"One City" is a challenge now?!

Hesha said:

I just think it's a shame they changed the CV. It was the one good thing about Civ5 - the fact that there was a victory condition that in contrast to all others didn't require you to tech like a maniac. Now they're basically all the same.

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Teching as fast as you can is completely boring, but so is culture-ing as fast as you can.

To my mind, I know the game will finally be balanced when you can't just turtle to a win. It should be a requirement that you have to actually build an empire.

I admit that it is a shame that a Tourism victory is so science-dependent, and this could be changed by not needing to have hotels, airports, NVC, Internet, etc.

But then, when you think about it, Jerusalem has not culturally changed the world. The 'lore' behind the tourism victory is that your culture spreads because people consume the tourism.

And I really disagree that they're all the same. DomV is completely different. You can finally ignore late-game science.

consentient said:

To my mind, I know the game will finally be balanced when you can't just turtle to a win. It should be a requirement that you have to actually build an empire.

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The problem is that this clashes directly with Civ5's wide vs. tall idea. Since "tall" empires do not want to expand, and since expansion is the only form of reversible conflict in Civ (wonder races are irreversible: once the wonder is built in a city, it cannot be relocated into a new one by "conquering" it), allowing tall empires to win with the same methods as wide empires enables "turtle to win".
For the record, I despise the idea of wide vs. tall in its current form, but since Firaxis does not, no Civ game in the near future will fix this problem.

consentient said:

I admit that it is a shame that a Tourism victory is so science-dependent, and this could be changed by not needing to have hotels, airports, NVC, Internet, etc.

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It could also be changed by letting players generate a lot of tourism early on. The problem with Tourism is that it comes too late and in too small amounts before Internet and/or Airports + Hotels are both built. If tourism could be reliably generated in significant amounts starting from Classical, it would no longer be so tech-reliant. For example, Hotels' and Airports' tourism % would be reduced to 25%, but one new building would be added for Classical, Medieval, Renaissance, and Industrial Eras that would, among other things, give 25% tourism from culture; the fact that the bonus caps out to 150% of culture converted into tourism is intentional.

Making CV viable for multiplayer is a whole different can of worms: not only does the tech tree need to be tweaked so that Archaeology isn't so out of the way, but the whole idea of getting tourism bonuses from Open Borders and Trade Routes needs to be rethought, as human players will just deny you of these modifiers if they even suspect you might be going for CV. Trading Great Works must no longer be necessary to unlock any multipliers, seeing as players will not want to give you great works multipliers for free.

consentient said:

And I really disagree that they're all the same. DomV is completely different. You can finally ignore late-game science.

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It kind of depends: unless you're Mongolia or Arabia or England with everyone coastal, you do often still need Dynamite as quickly as possible. If you cannot win with artillery, teching to Nanotechnology and Stealth is as necessary as Internet is for CV.

Delnar_Ersike said:

once the wonder is built in a city, it cannot be relocated into a new one by "conquering" it

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Yes, but for the wonders that you care about when going Domination (e.g. Machu Pichu), it doesn't matter which city they are in. And if you're doing Wide (violent) CV, then the more cities you have, the more TPT you can get (perhaps not quite as fast, but you can sometimes do OK)

It could also be changed by letting players generate a lot of tourism early on.

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Yes. I think that all the early wonders should give TPT from to civs you have OB with. Stonehenge is something people want to see, if they can.

Making CV viable for multiplayer is a whole different can of worms

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Making multiplayer technically viable would be a good start, but I don't want to start with this one again. *bitter*

It kind of depends: unless you're Mongolia or Arabia or England with everyone coastal, you do often still need Dynamite as quickly as possible. If you cannot win with artillery, teching to Nanotechnology and Stealth is as necessary as Internet is for CV.

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Getting to Dynamite ASAP doesn't need much growth, really. A couple of annexed captured capitals is usually enough to boost the science of a formerly 3-city small empire. If you beeline it straight from Machinery, you can get there before others 80%+ of the time. On Deity that is.

I have to say if Artillery isn't enough, then it usually means the player hasn't finished Honor and therefore seen the quantity of units you can easily spam every turn to wrap things up. Even when my units are dying, I can rack up crazy amounts of gold and buy new ones every turn from nearby annexed cities, to finish off the Deity AI by beating him at his own game (unit spam). Have you seen Peddroelm's videos?

Anyway, my point was that you can ignore late-game science, and by this I meant Modern onwards.

consentient said:

Yes, but for the wonders that you care about when going Domination (e.g. Machu Pichu), it doesn't matter which city they are in. And if you're doing Wide (violent) CV, then the more cities you have, the more TPT you can get (perhaps not quite as fast, but you can sometimes do OK)

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It's still an irreversible competition mechanic by itself. When two tall empires compete for wonders, there is no way the loser can somehow take back the wonder they missed out on. Once you fail at building a wonder, you cannot "attack" it with production from across the map to steal it back; you just have to cut your losses and move on each time. By contrast, when two wide empires compete for territorial control, control over the nearby city can flip back and forth between the two sides. Wide empires are the only ones who benefit from not turtling, but those benefits are the same ones that tall empires get from just being tall: more yields. So long as this is the case, ie. so long as being a tall pacifist gives you bonuses of the same type and similar magnitude as being a wide aggressor, turtling to win will remain an ideal strategy.

consentient said:

Yes. I think that all the early wonders should give TPT from to civs you have OB with. Stonehenge is something people want to see, if they can.

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Having early TPT only come from wonders would make CV a tall-exclusive strategy, and I would rather not increase CV's reliance on OB and trade route modifiers. Having it come from new, early buildings with unique effects (like Airport's) would make non-science, non-Sacred Sites CV still viable for wide. Let me give four examples for such buildings to get us started:

• Inn: Unlocked at Currency. 25% of from improvements and wonders added to . +25% from Great Works. -5% from population in this city. 1 upkeep.
• Guard Posts: Unlocked at Chivalry. 25% of from improvements and wonders added to . +25% from Great Works. Pillaging improvements in tiles owned by the city no longer heals the pillager. Requires Walls. 2 upkeep.
• Travel Guides: Unlocked at Navigation. 25% of from improvements and wonders added to . +25% from Great Works. International trade routes from another player arriving to this city generates +3 +3 for the other player and +1 +2 for you. Requires Caravansary. No upkeep.
• Way Stations: Unlocked at Steam Power. 25% of from improvements and wonders added to . +25% from Great Works. Friendly units that end their turn on valid roads within 3 tiles of the city will heal even if they take an action. 3 upkeep.

Hotel would also be changed as follows: in addition to its current effects, each generated in the city gives +1 .