects your growth; I found that even on a few different difficulty settings, by the time I hit the industrial period I was making more money than I knew what to do with, which made things a little too easy. The other is sadder, at least on a personal level. As someone who still feels that Civilization II's Second World War scenario is one of the best strategy games ever made, the two scenarios included with Brave New World underwhelm. The game's lack of stacking makes the US Civil War scenario a bizarre exercise, while the colonial Africa map is an overly-complicated mess. But, um, whatever. I thought Gods & Kings had done enough to turn Civilization V into the best game in the series. The advances made here, turning trade, diplomacy and culture into things you can actually manage, go so much further. In addressing some of the series' longest-standing issues, such as long periods of inactivity and less appealing pursuits of victory, Firaxis have turned Civilization V into one of the best strategy games of all time, regardless of how you want to play the game.

Civilization V: Brave New World adds a continent-sized piece of content to Civ V, with nine new civilisations, more wonders, trade-routes, ideologies, and an over-hauled cultural victory. Looks like this could be a fairly big deal compared to Gods & Kings, partly thanks to the “world congress” feature intended to facilitate greater diplomatic happenings between nations.

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I'd like to think I'm a people person. I might not agree with 75 percent of what other people say or think or believe, but I get along. It's what I do. In today's society it works, for the most part. In Civilization V it didn't, at least not until now. It's a Brave New World, and I almost conquered it with commerce. In a world filled with nations bickering and battling with each other, there's only one truly safe place to be, and that's at the heart of trade. If you control the weapons they use to kill, the resources they need to build, and the gold they need to bargain with, then they're going to go out of their way to be your friend. That's the role I've always wanted to play in Civilization V, and with the Brave New World Expansion I can. Earlier this week I had the opportunity to play through a small, six to eight player scenario in the expansion. I was cast inn the role of Ahmad al-Mansur of Morocco, champion of diplomacy and Moroccan independence. Ahmad is particularly well-suited for my trade ambitions, gaining not only extra gold through trading, but culture as well. Therein lies the key to controlling the world through trade. It's not just about selling things. It's about having other civilizations come to you to buy things, immersing them in your rich culture, and then sending them back to their homes, heads ringing with your ideology. This is where the new additions in Brave New World all fall into place. First, trade routes give barter-hungry players a means to reach out and touch scouted civilizations and city states, creating wondrous streams of gold to my capital of Marrakesh and its ever-increasing entourage of sister-cities. My neighbors pop in for visits, one-by-one. The Indonesians, pokey-little islanders with a penchant for ocean-going. The Brazilians, seeming far too stoic to eventually become the world's party destination (but they do). And my favorite neighbors to the west, the Zulu. I was so disappointed when I realized the demo would not let me play as the Zulu. But, as I said, Morocco suited me just fine. Each leader who approached me left with some sort of trade agreement. Horses, jewels, gold — I had it all, and I doled it out sparingly, like a caring parent with an eye on their children's welfare. They loved me for it. The money poured in. At one point the game's tutorial system took me aside and told me I had too much money, suggesting multiple ways for me to spend it. I made a point never to anger any of my neighbors outright. If they decalred war on each other, I'd politely decline. If I stepped on their toes, I'd quickly apologize. If I declared war on Vatican City in a fit of sheer 80's punk rock rebellion, angering the city state's Brazillian patrons, I smoothed things over. I was so good that eventually the single entity other than barbarians that I had attacked was attempting to convert to my religion. And really, that's all I wanted. The entire world to worship me for being a darn nice guy. They'd adopt my Ideologies — new extensions to the Social Policy function that allow civilizations to spend social points on perks in Freedom, Order, or Autocracy trees. I would craft culture attractions, attract Great Artists, Musicians and Writers, and place their finest work on display for the world to see. The tourists would come, bring my word back to their people, and soon I'd be the most influential man in the world. And I would have gotten away with it too, if not for those damn Zulus. We'll, really my trouble starting with the World Congress, and organization founded by the travel-hungry Indonesians. This precursor to the United Nations is where influential civilizations change the world. By cultivating enough delegates to vote on items from trade embargoes to world fairs, a crafty civ could easily bed the planet to its will. Apparently I wasn't as crafty as I thought I was. While me first proposition — a worldwide celebration — met with unanimous support, future votes did not go my way. My cities changed religions on me. Products I was selling became useless. Then the Zulu started destroying my trade routes. It was nothing personal — they were just really pissed off at Brazil, my major trading partner, and had to teach them a lesson. I was caught in the crossfire of a war I wanted nothing to do with. My income dropped, my citizens got angry to the point of threatening rebellion. I was so flustered I accidentally dropped a great work onto my gold mine, and the rebellion blossomed into all-out civil war. The world continued around my troubled territory. I'd try to sneak in a new trade route, it'd get destroyed the next turn. My fields were on fire. My troops were turning on me. Poland showed up in the middle of this, suggesting we open our borders to each other. I agreed, hoping maybe the rebels would go bother someone else for awhile. Obviously my technique needs a bit more work, but it wasn't a bad run for someone that hasn't played much Civilization V since release. I called it a victory, and called it a day. So my civilization fell (okay, I pushed it), but I see my path clearly. Brave New World comes out on July 9 in North America (July 12 worldwide), and I'll already have my trade routes mapped out. The world will be mine through peaceful, easy means, or I'll set it on fire.

