A Civ V retrospective: what features do you love and, which ones do you hate?

Really liking the responses and feedback that I'm getting.

historix69 said:

The global (un)happiness-system and resource-system took away a lot of the Civ4-Fun. Remember in Civ4 there were numerous luxury resources, health (food) resources and strategic resources but a city could only profit if it was connected via road, river, harbor, open borders with the resource. Having 10 different luxuries gave you 10 extra happiness per city which allowed you more happiness for expansion and empire building. It was much more fun collecting resources in Civ4 compared with Civ5 since every city had a profit.

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I really like these points that you've made. I have thus modified item #1 in the Top 10 Bad Ideas post to include some of your points regarding global happiness mechanics taking away from the sense of building an empire.

Aheadatime said:

Regarding what I do like, there's alot of it. First and foremost, the graphics/color-scheme and the music. The combination of a beautiful game and immersive composition attracted me to this game very strongly. I just love it. In contrast, I've seen videos of people playing BE and it just looks muddy, gray, lifeless, etc.

Social policies, religion (to an extent), natural wonders (need re-balancing though), 1uPt, trade routes, naval combat, ideologies (need re-balancing though), etc. There's alot that I enjoy about civ5. The hard part is distinguishing between balance likes/dislikes and conceptual likes/dislikes.

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You're right that the game does have a very attractive color palette. Some of the combinations of flag colors are very pretty (I really like Spain's color scheme, for instance).

Lanijon said:

It's harder to list the features that I do like, not because there aren't any but because BNW was my introduction to Civ, so outside of 1UPT I have little idea of what's new and what's been around for 20 years. If everything in your top 10 is new then I'd say they took 10 steps in the right direction. 1UPT hex-based combat is probably the best change. The AI might still be tactically dumb, which will hopefully improve in future games, but stacks of doom sound downright awful, mindless, and game-ruining.

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I never really thought that stacking was quite as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. The biggest downside (to me) was always that stacking all your units made the terrain completely irrelevant. Defensive fortifications were pointless unless you had a Fort on EVERY border tile, AND had enough defensive units to put a respectable stack on every one. And if you're defensive army is big enough to do that, then why haven't you just used it to kill everyone already?

It was also really annoying how easily units died, since every fight was a fight to the death.

But the big strategic component of stacking was army composition. You needed a wide variety of units, counter-units, and promotions in the right quantities. It also allowed for tech or resource-deficient civs to overcome some disadvantages with larder numbers of units. Units were generally cheap to build, so mobilizing an army quickly didn't pull you away from domestic development as much as it does in Civ V.

beetle said:

Great articles! Please consider using the same up/down numbering in OP as you do on your website. The lists are both least to best, but one case you count down, and the other you count up.

I don’t disagree with any of these, but why keep the pact of secrecy? My favorite good idea is that the difficulty levels are rational and balanced. I think most players can progress, and Deity doesn’t lock you in too much. Civ II and SMAC also got the difficulty levels right. Civ III and IV were horrible in this regard.

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Hrm, it looks to me like they are both counting down from 10 to 1 in the same order for both lists... What am I missing? I did post a link to this on Reddit, and in that list, Reddit automatically put the list items in ascending order. That's Reddit's auto-formatting though, and I don't know how to change it. Is that what you are talking about?

I liked that the pact of secrecy was an affirmative action that two players could take against a third player without necessarily declaring war. It was an agreement that both parties would do what they could to disrupt that third player, and would (supposedly) have each other's back if one or the other provoked conflict. It was an alliance specifically targeting a specific player. Compare this to Civ IV's "What do you think of [leader]?" OK, so we both know that we hate that other guy; but are we gonna do anything about it? The Pact of Secrecy is (in concept) an agreement that "Yes. We will do something about it."

This sort of feature had the potential to act as a viable counter to runaway civs, since other players could hypethically team up against that runaway. In concept, it's a great idea. In practice, it just didn't really work.

