Jon comes back with a vengence

Deggial said:

The problem is that workable citiy tiles (correlated: space filling in non-optimal maps) and space between cities is highly related to each other. Currently, everything is balanced nicely. I seriously doubt, that this will be still true for enforced larger distance between cities. A 4 tile distance might still work. But 5 or even 6 tiles between cities migth be too far.

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Maybe, one solution, is to have all units need one turn to pack/unpack, like the siege units today. So, when not ready for combat, your units could travel faster.

About the workable tiles is a question of balance. Maybe one tile could be the union of 4 hex., something like that.

Deggial said:

I was amazed by this, too.

Sometimes I wonder, if developers (Jon, the CiV team or developers in general) weight negative criticism higher than positive feed-back. After all, disappointed fans tend to be so much more vocal, than people who like the changes...

I always thought (and did articulate) that most of the design changes Jon Shaffer introduced to CiV headed into the right direction *). Some of them in (sometimes terrible) need to be polished and fleshed out. But necessary in general to keep the Civilization series from being static and arrested in the past.

One of the changes I full-heartedly applause is the 1 upt-mechanic. And (in a consequence) those awesome choke points created by the (in my opinion) best map-generating-algorithms in the whole series so far! I really think, the maps work fine as they are now with 1 upt and are definitely not a fail! (I usually play king/emperor level. Therefore I can not comment about unit spam in higher levels.)

*) With some exceptions. Cutting the health system is one of them, in my opinion.

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I agree. While the self-criticism is fair, it does seem like he is basically backtracking on every decision he made, and I'm wondering how much of that is due to the vocal backlash since Civ V's release.

For its flaws, I think Civ V still stands up well, and I still enjoy playing it. Jon's self-reflection is very much in line with what Sulla and others were saying over two years ago, which I felt was a little on the harsh side.

well i read his article, and i found it in much of the criticism i have on civ5,
i do hope that firaxis takes this to heart. and bring an update and new content, or a add on or even civ 6 and aresses these things.

by the way i would love 4 tiems bigger maps than the "huge" ones now i do not think the critisism was to harsh, when 5 came out it was disapointing, G&K fixed a lot and i enjoy it much, but more could and should be done

problem with monster maps will be the huge tracts of emptiness

civ5 penalises empire spread (SP cost, NW building, happiness) and has poor production values

I love 1upt. I only have 2 complaints about it. 1, the AI is too dumb to play on it. 2, you should be able to select and move units en masse, even without stacking.

If they can fix those issues with One World or Civ VI, they will have the best game in the franchise.

i like the tactical element of 1upt, just not sure if it suits a strategic game though...

i always liked the idea of multiple units in a tile (not stacks), but with the premise that if the strongest unit dies then they all die

I really like 1UpT, and if the AI could handle it, it would be great. I think the supply system in At The Gates sounds like a good solution to mimicking the idea behind 1UpT, while still allowing the AI to handle it, by keeping stacks of units limited.

I think Civ5 has been a good game from the start, and even if you didn't like it when it came out, all of the good changes it made over Civ4, and what was learned from Civ5 will make Civ6 amazing.

I'm very likely to buy At The Gates when it comes out.

TM Moot said:

i like the tactical element of 1upt, just not sure if it suits a strategic game though...

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Of course you are right, calling 1upt a tactical element. Does it suit to a strategic game, so?
Pfff... I couldn't care less! Wether CiV is a strategical game or was changed into a tactical game with strategical elements due to 1upt ... is this important at all? It is FUN to play (at least for me)! Everything else is only for academic interest.

TM Moot said:

i always liked the idea of multiple units in a tile (not stacks), but with the premise that if the strongest unit dies then they all die

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Do you really think, the AI would be able to handel a mechanic like this? I am afraid, something like this would tremendously favor the player. I can already imagine the outraged threads, featuring the stupid IA that stacks half their military in one tile only to let it die due to the concentrated attack of it's human opponent. I do exaggerate, but I think you got my point.

Some of the problems, the SI would have to calculate:
- Are there any threatening units nearby?
- How many units to stack in case of an unexpected threat after the opponents turn (can the stack be dissolved then?)
- Are there any known bombers? Might there be some hidden in the fog of war? If this is the possibility, should I stack units at all - even far behind the front?
... and possibly many more.

If you take int account, how the AI handels embarking units right now, I am not very optimistic about the results regarding this challange...

I must admit, I didn't think Jon would be so self-critical. Let alone make it public. But after his his first massive failure as lead designer it is perhaps a necessary step to redeem himself and his future products. And we mustn't forget, the guy is still young and has a lot to learn, as he says himself. The good thing is, he shows he is willing to do so. Which is a valuable ability in itself.

In developing ATG, he seems to have recognized and eliminated many of his previous mistakes. I like what he says about diplomacy, and the unit supply feature sounds promising. He also seems to have understood why both 1UPT and global happiness don't work well in 4x games. He even has abolished social policies in favor of civics.

I'm more critical towards some other aspects he mentions however, most notably the UI, which he is "particularly proud of". This is baffeling in view of an UI that takes up several times more space and requires a lot more clicks than necessary. And calling the use of the slider "boring busy work" shows a serious lack of understanding of the entire feature, as, if anything, it makes things a lot easier.

But all in all, he seems to have learnt his lesson. It's ashame that Civ 5 had to serve as his training grounds, but after reading the article I am definitely more confident about his future releases.

Funky said:

I must admit, I didn't think Jon would be so self-critical. Let alone make it public. But after his his first massive failure as lead designer it is perhaps a necessary step to redeem himself and his future products.

