Will Civ V bog down less at end

[King Lewie XIV]

I was wondering,

Does anyone know if Civ V will address the problem of the game bogging down at the end game. I'm sure most know what I am talking about. When the turns start going a year at a time later in game and you have a lotta units the game starts to drag a bit.

[Mesodius]

Originally Posted by King Lewie XIV

I was wondering,

Does anyone know if Civ V will address the problem of the game bogging down at the end game. I'm sure most know what I am talking about. When the turns start going a year at a time later in game and you have a lotta units the game starts to drag a bit.

Assuming you have a large empire with tons of units to move, I don't see how you could shorten the time it takes to micromanage everything, especially when you go to war.

What I hope is that the game graphics don't hog so many resources that you have to wait several minutes for the AI to take their turn unless you just bought your computer 10 minutes ago.

EDIT: One way to lessen the bog down at the end of the game would be to put a unit cap for each Civ based on available resources, manpower, or some other factor.

[fuerza]

This is a good question KL XIV. As you may recall, tons and TONS of people complained about random game crashes as you progressed through the gameplay in Civ IV (especially late game play when you had the map full of stuff and many civs battling it out), and as you also may recall 2k games did absolutely nothing about it. Many times, late-game saves became corrupted or did not save properly and the only answer that you got from the publisher was that is was YOUR system that caused the problems. If Civ V doesn't address these issues, it will lose positive reviews early on.

[GoodSarmatian]

The one unit per hex rule seems to indicate that there'll be far less units running around than in former games and tactics will be more important than sheer numbers, so I'm hopeful (as long as it's better programmed than Civ4).

[r_rolo1]

Originally Posted by GoodSarmatian

The one unit per hex rule seems to indicate that there'll be far less units running around than in former games and tactics will be more important than sheer numbers, so I'm hopeful (as long as it's better programmed than Civ4).

I don't think I ever seen a Civ IV game where there were more units than tiles in the map, so that is not a valid argument IMHO

[GoodSarmatian]

And I am sure you will never see a game of Civ 5 with one unit on every tile, but it's still -together with the limit to certain units per available resources- an indication that it is being designed with smaller armies in mind.

[r_rolo1]

That would be true if you could ensure the map sizes are equivalent. And to be honest my gut feeling is that the maps in Civ V will be substantially larger than the civ IV ones with the equivalent tag.

And about putting a cap on resource to certain units... well, that limit those units, surely. But what about the others?

I also don't expect to see a Civ V game with units in every tile, but my point was not that either I was just pointing that a cap like that will not bring down the unit numbers by their own compared with the Civ IV system...

[Hail]

Originally Posted by King Lewie XIV

I was wondering,

Does anyone know if Civ V will address the problem of the game bogging down at the end game. I'm sure most know what I am talking about. When the turns start going a year at a time later in game and you have a lotta units the game starts to drag a bit.

i'm skeptical about firaxis's will to cope with the late game's boredom and bogging down. it will most likely be the same old sh*t imho with the game decided by industrial or late medieval and with no insensitive what so ever to play the game to the end.

Originally Posted by r_rolo1

That would be true if you could ensure the map sizes are equivalent. And to be honest my gut feeling is that the maps in Civ V will be substantially larger than the civ IV ones with the equivalent tag.

strange gut feeling: larger map -> more cities -> more units. well, that is if any resourceless units types are present, but they should be in, since their absence will tilt the balance toward those with more resources. and a larger map implies more resources. let us not forget, that firaxis wants to move away from unit hoards, so my bet is that maps in civ5 will be no more than maps in civ4

[mattigus]

Originally Posted by r_rolo1

I don't think I ever seen a Civ IV game where there were more units than tiles in the map, so that is not a valid argument IMHO

With SoD, you would see a single stack of 20 bazillion units being thrown into a city, with each city holding a huge garrison if needed. No one here knows how the new system will work, but only one unit can defend a city, and it seems that only something like 5 units are needed to take a defended city (2 axemen, 2 archers, and a catapult, for example). Logistically, you cant send much more than that without running into issues with moving a huge army like that.

