Civ5?

[Willem]

... it takes many hours of both developer time and then player-modder time to create an effective AI.

Well that's kind of the point of a new version of the game. The task is far too complex to simply work into the existing game but with some development time to work on it, the AI could be greatly improved.

(I hope we don't see several EU concepts in Civ5, like the RTS element).

That will never happen.

Long story short: It's all right to consider new features, but don't make Master of Orion I/II into Master of Orion III. That is all I am trying to say.

Well of course not. But Firaxis now has a good base to work with, they don't need to basically start from scratch like they did with the transition from Civ 3.

Some ideas, such as the implementation of a Colonization-model economic system, would feel excessive to me.

It doesn't have to be the same as the Colonization system, in fact it shouldn't be. No sense in creating a clone of another game. But there's no reason why the Corporation system can't be expanded on. For instance, why limit it to the late game? There were business enterprises in existance long before the modern age. Why not open things up to the earlier game more? Having early corporations that can use up excess resources would really open up the trading system in the game. It would need to be structured differently than it is now, but it certainly has room for expansion. We might even be able to have a new victory condition, the Economic Victory, which would no doubt appeal to many people.

 

[rysmiel]

Well Civ 4 was a total redesign so its very likely Firaxis will try to venture further with this model. Since they ran the first 3 versions off the same model its likely they will try to expand more on this one as well. I wouldn't call it milking so much as exploring their system better.

There are still some of us who feel that abandoning that much of the core of Civ 1-3 was a drastic mistake and one that in an ideal world would be corrected; because that model has a great deal more to offer.

 

[King Flevance]

There are still some of us who feel that abandoning that much of the core of Civ 1-3 was a drastic mistake and one that in an ideal world would be corrected; because that model has a great deal more to offer.

I don't agree Civ 4 BTS is a drastic mistake from C3C. I will agree that pre-BTS it was. Economically, the game has moved forward. I think all cities should cost some basic existance fee. This represents having to route or reroute money. I also think that Civ 4's model is set up so much better to take the trade model forward. In Civ 3 there simply is no trade model; The only thing remotely close is having to hook up resources. Civ 4 has been brought up with economy as the backbone not as a side feature.

However, Civ 3 does offer a better approach at strategic warfare/placement. It holds many of my favorite units and abilities in the Civ genre. But those are easier to mod into Civ 4 using code than an economic model would be if you had the code to Civ 3. Civ 4 could do everything Civ 3 can plus more if someone invested the time. The better map generation on 3 is about the only thing I see that Civ 4 may not be able to handle. Because of the 3D approach the maps would either have to shrink some or you would have to wait for your next turn. Plus you have to write in sea tiles (a feature I dearly miss) and get the map generation to do it right. (Although I personally would rather see height elevations come in rather than clone a 90's version.) Otherwise a Civ 3 version of Civ 4 is not that hard to throw in for someone willing to invest the time. (And corruption will make more sense IMO)

The style and atmosphere could be thrown in as well for anyone willing to put in alot of reskinning effort. But my point here is that Civ 4 is capable of more than 3 which is not a step backwards and shouldnt be seen as a mistake. If you want to say that the atmosphere was a mistake, I whole heartedly agree. But it hasn't bothered me enough to change it.

I think where Civ 5 could improve on would be the economic model used in the game. Coming up with a new trade model that allows the player to not have to tally tiles to figure out the best spot. Pulling away from the land driven economy and have it be maybe more land based instead.
Also diplomacy, where the agreements can be reached by the AI just as soon as the human. In a game with 3 humans and 7 AIs in a FFA the humans are already discussing alliances and pacts when their scouts see each other's land. But not the computer, this isn't legal for them. They have to wait until the Rennessaince Era if they somehow manage to live that long. I think in diplomacy Firaxis should ask what strategies do players use in multiplayer games and how can we teach the AI how to do that? Well first of all an early tech needs to unlock defensive packs at best. Maybe a few other types of pacts as well. Grant the player the ability to vassal to an AI. Alot of people say that is pointless because it is accepting defeat, but I also see people posting lots of complaints that their vassal is gonna win cultually and they cant seem to stop it.

There are plenty of areas Civ 5 could venture off into with this model but looking backwards as you run forward is not advised by most people. That's how people trip and fall and die in horror movies.

 

[rysmiel]

I don't agree Civ 4 BTS is a drastic mistake from C3C. I will agree that pre-BTS it was.

I've not played much BTS, but, well, it still has civics, it still has unit promotions, it still has most of the worst mistakes that Civ 4 made. (And fwiw C3C has a couple of major misssteps from vanilla Civ 3, notably mis-scaling the solution to the Forbidden Place "exploit", and disallowing trading cities rather than teaching the AI how to value them properly.)

Economically, the game has moved forward. I think all cities should cost some basic existance fee. This represents having to route or reroute money.

It's a measure put in to hamstring expansion so the game is optimised for much smaller empires, IMO. which is a failure to engage with the problem of making AI capable of better handling larger empires.

I also think that Civ 4's model is set up so much better to take the trade model forward. In Civ 3 there simply is no trade model; The only thing remotely close is having to hook up resources. Civ 4 has been brought up with economy as the backbone not as a side feature.

I'm kind of at a loss as to what you mean here. If anything, there are things Civ 3 has and Civ 4 has not, like gold per turn agreements, that are reductions in the flexibility of trade.

I think where Civ 5 could improve on would be the economic model used in the game. Coming up with a new trade model that allows the player to not have to tally tiles to figure out the best spot. Pulling away from the land driven economy and have it be maybe more land based instead.

How would you envision that working ?

There are plenty of areas Civ 5 could venture off into with this model but looking backwards as you run forward is not advised by most people. That's how people trip and fall and die in horror movies.

On the other hand, if you have lost track of which way is forward and run off down a blind alley, you're more likely to survive if you get out of there and back to somewhere you know, no ?

 

[King Flevance]

I've not played much BTS, but, well, it still has civics, it still has unit promotions, it still has most of the worst mistakes that Civ 4 made. (And fwiw C3C has a couple of major misssteps from vanilla Civ 3, notably mis-scaling the solution to the Forbidden Place "exploit", and disallowing trading cities rather than teaching the AI how to value them properly.)

Don't get me wrong I don't think C3C was garbage at all. (Not saying you think I do, I am just aware of the many approaches common to the board.) I honestly don't understand how some people dislike 3 and love 4. Because 4 has most of its gameplay modelled off of things 3 introduced... and very well I might add. You know 1 had some flaws, 2 had some flaws, 3 did, and 4 does. And all of their flaws are unique to each one of them. 1,2, and 3 shared many flaws. 4 set out to be different and made up brand new ones entirley for the most part. But each version also holds unique pros as well. And one of the pros in 4 is its new economy model. It seperates itself from 1, 2, and 3 with it and while it does seem hollow in areas its not poor. Its fault economically is that it is like a section of track that just stops IMO.

It's a measure put in to hamstring expansion so the game is optimised for much smaller empires, IMO. which is a failure to engage with the problem of making AI capable of better handling larger empires.

I disagree. I can see how it appears that way at first approach but I think it is more of a way to not have corruption make a city less productive. Its all a matter of perspective ultimatley but I think the approach is much better making cities corruption cost gold instead of shields/hammers AND gold. Larger empires are possible as I am sure you have heard more times than you wish to about Civ 4 but I know exactly the point you are driving at. Trust me I do.
It skews because of that pesky balance issue. In Civ 3's system it is perfectly balanced IMO to allow so many cities in its corruption model because a tank is like what 30 shields? But that is easier to reach than civ 4's like 200 because corruption impacts your shields on 3. So it is more balanced to allow more cities in 3 than 4 but 4's cities have no ceiling on production so ultimatley, your cities can pump out tanks faster even though they cost more in 4. Less cities = same production if you set it up decently enough.
More cities is just more cities is the bottom line. It's not good, its not bad, its just style of play. If you prefer one heavily over the other then you could see it that way but if you play gigantic maps with Neverminds XXL world mod, you can get some massive empires at war. But I am pretty sure no matter your system you are gonna have to wait 2-4 minutes for it to be your turn again once the game gets really going. Sometimes I have had 5-8 minute waits. But my turn takes like 15-20 mins anyways so its not that big of a deal to me personally.

I'm kind of at a loss as to what you mean here. If anything, there are things Civ 3 has and Civ 4 has not, like gold per turn agreements, that are reductions in the flexibility of trade.

There are no trade routes in Civ 3 is what I mean. Civ 4 doesn't have actual drawn on routes but trade routes do exist in 4. My cities trade with your cities or more of my own every turn. Meaning if our cities are connected by a road and we have open borders, we both make money off of those open borders every turn without doing anything. We got little citizens trading with one another making money we can both tax. This should be a focal point for economic expansion in Civ 5 IMO. Gold per turn can be traded in Civ 4 but only for another "per turn" tade deal. I can give you 15 gold per turn for elephants or whatever. But just not for tech or so forth because its just to easy to backout peacefully. I wouldn't doubt that if firaxis could figure out a way to teach the AI how to properly view gold per turn for tech and make it hard to back out of the deal through some series of consequences that are harsh/reasonable they would.

