What is the purpose of corruption, city maintenance and global happiness systems ?

Naokaukodem · Sep 8, 2014

1. Realism

Is it to prevent that the bigger guy to be always more powerfull than the smallest, which is not realistic ? Power does not necessarily comes from size, eventhough it is a good hint in fine (USA, China, Russia, U.E.) but not necessarily historically.

2. Gameplay

Maybe that expansion to be fun but not always the only way to win, because it would be boring. (actually Civ is boring if we don't plan conquest wars, the ADN of Civ is expand and conquer, all the simplism of the game is turned toward this) Or to temper the difference of power of a big guy and a guy that couldn't grow for many reasons ? (Which are they ?)

My main guess is the random map generator and the snowball effect. Indeed, the better you start, the stronger and faster you can grow, expand and gain power, etc. creating an unfair imbalance.

But did these effects haven't been questionned for long by the developers for having screwed the series so deeply ? Couldn't we have solve the problem other than by this highly crippling solution ?

DarkestOnion · Sep 8, 2014

These Game Mechanics seem to curtail the once ubiquitous Infinite City Sprawl (ICS) strategy in both SP and MP. Now we see both Tall and Wide Empires. I think that this variety keeps things more interesting in the long run than it would be having a race to see who can fill in a City Grid faster than anyone else.

Naokaukodem · Sep 9, 2014

DarkestOnion said:
These Game Mechanics seem to curtail the once ubiquitous Infinite City Sprawl (ICS) strategy in both SP and MP. Now we see both Tall and Wide Empires. I think that this variety keeps things more interesting in the long run than it would be having a race to see who can fill in a City Grid faster than anyone else.

The corruption system of Civ1/2/3 appeared before ICS. His purpose couldn't be to fight against it.

ICS is a pretty rampant strategy. Theorically it's worse than maximizing cities, because maximized cities can produce units, buildings and particularly wonders faster. It has never proved its superiority.

The only advantages of ICS are : it keeps cities in a sphere of low corruption, and it allows more citizens to occupy the land. OK, there is synergy between those two advantages, but only with the corruption system.

Plus, I doubt the systems following corruption has been set up to fight ICS, because the only way to fight it is as it has been in Civ5 patches, it is to say to forbid too close settlings. Could have been done in Civ1/2/3.

Laurwin · Sep 9, 2014

ICS was quite effective strategy for production, actually, in early versions of Civ 5 when ICS was most effective.

Assuming you have average quality land (not desert nor tundra), ICS was able to make a ton of production in your empire.

The reason for this is simply the maximization of production multipliers in your empire (workshops and factories). More cities = more workshops+factories = more production

The upkeep could easily be maintained with the early gold from riverside tiles and trade posts You would be able to work many more tiles overall, including trade posts, in ICS empire.

For similar reasons, ICS empire was strong in gold income because more cities = more gold multipliers.

In modern BNW version. River and coast gold yield was removed and trade post was moved further into medieval tech guilds , and also nerfed into only +1 gold yield. With further +1 gold yield from reneissance tech economics.

Even so, I think the worst nerf was the happiness nerfs in BNW compared to vanilla. These kept in mind, ICS is basically not valid tactic in most cases.

There just isn't enough happiness and gold income, to offset the costs of buildings and units.

Ryoga · Sep 9, 2014

Naokaukodem said:
My main guess is the random map generator and the snowball effect. Indeed, the better you start, the stronger and faster you can grow, expand and gain power, etc. creating an unfair imbalance.

This is the main reason I think. Civilization V more than its predecessors seems to have developed several systems to prevent one civilization from going on an unstoppable spree. Not like that it prevents that at all, but it limits it, in a reasonable way imo.
if you don't put a stop on that the worse scenario that can happen is that you'll have a game that is already decided many turns before its actual conclusion.
This is bad, whether if that's you or the AI, the game would just become very boring.

1. Realism

I don't think that realism is a main concern in the Civ series but there is indeed a component of truth in penalizing empires that have gone too wide.

It is historically well documented that the more an Empire stretches its borders the harder and harder it becomes for it to maintain control over its holdings.

This effect became less and less relevant with the betterment of communication and transport systems, but it is a fact that the more distant a land is from the central power the more that territory will want to gain independence, and that's why Alexander's conquests soon split in several domains after his death, why the Roman empire was constantly engaged in putting out rebellions until one half of it split and the rest collapsed, why the Mongolian Empire was so short lived and why the American colonies declared Independence one after another.

There must be some kind of penalty for going wide. It wouldn't make sense otherwise.

Naokaukodem said:
But did these effects haven't been questionned for long by the developers for having screwed the series so deeply ? Couldn't we have solve the problem other than by this highly crippling solution ?

Did they really "screw" the series at all? Is that really crippling?
Isn't this a concept that has been incorporated in several other 4x because, in the end, it's a good thing?

Naokaukodem · Sep 9, 2014

Laurwin said:
ICS was quite effective strategy for production, actually, in early versions of Civ 5 when ICS was most effective.

Assuming you have average quality land (not desert nor tundra), ICS was able to make a ton of production in your empire.

The reason for this is simply the maximization of production multipliers in your empire (workshops and factories). More cities = more workshops+factories = more production

[...]

For similar reasons, ICS empire was strong in gold income because more cities = more gold multipliers.

Multipliers are mostly in percentage, be please to know that a percentage does not affect at all your production capacity. 15% of 20 is equal to 15% of 10 + 15% of 10.

It's actually an argument against ICS, because for the same amount of gain you have to pay more building maintenance.

Even so, I think the worst nerf was the happiness nerfs in BNW compared to vanilla. These kept in mind, ICS is basically not valid tactic in most cases.

There just isn't enough happiness and gold income, to offset the costs of buildings and units.

Actually I believe that those nerfs (except the gold river one, but it is replaced by trade routes) have been done in vanilla as well.

Killlbray said:
This is the main reason I think. Civilization V more than its predecessors seems to have developed several systems to prevent one civilization from going on an unstoppable spree. Not like that it prevents that at all, but it limits it, in a reasonable way imo.
if you don't put a stop on that the worse scenario that can happen is that you'll have a game that is already decided many turns before its actual conclusion.
This is bad, whether if that's you or the AI, the game would just become very boring.

Actually I think that global happiness makes Civ5 a pretty boring experience.

Did they really "screw" the series at all? Is that really crippling?
Isn't this a concept that has been incorporated in several other 4x because, in the end, it's a good thing?

Well it's just an opinion, but seriously, Civ is about expansion and war, what other things can we do in those games ? Without them the game becomes terribly boring. Global happiness can prevent expansion and conquest wars quite dramatically. People all around the world have to come on these forums to know how to deal with global happiness, and yet I've been here for quite long and still have many problems with it.

Trackmaster · Sep 9, 2014

Think about it this way, settlers aren't very expensive or hard to make, so if there weren't costs for expanding, you could just spam settlers the whole game. And, there are Civilizations where are you aren't necessarily going to attempt a Domination victory, so this makes it so that it's not a slam dunk for a powerful army with 30 cities to take out of a cultured Civilization with 2-3 cities who would never dream of DOW.

And yes, it works with realism too. The goal of being a king or president and running an empire/country is not usually to slash and burn every other group of people in the world but yours, but it's to create a better society and keep your people safe. A handful of people have legitimately tried to slash and burn and take over the world, and it never ended well for them. People inherently know right from wrong and will stop those tyrants. In this game, you can take that slash and burn tactic, but it will be you against the world.

Ryoga · Sep 9, 2014

Naokaukodem said:
Well it's just an opinion, but seriously, Civ is about expansion and war, what other things can we do in those games ? Without them the game becomes terribly boring. Global happiness can prevent expansion and conquest wars quite dramatically. People all around the world have to come on these forums to know how to deal with global happiness, and yet I've been here for quite long and still have many problems with it.

I can agree that global happiness isn't a very good idea compared to localized happiness, I preferred the old system and it makes a lot more sense realistically speaking.

I can also agree that Civ V went a bit too far with the expansion constraints, but I do not agree that the concept of penalty for expanding is a bad thing.

That being said I must say that at least Civ V made it so that the option of going tall can be as much as rewarding (or even more) than the option of going wide, which makes the game experience different from the plethora of other 4x where going wide is the only way.

It is a novelty that I personally appreciated, you did not, but well you can't make everyone happy.

Naokaukodem · Sep 9, 2014

I'm not saying I don't want any limitation for expanding, I'm just questionning such limitations existence.

A game without any expansion limit would be expand and conquer all the way. It would be much more fun that the mechanics to tend in ruling such direction than forbidding it : you could make each civ more aggressive, never neglecting army, propose a better alliance system,etc.

OK some -no, let's say a lot of- players like tall and peace, but what is there to do in peace ? Well you can wonder whore, but that's only on lower difficulty levels, it's fun the first couple times you do it. Building things, move a couple workers and place some units, replace your citizens, send your spies, set your trade routes... all not being that fun at all. And that's all ! Most of the time you press "Enter" in a row ! And, the science victory is so long to reach whenever you know you will win !

There must have a dynamic ! And the dynamic is expand first, then conquer.

In the state, in Civ5, you always WANT TO expand, because it's more power and science, but you can't !

Make a game where you don't want systematically to expand, because a peace game would be interesting, and then i will applause with my two buttocks.

My opinion now is that peacemongers are casual players that are afraid of too much involvement.

Laurwin · Sep 9, 2014

Naokaukodem said:
Multipliers are mostly in percentage, be please to know that a percentage does not affect at all your production capacity. 15% of 20 is equal to 15% of 10 + 15% of 10.

It's actually an argument against ICS, because for the same amount of gain you have to pay more building maintenance.

Actually I believe that those nerfs (except the gold river one, but it is replaced by trade routes) have been done in vanilla as well.

In practical terms, this is not true at all. When you compare the heyday of ICS strategy in early versions of vanilla civ 5.

Did you even play early patch version of vanilla civ 5?
here's a link to an ICS empire game as France, played at civfanatics http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388793

Let me ask you a question, if the ICS was supposedly such a weak strategy, why do you think it was removed in later patches of vanilla civ 5? :rolleyes:

In that link, you can see demographics in an Immortal game. France the player, is only 5th in population but still the first in production?! His empire production grew from 100 to 800 in about 35 turns, according to him.

First of all, workshops do indeed give +2 hammers on top of 10+ bonus. Then you could take liberty for extra production per city. And I suppose in later version of civ, you could take religion pantheon for cheap happiness per city. In vanilla civ5 order policies were also quite strong. You could even take 5 hammers per city, and massive unhappiness reduction, which boosted your capability for expansion even more. (of course even in modern BNW order is still quite strong of course.)

Second of all, riverline gold was quite a lot of gold in early game. Riverline farm was 4 food 2 gold (civil service), and grassland trade post was 2 food 2 gold (immediately) for example. On top of that, was regular internal road bonus from city connections, for extra gold.

The way that the ICS empire produces more hammers in empire, vs tall empire (as it related to vanilla game). The secret is in the tiles being worked, by all your cities, on top of the modifier buildings.

ICS empire always settles luxes, resources, and bonus tiles, and most preferrably riverlines too. Riverline hill farms were also quite strong tiles at 2 food 2 hammer 2 gold.

Tall empire takes a good while to grow and work good tiles. Wide empire with liberty was quite powerful because of this. Grow your capital to large enough size, and start pumping out settlers.

Therefore ICS empires can work a lot of strong tiles, more than smaller empire, and they can work those tiles earlier, creating a snowball effect. There was basically no drawback to settler spam at all. Cities would even create strong defensive networks with city defensive shooting.

In vanilla, the unit purchase costs were also somewhat lower, which made ICS even stronger overall. Because ICS produced much more gold than small empire. Then you could purchase units almost every turn. Also, golden ages were much stronger for ICS empires, giving them a massive boost. Because of the reason that ICS empire is working more tiles, which become modified by the golden age.

You compare the benefits and drawbacks for both empires. Hammers per turn, in each empire, gold per turn in each empire etc... In those earlier patches of vanilla (before release of additions like G&K), ICS super wide empire was quite strong strategy, rivalled by early rush strategies with something like honor.

Sure, the wide empire does have some costs in hammers invested in settlers, but there was good potential for recouping those costs later in the game.

joncnunn · Sep 9, 2014

Civ I & Civ II was mostly realism. Prior to a certain point in history cities far from the capital were difficult to control but by Democracy it's pretty much gone.

Civ III was the attempt to make Corruption a real brake on city expansion. It didn't really work well (other than settlers now coming from closer to the core) since unless you built a city closer to your capital than an existing one it could never make your core empire worse, so REX until your borders are approaching the AI then build a military on a choke point was still common.

Civ IV made city maintenance the real brake on city expansion. There would typically be a REX wave and then a pause to build core buildings in the empire and then a another wave, repeat until near an AI. This actually worked really well. Athough BTS introducing Corporations made otherwise useless city spots semi-decent.

Civ V is so far the only attempt at Global Happiness, but BE is also doing this under the name Global Healthiness.

There were 18 months of balance patches, each one reducing a source of happiness. Basically the game was released an entire year too early. The designer was really intending people to stop building cities because 100% of every copy of existing cities (minus puppets) was needed but the wide players just ignored them entirely until the never stop founding cities tactic was killed.
The AI flavors are still based around the CD release which is why the AI played on Chieftain for Vanilla and G&K. Even today with BNW it still plays with a happiness bonus.

Vanilla post balance patches is the toughest for happiness sources, G&K introduced new happiness into the early to mid game via religion and BNW introduced a major source in late game via ideology.

Still, G&K took so long that many people realized how truly powerful the national wonders are and started appreciating the Golden Ages so all tall players do now with the ideology happiness is enjoy one or two more late game Golden Ages.
It's the golden age counter + national wonder requirement that is why once a player stops self founding cities they don't start back up in combo with a new city late in the game isn't really going to contribute to the empire, a conquered city will do better so it will be a close to a decent size and already have some buildings.

BE will be a better experiment for the global ~~happiness~~ health system as I hear there's no health counter.

Naokaukodem · Sep 10, 2014

Laurwin said:
In practical terms, this is not true at all. When you compare the heyday of ICS strategy in early versions of vanilla civ 5.

Did you even play early patch version of vanilla civ 5?
here's a link to an ICS empire game as France, played at civfanatics http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=388793

Let me ask you a question, if the ICS was supposedly such a weak strategy, why do you think it was removed in later patches of vanilla civ 5?
In that link, you can see demographics in an Immortal game. France the player, is only 5th in population but still the first in production?! His empire production grew from 100 to 800 in about 35 turns, according to him.

First of all, workshops do indeed give +2 hammers on top of 10+ bonus. Then you could take liberty for extra production per city. And I suppose in later version of civ, you could take religion pantheon for cheap happiness per city. In vanilla civ5 order policies were also quite strong. You could even take 5 hammers per city, and massive unhappiness reduction, which boosted your capability for expansion even more. (of course even in modern BNW order is still quite strong of course.)

Second of all, riverline gold was quite a lot of gold in early game. Riverline farm was 4 food 2 gold (civil service), and grassland trade post was 2 food 2 gold (immediately) for example. On top of that, was regular internal road bonus from city connections, for extra gold.

The way that the ICS empire produces more hammers in empire, vs tall empire (as it related to vanilla game). The secret is in the tiles being worked, by all your cities, on top of the modifier buildings.

ICS empire always settles luxes, resources, and bonus tiles, and most preferrably riverlines too. Riverline hill farms were also quite strong tiles at 2 food 2 hammer 2 gold.

Tall empire takes a good while to grow and work good tiles. Wide empire with liberty was quite powerful because of this. Grow your capital to large enough size, and start pumping out settlers.

Therefore ICS empires can work a lot of strong tiles, more than smaller empire, and they can work those tiles earlier, creating a snowball effect. There was basically no drawback to settler spam at all. Cities would even create strong defensive networks with city defensive shooting.

In vanilla, the unit purchase costs were also somewhat lower, which made ICS even stronger overall. Because ICS produced much more gold than small empire. Then you could purchase units almost every turn. Also, golden ages were much stronger for ICS empires, giving them a massive boost. Because of the reason that ICS empire is working more tiles, which become modified by the golden age.

You compare the benefits and drawbacks for both empires. Hammers per turn, in each empire, gold per turn in each empire etc... In those earlier patches of vanilla (before release of additions like G&K), ICS super wide empire was quite strong strategy, rivalled by early rush strategies with something like honor.

Sure, the wide empire does have some costs in hammers invested in settlers, but there was good potential for recouping those costs later in the game.

In the link you posted the guy started with 2 continents alone. I wonder how he would have done if he didn't ICS. Probably the same kind of results, or even better.

He said he could build 1~2 strong units per turn, but without ICS and the same strategy (mass military production), he could probably have done the same for each city he owned. If he'd've owned 5 city, that would have made 5 units nearly each turn. Because there's no way crappy cities can produce as much as tall ones.

ICS is good only because each city grows independently from others, and that firsts pop points are easily reachable. There are also the rough bonuses like +2 prod with workshops, +1 with liberty or +5 with order, etc., but that costs money.

This guy said himself he got gold problems, and as he was in the negative income even in a GA, I assume those problems were massive. A game quitter for many players.

He started to build markets and banks, but given the time it should have taken (referencing to the build time of colosseums in one of his pictures), it should have been a game quitter for yet many more players.

Now the fact that his cities didn't cost him happiness beside pop one, is due to the different policies / wonder bonuses he could get and which were maybe awkward from Firaxis.

But enough digressing, I'm not convinced that ICS is better, but anyway there's now no more ICS, or only that depending on the point of view. I just don't think it has been a concern for designing corruption, city maintenance or global happiness.

joncnunn said:
Civ I & Civ II was mostly realism. Prior to a certain point in history cities far from the capital were difficult to control but by Democracy it's pretty much gone.

Civ III was the attempt to make Corruption a real brake on city expansion. It didn't really work well (other than settlers now coming from closer to the core) since unless you built a city closer to your capital than an existing one it could never make your core empire worse, so REX until your borders are approaching the AI then build a military on a choke point was still common.

Civ IV made city maintenance the real brake on city expansion. There would typically be a REX wave and then a pause to build core buildings in the empire and then a another wave, repeat until near an AI. This actually worked really well. Athough BTS introducing Corporations made otherwise useless city spots semi-decent.

Civ V is so far the only attempt at Global Happiness, but BE is also doing this under the name Global Healthiness.

There were 18 months of balance patches, each one reducing a source of happiness. Basically the game was released an entire year too early. The designer was really intending people to stop building cities because 100% of every copy of existing cities (minus puppets) was needed but the wide players just ignored them entirely until the never stop founding cities tactic was killed.
The AI flavors are still based around the CD release which is why the AI played on Chieftain for Vanilla and G&K. Even today with BNW it still plays with a happiness bonus.

Vanilla post balance patches is the toughest for happiness sources, G&K introduced new happiness into the early to mid game via religion and BNW introduced a major source in late game via ideology.

Still, G&K took so long that many people realized how truly powerful the national wonders are and started appreciating the Golden Ages so all tall players do now with the ideology happiness is enjoy one or two more late game Golden Ages.
It's the golden age counter + national wonder requirement that is why once a player stops self founding cities they don't start back up in combo with a new city late in the game isn't really going to contribute to the empire, a conquered city will do better so it will be a close to a decent size and already have some buildings.

BE will be a better experiment for the global ~~happiness~~ health system as I hear there's no health counter.

Basically the health system could work so that the less health you have, the less efficiency your citizens have. You could choose conscienciously if you want an infinite number of crappy cities or a handfull of super houses. It would be like "production of every sort divided by number of cities", but included in the gameplay.

Trackmaster · Sep 10, 2014

Naokaukodem said:
I'm not saying I don't want any limitation for expanding, I'm just questionning such limitations existence.

A game without any expansion limit would be expand and conquer all the way. It would be much more fun that the mechanics to tend in ruling such direction than forbidding it : you could make each civ more aggressive, never neglecting army, propose a better alliance system,etc.

OK some -no, let's say a lot of- players like tall and peace, but what is there to do in peace ? Well you can wonder whore, but that's only on lower difficulty levels, it's fun the first couple times you do it. Building things, move a couple workers and place some units, replace your citizens, send your spies, set your trade routes... all not being that fun at all. And that's all ! Most of the time you press "Enter" in a row ! And, the science victory is so long to reach whenever you know you will win !

There must have a dynamic ! And the dynamic is expand first, then conquer.