[CornPlanter]

but only one unit can defend a city

Let me kindly point out that it's only an almost-baseless speculation

Who knows, maybe every hex around the city center counts as cities hex too - just one example.

[r_rolo1]

Originally Posted by mattigus

With SoD, you would see a single stack of 20 bazillion units being thrown into a city, with each city holding a huge garrison if needed. No one here knows how the new system will work, but only one unit can defend a city, and it seems that only something like 5 units are needed to take a defended city (2 axemen, 2 archers, and a catapult, for example). Logistically, you cant send much more than that without running into issues with moving a huge army like that.

You have a point, but that has zero to do with what I was arguing. Ok, you may have less incentive to make a boatload of units , but my point was about max units in game: for example, if you had made a cap for the number of land units equal to the number of tiles in the map in Civ IV , I bet that 99% of the games would have the exact same number of units they have today . So making a hard cap to the number of units in the map via capping the number of units per tile alone will not reduce the number of units compared with Civ IV, that was the point of the person I was responding to.

@Hail

The only fool-proof way of reducing the number of units in a game is make them hard to get ... You can have huge maps with little units if you make them hard to get ( say , the equivalent of getting a rifleman in ancient ages cities in Civ IV ) or a lot of units in small maps if you make them ridiculously cheap, so any reasoning based on the ( desired or not ) number of units is atleast shaky. My gut feeling about the size of the maps comes from other considerations ( not all from gameplay, though : one of the biggest and more consistent pet peeves about Civ IV was the small size of the maps compared with previous versions of the game ... )

[Hail]

Originally Posted by r_rolo1

The only fool-proof way of reducing the number of units in a game is make them hard to get ... You can have huge maps with little units if you make them hard to get ( say , the equivalent of getting a rifleman in ancient ages cities in Civ IV ) or a lot of units in small maps if you make them ridiculously cheap, so any reasoning based on the ( desired or not ) number of units is atleast shaky.

all right lets start from here:
1) assuming in any unit rushing mechanic the rush "cost" is proportional to the unit's cost, the number of units is inversely proportional to their cost
2) assuming constant resource density, a larger map will have more resources, than a smaller map
3) a larger map has more tiles, than a smaller map
do we agree so far? i sure hope so!
so let's more on:

since in civ5 units will be capped by their required resource(s), from 2) we get that on a larger map, the resource cap will be higher, meaning that generally a larger map will have more units.
point 3) means that a larger map will generally have more cities. assuming the existence of resourceless unit types, this also means more units.

so what?
from firaxis's point of view, more units is undesirable

Originally Posted by r_rolo1

My gut feeling about the size of the maps comes from other considerations ( not all from gameplay, though : one of the biggest and more consistent pet peeves about Civ IV was the small size of the maps compared with previous versions of the game ... )

shrinking map sizes in civ4 probably had a lot to do with the 3d stuff. the 3d stuff is in civ5 also, so i would not expect a major increase in map sizes.

and second! does firaxis actually expect people to maintain 20-30 tile fronts and love it!?

[r_rolo1]

Your point 1) ( in spite of not being wrong ) assumes no method of rushing a unit, especially one that treats units in a far better light than buildings ( but not only ) , like the Civ IV drafting, to be fully appliable. as every civ game so far from quite a while had some kind of rushing feature, that is a little shaky ground....

.Your point 2), as others pointed to me in other discussions ( and not in my help ), is shaky at best

Your point 3) is true, but not necessarily relevant ( it would be only revelant if you can ensure the same medium output of the land that Civ IV has and having more cities might bring some strings attached ( Civ IV already has some ) and city states might have been putted in the game with the sole reason of blocking the land out of the "real" civs while giving a reason to not raze them on sight )

About the map size.... not so sure on the 3D being the sole reason to make maps smaller ( or even being a reason at all ... IMHO the real reason for the map sizes as they are has much more to do with the strain produced by the number of units in play compared with a decent computer of the times Civ Iv got out than anything else ). Even then, as other posters pointed elsewhere, Civ IV graphical engine was horribly unoptimized in stock Civ IV and I would not be surprised if Civ V bringed a far less intensive graphical aproach than Civ IV... anyway, Firaxis has a good reason to push the maps to the highest possible size: try to catch the people that shunned Civ IV because of that, and that aren't as few as that... just peek at the Civ III forums to grab a few if you want