ThorHammerz said:

Second this. If only there were even more diversity in the dialogues (both audio and text), that'd make it even more awesome

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It would also be nice if there were subtitle translations of the dialogue, since the text shown in the diplo pop-up dialogues is the same for every civ and not necessarily representative of what the leader is actually saying.

megabearsfan said:

Compare this to Civ IV's "What do you think of [leader]?" OK, so we both know that we hate that other guy; but are we gonna do anything about it? The Pact of Secrecy is (in concept) an agreement that "Yes. We will do something about it."

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I would not compare it to Civ 4's "what do you think about x" (apples to oranges). All that feature did was to tally up the various + and - diplo modifiers, and give you a a random response drawn from a pool of valid responses, which in turn was based on the overall "attitude" level (allies/friends/neutral/annoyed/furious... did i forget any? ) that AI had against the other player.

On another note, I really miss tech trading, despite all of the potential abuse/exploits involved .... I think it could've been paired well side-by-side with research agreements (as long as there were limitations involved).

What about, say, three units per tile? What effect would that have?

A point which regularly bothers me are the new roads and their influence on unit-movement.

Roads/Railroads are important since they give increased mobility to units which allows quick reaction to counter invading enemies.

In previous versions of civ, road tiles were free of upkeep and gave a bonus like +1 trade / +1 Commerce if worked which was multiplied with city modifiers (e.g. from market, bank, etc.) Railroads also increased most tile yields (food, production, trade). To optimize ressources and accessability of your territory, every tile was usually railroaded. It was a challenge for the Civ-Designers to make the railroad-overlays look good even when every tile had a railroad. Railroads allowed to move large stacks of units from one part of the empire to the front in seconds.

In Civ5, roads and railroads cost upkeep and do not increase tile-yields. Connection to Capital via road/railroad/harbor provides income based on city-size and capital-size. The consequence is that players usually only built a minimal road/railroad-system to get the gold income with minimal upkeep. This would be ok when units would travel in stacks but Civ5-units travel individually. Moving a huge army on a minimalistic road system is managing an endless traffic jam and takes much longer than in previous civs. In preparation of war (Blitzkrieg) I usually build additional roads on all tiles in the concentration area near the border to optimize mobility ... after the war my workers will remove all the unnecessary road tiles ...

While a minimalistic road-system may look better than a railroaded landscape, in combination with the 1upt it causes a lot of additional, unnecessary micromanagement, especially when going for war. Even in peace-time it is often a challenge to find appropriate parking places for all (military) units on or near roads.

A solution might have been a 2-class-road-system with a visible main-road to connect cities and a kind of invisible system of free small roads, improving tile-yields and providing mobility to units in their own territory (which may become visible when zooming in).

It would also help if players were allowed to stack units in cities as it is possible in many 1upt strategy games. If the city is conquered, the stack is lost (see Singapore in 1942!).

ThorHammerz said:

On the other hand, no amount of fiddling with the tech tree will solve the issue of absolute military supremacy while 1-UPT in its current form exists.... you will still need to rehaul the current implementation of 1UPT before you can make science "balanced", simply due to the nature of combat in this game.

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I'm not getting how you tie this to science. While I won't argue that 1UPT accentuates the differences in unit strength, that would also be true if upgrades were unlocked through affinities or whatever it's called like in BE, or something else entirely. It's just the nature of 1-on-1 combat. If you're not into that then it's your prerogative, but personally I don't see the military supremacy you speak of as a bad thing, as it's much more realistic and sensible. The better unit winning the battle against an inferior unit just makes sense, a lot more sense than 20 swordsmen piling into a stack and savaging a squadron of riflemen.

Honestly it sounds like the main thing you're trying to do is just deride 1UPT. Because the only way it really relates to science is that units are unlocked through techs on a linear tree, which brings us back full circle to the real problem, which is that success in any and every area of the game hinges upon getting to certain techs quickly.

Of course, that's already assuming you are playing in an enormously simplified ideal world where you don't fight any wars if you're not going for domination victory - the reality is that you will most likely need to wage warfare regardless of what victory type you are going (i.e. waging war against a culturally resistant opponent, killing off enemy-allied city states voting against you... hell, even just clearing out Pocatello (the Shoshone) that you had the misfortune to spawn beside).

