RB3 - Daring Deity with Ottomans

[Ichabod]

Someone suggested that rushbuying should suffer from the same negative modifiers that prodution gets with too many units/unhapiness.

Maybe it could go both ways. Rushbuying costs depends on the production modiers of a city, wether positive or negative. That way, rushbuing in cities with nice infrastructure would be better.

Of course thay would have to increase rushbuying initial costs, not making latter rushbuying overpowered. Of course, if you rushbuy to many units with your nice city, production penalties would start to show, making it more expansive. Rushbuying buildings would still be cheaper (not affected by the number of units production penalty), but that's not a big problem, I think.

 

[haphazard1]

Ichabod,

I do not think changing rush buying like that would actually help at all. This -- and many other proposed solutions, not just yours -- are just working around the edges and not addressing the core problems: Civ V is both (a) too easy, and (b) does not offer enough fun choices.

(a) is pretty much obvious -- large numbers of players have to push difficulty up to high levels to get any challenge at all, Deity level thoroughly beaten (this thread and others) within little more than a month of release, etc.

(b) covers a lot of things discussed in this thread including the uselessness of 90% of the buildings in the game, the AI's incessant warring, the pitifully broken AI fighting skills, the uselessness of diplomacy, and much more.

The problem is how to address both of these problems, and not just focus on (a) by proposing to nerf any strategy or tactic which is shown to actually work. I have seen a ton of (a)-focused proposals in this thread and on these forums which would make the game harder...but would not make it any more fun.

I think pi-r8 is correct that what is needed is to make approaches other than ICS more effective, not to just nerf ICS. Bring the rest up, rather than trying to crush ICS down. The "normal" approach of growing your empire by settling new cities, building infrastructure in them, and growing your population ought to be a viable path to success. Instead it has to be treated as variant play -- an intentional choice to tie one's own hands and play sub-optimally -- because you want to play as a "normal empire builder".

That is a failure in game design, caused by too many interlocking issues to be solved with a silver bullet tweak or patch of one facet of the game.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

I think pi-r8 is correct that what is needed is to make approaches other than ICS more effective, not to just nerf ICS. Bring the rest up, rather than trying to crush ICS down. The "normal" approach of growing your empire by settling new cities, building infrastructure in them, and growing your population ought to be a viable path to success. Instead it has to be treated as variant play -- an intentional choice to tie one's own hands and play sub-optimally -- because you want to play as a "normal empire builder".

When did "non-optimal" become equated with "not viable" ? I've had plenty of success playing as a "normal empire builder". I do what feels natural to me, and it may not be optimal but it certainly doesn't feel like playing with my hands tied.

And fun is subjective. I find there to be plenty of fun choices in Civ5. I think maybe because I'm more looking for a good story than a beat-your-head-against-the-wall style challenge.

 

[TheColorQ]

I think maybe because I'm more looking for a good story than a beat-your-head-against-the-wall style challenge.

Same here I think but I have the exact opposite opinion of Civ 5. It feels fare more game-y than Civ 4. In Civ 4 I would set it to the longest game possible and turn off all victory conditions to see how it plays out. That will never happen in Civ 5, it feels like there is more pressure to play to win because the A.I. is incapable of being anything other than psychotic along with the numerous other things mentioned.

 

[MaXimillionZero]

edit- one possible mod idea I'd like to try, would be to nerf early game buildings and strengthen the later ones, while also starting the game with a capital of about size 10. That would effectively nerf the small city spam strategy, without making the early game excrucatingly slow.

Why not just increase the power of the Palace? It would also mean that the capital doesn't end up being your worst city once you get railroads.

 

[Nutteria]

In my mind one of the biggest blunders Firaxis made is making the AI play for the win.
Let me elaborate by asking you to answer thiese simple questions:

1) Why is the Diplomacy so unpredictable?
2) Why all Civs are so agressive?
3) Why all Civs are dogpiling on the weakest opponent?
4) Why all Civs are giving everything + their liver after you steamroll them in the initial war effort?
5) Why all Civs are backstabing you every chance they have?

The simple answer to all those questions is one : The AI plays for the win.And all their sub-systems and all of their fancy decision making breaks down when Alex starts roaming with his CC taking citys left and right.The AI can`t go for diplo/culture/space win because if/when they do they are becoming weak and the rest of the civs dogpile them to the ground.

AS LONG as the AI plays for the win the game won`t make sence and will feel like if you are playing against a random dice roll.

 

[alpaca]

Hey guys, I'm back from France (had a very nice time). Grats for the win to all participants! Deity sure is tedious but the game was still, all things considered, fun - because I only had to play a few turns every now and then could sit back and relax while somebody else took over the grind through the huge AI unit mass.

Also, an interesting discussion about the game's shortcomings and potential fixes. I may chime in later when I have time and sorted my thoughts a bit. I think it's obvious that ICS is better than most other strategies in the department where it matters most: Science. Being able to research techs in 3 turns (or even 2 if you really game things, maybe not possible on deity) is pretty ridiculous.

 

[h0ncho]

What about simply decreasing the amount of specialist gained from library? Maybe make library give you one specialist, university two, school three? As far as I can see the two specialists per library is a very important motor in ICS research.

 

[Ichabod]

haphazard1,

you're right. I was just giving an idea about rushbuying that goes well with getting bigger cities.

But the problems of the game are way more complex than these simple changes.

I agree with you.

 

[EasymodeX]

1. There are too many early game flat bonuses for buildings and such. Perhaps some buildings should give +1 of whatever they do, and have 0 maintenance cost.

1b. 0 maint on some of those means you can re-tune early game cash influx, leading to less rushbuy and less CS whoring overall.

2. There are no early game production buildings that mirror a library, granary, etc. Production enhancement comes from narrow-scope buildings (lol +20% on buildings, or +20% production for mounted units, or +20% for infantry) that have annoyingly high maintenance costs. Low percentage boosts, high maintenance, narrow production scope ... really?

3. Library specialist lol is lol has already been noted several times.


That alone would nerf ICS for Deity (vastly lower GS production, lower science overall, leading to weaker tech, more struggle against the AI -- kicking it up to a university would have direct maintenance costs, indirect alternative costs for not building military). However, as another poster suggested, nerfing ICS isn't really the point, and should be secondary to adding variety / fun. Ideally buffing other overarching strategies and approaches.

It just seems like the downfall of other strategies is 12318712 AI units that are always drooling to war on you. Conversely, it takes 58714823 AI units to kill something.

 

[Poopin Thelift]

Fantastic gameplay from skilled players. And good discussion about how to make the game more enjoyable. But as I have found ways to have fun with the game, I want to share some thoughts with you.
First: Pangaea maps are problematic, as they favour the human player too much. It's easy rushing and ICSing for the Human, and drives the AI into 'arms race' mode. I've found it more enyoable to play on water maps, now playing tiny islands. There you can't rush your neighbours easily and have limited room for ICSing. Throw in raging barbs, offshore ICSing needs a lot more planning too. In addition the AI seems performing better, if they are isolated from each other (and you), as they don't put all their hammers into arms.
Second: Small maps also favour the human player, very much out of the reasons for pangaea maps (players agglomerated).
Playing huge water maps makes the game different and more challanging. At the moment I'm enoying an emperor Ottomans game on a huge tiny island map with raging barbs and marathon gamespeed. And the poorly rated Süleyman really shines on this world, as I'm the ruler of the seas and ruins. If I only could resist to let ruins in the game, it would be even more challenging: I just got a mech inf from the bugged ruins upgrade in the BC's.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Playing huge water maps makes the game different and more challanging. At the moment I'm enoying an emperor Ottomans game on a huge tiny island map with raging barbs and marathon gamespeed. And the poorly rated Süleyman really shines on this world, as I'm the ruler of the seas and ruins. If I only could resist to let ruins in the game, it would be even more challenging: I just got a mech inf from the bugged ruins upgrade in the BC's.

I usually play with raging barbs and no city razing options, so I can't do the easy raze-replace instead of dealing with happiness issues of a conquered city.

Also,

AS LONG as the AI plays for the win the game won`t make sence and will feel like if you are playing against a random dice roll.

It makes sense to me. If a foreign leader is a Hitler-esque genocidal dictator bent on world conquest (aka a Civ AI aiming for domination victory), I should expect that no amount of buddying up to him is going to stop him from turning on me eventually. To think otherwise is absurd.

 

[Lone Wolf]

First: Pangaea maps are problematic, as they favour the human player too much. It's easy rushing and ICSing for the Human, and drives the AI into 'arms race' mode. I've found it more enyoable to play on water maps, now playing tiny islands. There you can't rush your neighbours easily and have limited room for ICSing.

The common wisdom on the fora so far is that the Archipelago AI is broken, though.

