Balance issues in Civ4

[MyOtherName]

Their UB is completely overpowered, it's basically a Creative trait with the culture doubler. Their UU is good for early rushes or chokes.

The fact your city is getting when built is only part of what Creative is good for. And only the first 10 (particularly, the fact you get it immediately upon founding) are really significant. (numbers for normal speed)

 

[traius]

The UB they have can be there during the first 10 turns if you conquered it. A free culture building in a conquered city is really sweet. But it also means you don't have to build any monuments, which is probably why it is said they have almost creative's benefit. It may not be as strong as being creative, but it saves the same hammers on monuments (very early hammers being very important), and gives you a chance on having culture in a freshly conquered cities.

 

[Jabarto]

This thread is really proving my theory that the only people who say game balance isn't important either want to have fun at everyone else's expense...

If the balance issue is in your favor, don't complaint about it, leverage it to achieve a win.

...or don't actually know what game balance means.

Trying to balance everything perfectly only leads to a situation where everyhing is equal and strategic decisions turn pointless, because by definition no matter what you chose they have to be equally successful.

Game balance doesn't mean that everything will always result in in success (Starcraft is one of the most balanced games I know, but you're still going to lose if you try to use your SCV's as your main army). All it means is that each civilization, civic, etc. has a useful role to play that isn't head and shoulders above the rest. Otherwise you end up with a situation where a handful of options are obviously superior and everything else is just a trap for new players who don't know any better.

In other words, all imbalance does is reward metagame knowledge over actual strategy and create pitfalls that don't need to exist, there's never a good reason for it.

 

[TheSunIsDark]

Starcraft is one of the most balanced games I know.

Ever heard of the zergling rush? But some of your points there were pretty good, you can't have every strategy working. But also you can't make playing as a certain character (or, in this case, civ or leader)=instant win/loss. Civ4 is mostly balanced, there are just some glaring balance issues, mainly blockades and Sushi.

 

[bhavv]

Balance doesn't mean that everyone does the same thing, it just means there's more than one right way to play the game. Germany being a crappy civ isn't "flavorful", it just punishes anyone who wants to play Germany.

Org / Phi is hugely powerful, plus a 50% construction bonus towards the UB.

Ind / Exp is amazing for OCC.

 

[gps]

In other words, all imbalance does is reward metagame knowledge over actual strategy and create pitfalls that don't need to exist, there's never a good reason for it.

You make it sound like imbalances are put into the game deliberately - and I guess that's not the case. They are in the game because no matter how hard game designers try to make things balanced they never can anticipate every trick, loophole or extreme strategy the community of players will come up after playing the game for years. The constant and fundamental rebalancing and nerving of successfull strategies that happens today in many games is as much a nuisance as some minor imbalances that escaped the creators.

 

[gps]

This thread is really proving my theory that the only people who say game balance isn't important either want to have fun at everyone else's expense...

...or don't actually know what game balance means.

Btw. the mere fact that you actually have a different understanding of what balances means does neither prove your understanding of balance nor your theory as correct.

 

[bhavv]

If you dont like how the game is balanced, you know you can change mostly everything yourself like I did in my sig link.

 

[Biz_]

i think the biggest balance problem is that having good land and lots of land is just way too powerful in general. it turns the game into a contest of who gets to expand without getting attacked, which is more about luck than strategy

the abilities which let you grab more land or deny opponents from grabbing land are overpowered because land just matters too much.

basically, the root cause is the broken expansion model. the balance issues you observe are just side effects of that imo


also, i think the refunds for losing a wonder race need to be higher. when you look at 500 hammers vs. 0 hammers spent, things might be balanced. but when one player spent 400 hammers and lost, then the guy who made the wonder ffectively got the same benefit for 100 hammers only. thats 5x cheaper, which is huge

 

[gps]

i think the biggest balance problem is that having good land and lots of land is just way too powerful in general. it turns the game into a contest of who gets to expand without getting attacked, which is more about luck than strategy

the abilities which let you grab more land or deny opponents from grabbing land are overpowered because land just matters too much.