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Well, I did say "optimal" and "ideal," since that's generally what you hope for and center your strategy around when you start up a game. Still, even if that goes off the rails and you need to war (or get it brought to you), it's still just one part of your game, a step on the path that is your strategy, but not the driving force. All you have to do is wait around until a powerful unit falls into your beeline (e.g. bombers, battleships), spam it, and that's it. Your grand strategy is unlikely to be affected at all unless you're forced to war really early and it delays NC/Universities.

megabearsfan said:

I never really thought that stacking was quite as bad as a lot of people make it out to be. The biggest downside (to me) was always that stacking all your units made the terrain completely irrelevant. Defensive fortifications were pointless unless you had a Fort on EVERY border tile, AND had enough defensive units to put a respectable stack on every one. And if you're defensive army is big enough to do that, then why haven't you just used it to kill everyone already?

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Its biggest fault for me (which I'm sure isn't a new or revolutionary complaint) is just how much it waters down the strategy. Maybe I'm spoiled, but stack composition being the only strategy you can implement just doesn't cut it. That's analytical "backroom" stuff when I'd rather spend my wars making tactical decisions on the battlefield. Having two stacks ramming into each other isn't very tactical or engaging, especially if even the terrain doesn't matter.

Unit stacks are very useful to quickly move large number of units ...

Their usefullness in combat could be easily reduced by increasing the flanking bonus, e.g.
- Give the attacker +20% combat-strength for every own unit being adjacent to the target tile (max +100% for full encirclement).
- Give the defender +20% combat-strength for every own unit being adjacent to the attacker's tile (max +100% for full encirclement).

To optimize the flanking bonus, the stacks will have to split to form working frontlines, otherwise they are soon encircled and defeated ("Kesselschlacht").

megabearsfan said:

I liked that the pact of secrecy was an affirmative action that two players could take against a third player without necessarily declaring war. It was an agreement that both parties would do what they could to disrupt that third player, and would (supposedly) have each other's back if one or the other provoked conflict. It was an alliance specifically targeting a specific player. Compare this to Civ IV's "What do you think of [leader]?" OK, so we both know that we hate that other guy; but are we gonna do anything about it? The Pact of Secrecy is (in concept) an agreement that "Yes. We will do something about it."

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It was a terrific feature, potentially. It must have been patched out by the time I started playing. My point is that there are enough new (and still current) features to fill out a top-ten list without resorting to deprecated aspects.

That might be another top-ten list: features that are great in theory, and mostly they work, but they still feel not quite finished. Most of these aspects have been adjusted with each patch, so the play gets better. Off the top of my head:

1. Pacts of secrecy
2. AI flavor bias traits
3. gold trading
4. peace offers
5. pillage-repair in hostile territory
6. demands phrased as requests
7. automated unit pathing
8. settling on plains disables stoneworks
9. Iroquois UB worse than regular workshop
10. warmongering hatred

Socratatus said:

I forgot to mention what i liked.

1. I like the depiction of most of the leaders and how they talk in a somewhat authentic language. Seriously, it really helps bring me into the game.

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This is a terrific feature! I usually play with my 6-year-old son watching. Civ 5 has really sparked his interest in maps and cultures. The different languages have helped that.

And now, when any of my kids ask me if they can do something and my answer is no, I respond by saying: "Absolutnie nie!"

Lanijon said:

I'm not getting how you tie this to science. While I won't argue that 1UPT accentuates the differences in unit strength, that would also be true if upgrades were unlocked through affinities or whatever it's called like in BE, or something else entirely. It's just the nature of 1-on-1 combat. If you're not into that then it's your prerogative, but personally I don't see the military supremacy you speak of as a bad thing, as it's much more realistic and sensible. The better unit winning the battle against an inferior unit just makes sense, a lot more sense than 20 swordsmen piling into a stack and savaging a squadron of riflemen.

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No, it's not a 'bad thing'.

