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

[Civsassin]

Let's look at Civ 3/4. How were you able to beat deity level AI?
In Civ 3 you had to use a combination of really good MM of your cities, pointy stick research, playing the diplomatic game well (use trade slingshots, getting alliances for wars) and a solid warmonger part where you would use your armies well.
In Civ 4 you had to really plan properly where to build cities (sites actually mattered a lot), maybe start an early rush against a neighbor, play the religious game well, decide for a specialist or cottage economy etc etc. In fact in Civ 4 you had so many options that the game was somewhat overwhelming.
Overall, Civ 3/4 also provided you with some sort of pride looking at your empire and some top cities you had (looking at the size, hammers per turn, science etc)

I don't think it is fair to compare Civ V to either Civ III or Civ IV. Consider that both of those games had multiple patches and expansion packs. Civ IV vanilla was a fairly simple game also. Many of the features were added in expansions. Expansion packs to Civ V will add new civilizations, new victory conditions, new units, new game mechanics (religion, espionage, or similar), new scenarios, and improvements to game play. If you don't like Civ V in its current form, you can stick with one of its predecessors until it is patched and/or expanded to your liking. With so many fundamental changes to Civ V, it is no wonder, and admirable, that Firaxis is learning from and responding to fan feedback.

 

[ThERat]

I don't think it is fair to compare Civ V to either Civ III or Civ IV. Consider that both of those games had multiple patches and expansion packs. Civ IV vanilla was a fairly simple game also. Many of the features were added in expansions.

Civ 3/4 were completely different from Civ 5 with regards to complexity right from the start. The fact that city location matters, religions, diplomatic relations etc were all in existence from the start.

In fact BTS added too much in my mind with espionage, vassals and corporations. Vanilla Civ 4 had far more to offer but suffered from multiple bugs and issues that were ironed out. I had been active in both Civ 3/4 SGs and they were full of activity right from the start. SG's in Civ 5 are downright dead. The game offers hardly anything.

I am actually very tired of the argument that this is only vanilla and we gotta give them time. Look, a whole 15 years of civilization were there for the developers to learn from, to build upon etc. If you decide to go for an overhaul of the system, you better test it properly to make sure the new game concepts are sound.

Civ 3 introduced UU, culture, armies etc all of which added to the game and were enjoyed by players. Civ 4 added more flavors such as religion, city maintenance, promotions and more. Most people appreciated that effort and enjoyed it.

What has Civ 5 introduced? 1upt which actually might be the root of the problem as the AI can't handle it, leads to clogging. Road maintenance is totally ridiculous and leads to ICS (amongst other things). The rest has been nerfs of various degrees of frustration. Look at the new patch and it introduces a host of new nerfs.

 

[HermannLombard]

I don't think it is fair to compare Civ V to either Civ III or Civ IV.

We're Civ players. To what are we going to compare Civ V that's more pertinent than its ancestors?

I am enjoying the game, but it's a shadow of its former self and it's likely that I'll move on before it is substantially improved.

 

[Civsassin]

We're Civ players. To what are we going to compare Civ V that's more pertinent than its ancestors?

I am enjoying the game, but it's a shadow of its former self and it's likely that I'll move on before it is substantially improved.

You're comparing it to games that were matured to a great extent over time. Civ V has been on the street for only a few months, and they are making strides to improve gameplay using the new system.

I was a good Civ IV player, and I enjoy Civ V quite a bit. I think it is an improvement to Civ III and Civ IV, but it certainly isn't a mature product yet. It is going to take time to tweak the game mechanics to where the game is more balanced. This is the second patch in a short time. The developers are doing what they can to listen to their fan base and make changes as quickly as is reasonable IMO.

If you don't like it, move on. I think you are in the minority opinion, but that's what so great about the free market economy. You can move to another product if you don't like this one. It is only one among many.

 

[ThERat]

If you don't like it, move on. I think you are in the minority opinion, but that's what so great about the free market economy.

