Arioch's Analyst Thread

[AriochIV]

It's just that we've got a double-dose of simplification here: not only is Happiness now global instead of per-city, but also Happiness now takes on the additional roles that health and corruption did, of limiting not just the size of cities but the size of your empire. So what you get are some very artificial effects: like when conquering a city, the occupied population seems fine with it (they will get to work right away as soon as the resistance is over, with no penalties compared to the rest of your cities), yet your whole empire suffers unhappiness.

I was really happy in Civ IV when they removed the "civil disorder" mechanic, because that was a pain in the butt, but it was still good that you might have unhappy cities, but it was localized: it was a city that you had let grow too big without the appropriate buildings, or had mixed ethnic groups, or had recently been conquered. There was nothing overwhelming about managing individual cities' happiness, and it added to the feel of how things were going differently in different parts of the empire.

 

[Calouste]

I don't think there was anything wrong with the more realistic health/happiness/maintenance model, so this is one case where I don't see the rationale behind the simplification.

Health was pretty much the same game mechanic as happiness in Civ4, and while it worked, and worked better than in earlier Civs, it's not great design to use the same mechanic twice.

The exact workings of maintenance were rather obscure and didn't give the player a lot of control, and there seems to be a trend in Civ5 to make all the information you need to play the game at its best available to the player. In Civ4 you basically couldn't play at the highest levels unless you had some cheat sheets at hand that listed which AI would declare at which level of diplomatic relations etc, information that wasn't exposed in the UI.

 

[PinkHammurabi]

Eh, I can understand how it may not make sense, but really, the different places and reasons that a citizen is unhappy is just pooled now, and I've really no problem with that. It feels like a good gameplay decision and I don't see it as a gross misunderstanding of history or anything similar, so I got no beef with it.

 

[Wolle68]

It's just that we've got a double-dose of simplification here: not only is Happiness now global instead of per-city, but also Happiness now takes on the additional roles that health and corruption did, of limiting not just the size of cities but the size of your empire.

The devs might call it "happiness", but in reality they're treating it like "generic expansion inhibitor". It seems like it will take a lot of the flavor out of the game. It just doesn't make sense.

 

[Thyrwyn]

Health was pretty much the same game mechanic as happiness in Civ4, and while it worked, and worked better than in earlier Civs, it's not great design to use the same mechanic twice.

The exact workings of maintenance were rather obscure and didn't give the player a lot of control, and there seems to be a trend in Civ5 to make all the information you need to play the game at its best available to the player.

I agree with Calouste on both points: they got rid of maintenance based on city number/distance (hidden formula - each city new increased maintenance by "unknown" amount) and replaced it with building maintenance (set number per building based (probably) on type).

War weariness was the same way (formula based on city size): with global happiness, this becomes a non-issue - they even added the puppet mechanic to give you the ability to minimize the impact of conquering a new city. I seem to remember that conquering cities increase war weariness in IV, didn't it?

With regards to expansion, "new" cities tend to be settled by those who are not faring well where they were and tend also to be farther away from the political center, both physically and philosophically. More expansive empires inevitably struggle with control.

 

[snipperrabbit!!]

Arioch, have you analyzed the Rome city screen recently because I think I uncovered a couple of things :

#1 > the merchant specialist provide 5 gold
#2 > the culture specialist provide 5 culture
#3 > the granary provide 2 food (via resource I guess)
#4 > there is still 6 unexplained production ( Pyramid ? relocated Capitol ? ... )
#5 > golden age length is ten or higher ( maybe 2 ga juxtaposed ? )

 

[The Leviathan]

They really should just rename that happiness system to public order

I think that works alot better

 

[Souron]

They really should just rename that happiness system to public order

I think that works alot better

That's the same thing. Even the icons would be the same in that case. But the icons still match happiness better.

I don't see it as a major change in realism to call happiness public order. Tomato, tomahto.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

That's the same thing. Even the icons would be the same in that case. But the icons still match happiness better.

I don't see it as a major change in realism to call happiness public order. Tomato, tomahto.

And in reality "happiness" is probably a more complete although simplified term.

When you consider the effects on things like military effectiveness the mechanic is more like "public opinion" which would capture the full range of the supportiveness of a population for what you're doing as a leader

 

[Semmel]

someone else wrote it here.. to counter the unhappiness of city invasion.. it would be nice to enslave its people. Increasing the happiness (and maybe production output due to slaves) of your population temporally by decreasing the population of the invaded city. You can decide how long the effect is, depending on the number of citizens you like to enslave. You have to know if this tradeoff is worth the loss in population.. at least.. this was done in history often.. very often, and it fits nicely into the game mechanics.

damn. i guess im getting ahead of my self.. this thread is for analysing, not for wishful thinking.. sorry!

 

[iBlagg]

In the modern units page at the bottom their is an unknown ship. I'm certain this is a dreadnought, here is a link to a page with HMS Dreadnought the first of it's kind, see what you think.

http://factoidz.com/causes-of-world-war-i/

It was a ship that filled the gap between wood and steel. It introduced turrets but unlike the iron clad it could venture away from coast.

