'National College first' build - incredibly cheesy

[Cronicler]

Why not drop the tradition and go the other way completely?
Make the "national wonders" upgrades (replaces) to normal building (monument, barracks or mil academy, library) that costs just a bit more in upkeep with the same base output and a bonus output depending on the number of other libraries etc in your empire.
This way you can build it early and as your empire grows so does the usefulness of the nw.

 

[joyous_gard]

In response to snarzberry:

Good post.

It is 'cheesy' because National Wonders are only practical to build before the civ is even a nation while becoming nearly impossible once the civ has any sort of size worthy of having an 'epic'. You can indeed argue we're debating semantics, but let me ask you this: Beyond the NC, in just how many of your games do you build the other national wonders? Though here, we're probably running into the problem of you not having a lot of MP experience, so you may actually be building them - because the docile AI's allow you to. Facing human opponents, however - which IMO equals to playing what the AI 'should have been' - giving up expansion in order to tediously construct X building in every city is just too much of a drawback. Thus, the various national wonders are never built, leaving us with that much fewer actually viable buildings in the game.

I understand your point, and it's a good point, but the counterpoint is that the game is 'cheesy.'

They made a cheesy game. It's not like this aspect of it is cheesy only. Trading posts throughout the ages on every tile is incredibly cheesy. No map trading is uber cheese. The cheesy feel to the cheesy game is what a large portion of the fanbase hates about Civ V. In IV and III people didn't get a cheesy feeling from playing the game because they tied the game more to how civilization progressed.

I most always build the national wonders (except maybe clown college), but I make it a point to build them. Post-patch, I haven't been successful above King either and part of that is because I like to build the NWs. I spend too much gold on opera houses and stuff to be a real killer.

Poor multiplayer. I don't play and too bad they can't build national wonders but I am not surprised. If I played multiplayer I would try to build an army, not NWs. Making changes to the game in the name of multiplayer balance would really piss me off because I think this is a single player game.

I'm sure there is a middle ground but IMO cheesy-ness is the norm for V. "Civ V - Got to Love the Cheese." Should be the ad campaign.

 

[Strategist83]

The patch didn't nerf national wonders, it boosted them. Prior to the December patch NC only gave a +50% science output, now it gives +5 in addition to that.

It's the reading comprehension thing again.

I was addressing the fact that you suggested nerfing the wonders. Hence why I quoted your post.

 

[Strategist83]

@ joyous

If that is your stance - CiV is cheesy and failed beyond recognition - maybe it would be better to just move on to other games?

I'm not too happy with how a lot of things turned out for CiV either, but to me posting like you just did is completely pointless. If you have zero hope or faith in the game and regard it as utter junk, move on.

 

[joyous_gard]

@ joyous

If that is your stance - CiV is cheesy and failed beyond recognition - maybe it would be better to just move on to other games?

I'm not too happy with how a lot of things turned out for CiV either, but to me posting like you just did is completely pointless. If you have zero hope or faith in the game and regard it as utter junk, move on.

My point was that you should understand the cheese and play with it. I tried to address your concerns.

1) You whine - "it's cheesy to have NC so early and only for smalls." I retort - "Yes the game is cheesy."
2) You write - "how many build the NWs?" I write - "I do, but haven't had much success above king."
3) You write - "Multiplayer is the best AI." I write - "This is a single player game. Multiplayer can GF for all I care. Changing a ruleset for multiplayer in a singleplayer game is ridiculous"

I play the game, I post in general forum. Maybe instead of trying to get the ruleset changed to your liking, you should play the game and learn to adjust.

 

[Deussu]

It's the reading comprehension thing again.

I was addressing the fact that you suggested nerfing the wonders. Hence why I quoted your post.

Browsing way too many threads at once causes me to derp quite a lot.

Derp.

 

[FidelZandro]

It's not cheesy, there's just no logic to the preqreqs for national wonders.
It would be so easy to change all of it.
OCC? Only need one of everything.
To build any NW, you should have build a few prereq buildings.
Have enough buildings? You can always build, even if you just founded a new pop 1 city to replace that hideously placed AI one.
But, on the other hand, if it's possible to build NC in 3000bc, i'll gladly build it

 

[Elenhil]

Tribe =/= nation.

Sorry to sound trollish, but the only thing I find cheesy here is your fixation with the word National. It's a word, nothing more. Petition the devs to rename it if you care for words that much. They obviously took the first one that came to their minds. Other NWs are no less arbitrary in their naming (and graphics, for that matter; Iwo Jima in BC, you say? Scotland Yard BC in cIV was no less anachronistic in both naming and graphics).

 

[Harvestmoon]

I don't like the "build x in ALL cities", but I don't think "build x/map size" works either, because them you set a minimum number of cities per map.

NC (and things like it) should just require a certain amount of (or , or , or whatever) per turn.

 

[Misotu]

Sorry to sound trollish, but the only thing I find cheesy here is your fixation with the word National. It's a word, nothing more. Petition the devs to rename it if you care for words that much. They obviously took the first one that came to their minds. Other NWs are no less arbitrary in their naming (and graphics, for that matter; Iwo Jima in BC, you say? Scotland Yard BC in cIV was no less anachronistic in both naming and graphics).

Well no, I think "National" is not as arbitrary as you suggest. I think they chose it to distinguish those wonders that each civ could build, as opposed to those that were "Global" and could be built only once world-wide.

In this sense, I think the terminology is apt and helpful. Apart from this small point, I agree with you that it's hard to understand why people are having such a problem with the word

 

[bryanw1995]

I don't know if a strategy that doesn't really work on the higher levels can be considered overpowered.

Immortal and above, NC start can be disastrous, I am usually forced to expand or die, at least on deity.

It seems to me to be a pretty good trade-off for vertical or horizontal power.

NC is still the best strategy most of the time, even on deity, you just have to get it out as quickly as possible so that you can expand sooner.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

lol, this will be post that successfully gets National College nerfed. Don't hate the player, hate the game. They made a ridiculous game.

In designing the game, they didn't go for realism or any semblance of historical actuality. So players are playing with the rules of the game. Stop changing the ruleset. Their patches have been largely reactionary and CYA. Oh, saving SP is bad? We won't allow that. Oh, too many people are using the honor SP? We will make it worse. Oh, people are using libraries to advance in tech? We will strip out their usefulness. Oh some people say that Golden Age is too long? We will knock that down a notch.

The game is nonsense war game with some leftover buildings from the previous Civilization games. The nonsense, make-believe feeling of playing it is part of what makes Civ V a crappy game. I am used to that now and don't really need any new rule changes.

I'm still waiting on quantifiable physical evidence to demonstrate some of those patched strategies were OP...and probably will wait forever.

Which is a pretty big farce.

 

[Smote]

Personally I find that the national college adds a lot of depth, because you really have to decide how much to expand, and how fast.

1. small # of cities, quick NC = maximum beakers, less hammers [Good for any medieval+ rush or non-combat based strategy]
2. Skip NC, expand very fast -> large # of cities = less beakers, maximum hammers [Good for any ancient/classical rush]

It makes for a tough decision, each with benefits and drawbacks. NC first is obviously very strong vs AI, since high level AI is usually difficult to conquer before longswordsmen.

 

[Airey]

There's a tradeoff, you can build it or not build it early.
In noway is it cheesy like you described.

... National College being apparently the only national wonder players ever build, and that only as a cheesy one-city science slingshot exploit.

You're only looking at pre-classical techs. Multiple cities out-tech this post medieval.