Well, if you read interviews with the Civ I to Civ II designers this was one of the main topics of the game. Having a map, settling it and conquering the world (or grabbing enough production power and trade to build the spaceship). If you think this is what unbalances the game, then I guess you haven't really understood what Civ I to Civ IV were all about. I know they changed that focus in Civ V - but I personally think this is one of the main problems I (and many others) have with Civ V.
And for who's attacking whom there is a powerfull tool in the game called "diplomacy".

 

[Windsor]

The main reason why "expansion without getting attacked" is luck-based is because of the weak base AI.

The problem with unmodded-singleplayer is that the AI will rarely punish you for settling right on their borders with an undefended city. So you only worry about the economic side of expansion.

Multiplayer and (to some extent) kmod changes this. Yes, expansion is still necessary, but now you also have to worry about defending your new settlement. Failure to defend will more consistently be punished. This gives you a much better military/science/growth-balance in the early game.

I certainly don't want a Civ-game where expansion is optional.

 

[gps]

The main reason why "expansion without getting attacked" is luck-based is because of the weak base AI.

I'd say it depends. If the difiiculty level is high enough the AI will attack. And if you're one of the tough guys able to beat the game on deity without building a single unit, then maybe there's really nothing more for you in the game to really make it worth playing...

I certainly don't want a Civ-game where expansion is optional.

"Build an Empire to stand the test of time" has been the Civ slogan for 20+ years. Take away the "empire building" aspect and you're changing the whole game - and not for the better.

 

[bhavv]

Expansion is optional, and a negative thing in Civ V. Settle 2-4 cities only, win the game.

Settle too many, get crippled for ages by massive unhappiness and no more city growth.

On a similar aspect, I also dislike the excessive city maintanence costs on higher difficulties in Civ 4.

 

[elmurcis]

If general maintence is still okay, colonial maintence until State Property is pain in a*s.. Thats why USA got free from England - maintence was so high that there was no other choise but to make it free

 

[Biz_]

The main reason why "expansion without getting attacked" is luck-based is because of the weak base AI.

The problem with unmodded-singleplayer is that the AI will rarely punish you for settling right on their borders with an undefended city. So you only worry about the economic side of expansion.

Multiplayer and (to some extent) kmod changes this. Yes, expansion is still necessary, but now you also have to worry about defending your new settlement. Failure to defend will more consistently be punished. This gives you a much better military/science/growth-balance in the early game.

I certainly don't want a Civ-game where expansion is optional.

even multiplayer is 100% luck-based

i played civ4 competitively for many years. all the FFAs essentially boiled down to luck because the people who went to war early (or got dragged into one) had to spend resources on units while the people who got to expand freely got such a massive advantage that snowballed into certain victory

it's why people played always-war team games for more 'serious' games. everyone would be pressured 100% of the time. there was no luck of diplomacy

 

[TheSunIsDark]

If you dont like how the game is balanced, you know you can change mostly everything yourself like I did in my sig link.

Although you often end up over-nerfing/buffing things, like you did with the Ballista Elephant (and the file is no longer there, btw)

 

[bhavv]

Ah well, its only for me anyway. Yea the ballista elephant was OTT, I remember doing that because of how much people complained it didnt have enough improvements.

 

[Tatran]

i think the biggest balance problem is that having good land and lots of land is just way too powerful in general. it turns the game into a contest of who gets to expand without getting attacked, which is more about luck than strategy

the abilities which let you grab more land or deny opponents from grabbing land are overpowered because land just matters too much.

I fully agree here.
And in civ4 and civ5 there are always civs which refuse to expand despite a lot of free land.
Games in both iterations become boring really quick when 1 or 2 civs have doubled or tripled their amount of cities around 0 AD.

The civ series + SMAC have never been balanced.
Rise of Nations had a city cap per era. It worked fine to keep the balance of cities.
To keep the balance of units, I think units/soldiers should come from population (like drafting when running Nationhood in civ4).

 

[gps]

And in civ4 ... there are always civs which refuse to expand despite a lot of free land.

???
Must be playing a totally differnet Civ IV than you do...

 

[Tatran]

In a few tests with equal conditions (6 civs on 6 different continents) at quick or standard speed
(the barbarians don't scale with game speed), one civ (Napoleon) had 13 cities while another civ (AC or HC) got stuck at 3 cities.
It is one of the reasons I get annoyed really quick with a game. A player has to be competitive.