Concerns for BNW

[anandus]

What are your concerns for BNW?

I myself am afraid there will be some balancing issues, especcially concerning money, but especially happiness.
It looks like, even though sea and rivers don't generate gold, that money will be relatively easy to come by throught trade routes, etc. Although we'll need to see how that plays out.

But I'm especially concerned about happiness. It seems that it's very easy to get large amounts of happy.
Or am I worrying too much?

Other issues are unit balancing issues, especially the Zulu seem to be very powerful from what I gather from the previews, but those things can be easily patched up.

Your views/concers/ideas?

 

[True_Candyman]

They've been developing and balancing this game for a year.

The frankenstein group, containing members of this very community, has been helping to balance the game for a significant part of that year too.

Whatever the case may be, this game will not in the slightest bit be unplayable.

What few and limited balance issues there will be won't be significant. I have a pretty good deal of trust in Firaxis, and especially in our fellow civfanatics.

 

[stealth_nsk]

As far as I understand, cold war generates unhappiness. The worse you're in Tourism, the more unhappiness you have. Since most happiness bonuses come with ideologies, they appear at the same time.

P.S. Without actually playing game we'll unlikely reveal anything devs are unaware of. So, I think these problems are addressed. Need to wait foa 1-2 months after release to reveal actual problems.

 

[anandus]

The frankenstein group, containing members of this very community, has been helping to balance the game for a significant part of that year too.

Yeah, I have faith in the Frankenstein group, I know there are some really good and creative players in there.
But they also need to go with what's there. If there's a design flaw there isn't much they can do about it.
The achievement "get 100 happiness" also doesn't sit well for me.

But maybe you're right, and I should have a little more faith.

 

[Arachnofiend]

The achievement "get 100 happiness" also doesn't sit well for me.

Why not? It doesn't affect the game and is just a fun reference to the book from which our expansion derives its name. I sincerely doubt that they reworked happiness to make getting this achievement on higher difficulties EASY, then it wouldn't be much of an achievement, no?

For me, I'm still wary about the later eras whizzing by too fast to truly experience the new mechanics. We still haven't seen anything that makes the tech path in the modern era slower...

 

[Veneke]

I think it's a foregone conclusion that there are going to be problems with BNW. There are always problems with new releases, it really boils down to how many problems are in each of three different types of problems - the stuff that they can and will fix, the stuff that they can't or won't, and the stuff that needs to be redesigned.

The World Congress could well be a complete catastrophe/pointless annoyance/etc.

I've serious concerns about the Freedom ideology for offering very good bonuses towards every victory condition. It has 3 decent tier 2 Domination-orientated tenets, Order has no similar set of tenets for Diplomacy and Autocracy has one tenet for Science (which depending on implementation could be very useful or not useful at all).

Kinda difficult to comment on this really given that we're guessing at how things will work in practice but those two things are definitely concerning.

 

[Optional]

They've been developing and balancing this game for a year.

The frankenstein group, containing members of this very community, has been helping to balance the game for a significant part of that year too.

Whatever the case may be, this game will not in the slightest bit be unplayable.

What few and limited balance issues there will be won't be significant. I have a pretty good deal of trust in Firaxis, and especially in our fellow civfanatics.

But Gods & Kings brought new balance issues. I'll name a few:
The Composite Bow has not been good. The warrior needed an earlier upgrade than the archer, because melee units hurt themselves with every use. When it comes to attacking cities, the warrior is basically obsolete already from the start. Not the archer. The wait until the crossbow in vanilla was a bit long, bit the introduction of the composite bow has upset the balance between the different type of units. Everyone with early conquest plans does a composite bow rush now.
Religion has the problem that on higher difficulties the AI has the opportunity to develop it from the start, as the AI starts with Pottery, the prerequisite for a shrine.
With a bit of bad luck - no faith boosting stuff on your landmass - the human player doesn't have a single chance to play with a very important game element, and the Byzantines might end up traitless.
And the way the AI now rushes towards the Great Library also makes this game element now almost inaccessible for the human player beyond the easy difficulties.

If the balance gets upset so much that whole game elements are getting lost, then I find that serious. Considering what happened with Gods & Kings, we should have concerns about Brave New World.
Don't get me wrong, I think it will be a good expansion, but I'm counting on the odd bit of bad lopsidedness here and there.

