Manco Capac
Friday,13 June,I Collapse
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2010
- Messages
- 8,051
While I think it is one of the best games ever, it's not perfect. I'm interested what people think the problems with the core ruleset of the game are (rather than implementation problems like bad optimisation, barbarian galleys appearing every three turns, unbalanced starts, UI or AI problems).
From my point of view things I don't like as much are:
Clearly superior strategies at the start, such as going for agriculture/animal husbandry/mining/bronze working being a better bet than hunting/fishing/mysticism the vast majority of the time. Or worker first apart from occasional seafood starts when it is often still marginal.
It might be interesting if slavery and the ability to chop/reveal copper were on different tech paths so you had to choose one over the other.
It is again an implementation problem for several techs. Take Hunting as a prime example. Hunting isn't that bad by itself. It unlocks a nice food plot, that is the deers and a correct early source of commerce, the furs. The problem lies in mapscripts and that is a bad implementation because most maps have their deer and fur sources at the tundra. Seriously, hunting-gathering happenened in every part of the world in the neolithic, not just in the most northern parts. Quite often,on most regular mapscripts, a player won't be pleased by the sight of either fur or deer because they are a strong indicator of a very northern starting location or very southern one near the tundra or ice regions. Several mapscripts make Hunting a nice tech like Arboria, rainforest, boreal, etc. It is just that all you have seen until now is the typical pangaea, fractal, continents, etc. Those are putting hunting resources at the worst place.
Also, a nice feature I have found in a fan made mod called PAE is the ability to put hunting camps, farms (mostly) and other improvements on every tiles. Of course, the increase of the respective output is not as strong as it was put on a bonus, but that shows if that was possible on regular BTS, hunting would be an interesting option. Think about putting hunting camps on forests for instance. THAT would be an interesting alternative to hills.
The big problem with fishing is the workboat. What unnerves people is the strictly hammer cost and then especially the consumption of the unit once improving the tile. If the workboat was just like the worker, that is somehow eternal and just putting improvement for free of cost, that would certainly change the balance.
Indeed, BW groups too much of the best game features. Not only slavery but also chopping, permitting to compete finally against the AI. And to add to the injury, copper revelation and possibility to have the strong axemen. Indeed, I think a medium tech like, say, Tool Working, before BW, may just dilute the amount of goodies coming along BW. I know that RFC DoC separated the chop ability and slavery into two distinct techs, masonry and BW (that mod has basically almost the same tech tree as regular BTS).
Also on higher levels it is hardly ever worth going for a religion at the start of the game. It also bugs me that three of the religions are on exactly the same part of the tech tree rather than a bit more spaced out.
Again, if a religion brought a worthwhile bonus not accessible for a big part of the early game, the interest for going towards a religion would be stronger than ever.
Again, PAE mod reduced access to happy resources in the early game and the way the early game was made created a never seen need to go for the religious path.
The other problem with regular BTS early religions is the fact they are early. TOO early that the blow to your development is too strong to waste time going towards a religion. Again, I see your main problem is the tech tree implementation. I have also suspected problems with the tech because quite often I went for the same paths all the time. The separation of goodies enabled by techs is badly implemented.
I'd also like if it was more viable for smaller peaceful civilizations, conducting mostly defensive wars to compete over the course of the game, although this is probably a personal preference. In addition games are often decided very early on, not often allowing come backs from last place to win.
That's not true there is no way in recovering a horrible desesperate situation. Experience of the game leads the player at some point to mutate bad turns of events into advantages or opportunities. The lack of experience of perseverance often brings such mentality. I admit I am no better occasionally. People, including me, don't like to pursue a game with unfair disadvantage.
Indeed, the prize of warmongering is quite high. Cheap cities if captured with decent units, free improvements, free workers, free tribute techs, etc. The problem lies that cooperation prize is just techs and resources. Nothing more. If there were particular prizes from long term cooperations like access to more gold for exchange, peaceful approach would be possibly be attractive. But again, this is something you can't change because the prize of more cities leads often to victory.
I don't like a lot of the later additions to the game such as espionage, vassals and corporations as they feel a little too much like add-ons rather than things the game was designed around.
Lack of deep understanding. Espionage have a tremendous impact on a game if well used. And also unexpected consequences (cheap techs, ultra fast cultural victories, etc. ). Corporations are immensely strong and interesting well balanced compared to SP when it comes to late game. For instance, strong space games are sometimes won through hammer economy (SProperty) and other times through Corportations. That means, without expecting this, Firaxis managed by a strike of luck to implement two ways to winning late games. Of course, there is the problem just a couple of corporations are decent and only the first to found them will have a decent output of of this without unreasonable cost. It lacks variety. For hammers, Mining Corp. or Creative Corps. Thus only two winners and the rest eat dirt.
Vassals were subject to many criticisms and won't start discussing this. It is unbalanced and quite badly implemented. I admit it.
Also I feel the happiness cap is set too low early on in the game. I assume this is partially to help players with a bad start not get far behind too quickly as other civs hit their happiness cap, but it feels like an artificial barrier that without getting lucky with gold, gems or a hunting resource there isn't a lot you can do about it until monarchy. It also makes slavery much more of a non-decision as well.
In fact, it makes slavery A viable path. You just make the whipping cycle adjusted to get rid of unhappiness once they appear and get production.
I have seen worse in the small free happiness or health. Much worse. PAE is one example where most start with none additional. One happy and one health. That's brutal. I think BTS happy and health caps are correct. I admit on Warlords expansion and base Vanilla, that was quite low, but now it's ok.
Historically health was probably more of a concern in early civilizations than happiness, but the game has this the other way around. I think each population causing two unhealthiness instead of one would make the early game more interesting as you might hit the health cap before the happiness cap a lot of the time.
What else do people think is wrong with the game?
Comments in blue.