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Civ5 is not a massive failure. It's a huge success.

- Very good reviews
- Excellent sales numbers
- Huge player base

I have to admit, Civ5 is nowhere near the game I wanted, but Civ5 isn't the moo3 a lot of haters pretend it is.

Shafer being open and honest is great, I don't get why so many try to turn it into a negative. But this is of course why most game designers (or politicans, musicians and so on) never admit publicly what didn't work as well as planned.

Who says civ5 is a massive failure? Really statements like this puts the whole post under question.

As Shafer says, megahuge maps tend to be huge resource hogs, too. I actually wouldn't mind as I play Civ V exclusively in the Strategic view. I find it's clean and gives all the necessary info at a single glance. I really like the graphics of ATG; they remind me of Civ II, which has the best graphics in the series imo. That painterly look instantly gives you the feeling that you're creating a legend instead of merely pushing pixels about for optimal outcomes.

I've been playing Civ since II, and the one thing that has been, for me, constant is the "one more turn" feeling. All of the Civ games have had it, including V. I don't continue a game I just won as much with V as I used to with IV, but that is the only negative thing I can come up with for V. All in all, I consider V to be a great success. I think the people that don't consider it a success are judging by: "Is it civ IV BTS?".

Deggial said:

A 4 tile distance might still work. But 5 or even 6 tiles between cities migth be too far.

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As someone who has proposed and implemented this idea two years ago, tested it, and uses it as of now, I can tell you it makes the game considerably better (more fun). I have tested everything from 4 to 6 tiles separation between cities; for maneuverability, 6 is the ideal, and works well in huge maps (obviously, you reduce number of civs/CS by one level), but it has two major problems. First, 6 tiles produce a "triangle" where the center has empty, unworkable tiles (workable tiles appears to be hardcoded, DLL), so from the cities production point of view, it is not optimal. In that sense, 5 tiles is better as it only produces one wasted tile in the center of the triangle.

This means that the theoretical ideal separation between cities is 5 tiles; this changes the game a lot, but I have tested the AI by watching the game on auto (Tuner), and the AI adjusts just fine to this. 5 tiles leaves a lot of open fields to maneuver, and wars become much more enjoyable; not only that, but my impression from the tests is that the AI maneuvers better with more room in between cities than what we see now in normal games. With 5 tiles, the borders between civs are really empty, and border battles become a true tactical experience. The AI performs better in part because there is no "city killing field" anymore, where two or more cities combine their bombardments to destroy an incoming army.

But there is a problem: the space between City States allocation plots is hardcoded to a minimum of 4 tiles. This means that if playing with 5 tiles between cities, some CS settlers will start the game within the "No settling possible" range of less than 5. What makes things worse is that there is no code to adapt the CS settlers to this; what you see is the offending CS settler sitting there, not settling and NOT moving, until it is captured by a barbarian (or a player). This also appears to be hardcoded, I have looked into the map generator code looking for a "magic 4" somewhere, but could not find it to change it to 5 or more.

So, bottom line, 4 tiles between cities becomes the suboptimal ideal, but even then, it's a lot better than the original 3 (plus, it reduces AI spam, which makes for a better game). I am playing an Emperor, Large, 4 tiles between cities game now, with 10/20 (standard number for large maps), and it is a great game.

So, yes, the scale was one of the biggest design mistakes, something that has been pointed out by many of us as early as 2010, so Shafer is probably only repeating what has been said many times already. I wonder if Firaxis will learn the lesson and adjust the scale for civ6, spreading resources and workability of tiles away from the city suburbs, opening the map for 1UPT to truly shine, and making for a far more strategic ownership of territory (as opposed to ownership of cities and suburbs), but that is a topic for another thread.

Greizer85 said:

As Shafer says, megahuge maps tend to be huge resource hogs, too. I actually wouldn't mind as I play Civ V exclusively in the Strategic view. I find it's clean and gives all the necessary info at a single glance. I really like the graphics of ATG; they remind me of Civ II, which has the best graphics in the series imo. That painterly look instantly gives you the feeling that you're creating a legend instead of merely pushing pixels about for optimal outcomes.

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I am also worried with making maps too big and creating performance problems. that's why the 2D graphics of ATG is helpful in this regard. I recently played civ3 a little with my new computer and played some of the scenarios which had huge maps ( some thing that i could never do with my older PC), and really enjoyed the old civ3.

Windsor said:

Civ5 is not a massive failure. It's a huge success.

- Very good reviews
- Excellent sales numbers
- Huge player base

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I was refering to Jon Shafer's Civ 5, which is the release version. Sorry for not being clear about that.

Going by your definition it still isn't a "huge success", since it actually got terrible reviews (apart from the "professional" ones which are meaningless), and the player base size and the sales numbers are both mediocre at best. But at least it has become much better since its release.

Already over 55k

Does anyone know if this game when completed will be on Steam???

Deggial said:

Of course you are right, calling 1upt a tactical element. Does it suit to a strategic game, so?
Pfff... I couldn't care less! Wether CiV is a strategical game or was changed into a tactical game with strategical elements due to 1upt ... is this important at all? It is FUN to play (at least for me)! Everything else is only for academic interest.

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you're missing my point...

the AI can't handle 1upt, so whilst 1upt tactical warfare is great in theory, it struggles in practise

and to limit the carpet of doom scenario, production got nerfed across the board, which dictates less units, less buildings, less cities, less to do...

i love tactical games (Battle Isles, Perfect General were old school favourites), but civ was always so much more