Death of Conventional Strategies? [11/18 Patch Notes]

[budweiser]

So at the start of the game, you have three choices, Patronage, Liberty, Honor. But which one should you choose? It takes a bit of scouting the map to decide which is best. You normally have 15-25 turns to decide before you earn enough points.

What if you pop a hut on turn 8 and it gives 30 culture. Now you must choose a policy. Has your play balance been compromised?

 

[grzybek]

Actually I don't mind collecting unit upgrades and SP points gone. It was "ugly" that way and I never did store any of those. Nevertheless there are plenty things in CiV which I find annoying.

Here's the list:
- Almost all units are the same. There is barely a difference to attack city with catapult or horseman (except injury taken). I would make cities much stronger, and catapult much better at fighting cities (but only cities). In the same way I would specialize other units so fighting horseman against swordsman would be a 90% total win, but attacking the Spearman would be 10% win. Swordsman attacking spearman would have 80% win, while city only 30% etc. That would make a need for mutliptle types of units instead of just going to war with anything and conquering the city with Horsemen.

Additionally units should be cheaper to build but less powerful, so the war should have a chance to last a little longer. Currently the winner ends up lost civ and that is it. Loosing a single war and you're gone.

- SP are fine, but it's something completely different (IMHO) than civics from Civ4. I think we should not have one or the other - we should have both as both have different purposes.

- Science should not be generated just by number of people. Look at China in the real world. They weren't smart until they started to build Universities and Schools. Science should come from buildings only (or buildings and people, but only when you have buildings).

- I don't understand why building a Circus on one side of empire makes citizens of a town 1000 km away more happy? And if it does than why can't I build 2 circuses in single city? In big cities there is more than single pub, school, university, theater, etc.

- Also, I don't understand why culture is not generated by people? If science is, when it shouldn't, than why so much restrictions when it comes to culture? And why culture is so expensive when it comes to big empires?

- Why AI can finish PoC with me, but I can't do the same to them? Why diplo system is not same for all players?

- Why big cities strive on money while small towns generate a lots of it (ICS)? How come there is so much trade when there is nothing to trade because city has no buildings except granary?

And I think I could make the list a lot longer, but it's, clearly, getting obvious that what I want is a totally different game then CiV is? I should not complain on CiV - I should buy something else instead.

Did anyone hear about any other game like CiV?

 

[Dermo]

China probably has as much construction workers as South Korea has citizens.

Reminds me of a video I saw on Yahoo a week or two ago. In China, a construction crew builds a 15 storey hotel in 6 days from start to finish.

 

[anti_strunt]

- Why AI can finish PoC with me, but I can't do the same to them? Why diplo system is not same for all players?

I'm pretty sure you can end a PoCoop by clicking "I'm done working with you"; same button as the original Pact on the Discuss screen. I say pretty sure, 'cause I've never manually ended one. But the functionality should be there.

 

[elthrasher]

So at the start of the game, you have three choices, Patronage, Liberty, Honor. But which one should you choose? It takes a bit of scouting the map to decide which is best. You normally have 15-25 turns to decide before you earn enough points.

What if you pop a hut on turn 8 and it gives 30 culture. Now you must choose a policy. Has your play balance been compromised?

I've been choosing my policies immediately lately in anticipation of the change. The Liberty tree suits my play style well enough that I'm not hampered too much by not being able to save up for Rationalism. However, I hate having to choose on turn 8. Tradition is nearly worthless (a problem in and of itself), but I may wind up wanting Honor over Liberty.

I think making me choose immediately does remove strategic options. Certainly the ability to delay any decision about adopting new civics in Civ IV was important.

I would much rather just see the social policies better balanced and leave the ability to delay my choice in place.

 

[Dunkah]

Why not allow players to trade in policies for the same amount they purchased them for in culture? May be a small boost later on but not huge based on cumulative costs.

Perhaps if only one policy at at a time was allowed to be cashed in you could readjust the cost based on the new number of policies owned.

My two cents...

 

[The Tollan]

- SP are fine, but it's something completely different (IMHO) than civics from Civ4. I think we should not have one or the other - we should have both as both have different purposes.

Yes, this is intriguing. It would be great if a system to include both of social policies and civics were to be developed.

 

[gaiko]

That had been my suggestion a while back, perhaps in this thread.

