Death of Conventional Strategies? [11/18 Patch Notes]

If you want to work around, it will be available, and if you don't want to micro, you don't have to. Sounds fine to me.



Huh? Why resent it if it doesn't impact you?

It does not impact the outcome, just makes the way to get there more tedious.

May I turn your argument against you and say: If you want to pick your social policies immediately because you feel saving up is cheesy, you can. But if you want to save them and sacrifice short-term bonuses to follow a different strategy, you don't have to. Sounds fine to me. Clearly, if we are talking about refraining from good play because we don't like the alternative, the argument will get nowhere ;)
 
Huh? Why resent it if it doesn't impact you?

I assume it's because he dislikes the "This technique is too effective, so you can't do it anymore." method of tweaking a game. It removes choices, and it doesn't even come with a free frogurt.

Personally, I'd much rather that the solution be more like, "it'll cost you more than it used to", "you can't do it as quickly", or "it's not as effective". Now it is simply, "No."

Instead of being able to make our first pick from ten social policies, we can now choose from three, and it has to happen by turn 25, whether we want it or not. Maybe that's when the great comet of governmental change flies past the planet or something.
 
I assume it's because he dislikes the "This technique is too effective, so you can't do it anymore." method of tweaking a game. It removes choices, and it doesn't even come with a free frogurt.

Personally, I'd much rather that the solution be more like, "it'll cost you more than it used to", "you can't do it as quickly", or "it's not as effective". Now it is simply, "No."

Instead of being able to make our first pick from ten social policies, we can now choose from three, and it has to happen by turn 25, whether we want it or not. Maybe that's when the great comet of governmental change flies past the planet or something.
Hah, actually you can race your first policy pick with ICS. I've settled a new city before turn 25 on occasion (if you have a 3f tile, you can do it), which will give you another twenty turns. If you play your cards right you can buy another settler before those 20 turns run out and then your ICS ball should soon start rolling. Not that I mind choosing liberty but it might actually be fun to try to race your pick as long as possible.

This reminds me, I have to finish my zero-culture Iroquois game before the patch renders it impossible.
 
thats simply not true, and i posted even screens here to show the opposite.

but if you want culture in the modern era you must focus in modern times also on culture. imho this is the way the game should work.

i could you also show a game where i played with monti as warmonger and got both order and autocracy from his own UA, plus honor in ancient times. of course i only got 3-4 trees left before i won by domination but i did use all the SoPos right away. imho thats the way it should be not otherwise.
I suppose what you mean to be false is this:
I know that winning a cultural victory under these terms is a difficult chore.
The rest is true because I say what I think, so that's about the only thing left ;)
If you posted screens, then a link would help, since I won't try to look for all your posts if you want to make a point.
I say it's a chore because to me it feels like one. So yes it's a painful chore to me. I feel you basically have to prevent yourself from winning another way instead of actively trying to win, because jsut to stay alive, you'll have to have a strong enough army or you'll easily have enough gold to buy a diplo victory anyway.
 
Hah, actually you can race your first policy pick with ICS. I've settled a new city before turn 25 on occasion (if you have a 3f tile, you can do it), which will give you another twenty turns. If you play your cards right you can buy another settler before those 20 turns run out and then your ICS ball should soon start rolling. Not that I mind choosing liberty but it might actually be fun to try to race your pick as long as possible.

Yeah, good point.

So, we can keep popping the occasional settler and sending them off to the tundra. When we get to the Renaissance, we give/sell those cities away and sling rifles as usual. Fun.
 
It's not about the designer's intent, it's about our expectations as players. We expect the game to unfold in a certain way. A cultural victory before transoceanic travel? That just doesn't make sense.
Then why did they design a tech tree that gives you Mechanized Infantry w/o Rifles? :lol:

I agree that I find the *idea* of managing a civilization through the eons very appealing, but I still don't see that excusing stick-vs-carrot design solutions.
 
Actually i dont see any problems with this patch-notes.