I’ve started more games of Civilization V than a hundred men could ever finish and that’s not only because I enjoy discovering new worlds more than I enjoy conquering them. Civilization doesn’t have a compelling end-game, lacking the peaks and troughs of grand strategy, and instead taking a predictable course once the pieces are in place. Brave New World attempts to fix that by overhauling culture, diplomacy and trade.

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#civilization Firaxis today announced at their PAX East panel that the recently announced Civilization V expansion, named Brave New World, will release in North America on July 9th. International gamers can expect to play the expansion on July 12th. More »

#civilization Civilization V's second expansion pack, dubbed Brave New World, brings a sharper focus on culture and diplomacy, with new civilizations, wonders, and more. Yes, more! More »

A Civilization V SDK update has been released. Change list:

[UPDATE]
- World Builder would hang indefinitely for some users rather than loading into the main menu. This is now corrected.
- Visual C++ 2010 Redist and .NET 3.5 are now installed automatically, removing a required step after the initial install.

A Civilization V update has been released. Change list:

[BUGS]
- If you build defensive structures in your city, then save and reload, the hit-point bonus would disappear.
- Hun Battering Ram promotion which allows it to only attack cities is now lost upon upgrade
- Civ5 Touch - Fixes the oddness when rotating tablets
- Graphical - Fix issue with Rock of Gibraltar not showing up correctly.
- Fix the bug where the Maya AI didn't have to pick a different GP for each Baktun
- Fix an issue on a city flip/gift which would cause loss of city plots forever.
- Fixed a bug where liberated CS would not show their vote correctly in the Victory Progress UI screen
- Fix graphics bugs when the game was restarted too many times in a row.
- Shortcuts created through the launcher now function correctly.

[CRASH]
- Fix a crash that happens when an AI loses its capital, but still has units, so is still alive.

#civilization Oh boy. This one hurt. More »

Not unlike an ancient conqueror, GameFly has slashed and burned the price of its Civilization V PC download. Usually $30, the game can now be had for a mere $7.49. The deal expires at midnight PT on February 14, a day when you should probably pay attention to your significant other and not global diplomacy.

But wait, there's more! Using another GameFly deal, you can actually knock the price down to only six bucks. All you have to do is use the coupon code GFDFEB20, which takes an additional 20 percent off the price of PC downloads. Of course, if you're not in the mood for Civilization, you could always apply it to a different PC download, say, a pre-order of Tomb Raider. Already discounted to $45, the coupon drops it down to $36.