 

[Slowpoke]

If you want to really really fix the game, and make it interesting, eliminate healing (also known as mass ressurection in this game). It makes no realistic sense the way it's implemented. Replace it with "train reinforcements" which costs high amounts of gold, maybe half rushbuy levels.

The unit win loss ratio in this game was like 20:1 BUT the damage ratio? Far less than 4:1. If dead units actually died rather than became zombies, it would fix everything.

 

[ChevalierdeJstn]

If you want to really really fix the game, and make it interesting, eliminate healing (also known as mass ressurection in this game). It makes no realistic sense the way it's implemented. Replace it with "train reinforcements" which costs high amounts of gold, maybe half rushbuy levels.

The unit win loss ratio in this game was like 20:1 BUT the damage ratio? Far less than 4:1. If dead units actually died rather than became zombies, it would fix everything.

Fast healing is probably necessary to counteract the AI's extreme unit advantage given the unit cost maintenance differences between player and AI...which goes back to the 1UPT cause of the problem.

 

[Slowpoke]

I think that should be a separate issue, the A.I. cheats a lot, so making it let up a bit is a good thing. I mean with an advantage of something like 30X the relative power on deity, lowering it to 20X but having a more capable A.I. is much more preferable.

But seriously, people die in wars. This isn't like an MMORPG or Fire emblem or something. This is empire building.

 

[ChevalierdeJstn]

In my mind one of the biggest blunders Firaxis made is making the AI play for the win.
Let me elaborate by asking you to answer thiese simple questions:

1) Why is the Diplomacy so unpredictable?
2) Why all Civs are so agressive?
3) Why all Civs are dogpiling on the weakest opponent?
4) Why all Civs are giving everything + their liver after you steamroll them in the initial war effort?
5) Why all Civs are backstabing you every chance they have?

The simple answer to all those questions is one : The AI plays for the win.And all their sub-systems and all of their fancy decision making breaks down when Alex starts roaming with his CC taking citys left and right.The AI can`t go for diplo/culture/space win because if/when they do they are becoming weak and the rest of the civs dogpile them to the ground.

AS LONG as the AI plays for the win the game won`t make sence and will feel like if you are playing against a random dice roll.

Depending on what is meant by "the AI plays for the win", I agree and I think this analysis is insightful. My hypothesis is that the AI is so focused in "winning" its game (attacking the closest civs, building UN, whatever) that there is not enough focus on making sure the player doesn't win first. I've had a game in which Siam built the UN and had more than a 10:1 advantage in gold, way more units, significantly higher tech level,and all the uranium on the map...but I successfully blocked him from winning the UN vote and built the utopia project without him ever attacking. I was very surprised when I clicked Next Turn for the last time and there was no mushroom cloud over my utopia city. The AI can try to win, but it needs to first focus on making sure the player doesn't!

 

[SevenSpirits]

Fast healing is probably necessary to counteract the AI's extreme unit advantage given the unit cost maintenance differences between player and AI...which goes back to the 1UPT cause of the problem.

Your argument boils down to "X undesirable thing is necessary to counteract Y undesirable thing and vice versa". I'm sure with a bit of reconsideration you'll agree that's a bad argument.

Actually I've seen this a ton on CFC: "We need a broken thing to deal with the AI bonuses". Wow, guess what's the easiest thing to adjust in the entire game?

 

[alpaca]

Fast healing is probably necessary to counteract the AI's extreme unit advantage given the unit cost maintenance differences between player and AI...which goes back to the 1UPT cause of the problem.

Honestly, fast healing is just bad for gameplay: Things that make you feel bad whenever they're used are a bad idea to implement into the game. Instant healing fits that category because when you use it, you feel bad for sacrificing long-term strength of the unit. If it's used against you it's just immensely frustrating. So I think removing instant healing would be a blessing, balance issues not even mentioned.

Funnily enough, the last thing you want to do against the army size imbalance is fast healing because the AI will keep coming, so you need elite units. I've only typically used fast healing in the early game where I had too few units to rotate them or had to take a city fast.

 

[Slowpoke]

Oh I'm not talking just about insta_heal promotion. I removed that without thinking. I'm talking about the fact that you can have a unit which represents say 40 cavalry, have all but 4 die, and then have it "fortify to full health" its 36 dead cavalry back to life over a few turns. THAT MAKES NO SENSE! Sure maybe you should be allowed to heal 15% of its health for free, representing non- combat worthy units being patched up, but having those 36 cavalry get killed and revived again and again and again in the same unit with no cost breaks immersion, gameplay, and a sense that war has any costs whatsoever to a very high extent.