PolyCast Episode 238: "Raising the Stakes"

Taking a stand. The two-hundred-and-thirty-eighth episode of PolyCast, "Raising the Stakes", features regular co-hosts Daniel "DanQ" Quick, Philip "TheMeInTeam" Bellew and "MadDjinn" with first-time guest co-host "stormtrooper412". It carries a runtime of 59m59s.

The summary of topics is as follows:

- 01m18s | News
Titles, times and descriptions of Firaxicon 2015's panels are now known as is what as seen and heard at the 2015 Firaxis Games Mega Panel (07m27s); then, what is to be gleamed from the livestream on Civilization Beyond Earth: Rising Tide's Hybrid affinities at war (16m38s) and a co-operative multiplayer match (20m37s) in the same game.
- 22m49s | Miscellaneous
Emerging as an extension of conversation surrounding the most previous segment, managing trade routes in CivBERT... or Civilization V for that matter.
- 25m32s | Open Mic
Responding to feedback in not one but two threads within the Civ community on Episode 237.
- 39m53s | Forum Talk
In CivV, when are mounted units useful and is banning one or more luxuries in the World Congress simply to screw[ o]ver another civilization (47m15s).

- Intro/Outro | Miscellaneous
In context, deal breaking and making a break.

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; listeners are encouraged to follow the show on Twitter, and check out the YouTube channel for caption capability. Sibling show RevCast focuses on Civilization: Revolution, ModCast on Civ modding, SCivCast on Civ social gaming and TurnCast on Civ multiplay.

Dan, you're a wizard. I couldn't possibly appreciate this until I've seen first hand what you have to work with

Also, if you want a definition of the word THICK, refer to my English accent

edit: OH CHRIST the blooper reel is real

stormtrooper412 said:

Dan, you're a wizard. I couldn't possibly appreciate this until I've seen first hand what you have to work with

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Thank you kindly.

Also, if you want a definition of the word THICK, refer to my English accent

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edit: OH CHRIST the blooper reel is real

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Great answer to my previous post. No one ever told answered me with "bull-beep" in so encouraging way.

One small note: Europa Universalis 4 Coalition system may have worked as ganging on a weak previously but now it's actually about containing fast conquerors a la Napoleon.

Every other system in this game, however, is about ganging on a weak.

Ilitarist said:

Great answer to my previous post. No one ever told answered me with "bull-beep" in so encouraging way.

One small note: Europa Universalis 4 Coalition system may have worked as ganging on a weak previously but now it's actually about containing fast conquerors a la Napoleon.

Every other system in this game, however, is about ganging on a weak.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but that isn't how the EU IV coalition system functions.

Coalitions are nothing but a backwards blob-protecting speed-bump. In earlier patches of EU IV, they made you fight increasingly large numbers of opponents for no scaling increase in gain. Now, they're just a mechanic that, by design, punishes minor nations for trying to expand.

Experienced players using blobs can chain truces to nullify any coalition possibility, even with 500-1000 AE (yes, I have hit 1000 and it's capped there). Blobs also scare smaller setups from banding together.

The most obvious thing wrong about your post is that you're comparing it to Napoleon:

1) Napoleon negotiated separate peace deals, something you can't do in the EU IV coalition kludge.

2) Napoleon was a legitimate existential threat to the entire region, most coalitions in EU IV instead go against sub-200 development nations, sometimes including nations double that size against them.

3) Ironically, historic late 1700's/early 1800's France is exactly the kind of empire that, in EU IV, coalitions would be too afraid to attempt to fight and thus wouldn't form in the current patch.

So no, coalitions in EU IV are junk and have no parallel to reality whatsoever, especially not to Napoleon. Their main purpose is as an extra rate limiter that only applies to some regions of the world in practice. In scope of how they form, in how they function, and in how they restrict peace deals they are pure fantasy, with 0 examples in history and no reason to believe nations would behave under those rules. It is *strictly* an arcade mechanic, and not a well-designed one.

But it's still better than the regency DoW restriction.

TheMeInTeam said:

Sorry, but that isn't how the EU IV coalition system functions.

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You obviously had more experience with this system than I did and took it to the limits. I have only seen it work as it's advertised to work - containing my big blob.

Ilitarist said:

You obviously had more experience with this system than I did and took it to the limits. I have only seen it work as it's advertised to work - containing my big blob.

Click to expand...

To illustrate their non-functional design nature:

Coalition against an AI in 1.13 beta, the highest AE has been in a while:



Player nation in the same game, no defensive coalition wars ever, 1 offensive one vs two smaller nations (declared before additional banding):



Take careful note of the coalitions active on the player nation as of 1650's, despite the size. What it should function as is a dogpile-on-runaway mechanic. What it does function as is...well...a non-functional kludge :/.

Obviously, Civ has no place for that kind of thing because EU IV itself doesn't, even the awkward warmongering menace mechanic in Civ V is better even if it does share the somewhat inane function of resulting in dogpiles of giant nations on smaller ones too if you don't know the inner workings.

Don't you agree warmonger penalty mechanic is already similar to EU4? Perhaps warmongering in Civ5 is not abusable cause you can't reliably liberate to keep hate for you at a margin but I feel it's mostly because of its black box nature. There are relatively simple calculations power player can use to keep the penalties in play but your usual player will not even know this mechanic exist until other Civs start badmouthing him (or he uses UI mods).

I feel that even though EU4 system is clearly abusable as you've shown it's better for most players due to it's transparency. In Civ terms it may look like visible warmonger stat, perhaps regulated by Congress/UN and affecting possible and automatic declarations (embargo is only possible for warmongers, heavy warmongering get automatic embargo, city-states stop liking you from a certain known warmongering rating, finally when you get through the roof everyone with different ideology attacks you). This approach contradicts Civ5 vanilla approach to diplomacy with everyone pretending he's real thinking person striving for victory - but warmongering mechanic itself contradicts itself by being so... mechanical.

Other solution would be to reinforce roleplaying nature of opponents by making them percieve warmongering in their own way. Like Ghandi hating the very notion of declaring war, Napoleon hating razing cities but not minding capturing them, Isabella not caring about people capturing cities of conqueror's faith etc. This way casual, beginner players will get more sensible and varied experience and advanced player will get a more interesting puzzle of playing around every UI's quirks. But I still think honest approach of EU4 is better even if the specific implementation is broken in the game itself. On Polycast you guys said CivBERT will have something similar opening inner AI's thoughts but I'm not familiar with CivBE so I'm not sure if it's what I'm talking about.

There already are differences to how different leaders react to warmongers, if that's what you meant

Yes, but IIRC it's only difference in quantity. Washington reacts to all of your actions in the same way as Alexander, but he will hate you 3 times more for each one of them. In EU4 each nation counts warmonger hate for each other depending on their relations (care more about neighbouring warmongers) but it's still very similar in the sense of you having to care about a specific number you can calculate not getting too high. If every leader has different view on what warmongering is you'd have more interesting and less abusable game, I think. And for current system it'd be better to show player real numbers - even moreso than with BNW fall patch.