How would you envision that working ?

I would have commerce no longer applied to the map except for in rare circumstances like gold, silver, and gems. Maybe even have some techs change that. Like fur tiles are worth 4 commerce until you discover like Calender (cotton plantations). Take a varient of that and then make trade routes grow over time with other civs like cottages do. I would like to see cottages grant like .25 health per level to the city its near. Then you are sacrificing food(farm) for health. Maybe add in a new improvement like park that adds happiness or something. But ultimatley the money comes in through tade routes. More buildings could be added that add trade routes and increase their value. As Willem mentioned introduce the idea of corperations (although more like simple businesses) earlier into the game and have those business be able to mature into corperations over time based on if they are in cities with nearby resources they can exploit and the size of the city they are in kind of thing. Also a trade agreement could be brought in that both civs agree that for the next 50? turns they will exclusively trade with each other allowing a tade bonus due to the treaty. Maybe even make this treaty involve up to 3 total people. Civics would also play a role in this, especially sharing civic combos with your trade partners. Which might actually make you care what other civics people are running.

On the other hand, if you have lost track of which way is forward and run off down a blind alley, you're more likely to survive if you get out of there and back to somewhere you know, no ?

Yeah, but the killer could be hiding in that alley. Jason can freakin teleport. So ultimately in this analogy you are in a horror movie and there is a good chance you are gonna die unless you are the protagonist.

 

[Willem]

It's a measure put in to hamstring expansion so the game is optimised for much smaller empires, IMO. which is a failure to engage with the problem of making AI capable of better handling larger empires.

Then you don't understand the evolution of Civilization very well. Ever since the earlier versions, people have been complaining about Infinite City Spam. All you had to do to win the game was outbuild the AI. Which was easy to do in versions 1 & 2. The answer to this in 3 was simply to make the AI respond in the same way. But that left only one strategy for the game, expand or die. With Civ 4, we now have options as to how we want to play our game, we're not forced into a set strategy but are free to try different methods.

If anything, there are things Civ 3 has and Civ 4 has not, like gold per turn agreements, that are reductions in the flexibility of trade.

There are still GPT agreements, though only for resources. Having them for techs was nothing but an exploit for the human. Agree to pay GPT then declare war and avoid having to pay anything. It's good to be rid of that nonsense.

 

[Willem]

Maybe add in a new improvement like park that adds happiness or something.

Hmm, they're called Preserves.

 

[King Flevance]

Well, I am thinking the preserve is just a little too hippified. A City park much like Central Park is what I had in mind. Most larger cities usually have something like this or a lake that doubles as this which could be seen as a "woodland preserve" but its a city park. That's why the city parks division has to pay the bills for these. Who wants to go to Yellowstone National Forest Preserve?

 

[Willem]

Well, I am thinking the preserve is just a little too hippified. A City park much like Central Park is what I had in mind. Most larger cities usually have something like this or a lake that doubles as this which could be seen as a "woodland preserve" but its a city park. That's why the city parks division has to pay the bills for these. Who wants to go to Yellowstone National Forest Preserve?

It's all semantics. The Preserve is the same thing as your idea of a park, just with a different name.

 

[King Flevance]

Yeah the Forest Preserve would work fine for gameplay, I would just personally like to see a park with a fountain and walkways as a graphic. Gameplay wise the Forest preserve works fine.

 

[rysmiel]

I disagree. I can see how it appears that way at first approach but I think it is more of a way to not have corruption make a city less productive. Its all a matter of perspective ultimatley but I think the approach is much better making cities corruption cost gold instead of shields/hammers AND gold.

I disagree. One of the things I was hoping for from Civ 4 was to see the corruption model made more flexible; corruption affecting trade and waste affecting production should IMO be modelled as different things and addressed in different if overlapping ways, and I think that modelling health by having a corruption-like effect on food production is an obvious simple adaptation that should have been in,

In Civ 3's system it is perfectly balanced IMO to allow so many cities in its corruption model because a tank is like what 30 shields?

A tank is 100 shields in Civ 3.

So it is more balanced to allow more cities in 3 than 4 but 4's cities have no ceiling on production so ultimatley, your cities can pump out tanks faster even though they cost more in 4. Less cities = same production if you set it up decently enough.

This is not inherent to any fundamental differences between 3 and 4, though; it would be attainable in 3 by tweaking the available bonus resources and/or adding production-multiplier buildings.

But I am pretty sure no matter your system you are gonna have to wait 2-4 minutes for it to be your turn again once the game gets really going. Sometimes I have had 5-8 minute waits. But my turn takes like 15-20 mins anyways so its not that big of a deal to me personally.