Change list Civ V Balance Patch
Updated: November 1
10.0.2.13

FIXED BUGS
- Mod Browser - The "Get Mods" button is now hidden if the user has disabled the steam overlay.
Civilizations and Traits
- Ottoman naval upkeep is now fixed. Save games that were started before the fix will not be corrected.
- German UA and Oligarchy social policy now work together correctly.
City States
- Mercantile CS now only get a unique luxury for their first city (and not the cities they conquer). Unique luxury is removed upon capture (players can no longer get it by taking over a CS). Unique luxury is given back upon liberation.
- Prevent double counting of resources when an improvement is gifted to a minor civ, then the minor civ techs up to activate the improvement.
Diplomacy
- Research Agreement code was previously giving double-credit to research "overflows" (i.e. when you finished a tech and the extra research was being applied to the following tech). Now the credit toward a RA will be based on Science earned that turn.
- Corrected an issue that caused the AI to attempt coups too often, when chances of success were too low. Also implemented a new factor: Attempting a coup in a location where there is no defending spy (the current ally does not have a spy there) is >=2x as likely to work as it would if there was a spy there.
- Resurrecting a player will have both sides forget any denouncing that happened before resurrected.
- Don't treat player as a deal breaker just for going to war with a player again.
Exploits
- Do not let a player earn the 2 free techs from the Rationalism Finisher twice. Also removed the +1 Science from Libraries from that finisher.
- If you intentionally starve your city by reassigning all your citizens to be unemployed, you won't end up with more citizens than you have population.
Religion
- Fix Found Religion screen so you can't find out about civs you haven't met by mousing over the religion icons.
- Correct "Peace Loving" belief so it doesn't negate other happiness benefits from religion.
- Rebuild religious pressure in case it was corrupted in older save games.
- Clarify Interfaith Dialog so it mentions that Prophets earn you science too (not just missionaries).
Scenarios
- Removed notifications that appear at the beginning of the Fall of Rome and Mongol scenarios about lacking the proper strategic resources.
AI
- Dutch now will build farms before polders are available.
- Do not allow Carthaginian units to spawn on mountains.
- Do not allow Carthaginian Workers to end turns on mountains.
- AI will now build more workboats and will improve oil plots in the water.
- Automated workers that don't have anything to do will not consume all their movement.
- Allow rush built units to trigger the operation they were built for to proceed into Gather Units phase.
- Fixed an issue where automated workers evaluated danger incorrectly and consequently behaved incorrectly.
- Fixed an issue where citizen management focus on Production (and possibly others) could lead to starvation.
- Clicking on an unemployed citizen to set them back to work does not "unlock" locked citizen assignment.
- The logic to recommend Artist improvement placement now does not count plots where improvements can't be placed, e.g. oases.
- Add additional sanity checks for deceptive attacks. Previously, if an AI was choosing to deceptively attack, they would not check to determine if it was a good idea or not the moment before launching, which could result in dumb attacks.
Units
- Fix unit de-selection so the mini-map indicator clears.
- Better Next Unit selection. Previously, the camera would jump great distances to select the next unit that needs orders, when a closer unit was available.
- Unit cycling improvement: when a unit is promoted, do NOT cycle immediately off that unit.
- Change minimum area size for all naval units to 10 (from 20). That allows them to be built in the same cities as harbors, seaports (and great admirals) -- i.e. on any body of water not considered to be a "lake"
- Fix advanced promotions for melee naval ships.
- Restore missing Cover 2 promotion entries so it is available to units again.
- Fix a hang if a (melee) unit advanced across the world wrap seam after a combat.
- Correct Great Admiral AI placement bug that prevented it from selecting a valid coastal city of yours.
- Unit list now re-sorts itself correctly when a unit is promoted.
- Subs are no longer visible (all the time) in Hot Seat mode.
- Don't give GG points from Barbarian ranged attacks.
- Helicopters now take damage when ending their turn over mountains.
- Interception promotions now help the right unit (had previously been reversed).
- Evasion promotion helps the right unit (had previously been reversed).
- Two top-of-screen messages added to explain what is going on with intercepts (one for if the attacking air unit is eliminated, and another if he is just damaged).
- Fixed a unit movement issue that broke melee attacking from more than one hex away.
