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.