Heh. I expect a turn in the second half of the game to take a minimum of 45 minutes.

There are no trade routes in Civ 3 is what I mean. Civ 4 doesn't have actual drawn on routes but trade routes do exist in 4. My cities trade with your cities or more of my own every turn. Meaning if our cities are connected by a road and we have open borders, we both make money off of those open borders every turn without doing anything.

So in other words, the feature you really like about the Civ 4 model is the partial restoration of a feature from Civ 1 and 2 ? I could get with that, actually. The implementation in Civ 2 allows for some extreme abuses, but I think they can be fixed at a better scale than either 3 or 4 does.

But just not for tech or so forth because its just to easy to backout peacefully. I wouldn't doubt that if firaxis could figure out a way to teach the AI how to properly view gold per turn for tech and make it hard to back out of the deal through some series of consequences that are harsh/reasonable they would.

Well, the AI in Civ games does seem to be getting generally better over time, so one would hope this could be doable eventually.

 

[rysmiel]

Then you don't understand the evolution of Civilization very well. Ever since the earlier versions, people have been complaining about Infinite City Spam. All you had to do to win the game was outbuild the AI. Which was easy to do in versions 1 & 2. The answer to this in 3 was simply to make the AI respond in the same way.

I am aware of this. And I think there is a better solution, which Civ 3 goes part way to implementing, which is for corruption to be severe enough to limit initial expansion; where I think Civ 3 fails on scaling that is in limited number of ways of fighting corruption - ideally it should choke out ICS early in the game but be more defeatable over time. Another thing Civ 3 does part-way is to scale unit support with the size of cities, and enhancing this would do a lot to curb ICS - if six cities of size 10, or ten cities of size 6, can support massively more units than forty cities of size one or two, swarming again becomes less of a useful strategy.

There are still GPT agreements, though only for resources. Having them for techs was nothing but an exploit for the human. Agree to pay GPT then declare war and avoid having to pay anything. It's good to be rid of that nonsense.

It's only an exploit if the AI can;t figure out how to do it to you as much as you do it to it.

 

[Willem]

And I think there is a better solution, which Civ 3 goes part way to implementing, which is for corruption to be severe enough to limit initial expansion; where I think Civ 3 fails on scaling that is in limited number of ways of fighting corruption - ideally it should choke out ICS early in the game but be more defeatable over time.

But with the Civ 3 model, ICS wasn't even prevented. You still had a major advantage by building as many cities as you could as quickly as you could. Even though the outlying cities weren't as productive, they could still contribute to the empire, and there was nothing preventing you from swamping the continent with cities. With Civ 4 though, you're forced to expand slowly or the expansion may bankrupt you.

It's only an exploit if the AI can;t figure out how to do it to you as much as you do it to it.

Well duh! Obviously the AI wasn't capable of keeping up to the humans with that ability so they eliminated the exploit.

 

[rysmiel]

But with the Civ 3 model, ICS wasn't even prevented. You still had a major advantage by building as many cities as you could as quickly as you could.

I know this was the case with the Civ 3 model as implemented; I am saying it is trivial to see how to mod the Civ 3 model to be much more effective in preventing ICS if that is your priority.

Well duh! Obviously the AI wasn't capable of keeping up to the humans with that ability so they eliminated the exploit.

I don't think removing a feature the AI does not know how to use is a better solution than making better AI, myself.

 

[Willem]

I don't think removing a feature the AI does not know how to use is a better solution than making better AI, myself.

There's only so much you can do with a computer AI, it will never be as smart or sly as a human. So if you can't get it to function on the same level then it's best to simply not allow the human to behave that way either.

 

[rysmiel]

There's only so much you can do with a computer AI, it will never be as smart or sly as a human.

I don't actually believe this, in the longer term, but that's an argument for the Civ 9 design thread in fifteen years' time.

So if you can't get it to function on the same level then it's best to simply not allow the human to behave that way either.

I think you and I have very different notions of "best".

The AI generated by a reasonably-sized programming team in any reasonable amount of time is not going to be prepared to deal with every possible combination of things that a community of players the size of the Civ audience is going to come up with, AI is finite and the players outnumber the designers and testers by several orders of magnitude.

That doesn't necessarily mean that when a specific issue comes up, the designers could not be encouraged to focus on fixing the AI's ability to deal with that specific issue in the next expansion or release, rather than cutting it out altogether.

If nothing else, if a particular player finds a particular strategy allows them sufficient advantage over the AI strategies to feel like an exploit, that player can always go up a difficulty level or two to give the AI compensatory advantages.

