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

I think if you can pull off a wide civ it does work out to be much stronger than a tall Civ but it is more difficult to do. Liberty tends to work well for some immediate benefits but it has good long term benefits but they are much more subtle.
The problem with going wide is trade routes. You get the same number of trade routes no matter how many cities you plop down. The liberty finisher imo should probably provide an extra trade route.
But the best way to play wide and negate global happiness problems is to found a religion. I place a lot of value on getting Stonehenge in the capital and starting with libert until you get the free settler and maybe Citizenship as well (if you can get Oracle). Then put your policies into Piety to get Mandate of Heaven (if you are focusing on missionaries and pagodas) and organised religion.
If you have enough cities and faith you can pick the powerful world church which will get you an insane amount of culture so you can fill out both Piety and Liberty by the renaissance period. The best thing about Piety is the reformation belief 'To The Glory of God' which let's you buy ANY great person with faith in the industry age. Since the AIs never pick this belief you dont have to hurry Piety you can leave it until late. And being able to purchase Great Writers means you will get your culture back that you invested in Piety. Using faith for Scientists will allow you to rush to labs, and engineers will work well with Order Science victory and rushing late game wonders

If you can pull off this with Byzantium its even better as an extra belief means 2 founders so you can take World Church and Tithes. The trick is you need to beeline Theology to get the religious wonders. Great Mosque is really good (it generates a tonne of faith). And of course the Grand Temple ASAP. You will fall behind in science buts its not critical so long as you can convert neighbors to your religion and can defend yourself with comp bowmen. Once your religion is established you will catch up in science in the late renaissance period when the Tall Tradition civs start to slow down.
Messiah is an option for enhancing as the converting factor is so strong and you can hold off on using them until missionaries become to expensive to buy. Holy Sites also generate a lot of faith so its another option.

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.

Click to expand...

It seems to me that this is a somewhat biased perspective. You have your own preferences but you are talking like they are objective facts and you don't seem to realize that your criticisms apply equally well to what you like.

This is substantially "city management" VS "expansion". You say that city management is fun the first two times while expansion is always fun no matter how much you repeat it, why?

You say "wonderwhoring" I can say "settlerwhoring".

You say: "Building things, move a couple workers and place some units, replace your citizens, send your spies, set your trade routes" = boring

I can say: "Training units, move to the enemy city, attack, conquer, rinse and repeat for next 50 cities" = boring.


What is actually objectively boring in my opinion is the uninterrupted repetition of the same.

The fact that there are obstacles to expanding, means that you will alternate
between phases of expansions\conquering and phases of pure city management\improvement until you get the techs and social policies to expand again.

This enforces variety in contrast to a continuous uninterrupted cycle of the same.

Naokaukodem said:

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.

Click to expand...

There are several games where the only objective is city management, "Sim City", "Banished", "Settlers" and so on. It is a well established gaming formula.

If you want a game that is solely or mainly focused on war there are plenty of those, but you shouldn't call those who enjoy "city management" "casual gamers" just because it isn't your thing.

Killlbray said:

It seems to me that this is a somewhat biased perspective. You have your own preferences but you are talking like they are objective facts and you don't seem to realize that your criticisms apply equally well to what you like.

This is substantially "city management" VS "expansion". You say that city management is fun the first two times while expansion is always fun no matter how much you repeat it, why?

You say "wonderwhoring" I can say "settlerwhoring".

You say: "Building things, move a couple workers and place some units, replace your citizens, send your spies, set your trade routes" = boring

I can say: "Training units, move to the enemy city, attack, conquer, rinse and repeat for next 50 cities" = boring.


What is actually objectively boring in my opinion is the uninterrupted repetition of the same.

The fact that there are obstacles to expanding, means that you will alternate
between phases of expansions\conquering and phases of pure city management\improvement until you get the techs and social policies to expand again.

This enforces variety in contrast to a continuous uninterrupted cycle of the same.

Click to expand...

Seems like a very honest remark to me. But what I don't like in Civ5 is when you have little things to do, if not none, during several turns. At least with expansion and conquests, you have units to move, places to settle correctly, military units to move accordingly. Without them, I can end up pressing Enter in rows, and I really don't like it. If only there were means to speed up things in lower difficulty levels, because whatever you do in them you know you will win, the science victory is horrendously long to reach. I don't know, a system of victory points or get 500 more score points than the second civ, something like that.

Now it's true that i may be obtuse, because first i'm often blocked by global happiness, and second i have difficulties to appreciate the different bonuses, that I find not sharp enough, and i play the same way every time. But i didn't have those problems in Civ1/2/3, and would like so now. I have to say that Civ2 is A LOT easier than Civ5, because you could figure out pretty easily what was the best strategy, you could act towards it and it was predicted by the game elements. (settlers = expand, military units = conquer)

Now I feel that the game is a patchwork of different circumstancial flat bonuses that you should toy with in order to play as you want or in order to win. That's just not my cup of tea (you're right) and have no link with the historical dynamic of the game. And when you know the little tweaks every iteration is the object, one can say that Civ5 has totally passed near its subject. If yet it was full of groundbreaking, fun and exciting inventions, I could bare a philosophy change. But it's not the case.

If you think that war can be boring (I happen to feel that moving units is so because of 1UPT), then Civ5 failed in every aspect. Not only it's not interesting without war, but it's also boring with it.

