PolyCast Episode 103: "For What It's Worth"

[img=right]http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/images/polycast_logo.jpg[/img] Whatever you will are willing to listen for it. The one-hundred-and-third episode of PolyCast, "For What It's Worth", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua" and Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew.

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 04m42s | Multiplayer
Initial Civilization V multiplayer experiences leading to some Artificial Intelligence (AI) ponderings based on them.
- 11m03s | Concerns
CivV concerns considered shortly following release.
- 17m37s | Units (General)
General introduction to the game's units and mechanisms, including seeing how one's economy dominates manufacturing capability.
- 25m47s | Units (Ranking)
Ranking CivV Ancient and Medieval units on typical usefulness, from first through fifth; similarly considered Renaissance and Modern units, and then on Zones of Control.
- 33m59s | Cities X 2
The impact of Puppet cities and City States.
- 36m32s | Great People
The place of Great People in Civilization V.
- 39m29s | Diplomacy
First reactions to the game's Diplomacy system.

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Context setting, and ignoring people on a certain social networking site.

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding and RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution.

I look forward to hearing this! Thanks!

where can i read about what the POLYCAST is? who runs it, how it works and what is an idea behind it?

Is there any transcript for this one? (Because of my poor english... )

killmeplease said:

where can i read about what the POLYCAST is? who runs it, how it works and what is an idea behind it?

Click to expand...

Go to wikipedia


There is a part on Apolyton from which PolyCast originates.

thanks

Good show!

Nice to finally get something on civ5. "Carpet of doom"... What a terrific description

Looking forward to episode 104 !

Regards

I'm guessing from some things they say they did not play with the .62 patch? Still, many good concerns raised.

Murderbows would be a cool UU for a fantasy civilization.

killmeplease said:

where can i read about what the POLYCAST is? who runs it, how it works and what is an idea behind it?

Click to expand...

Further to what has been referenced already, there is an About page on the show's website that discusses it specifically in some detail.

Atimati said:

Is there any transcript for this one? (Because of my poor english... )

Click to expand...

Unfortunately we are not in a position to offer transcripts due to resource limitations, financial and timewise.

DivljaJagoda said:

I look forward to hearing this! Thanks!

Click to expand...

clearbeard said:

I'm guessing from some things they say they did not play with the .62 patch?

Click to expand...

Yes, in that this episode was recorded (October 9th) before the .62 patch was released. There was some substantial discussion that I cut entirely in post-production because of that patch being released in the interim, in fact.

Still, many good concerns raised.

Click to expand...

hennord said:

Good show!

Nice to finally get something on civ5. [..] Looking forward to episode 104 !

Regards

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly. Note that there is going to be a blend of CivIV and CivV coverage on the show into the immediate future still.

Sonereal said:

Murderbows would be a cool UU for a fantasy civilization.

Click to expand...

The relation between production, rushbuying, and tech costs is something I'm reallllly glad was pointed out here. I haven't played vanilla CiV in a while now but I noticed right away that I'm only producing one worker every 1.5 techs in the early game on marathon. This was so bad I actually tweaked the game speeds before my second game.

Oh, Pikemen are oddly weak.

As of the recording, .62 was not realistic to have been played...it came out like the day before...maybe.

TheMeInTeam said:

As of the recording, .62 was not realistic to have been played...it came out like the day before...maybe.

Click to expand...

So. I know you had user interface issues with a few control keys in Civ IV. Have these things been addressed to your satisfaction?

DanQ said:

Unfortunately we are not in a position to offer transcripts due to resource limitations, financial and timewise.

Click to expand...

time i can understand, but financial concerns? huh? it doesn't cost money to write it on wordpad.

Mathalamus said:

time i can understand, but financial concerns? huh? it doesn't cost money to write it on wordpad.

Click to expand...

It does cost money to have the computer on and it takes time to write 40 minutes worth of commentary.

Sonereal said:

The relation between production, rushbuying, and tech costs is something I'm reallllly glad was pointed out here.

Click to expand...

It is quite the... quirk.

Mathalamus said:

time i can understand, but financial concerns? huh? it doesn't cost money to write it on wordpad.

Click to expand...

On the financial front, I'm referring to paid-for transcription services (as an alternative to having them generated "in-house", re: time).

Sonereal said:

It does cost money to have the computer on and it takes time to write 40 minutes worth of commentary.

Click to expand...

LOL! Just plug it into youtube's auto-caption .

In one of my starcraft videos I was doing something with two brunettes, at least according to the auto-caption. I'm not sure I recall any activity with two brunettes or how that applied to starcraft, but oh well. It might not be accurate, but it will probably be funny.

So. I know you had user interface issues with a few control keys in Civ IV. Have these things been addressed to your satisfaction?

Click to expand...

No. Some things (like unit selection) went away simply due to 1upt. Others (workers not interrupting orders while barbs are a VISIBLE THREAT, issues attempting to move a unit when playing quickly, shoddy-autopathing by threatened units on multiple-turn move orders) remain intact straight from the problems list of civ IV.

Of course, V took away the ability to select all cities, as well as the ability to use hotkeys to add things (or remove them) from the queue quickly and easily. Although rally points might not be straight-forward initially due to 1upt, I've still found myself missing those, too. Basically a lot of useful streamlined controls either never did (and still don't) exist or were actually REMOVED for the NEWER games.

The AI interface at least doesn't lie to us now, apparently completely hiding consequences of actions + introduction fake difficulty is preferable. Actually, that probably IS preferable to lying outright, though it still isn't great.

The ironic thing is that the V AI is objectively better than IV's, but is hamstrung by bad gameplay rules/balance which limits it.

So the answer to the question of satisfaction with the UI, is, in a word, no.

TheMeInTeam said:

No. Some things (like unit selection) went away simply due to 1upt. Others (workers not interrupting orders while barbs are a VISIBLE THREAT, issues attempting to move a unit when playing quickly, shoddy-autopathing by threatened units on multiple-turn move orders) remain intact straight from the problems list of civ IV.

Click to expand...

Have you had the problem of the game sometimes randomly selecting seemingly any unit that can still be issued orders instead of the closest troops that still can be given orders?

Sonereal said:

Have you had the problem of the game sometimes randomly selecting seemingly any unit that can still be issued orders instead of the closest troops that still can be given orders?

Click to expand...

Yes, but moreso pre-patch.