Another Gamescom writeup

[Zhahz]

Nice write up with some decent level of detail.

Hmmm-am I also the only one who thinks that deforestation is far too powerful a strategy in Civ5? I feel that, if nothing else, you should lose any bonus productivity from having the forest on that tile. Also, maybe universities should grant extra beakers from forests as well as jungles-in order to maintain the importance of forests in the game!

Aussie.

A lot of cities are devoid of trees outside of parks since you usually need room for buildings, houses, farms, whatever. And it's not like the trees standing in cities are always being used as lumbermills or other production purposes - mostly they're just there. The forests exist outside the city spaces.

If you get a flat 20 hammers for chopping (that may or may not be true based on tech or buildings present) and early buildings cost ~100, then chopping doesn't sound any more powerful than it is in previous versions.

As with a lot of stuff Civ 5, probably gotta experience it personally to really know.

 

[CTH]

Forest seem to produce science later in the game also (or was that just jungles?)

 

[Thoughtful Thug]

Jerrymander got pwnd! I am a epistemologist, and I approve this message.lol

 

[12agnar0k]

Forest seem to produce science later in the game also (or was that just jungles?)

The University Building gives +2 science to Jungle tiles, not forest.

 

[ori]

I may be the only one, but I appreciate the grammer police.

Moderator Action: This site's policy makers certainly do not - so please everyone refrain from giving in to the urge of playing grammar/spelling police if not asked to do so.

 

[Zechnophobe]

"Boni" is not a word. The plural of bonus is bonuses. Furthermore, it would be "bona" because its Latin form is bonum, not bonus. See also maximum to maxima.

Ignoring my nit picking, this is pretty insightful.

I have to admit, whenever I hear someone say or type 'boni' I always feel it is the plural for 'boner' which makes this quote rather funny:

Or you can try to befriend them for powerful boni

Returning to PG-13 realms, I am curious about how you spend culture towards things. Does each Social policy have a cost, or do you simply get to learn a new one at specific pre-ordained points in culture earning (like great people). For instance, the French would get 75 culture when everyone else is at 25, can they buy three 25 culture policies (like all three of the starting ones) or is it like the first costs 25, the second 125, the next 325... and so on?

And did you happen to notice how much gold a trade route made? I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, since 1 gold cost per road per turn compared to a trade route seems like the route would have to give a lot or you'd be at a net loss.

 

[Calouste]

City growth is 15/22/30/40/51 food for the first 5 pop, so the formula is around pop + (1+pop)*7.5 ?
Its a steeper curve than before, that makes it a difficult choice between many small cities, or a few big ones with powerful modifiers, which is good.

As much as I expected. It's the new mechanism that models population unhealthiness basically.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Does each Social policy have a cost, or do you simply get to learn a new one at specific pre-ordained points in culture earning (like great people).

The latter. The cost for each successive one increases. Further, the cost also increases with each additional city you control. One of the previewers noted that founding his 3rd city increased the cost of his next Policy by ~30%

And did you happen to notice how much gold a trade route made? I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, since 1 gold cost per road per turn compared to a trade route seems like the route would have to give a lot or you'd be at a net loss.

We only know that the value of each trade route is dependent on the populations of both the capital and the connected city. There was one screen shot that showed an empire with 81 unhappiness from population and 5 unhappiness from cities; the empire was spending 36 gold on road maintenance and earning 75 gold from trade routes.

Since we know there are Social Policies that affect all of those things, and we have no idea if the empire had built any railroads, it is hard to draw any conclusions.

 

[Thormodr]

I do wish there was an incentive to keep forests around. Say, decreased productivity from farms in a city's radius if there aren't 2 forests or jungles there. My reasoning would be increased soil erosion, less birds around to eat harmful insects, less predators to eat herbivores that could potentially damage crops etc.

 

[Dearmad]

There appears to be one- the research you get from forests later on in the game from some tech or other (or building?).

 

[Thormodr]

There appears to be one- the research you get from forests later on in the game from some tech or other (or building?).

I am sure that was just jungles. I'd like to see a reason to keep a few forests around as well.

 

[bjbrains]

I do wish there was an incentive to keep forests around. Say, decreased productivity from farms in a city's radius if there aren't 2 forests or jungles there. My reasoning would be increased soil erosion, less birds around to eat harmful insects, less predators to eat herbivores that could potentially damage crops etc.

Lumbermilled forests are the only way to get more production on flatlands, and 20 hammers is almost nothing. Warriors cost 35, workers 70, and granaries 100. You could deforest every tile, but there will definitely be incentives for keeping them around.

 

[Calouste]

I am sure that was just jungles. I'd like to see a reason to keep a few forests around as well.

1) Defensive bonusses
2) Mined Hills no longer give food, it's 3 hammers only, so Forests with Lumbermills are the only hexes that provide a relatively high production and still some food.

 

[Thormodr]

Sounds good then. Perhaps there will actually be forests around in the late game.

 

[Tomice]

Sounds good then. Perhaps there will actually be forests around in the late game.

2kGreg said to me they know the issue, and he disliked the civ4 situation personally. That's why lumbermills come much earlier now.

 

[12agnar0k]

Also Lumbermills will be teched into worker action bar quite early on (not sure which tech it is though I'm sure its written down somewhere) So the lumbermill improvement will not take the majority of a game to wait for, which was a big issue when the forest tiles were so unproductive compared to turning them into something else.

 

[Ituralde]

And did you happen to notice how much gold a trade route made? I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, since 1 gold cost per road per turn compared to a trade route seems like the route would have to give a lot or you'd be at a net loss.

Don't know which experiences the OP made, but in my game I had a small trade route (three roads needed) from my capital Berlin to my second city Hamburg. My income from trade routes went from 0 to 5.2.

 

[Tomice]

Don't know which experiences the OP made, but in my game I had a small trade route (three roads needed) from my capital Berlin to my second city Hamburg. My income from trade routes went from 0 to 5.2.

sounds reasonable - connecting cities brings reasonable profit, but if you have 2times as many roads as needed you'll have a loss.

 

[Schuesseled]

Lumbermilled forests are the only way to get more production on flatlands, and 20 hammers is almost nothing. Warriors cost 35, workers 70, and granaries 100. You could deforest every tile, but there will definitely be incentives for keeping them around.

Agreed, forest chopping will no longer be a strategy for wonder building, which is great. I like that it still gives you a little bit of hammers for chopping it down, because forest chopping is time consuming for your workers.

 

[Lyoncet]

Agreed, forest chopping will no longer be a strategy for wonder building, which is great.

So that means… no pyramids made of pine and the bones of slaves?

Well I guess since we can apparently rush-buy from turn 1 we can just build them out of freshly-minted currency then!