- Janissary heals 50 instead of 100 when killing enemy units.
- Supply promotion now heals 15 HP outside friendly territory; matching text (was 25 HP).
- Added a check to make sure that after a city is disbanded (ex. razed), the units remaining on the plot are allowed to be there. If not (ex. naval units), then they are moved to the nearest valid plot.
- Fix for barbarians that would not move the turn after they spawned.
- Have Great Engineer pick both the wonder and the city it needs to be built in (the bug was that the AI could repeatedly try to build a wonder in a city that it couldn't).
- Make sure Caravels and Destroyers always have the Withdraw before Melee promotion, even if you don't own DLC02.
- Barbarians should now spawn in their camp if it is empty of combat units instead of beside it.
Optimization
- Many performance improvements, particularly in the renderer.
- Pathfinder fixes and optimization.
Text Bugs
- Fixed several text bugs.
Misc
- Fixed rare crashes that could occur depending on hardware.
- Only the alive civilization capitals are tested for majority religion in "We are family" achievement.
- Added missing Polish Dawn of Man audio.
- Advisors: Messages concerning your people being unhappy/livid now display correctly (a bug was causing this to fire at the wrong time).
- Economic Overview: Don't list diplomacy values as an expense and an income at the same time.
- Fix auto-scrolling between turns. If a user was scrolling when a turn ended, or when combat ended, it would occasionally get stuck and continue scrolling.
- Fix unit de-selection so the mini-map indicator clears.
BALANCE
- Reduced Happiness a bit from Mercantile City States. You no longer get +1 bonus happiness going from Friends to Allies (since you already get the luxuries then). And eliminated the +1 Happiness entering Industrial era.
- Ballistics now requires Railroads. This will force the AI to get railroads before getting too deep in the tree.
- Pillaging tiles now awards +25 hit points to the pillaging unit.
- Tweaks to culture border growth:
o Should get coastal resource tiles a bit sooner.
o Should mildly steer towards tiles that are near unclaimed resources.
o Should get resource tiles in rings 4 and 5 a bit sooner.
- Austrian UA balance changes:
o Increase the cost of a City-State by at least the amount of gold you will get from scrapping their units.
o Must be ally for 5 turns before you can undergo a diplomatic marriage with a City-State.
o "Yoink!" achievement is now: "As Austria, acquire a City-State with 15 or more units through Diplomatic Marriage."
Religion
- Pilgrimage belief now gives +2 Faith per foreign city following this religion.
- Follower and Pantheon beliefs provide Local Happiness; Founder beliefs provide Global Happiness
- Faith output per city is now listed in the economic overview - general information panel. Note: Faith output per city is hidden if religion is disabled.
- AI: Buy Missionaries in city with Great Mosque as TOP priority (even over Holy City if different).
- Tall/Wide Religion Balance Change: Add Grand Temple (National Wonder).
Diplomacy & Espionage
- New peace deals. Now 9 AI levels instead of the previous 5 (so one new level added between each of the earlier ones). Peace levels are now:
o 0: White Peace (give up nothing)
o 1: Armistice (1/2 gold, 1/2 of max GPT)
o 2: Settlement (all gold, max GPT)
o 3: Back-down (all luxuries, all gold, max GPT, open borders)
o 4: Submission (all resources, all gold, max GPT, open borders)
o 5: Surrender (one city)
o 6: Cession (1/4 city value, 1/2 gold)
o 7: Capitulation (1/3 city value, all gold)
o 8: Unconditional Surrender (all but capital, all gold)
- Peace deal code now prioritizes both cities that are close to winner's capital AND cities that were originally built by winning player (previously it was distance only).
- Reduced espionage notification spam. Will only be notified of election and coup activities if you have met them and (have a spy in the city or are friends with them or have a relationship with them that is above the resting point.)
- Added ability to liberate cities that are not owned by their founders or originally owned by the player. The player will receive a diplomacy bonus with the liberated player for liberating up to three cities. This liberation is not part of the "recalled to life" resurrection of a once annihilated civ. This functionality only runs if the city liberated is owned by a player that is alive. There are two ways to lose the diplomatic liberation bonus are:
1. Declare war on someone you have liberated cities for. You have to be the first player declaring war. This does not count defensive pacts or someone you liberated declaring war on you.
2. Capturing a city from someone you liberated. This case comes into play if A liberated a city of C's, then A & B have a defensive pact, C declares war on A & B, then A captures a city of C's. C will forget that A liberated any of their cities.