You got to be totally kidding.

And that part about the developers doing their best, well who asked 2k to throw an unfinished game that is not balanced at all out to the market using the civ franchise bonus.

 

[RobAnybody]

Also, as mentioned, the easiest way to stop him is to just ally with a few cs's a few turns before the UN vote and DOW him. Overall this is a great addition.

This is starting to sound more & more like an Un-Diplomatic victory. Getting into a bidding war over allies & DOW your competitors as the best way to win at diplomacy? Bizarro World.

Regarding ICS, I'm not sure any of these nerfs will actually work. As long as a pop-X city essentially supports itself, you're still incented to build as many of them as possible. X is more-or-less 4 now (it can be 2 for earlier stages) & I don't see a reason for that to change. The localized Happiness-building nerf won't affect this. A Colloseum is still all that's really needed to set up that city - you just want to grow to max out your Colloseum's +Happiness ASAP. How is this any different?

The other nerfs, Meritocracy, Forbidden Palace, etc. will only keep your "main" cities a little smaller, probably, or just encourage you to Borg them into pop-X cities, indistinguishable from all your other pop-X cities.

 

[EscapedGoat]

The thing is that with ICS-like approaches you can research the full tech tree in less than 250 turns pretty reliably. That's means you'd spend a lot of turns researching future techs if you scale big city games up to compensate. Also, they'd need a hell of a lot of a buff to be competitive, and it's difficult to find buffs that work for only a small amount of cities rather than an ICS empire with some big cities thrown in for good measure. The only real way to do that I see at the moment is boosting national wonders something wicked, because those certainly don't scale with the number of cities.

That's a good perspective - making vertical growth less attractive is probably the best solution then. Why did they take out city maintenance again? that single mechanic kept ICS in check in CIV 4

 

[LAnkou]

well, the good diplomacy thing would be that instead of voting for the civ their allies/best buddies/whatever...they should vote for the one that have been thier best friend the longest:
-each turn, each civ give points to each civ according to their friendship status:
-3 constant war
-2 -60 and minor
-1 -30 to -59
0 unknown civ and -29 to 29
+1 +30 to +59
+2 +60 and beyond (not allies)
+3 allies

of course, liberating a CS would give a major boost and conquering it would give a huge handicap
their should be a new screen with number of points that each civ got from each CS
there could be a limit in the number of turn points get effect
well, numbers should be worked and all, but you get the idea:
-would force you to try to be friend with a lot of city states, at least to check the state of diplomacy
-some others civ would continuously try to get a lot of points from CS
-you may try to mess with the vote by conquering a CS that is decisive on a vote


The whole CS is not that bad but should be expanded (namely CIV V: Cities and Nations)

There should be more ways to get points with CS. Right now, it's bribing (main one), kills barbs, build wonders, get a ressource, find another civ, kill another CS, get a great people, gift unit

Missions were nice first, but what really bother me is that it never change over time. I bribe Oslo who wanted Stockholm to be burn to the ground, and i was allied with stockholm. Oslo never wanted to change their mission.
their should be other ways to get points with CS and thier should be several missions at a time and missions should change over time (depending on the missions):
-if i'm allied with two CS, they can't ask to destroy one another anymore or we should be able to make them having peace one another
-we should know how much point a mission gives, and how much point declaring protection gives
-CS can ask that we get a specific SP
-new missions: a particular science, having a lot of gold, a certain level of happiness
-possibility to threaten a nearby CS friendly with a civ faraway (giving penalty of course)
-being a good neighbour (being at peace) could give points with an enthousiast CS whereas aggressive CS would award conqueror ("oh, you're so powerfull!!")
-As CS can be enemy, they could be friend: you decided to protect our friend, we like you for that
-New types of CS: Scientific (gives science - Hong Kong, Montreal, Stockholm, Tanger) Industrial (gives hammers - Ljubjana, Kiev, Santiago, Tunis) they should be carefully balanced though.
-On the other hand, their should be more "negative missions": things that if they are done or not that would give negative points (ally with an enemy CS or civ / not answering to a particular mission when we are allied...)

well as i already said, a whole expansion of the CS system (Civ V: Soldiers and Cities)!