I only expect new approaches to arise. Some fun strategies to come out when some of us will try this out on live.

Cant save policies? Big deal, we'll work around, more planning fun incoming.
Actually this sounds like a nerf to the bottom line branches. So encourages me to expand early and quicky, choosing 1-2 policies from honor/tradition/liberty. Bad news are itll be an obvious choice depending on the victory type.

Cant save promotions? Nice one, something for real finally. Seeing my warrior getting "level" then waiting for a magical instaheal for 25 turns makes me cry. More choices to made for me actually, more fun to play the game.

As i wrote somewhere, I hope they nerf libraries to the ground unless they nerf GSs in the way
Paeanblack wrote.
At the moment number of early scientific slots just too high compared to any other GPs. And libraries comes way to earlier compared to temples/workshops/markets. Kinda silly since GSs are already overdemanded and overrated in civ5.

The most interesting thing for me is how they will nerf marytimes. Being total powerhouse atm, marytimes are the core part of any popular/efficient strategy atm.
Dunno if we gotta pay the price double or triple to acquire the same result. Anyway thats a small and hidden buff for scouting and scouts themselves.
Speaking of, "Multiple unit upgrade track adjustments. Most (but not all) units now have a full upgrade path from start to finish" means they can get some love if they get lucky :)

And finally, I dont expect Firaxis to nerf horsmen to the ground. Maybe like -2 strenght nerf and like -25% attack vs cities. Even if it will be -50% vs cities its just be a bit slower though doable with instaheal/great general and some points in honor branch.
 
I'm very unhappy with the change that forces you to immediately spend SP points, and not to happy about the forced unit promotions either.

Civ V has made me very weary about building units, buildings and roads due to upkeep and now I'll also be actively avoiding getting cultural points and experience points. This is getting crazy. I'm actually avoiding things that should be fun and rewarded.

Good play and fun play seem to be moving further and further away from each other.
 
The changes look great. If you play the game the way it was intended to be played, the forced promotions and social policies doesnt even matter. That's how it was meant to be done.
 
The problem with science and science buildings is not the cost of the buildings nor the GS slots.
It's the cost of techs compared to units and buildings in general, that you can instantly jump ahead, effectively skipping a whole era, with a few GS and the other GPs are such useless compared.

And wasn't this the game that was supposed to "only award the player, not punish him/her/it"?
 
Civ V has made me very weary about building units, buildings and roads due to upkeep and now I'll also be actively avoiding getting cultural points and experience points. This is getting crazy. I'm actually avoiding things that should be fun and rewarded.

Well, its like managing things and planning ahead instead of just rushing in, nope?
Actually theres no point of avoiding either cultural points/xp.

Honor is nice for any rush, Tradition is good for cultural victories (which we shall play kinda different way after the patch) and Liberty for diplomatic/science ICSs.
And if you dont like any of these, alpaca already posted a nice hints to manage cultural output here :)
 
What they should do to encourage large cities is that all specialists in a city produce GPP's equal to the total number of specialists in the city, so if you have a big city with lots of specialists you get far more great people. I mean ICS has so many benefits and they're adjusting just a few of the least important ones.
 
This is exactly what I feared. They nerf almost everything that makes certain strategies good, while not introducing any changes that will enhance the strategic possibilities in other ways (such as tile yield). Firaxis also introduces even more gameplay killing mechanics... ICS can function solely on meritocracy, and now there is even less reason to build culture buildings. Why spend your limited hammers on monuments/temples to get to Honor when you can just build more military.

Also, still no beaker overflow, tacky...

I won't be downloading this patch, thank you very much.
 
The only thing that is hurting ICS, as far as I can see, is the lowered maritime bonus.
The culture here-and-now policies just means that you want to not wait to start the sprawling, so as to make those first cheap policies come a bit later in the game, and not build culture buildings.
Odd decisions.
 
