Why don't I like BNW/Help me like it

[MantaRevan]

For some reason, I just can't get into BNW. But people seem to love it. Reviewers have called it the greatest thing since Mass Effect, and based on this thread, CFC is pretty crazy about BNW too. I tried it, but uninstalled it after I got sick of the infinite chain denouncements+crazy warmonger penalty, and the relatively slow gameplay that felt a little tedious near the end(most likely due to me going for a diplo victory). I feel like the great works system is well conceived, but doesn't seem to work in execution, as the interface is ugly and it leaves a lot of extra GPs for the artist variants that all seem a little the same.

I will say that the new cultural victory isn't bad, a welcome change perhaps. The new civs are well polished and I really like them. I really want to like BNW, and clearly everyone else seems to. Maybe I'm just missing something, seeing the almost universal acclaim for this pack. Can you guys explain why you like BNW so much, or give your side of things as to why I should re-install it?

 

[RealHuhn]

After playing a few more games, I do have to admit that the tech pace in the late game is way too slow. Especially if you try to play an expansionist civ.
It doesn't help either that processing turns in late game takes a good amount of time, even on an i7 3770k, 16 gb ram and a geforce 660. xD

The 5% science penalty per city is a huge bummer in an otherwise great expansion. Maybe the penalty is somewhat necessary but 5% per city is way too much.

 

[Magil]

I'll try to decipher what you don't like about it, so let's try:

-warmonger penalties: Capturing a good % of a civilization's cities will get you labeled a warmonger. If you don't like this then don't capture cities.
-chain denouncements: Seems related to the above. If there's not a lot of war going on then I find the civs tend to divide into factions.
-slow endgame: This has always been a weakness of Civ5 (and all Civ titles really) and while BNW added a bit more micromanagement to the endgame it's still going to get a bit repetitive. Perhaps try a faster game speed?
-culture system: I didn't have any problem with the interface after a few minutes playing with it. I'd also disagree about the great artist variants all being the same, though it often does seem that way in the early/mid game for a cultural/diplomatic approach. Later on I think you'll find their unique abilities to be more important than another great work, as concert tours are essential for cultural victories.

I don't know how to make you like it, though. It seems like the gameplay is perhaps just not well-suited to your tastes.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

How could we help you like it? No one knows your likes better than you. Case in point, Simcity. I was in love with the new Simcity Idea. What came out was a giant piece of dog crap. Even so, I tried to make myslef love it. I have uninstalled Origin and will never buy another Maxis game again.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I also seem to enjoy BNW's new stuff, but can't get into any game and managed to only play as 2 out of 9 new civs (and France), problem? I knew too much about the new stuff felt like i was playing it for ages.

Give yourself a break, come back to it after few days.

 

[MantaRevan]

What I'm really asking is for you to give your best argument or advocacy for this pack. Obviously you enjoy it, so explain that to me. It seems that I have worded my OP badly.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Hey, it's not your cup of tea. It happens.

 

[manu-fan]

I really suck at BNW (Prince) and give up. Is there any way to go back to G&K as I got it through Steam, and it just updated on the fly without me even asking it to?

I've played two games so far, and they've been horrible.

First, I played as Assyria, and was taking over my neighbor like I usually do, but my happiness was dropping like a stone, and thus everything was going to pot, and I was falling behind in Science etc. So, gave up.

Second, I played as ShoShone. I got GL, NC, and expanded up to 6 cities. I was 1 in Literacy, and things were humming right along. But Siam, to my East was pumping out missionaries like no tomorrow and converting all my cities to its religion. How the hell did it get the faith for that? Then, Napoleon to my south attacked, and did a great job of taking one of my cities. So, I gave up this one too.

I'm done with BNW.

Cheers.

 

[krozman]

I've played a good 10 FULL games to completion now, and I'm going to safely say now that if you put Shaka in your list of random civs that you play against, you will get a more "G&K" feel to it. It's only b/c Shaka is the warmonger runaway that almost all G&K civs used to be.

