Has Firaxis finally learned to balance the game?

Infiltrator

Warlord
Joined
Sep 13, 2009
Messages
293
Don't take me wrong, I love playing the civ series, but balance has always, ALWAYS been the last thing I can associate them with.

Whether it is a leader having very obvious bonuses that are useful in almost any circumstance, or one being utterly useless, traits that make very little strategic viability (Defensive, anyone?), unit or unit promotion (shock?) - civilization has always made me question.. what the *blip* were they THINKING??

I know the game can't be perfectly balanced. But you could just do a quick glance at the leaders/civ traits and deduct which ones were in a very clear advantage over the other - and I'm talking about while factoring in the map variance (islands, mass forests etc.). Some civs/leaders/traits/units/civics/etc. were flat out gimped compared to others, regardless of circumstances.

Even after patches, little was solved, and the glaring problems plague the game up to this day as far as official patches go.

So I looked at some civ traits from civ 5 and there you go, they've done it again.. I know, I haven't tried the game. But I look at the Ottoman civ trait and compare it to.. say.. Russia. Oh my God. How is that sea barbarian thing EVER going to make up for mass production? I want someone from Firaxis to explain to me how can this make sense to ANYONE..
 
In a multiplayer game with similar opponents, their might be an issue with such disparities. Otherwise, the greatest equalizer is the quirks of geography. Would you prefer everyone to have the same (or no) traits at all? We haven't played the game yet, perhaps as the Turks you would stomp the Russkis (at the difficulty of your choice, of course). Or perhaps Arabia would have a production powerhouse to combine with their abundance of oil ... or not.

Personally, I would like software to evolve to the point where traits may vary over time, depending on circumstances
 
I know the game can't be perfectly balanced. But you could just do a quick glance at the leaders/civ traits and deduct which ones were in a very clear advantage over the other - and I'm talking about while factoring in the map variance (islands, mass forests etc.). Some civs/leaders/traits/units/civics/etc. were flat out gimped compared to others, regardless of circumstances.

I don't think you can determine this "at a glance" since there are a lot of factors involved, including not having played the game yet. In threads that ask which is stronger, there's usually a lot of variance, because play style, goals, and how one might use particular bonuses can weigh heavily into what is best.

Maybe for YOUR style there's a clearly best leader or whatever, but that's why there's variety, so everyone can something to like.

I can look at some civs or units or techs or whatever and think to myself, this seems weak - but it's mostly due to my style and knowing what works for me.

I'm sure some of the stuff IS on the weak side, but variety is good, it means sometimes the AIs and you won't all be evenly matched - there will be underdogs or victims. Kinda like the realism some are always wanting to see.
 
its not as important for single player, but i don't personally like to be urged into playing only one or two civs, i like to be able to pick any civ without feeling hard done by, so an attempt at balance should be made.
 
The one UA that really sticks out by looking pretty terrible is the Ottoman UA.
 
Wait, what are the Roman UU's powers?

The Legionnaire looks like a souped up Swordsman with the ability to build roads and forts on the go while ballistas look like they're a catapult-replacement with a much more powerful Ranged Attack.
 
Ah, I'll take an instant-heal Musketman and a 5 move super-pillager any day.

My games will be:

England>Iroquois>Ottomans>Japan>Rome>China>America>Persia>Arabia>Aztec>Egypt>Germany>Siam>Songhai>Russia>France>India

Dunno about Babylon and D2D civs. (Spain/Mongolia :please: )
 
Ah, I'll take an instant-heal Musketman and a 5 move super-pillager any day.

My games will be:

England>Iroquois>Ottomans>Japan>Rome>China>America>Persia>Arabia>Aztec>Egypt>Germany>Siam>Songhai>Russia>France>India

Dunno about Babylon and D2D civs. (Spain/Mongolia :please: )

The instant-heal only works if you're pushing the offensive and winning and the 5 move upser-pillager is a poor defender and with the Roman UA, any losses can be replaced fast sooner or later anyway.
 
I WILL be on the offensive and I WILL be winning, due to the fact that I'll be on a very low difficulty, to get a good taste of the game's many aspects. Plus I love blitzing opponents.
 
The instant-heal only works if you're pushing the offensive and winning and the 5 move upser-pillager is a poor defender and with the Roman UA, any losses can be replaced fast sooner or later anyway.

If you're not on the offensive and not winning, you're probably losing. Wow that sounded like the worst tautology ever, but you know what I mean. We'll have to see how pillaging shakes down.

I really don't think the Roman SA will have that huge of an effect on building up your army. Since cities will likely be highly specialized (more so than Civ IV by quite a bit), your production cities will get their few ancient/classical production buildings up a little faster. Maybe you'll have an extra unit. Where it should really come into play is in a "sum of small things" level; you're getting out units a little earlier, you're boosting your commerce a little quicker, etc.

I do agree that Ballistae look amazing, but I'm not so sure on Legions. Yes they're 2 stronger than swords and their infrastructure abilities are nice, but you're only going to have that 2 extra strength as many times as you have iron resources, which given how restrictive strategic resource reserves are may not be that many times. That's why I think UUs that eliminate the resource requirement like Camel Archers and War Chariots have a huge leg up on Legions, and UUs like the Phalanx and Immortal that upgrade non-resourced units have a smaller, but still noticeable, advantage.

Plus, Ballistae and Legions compete for Iron. Which is really a bummer in my opinion. But that strength bonus on the ballista is so huge that maybe it'll make up for the more limited nature of the UUs.
 
It seems like most people are discounting the fact that both of Rome's UUs require the same resource in the same age.

You'll only have as much iron as you have by that point in the game. Having more balista means less legions and visa versa.
 
Which situation is preferable:

A) 6 Civilizations; all "balanced"

B) 12 Civiliations; 6 "balanced" toward each other and the other 6, which are "balanced" fairly well generally and, with the proper circumstances, can even fare better than the 6 "balanced" civilzations

As others have pointed out I can get the whole balance thing for MP but that can be solved by allowing multiple players to choose the same civ/leader. Or just provide an option to remove all special abilities/units/buildings. Or just restrict the too-powerful leaders; if someone really wants to play one of "weaker" options so be it.

For single player I do like having some inherent variation in the opponents to help make each game provide a different set and degree of challenge without need to change the difficulty level. If you really want the - in your own opinion - "balanced" civs then just go custom game and pick those which you feel are balanced against each other. Basically choose option A from the above.

Modding is always an option for those that want to speed up the interative process that "balancing" requires. What would be great, however, is if there were some way for the game to capture both qualitative and quantative information in order to give an overall "power" rating for the different civilizations - normalized across various staring locations (position relative to human, coast/non-coast, opposition AI + location, etc...). I have no idea what kind of system Firaxis has to judge "balance" but making that more transparent would be something to consider.

One last random/late-night thought would be to have "balance mods" that can be chosen that simply attempt to further refine the balance of the game. Players could opt-in to be a "balance tester" where they would be assigned a random "balance mod". The "rating" system from the last section would then be able to compare the different balance mods and choose one for the next official patch; at which time another set of balance mods could be devised and the process repeated.
 
Which situation is preferable:

A) 6 Civilizations; all "balanced"

B) 12 Civiliations; 6 "balanced" toward each other and the other 6, which are "balanced" fairly well generally and, with the proper circumstances, can even fare better than the 6 "balanced" civilzations

C) game designed to be balanced toward the "core 6" and additional 6 intersting but doesnt break game option (and may be weaker as result) is always better.

If you design a game around 6, and have 6 more thats better, it breaks the game.
 
I honestly do not think that it would be possible to balance all of the civs against each other: some are always going to do better under some game settings than others.

A civ with early uniques will do better on smaller maps; as map size increases, the later military uniques become more valuable.

Balancing military uniques with economic/diplomatic/cultural uniques will always be difficult. Military uniques are useless in always peace games, but are stronger in always war games or games with raging barbarians. Diplomatic uniques (Greece Songhai) are stronger in games with more City States. Germany and the Ottomans will do better in raging barbarian games.
 
Balancing military uniques with economic/diplomatic/cultural uniques will always be difficult. Military uniques are useless in always peace games, but are stronger in always war games or games with raging barbarians. Diplomatic uniques (Greece Songhai) are stronger in games with more City States. Germany and the Ottomans will do better in raging barbarian games.

Hey, how dare you ruin our perfectly legit boiling down of a complex set of variables to a simple "X > Y" with your silly talk of circumstances! Next you'll be telling us that whether a civ starts out being strangled by neighbors or has any strategic resources nearby will determine how you should play it instead of just looking at it's special ability! Bah!

:mischief:
 
Perish the thought! The unique ability of your civ is clearly the only factor which determines success. . . :mischief:
 
Has Firaxis finally learned to balance the game?
Whether it is a leader having very obvious bonuses that are useful in almost any circumstance, or one being utterly useless, traits that make very little strategic viability (Defensive, anyone?), unit or unit promotion (shock?) - civilization has always made me question.. what the *blip* were they THINKING??

I know the game can't be perfectly balanced. But you could just do a quick glance at the leaders/civ traits and deduct which ones were in a very clear advantage over the other - and I'm talking about while factoring in the map variance (islands, mass forests etc.). Some civs/leaders/traits/units/civics/etc. were flat out gimped compared to others, regardless of circumstances.
Welcome to CivFanatics, Infiltrator. :)

How the *blip* do you expect anyone to be able to answer your question about whether Firaxis learnt to balance 5 weeks before the game comes out? :gripe:

The whole point of the UU's in Civ5 is that they are unique and different, and I like it that way. It's not a bug, it's a feature. It would be totally boring if it didn't matter which Civ you picked because all had an equal chance of winning anyway. Given that certain bonusses are map or environment related, economical, military of related to diplomacy, that makes it impossible to benchmark them to a single basis of equillibrium.

Plus the "you could just do a quick glance at the leaders/civ traits" doesn't do justice to the continuous incremental design that takes place at Firaxis. They play the game for hours to find out how traits and effects play out, what the exact strength vs price or units has to be, etc. We have seen in the screenshots that UA's, wonder effects, building and unit properties keep changing because they are tweaking the overall balance of the game. :coffee:
 
Top Bottom