Death to the BFC!!!!

[bonafide11]

I don't get why people here are arguing for less micromanagement of the cities. If you don't want to micromanage your cities, you don't need to. It's optional. But for those, like myself, who enjoy doing it, that possibility should be available. For me, it wouldn't be Civ without the ability to specialize and micromanage the cities as much as possible. I'd be very disappointed if Civ V got rid of the ability to micromanage the cities and the tiles in the cities.

 

[Insanity_X]

For those who like to micromanage, you A) get more tiles and B) get to micromanage when you get each tile expansion.

For those who don't then it's probably been streamlined from how it was in CIV.

 

[NYHunter]

sorry toddler messed with the laptop delete please

 

[sbrylski06]

Um...

The pyramids weren't built with slaves. They were built by the public, who "paid" their debts by working on the Pyramids for a few weeks. It's like paying off your credit card by spending your August fixing potholes in the highway.

As far as I knew, nobody can really say for certain how the Pyramids were built (though we have very good educated guess) and by whom (slaves/citizens), with information on the latter being extremely scant.

I would be very interested in a link supporting your claim, however.

 

[Bostock]

The island in your map is too small for 2 3hex-radius cities. One such city could cover it.

He assumed 2-radius for simplicity's sake. 3-radius plus a bigger island in the example wouldn't be fundamentally different.

Plus in the actual Civ V I would expect city-placement/city-count decisions to be made more complicated by the possibility of seafood and other resources, benefits for coastal or riverside placement, canal cities, chokepoint cities, etc....

The BFC was a necessity for increasing city placement difficulty back when all city sites were mostly created equal. That hasn't been true since at least Civ IV.

 

[chongli]

...It's optional...

The problem with this logic is that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Either micromanagement provides a benefit or it doesn't:

• If micromanagement provides a benefit, then it is not optional if you intend to compete at the higher difficulty levels
  or
• If micromanagement provides no benefit, then it is utterly pointless and shouldn't even be included

 

[JujuLautre]

Not to drop water in the OP enthusiasm, but the BFC was dead since they decided to use hexes

Sure, we'll no have Big Fat Hexes

 

[kivanc]

it seems very simplified civ5 will be, compared to civ4. with better gfx, less parameters/dynamics, less micromanagement and less of many things. more and more becoming a game for teenagers.

having 36tile cities mean less cities with higher rates. that should be considered for a faster game engine. i am sure civ5 will work slower than civ4 inspite of that.

with each new civ game, we have smaller worlds. and compared to civ3, civ4 brought higher maintenance points which disable founding many cities. civ4 still worked slower than civ3.

well, i am also afraid of White Elk's idea to have in the game. With so many disappointing news, I will not be surprised if we have a simple approach like white elk's idea: aqueduct helps work 2nd ring while hospital lets working the third. that could mean health is out as well. i hope we don't get to that much of a simple game.

 

[kivanc]

hmm i red the ign article before but it seems i have missed a part. i just noticed this and didn't like it.

"It's all an attempt to make the game more accessible without compromising on the depth or details."

 

[eireksten]

hmm i red the ign article before but it seems i have missed a part. i just noticed this and didn't like it.

"It's all an attempt to make the game more accessible without compromising on the depth or details."

You dislike that they aren't compromising the depth or details? Or that they attempt to make the game more accessible?

I don't see how any of those can be considered a bad thing.

 

[Tomice]

I'll bet it will be really hard and cost a lot of money to try and grow a city to 36 tiles. Remember, there's no ring expansion, each city gains one tile at a time, which can be pushed along by spending gold.

Its not going to be strategically beneficial to spend money to grow a city over every tile. Maybe maintenance is tied to city size? And instead of cities overlapping you'll choose as the cities grow who takes which tile. So you won't have an empire of circular cities, rather irregular shaped cities that are able to pick and choose the terrain in the region best for there specialization, and also fill in your entire empire with worked tiles for once.

Like this island:

That's exactly how I see it coming!
I will assume a lot in the next passages of text, but I've thought this since I had the first pieces of info (and especially since the screenshots show irregular borders!). So shame on me if this is completely wrong, but I'm very sure about it.


IMO:

You will add single tiles to the cities radius, choosing what you need and specialising the city this way. Cities will have irregular shape, making "dotmapping" no longer important. It will be much more natural to realize what recources are workable when you found a city. Overlap or "Oh-damn-I-have-to-found-a-useless-city-just-to-get-those-horses-on-that-stupid-little-island" will be non-issues.

3 rings of tiles around a city (was it 36 alltogether?) doesn't seem like what will actually be worked by EVERY AVERAGE city, just what the maximum distance is. I guess there will be a minimum distance between cities (2-3 tiles) and maybe even a maximum number of fields per city (20 maybe?).

It will probably be effective to build average-sized cities of 15-20 tiles, but you will have more flexibility than in Civ4 to make some use of this hard-to-reach tiles e.g. on peninsulas.