It just bring us back to the part where the power of science is accentuated far too much because of how combat works (there is no element of "chance" - you will know whether or not you will win/lose a battle based purely on how strong/healthy your units are): Unless you are surrounded 1 unit vs 6, you are going to win pretty much all your battles with a stronger unit (i.e. rifles vs longswords). It gives the one with a science lead a far too snowbally effect (assuming it's a human playing, of course).

The point isn't that 1 UPT itself is bad. The point is that 1-UPT makes a myriad of other problems appear (like the scaling of production costs, for one... there's a very good reason why stuff is relatively expensive - to prevent carpets of dooms from forming too early) because the systems carried over from previous Civ games were never meant to accomodate 1UPT.

Lanijon said:

Honestly it sounds like the main thing you're trying to do is just deride 1UPT. Because the only way it really relates to science is that units are unlocked through techs on a linear tree, which brings us back full circle to the real problem, which is that success in any and every area of the game hinges upon getting to certain techs quickly.

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You have your biases, I have mine. The issues with what techs unlock what is a straightforward issue to solve: because you can just shuffle around what-unlocks-what (e.g. divorce certain parts of the tree from certain unlocks, new tech paths/pre-reqs, make new 'filler techs', whatever).

ThorHammerz said:

It just bring us back to the part where the power of science is accentuated far too much because of how combat works (there is no element of "chance" - you will know whether or not you will win/lose a battle based purely on how strong/healthy your units are): Unless you are surrounded 1 unit vs 6, you are going to win pretty much all your battles with a stronger unit (i.e. rifles vs longswords). It gives the one with a science lead a far too snowbally effect (assuming it's a human playing, of course).

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You're not wrong, though once again I'll say that this problem (granting for the sake of argument that it is in fact a problem) isn't caused by 1UPT. It might exacerbate the problem of military imbalance a bit, but every other area in the game also suffers from an over-reliance on science and has a similar snowball threat. Blaming 1UPT for it all is like blaming some overdone pepperoni for a crappy pizza, never mind the 5-year-old moldy goat cheese.

The point isn't that 1 UPT itself is bad. The point is that 1-UPT makes a myriad of other problems appear (like the scaling of production costs, for one... there's a very good reason why stuff is relatively expensive - to prevent carpets of dooms from forming too early) because the systems carried over from previous Civ games were never meant to accomodate 1UPT.

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I'm sorry but I can't see what major issues 1UPT has caused, the AI not knowing how to handle it yet aside. Why is scaling production cost a problem? It seems like common sense to me. Otherwise you'd reach a point where everything was a 1-turn build, in which case you might as well just take infrastructure out and rebrand the series as a simple war game.

You have your biases, I have mine. The issues with what techs unlock what is a straightforward issue to solve: because you can just shuffle around what-unlocks-what (e.g. divorce certain parts of the tree from certain unlocks, new tech paths/pre-reqs, make new 'filler techs', whatever).

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Indeed, that's pretty much the point I was originally making. The biggest problem with the game is simultaneously one of the easiest to fix. It's incredibly frustrating.

Lanijon said:

I'm sorry but I can't see what major issues 1UPT has caused, the AI not knowing how to handle it yet aside. Why is scaling production cost a problem? It seems like common sense to me. Otherwise you'd reach a point where everything was a 1-turn build, in which case you might as well just take infrastructure out and rebrand the series as a simple war game.

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Well, for one thing it makes the game less fun and more boring. Lower tile yields make some resources and tile improvements bland, as there is little difference between one tile to the next. Lower production means less units, and worse, less buildings, which causes a mundane side effect of "click next turn, click next turn, click next turn." How fun is that?

"Reaching a point where everything is a 1-turn build," is way extreme, so you can't use that as a valid argument.

That being said, I'm not sure what the ideal solution is. The problem with more units, even if they did away with 1UPT, would mean even longer processing times between turns, which is already a problem. And, having a larger map to accommodate a better implementation of 1UPT would mean longer wait times between turns too.

Lanijon said:

Why is scaling production cost a problem? It seems like common sense to me. Otherwise you'd reach a point where everything was a 1-turn build, in which case you might as well just take infrastructure out and rebrand the series as a simple war game.

