A cogent explanation on the shortfalls of Civ V

[mercury529]

Your comment on civ IV if from your own doing and that was the one I was refering to. You stated that countering maintenance in civ IV was more trivial than countering the similar features in civ V. I'm asking proof of that statement, and to be honest i don't see in the OP any reference to civ IV maintenance in this context ( or to be more precise, not at all atleast explicitely ), so don't shield behind him.

He claimed it becomes impossible to win a cultural victory once you have settled 5 cities because of the scaling costs of SPs. I will assume since you didn't feel the need to point out his unproven generalization but came into the thread specifically to discuss mine, you feel he is correct. If that is wrong, feel free to correct it and perhaps direct some comments to the OP about his unproven generalizations. I simply choose to argue within his framework.

If he is correct, then yes maintenance penalties were easier to handle in Civ4 than SP penalties in Civ5. The proof is the fact that I was able to win Civ4 games with more than 4 cities (i.e. victory did not become impossible because of scaling penalties).

 

[mrt144]

If he is correct, then yes maintenance penalties were easier to handle in Civ4 than SP penalties in Civ5. The proof is the fact that I was able to win Civ4 games with more than 4 cities (i.e. victory did not become impossible because of scaling penalties).

Is the penalty actually a good gameplay mechanic that makes sense to the user? I'd argue that it isn't and it doesn't make sense. Unless we are to really separate ourselves into a game and say that the most cultured civs are ones that remain small. It just doesn't feel right to a lot of us.

This is an example of a game mechanic that leads to counter intuitive gameplay that isn't necessarily fun.

 

[andrewlt]

I love some of the changes made to Civ 5 like 1upt and hexes. I hated SODs in Civ 4 and I already think Civ 5 is on its way to become a better game.

That said, I agree with the gist of points 1 and 2 completely. Civ is an empire building game, not a 3-city cultural victory challenge game. The developers fell in love with that concept too much and introduced too much crap to try to limit the size of empires or make small empires competitive with large ones. The result is an endless stream of exploits and loopholes to work around them. The social policy increased cost is the worst as there are already too many exploits there.

 

[Svest]

Is the penalty actually a good gameplay mechanic that makes sense to the user? I'd argue that it isn't and it doesn't make sense. Unless we are to really separate ourselves into a game and say that the most cultured civs are ones that remain small. It just doesn't feel right to a lot of us.

I would argue that the idea of a bonus to at least one victory condition for having a small empire (or a penalty for a large one however you want to look at it) is a good thing. It allows for more viable paths to victory and strategic options. It means you can still win the game and remain small and that getting big is not always the right way to go. The devs just chose culture to be the victory condition used for this.

That said, i would also argue that the current numbers could possibly use some tweaking.

 

[r_rolo1]

@mercury529

He actually haven't said that. He said :

Culture is another issue. Like the other two mechanics, this one prejudices against more cities and expansions because the cost of accruing more social policies doesn’t scale well with empire size

This is very diferent of saying that you can't win by culture with more than 5 cities ... In fact i could say the exact same phrase about civ IV maintenance and still be truthful ( the fact that it doesn't scale well with empire size, especially on BtS )

P.S I catched the other reference

Cultural victories are the best illustration of this problem. Build/conquer so that you have more than 5 cities and this path becomes inaccessible due to the very poor scaling of social policy costs relative to the number of cities. Puppeting cities does not help this because, as mentioned, they will bankrupt you

So, let me do a mea culpa, the OP is wrong in this reference. But even assuming that, you are still not off the hook, since that your conclusion does not arrive from there as smoothly as you seem to think.

 

[mercury529]

Is the penalty actually a good gameplay mechanic that makes sense to the user? I'd argue that it isn't and it doesn't make sense. Unless we are to really separate ourselves into a game and say that the most cultured civs are ones that remain small. It just doesn't feel right to a lot of us.

This is an example of a game mechanic that leads to counter intuitive gameplay that isn't necessarily fun.

And that is your opinion. There are those of us who believe there should be victory conditions that make it optimal to maintain a small empire. This appears to be the intent of the social policies scaling.

It is not a problem with the game. It is simply a design choice that some will favor and some won't.

