I can't stop repeating myself: this game is just the best.

So i won yesterday. Very pleased. Next difficulty will be immortal. It was quite a tense finish in the end. 

I was going for science victory, but shortly before i started building spaceship parts the international community randomly decided i was The Axis of Evil. I'm not sure why, but i think the Russians had a hand in it. Suddenly everyone hated me. I got denounced by almost everyone with a presence in Europe, and the World Congress basically became a club for runt-civs to pass piss-take resolutions at my expense. 

First they banned crab, my biggest export, then they banned nukes, just as i was about to build some (i paid for 3 to be completed just before the resolution passed). Rival civs even started making ridiculous trade demands during renegotiation of terms. I was literally paying 80+ gold per turn for a single resource. I had to pay whatever they were asking as any further knocks to trade would send me into a negative happiness spiral and add huge delays to spaceship production. I went from 450 gold per turn to 50 gold per turn over 30 years. 

The most anxious moments came when Russia announced they hated me and that their words were backed up by nuclear weapons. It was too late in the game to ignore, so i sent my 3 strongest units to their border, ready to strike in the event of war. A nuclear submarine armed with 2 ICBMs, a giant death robot, and a SAM. However, just as we were passing through the Baltic Sea, Poland and Denmark severed ties, which forced all my units into Riga's (city state) territory, who was under the protection of Russia. Nobody would allow me open borders, so they were trapped there and there was no way for me to get them back to London in the event of an attack closer to home. Naturally, with each passing turn Riga hated me more for my occupation, which in turn led to Russia hating me more, which in turn led to Russia's allies hating me more. 

In the end nobody had the balls to declare war on me and i still won. Think i will play on into overtime for a good few more hours as i'm really interested to see if/how the situation resolves itself.

The Mongolians are a pleasure to do diplomacy with. They've just declared war on the Russians for 4 gold, and the Egyptians for marble.

War takes a long time. I'm clearly going to win but it'll take an hour to get everyone in position and take the last capital.

Enjoying this thread chaps, keep it up. I'd love to have the time to sink into Civ V, started a game up a while ago but couldn't give it enough and ended up forgetting what the fuck I was up to last time I booted it up.

GurtTractor wrote:

equinox_code wrote:

About to experiment with a new tactic. I've built 3 shitty, expensive cities in the arctic and i'm about to give them to the Russians in the hope that the added financial burden cripples their empire. Be interesting to see if this works.

Did this work? It would be good to compile all these evil little tactics and stick 'em in the OP I reckon.

It works but it's not very practical. In order for it to burden the enemy you need a lot of high maintenance buildings, which take a lot of time to build and can even be compensated for by building a bank or market. I am instead currently opting to gift conquered but undesirable cities

I'm enjoying the early game much more than the later game. In fact, I'm thinking of starting a third game rather than finishing my other two 'cause they're just dragging on tediously. Is that common, or am I doing something wrong?

Do you have Brave New World?

GurtTractor wrote:

Do you have Brave New World?

Dunno. I've got the GOTY version.

Ah, that'll be why. Apparently GOTY edition doesn't include either Gods And Kings or BNW expansions, so you're missing out on quite a lot. G&K adds religion and spies, BNW adds trade routes, ideologies, world congress, and tourism (both add extra civs, maps and scenarios). BNW in particular improves the late game, world congress and tourism add an extra challenge.

Hang on, I'm sure I had a spy in one of my games. Are you telling me I was mistaken and sent my own worker deep into enemy territory for no good reason?

I've no intention of buying any expansions any time soon, which is annoying 'cause they actually sound pretty good.

I found it pretty impenetrable, but then I did do the usual man thing and dive straight in and not bother with the tutorial. Might have to go back and give it another go.

Totally repeating myself here, but you all really need to be using infoaddict mod on Civ. It probably adds as much strategy as BNW itself.

I have to say I don't have a computer capable of running this (probably a good thing) but I am really enjoying the stories here.

You can find it at the bottom right of the screen during diplomacy, or beside the espionage tab during gameplay. You have to select it from a list. From there you can see who's at war with who, what their border agreements are, how many cities they have, what their science output is, etc etc. It basically gives you the facts and figures for everything, which allows you to make much more informed choices during diplomacy.

Sounds interesting (obviously) but also sounds like a complete bitch to get the balance right. I predict a 2015 release date.