PolyCast Episode 254: "Conversing Gracefully"

Definition flexible. The two-hundred-and-fifty-fourth episode of PolyCast, "Conversing Gracefully", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, Stephanie "Makahlua" and Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew with returning guest co-host Chris "Anzleon" and first-time guest co-host Raymond "fyar". It carries a runtime of 59m59s.

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 01m20s | Theatre
Recent Civilization gameplay experiences recount a long way around, a variation on the usual and high score chasing.
- 11m26s | Forum Talk
Competing claims for longest lasting unit in CivV makes way for thwarting religion spread within your territory of the same game (20m10s).
- 25m24s | Miscellaneous
Civilization IV Lead Designer Soren Johnson, and CivV Lead Designer Jon Shafer, speak up and out on a number of aspects of the series' titles as well as taking into accounts considerations of how well the series has aged.

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Questionable allusions and variable value input.

PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production recording live every other Saturday throughout the year, in an ongoing effort to give the Civilization community an interactive voice; sibling show ModCast focuses on Civ modding, TurnCast on Civ multiplay.

I really enjoyed your discussion of going back to play Civ 4. Oddly enough, the one time I tried it, I was fully prepared for the 1UPT->MUPT and Hexagons->Squares adjustments. But the one thing that I wasn't expecting to trip me up (and wound up being the final straw that sent me back to Civ 5 for good), was the Embarkation->Transports adjustment. Exploring the innards of the continents is a lot more difficult when I have to wait until I can build a special boat to get my units there

shaglio said:

I really enjoyed your discussion of going back to play Civ 4. Oddly enough, the one time I tried it, I was fully prepared for the 1UPT->MUPT and Hexagons->Squares adjustments. But the one thing that I wasn't expecting to trip me up (and wound up being the final straw that sent me back to Civ 5 for good), was the Embarkation->Transports adjustment. Exploring the innards of the continents is a lot more difficult when I have to wait until I can build a special boat to get my units there

Click to expand...

On the flip side, given you've planned ahead and possess sufficient transports, crossing ocean was faster in both clicks and volume. For example if I wanted to bring 30 rifles to another continent and it took 3 turns to sail there, I could realistically maneuver 30 rifles per 6 turns to that continent. However, the only move orders assuming the starting city is a way point:

1. Group stack
2. Attach units to transport
3. Right click target city
4. Unload transport once it arrives

Despite that you're ordering more units and having to manage a dedicated transport, this is less than half the clicks you'd need to manage even 6 units crossing water with no naval escort component (which, in Civ IV, had no extra time and was just grouped on transports, quite probably waypointed there also).

Civ V has a delay between unit orders for some reason and can't handle input buffering well, so maneuvering units is markedly slower even if you as the player are moving at maximum possible speed; you have more inputs and are mandated a greater delay between inputs. Such is true for managing cities as well, though Civ V tends to have fewer cities.

Had you actually made the requisite adjustments, you could use those transports to navigate your units in Civ IV at a rate you can't possibly do in V. There are some valid reasons to prefer one vs the other, but #inputs and time to accomplish something from a user input standpoint *soundly* favors Civ IV, not Civ V, even if you completely ignore turn times (which also soundly favors IV).

Not to mention Civ IV let you trade maps, so "exploring" was orders of magnitude less micro intensive and vexing typically.

shaglio said:

I really enjoyed your discussion of going back to play Civ 4.

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly.