12/3 patch balance thoughts, The good, the bad, and the ugly

[Buccaneer]

The perception that Civ5 now become very difficult to beat on Immortal and Deity is very exciting to me.

 

[Veneke]

Civ5 added a global happiness system. There is also unhappiness added for each new city which makes sense to hamper ICS, but otherwise I don't get. But what is the point of global happiness if there is a limit per city? Doesn't that seem counter-productive to the entire concept? Why does building 1 wonder increase my global happiness more than 10 theatres? (It's a wonder, yes, but honestly?)

If I made a mod (which I might some day) I wouldn't cap city happiness, increase unhappiness per city (to combat ICS) and slightly increase starting happiness (to counteract the effect for small empires). That seems more graceful of a way to combat ICS if we were to go about it using happiness as our tool.

Personally I'd just make city hexes less valuable and improve yields on the normal terrain.

edit: Specifically to this:
When you have just your capital with pop 1 what is your starting happiness at?

I agree with you, I think it is counter-productive to the whole concept. The concept however is largely flawed in the first instance, and this attempt to cap happiness on a local basis is a reasonable compromise between a global system and a local one. Personally I think they should have stuck with the local one altogether, but they didn't and I reckon they've finally realized that the global system isn't quite working out as they thought it would. So this represents a backtrack of sorts to something that is known to work. It's not graceful by any stretch of the imagination, but it does attempt to put some kind of logic into the system.

The explanation, as best as I can come up with myself, would seem to be that there's no logic in having the happiness in one city affect another. Exceptions being luxury resources (provided the city is connected) and possibly wonders. Anything else really doesn't apply. However, because they made happiness global, there's no way to implement that particular system without overhauling the entire concept, and so this here is their compromise. Edit: I appear to have completely overlooked the inclusion of wonder happiness.

Edit: I actually think I've failed to address your main question, which was why the happiness is capped from a non-gameplay perspective. I don't think there's a great answer for that, Louis's is probably going to be the best you'll get. My only addition would be to say that it doesn't make sense to have small peripheral cities adding to the happiness of larger cities. Which in and of itself is actually a pretty useless explanation, because tourism would seem to fly in the face of that especially seeing as how happiness is global... so actually, Louis's explanation is slightly off. It can and does make sense (in certain circumstances) because of the global happiness pool. Huh... I appear to have flummoxed myself. If I get a proper answer, I'll let you know. Meantime, anyone else can come up with a good answer, I'd certainly appreciate it as well.

I'm not sure how you think 1 wonder does not equal multiple theatres or other things though. There are theatres all over the place but there's only one Eiffel tower. It's very rarity coupled with the fact it's a "wonder of the world" places it significantly ahead of any number of local theatres. Could be we just disagree on that point though, and to be honest, it's a fairly minor aside.

My 2 cents.


P.S. It should probably be known that I'm in favour of this patch as the start of fixing some of the more broken aspects of Civ V. My guess would be that we're going to have to wait for an expansion to fix the more major issues.

 

[JohnnyW]

I didn't read the official notes before I posted here and have since read them. To be honest, they made so many great changes in this patch (like 6 or 7) that completely overshadow my issue with the limited happiness. I will have to wait and see how it plays, but I am now looking forward to it a lot more.

 

[Louis XXIV]

edit: Specifically to this:
When you have just your capital with pop 1 what is your starting happiness at?

It depends on how you think about the whole thing. I always suggest it represents Order more than Happiness, but part of the disorder comes from people being unhappy. If a Colosseum makes X number of people happy and that improves order, it doesn't necessarily create order above and beyond that amount.

No, it's a bit of a cheat here. But I still think it can work. Plus, I think it makes all the useless seeming wonders actually become useful.

 

[JohnnyW]

No, it's a bit of a cheat here. But I still think it can work. Plus, I think it makes all the useless seeming wonders actually become useful.

I would much prefer they make the useless seeming wonders useful than introduce a flawed mechanic, IMO.

 

[Louis XXIV]

See, I don't think it's flawed. But we'll find out after it comes out.

 

[JohnnyW]

See, I don't think it's flawed. But we'll find out after it comes out.

I'm sure it will play fine because instead of building happiness in those cities you'd just build something else you could make use out of. I'm not arguing that it will really hinder gameplay, but I think the mechanic is ridiculous and will lead to situations where you can't maximize your happiness (for GA + culture from Piety branch).

Another reason this bugs me is because it literally makes some building pointless to build in some cities. Let's say I'm playing Egypt and I have a city stuck on 6 pop. I've completed my UB and colosseum for +6 , and I have absolutely no reason to construct a theatre/stadium. Why should this be? Adding those buildings would add no value to my empire and would in fact cost me gpt. I'm a fan of being able to build what I want, even if it gives me minimal gain (eg. walls on a city in the middle of my empire). This new rule now grants me no choice in this respect, unless I just want to donate my money to nothing instead of to a neighboring CS.

That, to me, seems like a poor design choice.

 

[alpaca]

The perception that Civ5 now become very difficult to beat on Immortal and Deity is very exciting to me.

That largely depends on how much they improve the tactical AI. The most important reasons why Deity is so easy is that a) you can get insane kill:death ratios and b) the power of Great Scientists, which the AI doesn't really utilize. They don't fix the latter (if Universities get 2 slots as I assume) so it all hinges on the former.

 

[Mannu]

In addition to moving a science slot from Library to University they are also changing some of the tech paths, and I think it's probably to remove some of the slingshot paths.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I'm sure it will play fine because instead of building happiness in those cities you'd just build something else you could make use out of. I'm not arguing that it will really hinder gameplay, but I think the mechanic is ridiculous and will lead to situations where you can't maximize your happiness (for GA + culture from Piety branch).

Another reason this bugs me is because it literally makes some building pointless to build in some cities. Let's say I'm playing Egypt and I have a city stuck on 6 pop. I've completed my UB and colosseum for +6 , and I have absolutely no reason to construct a theatre/stadium. Why should this be? Adding those buildings would add no value to my empire and would in fact cost me gpt. I'm a fan of being able to build what I want, even if it gives me minimal gain (eg. walls on a city in the middle of my empire). This new rule now grants me no choice in this respect, unless I just want to donate my money to nothing instead of to a neighboring CS.

That, to me, seems like a poor design choice.

You can always set a city to build units, or to generate money or research. Also, without a cap on happiness, the new -20 happiness rebellion/civil war would never happen, which would be a pity. You'll have to play harder to win, that's all. And one of the major complaints against Civ V is, after all, that it is too easy.

In Civ IV, it is expressly stated that one should not build all city buildings in all cities. In Civ V, they partly abandoned that. For example, in Civ V, marketplaces and banks generate the same amount of money regardless of the city's size or resource tiles. That is in my opinion a weakness which has been criticized surprisingly seldom.

 

[alpaca]

You can always set a city to build units, or to generate money or research. Also, without a cap on happiness, the new -20 happiness rebellion/civil war would never happen, which would be a pity. You'll have to play harder to win, that's all. And one of the major complaints against Civ V is, after all, that it is too easy.

In Civ IV, it is expressly stated that one should not build all city buildings in all cities. In Civ V, they partly abandoned that. For example, in Civ V, marketplaces and banks generate the same amount of money regardless of the city's size or resource tiles. That is in my opinion a weakness which has been criticized surprisingly seldom.

It's not criticised because what you're saying is simply not true. Markets provide +25% gold so they are only really worthwhile in cities that produce a lot of gold, so the gain does depend on the tiles the city works and which improvements they have. The only things you should build everywhere are happiness buildings, Libraries and Universities. Everything else depends on the city's specialisation. This is in contrast to Civ4 where the things you should build everywhere were a granary, library, university and barracks. Then add as many happiness, health and culture buildings as required. Markets and such were somewhat useless in Civ4 where you usually ran a high science slider, at least you can now specialise a city on gold more easily.

I agree about the rebellions, it seems it's mostly introduced to prevent the "ignore happiness" strategy, which is a shame.

 

[Buccaneer]

That largely depends on how much they improve the tactical AI. The most important reasons why Deity is so easy is that a) you can get insane kill:death ratios and b) the power of Great Scientists, which the AI doesn't really utilize. They don't fix the latter (if Universities get 2 slots as I assume) so it all hinges on the former.

That is true. I do hope the AI will become more aggressive in attacking my units and cities...but not with siege or archery units but with good offensive forces. I love how the mounted melee units will become much less powerful but the AI can still use more of them. Same with naval units.

The ideal situation would be for me to sacrifice and build an early vet force of something (say 4 Horseman, 2 whatever) and have them fail when I go to attack the first civ. In the first version, such a force would wipe out a continent.

 

[alpaca]

That is true. I do hope the AI will become more aggressive in attacking my units and cities...but not with siege or archery units but with good offensive forces. I love how the mounted melee units will become much less powerful but the AI can still use more of them. Same with naval units.

The ideal situation would be for me to sacrifice and build an early vet force of something (say 4 Horseman, 2 whatever) and have them fail when I go to attack the first civ. In the first version, such a force would wipe out a continent.

Build 6 warriors and upgrade them to swords and I bet they still can wipe out a continent: Horses are nerfed with -50% city attack which makes them really weak against cities.

 

[Sneaks]

I am curious as to how the horse nerf will affect Askia. Will his units just get no penalty and no bonus?

I really wish the happiness change was the result of a desire to add a more complex happiness system in which both local and global levels were important, rather than it being the result of an ICS nerf. I hope when implemented, the population cap will have building text explanations that the theater is city pop correlated, but the national wonder is not. I think the extra 2 unhappiness per city will actually be easy to contend with, especially if the national wonder has some manner of "per city" effect. Further, I hope that the Meritocracy change alters the policy to remove unhappiness much like the Piety and Order policies. Either way, anyone that loves expansionist strategies will probably find themselves dipping into early Honor or Piety. I just hope that the end result is something that adds more interesting choices and not another element that feels half cooked.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Perhaps you should not be allowed to bribe multiple city states in a single turn. Sort of artificial, but it's what happens with selling buildings as well.