ADVANTAGES:

-No overlap
-No unused tiles inbetween
-More flexibility to form your borders
-REALISTIC BORDERS!
-A cities fate is not decided when it's founded, but in a constant development process
-In theory, this should be easier to understand by the AI!
-You could trade single tiles with the AI/human players
-Empires which visibly consist of more or less important provinces
-Easier city specialisation
-Easier to sacrifice tiles for forts etc.
-You could hand over tiles to form bigger cities, maybe even fusion cities? see RL Tokyo as example

Another bold guess: Workers are gone!

Why? we have one unit per tile, so they don't fit on the map (no stacks!). Instead, you will choose tiles your city will work, and worthier tiles will need more "culture" or something accumulating before they can be worked. Making it a sound choice to place cities closer together in fertile areas, for example.

And no, this doesn't feel dumbed down, cause workers are clumsy to use and unrealistic. They could make it just as interesting and tactically deep to place cities and develop them. It's the variety of possible improvements, not how you place them.

EDIT:

IF I'm completely wrong I'll take Brainy Smurf as my profile pic

 

[Thormodr]

That's exactly how I see it coming!
I will assume a lot in the next passages of text, but I've thought this since I had the first pieces of info (and especially since the screenshots show irregular borders!). So shame on me if this is completely wrong, but I'm very sure about it.


IMO:

You will add single tiles to the cities radius, choosing what you need and specialising the city this way. Cities will have irregular shape, making "dotmapping" no longer important. It will be much more natural to realize what recources are workable when you found a city. Overlap or "Oh-damn-I-have-to-found-a-useless-city-just-to-get-those-horses-on-that-stupid-little-island" will be non-issues.

3 rings of tiles around a city (was it 36 alltogether?) doesn't seem like what will actually be worked by EVERY AVERAGE city, just what the maximum distance is. I guess there will be a minimum distance between cities (2-3 tiles) and maybe even a maximum number of fields per city (20 maybe?).

It will probably be effective to build average-sized cities of 15-20 tiles, but you will have more flexibility than in Civ4 to make some use of this hard-to-reach tiles e.g. on peninsulas.

ADVANTAGES:

-No overlap
-No unused tiles inbetween
-More flexibility to form your borders
-REALISTIC BORDERS!
-A cities fate is not decided when it's founded, but in a constant development process
-In theory, this should be easier to understand by the AI!
-You could trade single tiles with the AI/human players
-Empires which visibly consist of more or less important provinces
-Easier city specialisation
-Easier to sacrifice tiles for forts etc.

Another bold guess: Workers are gone!

Why? we have one unit per tile, so they don't fit on the map (no stacks!). Instead, you will choose tiles your city will work, and worthier tiles will need more "culture" or something accumulating before they can be worked. Making it a sound choice to place cities closer together in fertile areas, for example.

And no, this doesn't feel dumbed down, cause workers are clumsy to use and unrealistic. They could make it just as interesting and tactically deep to place cities and develop them. It's the variety of possible improvements, not how you place them.

EDIT:

IF I'm completely wrong I'll take Brainy Smurf as my profile pic

Good points. I am excited about the new city system.

One point however. They have specifically said that it's 1 military unit per hex so that doesn't preclude workers for that reason.If I had a hunch though, I'd say that workers have been dropped. I would be more in favor of a Public Works system ala the Call to Power series. That worked quite well.

 

[kivanc]

I'll bet it will be really hard and cost a lot of money to try and grow a city to 36 tiles. Remember, there's no ring expansion, each city gains one tile at a time, which can be pushed along by spending gold.

Its not going to be strategically beneficial to spend money to grow a city over every tile. Maybe maintenance is tied to city size? And instead of cities overlapping you'll choose as the cities grow who takes which tile. So you won't have an empire of circular cities, rather irregular shaped cities that are able to pick and choose the terrain in the region best for there specialization, and also fill in your entire empire with worked tiles for once.

Like this island:

i like this idea, if it will be like we assumed in this thread. you wouldn't invest money on a tile that you would use later, only invest on it when u need it. but i doubt civ5 will have such micromanagement issues. i feel they are trying to simplify the game.

however this system might have militaristic disadvantages.

 

[kivanc]

You dislike that they aren't compromising the depth or details? Or that they attempt to make the game more accessible?

I don't see how any of those can be considered a bad thing.

i like details, micromanagement, depth and many parameters/dynamics.
i don't feel comfortable when i hear civ5 will get rid of some of these.

 

[Tomice]

i like details, micromanagement, depth and many parameters/dynamics.
i don't feel comfortable when i hear civ5 will get rid of some of these.

An example for bad, unnecessarily complicated details are unit and building upkeep from civ 2.

If I remember it right, you had "home cities" for units, which payed the upkeep, making it it very complicated to finance your army. after building troops, you had to take them to the city which should pay the future upkeep and "connect" them there.

And buildings had an upkeep, forcing you to calculate a lot if a marked would be profitable (although corporations have a simila problem in BtS, but they come late and are not obligatory).

Buildings and units are managed in a simpler, yet good way now.

 

[kivanc]

An example for bad, unnecessarily complicated details are unit and building upkeep from civ 2.

If I remember it right, you had "home cities" for units, which payed the upkeep, making it it very complicated to finance your army. after building troops, you had to take them to the city which should pay the future upkeep and "connect" them there.

And buildings had an upkeep, forcing you to calculate a lot if a marked would be profitable (although corporations have a simila problem in BtS, but they come late and are not obligatory).

Buildings and units are managed in a simpler, yet good way now.

that was not a bad detail IMO. in fact the philosophy is still the same: build only the buildings which were worth building at that very moment

moreover, it was a help to the player. it was for teaching the players the correct way of playing. it oriented the player directly towards the philosophy. So the player wouldn't build worthless buildings, he would knew there was a cost for all. and plus the waste of hammers.
in civ4, the disadvantage of building worthless buildings is only about the waste of hammers. so civ4 orientates the player indirectly towards the same philosophy.

if u feel that was an unrequired micromanagement, you might just not care about what cost each building would bring and instead do this "not build any worthless building"

EDIT: according to a new ign article published today, i am more optimistic on the game. civ5 doesn't seem too much simplified as much as I feared.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

that was not a bad detail IMO. in fact the philosophy is still the same: build only the buildings which were worth building at that very moment

moreover, it was a help to the player. it was for teaching the players the correct way of playing. it oriented the player directly towards the philosophy. So the player wouldn't build worthless buildings, he would knew there was a cost for all. and plus the waste of hammers.
in civ4, the disadvantage of building worthless buildings is only about the waste of hammers. so civ4 orientates the player indirectly towards the same philosophy.

if u feel that was an unrequired micromanagement, you might just not care about what cost each building would bring and instead do this "not build any worthless building"

EDIT: according to a new ign article published today, i am more optimistic on the game. civ5 doesn't seem too much simplified as much as I feared.

There is a difference in calculating whether or not something is profitable (Benefit-cost) and in calculating how Much an investment in Hammers will pay.
In the second, I know if I need more gold building Marketplaces will help... always.. it might not help as much as some other strategy (building and Raising cities, but it will Help)

As for units, that was definitely a needed change (not using gold to maintain units, but using an imperial resource to maintain units.)

 

[kivanc]

There is a difference in calculating whether or not something is profitable (Benefit-cost) and in calculating how Much an investment in Hammers will pay.
In the second, I know if I need more gold building Marketplaces will help... always.. it might not help as much as some other strategy (building and Raising cities, but it will Help)

As for units, that was definitely a needed change (not using gold to maintain units, but using an imperial resource to maintain units.)

hey there guys, u miss a point. you are comparing apples with pears.

of course, you easily know these in civ4. but you wouldn't know that in the amiga civilization game or a civ2 game. just consider each product within the era it was.

that costs detail was very helpful just like other small details. in civ1 & civ2, we weren't able to reach much info about games. if it wasn't written in a game menu, you would hardly realize it. There was no platform you could learn strategies neither.

 

[Tomice]

The difference is how obvious an effect is.

Civ 4:
25% more money - easy to understand (though still complex in its details, but you get more or less what you expect. At least you will never have a disadvantage)

Civ2:
25% more money, but also 2 upkeep. So I could end up trying to get more money but in fact I get less (if the city is too small). War could reduce population making those buildings a burden. Determining when to build and when to sell it is not easy, and you have to keep an eye on that constantly for every single city! If I remember it right, when you build too many units in that city you could reduce your income so it ended up as disadvantage... That's really too tough for 90% of the players (not talking about 14-year-old shooter freaks)

 

[kivanc]

well, i don't say dealing with building upkeep cost was very good but still at least you knew how the total upkeep comes. i repeat, otherwise u wouldn't be able to know it much.
i remember that we could reach the formula of magic "herbal honey" in the amiga game elvira a decade later. yes, i could only finish the game when internet era came and found it on the net. then i installed an emulator and finished the game. we just couldn't find much info about games.

selling buildings was not reasonable. that is sth different. and the rest calculations are just versions of eachother. the formula of civ4 maintenance is quite complicated so maybe they didn't want to use that in a year 92/97 tech, that was my meaning. just giving an upkeep per every building seemed easier for them. i don't know.

or as i said in the beginning, which u also mentioned, maybe they just wanted it to be obvious and orientate the player directly towards building the improvements that would be worth it.

anyway, for me it was not that much complicated still. it might be boring for some players as well. but note that, there are much more micromanagement dynamics in civ4 already. even a possibility of which GP will be born and (how many tuns later) is a very important parameter for me, which I check frequently. but at least civ4 had mods like BUG though i never used it. you could use such things for simplifying the game.



anyway, it is just a style of gameplaying. some like it faster, some like it with more depth, just like Bonafide11 said, i agree with that.

I don't get why people here are arguing for less micromanagement of the cities. If you don't want to micromanage your cities, you don't need to. It's optional. But for those, like myself, who enjoy doing it, that possibility should be available. For me, it wouldn't be Civ without the ability to specialize and micromanage the cities as much as possible. I'd be very disappointed if Civ V got rid of the ability to micromanage the cities and the tiles in the cities.