BNW is a very fun game.. but some things still make upset

Pilot -->

Oh, forget it. I'm sure you're playing at like Chieftan or something anyway. (i'm just annoyed; for reference - I'm playing Immortal)

Is it too much to expect some reading comprehension from people? I mean.. sometimes you do your best to explain something important, but nobody seems to have actually considered your point before they reply.


Just one thing - I should know what makes a good strategy game, as that's basically what I've been doing my whole life, since I got a strong math background and went pro at SC1 (bronze medal at WCG, which for SC especially has been super hard). Since then I've killed online poker for a living and have always had more students than I care to coach and I've coached a lot.

I've played pretty much every strategy game worth bothering with (and I've played most of them to the max) and it is perfectly clear to me that the best Civ installment was actually Alpha Centauri. Admittedly I didn't give Civ 4 much chance, because I didn't like the production values.

Funnily enough - I'm noticing the same pattern of deteriorating strategical quality in SC2 as in Civ 5. It's blatantly obvious that the sort of super-intelligent and solely interested in making a great game guys who made SC1 and Alpha Centauri have now gone to something else, where they don't have to endure slaving under a battalion of marketing/economics majors whose only line of thinking can be summarized as 'let's do ponies - girls like ponies - it's a statistical fact'

Actually, I didn't realize that while I was writing it, but those cartoonish horsies are basically ponies. I think I can stop here.



Just for your consideration - the way the game is balanced as of now makes it so that 95%+ of the time the best bet would be to go tradition/honor/patronage and don't really care about the rest and focus on tactical play and the occasional necessary timing attack. There is hardly any reason to build more than 3 cities, which I knew from my 2nd game or so (because simple calculations made it apparent that quite often even your best expo spots would take like a 100 turns to become useful), but there was this guy who put up a lot of Deity wins on youtube who proved that and spared me the trouble to argue over it. He also likes to skip religion completely, not that he has to - I guess he's just annoyed by how useless it really is. If those videos don't persuade you, then I'm afraid you lack any strategical understanding.

So I don't know what game you've been playing, but considering that 2/3 of the policies have little to none meaningful effect on the game now (and it wasn't the case before - I would actually take Piety and Commerce occasionally, while now I wouldn't and the the new ones are just as bad) I just don't think you know what you're talking about.

I don't know about any patches. I'm afraid hoping for a lot in this regard is just wishful thinking. The age of interested game developers is long since gone. I dare not think too much about what marketing considerations are doing to the industry, but I wouldn't be surprised that there might even be an incentive to not make a game overly good. Just on general principle. (That's what monopolism does to the quality of the product.)

Rhaegar7 said:

Pilot -->

Oh, forget it. I'm sure you're playing at like Chieftan or something anyway. (i'm just annoyed; for reference - I'm playing Immortal)

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STOP STOP STOP. We don't need anyone trying to put anyone else down about the difficulty they play on on bragging about playing on a high difficulty.

Rhaegar7 said:

Just one thing - I should know what makes a good strategy game, as that's basically what I've been doing my whole life, since I got a strong math background and went pro at SC1 (bronze medal at WCG, which for SC especially has been super hard). Since then I've killed online poker for a living and have always had more students than I care to coach and I've coached a lot.

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Cut it out. He doesn't need to hear you gloat about your background in math to him just because he chose to disagree with you. Throwing a bunch of(made up, for as much as he knows) silly awards in his face in just you trying to bully him intellectually.

Rhaegar7 said:

I've played pretty much every strategy game worth bothering with


If those videos don't persuade you, then I'm afraid you lack any strategical understanding.

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lawl how do i ego?

Eh. I understand why i put you off, but I just felt that all the effort I went trough to pin down what's wrong with the stupid game does not deserve a 1 sentence reply along the lines of "you're just not good enough".

Straight up - You're misreading the situation.



The biggest problem with forums is that people universally tend to skip long posts and discussions and focus on a few highlights and as of yet, almost no one has chimed in to actually discuss everything I wrote and all I get are derisive 1-liners and then more grief for me getting annoyed.


So.. I'm bullying him intellectually by pointing out the FACT that if I don't know what makes a good strategy game, then in most likelihood he doesn't also, but he's not being derisive, by dismissing all the effort I put into this topic by a reply that basically means "you obviously don't know what you're talking about". And it's not relevant that he's probably unable to beat king? It very much is.

Agree to disagree with that particular reply? F.T.S.

I understand why I would put people off by my previous post (and I felt I would when was writing it) but if people were to think objectively they'd see there's nothing wrong with what I said. It's to the point and I've given considerable effort to pin down the real problems of the game.

Rhaegar7 said:

And it's not relevant that he's probably unable to beat king? It very much is.

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Well, first off you're making an assumption based merely on the fact that he doesn't agree with you. Perhaps you should at least entertain the notion that you may not be entirely correct.

Rhaegar7 said:

It's to the point and I've given considerable effort to pin down the real problems of the game.

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I'll agree with you on some points: there are some weak policies and beliefs, for example. Almost offensively weak. I would very much disagree on religion being useless, however, it's about as useful as you make it in my experience. Keep in mind what worked in GnK does not necessarily translate here, so pointing out the superiority of the 4-city tradition opening from GnK does not make it the hands-down only strategy for Civ5. And indeed, there is no single dominating strategy in Civ5. I'm currently playing an Emperor-level Maya ICS game that heavily utilizes both the Piety tree and religion, and I'm dominating every aspect of the game. And I didn't even get a few key beliefs, had to adapt to the changing circumstances.

The problem is, in addressing your rant on the uselessness of Piety/religion, I'm not even certain where to begin, except to say that there isn't a single way to play the game as you seem to assume, and certain things are better for certain strategies. A wide empire that utilizies Liberty and Piety to generate enormous amounts of Faith can find a lot of ways to use that--and the Piety finisher gives you ways to do so, by putting it into Great People, Industrial era military, or science buildings.

I should like to point out that perhaps you could also try to phrase your post in a bit more approachable manner in the future. Perhaps people are offended even by the tone of your original post--look at how you state these facts. Whenever you bring up a point, you add at the end things like: "don't try to tell me you can do this, you can't" and "if you don't agree with me you are stupid." That kind of thing doesn't exactly encourage reasoned debate. Your later post certainly did not help matters.

While I certainly agree that importance of culture and religion went down a bit since the release of BNW, you are obviously making some rough statements. For a man who played every strategic game that has ever been released, you don't seem to understand that strategy implies multiple ways to conquer and win, which is kinda obvious and doesn't require THAT level of experience. Some require this (patience), others require that (boldness)... If you are afraid or too impatient to use a type of strategy that doesn't suit you, then what kind of an expert-tactic you are? The effects of culture and piety are not as visible as before, but they do still exist and can have significant influence on the game. I used your beloved papal primacy on 5 difficulty, gifted units to CS (with Holy war for a special) and watched as poor Huns were defending their cities, while I was assaulting the front lines. +1 production from boats saves about 20-30 turns in worst case scenarios and so on. If you follow only the most "efficient" ways to play, then I have bad news for you: it's not the most efficient way to spend your free time.
Also, I do not believe that a thoughtful mathematician , who you claim to be, doesn't know the elementary does and don'ts of conversation.
Sorry for bad English

Rhaegar7 said:

Pilot -->

Oh, forget it. I'm sure you're playing at like Chieftan or something anyway. (i'm just annoyed; for reference - I'm playing Immortal)

Is it too much to expect some reading comprehension from people? I mean.. sometimes you do your best to explain something important, but nobody seems to have actually considered your point before they reply.


Just one thing - I should know what makes a good strategy game, as that's basically what I've been doing my whole life, since I got a strong math background and went pro at SC1 (bronze medal at WCG, which for SC especially has been super hard). Since then I've killed online poker for a living and have always had more students than I care to coach and I've coached a lot.

I've played pretty much every strategy game worth bothering with (and I've played most of them to the max) and it is perfectly clear to me that the best Civ installment was actually Alpha Centauri. Admittedly I didn't give Civ 4 much chance, because I didn't like the production values.

Funnily enough - I'm noticing the same pattern of deteriorating strategical quality in SC2 as in Civ 5. It's blatantly obvious that the sort of super-intelligent and solely interested in making a great game guys who made SC1 and Alpha Centauri have now gone to something else, where they don't have to endure slaving under a battalion of marketing/economics majors whose only line of thinking can be summarized as 'let's do ponies - girls like ponies - it's a statistical fact'

Actually, I didn't realize that while I was writing it, but those cartoonish horsies are basically ponies. I think I can stop here.



Just for your consideration - the way the game is balanced as of now makes it so that 95%+ of the time the best bet would be to go tradition/honor/patronage and don't really care about the rest and focus on tactical play and the occasional necessary timing attack. There is hardly any reason to build more than 3 cities, which I knew from my 2nd game or so (because simple calculations made it apparent that quite often even your best expo spots would take like a 100 turns to become useful), but there was this guy who put up a lot of Deity wins on youtube who proved that and spared me the trouble to argue over it. He also likes to skip religion completely, not that he has to - I guess he's just annoyed by how useless it really is. If those videos don't persuade you, then I'm afraid you lack any strategical understanding.

So I don't know what game you've been playing, but considering that 2/3 of the policies have little to none meaningful effect on the game now (and it wasn't the case before - I would actually take Piety and Commerce occasionally, while now I wouldn't and the the new ones are just as bad) I just don't think you know what you're talking about.

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Well no, Immortal as well, want a pic as proof? Before BNW I won 3 deity games out of 5 as well. I could really get insulted at the way this is posted and even report it in the mod team, but I wont Ill treat as a joke. I can write down a tedious post for you to read explaining to you how to use those mechanics you shoot down, but I really think you don't want to be given explanations. What I read is that you want people to just agree with you so, I am sorry but my gaming experience doesn't agree. Still the offer for the pointers still stands if you wish.

In regards to your starcraft excellence congrats but its a whole different game with a whole different logic. I am waaaaaaaaaay better in RTS than in TBS, the fact that you excel in one will give you only minor headstart to the other.

That said nobody argued what the optimal way is to play, vs the AI but you will find that even those Diety videos are setup to the comfort zone. Pangea, domination, etc etc, I am even bored to repeat the settings. If you play an all random map with adverse starting conditions, your game plan will derail into such an extent where you will need to give thought to secondary paths. Also try those 'optimal' strategies vs people in MP and see where that will get you. This is way more difficult than any setting you PC can offer you BTW

As for credentials I don't need to showcase but believe me 'I have you'

@MantaRevan, thanks for the defense friend, but I don't consider this an attack in the slightest. After all aggression is a form of defense when ones arguments fail. As is slandering the opposition when non meaningful contrary opinions can be given to a discussion. I find it amusing to be honest Especially you try to help someone.

Rhaegar7 said:

So.. I'm bullying him intellectually

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You actually make yourself more of an embarrassment and you pretty much guarantee that you will not receive an appropriate answer because you answer like a backstreet thug. Nothing intellectual about it

Moderator Action: Please do not make this personal.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Rhaegar7 said:

I put into this topic by a reply that basically means "you obviously don't know what you're talking about"

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I actually meant and said that you didn't understand the proper use of those mechanics because you dismissed them since day one. Nothing more nothing less, as with the difficulty level you think I play, you are speculating.

EDIT: Bottom line is: You want to learn more about the games mechanics, or you want to have people agree with you that it is filled with worthless concepts? Because if you cant/will not accept it and be polite to people who try to help you, then there is no reason for us to help.

To back up Pilot here, he does play on the higher levels and puts up fairly impressive turn times to boot. A 250 SV(G&K mind you) is nothing to sneeze at if you translate his turn times into standard speed. Degenerating into personal attacks about difficulty level is a very poor way to 'prove' that you're right.

Just to say i dont read threads of dramaqueens.

You might not be one, but your title says enough.

Moderator Action: 2 posts deleted for trolling. Please do not get personal in your responses, it is trolling.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I'll try to address each point. I agree with you in some areas, disagree with others.

1. Religion is not really that bad. If you manage to get a pantheon that abuses your start location, or one of the good founder / follower beliefs, you're better off for it. Honestly some of the religious beliefs are in fact quite good. I'll concede some beliefs are bad, or even atrocious. However, I honestly believe that this is intentional, and in fact creates good gameplay. You want to found your religion first so you can get the cream of the crop as far as beliefs are concerned.

Also, faith generation is no joke as being able to buy great people with faith via policy trees is very powerful, so late game it certainly does have a use.

2. I've found the GTIs to be reasonable. At worst, they are an alternative to the other use for your great person. I think the only one that's really horrible is the Customs House (Great Merchant GTI). Great Prophets usually won't be generated fast enough in strategies that don't emphasize religion, but in ones that do you'll be able to take advantage of the Piety tree finisher that makes them give a total of +6faith, +4culture, and +4gold. If that's not a good improvement I don't know what is. Landmarks... Yea, they're not so hot, but culture they're okay with Freedom and/or the world congress proposal that buffs GTIs.

All said, I think only Landmarks and Customs Houses could use buffs, the rest are fine.

3. Social Policies.... Here I will definitely concede that there some useless policies. I think perhaps the only tree that lacks any bad policies is Tradition, which is part of why it's such an amazing tree now. Some policies are just sort of weak, like Liberty's +1 production per city or Commerce's +25% great merchant production, while others are just useless in 99% of situations, like Piety's Religious Tolerance.

The important thing is that the trees be balanced holistically instead of on a policy-by-policy basis. If all policies were about as good as each other in most situations the decision making would be less meaningful. It's hard to sum up my feelings on the whole SP system, so I'll just comment on each tree:

Tradition - Overpowered. It has the best opener of all 4 starting trees. The free cultural buildings policy is amazing as it nets you the hammers you would have spent making those buildings and the maintenance you would have spent on them for the whole game. It also snowballs in that it makes your SPs come faster than they would have. Wonder production is great, free happiness from 2 policies is great, gold generation with a large capital can get out of hand, free aqueducts similarly nets you a lot overall, and landed elite is similarly amazing. This is my favorite tree and it pains me to admit it's overpowered.

Liberty - It's fine, just outshined by Tradition, and also hurt by the +5% tech cost per city. Tradition will almost always net you more production, more happiness, more gold, more population and (consequently) more science. The only thing this has going for it is the free units (settler + worker + GP), but those are quite powerful so it remains somewhat popular among players.

Honor - Having lost the +1 happiness per wall/castle on its tier 3 policy it is much weaker. More importantly, the strategy it supports (namely early-game mass melee warfare) is simply not viable. If you're looking to wage war in later eras you're better off going tradition or liberty to establish your economy beforehand. The opener is not bad for the Aztec or the Songhai, and the tree overall is not too shabby for the Zulu. Generally, though, you'll want to opt for Tradition or Liberty instead. Also, one thing that annoys me about the "+1 happiness and +2 culture per garrison" policy is that it almost feels like you need oligarchy (Tradition) for that to even be good.

Piety - This is not really good for an opening policy except in fringe situations. It's if you are sprawling, however, and want another tree that supports the style after you finish Liberty. Religious Tolerance is just so atrocious that it needs to be remade. Other than that the tree is fine. Reformation belief is a cool mechanic.

Patronage - A good tree. Unlocking Forbidden Palace gives you an edge in the WC/UN and for diplo victory. However, unless you're Siam, there are generally better options for other victory types.

Aesthetics - It's good in it's niche. If you know you want a cultural victory, go for this. If not, pass. There are some weak policies here and there, and +50% build time for cultural buildings should also reduce the cost to buy them (or maybe it does, but I thought it didn't), but overall a solid tree if only for the sheer number of Great Musicians it can net.

Exploration - This tree is strong if you are coastal. It would be probably too strong if it didn't have so much to do with Great Admirals, one of the weakest great people in the game. This tree is all over the place. It will get you tons of gold and happiness, which are valuable for any win con, and also will get you some tools for domination and cultural victories specifically (great admirals, hidden antiquity sites).

Commerce - A solid tree based on creating a good economy for your empire. It's real weakness is how much it focuses on Great Merchants which are about as weak as Great Admirals. The +2 happiness per luxury and reduced tile maintenance helps wide empires deal with some of their problems. I think Great Merchants should be buffed (increased movement speed would be a good start) - then this tree would be in a better place.

Rationalism - Straight up overpowered. +2 science per specialist is ludicrous, just like the Korean UA. +17% science from university's is similarly crazy. +1 science per trading post makes jungle tiles ludicrous. This tree also meshes extremely well with Tradition, which will provide you the population you need to get a ton of specialists to abuse the first policy. The free GS just further accelerates you toward your space victory. This is almost always a good tree to go into as tech is important for every win condition. Highly advisable.

Ideologies - There are perhaps some strength discrepancies among the 3 trees, and there are certainly some weaker policies, but overall I think the free policies to early adopters is an excellent system that rewards not just picking the same tree every game. Autocracy is probably the weakest, but it is an unsung hero for the rarely used time victories (if you can manage to do various things to grind the tech rate to a halt such as forcing wars, enacting "support the arts" in world congress and nuking the tech leaders). Overall I really love this system.

Strength of policies and religion is not absolute, it depends on the situation.

Rhaegar7 said:

Just look at Papal Primacy and think about it for a moment.. How useless is that in a real game, where by the time I've converted 3-4 city states (and wasting faith) I should have more than 30 influence anyway?

