Civilization

[Pike]

I know we had a specific thread for Civ IV a few months back but not a thread for the whole series, so let's change that!

Civ is great. It's really one of the best game series out there with its replayability, modability, strategy, great multiplayer, and so forth. Hux and I have poured hundreds of hours into multiplayer Civ IV and it never gets old.

[Laddy]

Civ is awesome, truly one of the best game series of all time. Pike, I demand to play you on Civ someday. Right now all I have is Civ V, but when I reclaim my copy of Civ IV I demand to engage you in incredibly slow turn-based goodness.

[nik0tine]

Civilization II played an enormous part in determining my future character. It sparked a love of history that would otherwise have had little chance to flourish. I never played Civ III and while I owned Civ IV and spent countless hundreds of hours on it, I very rarely actually 'played' the game as I spent the majority of my time in the map editor trying to recreate historical scenarios on a giant earth map that my system couldn't hope to handle. I just bought Civ V during the steam sale and I enjoy it quite a bit so far.

My experience with Civilization has been almost exclusively limited to earth maps of some variety and I seldom play on anything but the longest difficulty so despite having spent so much time playing I still don't really know what the average game of Civ is like.

[Laddy]

Question: How do you guys typically play?

I can generally play any style, but I like to de-emphasize military. Generally, I'll have a strong economy, culture, and science as I tend to play the wonder game. I try to keep generally friendly relations with most civs and remain neutral yet, due to my peacetime focus, I tend to have a risky strategy in which when war is declared I use my economic surpluses and scientific prowess to hurry-produce advanced units, bringing a steady flow of reinforcements to maintain my borders during and after the conflicts. Since I emphasize culture a lot, my borders tend to grow quickly and many other cities are absorbed into my civ due to culture flips, making military conquest unnecessary.

My main strategy works in that I generally have a versatile civilization with a large population, economic power, happiness, and general versatility, but it also makes me an ideal target for most other civs, making me often be bullied into alliances or trades (especially technology) to remain safe. I'm fine with it though.

In Civ IV, I typically play Ethiopia under Zara Yaqob, Egypt under Hatshepsut, America under Lincoln, or most often Mansa Musa of Mali.

[escobert]

I've played II since I was a child. I've always loved the game. However, I have never played any of the others.

[Jinx]

I've never played any Civ games, but hearing you nerds go on about it all the time makes me want to try it out.

[Wolf Kanno]

Civilization II is easily my favorite PC game of all time and one of only two PC games I actually have installed on my PC as a must (the other is Mech Commander). This game and it's cousin Colonization were two big elements of my gaming life in middle school.

[Pike]

Question: How do you guys typically play?

It really depends on what I'm going for or what I feel like doing. Space race victory is probably my favorite, but I've won at least one fair victory for every victory condition because I like to spice it up. Sometimes I go early military (especially fun in multiplayer) and cultural victories can be pretty fun too. Now diplo victories, that's something difficult to pull off (in Civ IV at least!) Last time I did it, in a terribly ironic twist, I had to go to war quite a few times in order wrangle everyone over to my side and vote for me.

As for civs, it usually depends on what traits I feel like playing. Lately I'm really on a philosophical kick because those great people, oh man. Based on unique buildings/units alone I might have to go with England. Redcoats + Stock Exchanges =

[Slothy]

Question: How do you guys typically play?

I tend not to like the AI characters or sharing power or anything like that. So 90% of the time I wipe them off the map as quickly and brutally as possible. Or, if not quickly, I'll tech up quickly then wipe them off the map. As they say: one fish, two fish. Red fish, nuke fish.

Occasionally I do the space victory if I feel like going to Alpha Centauri and starting over there. This is usually preceded by nuking everyone else on the map then fleeing the solar system.

I'm honestly not too sure if I've done any other victory type. I've probably done all or most of them at some point, but I'm so partial to radioactive wastelands that I can't remember them.

[Jiro]

Question: How do you guys typically play?

Badly. Not gonna lie.

[Madame Adequate]

NUKE EVERYTHING

Okay so sometimes I don't do that. Sometimes I CHOP EVERYTHING WITH AXES!

I like Mansa Musa for tech games for obvious reasons, but I often play with C2C so there's a new Scientific trait which is baller as hell, so I play Henry VIII there because he is Sci/Ind. I like Huayna Capac a lot too. Louis XIV is awesome because hnnnngggg dat culture. I'm partial to Gilly, Churchill, and Mao because I'm a sucker for Protective even though the accepted wisdom is that it's not that strong compared to others. Recently fallen right back in love with Spiritual, and my current game as Izzy (Pike is Cathy) is holy crap glorious.

If you want to see something truly obscene, play with unrestricted leaders and use Boudicca of Rome. Agg/Chm/Praetorians. Nobody makes it out of the Classical Era.

[escobert]

I build up my cities and defenses then let all the world kill each other until I just slowly take over

[Pike]

MILF and I are currently playing a gloooorious 18-civ game which is down to like... an 8-civ game now, I think? Because we're just pounding everyone into dust

[Slothy]

I've never tried a game with that many Civ's before. Perhaps I'll give it a go this weekend.

[Old Manus]

I...I freely admit it. I have never played a Civilization game.

Paramedics on standbyi haven't played smac either