@mercury529

He actually haven't said that. He said :

This is very diferent of saying that you can't win by culture with more than 5 cities ... In fact i could say the exact same phrase about civ IV maintenance and still be truthful ( the fact that it doesn't scale well with empire size, especially on BtS )

Directly from the original post: "Cultural victories are the best illustration of this problem. Build/conquer so that you have more than 5 cities and this path becomes inaccessible due to the very poor scaling of social policy costs "

So, let me do a mea culpa, the OP is wrong in this reference. But even assuming that, you are still not off the hook, since that your conclusion does not arrive from there as smoothly as you seem to think.

Tell me the number of cities in Civ4 for which maintenance penalties render any one victory condition completely inaccessible?

 

[mrt144]

I love some of the changes made to Civ 5 like 1upt and hexes. I hated SODs in Civ 4 and I already think Civ 5 is on its way to become a better game.

That said, I agree with the gist of points 1 and 2 completely. Civ is an empire building game, not a 3-city cultural victory challenge game. The developers fell in love with that concept too much and introduced too much crap to try to limit the size of empires or make small empires competitive with large ones. The result is an endless stream of exploits and loopholes to work around them. The social policy increased cost is the worst as there are already too many exploits there.

I've said this a few times but it seems like they took some ideas from Civ 4 they did like and implemented them in different ways that were somewhat half baked, but then they took some ideas from Civ 4 that they didn't like and went to the drawing board and came out with something completely half baked.

It's frustrating to see what they were trying to do and it just not working cohesively. Happiness is a big one here; With empire wide happiness AND stepped happiness levels and non map scaled happiness level and a capped negative happiness that isn't the empire wrecking force that extreme negative happiness was in Civ 4, it just seems like they arrived at a half baked game mechanic. I can see what they were going for but it just isn't cohesive.

 

[mrt144]

And that is your opinion. There are those of us who believe there should be victory conditions that make it optimal to maintain a small empire. This appears to be the intent of the social policies scaling.

It is not a problem with the game. It is simply a design choice that some will favor and some won't.

But it's counter intuitive to tell the player to maintain a small empire for the sake of one victory condition. Again, I feel like this design decision stunts the versatility of the game itself.

 

[Surgeon]

reply to OP:
I think people have to somehow get over the perception that Civ4 was perfect.

-Tech trading was a poor mechanic that was a pain to get the most out of.
-Diplomacy... Sure you could measure it. Same religion they love me, different religion they hate me.
-Wonders are just as good in Civ5. Im not sure where you get the impression that they are weak.'

I guess what Im trying to say is that a thread titled 'a cogent explanation' should be retitled 'Its not Civ4 so I don't like it' as nearly all the examples are just that.

 

[andrewlt]

I would argue that the idea of a bonus to at least one victory condition for having a small empire (or a penalty for a large one however you want to look at it) is a good thing. It allows for more viable paths to victory and strategic options. It means you can still win the game and remain small and that getting big is not always the right way to go. The devs just chose culture to be the victory condition used for this.

That said, i would also argue that the current numbers could possibly use some tweaking.

Perhaps, but the way the developers tried to make a cultural victory competitive is extremely heavy handed. Expansion should never be a penalty, provided I can overcome the initial opportunity costs and I can defend my increased territory. Conquering cities shouldn't be a penalty, either, other than diplomatic.

Right now, even going for a domination victory, I'm better off razing or puppeting everything I've conquered because the annexation penalties coupled with the increased social policy costs are too heavy handed.

 

[mercury529]

But it's counter intuitive to tell the player to maintain a small empire for the sake of one victory condition. Again, I feel like this design decision stunts the versatility of the game itself.

It stunts the versatility in a single game should you expand beyond the limit where it becomes infeasible.

It adds to the number of viable strategies in the game as a whole because there are optimal strategies that favor very small (1-3 city) empire sizes. That variety was not available in Civ4.

Which is more valuable is a personal preference.

 

[mrt144]

Perhaps, but the way the developers tried to make a cultural victory competitive is extremely heavy handed. Expansion should never be a penalty, provided I can overcome the initial opportunity costs and I can defend my increased territory. Conquering cities shouldn't be a penalty, either, other than diplomatic.

This is kind of what I'm feeling too. Expansion shouldn't be penalized except when done in a haphazard way, except even on this account there is a double standard. Having two cities halfway across the world isn't penalized but having an abundance of cities close to one another is. Why is one form of haphazard expansion penalized but another not?

This is something that I feel the designers got wrong; You shouldn't penalize a player for doing something normal in most other victory scenarios.

 

[mrt144]

It stunts the versatility in a single game should you expand beyond the limit where it becomes infeasible.

It increases the versatility of the game on a whole because there are optimal strategies that favor very small (1-3 city) empire sizes. That variety was not available in Civ4.

Which is more valuable is a personal preference.

Thats because the variety of ways of achieving victory in Civ 4 wasn't contingent on the scaled amount of cities you possessed beyond 3 for cultural. Victory was contingent was wholly dependent on what you chose to do with your cities, civics, diplomatic relations, technology and military, and the available resources you had.

 

[MeteorPunch]

Happiness should be a detriment early on, but it's too strong throughout the game. Expensive buildings + expensive maintenance and trade deals shouldn't be required to fill up the map with decent numbers and sizes of cities.

 

[Blitz66]

How have you avoided being invaded by your (probably) larger neighbors? You seem ripe for conquest with all of those Wonders and the production capacity of only two cities. This is one issue with choosing this route where the game does introduce a nice "choice."

Quite frankly I don't know.

It is currently the mid 1800's and I have never been involved in a single war, either aggressively nor defensively.

I have something like 14-16 wonders, the majority of them in Thebes. I think the next best nation has 2-3 wonders. In addition to all the cultural wonders, I have been building the defensive wonders as well (Great Wall, Kremlin, etc), in preparation for the inevitable invasion. It has just never come. I am playing on the standard difficulty, Prince or whatever I think. Like I said, I've remained politically neutral. I enter into the odd pacts of secrecy with my neighbours, and I enter all research agreements because with 2 cities, my tech lags a bit and every extra one helps. I usually set Thebes to build beakers when I am not building a wonder.

Currently my army consists of 2 musket men units, 2 crossbow units, and 2 outdated longsword units. I also have 1 trireme. I'm ripe for the picking.

This is another reason the game is becoming extremely dull. I'd love to have to actually defend my incredibly rich, size 20 capital city; home to some dozen world wonders.

 

[Blitz66]

So the dude playing is 2city challenge claims to be bored and not doing anything but later admits to defeating the AI's stacks of units when they attack, then going to raze their lands.

I'd just like to point out you seem to be confusing two people here.

I am playing the so called "two city challenge" game, for a cultural victory.

As you may have read in the post above this one by me, I have not been party to any hostilities yet in this game. It is incredibly boring.

 

[hj232]

I agree with the original post 100%--well said.

Kudos!

 

[Vertico]

I'll speak to point 5.

This is not the case for Civ5, and I consider that to be a benefit. It encourages varying gameplay styles.

Small empires are not at an inherent disadvantage to larger empires. In some cases (as in the case of cultural victory), you are rewarded for maintaining a smaller empire. In other cases, you can still maintain some parity with a larger empire (largely due to the global happiness mechanic, separation of research from commerce, and city-states). And in some cases, you are at a disadvantage, such as military conquest.

This makes gameplay less one dimensional as it pertains to victory conditions. It does force you to make difficult choices (e.g. should I expand to that 4th/5th city for a military/tech advantage and effectively eliminate cultural victory as an option). It does attach more permanence to your decisions than the decisions made in Civ4. It means the cost of your decisions won't be relegated to solely opportunity cost. But I consider these difficult decisions the basis of a good strategy game. I consider the long-term ramifications of your decisions an improvement. The flexibility you miss, I am happy to see gone. It rewards well-thought out plans and foresight. And to me that is what a strategy game is about.

The game certainly needs massaging. But ultimately I feel once more work is put into balancing the game, the decisions are going to be harder to make in Civ5 than they are in Civ4. The path to victory will be less evident than it was in Civ4. It's not there yet, but I look forward to it. The game design is certainly better set up for it than Civ4 ever was.

This is a myth and that marketing bla bla from reviews.
I tried 3 times to play Civ V, while in 3 games I intentionally used some predefined strategies

1) Game 1 - played as Civ IV
Balanced expansion, production, military. As a result I have constant problems with happiness and money - I was stupid and kind role-play the game, building cities next to each other (not those crazy city states all over the map), trying diplomacy, dealing peacefully with city states etc. The game become hell boring as to fight with unhappiness I had to build some happiness buildings, when build buildings, maintenance costs was killing me, so I started to look more for luxury resources and to build more cities near. More cities = even bigger problems with happiness. When I once annexed one city through conquest - I had to deal with all problems it caused for a long time and I actually regret I just didn't raze it (all later I did).
I didn't like this game but I learned that strategies from Civ III or Civ IV won't work here.