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

You can build a spaceship faster than a runaway can tech the UN if you work at it. The AI tends to be pretty terrible at using specialists, which limits its research abilities badly.

I'm not sure if it's possible to launch before turn 250 after the patch. The devs nerfed every single mechanic people use for technological victories and I'm not considering improved combat AI yet. Deity under standard settings after the patch may be truly unwinnable (which, incidentally, has its pros and cons at a philosophical level).

Hope they throw the patch out before Christmas. Can't wait to see how they boast monarchy and landed elite. My guess: +33% excess food for the largest 1/2/3/4/5/6 cities (duel/tiny/small/standard/large/huge) you control. Not sure about monarchy.

 

[Zachriel]

This is starting to sound more & more like an Un-Diplomatic victory. Getting into a bidding war over allies & DOW your competitors as the best way to win at diplomacy? Bizarro World.

Yeah, imagine fighting a devastating world war, nuking two cities, building the U.N., sending massive aid to smaller powers to win their support, and then winning a diplomatic victory.

 

[Bibor]

Most of the (non-combat) changes are still cosmetic in nature. A lot of the common pieces on the Civilization chessboard are still missing.

I wanted to play chess, not tic-tac-toe, not draughts, not go.

 

[The Tollan]

Hope they throw the patch out before Christmas. Can't wait to see how they boast monarchy and landed elite. My guess: +33% excess food for the largest 1/2/3/4/5/6 cities (duel/tiny/small/standard/large/huge) you control. Not sure about monarchy.

Yes, hopefully that is what was done for Landed Elite. It seems like much better idea for it to scale to map size than be always capital specific. Although it would probably be more/less useful on some map sizes it is far more likely to be so if it always is capital only.

I hope that the the patch includes boosts for Collective Rule and maybe some of the Commerce policies. There is one Patronage SP that needs a boost also. Some of the policy rebalancing will come later but the most obvious problems could be address in this patch.

 

[gdmast]

From all "bugs reports" and "ideas and suggestion" these are the only changes?? We can't even finish a game over standard map..... and the problem are the catapults and the ....barb in the city states?!! Friends, u have to work serious because the game still has tons of bugs and it's unplayable (huge maps, no win conquest victory e.t.c.). What are we talking about here?

 

[Louis XXIV]

Civ 3/4 were completely different from Civ 5 with regards to complexity right from the start. The fact that city location matters, religions, diplomatic relations etc were all in existence from the start.

None of those things were in Civ3. Can you really say Civ5 is less complicated than 3? With the despotism penalty, there wasn't even any options besides ICS and mine every single tile (with the exception of plains) and then road every single tile. I'm not sure location mattered all that much, although it did help overcome the despotism penalty slightly. Before C3C, Republic was the only valid government choice. Democracy had too much war weariness, Monarchy had too much corruption, Communism was good if you wanted to make all of your cities equally useless. Unit support in Republic was more than offset by the significant amount of gold you'd be getting. Really, Civ5 offers far more than Civ3 in every way.

I'd say Social Policies was a good feature. One unit per tile has been a fun addition that I would be sad to see go. I think City States could be good, they just need a bit more work. And individual civ abilities make for unique play styles for each civ, not just slight advantages/disadvantages for each.

 

[ThERat]

Really, Civ5 offers far more than Civ3 in every way.

I beg to differ but that's my personal opinion. Let me see:

- location of cities.
In Civ 3 the locations did matter for the core as bonus resources such as cows, hills, wheat, games did let you work certain tiles etc. I agree that despotism penalty was restrictive (and why shouldn't it be), but once in another government, there are more options than just 'mine everything'.
In Civ 5 location does NOT matter at all. Since roads are considered BAD, you don't build them and workers, one of the core elements of civilization got nothing else to do than build trade posts.

