Are you really in favour of uniques ?

[Naokaukodem]

Are you really in favour of uniques ?

To say all, i'm not. I see absolutely no point. Not a single !

First, Let's see why you want more uniques :

* Diversity : most uniques are shy and are barely used ingame. Typical example : Civ5 Netherlands. Most of the time you will start without marshes or flood plains, or with few, therefore the impact on your gameplay will be very thin.

* Replayability : with false or theoric only diversity, you may not really care of what civ you are playing actually. Not to mention the fact that "game balance" and "developers work" should always keep those uniques small and inconsequent.

* Flavor : without uniques, you can incorporate in every civilization the flavor that have been part of history. Example : Civ2 Legions, Civ4 war elephants.

Now here is why I would actively want no uniques :

* No imbalance.

* A lot more civilizations (all ? Past and present ?)
=> with unique city names and culturally linked starting locations that should be reintroduced : more roleplaying, everybody can actually incarnate its own country and feel really a lot more concerned by the game experience and recreating the history of its race.

* Advantages that have to be earned.

* Replayability : according to your mood you can try to recreate the history of whatever civilization you are pleased with without having to undergo its ingame specificities and particular gameplay advantages/disadvantages.

* Gameplay choices : with new ideas you can have more choices as to become more a civ like Rome or Incas during the course of the game.

 

[fallout3dc]

Are you really in favour of uniques ?

Now here is why I would actively want no uniques :

* Replay ability : according to your mood you can try to recreate the history of whatever civilization you are pleased with without having to undergo its ingame specifics and particular game play advantages/disadvantages.

Why would I want to play another civ without a different flavor as any other whatsoever? I agree that the civs should be balanced, and I don't think there should be any civilization that gets any direct boost towards science, (Babylon, Korea, Maya) but by choosing a different civ, I get to play them differently. Your arguement seems to be,

"If they are all the same, then they will all be played the same, so therefor we will have *MORE? replay-ability."

It would honestly be the opposite. I also noticed that you put down that you like to role play. I will have you know that you can role play very easily on the lower levels completely ignoring bonuses and uniques, but give us civ players that like the challenges of different civs our enjoyment.

 

[phillipwyllie]

...* Diversity : most uniques are shy and are barely used ingame...

I'd beg to differ. For me using your chosen civ's unique(s) is a key part to this game. It is also the one of the reasons to play it again, and again, and again. Discovering a unique that works for you is quite refreshing. I have 2000 hours into civ5 and I haven't played even a quarter of the civs available.

...* No imbalance.....

I'll give you this as on the right map certain civs are god- tier. The DCL#6, and DCL#20 comes to mind. In saying that the world isn't homogenous and some real-life civs started in good locations, and others didn't

 

[kzcosme]

CIV BE was criticized by many due to the little flavor in each civilization, as far as I read.

In my opinion, this kind of flavor keeps the replayability, it is the motive I played roughly 1000 hours so far.

 

[Tatran]

I agree with OP.
Most UAs in civ5 are useless (Ethiopia) or forces you to play in a certain style (Greece).
UAs depending on map or terrain type is also bad.
I had games with also the Netherlands and Spain where their UA was totally useless.
UUs isn't much better. Most of them will never see action. This mainly because of the warmonger penalty and
the penalties (increase costs of science, etc) that come with having more cities.

The civ4 traits was a better system to create diversity and there must be diversity.
What would SMAC be if all those faction leaders were the same?

 

[Dr. D]

You're not going to get a lot of support for your arguments, OP. Making every civ exactly the same does not enhance replayability and role-playing... it does exactly the opposite. There would be absolutely no reason to play different civs. You want new city names? Then edit your leader name before the game, rename your cities as you build them and pretend you're some other civ. Or just mod the game. There, that was an easy fix and it doesn't ruin the variety of the game.

 

[DocRock]

Without UU, UB or UAs I wouldn't play Civilization. In SP, I embrace any imbalances because it allows me to finetune the difficulty. I love it, when Civs play differently. For example, if I am in the mood for a war game, I start a game with a Warmonger with the respective War-UUs.

Maybe it's only me, but I do not really care if I play XY of Korea or XZ of Etiopia. I like that I can play one science heavy civ and one culture / religion one.

 

[Nick31]

1,000 percent uniques. If you don't want them, you can mod them out.

I want different everything. UA, UU, Pantheon, et al. Sure, some are more powerful than others, but for SP, so what? Just means some games are different. If you want to play the same with all the civs, just pick the civ you like and then re-name all the cities to be of another civ .

 

[reddishrecue]

From a generation that lacked uniques in the past, yes, I kind of am in favour of uniques.

 

[Socratatus]

I like uniques, simply because they represent the flavour of a culture. I actually don`t expect them to be really good or amazing, but I like thinking, "Yes, this is England!" because of the early Elizabethan Ships or Longbow Men being there.

I like the fact that you get Samurai and Zeros with Japan, which makes them feel very `Japanese`.

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

I like uniques too. Althoguh Civ V is my first game so I'm not sure if I have a say in this.

I do prefer the uniques that doesn't force me to play only this one playstyle, though.

