Construction Speed & Other Thoughts

[BuckeyesNYC]

Hey folks, new here, long time Civilization player,

Is it me, or is the construction speed in Civ V way too slow? For how long it takes technology to be researched, it takes really long to construct even the simplest of buildings. Is it reasonable that a civilization can take twice as long to build an opera house in a developed city (15-30 turns depending on how developed) than to develop and implement some of the most revolutionary scientific ideas?

I'm not asking for 100-turn research rates - I actually think the current times are more or less fine - but in relation to how the rest of the civilization develops, especially in relation to buildings and infrastructure, it is way out of proportion. My civilization has hardly (re: hasn't really outside of capital) implemented the fruits of one technology before I discover the next.

Is there a way to shorten construction speed without shortening research times?

In a new city, with one citizen, no matter the resources available, it is reasonable to say that with the resources and knowledge carried by a settler, the very basic and key structures should not take more than ten turns at most. It's not like they arrived at their location and had to start from 4000 BC or whenever all over again.

It is just very frustrating when the turns start getting more important (as in, it isn't a next-fest like in the beginning), that for most of the game, most of my cities are basically useless for any kind of meaningful production (15 turns for a swordsman? No thanks) and only really exist to collect resources and taxes (gold).

In fact, I would say that the vast majority of buildings constructed in my civilization are purchased, which is also absurd that a purchased building is constructed instantly.

Another solution would be to have, at certain technology intervals, a certain variety of structures already present at the construction of new cities. Your capital, in the beginning, didn't come with a granary because your people didn't know what one was yet, as they were nomads. Three thousand years later, it would stand to reason that they would figure out that food storage is pretty darn basic (though, granaries aren't really as useful in Civ V, but that's another discussion entirely).

What do you folks think?

 

[milk steak]

I think the idea is that CiV promotes city specialization even moreso than Civ IV. The fact that building things generally takes much longer coupled with maintenance costs implies that you should be very careful and selective of what you build where. For example, my commerce cities rarely get anything more than a Momument, Mint, Market, Bank, and Library.

Also, it's useful to have a city or two dedicated solely to production of buildings and/or units. Building workshops and forges in these cities will really help boost output.


Edit: Also, you can change the city's focus to emphasize production. If you need to crank something out quickly, swap to production emphasis.

 

[vandyr]

Once you get the feel of the game, construction speed doesn't become an issue. Building speed for me now follows about the same speed as it did in Civ 4...my military production city was cranking out knights every 3-4 turns when they became available, when I checked in the game I was playing last night, would be about the same as Civ 4.

Still got stomped by Japan, and it was crazy

 

[SuperJay]

I just switch many of my cities to Production focus, at least in the early game. Food / growth doesn't seem to suffer much, and most of the time I see my build times double.

 

[Brawndo]

I adjusted some resource and tile yields in the XML and I'm having better games. I made mines give 2P like they used to, and changed some food bonuses resources like wheat to give +2 Food instead of +1, which made them almost pointless terrain features

Here is a thread about my changes:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9695438#post9695438

 

[vandyr]

I adjusted some resource and tile yields in the XML and I'm having better games. I made mines give 2P like they used to, and changed some food bonuses resources like wheat to give +2 Food instead of +1, which made them almost pointless terrain features

Isn't even needed, in my opinion. As I said, I've made no adjustments and I easily match production outputs from Civ 4. In four or five threads now I've brought this up when someone complains about slow production speed but no one ever acknowledges it, they just continue to complain. I'm an average Civ player I imagine, so if I'm able to do it, I don't see why no one else can. Either that, or people play one game and complain...my first game was slow too, but as I learned the ropes, my empire management, including production speeds, improved drastically.

 

[kattana]

Is it me, or is the construction speed in Civ V way too slow?

yeah i have noticed that as well.

it does seem they want you to specialize your cities, which is also re-enforced by maintenance which can bring your money flow to a halt.

once you manage to get your city to double digit people it does seem less of an issue, but maintaining happiness for that has been an issue for me.

while i am having to do a lot of "unlearning" of civ 4, i am enjoying this new version very much.

 

[Generals3]

Isn't even needed, in my opinion. As I said, I've made no adjustments and I easily match production outputs from Civ 4. In four or five threads now I've brought this up when someone complains about slow production speed but no one ever acknowledges it, they just continue to complain. I'm an average Civ player I imagine, so if I'm able to do it, I don't see why no one else can. Either that, or people play one game and complain...my first game was slow too, but as I learned the ropes, my empire management, including production speeds, improved drastically.

Personally i believe you're either playing on the fastest setting or not telling the truth. You may ask me why. Well here is why , in Civ IV i played on epic , my last game i played on epic as well in Civ V . Used a mod which increased the yield of bonus resources, mines, etc... And even in my city with the highest base production and with all the production increasing buildings (Wind Mill, Factory , Nuclear power plant , Arsenal and Forge ) it took me 8 turns to build a Mech Inf , while in Civ IV i could easily have cities which would make em in 2-3 turns in epic . And that city had a population of 21 . So really , production in Civ V = Civ IV? no way . Not even in a specialized city .

 

[Falk]

In my current game I built one city as my production city. Aside from one wheat tile, it only had hills, one with gold, three with sheep. Didn't do much. It is much better to settle near rivers and just put trading posts on most tiles. That yields more "production" than a production city does... and gold also is more flexible.

my military production city was cranking out knights every 3-4 turns when they became available, when I checked in the game I was playing last night, would be about the same as Civ 4.

