Arioch's Analyst Thread

[Schuesseled]

Well I didnt mean to call your crazy or say you were misinforming people if you think thats the case which you didnt specifically imply either. It was more of a whimiscal comment . I have made crazy suggestions too.

Anyway, as for "not being able to change from Piety to Rationalism", I assume then this is one of the "coupling" of Social policies where by if you take one you can't take the other, I do believe it was said as this though "If you choose Piety you can't use Rationalism at the same time", Which implies that you may very well indeed be able to "unselect" one tree in favour of another one. If circumstances change and the other is more beneficial, its just that unlike someones "crazy idea" that was suggested you won't be able to get a refund when "abandoning" a tree, the culture spent on it so far remains spent and further progression would be capable from where you left off if you were to switch back.
Atleast this is the implication.

If indeed you can switch between policies, I hope they dont have the "anarchy" like they did before, where by you could avoid paying maintanence indefinitely by continually changing policies. A large loop hole I hope they sewed up.



No it has been confirmed that on each hex thier can only be 1 of each type of unit, these being Military/Civilian/Air, this was confirmed long ago.

Anyone stating that "air craft can stack" are wrong.

As always I will try to deal in facts, if something is not a fact I will say "probably or may", If however I am wrong I don't mind being prooved as such, so if you think its been confirmed that Air Craft will be able to stack can you please post where this is confirmed. I try to avoid spreading flase facts where possible .

they have said that aircraft and missiles can stack, how much stacking there allowed to do, hasn't been confirmed yet, but definetly more than 1upt for air.

 

[AriochIV]

In the video, the cursor just flicks momentarily over the yellow diamond icon on the top bar, revealing the tooltip:

277/500 progress toward the next Golden Age.
0 is added per turn from excess Happiness. [the empire has 0 Happiness at this point]
While in a Golden Age, every tile in your empire that produces at least 1 Production or Gold produces 1 extra.

 

[12agnar0k]

I was looking over Arioch's site again, and I noticed this:


I thought it was just an overall boost to science for x number of turns in exchange for y gold. But I actually would prefer a system in which you had to both research the same tech. Has this detail really been confirmed?

Yes I think it was confirmed as the exact text Arioch wrote. In some Article or another.

Nvm, it was the other way around, the X turns was confirmed /.

 

[Semmel]

The happiness mechanic offers a nice conclusion, if it works similar to Civ4, so happiness is basically the upper limit for the number of inhabitants your empire can have (I know, cities reduce happiness too, but suppose the number of cities doesnt change in our example, than its just a constant that is not relevant for now). Suppose one citizen makes 3 hammers in a mine and an other one makes 3 gold in a trade post (cool, right?).

Now, having 2 less people on purpose costs you effectively 3 hammers and 3 gold and 2 beakers (someone said one beaker per citizen and turn) per turn. If you want to trigger a golden age by happiness (there were other ways greg said) and you save just these two people, than you need 250 turns. Which means the golden age basically costs you 750 gold, 750 hammers and 500 beakers. I dont know how long a golden age lasts, but for the sake of argument let it be 10 turns. Than you need at least 75 tile with at least one hammer and 75tiles with at least 1 gold to be worked in order to make the golden age "economical", not counting the 500 beakers because we don't know if the golden age affects them. So you need a pretty large empire to make good use of an golden age triggered by happiness on purpose.

 

[bjbrains]

Some stuff I noticed:
Promotions look similar to civ 4, example shown was "Siege, +25% strength versus cities
You cannot pillage capitals, you must annex or create puppet.
Apparently each city increases the 'cost of your social policies and Great People', although this is not true with puppet states. You can also annex any puppet state at any time.
Order and Autocracy are unlocked with the Industrial era, Freedom/Rationalism with Renaissance.
There's some interesting icons on the policy tree. Some form of state property is the final policy in order (hammer/sickle symbol).
Apparently each luxury resource is 5 happiness, while the german player gets 10 unhappiness from (apparently) having 7 cities.
Pikemen have +100 strength versus mounted
You can see the general attitude of other civilizations, as well as score in the diplomacy menu.
Wheat can occur on flood plains.

 

[AriochIV]

There is a stretch where you can see the same section of terrain both in normal and Strategic View, which is great to compare representations. Pretty much all the icons we've speculated on from Greg's shots appear to be correct.

I did find two previously unseen tile improvements.

This is sitting on a desert hill just south of a city. The icon is different from that of a Fort.