Well about firaxis thinking that moving 20-30 units line is fun or not .... well, they definitely thinked that a SoD aproach to the game was unfun and tried to get rid of it in Civ IV ( if you have Civ IV just dig the manual out and read what Soren Jonhson said there ) and we all know how did that got out

[bonafide11]

I strongly feel that the late game will be less bogged down, and I believe that is why Firaxis is going the one-unit-per-hex route. Without massive SoDs, there will be much smaller armies actually engaged in battles, and this will significantly quicken the late game up. The enormous SoDs really slowed the late game down for me, and I think this is why Firaxis is trying to move away from them.

[Gamemaster77]

Originally Posted by fuerza

This is a good question KL XIV. As you may recall, tons and TONS of people complained about random game crashes as you progressed through the gameplay in Civ IV (especially late game play when you had the map full of stuff and many civs battling it out), and as you also may recall 2k games did absolutely nothing about it. Many times, late-game saves became corrupted or did not save properly and the only answer that you got from the publisher was that is was YOUR system that caused the problems. If Civ V doesn't address these issues, it will lose positive reviews early on.

Thats like someone selling you a condo but then you find out you cant get to it because it is at the north pole in the middle of the water. Then they tell you its YOUR COUNTRY that prevents you from getting there because they don't have any air or sea ports in that location.

[chongli]

One thing nobody has mentioned yet is the new victory condition that allows you to win simply by capturing all opposing capital cities. This alone should significantly speed up the endgame should you be able to establish a large enough lead that you can quickly dominate these cities.

[bonafide11]

Originally Posted by chongli

One thing nobody has mentioned yet is the new victory condition that allows you to win simply by capturing all opposing capital cities. This alone should significantly speed up the endgame should you be able to establish a large enough lead that you can quickly dominate these cities.

Where did you see this? I have not read or heard anything about the victory conditions. This condition was in Civ Revolution, but I have not seen it mentioned at all yet for Civ V.

[chongli]

Originally Posted by bonafide11

Where did you see this? I have not read or heard anything about the victory conditions. This condition was in Civ Revolution, but I have not seen it mentioned at all yet for Civ V.

From this thread.

Who knows if it is really true, it's the same "Danish magazine" we're all basing our facts on.

[Aussie_Lurker]

Well if we're just talking about the *inevitability* of the Industrial/Modern Era, then one step forward might be to alter the way victory is determined. A gradual points accrual system-across all areas (culture, war, technology, economics), similar to what Rhye has, would make the end game a lot less obvious-especially if we included the Civ-specific goals of RFC!
Another idea from Rhye, which would help alleviate both end-game boredom & micromanagement is the idea of stability. If extremely large empires can potentially break up due to poor management, then suddenly bigger doesn't always mean better (Maintenance went a long way to curing it, but stability would really put the final nail into the "Bigger=Better" coffin!)

Aussie.

[chongli]

Originally Posted by Aussie_Lurker

Well if we're just talking about the *inevitability* of the Industrial/Modern Era, then one step forward might be to alter the way victory is determined. A gradual points accrual system-across all areas (culture, war, technology, economics), similar to what Rhye has, would make the end game a lot less obvious-especially if we included the Civ-specific goals of RFC!
Another idea from Rhye, which would help alleviate both end-game boredom & micromanagement is the idea of stability. If extremely large empires can potentially break up due to poor management, then suddenly bigger doesn't always mean better (Maintenance went a long way to curing it, but stability would really put the final nail into the "Bigger=Better" coffin!)

Aussie.

Curing it? I would personally attribute maintenance to be one of the main causes of "bogging down" during the mop-up phase. Civ4 featured a negative feedback cycle that progressively crippled your economy the bigger you got, slowing the game to a crawl.

Couple this with your enemies retreating and digging in as you advance, culminating in a mega SoD in their last remaining city that is nearly impossible to bring down in a reasonable amount of time.