Starting off.

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Entry posted by astronelson · April 9, 2012

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Starting off.

In which a Civilization is founded.

Well, here we are, the first of what I hope is many commentated playthroughs of Civilization V. We've got no plan. We don't even have a clue about who we're going to get, what the map's going to be like, or how many other civs are going to be in it. All we know is it's going to be on Prince difficulty and Marathon speed.

So, all we need to do now is click "Start Game" and begin. And who do we get...

Kamehameha! I've never played as him before, so this ought to be interesting. Fingers crossed for archipelago...

We can't quite tell yet. There's only four civs listed though, so this is definitely a tiny map. We are near some gems, wheat, and fish though, which is very nice. All in all, not a bad place to start our civilization. Let's just plonk our settler down and get started then, shall we?

Hmm. "Honolulu" is a nice name and all, but it lacks a certain... something.

Much better! Right, now the important matter of the city's name has been decided, we can get on to the lesser issues of what to build and what to research first. I don't think we need a scout quite yet, nor do we really need to build up our military. We haven't found any great places for a second city, either. So that leaves us with a choice between a worker and a monument. I'd say culture's more important right now. We won't be able to improve those gems for a few tecs yet anyway, and I wouldn't think we need to grow particularly fast right now, so we can leave getting a worker for a while.

As for techs, I'm a big fan of going straight for Writing and trying to get the Great Library. To do this we'll need to get Pottery first. So, a quick overview of where we are right now:

Ah. That was a good first turn. Time to go exploring!

Two turns in and we've already run into some nasty neighbours. I'll have a bit of a go at them, but really, I want to have a look around for a bit before getting into any conflicts. Which brings me to one of the special abilities of the Polynesian civ:

I can embark straight away! No waiting for higher-level techs for me. I could sail around the whole world right at the start if I wanted to. I won't right now, though. I want to see if there's anything good nearby.

Looks like there is!

Eh... not really the best, but free stuff is always good. Let's keep filling out the map, shall we?

Yay, a more civilised neighbour! Much better than those uncouth barbarian menaces we still need to deal with. They give me 30 gold too, which is nice of them. I wonder what else is out there...

Hello, Korea. I know for sure they can't set sail yet. Looks like this isn't an archipelagic map, then. So, either continents or pangaea. Well, we have nothing we wish to do with them quite yet, so goodbye, Consul Sejong.

Don't say anything to him, but I have the feeling we're going to have to... deal with them... at some point. This landmass isn't big enough for the both of us.

After a while longer, we finish our monument, start work on a scout, finish Pottery, start on Writing, and get our first policy. I like Liberty. Let's take that one.

Some more exploring, and we come across another nice neighbour. Hello, Florence! No, not Bakura, the city-state Florence.

Hmm. Korea has to be around here somewhere... I wonder where they are.

Wait... Busan!? That's not their capital. They've already founded their second city! So if that's here, where's Seoul?

Oh, right there. Alright then. That should be convenient enough if we ever need to take full control of this continent. I reckon I might be able to get them out of the game before too long if I need to.

Well, that's 50 turns. Updates should be at the most this many turns long. I'll probably make them cover fewer turns in the later years of the game, when things really start to come thick and fast. But for now, it's a pretty calm pace. We've found another civ, we've found a couple of city-states, we've killed a few barbarians, all in all, we're doing alright for ourselves.

Map of the known world, turn 50: