This may seem like a dumb question to most, it may have been to me a few days ago before it was released. After reading so many posts about flaws in the game, or broken new game mechanics I spent sometime thinking that maybe I should just play Vanilla Civ? I mean I have warlords but you all know it doesn't add much and vassals aren't entirely useful or worth it, but with corporations and all of that jazz it sounds like it hasn't been fun to most people. What do you all think? I'm pretty hardcore about my Civ games but i'm worried I may dislike the game more with these additions. The original Civ was perfect for me, everything worked well but now I wonder. I'll probably buy it just for the sake of having it but I guess i'll see when it's installed. It just seemed as though it was rushed and things need to be worked out, maybe I should just wait until it's patched? Any feedback from people that have the game would be appreciated.

It's works very well, to me it doesn't feel rushed at all. The problem is that it's not completely playtested at marathon speed. So unless you only play marathon, you won't be bothered.

It's a good game, very intertesting changes that take a while to get used to but
once you do it is a very good feeling when you play it.

how do u mean it aint playtested at marathon level? is this the general consensus and how is gameplay affected?

There is this problem with some of some espionage missions being far too powerful at marathon. So powerful you have to turn the off. Another problem unrelated to marathon is that corporations are very difficult to use.

No corps are ok as long as you know what you are doing with them!

the only good reason to not buy it is that everytime a BtS copy gets sold, a baby jesus freezes to death.

Yeah that's the key isn't it. It reminds me a bit when the released civ4 vanilla. Many were complaining about the maintanance because they couldn't expand idefinetely like in civ3. Now many are treating corporations like religions and wants to spread them to every city, not wanting to change old strategies. I wouldn't really know by the way I haven't gotten to the late game yet.

Just play with normal speed and you are fine. Some of the mechanics regarding atleast espionage are broken in slower speeds as they were not scaled right, but they will most likely be fixed in the next patch. There are also alot things that players call broken simply because they are harder to use, it will take time to discover the best ways to use new contempts. If you ask me it's worth that 30 euros :)

Game is definitely worth it. This should have been the first expansion pack, not the 2nd. It's good.

The people complaining about corporations don't know how to use them properly.

Ok, so basically the game is more then fine; it's just the premise that people do not know how to incorporate the new game mechanics properly?

It's works very well, to me it doesn't feel rushed at all. The problem is that it's not completely playtested at marathon speed. So unless you only play marathon, you won't be bothered.oh no i only play on marathon i love the longest game possible

No corps are ok as long as you know what you are doing with them!

:lol: and you are fine with the fact that every dirty trick (and they are at times) that you use to make them work is unknown and unused by the AI? and that the AI actually helps you make them work while not being aware of how to make your own companies painful for you? or the quadratic inflation problem?

cmon, it isn't just "just learn how to use them". it's "you have to use them this way or don't even bother, and at a certain point you might as well not even bother"

200% inflation is sure broken.

200% inflation is sure broken.

even in game 200% results in a maintenance multiplier of 3 so that 100 maintenance with 200% inflation shown on screen results in 300 maintenance paid with 2/3s being inflation itself.

:lol: and you are fine with the fact that every dirty trick (and they are at times) that you use to make them work is unknown and unused by the AI? and that the AI actually helps you make them work while not being aware of how to make your own companies painful for you? or the quadratic inflation problem?

cmon, it isn't just "just learn how to use them". it's "you have to use them this way or don't even bother, and at a certain point you might as well not even bother"

I'm still curious as to why none of those dirty tricks worked on my Normal speed game Noble difficulty (which is one of the difficulties supposedly impacted)...

Corporations which were spread to most of my cities and through many AI cities made me filthy rich without providing the 20 or 300 turn research that would be characteristic of a crippled AI economy.

I'm thinking it IS related to Marathon speed. Not that this would be surprising, since as people noticed its a problem of inflation, not actual corporate costs, and inflation is based on turn #. What would have been a very slight oddity of marathon-speed inflation pre-BtS could easily have been blown up by this new feature.

EDIT: No, it wasn't an advanced start. That kind of defeats the purpose of the game, for me ^_^

"just learn how to use them". it's "you have to use them this way or don't even bother, and at a certain point you might as well not even bother"

You still have to learn how to use them that way, it takes practice! :)

To be fair i actually don't bother with corps because i am a state property user most of the time.

I am personally trying not to buy BTS because I find the CIV series to addicting.
BUYER beware game too good its addicting!

ive modified my game so tha marathon has 1750 instead of 1500 and have also increased everything at an equal percentage. so r u guys sayin that there is a problem with the original marathon settings?

you might as well buy it because once its patched and the mods start rolling out, it'll be the only way to fly.

I should also meantion the additional content. Final Frontiers is very cool too!

Absolutely, positively buy this game. I luv CIV. The most addictive game anywhere and of all time. When others peter out, this keeps on going. I agree with other post in that you gotta change your tacticts and develope new habbits. WHAT FUN!!!!!!!!

This from a 47 year old man. I give SID and CIV 100 thumbs up if I had that many.