Actually, you should probably have a limit on how often you can bribe a single city-state... ie you can only bribe them once every 10~20 turns...
So if you are only paying the CS when you need to (every 30~40 turns), you will be able to be overtaken in one round by anyone else

But if you spend the time to build up Extra buffer, then someone else won't be able to take the alliance in 1 turn, they will have to wait 10, 20, etc. turns to catch up because you have that buffer of Influence.
(even make it 5 turns)

 

[Paeanblack]

Actually, you should probably have a limit on how often you can bribe a single city-state... ie you can only bribe them once every 10~20 turns...
So if you are only paying the CS when you need to (every 30~40 turns), you will be able to be overtaken in one round by anyone else

But if you spend the time to build up Extra buffer, then someone else won't be able to take the alliance in 1 turn, they will have to wait 10, 20, etc. turns to catch up because you have that buffer of Influence.
(even make it 5 turns)

That's a spectacular idea. A ten-turn timeout between ANY city-state bribe is perfect. It makes the missions and the larger-value bribes more important.

It also means Diplo victories need some sort of advance planning, and it makes them more expensive. It forces you to maintain some alliances for a long time if you want to have lots of allies.

 

[alpaca]

Actually, you should probably have a limit on how often you can bribe a single city-state... ie you can only bribe them once every 10~20 turns...
So if you are only paying the CS when you need to (every 30~40 turns), you will be able to be overtaken in one round by anyone else

But if you spend the time to build up Extra buffer, then someone else won't be able to take the alliance in 1 turn, they will have to wait 10, 20, etc. turns to catch up because you have that buffer of Influence.
(even make it 5 turns)

I like this idea, it should be able to implement something along those lines, too (for the player at least)

 

[Louis XXIV]

I'm sure it will play fine because instead of building happiness in those cities you'd just build something else you could make use out of. I'm not arguing that it will really hinder gameplay, but I think the mechanic is ridiculous and will lead to situations where you can't maximize your happiness (for GA + culture from Piety branch).

Another reason this bugs me is because it literally makes some building pointless to build in some cities. Let's say I'm playing Egypt and I have a city stuck on 6 pop. I've completed my UB and colosseum for +6 , and I have absolutely no reason to construct a theatre/stadium. Why should this be? Adding those buildings would add no value to my empire and would in fact cost me gpt. I'm a fan of being able to build what I want, even if it gives me minimal gain (eg. walls on a city in the middle of my empire). This new rule now grants me no choice in this respect, unless I just want to donate my money to nothing instead of to a neighboring CS.

That, to me, seems like a poor design choice.

The same could be said about Civ4, no? There was no point building an extra happiness building in a city if the city couldn't grow anymore, so it was in no danger of becoming unhappy.

My suggestion would be to prebuild happiness buildings that way they can be quickly completed when the city does grow. Or you can finish the buildings, that way, when your city grows, there's no need to build the happiness building (it'll kick in automatically). Or you can use it with reduced benefits (a size 6 city will cure all pop happiness with a Colosseum and Theater even if you won't get the added benefit of the remaining Theater happiness).

I am curious as to how the horse nerf will affect Askia. Will his units just get no penalty and no bonus?

My guess is the Mandekalu Cav will stay the same, since nothing was mentioned.

I think the extra 2 unhappiness per city will actually be easy to contend with, especially if the national wonder has some manner of "per city" effect.

I think the Circus Maximus is just 5 happiness. Still, with one luxury, that's 5 free cities if you can cure the vertical unhappiness.

 

[JohnnyW]

The same could be said about Civ4, no? There was no point building an extra happiness building in a city if the city couldn't grow anymore, so it was in no danger of becoming unhappy.

I may be misremembering since it's been so long since I played cIV, but didn't excess happines in a city help you get WLTKD? (I honestly don't remember.)

If so, then happiness buildings had a direct effect in cities in cIV. If not, I believe they still mitigated war weariness, which ciV does not have, so they would still have situational use over the same buildings in ciV.

My point is that some buildings in ciV are literally pointless in some cases which, as I've stated before, is a terrible design choice IMO.

 

[Sneaks]

That's a spectacular idea. A ten-turn timeout between ANY city-state bribe is perfect. It makes the missions and the larger-value bribes more important.

It also means Diplo victories need some sort of advance planning, and it makes them more expensive. It forces you to maintain some alliances for a long time if you want to have lots of allies.

My only caveat with this is that there would need to be a serious rebalancing of CS quests. It can get downright annoying when all of your lovely food and culture providers only want to kill each other. I would love it if they would add CS missions that involve things like "Gift a Worker" "Gift 2 Swordsmen" "DoW Major Civ"