[NFP] August Update Video Thread

[Casworon]

This is the first game mode i can see myself having permanently on. I like many others see the idea of 'playing the map' and adapting to the circumstances presented to you as the most interesting part of the 4x genre.

The random opponents and random maps already play into this a huge amount. I think random research will really add to this, forcing you to try different paths and really throw up your game.

There are still two things in the game which i still see as really standing in the way of a truly 'play the map' experience. One is the way Civ abilities work and the other is the victory conditions. Both of these things remove or weaken the play the map element and force you down certain play styles. For example if you are Korea you might as well just spam campuses and go for a science victory no matter what the random map or what random opponents are thrown at you.

Playing a random Civ can help deal with this somewhat. But then the victory conditions still railroad you down certain paths and make all the games feel kinda the same. Sure there are five of them, but still all your science victory games feel similar, all your culture victory games feel similar, domination etc etc.

I'm curious if Firaxis are going to give us ways to deal with this. But i don't really have any good ideas at my finger tips. One idea i like is that victory requires you achieving 2/5 or 3/5 of the victory conditions rather than just one. Whether this will be more fun or just drag the game out longer than it needs to be at this point i'm not entirely sure. But it might be an interesting twist to experiment with

 

[Kupe Navigator]

And again:

If you want to argue, you should stop ignoring my reasons.

If you disagree with me you should not argue saying that Im right but you dont care.

What reason. You say July patch is better because it gave new units and stuff
Again a modder could have done it as well.
So your argument that August patch is bad because a modd can do it for free holds no value.
(Plus this is free update regardless of NFP anyway. You can play it even if you didn't bought the pass or even expansions)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I'm thinking the tech randomizer took a little more work than people expect.

 

[leif erikson]

Moderator Action: Enough bickering. The discussion is about what is in the August Update. Get back to it please.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

On the random tech "unrealistic" tech trees: will the possibilities be more or less realistic than directing your scientists to research the wheel because you know it will lead to the printing press in 1000 years (or whatever)?

 

[Laurana Kanan]

So I see on Twitter that FXS posted that the update will drop next Thursday the 27th. I thought it was strange they would post the update video on a Monday the week before, as they've only done that when there were First Looks for new Civs that they posted on the Thursday and Tuesday before the update. It makes me wonder if they have something planned for this Thursday. Obviously not a FL, but maybe a reveal of the Civs and/or Leaders coming in Pack #3.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I for one am happy with it. I am sure team did everything they could with current event.

For me living in Korea it is 28th.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

On the random tech "unrealistic" tech trees: will the possibilities be more or less realistic than directing your scientists to research they wheel because you know it will lead to the printing press in 1000 years (or whatever)?

Exactly. Until very recently, scientific discoveries were made by happenstance rather than a directed effort of the scientific community towards a specific foreseen goal. The capability to proceed through the tech tree strategically is more of a "game" mechanic than a historically accuracy. It's a big part of the strategy component of the game, but it is also a crutch you lean on for an advantage.

 

[UWHabs]

This is the first game mode i can see myself having permanently on. I like many others see the idea of 'playing the map' and adapting to the circumstances presented to you as the most interesting part of the 4x genre.

The random opponents and random maps already play into this a huge amount. I think random research will really add to this, forcing you to try different paths and really throw up your game.

There are still two things in the game which i still see as really standing in the way of a truly 'play the map' experience. One is the way Civ abilities work and the other is the victory conditions. Both of these things remove or weaken the play the map element and force you down certain play styles. For example if you are Korea you might as well just spam campuses and go for a science victory no matter what the random map or what random opponents are thrown at you.

Playing a random Civ can help deal with this somewhat. But then the victory conditions still railroad you down certain paths and make all the games feel kinda the same. Sure there are five of them, but still all your science victory games feel similar, all your culture victory games feel similar, domination etc etc.

I'm curious if Firaxis are going to give us ways to deal with this. But i don't really have any good ideas at my finger tips. One idea i like is that victory requires you achieving 2/5 or 3/5 of the victory conditions rather than just one. Whether this will be more fun or just drag the game out longer than it needs to be at this point i'm not entirely sure. But it might be an interesting twist to experiment with

This is a tough balancing act. Like, part of me says "if you're given a map, you should gear everything towards that". But another part of me says, "you're given a civ, you should play to that". Sometimes they line up and it's beautiful. Sometimes they clash, and you have a tough decision.

