Colin blowing up more stuff... jeez, what a jerk!

I know, right?

But in all fairness I was really only experimenting, as I had never done that before as long as I have owned the game! I wanted to see what it looked like, and exactly what sort of devastating "diplomatic penalties" Egypt would incur for using the Bomb. A couple of leaders "denounced" me, and when King William of the Netherlands (yes, they are a civ from the expansions) would contact me for trade, where it showed his "mood" it said "AFRAID" after that, instead of 'NEUTRAL" or 'FRIENDLY" or something like that. Thought that was pretty funny. But I do not imagine anyone in the World Congress making any motions short of a total embargo on Egypt and most of them voting in favor.

Of course, it does show which civ's delegates at the World Congress/U.N. voted in favor; it is not a secret ballot...I could therefore nuke the bastards just to teach them not to vote against Egypt next time...

In toto, I think I nuked (and halved the populations of) Samsun, Bursa, and Istanbul. When I tried to make peace with Suleiman, he just wasn't having it. Surrounded Bursa (mostly full of nuclear fallout and shattered dreams of Empire) which I had negotiated from him in exchange for Peace last time I nuked it, and besieged it. You can "besiege" a city if all routes into it, including any harbor, are blocked by your troops/ships.

When you take over a city (I am telling this for the benefit of those who don't have it and might be interested) you have three options" raze it (it gradually burns down over 3 turns giving you the option to cancel the razing), create a puppet state (it's your territory but you cannot control what it is building) or totally annex it (as you did with Civ IV but you only could raze it or annex it). The happiness of your entire empire goes down a few notches if you make it your puppet state/territory but do not directly annex it; and goes down quite a bit if you actually annex it. Of course if your empire's happiness level is pretty high already who cares if you grab it like a greedy little bastard (such as moi). I think this prevents too many cities from being taken over, or one civ turning into a giant juggernaut that rolls up the whole board.

Actually there is a fourth option: if the city had originally been owned by a third party, or it used to be a city-state that that empire itself annexed, you can choose to "liberate" it back to its rightful owners. They become very friendly to you and you receive neither the hit to your happiness, nor will you incur the "warmonger" penalty. I think that's all part of the original game, in fact.

This conversation has encouraged me to take a break from Empire Total War and play a game of Civ V. I am currently playing as the Byzantines.

My favorite country to play is Austria. I love the diplomatic marriage national benefit. It is great to double the size of your nation by converting all the City-States to Austrian Cities by marriage. You can also expand to other continents with just an explorer and a lot of money through the diplomatic marriage.

Archduke Russell John wrote:This conversation has encouraged me to take a break from Empire Total War and play a game of Civ V. I am currently playing as the Byzantines.

My favorite country to play is Austria. I love the diplomatic marriage national benefit. It is great to double the size of your nation by converting all the City-States to Austrian Cities by marriage. You can also expand to other continents with just an explorer and a lot of money through the diplomatic marriage.

I, too, have just started playing Civ V again, and am the Byzantines as well! Has anyone ever beaten the game at a level higher than King?

My favorite way to victory is culturally. Yours?

bbauska wrote:I, too, have just started playing Civ V again, and am the Byzantines as well! Has anyone ever beaten the game at a level higher than King?

My favorite way to victory is culturally. Yours?

Honestly, I am not sure I have ever finished a game of Civ V. It plays much slower then the earlier versions and I tend to get a little bored. I usually get to a point in a game were all I am doing is building up the cities and using one army to romp all other nations. When I get to there, I get bored and either start a new game as a different nation, or switch back to Empire.

My favorite way to victory is culturally. Yours?

See screenshot above.

Hey fellas, I ran across this on the internets today:

http://www.abovethefields.com/top_pbem/

It's a PBEM Advanced Civ WBC tournament starting up in a few weeks. Our very own Keven Youells is GM'ing it.

Never played that one, before. But I think I owned a copy once for some reason. It looked neat. Just couldn't' get anyone to play with me <sniff>

But I like cultural victory too, as conquest is a little different in Civ V. If you keep conquering this and that city, not only does your "happiness rating" go down, but you get a "warmonger" penalty. You go to do Diplomacy, and the leader you contact may say "Oh, the blood thirsty one shows his face!"

Bah, p*******!

JimHackerMP wrote: If you keep conquering this and that city, not only does your "happiness rating" go down, but you get a "warmonger" penalty. You go to do Diplomacy, and the leader you contact may say "Oh, the blood thirsty one shows his face!

I have this problem in my current game. I am the Byzantines and the Ottomans were right next door. I figured I better take them out before that take me out (after all history repeats ). Then there was a city-state in between my Byzantine cities and my Ottoman cities so I had to attack that one as well. Now every time I try to talk to one of the nations I met at the time, call me the blood thirsty one.

Interestingly, I know own Constanstinople and Istanbul. Cue They Might Be Giants song.

Well, in my game, it was neither Istanbul NOR Constantinople: it was a pile of radioactive rubbish haha.

I do believe use of nuclear weapons also incurs diplomatic penalty (quite a significant one I'm afraid). But I think there's ways of turning those things off. And, of course, you could have puppeted the cities instead of a direct takeover. But even that incurs a small warmonger penalty (just not as big as a direct takeover, or razing the city to the ground).

And I think there's a stronger atomic bomb, than the atomic bomb. Like I think it's possible to discover Fusion and make the H-bomb. The A-bomb (see above) halved the population of Istanbul and spread fallout over quite a bit of an area (some of it went into the Turkish city I had captured....so I think I made my own troops and caravans exposed to radiation poisoning! Whoops!)

So Istanbul got a population of 11 after I used the Bomb. I am not sure what buildings remain in the city (Barracks, Granary, etc.) but the A-bomb isn't "total" destruction. But I scared the crap out of Suleiman, and he gave me another of his cities as a "gift" in the peace deal. But I think annexing a city as a condition of the peace treaties might ALSO incur the same penalty...but I am not entirely sure of that. And if that cannot be turned off or the options adjusted regarding that fact, then some player somewhere needs to write the programmers and tell them about that; maybe as a necessary update. Because if I remember correctly there were some updates via Steam pretty early on for things players thought were "weird", here and there.

I just won a "time" victory, but of course it was won on level 3 only.

I love those World Congresses/United Nations. But Suleiman got like, 14 delegates the last session. Pretty lopsided, so I voted for someone other than myself as world leader just to keep him from winning a plurality of votes (I'm not sure how the world leader vote works exactly).

Have any of you won via being elected world leader?

JimHackerMP wrote:Have any of you won via being elected world leader?

Once. That comes from Cultural focused plans.

Have you ever had an embargo put on your country? Very inconvenient. I was so p***** when the bastards did that. But I think it had to do with my "warmongering".

JimHackerMP wrote:Have you ever had an embargo put on your country? Very inconvenient. I was so p***** when the bastards did that. But I think it had to do with my "warmongering".

Never had that... I am not the warmonger. But you could tell that from my political stances here on Redscape.