What speed were you playing? Normal?

 

[vandyr]

Personally i believe you're either playing on the fastest setting or not telling the truth. You may ask me why. Well here is why , in Civ IV i played on epic , my last game i played on epic as well in Civ V . Used a mod which increased the yield of bonus resources, mines, etc... And even in my city with the highest base production and with all the production increasing buildings (Wind Mill, Factory , Nuclear power plant , Arsenal and Forge ) it took me 8 turns to build a Mech Inf , while in Civ IV i could easily have cities which would make em in 2-3 turns in epic . And that city had a population of 21 . So really , production in Civ V = Civ IV? no way . Not even in a specialized city .

I have moved from Standard map, standard speed on Prince to standard/standard king, and I can tell you that production speeds aren't anywhere near as slow as people on here make them out to be. My first game, yes, but after that, no. I don't play on Epic or marathon or anything like that, but if you do then aren't you supposed to have long drawn out build times? As it stands right now in standard games I can match Civ 4 production tables fairly closely.

 

[Falk]

I have moved from Standard map, standard speed on Prince to standard/standard king

There you have it. The normal speed for us old civ "pros" is at least Epic.

And care to attach a savegame to one of your posts? So we can see what you are doing better than everyone else.

 

[Generals3]

I have moved from Standard map, standard speed on Prince to standard/standard king, and I can tell you that production speeds aren't anywhere near as slow as people on here make them out to be. My first game, yes, but after that, no. I don't play on Epic or marathon or anything like that, but if you do then aren't you supposed to have long drawn out build times? As it stands right now in standard games I can match Civ 4 production tables fairly closely.

The biggest problem is production speed vs research speed. I play epic because i dont want to be in the modern age after 2 hours of playing . But does it matter because even in epic my units build twice as slow as i research techs (apart from cities who are 100% specialized and awesome at producing them but even in those i research a tech faster than i produce a unit. And this bothers me a lot)

EDIT: and the fact remains that even with prod/growth increasing mods the production is twice as slow(or more) in Civ V as in Civ IV in the same speeds.

 

[James009]

I've been playing this game for a while, I'm just not going to get used to the slow build times; they just take too long. At best, I'll have one or two cities situated by plains and hills that can build a granary in a reasonable amount of time, otherwise it's 20-40 turns for a simple building.

I also feel that research speed is too fast. By the time I build one or two Legions there is already an upgrade for them to Longswordsman available in 12 turns. I won't have time to field them or use them before they're ready to upgrade.

I just feel this game would be much better with faster construction, slower research, improved tile production, and some building balances. Luckily, modding can allow for all these changes and remove the annoyances that plague this otherwise great game. IMO, their openness to modding is saving this game.

 

[Brawndo]

The biggest problem is production speed vs research speed. I play epic because i dont want to be in the modern age after 2 hours of playing . But does it matter because even in epic my units build twice as slow as i research techs (apart from cities who are 100% specialized and awesome at producing them but even in those i research a tech faster than i produce a unit. And this bothers me a lot)

Agreed, techs come way too fast compared to units. For example, Egypt's UU is largely useless because you will likely unlock Horsemen before you get more than 1 War Chariot built.

Another issue I have is with the "spacing" of the tech tree. Too many units are too close to their upgraded version. For example, Musketmen don't really get a chance to shine because you can beeline to Rifling from Gunpowder in 2 techs, which is like 20-24 turns. In that time you will be lucky if you can train 3-4 Musketmen in an 8-10 city empire.

 

[vandyr]

Yes I dont play on epic, and I don't see anything 'pro' about it. I dabbled with it in civ 4 and found the long ass build and research times to be mind numbingly atrocious. So if you have that complaint in Civ 5, I can't see how you didn't have the same complaint in Civ 4.

 

[Falk]

Yes I dont play on epic, and I don't see anything 'pro' about it.

That's not what I said. I said that most "pro" players play on Epic or Marathon. Nothing wrong with playing faster settings!

And again, care to upload a savegame?

 

[vandyr]

That's not what I said. I said that most "pro" players play on Epic or Marathon. Nothing wrong with playing faster settings!

And again, care to upload a savegame?

I'm at work.

But you neglected to respond to my point: Epic and Marathon games in Civ 4 saw massive build and research times tacked on from normal playing speeds...as I said, I quickly grew tired of those settings because of the mind numblingly ridiculous amount of time it took to build or research, so I can't possibly see how you can complain about it in Civ 5.

 

[Falk]

But you neglected to respond to my point: Epic and Marathon games in Civ 4 saw massive build and research times tacked on from normal playing speeds...as I said, I quickly grew tired of those settings because of the mind numblingly ridiculous amount of time it took to build or research, so I can't possibly see how you can complain about it in Civ 5.

I did refer to your point by asking for a savegame. Your experiences simply don't match mine. We could discuss this endlessly, but that seems a little pointless.

 

[dannythefool]

You can get fairly good production in one city, but you also have less cities. With buildings, you have the added issue that they take ages to build but, with only a few exceptions, don't provide good enough bonuses that justify the wait (or the maintenance cost). And then there's that your non-production cities will hardly be able to get anything built.

 

[vandyr]

I did refer to your point by asking for a savegame. Your experiences simply don't match mine. We could discuss this endlessly, but that seems a little pointless.

You asked for a savegame of a standard speed game, which in no way addresses the point above.

Once again - build and research times in Civ 4 on Epic and Marathon were extremely long, so what I'm asking is how is it acceptable for 4 but not 5?