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If you don't make unit production or purchase costs high enough (relative to income), or implement arbitrary production limits (e.g. the "unit limit your empire can support is ..... oh no! you have too many units, now you suffer a production bonus!") you will end up with games where the map is flooded with units on every tile.... the colloquial "carpet of doom", if you will.

You can read the lead designer's thoughts about it in full here... the relevant portion starts around the sub-heading "Combat".... approximately 60%(?) of the way down the webpage. A good chunk of this subsection is dedicated to "AI is not good enough", so you'll have to sift those bits out.

rschissler said:

Well, for one thing it makes the game less fun and more boring. Lower tile yields make some resources and tile improvements bland, as there is little difference between one tile to the next. Lower production means less units, and worse, less buildings, which causes a mundane side effect of "click next turn, click next turn, click next turn." How fun is that?

"Reaching a point where everything is a 1-turn build," is way extreme, so you can't use that as a valid argument.

That being said, I'm not sure what the ideal solution is. The problem with more units, even if they did away with 1UPT, would mean even longer processing times between turns, which is already a problem. And, having a larger map to accommodate a better implementation of 1UPT would mean longer wait times between turns too.

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I converted to playing quick instead of standard speed because I didn't like waiting so long for everything (not just production). That is a simple solution if you find production times 'boring'. 1UPT makes for much better strategy as opposed to the stacks of death which I hated. Improving the AI is the most important solution to me as everything else about 1UPT is a huge improvement.

Why would making the map bigger (or hexes smaller) mean longer wait times? The graphic performance would certainly suffer, but wait times get longer on bigger maps because there are more AIs and CSs. A smarter AI might also cost us some wait time as well.

Stacking units to reduce clicks and overall maintenance is a bad solution I hope they never go back to.

megabearsfan said:

Hey all, I took some time away from writing strategy guides to put together a couple of retrospective articles about Civ V. I wrote a Top 10 list of good ideas, and another Top 10 list of bad ideas.

Top 10 good ideas:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2015/06/03/Civ-V-retrospective-top-10-good-ideas.aspx

Summary:
10. Customizable religion.
9. The pact of secrecy - which was removed - and preparing for war.
8. Tactical, 1upt, hex-based combat.
7. Cumulative cultural progress (social policies).
6. Strategic resource supply
5. Archaeology, great works, and tourism.
4. Natural Wonders.
3. City States.
2. Notification-based user interface.
1. Civilization unique traits, units, buildings, improvements, etc.

And there's a 10 bad ideas:
http://www.megabearsfan.net/post/2015/06/04/Civ-V-retrospective-top-10-bad-ideas.aspx

Summary:
10. Can't raze capitals.
9. Insta heal
8. Chariot archer and anti-mounted upgrade paths.
7. Warmonger hate.
6. Removing cinematics and lowering production values.
5. Linear tech tree.
4. Snowballing, lack of viable catch-up mechanics and runaway controls.
3. Forcing small-scall tactical combat onto a large-scale nation-state map.
2. NO SUPPORT FOR MODS IN MULTIPLAYER
1. Focus on "strategy board game" feel rather than empire-management sim.


I'm curious, what are everybody else's favorite and most hated features and mechanics?

Feel free to read the full blog posts and comment there as well, if you see fit.

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Top positive isn't even mentioned here: implementation of trade routes and economy.

Overall, my list would be:

Positive:

1. Implementation of trade routes
2. Diversification of the way resources accumulate (not all just tile yields - gold from trade, culture from buildings/Great Works), and of buildings (not all just X% modifiers)
3. Diplomatic model in principle, with its focus on tripartite relations rather than just binary modifiers.
4. Archaeology
5. City states
6. Religion, for the most part
7. the way 1UPT captures the feel of critical technologies (artillery, and then air power) changing the way warfare plays over time.
8. Fully unique civ traits rather than mix-and-match modifiers.