But outside of a system where uniques come based on the map and not based on the civ, there's not really a way around it. Like, it would be cool to have a mode where you build the first boat, and then the game pops up and says, "congrats, you now have a longship UU" (or like where you research sailing, and then have a choice to go research the longship UU after that), but that's a vast departure from things now. I think in the end, that just happens to be a case where there's no real great solution, so it's always a balance of playing the map vs playing the civ, and you just have to hope for the best mix.

 

[Casworon]

This is a tough balancing act. Like, part of me says "if you're given a map, you should gear everything towards that". But another part of me says, "you're given a civ, you should play to that". Sometimes they line up and it's beautiful. Sometimes they clash, and you have a tough decision.

But outside of a system where uniques come based on the map and not based on the civ, there's not really a way around it. Like, it would be cool to have a mode where you build the first boat, and then the game pops up and says, "congrats, you now have a longship UU" (or like where you research sailing, and then have a choice to go research the longship UU after that), but that's a vast departure from things now. I think in the end, that just happens to be a case where there's no real great solution, so it's always a balance of playing the map vs playing the civ, and you just have to hope for the best mix.

Yeah i can see where you are coming from 100%. It get's to a point where you are making such massive changes that you are changing some of the core design choices that makes Civ, well... Civ.

On the civilisation side of things you can at-least chose to play as a random Civ, so you have to adjust to the Civ that the game gives you. While the victory conditions you are just kind of stuck with.

There is a mod which changes the way the score victory works to mean you have to have double the score of the player in second place to achieve victory. This works quite well in providing a 'balanced victory condition', however lot's of the end game content then ceases to really be that relevant. For example if you only have this 'double score victory' on, then rock bands are kinda pointless unless you have the pop star promotion. Diplomatic victory points are completely useless.

I would like too see Firaxis have a more integrated version of the same idea, where all the game's content goes into the score and so all the game mechanics remain somewhat relevant.

Basically Tl.DR 'Balanced Victory' when

 

[Abaxial]

The capability to proceed through the tech tree strategically is more of a "game" mechanic than a historically accuracy. .

I strongly disagree. The development of technologies has always been dependent to a large extent on previous technologies. You can't have cannons without metal working (well leather ones were tried, but not with great success). Horse riding is a prerequisite for stirrups. Etc etc.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I strongly disagree. The development of technologies has always been dependent to a large extent on previous technologies. You can't have cannons without metal working (well leather ones were tried, but not with great success). Horse riding is a prerequisite for stirrups. Etc etc.

Okay but you don't develop metal working because you know that some day your great great great grandchildren will want cannons. We just accept that more because that's the way civ has always worked.

 

[nzcamel]

Some kind of culture bomb on your borders from forts could be pretty cute.

Please no. Culture bombs suck.
It would be aggravating, not cute!!

I strongly disagree. The development of technologies has always been dependent to a large extent on previous technologies. You can't have cannons without metal working (well leather ones were tried, but not with great success). Horse riding is a prerequisite for stirrups. Etc etc.

I think Eagle means that we still don't exactly know what is coming even if we can see where a previous discovery may lead based on our limited information. i.e. Levi Strauss thought he was making tents, not pants.

The ability to say "I'm researching X" is a pure game mechanic when compared to most historical R&D.

 

[oSiyeza]

Moderator Action: Don't continue arguments after an Admin has asked you to stop --NZ
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Back to more important matters: Do you think normal wonders would benefit of a filter too?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I mean granted, I still think that the blind random tree works better in a future game like SMAC than a historical one for the reasons people are giving. Who's to say whether flux capacitors lead to energon cubes or the other way around?

 

[8housesofelixir]

I strongly disagree. The development of technologies has always been dependent to a large extent on previous technologies. You can't have cannons without metal working (well leather ones were tried, but not with great success). Horse riding is a prerequisite for stirrups. Etc etc.

The development of technologies does dependent on previous technologies, however currently in-game, you can have musket the moment you finished researching gunpowder, without any knowledge of metalcasting or ballistics. In terms of historical accuracy they are still off.

Randomizing, in this case, is more feasible, because it doesn't relate itself to accuracy from the beginning.

 

[UWHabs]

Okay but you don't develop metal working because you know that some day your great great great grandchildren will want cannons. We just accept that more because that's the way civ has always worked.

Yeah, that comes back to the fact that you're an immortal being who can see 6000 years into the future.