I heard that they removed Leonard Nimoy from the narration, is this true? I would be disapointed to see a talented actor removed out of the game, I thought he made the techs fun!

I personally don't think Sid Meir has much charisma in his voice.

I give SID and CIV 100 thumbs up if I had that many.

You mean you don't have that many thumbs? Cthulhu can help with that.

I'll probably buy it in a month due to real-life budgetary concerns, but am enjoying the discussions.

Thanks!

I heard that they removed Leonard Nimoy from the narration, is this true? I would be disapointed to see a talented actor removed out of the game, I thought he made the techs fun!

I personally don't think Sid Meir has much charisma in his voice.
Only the new technologies are by Sid Meier, old ones are still the same.

if you enjoy vanilla civ you should deffinately enjoy bts, but even if you only like the mods you should consider buying bts, from what i understand bts is going to make moding more easy and i think there are going to be many good mods coming out within the year, i play Fall from heavan 2, and it is being upgraded to bts, i would have paid $50 for bts, just because it will allow me to play FFH2.

I'm still curious as to why none of those dirty tricks worked on my Normal speed game Noble difficulty (which is one of the difficulties supposedly impacted)...

Corporations which were spread to most of my cities and through many AI cities made me filthy rich without providing the 20 or 300 turn research that would be characteristic of a crippled AI economy.

I'm thinking it IS related to Marathon speed. Not that this would be surprising, since as people noticed its a problem of inflation, not actual corporate costs, and inflation is based on turn #. What would have been a very slight oddity of marathon-speed inflation pre-BtS could easily have been blown up by this new feature.

EDIT: No, it wasn't an advanced start. That kind of defeats the purpose of the game, for me ^_^

I think I'm in agreement. I've only played three games through to the finish but corporations didn't ruin me in Epic speed.

I disagree with mrt144. It's not a matter of 'using them one way' only, it's a matter of understanding how they work. I use the mining co in my production cities, that makes sense. It wouldn't make sense to send it to every single city in my empire. That doesn't strike me as a one-trick pony but rather as a game mechanic that needs to be understood and played in the way that benefits from it.

It's like . .. .. .. .. .ing that building a 100+ Axeman army cripples your economy. "I should be able to pwn with these guys, but it bankrupts me!"

The one trick pony is spreading HAVING to spread them abroad to not cripple your own economy and the AI mishandling it themselves. When I play deeper on Friday night I will try to use a reasonable and judicious approach to spreading them myself but I am going to use every trick i can to hurt the AI and see if the AI has any recourse or retaliatory action to this. if i can exploit the AI in such a way and the AI has no clue on how to do the same to me i'd say there are some problems.

I am still not convinced that it is simply playing them correctly as "correctly" is still abstract and the alternatives achieve the same result for cheaper or faster and without the risk (as i showed with aelf's example in a particular thread).

corps:

risk - medium to high. overspreading causes foreign civs to clamp down and change civics, underspreading means you run domestic ones at a significant loss. forced UN civic change possible. the loss of courthouses via sabatoge very damaging. time factor for achieving maximal benefit weighed against increasing inflation for costs of achieving maximal benefit.

cost - variable but not low and requires active management. initial outlay costs of gold to spread, GP, execs. opportunity cost of using same outlay resources in other economies. cost increases over time and at a higher amount than alternatives.

reward - variable and situational. output of the culture can be awesome. the hammer production can be matched by simply buying hammers with gold. all benefits based on finite amount of resources and what you are able to trade for. receiving HQ gold for spread corporations.

non human factors:
AI doesn't utilize domestic corps intelligently by spreading them to human player
AI doesn't utilize foreign corps or prevent spread foreign corp spread and even actively spreads it against it's own interest (because as has been shown with other player's experience they will spam themselves with corps. this also goes against the first rule of judicious corp placement which a human player will do.)
Anti corp tactics the AI doesn't use (that the player can and should):

AI doesn't spread foreign corps back on the foreign owner thereby creating a pandora's box situation where providing the means to create and spread execs can be used against you.
AI doesn't sabotage courthouses or other corporate interests.
AI doesn't actively trade resources to maximize their benefits, nor maximize enemy costs.

state property:

risks: low. you arent getting maximal output of resources by ignoring corps. UN vulnerability.
costs: low. varies based on synergistic civic choices and upkeep
benefits: variable. obvious civic ones. immunity to destructive foreign corps. time factor for realizing benefits minimized.

corps are all about maximizing benefits that have a positive correlation to costs. the bet you are making is that your income and output can outpace cost and inflation while also mitigating the costs and risks through hedges and resource consumption and land expansion. (these are like hedge funds)

state property is all about minimizing costs while maximizing benefits that have almost no correlation to one another. the bet you are making is that through passive management your civic costs will grow along with benefits through acquisition of new lands. (these are like index funds)

i think this is a pretty fair assessment having only messed with corps in theory, with other people's screen shots (both pro and con) and now world builder a bit.

The one trick pony is spreading HAVING to spread them abroad to not cripple your own economy and the AI mishandling it themselves.

You don't have to spread a corporation abroad to save your economy. I had Mining Co in three cities, generating me extra hammers at a cost of a bit of gold. The trade-off was well worth it and didn't cripple my economy.

If I'd spread it to every city then it would probably be a different story. That's why I didn't spread it to every city.

You don't have to spread a corporation abroad to save your economy. I had Mining Co in three cities, generating me extra hammers at a cost of a bit of gold. The trade-off was well worth it and didn't cripple my economy.

If I'd spread it to every city then it would probably be a different story. That's why I didn't spread it to every city.

and i always ask this question...why wasnt the AI spreading their corps to your cities? were you running merc?

This is a long post.
To the OP, do buy the game, if not now then sometime in a few weeks or a couple of months. Once these issues are ironed out the game will be quite fun. Actually it already is fun but there are definitely issues at the moment which need addressing.

No corps are ok as long as you know what you are doing with them!

Show me how to use them then. At the same time show me that the AI knows how to use them in the same way.

Yeah that's the key isn't it. It reminds me a bit when the released civ4 vanilla. Many were complaining about the maintanance because they couldn't expand idefinetely like in civ3. Now many are treating corporations like religions and wants to spread them to every city, not wanting to change old strategies. I wouldn't really know by the way I haven't gotten to the late game yet.

As you said, since you haven't gotten to the late game yet how would you know? The problem is not that corps need to be used spread carefully or judiciously as many say, but that corps are not even worth founding for the small benefit they'd give if one only spreads them to a few domestic cities. Spreading them to AI is just exploiting the AI.

Game is definitely worth it. This should have been the first expansion pack, not the 2nd. It's good.

The people complaining about corporations don't know how to use them properly.

Many of the players engaging in the debate are far more experienced than you or I. They do know how to use the corps "properly" but this is what they don't like about them. Using them is against how they were designed by Firaxis and it is exploitative of the AI. See my comment to Joe Harker.

I think I'm in agreement. I've only played three games through to the finish but corporations didn't ruin me in Epic speed.

I disagree with mrt144. It's not a matter of 'using them one way' only, it's a matter of understanding how they work. I use the mining co in my production cities, that makes sense. It wouldn't make sense to send it to every single city in my empire. That doesn't strike me as a one-trick pony but rather as a game mechanic that needs to be understood and played in the way that benefits from it.

It's like . .. .. .. .. .ing that building a 100+ Axeman army cripples your economy. "I should be able to pwn with these guys, but it bankrupts me!"

No that analogy is useless. Again, you say it's a matter of understanding how they work. It's the people who DO understand how they work who are complaining. In general it is the people who don't understand who are happy with them as is.

You don't have to spread a corporation abroad to save your economy. I had Mining Co in three cities, generating me extra hammers at a cost of a bit of gold. The trade-off was well worth it and didn't cripple my economy.

If I'd spread it to every city then it would probably be a different story. That's why I didn't spread it to every city.

So you only had the corp in three cities. Honestly, I hardly see how using up a great engineer and paying for that maintenance each turn makes that corp worth it, for a few hammers each turn in 3 cities. Do you really think this was how corps were intended to work? So you're essentially using the rest of your empire to support the costs of these three cities, which presumably already have good production, so they can get a few more hammers each. I would be ineterested to see a savegame showing how much benefit this gives you, especially if you compare it with using State Property instead.

Show me how to use them then. At the same time show me that the AI knows how to use them in the same way.



Just put them in cities you want them to be in, for example, don't put standard ethanol in a city that won't need oil to build units. Same with the alumiuim corps, nothing particulary dirty about it, whether the AI knows how to use them is another matter.

I don't like corps that much (it's just my personally dislike for them).
So i only use them if i lack something (such as oil). Then i only spread it to my miltary city because that needs oil for MA!

Absoloutely buy it. sure theres a few problems, but the main ones can be solved by just playing on epic. the game is easilt twice as addictive now, you'd need your head examined not to buy it

Just put them in cities you want them to be in, for example, don't put standard ethanol in a city that won't need oil to build units. Same with the alumiuim corps, nothing particulary dirty about it, whether the AI knows how to use them is another matter.

You raise a good point, but rarely do I completely lack oil domestically or through potential trade. I just don't think the costs justify the benefit, especially the great person.
Anyway, you're on a different wavelength.

Well I have decided to buy it and for what it's worth, i'll give the coporations feature a try myself and decide whether it's more useful over state property. In any case, it should be more fun just having more things to do in the game to prevent bordem :) So is the concensus to spread the coporations to the AI, or build them all domestically? Nobody seems to agree one way or the other...

You raise a good point, but rarely do I completely lack oil domestically or through potential trade. I just don't think the costs justify the benefit, especially the great person.
Anyway, you're on a different wavelength.

It was on Rhyes and fall of civilzation as the English and i couldn't be bothered to conquer aluminium so i just founded the corp in Manchester (my production city) and that was it. But yes, i often don't find myself in a situation where i lack oil.

Plus I love the State Property Civic so much (especially with caste system, damn emicaption for making my citizens angry!) that i don't use corps that much and i do agree that they are extremely strong, especially to new players (most of us then!)