- The AI will now liberate cities and resurrect players. There are notifications when the AI resurrects players and cities. An AI will resurrect another (non-human) player when they are trying to win a diplomatic victory. An AI will return a city if the original owner of the city has a defensive pact with the player and they are both at war with the previous owner of the city, or, the AI and the original owner have a declaration of friendship and the AI is going for a diplomatic victory.
- Diplomacy: Peace treaty duration scales with game speed.
o Quick: 10 turns
o Normal: 10 turns
o Epic: 15 turns
o Marathon: 30 turns
- Diplomacy: Declaration of Friendships/Denouncements now scale with game speed.
o Quick: 50
o Normal: 50
o Epic: 75
o Marathon: 150
- Changed diplomatic globals:
o The opinion thresholds (unforgivable/enemy/competitor/favorable/friend/ally) have been pushed farther apart. They were initally 50/30/10, now 80/40/15.
o Diplomatic intrigue bonuses have been lowered by 1/2, from 20 to 10.
o "Asked Stop Spying" penalty dropped from 20 to 10.
o There are a number of changes to the duration of city-state interaction penalties, greatly reducing their duration.
- Diplomacy overview improvements. Now displays "your open borders/embassy", "their open borders/embassy", "shared open borders/embassy"
- With making deals, AIs will notify you when they're not willing to give enough on their side to make the deal work. This addresses some issues where you ask an AI to propose a deal and they say "we can't make a deal" and then you propose a lop-sided deal and they accept it. They will say "we aren't willing to give you enough to make this a fair trade."
- Other civs won't warn about expansion unless the player has founded a city in the last 10 turns.
- "We attacked your protected City-State" statements are now triggered by damage done (ex. killing a unit) rather than simply being at war. As a result, the statement should no longer be triggered by a quick succession of DoWs (such as those done automatically by a CS changing allies).
- The AI will no longer ask other players to join in a war when they are already involved in at least one.
Units
- Unit Balance Changes:
o Drop Ironclad to 45 combat strength (from 50).
o Remove +33% vs. Cities from Battleships.
o Drop Gatling Guns to 30 Combat and Ranged Strength.
o Make sure Air Ambush 2 and Air Targeting 2 work for fighters and bombers.
o Carriers now get naval melee promotions instead of naval ranged.
o Prize Ships Balance Change: 50% chance of converting ships with equal intrinsic combat strengths. Scales up and down (between 28% and 80%) based on relative intrinsic combat strengths of the two ships. Conversion chance if you do sink the opponent is shown in blue text on combat preview window.
o AI attackers will now pillage.
- Promotion balance change: make the +200% vs. Cities promotion go away on upgrade.
- Promotions: Push back Air Logistics promotion for Fighters and Bombers so it requires Bombardment 3 (not 2) or Air Siege 3 (not 2).
AI
- If the AI is able to build the UN, but would not win based on the current vote breakdown, have the AI refrain from constructing it unless conditions change.
- AI adjustments to Wonder build priorities.
- Tactical AI Improvement: Spend more gold on defense. AI will now spend gold at their cities where tactical dominance is EVEN (before it had to be enemy-dominated). AI will now also spend money on naval and air units for defense in such cites (before it was only land units and defensive buildings).
- Changes to AI settling:
o Expand the ring search.
o Flatten the value of rings a bit so that tiles in the further rings are worth a bit more.
o Make the default preferred spacing further for players not going for extreme expansion.
o Lower the value of tiles a bit so that the AI is a bit pickier about settlements.
o AI will try to reclaim lost settlers and builders.
o AI will no longer wait forever for a settler escort.
o Minor tweak to settlement location.
o More aggressive offshore expansion.
- Do not give priority to bonus resources in rings 4 and 5 when deciding next tile to grow towards.
- Tweak to AI settle to reduce bonus of tiles in rings 4 and 5 if already owned.
- Small change to make Haile Selassie less keen to expand wide.
- AI will now consider annexing cities it has conquered.
- The AI will not consider annexing if it is trying to win a culture victory or their empire is currently unhappy.
- Increased happiness flavor for circus to match Colosseum.
- Tactical/Homeland AI Improvement: Do not heal if under enemy ranged fire (that is making you lose more HP per turn than you can heal).
- Allow AI to capture civilians more than 4 hexes from their cities.
- Have AI build its units for sneak attack at a slightly higher priority if at high difficulty levels.
- Have AI weight Biology a bit stronger especially if liking tanks and airplanes (unlocks oil).