 

[Acken]

Yes...

 

[Knight-Dragon]

To the OP, very much so in favour.

Otherwise there really isn't much reason to try out the various different civs...

 

[BruinBound]

In favor but the balance of unique abilities/ traits/ units is pretty poor.

 

[TheologiaCrucis]

I would go so far as to say that without the unique abilities, units, improvements, and buildings, the game would be unplayable.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I'd like to be able to decide myself on some uniqueness, being largely chosen based on the terrain one spawns in. I would for ex. suggest something like an "unit builder" aking to alpha centauri, might make a good suggestion for civilization VI.

Basicly a unit builder would allow you to equip units from scratch as you wish. you would be able to decide what types and combinations of armor he wears, what weapon(s), wether the unit is mounted or not, etc. The types of equipment you can give him would be determined by technoligy, and more equipment afcourse might make a strong looking unit but would afcourse add to cost and maybe encumbrance. Then add certain special abbielty's or negative's to units if they have certain combinations of equipment. For ex. a very heavy infantry unit might get a special modifier that makes it unable to cross a river when there is no bridge, an extremely light unit might be able to cross a mountain. A light cavalery or infantry unit might get a special raiding bonus.

Certain units could combine mellee with ranged, say in the renaisance era you might want to build infantry units that have both pike and musket, and you can decide yourself how much pike and musket strenght there is in there. In the ancient era you might want units that can combine javelins and mellee weapons, making them units that can engage like Impi's or Romans legion's historicly. Their range strenght might be dependant of how much javelins you give each unit, and that might make the unit heavier and more expensive.

And etc. i could go on a bit about this, i think it would be a good idea. One thing i noticed with reading history is that most civilizations model their fighting unit's to a large degree to the terrain/land that they controlled. French cavalery was great in the open plains of France, same goes with mongol cavalery around where they originated. Ancient greeks had a lot of heavy infantry units that were especially usefull in the rough and defensible terrain of Greece where one could easily bottleneck. The ancient Persian units who typicly could not stand their own one on one versus greeks were far lighter units that had been more addapted to the needs of a wide spaning Persian Empire. the Inca's ingame unique abbilety for units to move fast trough hills imho could be better modelled by having a need for units that can quickly traverse hilly area's ingame and therefore equiping them relativly light. In their "home turf" such units modeled by the player would likely perform better and often surprizing, thoughit might make it more difficult to campaing in terrain that is hardly suited for a unit of that type, which often happened in history. I guess most units would for ex. by deault need to take "attrition" (if they would plz model it too) in desert tiles, the exception being more civilizations that have acces to camels and thus camel riders, though it might also be doable for light horsemen for the rest with maybe just a little attrition.

 

[Redaxe]

I would go so far as to say that without the unique abilities, units, improvements, and buildings, the game would be unplayable.

I agree - if you want to play Civ with no uniques just install Civ 2. I think the community and the devs understand that we have moved past vanilla civilization. Every new civ has to add additional features otherwise it will be a big failure - its called progress.
"There's a basic principle about civilization: it gets more addictive all the time and it gets better all the time."

I don't understand the OPs argument. Unique attributes, buildings, units & improvements is what allows the player to roleplay.....
Ok yes I agree that many uniques are bad or are unimpressive but that still makes for a more dynamic game experience. The unique's don't just affect your game they also effect the the AIs game as well and that is part of the experience of civilization - interacting with the AI...
For example Mongolia goes on a rampage wiping out citystates, the Shoshone plant 8 cities in 60 turns, the nearby Huns attack and raze 6 of those cities to the ground, the Huns and Mongolia get major warmonger penalties and are wiped out by neighboring civs...
If you removed unique's then you won't see this sort of behavior because every civ is streamlined into the same basic gameplay with the same units, strategy etc....


Someone said that Ethiopia's UA is useless. I beg to differ, a 20% combat bonus against larger civs is quite significant and certainly makes it an valid choice for a player who is learning the game at higher difficulties & wants to focus on managing their economy & pursuing a peaceful victory.
More importantly it also has a dynamic effect on the AI. It makes Ethiopia much more likely to survive against a war from a more aggressive invading civ, etc Huns, Zulus.... That adds something to the game.

And that is a pretty good representation of Ethiopian civilization & how it has survived despite being surrounded by hostile cultures & invaders for centuries...

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

An issue with the uniqueness as you have it in the game is that a lot can depend on circumstances if not the least terrain, and that can make youre unique abbilety irrelevant. though civs have a tendency to spawn in terrain that is good for them, often they will have a shortage of good terrain to expand for their abbilety's. Science civs want city's on mountains, Inca's want mountains with much hills, Marrocans want good dessert maybe for a petra too, Carthage wants a lot of coast, Indonesia wants islands, Brazil wants jungle, Dutch want marches, Spain wants natural wonders, Russia wants horses and iron, Celts want forrests, etc.