In the state, in Civ5, you always WANT TO expand, because it's more power and science, but you can't !

Make a game where you don't want systematically to expand, because a peace game would be interesting, and then i will applause with my two buttocks.

My opinion now is that peacemongers are casual players that are afraid of too much involvement.

But when you play at the higher levels, you're not going to just be able to sit back back, wonder whore, and be on your merry way. Somebody is going to invade you at some point because they want your land. In fact, you probably have to wipe out the Civilization closest to you at some point anyway if you want to win at any victory condition so that you're not living in constant living of being invaded.

Sorinth · Sep 10, 2014

All those systems have been about limiting the power of wide.

I also find going tall somewhat boring, but that's personal preference. Civ obviously wants to cater to the biggest market possible and that means making it so both tall and wide are feasible for victory.

Civ 5 and global happiness has it's share of problems but it's also the only version that actually made going tall feasible.

Galgus · Sep 10, 2014

Sorinth said:
All those systems have been about limiting the power of wide.

I also find going tall somewhat boring, but that's personal preference. Civ obviously wants to cater to the biggest market possible and that means making it so both tall and wide are feasible for victory.

Civ 5 and global happiness has it's share of problems but it's also the only version that actually made going tall feasible.

I think going Wide is more fun when there is an obstacle like happiness to overcome to do it.

Otherwise I'd feel pressured to almost constantly spam cities until all half decent spots were filled.

Sorinth · Sep 10, 2014

Galgus said:
I think going Wide is more fun when there is an obstacle like happiness to overcome to do it.

Otherwise I'd feel pressured to almost constantly spam cities until all half decent spots were filled.

It comes down to personal preference. Without the happiness issues the obstacle is the other civs fighting over the same land.

That pressure to constantly expand is probably what the OP enjoys.

Illianor123 · Sep 10, 2014

Naokaukodem said:
2. Gameplay

Maybe that expansion to be fun but not always the only way to win, because it would be boring. (actually Civ is boring if we don't plan conquest wars, the ADN of Civ is expand and conquer, all the simplism of the game is turned toward this) Or to temper the difference of power of a big guy and a guy that couldn't grow for many reasons ? (Which are they ?)

Couldn't we have solve the problem other than by this highly crippling solution ?

Uhhh, war isn't the point of the game. I think this is where your problem lies. I really enjoy CiV and I rarely "plan conquest wars" and don't think the "ADN of Civ is expand and conquer."

But to play wide, while not easy, can be done, it just takes effort. You know like in real life countries struggled with controlling huge swathes of land, or fell apart if they tried (or had unhappy people and faced rebellions).

It has often been lamented on here how terrible the ai is at war compared to a decent player. If there was no limiting factor on expansion (that can be overcome) then the game will just be "settler new cities, beat up the next ai, repeat" which is rather flat and boring.

vorlon_mi · Sep 10, 2014

While I like the idea that playing Tall is feasible in Civ5, I miss the epic scope of Civ3 and Civ4. I started playing the franchise in Civ2, where it was important to settle lots of cities to claim the land. The driving imperative in Civ3 and Civ4 was to claim more land, to ensure that you could get coal, oil, and aluminum. In Civ3, a resource needed to be inside a city radius for you to use it. Or build a colony, but that rarely happened.

Managing 30 cities in Civ4 or 60 cities in Civ3 is a true empire; managing 4 cities in Civ5 is more like being the governor of Texas. Not nearly as much fun, to me.

Illianor123 · Sep 10, 2014

You can get up to 30 or 40 cities. Play larger maps that give more space, and reduce the unhappiness per city. Settle your cities to secure new luxuries. Found a religion that provides happiness. Get close to some mercantile city-states.

joncnunn · Sep 10, 2014

Naokaukodem said:
Basically the health system could work so that the less health you have, the less efficiency your citizens have. You could choose conscienciously if you want an infinite number of crappy cities or a handfull of super houses. It would be like "production of every sort divided by number of cities", but included in the gameplay.

Actually, in BE just keep global health non-negative and you make out all cities bonuses, (there's no extra bonus for being +10 global health, by contrast -10 health is a threshold for cities being even worse)

What is the purpose of corruption, city maintenance and global happiness systems ?

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