- AI tweaks to help coastal based civs:
o Change to settlement (cities beyond the first also prefer coast).
o Buildings that help coastal Civs have flavors adjusted (they didn't take some rules changes into account).
o Do not force high Naval civs to build a large navy (15+ ships) in the first 100 turns.
o Make Dido deceptive (as historical).
- Tweaks to allow cities to make better use of extra tiles from previous change:
o On average on extra worker or two will be built.
o Slightly less prioritization of connecting up luxuries (still the highest priority).
o Allow one tile islands to be settled (if they have a resource on them).
o Slightly more prioritization of production tiles.
o Builders will emphasize the capital so that it will always be a nicely developed city.
- City Governor AI:
o Prevent focused city AIs from starving as much.
o Make a wonder that has already been started in this city a higher priority.
o Lower the value of food for the governor when you have a large surplus.
POLISH
- UI
- Add in a UI overlay that shows which AI is processing its turn.
- In the detailed view of a mod in the mods browser, additional required mods will display their title if it has been provided instead of the ID of the mod.
- Add an Exit to Main Menu button to the player change screen in Hotseat.
- Added "Restart Game" option to game menu. This option lets you restart the game and generate a new map using your current pregame settings. It's only available at Turn 0.
- Advanced settings are now persisted across multiple single player games.
o NOTE: This feature can be disabled by setting "PersistAdvancedSettings = 0" in Config.ini
- The top panel now displays the month of the year if the game speed is so slow that it actually matters.
- Messages about a player losing their capital and regaining it are now included in the replay log.
- Messages about a player being resurrected are now included in the replay log.
- Fixed an issue causing the replay graphs to be corrupted when a player was resurrected.
- Display currently active mods in the single player screen.
- Add a separate graphics option for enabling/disabling the GPU texture decode.
- Fractal added to the map short list and random map types.
- Garrison ring properly disappears when unit moves out of city.
- Resource icon stacking. At lower resolutions, the resource icons clip into the date display along the top. We now hide the part of the list that clips if its too long, and instead, the player can mouse-over the list to see all the resources.
- Better timing for pop-ups (finding ruins, etc.).
- Auto unit selection improvements:
o On load, only cycle to the next unit if the currently selected unit is not ready for selection.
o Swap the direction that the CycleRight and CycleLeft buttons move the selection in the cycle list.
o When closing the city screen. Re-select the last unit that was selected.
o If the player has auto-unit-cycling off, don't auto-select the unit that is blocking the end turn.
- Further refinement to pop-up reordering. Pop-ups should now "feel" correct each turn (in the right order, at the right time).
- Don't prompt the player when removing fallout. Just do it. The prompt incorrectly referred to the action as removing an improvement.
- Switch a number of Great Merchants to Great Admirals. Add Great General: Hannibal and Great Merchant: Jakob Fugger.
- Optimized overlay system (culture borders, etc.). This system is now making half the draw calls that it did before.
- Flavored all the civs for anti-air and air-carrier.
- Add a combat weapon parameter that allows for a projectile that is not going to do any damage to have a "miss" radius. The helps spread out projectiles when there are a lot of attackers, but only one or two targets.
- Modding: Fix the hard-coded length of the promotions boolean array.
- Modding: Provide a way for Lua to query if the UI is in "Touch Screen" mode UI.IsTouchScreenEnabled().
WIN8 AND ULTRABOOK
- Many performance optimizations specifically targeted to Ultrabooks with Intel Core processors with HD Graphics.
- New launcher button for Windows 8 Intel touch-enabled version.
- Touch/Gesture Support:
o New gesture menu button on main menu, and when you bring up the main menu in-game.
o New sliders to control zoom and momentum speed in Options menu.
o Single finger tap for all UI buttons.
o Single finger drag for scroll bars or two fingers together swiping to scroll menus by gesture.
o Single-finger touch and drag to see tool-tips (terrain, UI, etc.).
o Pinch and expand finger for camera zoom.
o Two fingers dragging together moves map.
o Three finger tap is escape (from other menus, or to bring up Main Menu).
o Unit Control:
+ Single-finger tap to select unit, and then drag to issue a movement order, or...
+ Double-tap to enter movement mode.
+ Once in movement mode, single-tap on destination to issue an order, or touch and drag to preview movement path.