One thing I'm apprehensive about, to mention at least one specific concern I have with regards to BNW, is the effect of less money in the early game on Honour. Liberty is more popular, not to a small degree because of the free settler and free worker. With Honour you will want to buy these. If money becomes more difficult to get by, the gap between Liberty and Honour could widen further.
But right now we have way too little information to make any conclusions of this kind. As yet it's difficult to speculate about specifics.

 

[stealth_nsk]

But Gods & Kings brought new balance issues. I'll name a few

Did you supposed any of them before the release?

I don't say BNW is balanced, but it's balanced much further than we could see now.

 

[VenGyr]

My concerns:

Might be too much hassle trying to keep traderoutes safe.
Gold issues early game.
Petra desert bonus removed(?)
Morocco colors too similar to Aztec colors.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I think that Petra will not lose it's desert bonus (wouldn't make much sense if it wasn't built or enhanced desert tiles), but I do think it will get highly nerf (can you imagine the powerhouse that Morocco would be?)

 

[Veneke]

My concerns:

Might be too much hassle trying to keep traderoutes safe.
...

Or worse, it'll be like pillaging and the AI just won't threaten your trade routes. Ever.

 

[VenGyr]

Or worse, it'll be like pillaging and the AI just won't threaten your trade routes. Ever.

In my games the AI actually pillages fairly often (a huge attack on my city, where it gets surrounded, might leave 2 tiles pillaged, granted thats not much). I'd rather it be like unprotected GP, workers or settlers, where AIs just ingnore them, and in many cases seem to try to avoid them.

 

[Veneke]

In my games the AI actually pillages fairly often (a huge attack on my city, where it gets surrounded, might leave 2 tiles pillaged, granted thats not much). I'd rather it be like unprotected GP, workers or settlers, where AIs just ingnore them, and in many cases seem to try to avoid them.

Really? I think I've seen an AI (excluding barbs) pillage one of my tiles once and, come to think of it, it was during a siege as well.

 

[CivCube]

I'm worried about my free time.

 

[Ashbery76]

None.This end game stuff will propel the game to the best Civ ever.

 

[Seek]

I'm concerned that going Rationalism will remain a total no-brainer in every game, especially now that the opener unlocks the Porcelain Tower. Hopefully either Piety has been made tempting enough or Rationalism has been nerfed to balance this.

I'm concerned that domestic TRs will be OP, and that luxury sales will still account for the majority of gold income making international TRs unnecessary. Eliminating even the flat gold-for-luxury sales would go a long way toward balancing this.

I'm less concerned about too much happiness, since it looks like the devs have moved most of the happiness SPs to Tenets in the later half of the game. Additionally most of the tenet happiness is Local happiness and there is the Ideology Satisfaction mechanic to balance it.

 

[joncnunn]

I'm wondering what will people (who aren't conquering cities [or in case of Austria marrying city states]) need all these new late game sources of happiness for?

(With G&K playing 4 city peaceful I very rarely even need Theaters.)

Or have they "promoted" the AI from Chieftain to Warlord now that there's these sources of happiness?

I'm also somewhat concerned on how isolated starts (water maps) will do for cash for the first 30 turns of the game.

 

[stealth_nsk]

I'm wondering what will people (who aren't conquering cities [or in case of Austria marrying city states]) need all these new late game sources of happiness for?

As far as we know, cold war causes unhappiness depending on tourism.

 

[Camikaze]

I think some imbalanced elements are inevitable when there is simply so much in the game to balance. I don't think that means there should be anything to be concerned about, though, because concern implies that these balance issues will for some reason be more than is ordinary, such that BNW will be a step backwards from G&K. I'm not sure there's much reason to think that's the case.

 

[Veneke]

I think some imbalanced elements are inevitable when there is simply so much in the game to balance. I don't think that means there should be anything to be concerned about, though, because concern implies that these balance issues will for some reason be more than is ordinary, such that BNW will be a step backwards from G&K. I'm not sure there's much reason to think that's the case.

If any further proof was needed to illustrate the fact that we'll debate just about anything 'round here, I present item no. 98572732835 - attempts to start discussion regarding the correct definition of 'concern'.