The Struggle for Power

This weeks post is all about power and politics and how it effects game play. Obviously this game is
 about warfare and conquering different civilizations, if that's the type of victory you're after, even if it not, you're more than likely to encounter someone attacking you throughout the game whether it's a rival civ or just a barbarian group. There are many other aspects that come into play through politics
and power, not just combat. As the ruler of a civilization, you have the power to implement different social policies and ideologies to fit the characteristic you want from your civilization. Those different ideologies and policies can greatly change the dynamic of the game whether it's through trade, warfare, or productivity. Another great thing you can chose to do is make alliances with other civilizations. By being allies with others, they pledge not to attack you , and many times they will send troops to support you if you are being attacked as well as many other bonuses.

A major part of the game that has frustrated me every time I've played has to do with the World Congress. Once a civilization has encountered every other civilization playing in the game, the World Congress starts, that civ that initiated the Congress gets the most representatives. By having the most representatives in the World Congress, you have leverage over the other civilizations and you are can pass things through the World Congress that'll help you out and do things to spite other civilizations. Another aspect of politics that frustrates me is public denunciations. I hate that just because warfare is a major aspect of the game, preying on all the other, weak civilizations is the smart thing to be doing and I should be receiving praise as a genius leader. A great tool that I like to utilize are the spies that you can send to other civilizations or city states. With spies, you can rig elections to go in your favor in city states casting positive influence for you and your civilization.

Whenever I'm playing I feel as if I'm Genghis Khan leading the Mongols to world domination. Although I started in India, which is close to the steppe-land, I feel as if I'm on track to doing even more than what the Mongols did. I was able to break into Africa as well as the Philippines and Japan. Just like Khan, I'm slaughtering all my opponents, I feel as if they are truly frightened of my military strength; many city states have it listed that the are cautious of my military strength. But unlike Khan, I will take over the world. Another group that I feel similar to are the Assyrians. The Assyrians were ruthless and expanded their empire greatly in their time. Another aspect to worry about is keeping your people happy. If your civilizations happiness level decreases, whether it's through starvation or whatever else, the people can revolt and leave your kingdom. This happened to China when the emperors said that they could control the weather, and with poor crop production do to the poor weather, the people revolted. So far, however, my people have been very happy and I don't think that will be a problem for me.

Midterm Thoughts

So it's been roughly 8 weeks since initially learning about Civilization V and actually playing it. I've done well over my 20 required hours and I feel that I've done pretty well so far in the game. There are some things that I still don't know about and understand, but generally, I have a good grasp on the game and its dynamics. In this blog post I really just want to talk about my strategy, comfort level, and my feelings towards the game thus far.

Personally, my goal is to win by domination, so my strategy may not align with yours. Starting out in the game, my biggest strategic advice to give it to really just worry about yourself and your civilization until later in the game. Focus on building your resources and unlocking the different things through the technology tree before you start venturing out. Amass your wealth, defend your territory, and mind your business until you unlock the catapult. Once you have the catapult unlocked, you should have the wealth built up to start wreaking havoc on other civilizations. From there, systematically go city to city conquering your opponents while still upgrading your troops and keeping an eye on your people's happiness levels; if your people are starting to dip towards unhappy, raze the city and move on, if not keep the city and reap the rewards of your conquest.



Comfort wise, I'd say I'm 50/50. I understand how the combat aspect works and, generally, how the game works, but I'm still a little confused and need to do my research on a couple of things. First, when I have an offer from a rival civilization for luxury resources, then deny them, then try and make a similar trade to what they previously offered, they always decline. I want to be able to gather different resources for my people, but not at the unreasonable rates that the other civilizations want for them. Second, I'm very unsure how I'm supposed to support or spread a religion. I see that there are some benefits to it, but on my first run through with Persia, I never had the option to do anything extra with religion. Lastly, I'm confused as to the World Congress that is in place. In both my games by the time the first meeting of the World Congress started, I've had the largest territory, most resources, most wealth, and had "the pointiest stick," yet still I don't have the most delegates for the Congress. Then by the second meeting, again in both games, I conquered the host civilization and still didn't have the most delegates. How frustrating is that!?



Starting out in the class, I was pretty excited to play the game and I logged on a bunch of hours. Now, the excitement has kind of faded away, although I must say when I do play, I play for a while and I do seem attached to it. But largely, I'd ready to finish this last game and try and reach a domination victory. I'm pretty close to achieving domination, as I just need to wrap up my campaign in North and South America, but the further you get into the game, the longer the turns are, which makes the game even longer.

My future plans for the game are to bombard whatever coastal cities I find on the coasts of North and South America with my fleet of battleships and then work my way inland. I can't decide if I want to make peace with all the remaining city states or to just decimate them as well. Hopefully by my next blog post I'll have made the tough decision.

A Prosperous Civilization

My civilization has grown exponentially since I last updated you. My European campaign was a great success. Attila the Hun, leader of the Hunnic Tribe, was begging and begging me for a peace treaty which I happily declined. I moved my forces into Europe and crushed the weak Huns with my mighty Chinese army within a couple of turns.

My next endeavor was to conquer Africa, but it took a little bit of time. Since I'm playing on the large map of the world, you have to think ahead as to what you want to do with your troops. By this I mean, you can have your battle ships bombarding a coastal city, but if your tank is still three turns out, you're just risking getting your battle ships sunk even though you have completely demolished the city.  On my first run through with Darius I, I didn't really think about it until the end and I've been successfully applying it this round, which is why I think I'm taking over cities more effective and efficiently. That being said, I also took out the Mayans and Siamese to gain authority over Africa. I think the key to my success, though, lies in the game difficulty level. I'm playing on the Chieftan difficulty level, and I feel that it isn't challenging me enough. I'm meeting little resistance from the other civilizations when I'm attacking their cities. The barbarians are also have been the only ones to try and attack my base. Pathetic effort on the other civiliations.

In terms of the economy, as well as with networks of exchange, I feel that Sid Meir's Civ V is very similar to that of real life civilizations. For a civilization to prosper within the game, one must have plenty of farms, luxury resources, and adequate methods of trade with other civilizations or city states. Just like in real life, if a ruler was to acquire a luxury resource to it's people, the people will rejoice and his rule will become stronger as the economy will get better. It's just like how in the 15th and 16th century when Portugal and Spain were on the forefront of the world's trade. They used their skilled merchants and the trading routes throughout the Mediterranean and later around Africa into India as an advantage and grew into substantially large empires. Food and production both play a key role in economic prosperity. The higher the food and production rates are, the more money that comes into the kingdom. Trading is essential to economic prosperity as it not only brings in money, but it also brings in points that go towards science which is a very important aspect of the game. Having strong networks and trading is good no matter what your goal is in Civ V. Trading increases relations between states as well as funds the each civilizations military. Just like in the Grand Exchange between Europe and the Americas, trade is a pivotal factor in this game. Because trade networks exchange both money and science, sciences can be made to better the civilization.