#impressions I appear to be one of a rare breed of person who, on the internet at least, is proud to have enjoyed Civilization V. I thought the shift to hexes and abandonment of unit "stacking" was the best thing the series had done in years, and while it wasn't perfect - the AI could have done with some work - on the whole, I had a blast. More »

#civilization Watch a whole bunch of new civilizations take over the world in this new trailer for Civilization V: Gods & Kings, the upcoming Civ V expansion pack that will be out for PC on June 19. New additions to the game include Austria, the Netherlands, and Ethiopia, among others. More »

Crush the weak, spare the weekend! Sid Meier and Some Other Peoples’ Civilization V is open to all-comers this weekend, from now until some point on Sunday (1PM PDT, whatever that means in real time), making it the perfect time to give its hexy new style a shot. If you like it, you can buy the full game for 75% off, and have plenty of time to get used to it before the imminent Gods and Kings expansion hits. What megalomaniacal goodness does that contain?

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#civilization So, I have to be honest: I've spent two years avoiding Civilization V on purpose. It's not that I have anything against the evolution of city-states into empires, or that I find resource-gathering, diplomacy, and warfare uninteresting. In fact, it's exactly the opposite: I am deeply, painfully susceptible to the classic Civ player crisis of, "Just... one more... turn!" There's a great wide hex-gridded world out there, and I have to be responsible for all of it. More »

Civilization V: Gods & Kings will be out for PC on June 19, publisher 2K Games said today. The upcoming expansion pack will bring religion and espionage back to the strategy series. [2K Games] More »

#civilization Ed Beach talks rapid-fire when he's dishing details on Gods & Kings, the Civilization V expansion pack that Firaxis announced this morning. I can't blame him. He's got a lot to say. More »

I liked Civilisation V, which sometimes causes long-time fans of the series to hurl detritus at me in the streets, but I would never argue that it wasn’t lacking features that I craved. Foremost among them was a decent application of the cultural and historical force of religion, so I’m extremely pleased to see that the just announced expansion, Gods and Kings, will bring all manner of theism into the game. Along with religion, there’s a focus on bulking out espionage and diplomacy. There will also be plenty of stuff. More details below.

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#civilization Developer Firaxis will release an expansion pack for Civilization V this spring, it said today. More »

#civilization A "Game of the Year" edition of Sid Meier's Civilization V, featuring six packs and the digital soundtrack, hits stores on Sept. 27 for $50, 2K Games said this morning. More »

Uncover new land with the explorers in this downloadable content pack.