All these things can matter a lot in game and a lack of good terrain for the specific civ might easily occur and decrease the value of that abbilety.
For uniqe units, it can bite if you are going to lack the resources to build them, and either way they are to be used in a specific timeframe too, not nessecarily for when the most opportune moment arrises.
All these things might make unique abbilety's either irrelevant or tottaly OP in a game. You kind ahave to be lucky as to spawn in good lands really.

Personally i'd like it if i could model my civilization more to the type of terrain i chose to settle in. Specific terrain should come in somewhat larger patches as it tends to and lend choices as to model a civilization after. Historicly, terrain and resources it came with was a huge factor to the uniqueness of civilizations is i would perceive it. In principle i wouldn't mind if terrain was more diverse with having more types to begin with. The, the type of terain oen would choose to live with would give him certain affinity's, say if you live on hills near mountains mostly then highland tech would come cheaper for you and you could unlock all sort of tech usefull for maximizing that sort of terrain, but maybe naval tech would come expensive if you had few coastal city's and or experience on the sea. Simmilarly you'd get more easier acces to specific resources for that sort of terrain if you settled youre city's say mostly around desserts, around jungle's, around fertile grasslands and/or rivers, on islands.

And in time youre units, youre buildings, the way youre city's and youre leader look, would be in a large part determined by the terrain you lived in. Not only that, other matters like say religion or ideoligy later would lend aesthetic elements to how youre civilization feels. A civ living mainly around dessert area's would build for ex. a lot with sandstone or marble i guess, white or yellow looking city's, and youre city's might begin to look more arabesque as a result of settling in the dessert even if you didn't choose Arabia, and for the same regard because maybe running caravans trough the dessert looks lucrative you would then have chosen something that buffs it. Youre desert units would certainly not wearing the kind of ear viking beserkers do, they would wear light gear addapted for desserts an ride camels and some horses and as result they would be able to move better trough dessert withought much attrition. youre civilizations leader would wear more dessert addapted gear and feature in such a background like say an oases or an Arabesque looking court.

If a civilization had waged a lot of wars, maybe you'd find their leader on horseback or in the field, whereas a predominantly peacefull leader might feature in some court or garden. If you went communism you get a green hat with a red star and in capitalism maybe a top hat and a monocle. Wonders that a civilization might have build might feature prominently in the leader scene, especially if say its the most legendary city in the world that leader is leading, then you'd likely find him in that background with wonders around him.

 

[OnceAKing]

I get your idea of modeling a custom civ, essentially, around the terrain. That you spawn at but again what's the point of more civs if they all play the exact same?

I think your lobbying for a different game entirely. It could be an interesting but it's a different game altogether. Because your cultivating a civ from scratch when most the civs are civs we look back at and want to play to their perceived strengths. For example what's the point of playing as Mongolia with no war advantages? It would be odd and it would be Mongolia in name only.

Also, you complain of terrain dependence or lack of resources but theirs a large selection of civs that have NO terrain dependence and creates a different dynamic of a game, such as the Shoshone, The Zulu, Persia, Maya, Venice, Sweden etc.

Now you can complain that certa in civs are stronger then others and this creates imbalance. But ultimately it comes down to the reality of turnover within the dev team. If they could keep identical teams between different expansions then you'd see very similar UAs but with different directors comes different ideas. Also the expansions themselves really overturn the uniques ideas. Like Morocco getting a trade route UA when America gets to bus land at a discount. Or the Celts religion UA and Rome gers plus 20% productproduction on buildings.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I understand that having no uniques would disminish the point of playing other civs. However, it might disminish it less than you think, because it would bring free hands with it.


Example : you are american and you would love to play America. Unfortunatelly, America ingame is kinda unattractive. Its uniques show marginal or side uses, or come late with few impact on gameplay. Therefore, you pick another one. Maybe a better one. In the end, you never pick America.

Without uniques, it would for sure be your first pick.

Therefore, you could roleplay your favorite civ, the one you have the most affinities with. Everything you know about this country in reality, and that's a lot (more than the other countries at least), would enter in reasonnance with the game. You may remark how the city names are correct, you may remark your neighbours that are correct, although on a possibly totally different geographical configuration : this, is recreating History ! It would never have the same impact with another civilization, whatever is the number of its uniques, especially without culturally linked starting locations.

Now, you could still try to roleplay a really mighty civilization like the Roman Empire, because you have learned some stuff about them in reality, and would love to accomplish, or see if you can, what they've done in reality. Or possibly changing History by losing against Carthage ! (unless you picked Carthage to beat Rome )

Playing a particular civilization would highlight your most intimate affinities with it in reality, unlike the so much incomplete, rather crippling description the designers have done of them, with a handful of uniques that are far to reprensent what each of us thinks about a given country.

Not only that, but those uniques represent particular parts of the gameplay, gameplay that has nothing to do with reality and our intimate idea of a real country. You could say that city names and culturally linked starting locations are uniques too, but they are not tied to gameplay.

Uniques as i understand them are linked to gameplay. Therefore you weigh the pros and cons, and don't choose anymore within your heart / the role you really want to play.

You are the actor and the audience in the same time, and the city names and culturally linked starting locations the artifices that help you to believe that you are convincing.

Do you understand me if I say now that uniques are... kinda... gamy ?