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You're not wasting faith by spreading the religion. You get followers and more pressure. I don't see how you should have more than 30 influence with every CS by the time you spread religion. If the only reason for converting CSs is the influence then just convert CSs you don't have any influence with. I'm not saying it's strong in every game but there are situations where papal primacy might be your best option.

Rhaegar7 said:

1.1 - Piety is no better than before. Avoid the damn thing like hell and stop romanticizing about how you could fit it into a reasonable build. You can't.

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I guess a few days is enough for you to come to this conclusion, but just in case you're wrong i think I'll keep using it when i can benefit from it more than from other policies.

Rhaegar7 said:

2. Great tile improvements are next to useless. A very early academy or two are fine (they contribute to RA, later bulbs and give you tempo on other science improvements), when you get like 12 science for 1 food and about 18 to 2later. But there is exactly no reason in the game to build a Holy Site or Landmark ever and thus the Freedom 'New Deal' policy is also useless (and would still be useless even if they weren't). If you're not convinced then you're not working your mathematical mind. It was alright to build the occasional manufactory in your important coastal city before to boost it a little bit. Now the caravan does that much better. Btw, even academies aren't terribly useful, considering how much you get to just bulb.

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I don't get this argument. GTIs are next to useless but usefull? The caravan you use instead of manufactory is not free, it costs you a LOT of GPT/Science or influence.

In some situation planting GPs is the best option while in others it's the worst.

Rhaegar7 said:

3. Social policies seem to be badly nerfed for no reason other than to mess with me. They were pretty strong before and provided good options at all times. I'd often have to spend some time thinking between 2 or 3 good choices. They were the one thing I liked most about the game. Now most of the time I have nothing I want to take. This really makes me sad as it means the game is now considerably worse as far as core gameplay goes. I don't know why this nerf happened... Consider aesthetics - most of the policies give you more policies - if you do some math you'll quickly find out that those policies don't return their investment pretty much the whole game.. Kinda how rpg gamers learned at some point not to take perks like quick learner even very early in the game, because they simply do nothing at all, but deceive you that they do. Instead of meaningful, interesting bonuses now you have small gold or happiness bonuses all over the place. F. T. S. !!!

Obvious examples are those boosts to GS,GM production - seriously? Have they forgotten that those are on one tier with the other 2? I get +25% to all 6 from a freaking garden and they're giving me a policy to boost 1!!! of those by 25%? It makes me very, very sad..

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Again you're trying to evaluate the strength of a policy tree with no regard to the situation you're in. Culture in aesthetics is not there so you can get more policies faster, it's there for more culture. If taking aesthetics meant you'd get a "policy profit" than everyone would take it every game. You can and should use it for CV or you could even take it to counter other civs tourism if that benefits you most at the time.

Just because the garden effect is strong it doesn't mean the policy is weak! With a resource so limited as GA, GM and GW points every % increase counts A LOT. In fact this is one of the strongest policies if you go for CV.

Rhaegar7 said:

3.1 The way you acquire culture and policies is a bit weird in this game. I hope they focus a bit more. Simple example - a museum will net you like 1 culture (?); a great piece of art or history will yield 2 (?); allying the (say) 4 cultural CC will net you 104. Those political treatises are interesting though; perhaps a step in the right direction.

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I agree with you on this point. Cultural CSs give way too much culture imo.

Rhaegar7 said:

I don't know about any patches. I'm afraid hoping for a lot in this regard is just wishful thinking. The age of interested game developers is long since gone. I dare not think too much about what marketing considerations are doing to the industry, but I wouldn't be surprised that there might even be an incentive to not make a game overly good. Just on general principle. (That's what monopolism does to the quality of the product.)

Click to expand...

You should take a deep breath. No, BNW is not terrible, it's actually pretty good. It just needs a bit of balancing, like every new civ / expansion, but maybe you started video games yesterday.

Nobody cares about your poker degree, just enjoy the game for what it is. If you search real answers / real discussion, you should consider changing your tone. Nobody will answer posts like that.

I would like to address the public and ask one favor: We have ganged up on the man whether we are right or wrong. I share the sentiment that he didn't express his queries in the best way, but be that as it may. Lets stop this please.

So on the spirit of constructive dialogue and opinion sharing I am asking Rhaegar7 for the third time:

Do you want our opinions on the matter and are you willing to debate in a civil manner or it was indeed a matter of whether of expressing your frustrations with the game?