Negative:

1. Ideology, at least as implemented. Differences in ideology can scupper game-long relationships in illogical ways.
2. Implementation of the voting system, which causes problems for diplomatic victory and UN resolutions.
3. The implementation of science from population - there's a fundamental design problem in a game based around trade-offs when playing in a way that gives you one important bonus (increased population) provides you with another game-winning bonus (science) for free.
4. Some of the more glaring flaws with the diplomacy system. I quit my last game after having the world upset with me for declaring war on a friend as a result of a defensive pact with another civ.
5. Lack of random events of some variety.
6. No customisable spaceship/transit time to Alpha Centauri mechanic
7. 'race to the capitals' domination victory condition.
8. Calling a mechanic 'tourism'.

As for the 'strategy board game' element, I count this as a major positive. Civ 1 was based on a strategy board game, played and felt like a strategy board game, and to me Civ V feels more like a true Civ game than either Civ III or Civ IV.

I converted to playing quick instead of standard speed because I didn't like waiting so long for everything (not just production).

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If You take Commerce + Big Ben + Order or Autocracy, you can rush buy units and buildings with 40% - 73% discount in late game ... this is a kind of

a 1-turn build

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POLICY_MERCANTILISM (Commerce) : -25% Purchase Costs (Gold)
Big Ben Wonder (Commerce) : -15% Purchase Costs (Gold)

POLICY_SKYSCRAPERS (Order) : -33% Purchase Buildings
POLICY_MOBILIZATION (Autocracy) : -33% Purchase Units

historix69 said:

To optimize the flanking bonus, the stacks will have to split to form working frontlines, otherwise they are soon encircled and defeated ("Kesselschlacht").

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I proposed a "column march" feature in a previous forum topic:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=544784

LMT said:

This is a terrific feature! I usually play with my 6-year-old son watching. Civ 5 has really sparked his interest in maps and cultures. The different languages have helped that.

And now, when any of my kids ask me if they can do something and my answer is no, I respond by saying: "Absolutnie nie!"

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My girlfriend's 4-year old daughter also likes the leader screens. Whenever I play Civ, and she notices me talking to a leader, she comes up and points to the screen and asks "Who's that?" And then I take the opportunity to give her a very brief history lesson. Not sure if any of it sinks in, but I have an optimistic hope that it does contribute to the development of an interest in history, instead of her current interests in Disney princesses.

She especially likes Elizabeth. Whenever I talk to Elizabeth, she tells me "She's pretty. I like her dress."

PhilBowles said:

Top positive isn't even mentioned here: implementation of trade routes and economy.

Overall, my list would be:

Positive:

1. Implementation of trade routes
2. Diversification of the way resources accumulate (not all just tile yields - gold from trade, culture from buildings/Great Works), and of buildings (not all just X% modifiers)
3. Diplomatic model in principle, with its focus on tripartite relations rather than just binary modifiers.
4. Archaeology
5. City states
6. Religion, for the most part
7. the way 1UPT captures the feel of critical technologies (artillery, and then air power) changing the way warfare plays over time.
8. Fully unique civ traits rather than mix-and-match modifiers.

Negative:

1. Ideology, at least as implemented. Differences in ideology can scupper game-long relationships in illogical ways.
2. Implementation of the voting system, which causes problems for diplomatic victory and UN resolutions.
3. The implementation of science from population - there's a fundamental design problem in a game based around trade-offs when playing in a way that gives you one important bonus (increased population) provides you with another game-winning bonus (science) for free.
4. Some of the more glaring flaws with the diplomacy system. I quit my last game after having the world upset with me for declaring war on a friend as a result of a defensive pact with another civ.
5. Lack of random events of some variety.
6. No customisable spaceship/transit time to Alpha Centauri mechanic
7. 'race to the capitals' domination victory condition.
8. Calling a mechanic 'tourism'.

As for the 'strategy board game' element, I count this as a major positive. Civ 1 was based on a strategy board game, played and felt like a strategy board game, and to me Civ V feels more like a true Civ game than either Civ III or Civ IV.

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This is an excellent list! Numbers 2, 3, and 7 on your positive list are very interesting observations about core design elements.