- diplomacy
In Civ 3, playing the right diplo game was the difference between life and death on higher difficulty levels. Trading of techs, luxuries and resources was crucial. The AI would sometimes sneak attack you especially when you were weak, but you could nurture good relations with the AI if you knew how to do that.
In Civ 5, you can trade luxuries and resources and have those research agreements (which are not a fun element in my mind). The AI is totally psychotic (just look at them being angry with you for liberating them). It is best to totally ignore the AI besides selling them a luxury every now and then for maritime bribes.

- 1upt/stack
In Civ 3, troops movement was sometimes irksome but you were able to move whole stacks together. Workers could band together as well and nobody would block each other (though AI troops/units could block you, a feature removed in Civ 4). Stacks of units were a key feature.
In Civ 5, units commonly block each other, workers get stuck while traveling as they run into each other. In a war, the front is easily clogged by units. Strategy turns into frustration. Horses rule as they are fast. Most importantly, the AI being as dumb as in Civ 3 can't handle this scenario at all.

- governments/social policies
In Civ 3, fixed governments are available which is admittedly limiting. Republic for a normal game, monarchy for a warmonger game. Little variety.
In Civ 5 you get social policies that sounds really good. However, due to the mechanism, you get to choose very few of them unless you abuse the system. Policies are fixed and you aren't allowed to change them. A good idea poorly implemented.

- overall civilization feel
In Civ 3, you can build huge empires with more than 100 cities. You populate the whole world and it feels like an achievement. Various improvements enhance the cities. Fringe cities can be turned into science farms that employ many scientists.
In Civ 5, the design thinking seems to be that 3-6 cities are just nice, unless you abuse the system via ICS. Your country is left with mediocre cities. You have a bare bone game with few buildings, fewer techs, few units, no diplomacy except to bribe maritime cities for magic maritime food. Boring

 

[Scarpa]

Yeah, imagine fighting a devastating world war, nuking two cities, building the U.N., sending massive aid to smaller powers to win their support, and then winning a diplomatic victory.

well played, sir.

 

[Louis XXIV]

If having 100 cities, but 85 are useless feels like an achievement, then yeah, you get to build sprawling empires.

I disagree about terrain usefulness. Sure you'd want to aim for iron or horses, but then you'd want to backfill. I generally built so each city was three tiles apart. In Civ3, I would mine grassland, mine hills, chop jungle and forest, and irrigate plains. I would grow peacefully until the middle ages, then crush my first opponent (consolidate and repeat).

AI diplomacy consisted of checking at the beginning of each turn to make sure there were any techs I could trade and then trade it to every Civ (sell after I'm done trading). That would help me keep pace. Civs were just as likely to backstab as in Civ5. The only difference is they were very easy to bribe. Combat consisted of having a stack of units (somewhere between 15 and 50 depending on the era). They would be about 3/4 artillery, 1/4 infantry. I would consider Knights, since they could upgrade to Cavalry, but it's not like I was attacking full strength units anyway.

 

[RobAnybody]

Yeah, imagine fighting a devastating world war, nuking two cities, building the U.N., sending massive aid to smaller powers to win their support, and then winning a diplomatic victory.

Sure, now England hates you for being a warmonger & France DOW's you after liberating their cities. But hey, you gave 500 gold to Oslo, Stockholm, & Helsinki, so they'll vote for you as SecGen at least. Makes sense.

 

[Sneaks]

If having 100 cities, but 85 are useless feels like an achievement, then yeah, you get to build sprawling empires.

I disagree about terrain usefulness. Sure you'd want to aim for iron or horses, but then you'd want to backfill. I generally built so each city was three tiles apart. In Civ3, I would mine grassland, mine hills, chop jungle and forest, and irrigate plains. I would grow peacefully until the middle ages, then crush my first opponent (consolidate and repeat).