This looks like a monument, but it's a tile improvement and not a building. Perhaps a park. There's a similarly tower-shaped improvement icon under Biology.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

1. Apparently each city increases the 'cost of your social policies and Great People', although this is not true with puppet states. You can also annex any puppet state at any time.
2. Order and Autocracy are unlocked with the Industrial era, Freedom/Rationalism with Renaissance.

OK, in relation to the 1st part, this should partly silence the "ICS is making a comeback" crowd. The above mechanism seems to be antithetical to the Bigger=Better system.

As to the 2nd part, I'm kind of disappointed that Soc Pols like Freedom & Rationalism aren't unlocked until the Renaissance-given that it was the Classical Greeks who gave us both! At the very least, there should be options that allow civs earlier access to these branches (maybe via Ruins or something). Anyway, minor quibble on my part-I guess there is a strong game-play reason!

Aussie.

 

[Calouste]

OK, in relation to the 1st part, this should partly silence the "ICS is making a comeback" crowd. The above mechanism seems to be antithetical to the Bigger=Better system.

Bigger cities = Better in Civ5 so far. I think India is looking like a good civ to start playing the game with. Fairly clear strategy and not that much hassle, so you can concentrate on understanding other parts of the game.

As to the 2nd part, I'm kind of disappointed that Soc Pols like Freedom & Rationalism aren't unlocked until the Renaissance-given that it was the Classical Greeks who gave us both! At the very least, there should be options that allow civs earlier access to these branches (maybe via Ruins or something). Anyway, minor quibble on my part-I guess there is a strong game-play reason!

Aussie.

Rationalism went on an extended vacation for a millenium or so.

 

[Celevin]

Apparently each city increases the 'cost of your social policies and Great People', although this is not true with puppet states. You can also annex any puppet state at any time.

OK, in relation to the 1st part, this should partly silence the "ICS is making a comeback" crowd.

I like this a lot. Now I can at least see benefits to a spread out empire, benefits to a very large population without many cities empire, and "soft caps" in the form of two different happiness meters to keep both extreme playstyles in check. Before I was leaning a lot more towards a "city spam" due to city specialists.

 

[12agnar0k]

Its interesting that they brought out what may well be a desert specific improvement, and quite rightly too, they need to have some kind of benefit, usually a desert is just avoided.

I wonder what it will be, cactus farm?

 

[AlessioCerci]

I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread but apologies if it has: according to this site the musketeer is a full 4 strength points stronger than the standard musketman (16 vs 20). Makes it quite a bit better than the CIV 4 version I think.

 

[Louis XXIV]

No it has been confirmed that on each hex thier can only be 1 of each type of unit, these being Military/Civilian/Air, this was confirmed long ago.

Anyone stating that "air craft can stack" are wrong.

As always I will try to deal in facts, if something is not a fact I will say "probably or may", If however I am wrong I don't mind being prooved as such, so if you think its been confirmed that Air Craft will be able to stack can you please post where this is confirmed. I try to avoid spreading flase facts where possible .

I seem to recall it being a comment by someone official, most likely in this forum. It was practically an offhand comment, so it wouldn't surprise me if most people missed it. It's also entirely possible I dreamt it. I'll take some time and dig through some threads and hope I get lucky. Not much else I can do, to be honest.

 

[AriochIV]

No it has been confirmed that on each hex thier can only be 1 of each type of unit, these being Military/Civilian/Air, this was confirmed long ago.

Anyone stating that "air craft can stack" are wrong.

As always I will try to deal in facts, if something is not a fact I will say "probably or may", If however I am wrong I don't mind being prooved as such, so if you think its been confirmed that Air Craft will be able to stack can you please post where this is confirmed. I try to avoid spreading flase facts where possible.

Interview with producer Dennis Shirk at Civilization Games (Russian site, translated)

CivGames: "We have heard that in Civilization V could not be more than one unit on each hex. And what about aircraft carriers, missile cruisers, transports marines and so on?"

Dennis Shirk: "Some troops can be placed on a single cell. Air units, for example, exist in a separate layer, layers with its fleet with the land army and civilian units. In contrast to terrestrial and marine units, missiles and aircraft can be grouped in a single hex, allowing use of such major fighting units like aircraft carriers and submarine missile cruisers."

 

[Schuesseled]

I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread but apologies if it has: according to this site the musketeer is a full 4 strength points stronger than the standard musketman (16 vs 20). Makes it quite a bit better than the CIV 4 version I think.

the difference could also be from promotions as well, nothing final about thoe stats, don't start planning a french only war plan for civ 5 just yet.