As for your negative list:
I'm not really sure that your criticism of ideologies is fair. You can think of this as an abstraction of something akin to "regime change". The same applies for changing civics in Civ IV or government types in earlier Civ games. If a society changes its core, fundamental beliefs, then yes you should expect that their relations with other societies will change. I think the only real problem is that your civ's "personality" and none of your earlier development choices influence your ideology.

I wouldn't mind a system in which your ideology emerged organically from choices earlier in the game, or if those choices would be mechanically enforced by the game. For example, building a trade-based empire and dominating the world economy through trade routes and resource exchanges could perhaps give your civ a bias towards adopting Freedom. Conquering other civs would give you more bias towards Autocracy. These biases could affect the cost of adopting those ideologies (i.e. higher biases make them cheaper to adopt so that you can adopt them earlier and benefit from them longer), or it could affect happiness levels after adopting the ideology, or it could affect the strength of the actual tenets.

As for random events: those have proven very unpopular from what I've heard. Also, the idea of completely random events is kind of absurd except for maybe weather and natural disasters. I personally don't mind having pseudo-random events that shake up the game a little bit every now and then. I wouldn't mind having a system of emergent events, in which actions in the game can cause certain events or situations to develop. Civ V and Beyond Earth both have very small elements of this. Civ V has the antiquity sites being based on earlier game events (very cool call-back feature). Beyond Earth has the quests that emerge after you build a building in a city.

For example, Civ IV's slave uprising event was annoying. Granted it was your fault for taking the slavery civic, but there is no build-up to it or warning. It just happens, or it doesn't. You don't have any opportunity to control the event or influence whether it occurs. A better way would be for rebellious sentiment to gradually build, or for your treatment of the slaves to influence the revolt, and then you have different ways to handle it, and if you fail to resolve it, then it boils over and triggers a revolt.

What I think really needs to be changed in this game is the fact that you can only have 1 of each wonder. If 2 people are building a wonder at the same time and one person gets it 1 or 2 turns sooner the other person gets practically nothing for their efforts.

Lets think about this logically, no society is going to scrap a project that's nearly complete. For game balance it just makes sense and makes the game less luck based. IMO if you are more than half done with a wonder when it is completed you should be able to complete it as well.

This would drastically reduce wonder ragers in MP and IMO is just a better mechanic. At the moment you can lose a wonder the same turn you complete it to some one simply because they joined the lobby before you. uh what? Worst mechanic ever.

So 2 of each wonder? 3? One for each civ (I.e., every wonder becomes a national wonder)? Only limit is you have to have sunk 1/2 of the hammer cost? Even if you switch off to build something else?

CraigMak said:

What I think really needs to be changed in this game is the fact that you can only have 1 of each wonder. If 2 people are building a wonder at the same time and one person gets it 1 or 2 turns sooner the other person gets practically nothing for their efforts.

Lets think about this logically, no society is going to scrap a project that's nearly complete. For game balance it just makes sense and makes the game less luck based. IMO if you are more than half done with a wonder when it is completed you should be able to complete it as well.

This would drastically reduce wonder ragers in MP and IMO is just a better mechanic. At the moment you can lose a wonder the same turn you complete it to some one simply because they joined the lobby before you. uh what? Worst mechanic ever.

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What do you think of wonders that are designed somewhere along the lines of:

- A first-to-get effect
- Second effect (that doesn't care if you were the first to build)

So something along the lines of:

Hanging Gardens:
- Provides + 5 food
- First-to-build gains +1 free population in the city built (i.e. a watered down effect of HG from Civ 4 )
- Up to 3 may be built across the world, maximum of 1 per player.

Numbers used are purely arbitrary.

I'm not opposed to 1 unit per tile, but things like AI workers should not be able to block your roads (happens when you allow open borders). Trying to accomplish a Great Merchant trade mission by moving the unit on the map when the CS builds so many units, you can't get in unless you get lucky after waiting a few turns. Non-military units should be able to stack for movement purposes, even with the units of other civs or city-states.