 

[GeoModder]

The unidentified ship you refer to definitely isn't a dreadnought. It has what appears to be side-paddles which places it more then half a century before the original HMS Dreadnought was constructed. And there's only a open gun on the stern part of the graphic. No turrets at all.

 

[Churchdown Yank]

Snippets From PC Gamer UK Sept 2010 (Iss 217) Edition:

(NB: I'm disappointed because I thought they might have a full review - but apparently that's next month...)

"It looked and felt great, but I feared simplification could reduce the depth of the game. What I found instead was a medley of combat complexity and general accessibility."

"In the tech tree, may dead-end ones from Civ IV have been dropped in the hopes of making every tech more valuable."

"The improved combat may actually be the feature that nets Civ V the most new players. The use of hex tiles as opposed to squares helps -- its amazing what the addition of two more tile sides can do for tactics. Terrain is more important that ever: one way I mounted a defence was by using a hill or founding my city near a river."

(NB: New Info) "Later my scouts announced the discovery of Mt Everest, generating happiness across my empire. The map's littered with such bonus-granting natural wonders. In a ruin, I came upon survivors of who founded Sparta at the base of Everest, and there in the mountains, I created my own version of the Hot Gates."

"Civ V is richer for its condensation of features, and a more intuitive interface will soften the weight of that depth for previously-intimidated players."

Woot

 

[bjbrains]

Hmm. That sounds great Yank, that sounds exactly what I am/was hoping would happen with Civ 5: A more transparent/intuitive economy/civil model, combined with more fun/tactical combat (and yes that is/was/might be a bunch of slashes/separations/combined terms).

 

[Mustakrakish]

"The improved combat may actually be the feature that nets Civ V the most new players. The use of hex tiles as opposed to squares helps -- its amazing what the addition of two more tile sides can do for tactics. Terrain is more important that ever: one way I mounted a defence was by using a hill or founding my city near a river."

Not this again...

The whole review becomes questionable after this phrase...

 

[Calouste]

Snippets From PC Gamer UK Sept 2010 (Iss 217) Edition:

(NB: I'm disappointed because I thought they might have a full review - but apparently that's next month...)

"It looked and felt great, but I feared simplification could reduce the depth of the game. What I found instead was a medley of combat complexity and general accessibility."

"In the tech tree, may dead-end ones from Civ IV have been dropped in the hopes of making every tech more valuable."

"The improved combat may actually be the feature that nets Civ V the most new players. The use of hex tiles as opposed to squares helps -- its amazing what the addition of two more tile sides can do for tactics. Terrain is more important that ever: one way I mounted a defence was by using a hill or founding my city near a river."

(NB: New Info) "Later my scouts announced the discovery of Mt Everest, generating happiness across my empire. The map's littered with such bonus-granting natural wonders. In a ruin, I came upon survivors of who founded Sparta at the base of Everest, and there in the mountains, I created my own version of the Hot Gates."

"Civ V is richer for its condensation of features, and a more intuitive interface will soften the weight of that depth for previously-intimidated players."

Woot

Good to see some new info. I wonder how the exploitation of natural wonders is going to work. Obviously you can't build improvements on top of them. Are we going to see a Tourism tech that allows you to build the Hotel improvement?

It is hard to be impressed though by the writer from those quotes:

1) Going from squares to hexes substracted two sides, not added two sides. Diagonal moves apparently being a complex concept.
2) AFAIK, you can only pop Settlers on the lowest level, maybe the one above. I wouldn't pay too much attention to information about game balance in that article.

 

[AriochIV]

Are we going to see a Tourism tech that allows you to build the Hotel improvement?

I wouldn't be at all surprised. Tourism is a very significant source of income in many places in the world.

2) AFAIK, you can only pop Settlers on the lowest level, maybe the one above. I wouldn't pay too much attention to information about game balance in that article.

Yes, I noticed that as well; that he got a settler from a ruin suggests that he's playing on an easy difficulty setting.

 

[Beardy Dan]

It is hard to be impressed though by the writer from those quotes:

1) Going from squares to hexes substracted two sides, not added two sides. Diagonal moves apparently being a complex concept..

A Square has four sides a Hex has 6.

Ok so in Civ 4 there seems to be 8 directions of travel however the distances travelled are not equal, a diagonal move is vertical plus a horizontal move.

Anyone know if there is a mod that prevents diagonal moves/makes them harder?

 

[Kramer3980]

It is hard to be impressed though by the writer from those quotes:

1) Going from squares to hexes substracted two sides, not added two sides. Diagonal moves apparently being a complex concept.

squares have 4 sides.....hexes have 6....that's 2 more sides. He didn't say you had more movement options. he said "its amazing what the addition of two more tile sides can do for tactics". and tiles do have 2 more sides.

 

[Vraslosken]

1) Going from squares to hexes substracted two sides, not added two sides. Diagonal moves apparently being a complex concept.

Wrong. A hexagon has two more sides than a square, even if there are two less directions to move. The two extra sides changes the tactics, since it reduces the amount of directions to move. The author is right.