Basically if the next SP total culture value threshold = C sub N, and the previously chosen SP is C sub N-1, then the actual thresholds for choosing that SP will be C sub(N - (N-1)), C sub(N - (N-2)), etc. At N - 1, the player could choose to either swap in this previously chosen SP as down payment on the current SP, or pass and wait for N - 2, or any N - X still unswapped. The SP choose icon will display at every available N - X, no more annoying than a slew of "Half your ICS cities desire crack cocaine" icons...

This would lend a civics like feel while still remaining true to the era progression scheme of CivV.

And who will argue with more choices?

Why not allow players to trade in policies for the same amount they purchased them for in culture? May be a small boost later on but not huge based on cumulative costs.

Perhaps if only one policy at at a time was allowed to be cashed in you could readjust the cost based on the new number of policies owned.

My two cents...

 

[Slowpoke]

Well, I just rebalanced SPs in mega mod so it's not really affected too much by the patch. Probably going to release a mod component for it. If you take out policy prereqs and rebalance them, it should result in a lot of varied strategies even with forced policy picking. The only annoyance I can see is stuff like not being able to choose exactly when to pick a policy like total war or reformation.

 

[LordTC]

Much Better is:

You can save up SP as much as you want, but you're only allowed to take 1 SP every five turns, so you can't just suddenly spam a new society after one technological breakthrough but you can still save up for the better ones.

I think the biggest problem is that all of the basic policies available right away are cookie cutter:

Honor for any sort of military rush (Although you don't even need it which is sad).

Liberty for ICS (+1 happiness per connected city with faster workers and faster settlers).

Tradition rarely (although its ok in OCC or if you're going for a culture victory with say Egypt + Marble +the wonder ability and just spamming key wonders in the capital).

That being said fixing maritimes will vastly improve the game, It's kind of dumb when the choice between a trading post economy and a specialist economy is: Run both and buy maritimes for food.

 

[Slowpoke]

valkrionn also came up with an idea, basically you can retain culture past a policy, but it dissipates a bit every turn.

 

[E66man]

The only annoyance I can see is stuff like not being able to choose exactly when to pick a policy like total war or reformation.

Yet another interesting point to refute the 'designers didn't intend policies to be saved' crowd. Effective use of the Total War policy practically demands you keep a policy saved so you can trigger it at the right time. Especially if, as another poster pointed out in a different thread, you view that policy as one to give yourself a bonus when you are in a *losing* war; if you are winning, it is unlikely you need a further boost.

 

[E66man]

Almost all units are the same. There is barely a difference to attack city with catapult or horseman (except injury taken). I would make cities much stronger, and catapult much better at fighting cities (but only cities). In the same way I would specialize other units so fighting horseman against swordsman would be a 90% total win, but attacking the Spearman would be 10% win. Swordsman attacking spearman would have 80% win, while city only 30% etc. That would make a need for mutliptle types of units instead of just going to war with anything and conquering the city with Horsemen.

The problem with this is easier to see if you look at the Modern Era unit types. You have Tank, Anti-Tank, Artillery, Infantry, and Anti-Air. To have a 'proper' combined-arms battle, this is 5 different units that are a pain to manage under the 1UPT format. It's not only annoying just moving these units around, but even more so if they have to jockey for position on the map so that each is in a decent spot to perform its designed role. Then things get even worse if you want multiple units in your army from the same category. If nothing else, stacks rewarded players who went for combined arms armies since it was simpler for each unit to fulfill its unique role within the stack.

I don't know if it is advisable to push units in Civ V to be too strongly specialized since the 1UPT format as it is now isn't conducive to that kind of tactical fighting. This could get partially addressed in the Modern Era by adding in concepts usually found in most wargames, like allowing units to provide supporting fire to adjacent troops, but I'm not sure what the Ancient Era equivalent would be.

 

[anti_strunt]

The problem with this is easier to see if you look at the Modern Era unit types. You have Tank, Anti-Tank, Artillery, Infantry, and Anti-Air. To have a 'proper' combined-arms battle, this is 5 different units that are a pain to manage under the 1UPT format. It's not only annoying just moving these units around, but even more so if they have to jockey for position on the map so that each is in a decent spot to perform its designed role. Then things get even worse if you want multiple units in your army from the same category. If nothing else, stacks rewarded players who went for combined arms armies since it was simpler for each unit to fulfill its unique role within the stack.

