Neverhoodian said:
I appreciate the concern and advice. I haven't run across any problems so far, but then I have just started playing.
Aye, the major issues are a memory leak in the save file causing it to get bigger over time (meaning longer waiting times and a time clock on a "out of memory" crash when you load the game) and optimization issues that you'll start to feel relatively soon when your map starts lagging as you scroll along it, especially if you're playing bigger maps/with more civilizations/city states.
There's more, but just as a heads up, check up a thread on Steam or something of known issues, you should be able to work around most of them as you go along. Oh and don't be surprised if it's literally impossible to load a game while you're playing one (say if you wanna load back a few turns to do sth different), it's pretty much an instant crash all the time, not sure if I had a single occurrence where it didn't happen actually, perhaps very early in the game... Basically, expect you have to quit the game to load another one every time.
Neverhoodian said:
Yeah, I heard Ghandi's a real warmonger in the series and that the Japanese Samurai are the best foot soldiers for the majority of the game.
I'm not sure if you noticed (it's not immediately noticeable if you open the Advanced Menu for making a game and Civilopedia is for some God forsaken reason not available until you start a game), but leaders have their own bonuses in addition to their state's bonus.
The reason Ghandi's bloodthirsty is the AI obviously (though they're supposed to make historical sense iirc so honestly fuck me if I get how that does), but he really is capable of it. The thing is that the Happiness is globally monitored for your entire civilization and larger empires, especially if you're Anexing some cities are pretty much impossible unless you're playing with Ghandi (his bonus is 50% more unhappiness for number of cities, but 50% less unhappiness for number of people and unless you're halting growth and spreading like a madman with small crappy cities [which, granted, is a valid and even overpowered strategy], you'll always have more people than cities to make that worth it, especially in late game).
My most recent game ended up with his bonus effectively (yes, minus considered) giving me 60 happy faces or something in the end game, which is preposterously huge and never in the game was his drawback bigger than his bonus, even when I stuck with just a few cities at the beginning or creating a bunch of new ones. Those 60 happy faces made the difference between a very happy empire traveling towards Golden Ages at high speeds and a very unhappy one that would have literally halted all growth and spawned a ton of rebels on my arse. So yeah, Ghandi rocks for a huge empire because there's pretty much barely any way you'll manage to keep your empire even remotely happy once you've spread out a lot.
As for Japan, the thing is that Samurai are at the position in the game where most of the fighting's happening really unless you're playing long games like me. You get them pretty early on, they last for ages and because of their Great Generals bonus, they gain promotions pretty fast, which easily make your infantry really difficult to deal with, especially as you also (duh, name) get Great Generals faster, allowing yourself an area bonus if you lead them around with your armies (heads up for promotions, I found the Medic to be the most important to pick up ASAP, at least for a few strategically placed units, lets your armies heal up nice and fast in enemy territory).
The leader also gives you Bushido - the ability for your troops' combat strength to not drop as they drop in health, keeping them at full strength all the time. Coupled with the Samurai bonuses and their quick promotions, it leaves you in a position where you can easily crush any opponent because a prolonged fight between two units will always be in your favour (as they drop in combat strength whereas you don't). They are easily able to whoop the arse of a few more advanced units even if you know what you're doing (the AI is constantly a little retarded as far as actual military strategy goes, even at higher difficulties from what I hear).
It's great even for defensive play which I can tell you as I tend to start out small and then suddenly expand like crazy later in the game. I was in a situation where I got attacked by the Persians, but with a little tactics and a Great General boosting my troops, I managed to fend off his entire army (and he was pretty much swarming my borders before declaring war) with just a few Samurai (yes, I play at the Normal difficulty, that shit won't fly on higher difficulty I imagine, but still)
