Civ5- A Whole New Civ

Hail · Aug 31, 2009

Argetnyx said:
All good, but keep the UUs, it adds variety to the game.

UU's are a constraint. i dislike constraints, however adding variety by incorporating dead end techs that would give unit(s) better then the "generic" would be cool.
as an example: Swordsmen [Iron Working] -> Legionnaire [Military Training] -> Samurai [Bushido] or Knight [Chivalry]. of course Knight => Samurai > Legionnaire > Swordsmen. adding choices enhances gameplay. and i am a firm believer, that civ is about rewriting history, not being a history course.

techathon said:
It helps the strategy, for example, if you are being attacked by Rome, in the iron age you know they will use more of their UU that replaces swordsman, so you build more axemen to combat that. Same goes with byristine and their UU, you build more pikemen. More UUs would help strategy a little more.

really? Rome will always use it's UU if it has iron available. UU's existence is forcing you to use them. UU's are a constraint. additionally i do not see how nobrainers help strategy. however.. see answer to previous quote. more UU's and UB's [if the UB will have requirements like a river in adjacent to city tile] will force you play in a certain way to take advantage of the UU's and UB's.

techathon said:
I also think they should change the beginning to something more like the stone age mod where you start as nomads. In real life, people would have taken a while to settle down as nomads, so why not put that in the game...

the idea of nomadic life is interesting, however it's addition to civ would require a reworking of the terrain system, as nomads where always on the move, because they depleted the area where they lived and grazed cattle, and had to move on next season. once again i must stress, that civ is not a history book "From 4000 B.C. to Present Day".

Naokaukodem · Sep 1, 2009

rysmiel said:
How does "you have this one UU and that's it" improve the variety of the game compared to "here are 30 more units that anyone can have if they develop the appropriate tech" ?

He already said it to you. It does NOT improve ingame strategy, but game to game strategy. It is made, obviously, for replayability.

Nothing prevents you to have 30 units per era + UUs for the replayability. (but it won't happen, there's too little room for varied units within a simple battle system such Civs ones)

Naokaukodem · Sep 1, 2009

Hail said:
UU's existence is forcing you to use them. UU's are a constraint.

They may be a constraint, but not in that sense. Indeed, the UUs are always superior to the standard units, so using them or the standard units is a no brainer.

Camikaze · Sep 1, 2009

I would not class UUs as a constraint. They may be a constraint in a particular game in the immediate sense, but as a feature of Civ as a whole, they provide more variety, with greater possibilities through play as different civs.

rysmiel · Sep 1, 2009

Camikaze said:
I would not class UUs as a constraint. They may be a constraint in a particular game in the immediate sense, but as a feature of Civ as a whole, they provide more variety, with greater possibilities through play as different civs.

I still don't get this argument, I am afraid.

On the one hand, you have the option of knowing that every time you start as game as the Vikings you'll have one set of traits, and every time you start as the Indians you'll have another.

On the other, you have the option of knowing that every time you start a game, you can pick whichever set of "traits" you like by how you play and the choices you make.

The available options, replay after replay, are far more in the second situation than in the first. If you know you feel like a militaristic game - ie, if you're someone who isn't me - you play militaristically and you get the relevant bonuses, rather than picking a militaristic Civ. At worst there's no difference, and at best you can change your mind part way through as need be.

Naokaukodem · Sep 1, 2009

You are mixing things up. Of course if you talk about adaptative traits, that's another story. But we were about units there... :rolleyes:

rysmiel · Sep 1, 2009

Naokaukodem said:
You are mixing things up. Of course if you talk about adaptative traits, that's another story. But we were about units there...

It's exactly the same argument.

Being stuck with a UU from the beginning is a constraint, and one that may not fit the game you end up in.

Adapting your strategy to what you find, including tech development in the direction of specific units that you find useful, is replayable flexibility.

The only way I can grok UUs actually adding to replay value is if you are bored enough with exploring all the other options in the game to need to deliberately handicap yourself to find it fun. Which is not a state I have reached with any Civ game yet - one city challenge, which I play from time to time, is the only constrained version of the game that has any appeal for me, and that's because sometimes I only have a couple of hours free for Civ in a few weeks and would prefer not to leave a reasonably sized game hanging that long, not because I don't actually like playing regular games.

Gooblah · Sep 1, 2009

New Unit AI/button: Rendezvous

If I select a land unit, I should be able to click on ANY land tile in the known world for it to move to. The closest ship to the point at which it leaves its continent, while in Rendezvous mode (much like Sentry or Sea Patrol) should automatically move to that point, pick up the soldier, and ship it to the other continent, where the land unit will continue on its way.

Hail · Sep 1, 2009

Gooblah said:
New Unit AI/button: Rendezvous

If I select a land unit, I should be able to click on ANY land tile in the known world for it to move to. The closest ship to the point at which it leaves its continent, while in Rendezvous mode (much like Sentry or Sea Patrol) should automatically move to that point, pick up the soldier, and ship it to the other continent, where the land unit will continue on its way.

sounds like the "Win for me" button.

Camikaze · Sep 2, 2009

rysmiel said:
I still don't get this argument, I am afraid.

On the one hand, you have the option of knowing that every time you start as game as the Vikings you'll have one set of traits, and every time you start as the Indians you'll have another.

On the other, you have the option of knowing that every time you start a game, you can pick whichever set of "traits" you like by how you play and the choices you make.

The available options, replay after replay, are far more in the second situation than in the first. If you know you feel like a militaristic game - ie, if you're someone who isn't me - you play militaristically and you get the relevant bonuses, rather than picking a militaristic Civ. At worst there's no difference, and at best you can change your mind part way through as need be.

What Naokaukodem said, basically.

But I'll play along for traits. A more deterministic approach to this (whereby you physically choose traits rather than earning throughout the course of a game), would inevitably result in the use of more options. If you are given free choice in every game, you will invariably tend towards the same strategy, as a force of habit. But if you pigeon-hole yourself at the start of the game, you are actually opening up more possibilities for yourself, because it means you will use an alternate strategy. Additionally, you are not actually forced to utilise to the greatest extent the traits you are endowed with. For example, you could be a militaristic Gandhi. The traits are merely a bonus towards a particular strategy. They don't force you to follow that path.

Naokaukodem · Sep 2, 2009

rysmiel said:
It's exactly the same argument.

Being stuck with a UU from the beginning is a constraint, and one that may not fit the game you end up in.

Adapting your strategy to what you find, including tech development in the direction of specific units that you find useful, is replayable flexibility.

The difference is in that you can have 30 units per era AND a UU. But 30 units per era won't happen, because as I said it early, there is no room in the Civ unit ans battle mechanics for 30 units per era.

Considering this, I can argue that 30 civs and their UUs, UBs and traits are ALREADY 30 possibilities to achieve victory in different ways. And like said Camikaze, they are not a limitation since you still can use them (the civs) normally.

Hail · Sep 2, 2009

Camikaze said:
If you are given free choice in every game, you will invariably tend towards the same strategy, as a force of habit. But if you pigeon-hole yourself at the start of the game, you are actually opening up more possibilities for yourself, ...

the game is forcing you to think open-midedly! :thumbsup:

Naokaukodem said:
Considering this, I can argue that 30 civs and their UUs, UBs and traits are ALREADY 30 possibilities to achieve victory in different ways. And like said Camikaze, they are not a limitation since you still can use them (the civs) normally.

30 possibilities to win in 1 game? or in 30 games, playing a different civ every time?

Naokaukodem · Sep 2, 2009

Hail said:
30 possibilities to win in 1 game? or in 30 games, playing a different civ every time?

In 1 game, since you have to choose which civ to play in order to play 1 game. You have, at start, 30 (i think it is more, I don't remember the number of civs available with BtS) different possibilities to play more or less in a particular way.

moscaverde · Sep 2, 2009

And you're not limited by the trait/UU. UUs don't last forever and traits are very generalistic, they aways help. Maybe it's me but when I start a game I never know what strategy I will use.

rysmiel · Sep 2, 2009

Camikaze said:
If you are given free choice in every game, you will invariably tend towards the same strategy, as a force of habit. But if you pigeon-hole yourself at the start of the game, you are actually opening up more possibilities for yourself, because it means you will use an alternate strategy.

It doesn't seem to me that players who like more than one way of playing aren't capable of deciding "I feel like a cultural victory/one-city challenge/spaceship win/early world conquest today" for themselves; nor does it seem to me that if you have players who only ever want to play for, say, conquest (the poor dear misguided souls) that the game should be forcing them to play in ways they don't like, or alternatively, artificially handicapping their ability to play the way they do like. I don't see how either of these lead to better replayability, and the suggestion that players will tend to the same thing by force of habit regardless of what they actually want or consider fun is a bit insulting, really.

rysmiel · Sep 2, 2009

Naokaukodem said:
The difference is in that you can have 30 units per era AND a UU. But 30 units per era won't happen, because as I said it early, there is no room in the Civ unit ans battle mechanics for 30 units per era.

Yes, and I have explained before how this does not have to be the case.

rysmiel · Sep 2, 2009

Naokaukodem said:
The difference is in that you can have 30 units per era AND a UU..

Also, 30 units per era and a UU is still less choice than 30 units per era and your choice of whichever of the set of what would otherwise be UUs are useful in the situation you find yourself in.

moscaverde · Sep 2, 2009

If you take out the uniqueness of the civs, why having then after all. Whats the point of playing against Napoleon, if he dislikes conquering or chooses cultural victory from the early in the game (AI).

rysmiel · Sep 2, 2009

moscaverde said:
If you take out the uniqueness of the civs, why having then after all. Whats the point of playing against Napoleon, if he dislikes conquering or chooses cultural victory from the early in the game (AI).

I'm not saying take out the uniqueness of the other civs. I am saying implement it as strategic preferences and personality, not UUs and traits. I am also saying let the human player be adaptive.

Myself, I'd prefer every civ being adaptive, so you would indeed not know whether Napoleon was going for a cultural victory; and I'd prefer not to have leader names or real cultures linked to your opponents at all. But I know most people don't sympathise with this.

deanej · Sep 2, 2009

As Soren Johnson said, civ is fun because they name names. And that option already exists: it's called random personalities.

Civ5- A Whole New Civ

Satan's minion

Millenary King

Millenary King

Administrator

Emperor

Millenary King

Emperor

Heh...

Satan's minion

Administrator

Millenary King

Satan's minion

Millenary King

Prince

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Prince

Emperor

Deity

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