2) Game 2 - trying those "small empires"
This time I played as a "small modern country". I build just 3 cities, many wonders, very small but efficient army to defend myself from aggressive neighbours. I also allied with 2 city states to get some bonuses. My people were happy, I had money, golden ages, I was unlocking many social policies, thanks to great culture boost and then... I
noticed, my neighbour India (who surprisingly was quite aggressive) already managed to conquer the whole continent and was running around with infantry and tanks, while I just developed cannons!
And this is the whole myth - "small empires" even with all educational buildings, free techs from great scientists, research agreements, won't ever pace big ones in tech race, not talking about military.
Surprisingly India spared me, with no reason, but I knew the game should be lost if AI would be a little bit more smart, so I didn't even waited to see if I win this cultural victory and gave up a game. So cultural victory won't work here...


3) Game 3 - constant conquest
So now, I tried strategy of constant conquest. I had just 2 own cities (actually... 3 because once I clicked wrong button) - all the others were puppets. Surprisingly it started with a coalition of Greece and Rome which declared war on me, with Greece even able to conquer my capital for a 1 turn, while I have forces elsewhere (I just mention that, to show that in fact I did few severe mistakes which had no influence on anything). I build few archers and horsemen and quickly conquered Rome, then Greece, then few surrounding city states and move one and on. In three cities I built only military units, didn't waste time for wonders, or buildings. Besides I built just one worker. Cities fell one by one, no diplomacy, just constant war. Unhappiness 8? Who cares - people will just have less sex. Unhappiness 18? Also no problem, I had more units anyway and were better. Money? No problem, with every captured and vassalised city, I got new cash so I could ran with a deficit for a long time. As an addition I turned great generals into golden eras, and have few flying squads to clear constantly spawning barbarians. Finally I had war with everyone beside I city states, but who cares - city states won't move outside of their borders and Civs are too stupid to take any war initiative.
I could easily win, but due to stupid bug, I couldn't declare two last wars (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=389002)


So... sorry.
Does anybody see any depth or strategy in my last game?
My "empire" was in fact a union of hardly connected city states, which looked stupid on a continent map. Beside, having 2 own cities, 1 conquered and plenty of vassals is plain stupid - it wouldn't ever work in real life, as all of them would revolt at once.
I also didn't have to bother about buildings - they built what they liked, how they liked and where they liked - I just moved my armies on the map.

If this is a "grand strategy" game which "forces me to me make to difficult choices", to consider opportunities and opportunity costs... sorry but I played probably a different game.
I would even risk to say: Civ 1 was more demanding, because of governments falls, corruption, maintenance costs (how they could forget about distance to palace drawbacks), caravan handling and especially military tactics of sudden death (I remember I had to think hard, how to stop enemy tanks, while I had just cannons and musketeers).

I was very open about Civ V, gave this game 3 tries, but now I gave up completely.


P.S. I played my games on Prince and King difficulty levels (don't remember which one when)

 

[Monadenia]

But it's counter intuitive to tell the player to maintain a small empire for the sake of one victory condition. Again, I feel like this design decision stunts the versatility of the game itself.

Is it not counterintuitive to tell the player to maintain a large empire for the sake of every victory condition?

Additional cities always helped towards every type of victory condition in Civ IV. Past the early game breaking even on maintainance was easy, so there was no inherent drawback in getting an extra city.



Keep in mind, also, that a single patch could get rid of issues, such as the "ignore unhappiness" strategy. The balance isn't there, yet, but it seems to me that the intent is.

 

[Venereus]

If you can't automate and win every time, then it is clear you need to make strategic decisions that influence the outcome of the game. You claimed otherwise.

You are entitled to your own opinion. But a month after the release of Vanilla Civ4, were you aware of everything you are telling me about Civ4 right now? Alternate strategies are born with time and investigation. It is quite possible, there are simply strategies you have not yet considered. And that is what makes a new Civ exciting, the opportunity to apply original thought to a game. The opportunity for original thought and unique strategy in Civ4 is much much smaller.

I learned a lot from Civ IV War Academy in this forum. Many articles there were only possible because people looked into the code and got a better understanding of the game that opened up more efficient and varied strategies. However, I'm afraid Civ V is no mistery and no challenge. The game is streamlined and simple, I've played for a few days and I already feel I know everything I need to know, because I'm already winning easily. Even if we knew how everything works, why bother using that info to come up with new strategies? You can win without much effort knowing what we know now. Of course there are strategies we haven't considered in Civ V, but who needs them?