 

[Antilogic]

Wow, you miss a day and you miss the flurry of posts that correspond to it. I won't waste time with a point by point response, but I'm glad we can at least agree with avoiding the RTS and grace in simplicity of game mechanics.

I'm a little bit confused as to why there seems to be a strong bias against Civics in the ideas and suggestions threads. Not only in this thread but in a couple others I have noticed many advocating a complete abandonment of the Civ4 civic system and a return to the static governments of the old Civs. Is this common?

I have to admit, along with the promotions and religions, Civics was my favorite game concept they added to Civ4. I loved the idea in SMAC and thought it worked very well in this incarnation.

On the issue of old-school Civ corruption and waste against Civ4 maintenance, consider how much simpler it is to simply take out the cost of having a large empire from your central treasury rather than having a small ring of highly efficient cities and the rest utter garbage, only producing 1-3 shields and 1-3 commerce per turn. It's just like transferring unit support from individual cities to your government's central treasury. Much more simple, much easier to play. That "complexity" can then be transferred to other game concepts, like the religions and civics, without increasing the overall complexity of the game. Thus, Civ4 remains relatively light on the learning curve while strong on having varied features and strategies available.

The fact is, I just love the game as is. I'm going to just incorporate the Better AI mod into my personal mod, and keep playing that. Have fun, guys.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Also because maintenance comes out of gold alone, that means

Large Empire->Low Commerce, High Production
Small Empire->High Commerce, Low Production

(which helps balance out the tech rates [although land is still power])

 

[rysmiel]

I'm a little bit confused as to why there seems to be a strong bias against Civics in the ideas and suggestions threads. Not only in this thread but in a couple others I have noticed many advocating a complete abandonment of the Civ4 civic system and a return to the static governments of the old Civs. Is this common?

I don't know that that many people feel strongly about it, and I suppose I can get a bit Carthago delenda est about it.

On the issue of old-school Civ corruption and waste against Civ4 maintenance, consider how much simpler it is to simply take out the cost of having a large empire from your central treasury rather than having a small ring of highly efficient cities and the rest utter garbage, only producing 1-3 shields and 1-3 commerce per turn. It's just like transferring unit support from individual cities to your government's central treasury.

Yep, and that's why I dislike that notion too. (Though the more I think about it, the more I think unit support should be handled both from home cities and from the central treasury.)

You're entirely right about the notable failure mode of the Civ 3 corruption model being a small efficient core and the rest rubbish (unless you stick in Communism, or pump them as specialist farms, or some other such tactic). I think that represents a design reaction against the issue in Civ 2 where once you get into Democracy there's no corruption at all and a large empire too easily gets a runaway lead without really having sufficient compensatory drawbacks, but I think it's the wrong scale for that reaction.

fwiw, my ideal corruption/waste model would include; a range of something like a dozen fixed governments over the game, with differences in overall efficiency such that you really had to change government several times to keep up, so that ICS did not work in the ancient era because you could not really go past six or ten cities, but it was quite possible to have fifty productive cities by the industrial era; many more improvements/wonders that allowed you to fight corruption, so that with time and effort you could make even heavily corrupt/wasteful cities usable rather than having them condemned to be rubbish forever; corruption of commerce and waste of shields scaling independently, so that you would have to choose which of them was a more urgent priority; and different corruption curves. (So that whether the overall corruption is low/moderate/high, and how rapidly/smoothly it scales from whatever the core is, are two different function. An empire where each city out from the centres loses one, or two, or five additional production/commerce point, and one where the central quarter of your cities have no corruption at all, and the rest go up steeply, would be quite different challenges even if they are losing the same amount of production./commerce overall.)

That "complexity" can then be transferred to other game concepts, like the religions and civics, without increasing the overall complexity of the game. Thus, Civ4 remains relatively light on the learning curve while strong on having varied features and strategies available.

I think I may have said before, Soren's comments about not wanting to increase the overall complexity of the game any more and not adding new things without taking old things out kind of make me sigh, because I have always felt that the core game mechanic would be a lot more fun for me if there were about 50% more complexity at a general level.

 

[rysmiel]

Also because maintenance comes out of gold alone, that means

Large Empire->Low Commerce, High Production
Small Empire->High Commerce, Low Production

(which helps balance out the tech rates [although land is still power])

Seriously, forcibly balancing out the tech rates between large and small empires strikes you as a plus ?

It certainly doesn't for me - or at least, fifty size-6 cities should produce a sight faster tech advances than ten of them; half a dozen size-22 metropolites outproducing and outteching twenty size-4 cities would work for me, definitely.