I'm feeling over-bonused

Denkt said:

Maybe you should be able to create a own civ which you pick bonuses and penalaties for. That system could use a point system which positives cost amount of points depending on how good they are while negatives give you points depeding on how bad they are.

This idea probably have been sugested many times but I just wanted to ad it here.

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Hmmm... I had been thinking of this for quite some time, but unfortunately I feel the civs lack enough bonuses to make penalties worthwile. Each civ has only 1 ability, and 2UU/UB, meaning that without those each civ is mearly a blank template with a name and a leader attached. This is important to note, as it means that even though certain civs are better at certain things, and benifit from certain strategies, they can still go for any of the victory types unencumbered. This means that in the rare games when I have to say "okay, my culture per turn isn't keeping up with babylons technological advancement, I have to take his capitol, and in doing so go through 4 cities. By the time I do that, I'll have 5 new city state allies, as babylon was a huge bully... May as well go for diplo." I don't have to take into account "Right! My egyptian troops have a 20% combat penalty in foreign territorry!" I only have to account for my advantages, and his advantages, I don't have to throw into account wht these countries are bad at. I do believe penalties should be applied, I don't feel civilizations are where it should added. And as for india, you might add? It's penalty encumbers none of the victory types, as the cities will quickly equalize and means that even a domination victory is easily possible. I still don't approve of the indian ability, but at least it doesn't harm anything.

Denkt said:

Maybe you should be able to create a own civ which you pick bonuses and penalaties for. That system could use a point system which positives cost amount of points depending on how good they are while negatives give you points depeding on how bad they are.

This idea probably have been sugested many times but I just wanted to ad it here.

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That's a very interesting idea. With the AI as it is today I doubt that it could make good use of the feature. The bonuses and penalties would almost certainly have to be tweaked lest we wind up with "cookbook" civs for each victory condition.

Andulias said:

How's about you first play the game and then dismiss features, m'kay? Everyone hated corruption in III. Everybody loved governments in 2. You simply have no idea what we are talking about, so don't jump to conclusions like that. And saying that old games have faulty mechanics by default is wrong on so many levels that I just don't know where to start.

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You should try reading my post first. before responding to it brah.

Andulias said:

You miss the point. This isn't about choosing bad things, it's about choosing two good things that also have a negative. It's not fun and it feels bad? I wonder why it worked so well in Civ 2 then.

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It is my recollection that in the early discussions of Civ 5 it was emphasized that the game would be built on the philosphy that players do not enjoy penalties, but that having to choose between two different bonuses was enjoyable. Some hard core Civ players seem very upset, even offended, by that concept. I see repeated affirmation of that concept in many gamers that I know, as well as many folk in this forum.

I suspect that is is a very subjective point about what is fun. Being able to prove it one way or another is unlikely. Authoritative declarations are mostly bombast. I suspect that those who find penalties as fun challenges will be finding themselves to be further and further a niche market. Hopefully, I am wrong, but....

eris said:

It is my recollection that in the early discussions of Civ 5 it was emphasized that the game would be built on the philosphy that players do not enjoy penalties, but that having to choose between two different bonuses was enjoyable. Some hard core Civ players seem very upset, even offended, by that concept. I see repeated affirmation of that concept in many gamers that I know, as well as many folk in this forum.

I suspect that is is a very subjective point about what is fun. Being able to prove it one way or another is unlikely. Authoritative declarations are mostly bombast. I suspect that those who find penalties as fun challenges will be finding themselves to be further and further a niche market. Hopefully, I am wrong, but....

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Thank God. Somebody with a brain. Its not even just video games anymore, even developement for TCG's has begun to take this route, with a rule of "no picking between penalites".

Denkt said:

Maybe you should be able to create a own civ which you pick bonuses and penalaties for. That system could use a point system which positives cost amount of points depending on how good they are while negatives give you points depeding on how bad they are.

This idea probably have been sugested many times but I just wanted to ad it here.

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Master of Orion 2 does that, but with that system you can't really have unique abilities because everything has to be module and interchangeable and balenced with everything else, which they never quite got right so I had a mod that did it better.

eris said:

It is my recollection that in the early discussions of Civ 5 it was emphasized that the game would be built on the philosphy that players do not enjoy penalties, but that having to choose between two different bonuses was enjoyable. Some hard core Civ players seem very upset, even offended, by that concept. I see repeated affirmation of that concept in many gamers that I know, as well as many folk in this forum.

I suspect that is is a very subjective point about what is fun. Being able to prove it one way or another is unlikely. Authoritative declarations are mostly bombast. I suspect that those who find penalties as fun challenges will be finding themselves to be further and further a niche market. Hopefully, I am wrong, but....

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The only time I remember picking a penalty as being fun is in Master of Orion 2, but that's because the game was so easy the way I'd normally play, with 'creative' pick to get all tech applications so I instead got 'uncreative' do get random tech applications.

Esperr said:

Thank God. Somebody with a brain. Its not even just video games anymore, even developement for TCG's has begun to take this route, with a rule of "no picking between penalites".

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Fall of Rome disagrees with you!

Callonia said:

Fall of Rome disagrees with you!

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Obviously there are exceptions, but its the modern trend of things, look at FPS's now, there even starting to reward you for "dying".

I'm a huge fan of attaching drawbacks to powerful effects. When preparation is required to prepare for said drawbacks, acquiring the bonuses becomes that much more satisfying. The persecution civic in Sword of Islam (a Civ IV mod) is a a great example of this sort of mechanic:

+50% Espionage in all cities, +2 unhappiness per non-state religion present in a city

If you're unfamiliar with the mod, it is not uncommon for 4 or 5 religions to be present in a given city, so without proper setup the penalty to happiness can very nearly offset the advantages of substantially increased espionage generation. This makes the decision compelling.


Another example along the same vane is the Scientific Method tech from Civ IV; the penalty of simultaneous obsolescence of monasteries and a number of important wonders can mean a massive hit to your economy, particularly if you've invested heavily in religion. On the one hand you want the powerful effects of the techs that SM is gatekeeper to (Biology, Communism, Physics->Electricity), but it can be a pretty bitter pill to swallow losing the GL and so many productive religious buildings. However, it is possible to keep your econ strong by delaying SM as long as possible while you go for other techs, saving up bulbs to power through the SM follow ups, or simply trading for them with other civs. In any event, the idea is to enable your econ to rebound as quickly as possible by grabbing biology and/or communism, and I always find it very entertaining to analyse my options at this point in the game.

It is my recollection that in the early discussions of Civ 5 it was emphasized that the game would be built on the philosphy that players do not enjoy penalties, but that having to choose between two different bonuses was enjoyable.

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I remember this as well, and still believe as I did then, that it's way too monolithic a philosophy. The notion that presence of penalties and bonuses are somehow mutually exclusive, and that proper design means ensuring no decision carries with it any drawback other than opportunity cost strikes me as frankly absurd. It is infinitely more interesting to me to wrangle with systems that have the potential to be mismanaged in spectacular fashion, rather than simply managed to a lesser degree of efficiency.

Steamwerks said:

I remember this as well, and still believe as I did then, that it's way too monolithic a philosophy. The notion that presence of penalties and bonuses are somehow mutually exclusive, and that proper design means ensuring no decision carries with it any drawback other than opportunity cost strikes me as frankly absurd. It is infinitely more interesting to me to wrangle with systems that have the potential to be mismanaged in spectacular fashion, rather than simply managed to a lesser degree of efficiency.

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I don't see it as deciding that penalties and opportunity cost are mutually exclusive, as making a design decision to focus on the more strategic consideration - opportunity cost. When you add penalties and bonuses to an ability/unit etc., the player's focus tends to be on selecting between abilities based on how relatively severe the penalties are perceived to be, rather than on which is more valuable strategically.

I think a lot of it might have to do with consistancy to, making the game expierience smoother by only having bonuses, whereas it might get confusing and complex if some things have bonuses and some have penalites.

I don't really think it is the penalty itself that is the thing that gamers mostly hate. (I mean really, if you didn't choose the better out of two choices in a game, usually you are being "penalized" or as the posters call "opportunity cost")

I think its more of the loss of control over a game that comes with randomness sometimes. Like when you get a really bad start area with little resources. Or when your uber tank dies to a spearman. (sadly this was fixed in this version of Civ )

Anyways, more to the point of the OP just look at Gandhi's traits, it lets you halve unhappiness from people. However, in return for double unhappiness from the number of cities. That is surely a drawback to using the civ, yet it lets players play in a different style.

Of course, I think it'd be better if it wasn't just choosing a penalty for the governments. Some kind of reward would be nice. It makes a lot more sense with "if I get this, I lose this", rather than just choosing a pure penalty.

binhthuy71 said:

That's a very interesting idea. With the AI as it is today I doubt that it could make good use of the feature. The bonuses and penalties would almost certainly have to be tweaked lest we wind up with "cookbook" civs for each victory condition.

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The problem with a point system is min-maxing, as you mentioned. It would be very easy for someone to cripple themselves one way, which the computer would see as a BIG FLAW, and give them a tonne of bonus points, only for the player to have neutralised the penalty through sneaky gameplay.

Endless Space (a similar civvy game) has a points system. In which its very easy to min-max.

+50% cash cost for hero abilities? you get an extra 6 points! for abilities rarely used and not even vital for play.

To show relative values, increasing science by 1 per population point is about 10 points if I remember correctly.

EDIT: I do think civs should be made more unique. with up to 3 unique abilities. But that's because I'm a huge sucker for lotsa flavour and special rules.
One of these special rules should be a penalty though, like "Dark ages: -10% science when unhappy" or "Tribal succession: -10% strength when unhappy. Does not stack with -10 happiness strength penalty"

And maybe another UU and UB per civ... 4 each...
3 special rules, 4 UU/UB

PhilBowles said:

I don't see it as deciding that penalties and opportunity cost are mutually exclusive, as making a design decision to focus on the more strategic consideration - opportunity cost.

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I didn't say this, however. What I did suggest is that they seem to think penalties and bonuses are mutually exclusive; this view is spurious because really they both lay upon the same axis, and lend shape to an object or ability in functionally similar ways. However, by defining objects in both the positive and the negative, you add an additional twist to the analysis which I find engaging. On the subject of opportunity cost, I don't think this is really something you need to actively emphasize or focus on, and certainly not as an alternative to penalties. As long as the various options presented to the player are remotely comparable in effectiveness, opportunity cost will naturally arise from the tension of competing strategic goals; trying to cultivate this by removing penalties is a completely superfluous effort.

PhilBowles said:

When you add penalties and bonuses to an ability/unit etc., the player's focus tends to be on selecting between abilities based on how relatively severe the penalties are perceived to be, rather than on which is more valuable strategically.

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This tendency would simply be poor analysis on the part of the player then. What a good player will do is size up the bonuses and penalties presented, determine their short and long term strategic impact, and make their choice accordingly. Penalties simply add variety to some of the variables that inform strategic decision making.