I find this to be one of the biggest issues in the current iteration of CiV. So few hammers, so little use to improved food tiles. There is an issue when seeing sheep and cows on hills is a bummer because it is a production nerf. Culture spread is also too dumb to prioritize hills in production cities, meaning ICS feels like the only competent border spread.

There are certainly ways to reward vertical growth and hamper horizontal that do not involve conventional happiness nerfs nor adding maintenance to new cities. My thought has always been that buildings should be limited by city size.

An example: My size 1 city can construct a monument, workshop, walls, barracks, granary, water mill, windmill, and lets say lighthouse. However, it needs to reach size 2 before creating a library or market, 4 for colosseum, harbor or armory, 6 for university, bank and theater.

This would effectively still allow for ICS where needed, and in my opinion provide a more realistic and engaging game. Perhaps I need to create 4-5 smaller satellite cities with markets and libraries to bolster my research and economy, but to truly advance I would also need several metropolises where historically innovation/culture/finance would be flowing. This would also create at least superficially more thought on tile improvement, as you would need to choose between growth or production more carefully.

To be fair, there is zero chance such a system would ever be implemented, but I believe a mod using such a system would be interesting to try at the very least.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I beg to differ but that's my personal opinion. Let me see:

- location of cities.
In Civ 3 the locations did matter for the core as bonus resources such as cows, hills, wheat, games did let you work certain tiles etc. I agree that despotism penalty was restrictive (and why shouldn't it be), but once in another government, there are more options than just 'mine everything'.

Of course, Civ 3 also rendered location useless when a key strategic resource suddenly disappeared. It also rendered location useless when all the oil and aluminum was on the other continent.

In Civ 5 location does NOT matter at all. Since roads are considered BAD,

When? Trade route income and faster movement are not something I mind.

In Civ 3, playing the right diplo game was the difference between life and death on higher difficulty levels. Trading of techs, luxuries and resources was crucial. The AI would sometimes sneak attack you especially when you were weak, but you could nurture good relations with the AI if you knew how to do that.

The AI is totally psychotic

Yep, that sums up the Civ 3 AI. The fact that we don't know how to do it with the Civ 5 means nothing -- you could only learn how to do it with Civ 3 AI by looking at the code.

In Civ 3, troops movement was sometimes irksome but you were able to move whole stacks together. Workers could band together as well and nobody would block each other (though AI troops/units could block you, a feature removed in Civ 4). Stacks of units were a key feature.

In Civ 5, units commonly block each other, workers get stuck while traveling as they run into each other. In a war, the front is easily clogged by units. Strategy turns into frustration. Horses rule as they are fast. Most importantly, the AI being as dumb as in Civ 3 can't handle this scenario at all.

Wait, you can keep the AI shuffling its stack between two cities in Civ 5? Speed did not rule in Civ 3?

In Civ 3, fixed governments are available which is admittedly limiting. Republic for a normal game, monarchy for a warmonger game. Little variety.
In Civ 5 you get social policies that sounds really good. However, due to the mechanism, you get to choose very few of them unless you abuse the system. Policies are fixed and you aren't allowed to change them. A good idea poorly implemented.

As opposed to Civ 3's bad idea badly implemented?

In Civ 3, you can build huge empires with more than 100 cities.

3 of which are productive.

Fringe cities can be turned into science farms that employ many scientists.

This from the man who was extolling the virtues of city placement in Civ 3? I'm sure you see the contradiction here.

In Civ 5, the design thinking seems to be that 3-6 cities are just nice, unless you abuse the system via ICS. Your country is left with mediocre cities. You have a bare bone game with few buildings, fewer techs, few units, no diplomacy except to bribe maritime cities for magic maritime food. Boring

Er . . . yeah. That would be because you're putting trade posts everywhere. Try some mines and lumbermills.