This wont make you happy, however, b/c if Shaka isn't right next to you, your victory will be easier b/c he takes out your competition for you.

 

[Randall_Flagg]

I really suck at BNW (Prince) and give up. Is there any way to go back to G&K as I got it through Steam, and it just updated on the fly without me even asking it to?

I've played two games so far, and they've been horrible.

First, I played as Assyria, and was taking over my neighbor like I usually do, but my happiness was dropping like a stone, and thus everything was going to pot, and I was falling behind in Science etc. So, gave up.

Second, I played as ShoShone. I got GL, NC, and expanded up to 6 cities. I was 1 in Literacy, and things were humming right along. But Siam, to my East was pumping out missionaries like no tomorrow and converting all my cities to its religion. How the hell did it get the faith for that? Then, Napoleon to my south attacked, and did a great job of taking one of my cities. So, I gave up this one too.

I'm done with BNW.

Cheers.

Go to DLC and disable Expansion 2. You cannot avoid the last patch though.

 

[marlowe221]

Personally, I think it's a mixed bag in its current state - maybe a patch or two down the line will tighten things up a bit.

I think the trade route system is great for the most part. I generally like the new diplo stuff and the AI seems more rational about things. The ideology mechanic is really cool too.

But I think the culture/tourism aspect is a little... I don't know, great concept but "meh" execution. I really like the idea of a dominate culture having effects on and disrupting other cultures. But getting there...

I don't really feel like having music AND art AND literature AND so on actually adds anything to the game. Just having generic "great works" from the old Great Artist unit would have accomplished the same goal. I like the concept of theming bonuses, etc. but in practice it ends up feeling like busy work to me. IMHO, the new culture/tourism victory didn't really change the late game tediousness very much - once you get things set up (which you can do fairly quickly if you're focused) I still end up hitting Enter over and over again with a brief pause or two to build hotels and airports.

 

[Dissonance]

BNW changed the feel of the game significantly. Trade caravans/boats, rebalanced gold, Piety available at start and new factions make it play out very differently from G&K.

War has been changed completely. AI players are no longer psychotic in the way they fight. Previously, I find the game ended in two scenarios - everyone likes me, or everyone is sieging me. AI players engage in good diplomacy amongst themselves, and you have to do so as well.

Don't try to befriend everyone - pick your allies, and maintain that friendship. When declaring war, make sure you present it properly to the world - that is, don't break a Declaration of Friendship with war, and DO denounce beforehand. There's a reason the AI players do so. Bring a friend or five with you.

AI will not declare war at you randomly. They will prepare, try to gather allies, and will not always feel confident enough to attack you. This may be patched somewhat in the future, but war is no longer a guarantee. They WILL work to screw you over, though, from spies to missionaries to planting cities in front of your settler. Arguably, the AI also knows how to bait YOU into attacking it.

Massive spread of empires has been nerfed ---- and personally, I'm happy about it. You can't plop cities willy-nilly, and you can't go conquering every city you find. Cities impose a fairly severe 5% tech cost penalty - which is fine, if you can bring the city size up quickly and build as many science buildings as possible. But you need to balance it out, not expand too quickly, and overall be very aware of territorial limitations.

When it comes to late game, I seem to have a slightly different perspective on that. Late game is ALL about victory conditions. And while you are pursuing yours, so is everyone else. So instead of hitting ENTER watching the build time go down by a turn, you should be using money and/or military and/or religion to sabotage ANYONE who could threaten you.

In other words, you are ALWAYS at war. Economically, politically, culturally and scientifically. Amongst many other aspects.

BNW brings different mechanics, some hotly argued right here in the forum. However, it invites a broader range of gameplay decisions and I think that is fantastic. My only criticism is that with war political penalties, and tourism, the game shifted a lot of early-to-middle-game focus to victory conditions and I don't like that. I rarely play a game to completion. But then again, if I don't, it doesn't matter as much

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I would like to point out that the % tech penalty scales with map size.