With the social policies, I think that the optimal response will be to get the three early key ones (to get 1 happiness per connected city) and then remove all culture-gaining buildings or inflate the next culture tick with lots of cities. Then buy city state culture + lots of monuments, etc. when you hit the era that you care about (e.g. Order), get the policies that you care about, then go ahead and any extra SPs are just gravy. You don't need to work tiles more than one away from the ICS city anyhow.
 
The only thing that is hurting ICS, as far as I can see, is the lowered maritime bonus.
The culture here-and-now policies just means that you want to not wait to start the sprawling, so as to make those first cheap policies come a bit later in the game, and not build culture buildings.
Odd decisions.

The SP change fixes the ICS into sell all my cities on the turn I have enough culture to win the game.

You will basically never want to ICS for a cultural win anymore because any culture you gain you will be forced to spend at the expensive rate instead of the lower 1 city rate.

The other changes that could alter ICS play style is the still unspecified science changes.
 
Well, its like managing things and planning ahead instead of just rushing in, nope?
Actually theres no point of avoiding either cultural points/xp.

Yes there is. There will be times -especially just before a era change-, where you definately don't want to get additional SP points where you will be forced to take a useless policy instead of a usefull one (punishing you because you produced a couple of culture points too much). Also an instant heal is very powerfull (after all it is the single reason Firaxis proposed the changes to promotions!). Optimal play probably is to micromanage it.

And if you dont like any of these, alpaca already posted a nice hints to manage cultural output here :)

But -that's- exactly my problem. Yes I can work around it, but it saps out any fun I have with the game. As I already said good play and fun play are moving further away from each other...
 
The SP change fixes the ICS into sell all my cities on the turn I have enough culture to win the game.

You will basically never want to ICS for a cultural win anymore because any culture you gain you will be forced to spend at the expensive rate instead of the lower 1 city rate.

The other changes that could alter ICS play style is the still unspecified science changes.

Unless you just puppet the whole world (military ICS).

A different cost of science buildings won't matter at all.
More costly just means that more cities are more beneficial, because large cities are so hard to get, and take such a long time (and population = science).
Less costly will just make them more efficient faster.
Less scientist slots wont matter either, as you can still have them filled (and have more cities with scientists).
More might actually help the non-ICS style, but will make the game even more one-sided.

And you can still just ICS all you want, not building any culture buildings except for in a couple of "keeper" cities, and then, when the AI is truly out-teched, and you have a couple of cities with lots of infrastructure and plenty of money, sell all of the rest, buy some culture CS, and cruise to victory.

There is still no reason* not to ICS. Ever.

*strategy wise that is
 
OK, in regards to the objections to the SP change - objections which I agree with - I'll take a shot at an explanation as to the pointlessness of the attempted "counterargument".

Unless you are one of the game developers, inferences about "intent" are pure opinion, nothing more. You might as well say, "If you'd only play the game the way _I_ intended it to be played...". But why should I be forced to play the game according to your opinion? Why should I be FORCED to take an SP at some fixed game turn, deferable only by a factor of a # of cities? Really think that was the "intent" of the developers? Note that in Civ4, one was never "forced" to take a civic.

But as paeanblack and alpaca have already shown, the kicker is that this prospective change DOESN'T prevent ICS and so forth, rather it makes these a more unfun requirement from the get go (unless you are one of those players that likes more micro, and those do exist, and they will therefore love this change, especially as it has such synergy with ICS). Alpaca's "cultureless" ICS game has now suddenly taken on a new urgency!

Perhaps ICS is the "intended" game play. Indeed someone on these boards started a thread with precisely this argument. Did we miss that one?

There's got to be a more elegant solution to SP "abuse".

The changes look great. If you play the game the way it was intended to be played, the forced promotions and social policies doesnt even matter. That's how it was meant to be done.
 
Also, still no beaker overflow, tacky...

I won't be downloading this patch, thank you very much.
You won't until you're forced to with the 'once a month' log on or whatever it is you are required to do to keep your game activated.
 
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