All I want is an aspect of progression that I can control. In Civ5 you become a true science powerhouse only if you conquer a lot and fast. But you simply can't. Or I can't. Give me some other means to become powerfull, and i will happily use them. In the state the best you can do is building libraries, universities, public school and laboratories, for a minimal gain and through the whole time span of the game. Building also colosseums, zoos and stadium every time in every city. Same for markets, banks etc... in some games that even won't be enough.

To continue with your examples, why not having both expansion / war + managament in the same time ? Because that's what happen when you have to fight. It's not because you don't fight that you don't manage in the same time. The Civ strategy is even based on that : you have to make simple choices, should i build a unit here or a building ?

There are several games where the only objective is city management, "Sim City", "Banished", "Settlers" and so on. It is a well established gaming formula.

If you want a game that is solely or mainly focused on war there are plenty of those, but you shouldn't call those who enjoy "city management" "casual gamers" just because it isn't your thing.

Click to expand...

I like those game. But because there are dedicated to management only, they are fairly more detailled. You have actually things to do, manage, plan, etc... which is not the case of Civ !

Sorinth said:

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

Click to expand...

Why ? When everything wide, and wide + tall tends to be a lot better than just tall.

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

Click to expand...

I guess you wanted to say competitive. Because "tall" is feasible in every iteration. The problem is that the management of cities is not more detailled. So there is still little things to do.

Sorinth said:

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.

Click to expand...

I don't feel it like a pressure. I feel it as a decision, if i want to beat the highest difficulty levels easily.

Illianor123 said:

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.

Click to expand...

Well you must be one of those casual players I talk about above. If war wasn't one of the main goal of Civ, there would be much other things to do. As I already said, the only things you can do early are settlers, workers and units. It will not differ later.

Naokaukodem said:

Well you must be one of those casual players I talk about above. If war wasn't one of the main goal of Civ, there would be much other things to do. As I already said, the only things you can do early are settlers, workers and units. It will not differ later.

Click to expand...

If you think the only point of the early game is war and those are the only things you can build, then you are objectively wrong. There are actually buildings early in the game. Also workers and settlers aren't combat units, and building them doesn't cause war. Scout aren't really combat units, so of the things you can build at the beginning, most aren't fighting units, just the one warrior.

As you go, there are choices about which buildings to prioritise, and whether you need more units in case of an ai DOW (which in the higher levels they are very happy to do) to defend with. There are also city state quests. Worker management. Trading resources with the ai.

Also, 4/5 victory conditions don't require any warfare to complete.

I like how you are trying to use "casual gamer" as an insult, or at least as a dismissal. May I just ask how many hundreds of hours I need to stop being "casual?" Three hundred? Four hundred? A thousand? I mean just in CiV.

*edit
If you are struggling with the base game's happiness so much, then I suggest you get the Really Advanced Setup mod. You can start the game with Fountain of Youth next to you for 10 happiness, or even turn happiness off entirely.

Illianor123 said:

If you think the only point of the early game is war and those are the only things you can build, then you are objectively wrong. There are actually buildings early in the game. Also workers and settlers aren't combat units, and building them doesn't cause war. Scout aren't really combat units, so of the things you can build at the beginning, most aren't fighting units, just the one warrior.

Click to expand...

I don't think the only point of the early game is war, i think it's expansion. War comes a little later. That's it when buildings just need to be waited to completion with no other things to do than pressing Enter. At least building buildings can have a sense of achievment but with many cities, not max 5. You are happy when you finished building a building, yet not too much as their effects are limited of course.

As you go, there are choices about which buildings to prioritise, and whether you need more units in case of an ai DOW (which in the higher levels they are very happy to do) to defend with.

Click to expand...

I agree, particularly early, but once you got your army you just keep to upgrade it, although building units just to defend is frustrating. (have no sense? At least it's realistic lol)

There are also city state quests. Worker management. Trading resources with the ai.

Click to expand...

I don't find CS quest very interesting, especially when you do efforts in order to complete them and that to be hopeless unless you water them constantly with gold.

Worker management have been questionned multiple times, it's a good mean to make the player move things around but little strategy is tied with them, that's why some players suggested to remove them completely, what Firaxis never considered it seems.

As to trading things to the AI... there's no economic system, it's just annoying barter.

Also, 4/5 victory conditions don't require any warfare to complete.

Click to expand...

That's where the victory system is irrelevant. It does not represent Civ particularities well, it's mostly a smoke screen.

I like how you are trying to use "casual gamer" as an insult, or at least as a dismissal. May I just ask how many hundreds of hours I need to stop being "casual?" Three hundred? Four hundred? A thousand? I mean just in CiV.

Click to expand...

I have probably more than 1000 hours of Civ5 but still can't beat immortal. I'm playing it really to kill time on lower difficulty levels. So no, playing time is not relevant. It's just the way you play the game. No, i don't mean to insult you, it's just to underline a way of playing. I already described it : where you don't want to involve too much. I think Civ5 is the perfect game in order to do so. Pushing buttons, moving things, do stuff. Well, casual.

*edit
If you are struggling with the base game's happiness so much, then I suggest you get the Really Advanced Setup mod. You can start the game with Fountain of Youth next to you for 10 happiness, or even turn happiness off entirely.

Click to expand...

I didn't now this mod allowed to turn happiness off. Actually i looked for a mod that remove happiness but couldn't find the post where a guy once put the link, and i don't have success with the search engine. Thanks for the mod name.