It's 5% on Standard maps, but 3% on Huge maps; meaning that you can have 60% more cities before hitting the same amount of penalty. It makes sense, because if 4 cities were optimal on a huge map, vast tracks of land would be the domain of barbarians.

 

[Zaimejs]

I don't know what that science penalty is about.

 

[DaNuke]

I Kinda fell the same way,but just give a break and play few more games...

 

[Dissonance]

I don't know what that science penalty is about.

As you may know, founding new cities gives you a cumulative 10% cost increase on Social Policy progression. Puppeting a city does not.

As of BNW, founding new cities OR puppeting cities hands you a tech cost penalty. 3% for Huge maps, 5% for Standard maps etc (thanks Eagle Pursuit, I didn't know that)

 

[MkLh]

I would like to point out that the % tech penalty scales with map size.

It's 5% on Standard maps, but 3% on Huge maps; meaning that you can have 60% more cities before hitting the same amount of penalty. It makes sense, because if 4 cities were optimal on a huge map, vast tracks of land would be the domain of barbarians.

Tech penalty is a ridiculous mechanism whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense but is a completely artificial addition just for the sake of balance. These kind of things really show why CiV is so inferior to CIV. The basic game mechanics are fundamentally flawed, and expansions haven't changed that.

 

[Magil]

Tech penalty is a ridiculous mechanism whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense but is a completely artificial addition just for the sake of balance. These kind of things really show why CiV is so inferior to CIV. The basic game mechanics are fundamentally flawed, and expansions haven't changed that.

Ironically the "science penalty" on expansion makes it feel more like CIV to me, in that a "new city" sets you back until it's sufficiently developed. CIV did it in a more indirect manner, by costing you extra gold for a new city, but how did you compensate for that? Adjusting the tech slider.

 

[RedFuneral]

It doesn't help either that processing turns in late game takes a good amount of time, even on an i7 3770k, 16 gb ram and a geforce 660. xD

Seriously? I have a slower computer than that(i5 2500K, 8GB RAM, Radeon 7770) and the game is snappier than I've ever seen it. Do you have an SSD drive? That's the only thing I can think of though G&K crawled for me late game even with that.

The the OP I'd recommend turning up the difficulty. I used to struggle in King but in BNW I can win a King game doubling the score of the last AI easily. I'm now playing in Emperor and the challenge/uncertainty is back.

I'd even say they fixed the warmonger penalty. In G&K I'd get the penalty simply for defending myself from an attack, in BNW I was able to wipe 2 civs off the map and the only one who cared was Sweden. Why? I guess because Assyria and Khan were warmongering even more than I had been. With one DoW and one city capture in another game I was playing I had the whole world up in arms, the difference there was that it had been 4000 years of peace before my attack. That's why I think BNW is a better experience, everything(including the AI behavior) is more situational. You can't go into a game knowing exactly how it will go just by looking at your neighbors anymore.

Got Monty as a neighbor? You've got a few options. Rather than just playing defensibly you can become his largest trade partner(assuring you won't be his first target at least), or you can do everything in your power to ruin his economy. You are no longer forced to play reactionary, you can slow down the AI or change their plans without declaring war on them or spamming units just to increase your military score.

 

[MantaRevan]

Tech penalty is a ridiculous mechanism whatsoever. It doesn't make any sense but is a completely artificial addition just for the sake of balance. These kind of things really show why CiV is so inferior to CIV. The basic game mechanics are fundamentally flawed, and expansions haven't changed that.

If you still don't like CiV fine, whatever, but most people in the CiV forums do. I'm in the Brave New World forums right now to get the people who like that expansion to try ad "convert" me to their point of view. But it doesn't serve any point to stick around and complain about the game to people who like it.