PolyCast Episode 161: "On the Spot"

Marked front and centre. The one-hundred-and-sixty-first episode of PolyCast, "On the Spot", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, "Makahlua", Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and "MadDjinn" with returning guest co-host Derek "Kael" Paxton; it has a runtime of 59m59s. Listeners are encouraged to follow the show on Twitter, and check out the YouTube channel for caption capability. The summary of topics is as follows:

- 03m43s | News
An official, pending follow-up up on the Fall 2012 Patch for Civilization V.
- 04m50s | Forum Talk
Rating the religious beliefs found in the CivV expansion Gods & Kings, and then debating the pros and cons of the Corruption, Maintenance and Happiness systems found throughout the five main Civilization series titles to date (12m21s).
- 32m53s | Research Lab
Incorporating a Nomadic Era start in Civ, and then adapting Paradox Systems' grand strategy games' diplomacy and warfare mechanics into the series.

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
Running through the relevant credentials of the guest panelist, the fact and timing of Civilization V: Gods & Kings winning an award, good memories and a revived realization.

Recording live before a listening audience every other Saturday, PolyCast is a bi-weekly audio production in an ongoing effort to give the Civ community an interactive voice on game strategy; sibling show RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution, ModCast on Civ modding, SCivCast on Civ social gaming and TurnCast on Civ multiplay.

There is one thing I would like to see in civ 5 of the paradox diplomacy system is the reason for war.

If you didn't had a reason for a war you get a negatif hit with everyone . So if someone atacked you're city state or settled a city next to you , atacked ally civ , denounced or other a reasons...

Instead of if you dow everyone hates you . The warmonger penalty is one of the bigest flaws in diplomacy in my opinion with civ 5

I think what Dan mentioned on the end of the 'rate the beliefs' section; that not all beliefs are meant to be equal, is probably the most important point that was made, though was understated. Okay, so you don't want beliefs that are never going to be taken, but having some that function as a consolation prize is fine. Of course there's no harm in rating the beliefs, but it's an essentially meaningless exercise in the end.

Looking forward to listen to this one, but wasn't this one to include an interview with Fallen Enchantress lead designer Derreck Paxton?

Edit: I see it now, he is in!

apocalypse105 said:

There is one thing I would like to see in civ 5 of the paradox diplomacy system is the reason for war.

If you didn't had a reason for a war you get a negatif hit with everyone . So if someone atacked you're city state or settled a city next to you , atacked ally civ , denounced or other a reasons...

Instead of if you dow everyone hates you . The warmonger penalty is one of the bigest flaws in diplomacy in my opinion with civ 5

Click to expand...

Certainly the warmonger penalty isn't as severe as it once was, and the expanded tiers of diplomacy that G&K introduced helped, but further refinements such the one you reference ought to improve the mechanic further.

Camikaze said:

I think what Dan mentioned on the end of the 'rate the beliefs' section; that not all beliefs are meant to be equal, is probably the most important point that was made, though was understated. Okay, so you don't want beliefs that are never going to be taken, but having some that function as a consolation prize is fine. Of course there's no harm in rating the beliefs, but it's an essentially meaningless exercise in the end.

Click to expand...

, though I don't find the exercise meaningless so much as it's a means to another end (i.e. the discussion had) as opposed to an end itself.

Luckystrike77 said:

Looking forward to listen to this one, but wasn't this one to include an interview with Fallen Enchantress lead designer Derreck Paxton?

Edit: I see it now, he is in!

Click to expand...

Camikaze said:

I think what Dan mentioned on the end of the 'rate the beliefs' section; that not all beliefs are meant to be equal, is probably the most important point that was made, though was understated. Okay, so you don't want beliefs that are never going to be taken, but having some that function as a consolation prize is fine. Of course there's no harm in rating the beliefs, but it's an essentially meaningless exercise in the end.

Click to expand...

I don't agree, but I guess that's a matter of personal oppinion as much as anything. While I do agree with the point that far to few people actually voted to make the sample representative of the community, for my personal interests I found it nice to see that the votes where pretty much unanimous on which beliefs are grossly underpowered and which are overly powerful. The value one puts into that and what one does with that information is obviously a matter for the individual, myself I'll use it to mod some of these beliefs to be more balanced - not because I want them all to be equal, but because I want them all to be interesting choices sometimes.

Great episode as usally this should be a television show haha

worker replacement discussion.
I thinx the best solution is improving automatation.

Especialy at civ 5 automated workers will built roads everywhere and in industrial they want to connect every single city with railroads. that can easy b e changed.


The only way i would see them replaced is a similar option like command and conquer When you found a city(construction yard) it has a certain radiouis tiles and it can expand by building culture buildings inside the city

At those tiles you're cities centrum can construct different improvements whith the aproper technologies no workers. You click in the construction bar and select the tile and it will automaticly built it ...(On some tiles luxuries tiles can only be built plantation mines and so on).

Every single improvement cost time to construct . ( a amount of turns) . A standard city can only improve 1 tile at the time. Except if you built a extra building(a quarry , or in moder time a crane) which ads a new production tab so you can built more improvements at the time.


Improving stack system

The best way to improve this is to only allow the same military unit per tile. So you can have a massive stack of knights ...

This means there actualy exist tactcal combat because now you have to scout the enemy because some units are better against others pikes beat horses , and axeman beat pikes. And siege is devestating to a tile but it can easy be killed if it is atacked.

Olso You can only defend a city with 1 typ of unit So proparly archers will be the best choise.

When I first played civ 4 It made me laugh that my pikeman couldn't atack a knight because suddenly the axeman became the top defender what? Whats the point of counter units if the top defender is allways the counter.

Enjoyable podcast guys! My thoughts:

Worker replacement:

This is an awful idea. One of the major things that sets Civ aside from other strategy games are the choices you have to make with workers and improving tiles. This is key to the deep strategy of the game. The real issue here is the lack of tutorials available to micro-managing cities. Micro-ing cities is so important and 90% of players don't know how to do this effectively. A better tutorial on this would help a lot of players to improve how they play the game. Connecting key resources has already been made easier from Civ 4 with the removal of having to road the resources to the city. I'd personally like to see that brought back in. I welcome the cost of roads in gold from Civ 4 but this could be tweaked for Civ 6.

Stacks and limited stacks:

The problem here is that you just bring back stacks and you make as many stacks as possible so we go backwards in terms of the strategy of war. Removal of stacks from Civ 4 was a major improvement in the war mechanics when fighting on hexes as opposed to squares. The real issue is the balance of range units / melee units. Up until the industrial/modern ages, range units reign supreme. Remove fortification for range units on hills and we would have far more balance. Also there is room to bring back the 'axeman' unit with 'copper' as the key resource.

apocalypse105 said:

Great episode as usally this should be a television show haha

Click to expand...

GaelicWarrior said:

Enjoyable podcast guys!

Click to expand...

Thanks to both of you for your additional input -- I've noted to have both included for discussion on Episode 166.