I don't know if it is advisable to push units in Civ V to be too strongly specialized since the 1UPT format as it is now isn't conducive to that kind of tactical fighting. This could get partially addressed in the Modern Era by adding in concepts usually found in most wargames, like allowing units to provide supporting fire to adjacent troops, but I'm not sure what the Ancient Era equivalent would be.

1UPT and emphasis on tactical combined arms worked well enough in Panzer General, so the basic format can't be the problem. Something is wrong with Civ 5's implementation of it.

 

[pi-r8]

1UPT and emphasis on tactical combined arms worked well enough in Panzer General, so the basic format can't be the problem. Something is wrong with Civ 5's implementation of it.

at least panzer general had enough space in between cities to fit everything in. Civ V is just way too crowded.

 

[LDiCesare]

1UPT and emphasis on tactical combined arms worked well enough in Panzer General, so the basic format can't be the problem. Something is wrong with Civ 5's implementation of it.

In Panzer general etc., artillery or archers had a defensive fire ability that let them deal damage to units that attacked (melee) units near them. It's something that was not ported into Civ and it's a bit of a pity. Fantasy General in particular didn't allow archers to have ranged attacks but they were still useful to defend your infantry. This ability alone made flanking more interesting.

 

[Paeanblack]

In Panzer general etc., artillery or archers had a defensive fire ability that let them deal damage to units that attacked (melee) units near them.

Memories of Civ2's maze of death spring to mind.

Players would make a maze for the AI with catapults, and by the time a large stack of AI tanks had negotiated the winding path, they were all nearly dead from opportunity fire. One poke with a spear at the end of the line finished them off.

 

[firecat318]

Update:

AI
•AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory if they are wealthy. (Added 12/3)
•AI more effective with building, moving, and using aircraft and anti-aircraft more effectively. (Added 12/3)
•AI more likely to effectively use siege units in a city attack. (Added 12/3)
•Better nuke targeting by AI. (Added 12/3)
•Tactical AI Tuning: Reduce chance of AI civs making "suicide" attacks. (Added 12/3)
•Multiple tweaks and bug fixes. (Added 12/3)


GAMEPLAY
•Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology. (Added 12/3)
•Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities, and reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities. (Added 12/3)
•Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). (Added 12/3)
•Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city). (Added 12/3)
•Reduced points from Wonders & Cities, increased points for population. (Added 12/3)
•Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition. (Added 12/3)
•New Building: Circus Maximus (National Wonder for happiness track). (Added 12/3)
•New Building: National Treasury (National Wonder for economic track). (Added 12/3)
•Unhappiness beyond a certain point breeds rebels within your empire, based on the number of cities a player has. (Added 12/3)
•Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes. (Added 12/3)
•Tradition branch balance (Landed Elite and Monarchy improvements). (Added 12/3)
•Liberty branch balance (Settler training bonus now only applies to capital). (Added 12/3)
•Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)
•3 new additional Natural Wonders added to gameplay, with accompanying “rarity” code. (Added 12/3)
•Multiple Tech Tree tweaks to address “slingshot” tech exploits. (Added 12/3)
•Killing a barb inside a city-state's territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty. (Added 12/3)
•Reduced and balanced combat bonuses. (Added 12/3)


UI
•Additional updates to the Global Politics screen. (Added 12/3)
•Added game option to disable turn-blocking promotions and policy choices. (Added 12/3)


DIPLO
•Additional AI attitude tool-tips for cases that were not already covered. (Added 12/3)


MODDING
•Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units. (Added 12/3)
•Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality. (Added 12/3)
•Fixed "Reload Landmark System" mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in "ArtDefine_Landmarks". (Added 12/3)
•Multiple SDK Updates (details to come with full patch notes). (Added 12/3)

Anything that has (Added 12/3) after it means it was just announced.

 

[Paeanblack]

Hey Firaxis...thanks for listening

Those latest changes sound great. Those (12/3) changes cover a TON of ground.

 

[firecat318]

Yep they really do, especially the ones with the AI... it sounds like the AI will actually be using nukes (quite scary if they launch 3-4 of them at your capitol) and aircraft too! The multiple gameplay balances sound nice too.