To kind of truly represent the random nature, you would probably need like 4X the number of possible units there are now, but on each play-through, some units simply never appear. So like, back in the ancient era you would discover horses and start working them, but then essentially you would never learn horseback riding and never unlock cavalry units. Maybe in that version, horses become super strong at pulling carts, and so chariots become a truly dominant force, and you end up with an entire line of chariot-spears, chariot-archers, then later maybe you get chariot-cannons or something like that. But yeah, right now I know that somewhere down the road, I will 100% unlock the ability to build airports and bombers, so that changes how you potentially approach the game in the early eras.

Yeah, the randomized pre-reqs will certain make a lot of pieces a-historical, like trying to understand how you can unlock horseback riding without having learned animal husbandry, for example. But when you're playing as Teddy and use your vampire to take out some of Gilgamesh's troops, this is just another small piece to the historical puzzle that is civ.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah, that comes back to the fact that you're an immortal being who can see 6000 years into the future.

To kind of truly represent the random nature, you would probably need like 4X the number of possible units there are now, but on each play-through, some units simply never appear. So like, back in the ancient era you would discover horses and start working them, but then essentially you would never learn horseback riding and never unlock cavalry units. Maybe in that version, horses become super strong at pulling carts, and so chariots become a truly dominant force, and you end up with an entire line of chariot-spears, chariot-archers, then later maybe you get chariot-cannons or something like that. But yeah, right now I know that somewhere down the road, I will 100% unlock the ability to build airports and bombers, so that changes how you potentially approach the game in the early eras.

Yeah, the randomized pre-reqs will certain make a lot of pieces a-historical, like trying to understand how you can unlock horseback riding without having learned animal husbandry, for example. But when you're playing as Teddy and use your vampire to take out some of Gilgamesh's troops, this is just another small piece to the historical puzzle that is civ.

Yes. I don't think that what they're implementing is perfect (nothing will be) but it'll be an interesting variant requiring a bit more thinking-on-the-fly than the traditional tech tree.

 

[Josephias]

Being disappointed is a subjective opinion that is dependent on the standards I held the company to. Those standards were not especially high, I expected a lazy patch, but not as lazy as this. Now the standards I hold the company to are lower, and they have been low for a while already.

I underestand your point, altough, being as well familiar with sw development, I'd wish some suppliers provided at least that some months. Not to say the content provided is much, altough I will wait to see the length of the list of balance changes for judgement. I believe I was just waiting already a lazy august (summer break) patch. So geting at least a minor QOL improvement and a way to renovate thegame (instead of just more number tweaking or bonus relocation) is a positive surprise (coming from very low expectations, of course). But of course, there is a lot of work to do and one less patch to go... if you look it from this side (and before seeing the full list of changes), yes, it's depressing.

I think Eagle means that we still don't exactly know what is coming even if we can see where a previous discovery may lead based on our limited information. i.e. Levi Strauss thought he was making tents, not pants.
The ability to say "I'm researching X" is a pure game mechanic when compared to most historical R&D.

That comes back to the difference between this blind research and SMAC blind research. SMAC blind research felt actually organic, even if it still used a fixed three. You said " I'll focus in getting something to improve my military", and you could get new guns, new armor, or maybe, in certain cases, a completly unrelated tech (that maybe was a pre-requisite for other military tech). But well, we have discussed that already.
Here, you may need a quarry for the masonry eureka, but masonry may be a pre-requisite for mining . Anyway, as others said, now you can already get to certain techs/units without some clear prerequisites (steampowered aircraft, non-flight jet fighters, wheel-less siege towers,...)


On the loyalty-by-forts topic, it might be interesting to actually make them provide additional loyalty if garrisoned (an additonal loyalty bonus to the one for city-garrisoned cities), but make it a two-edged sword, so you might face loyalty drops if forts are sacked. (This is, if you are commited to get loyalty-by-forts, you need to be really commited).

 

[King Rad]

I like the random trees, especially the tech ones. I also think that the eurekas revealing the place of the tech on the tree actually makes sense. Civ is not a historical sim; it's more of an alternate history. As was pointed out, the development of specific technologies was often random, but also, the development of certain techs often led to trying to discover specific uses for that tech. Hopefully, the random tech tree will somewhat simulate this. There's not guarantee that a specific tech will be discovered, but a eureka would give you an idea that something was out there, and you might want to start researching toward that even if you're not sure what you're going to discover along the way. I think this pretty much sums up how much of the developments through history have occurred. And, at least so far, since we haven't actually played with this on, I think this is another great addition to the game that I will enjoy playing.