 

[12agnar0k]

@Source for Air,

Okay well that can be interpreted two ways, either as the Air zone can have both 1 plane and 1 missile
Or perhaps Air will work differently than that of military and civilians in that thier is no "upper limit" other than that imposed by carrier space / airfield space. so we might be allowed a few units in the cities or the carriers as apposed to just 1 or 1 of each, thansk for the quote.

I haven't seen this mentioned in the thread but apologies if it has: according to this site the musketeer is a full 4 strength points stronger than the standard musketman (16 vs 20). Makes it quite a bit better than the CIV 4 version I think.

On a different note:

Anyone else notice that the Longswordsman is stronger than the musketman 18 compared to 16. In the information someone posted, interesting eh?

...

One last note, if anyone wants to upload the DVD, I wouldnt mind getting a look at it . Link me.

 

[AriochIV]

In the the public E3 videos, a Longswordsman with no promotions had a stength of 16. Either they changed the value, or the strength listed on the screen reflects promotions or some other bonus. It's most likely the former, since previous Civ games have never altered the displayed strength value of a unit due to promotions (although they show you the benefit of the promotions clearly).

If the latter is the case, that would be kind of nice for gameplay -- it's nice to see the "effective" strength of a unit without having to do the math in your head (especially since the new combat odds screen is much less numerically explicit than in Civ IV). But it would make my job harder, especially since we don't yet know what these promotions are.

Regarding the Musketmen at strength 16: historically, matchlock muskets weren't vastly superior to late-medieval heavy infantry, just incredibly cheaper. And if they don't require any Iron or other strategic resources (whereas Longswordsmen surely do), then that really would make Musketmen cheap.

But, of course, the example of the Longswordsman's changing strength reminds us that nothing that we see is necessarily final.

 

[Calouste]

On a different note:

Anyone else notice that the Longswordsman is stronger than the musketman 18 compared to 16. In the information someone posted, interesting eh?

Yes, although the Musketman costs less hammers 120 v 150 apparently, and probably also doesn't need iron (which you can then use to build siege I assume).

 

[PieceOfMind]

Arioch,
I would assume it's the latter. It would be like what they did in civ rev, and I'm sure it's one of those things they're trying to make less complicated or easier to read.

And actually you could always see the relative strengths, even in unpatched vanilla, but it didn't exactly dominate the display.

Plus, a swordsman of strength 18 sounds a bit unbelievable.

 

[12agnar0k]

Regarding the Musketmen at strength 16: historically, matchlock muskets weren't vastly superior to late-medieval heavy infantry, just incredibly cheaper. And if they don't require any Iron or other strategic resources (whereas Longswordsmen surely do), then that really would make Musketmen cheap.

But, of course, the example of the Longswordsman's changing strength reminds us that nothing that we see is necessarily final.

Yes I was thinking along those lines too, slightly weaker than a sword, but it will probably come with different upgrades so it might become better, and its also cheaper to build and won't take any resources up unless they bring back saltpepper.

I saw some nice graphic changes in the UI on your screen shot of vienna I guess from the gamestar.de exclusive. So yeah, nothing is finalized though I guess they are getting there.

Good news for me, I guess,..., August 17th is when a Civ5 exclusive is coming to a magazine I can buy, hopefully it will be as informing as game stars, I will be buying that

...

I don't think a longsword with strength 18 is too unrealistic, it can be easily explained.

1. All units seem to have higher strengths than before, a warrior going from 2 to 6 (x3), the longsword is a maceman, and its gone from 8 to 18 (x2.25), so if anything its "weaker" than civ4's maceman.

2. It could very well be stronger than all other units in its era, including early gunpowder units, but the reason for this could be a very high cost in resources, say a longswordsman could be costing 2 iron units, where as a normal swordsman only costs 1 Iron unit. This would explain the high strength quite easily, it has to be this high to make its cost viable.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Good points. I suspect there could be some differences in how strengths scale with odds as well, like there was with civrev. In civ4, even a modest strength advantage lead to a large advantage in combat because battles were fought in multiple rounds. Without knowing the actual probabilities from the battles we can see from game so far, I'm not sure we can easily work out what strengths we should expect units to have anyway. To put it simply, it may be quite meaningless at this stage to, for example, compare a warrior with a unit that is 3 times stronger and then look at the same situation in civ4.

I will need to have a look through Arioch's page a bit more I guess. I didn't realise 18 or so might be close to a sword's base strength.