Did they purposely weaken everybody's favorite strategies?

[BubbaYeti]

Forest chopping, pyramids+representation, even (GASP) the Kremlin, have all been weakened by the 1.61 patch. I am wondering, do you guys think the designers observed how everybody was winning, then systematically weakened those strategies?

I would have preferred a stronger AI able to adapt to and compete with those strategies instead.

I probably will patch anyway, just to see how the game plays.

 

[Roland Johansen]

If you make a game where 20 different strategies are able to be used but three of them are so powerful that the other 17 aren't used, then you could have left those 17 strategies out of the game.

A game with only so few strategic possibilities would be a rather empty strategy game. So, you try to balance it so that the lesser strategies can compete with the stronger strategies.
That is what they are trying to do.

Actually, to make some of the lesser strategies viable, the powerful ones should have been reduced even further. Now, they are less powerful, but still the best strategies.
However, there are a lot of players who like the powerful strategies that they use to win and they would complain very loudly if these strategies would have been reduced even further. So they took a middle way between balance and leaving the strong strategies as they were.

 

[Pantastic]

The game is supposed to be about the rise and fall of civilizations, not the early chop rush for expansion plus pyramids, then representation while spamming cottages for the win. You're supposed to have to make choices, and balance early benefits versus later benefits, not just follow one set path that's always better than any other alternative. It's not that people were winning with strategieS, it's one very narrow path that was clearly much better than the others.

 

[Meffy]

Well, I was going to post something here but you two hit every point I'd have made.

As a non-chopper and in general a non-adherent to step-by-step "strategies" -- I much prefer to formulate a rough overall strategy, then take my lumps as they come along and try to adapt -- I've felt relegated to sub-Noble (Ignoble?) status.

Not that I intend to do any kind of competing with other players. Just wanna beat up on the AIs more effectively, militarily OR financially or technologically or culturally.

[edited for spelling; oops]

 

[MrPaladin]

I've developed new strategys...

and the outcome? well in the game I'm playing now I have a clear lead in all aspects... and I'm shooting for the best space race victory I've ever had...

 

[Meffy]

Woo hoo! Good luck to you.

 

[Malarkey]

As others already mentioned, it's called balance, though personally it doesn't affect my strategy much at all. It would make more sense to nerf the great library, since it's way overpowered.

 

[BubbaYeti]

I've developed new strategys...

and the outcome? well in the game I'm playing now I have a clear lead in all aspects... and I'm shooting for the best space race victory I've ever had...

I have no doubt the game is still winnable, even using the same weakened strategies, or by developing new ones. That wasn't the point. In any incarnation of the game, there will be certain strategies that will be strong in a variety of situations, so naturally players will tend to use them. So the designers have choosen to selectively weaken those, in an effort to achieve "balance". Does this mean, in a perfectly balanced game, there are an infinite number of strategies available and all work equally well?? That seems crazy.

For the single player game, the goal should be to make the AI adapt to (and use themselves) strategies that are strong. Instead of "Oh, all the good players are building the Kremlin and cash-rushing stuff to win, so lets weaken the Kremlin", it should have been "Oh, all the good players are building the Kremlin, so let's have the AI prioritize communism and the Kremlin more than it does to make it more of a challenge to get the Kremlin". I think you can see my point.

Dont get me wrong, I have had a lot of fun with CivIV and have played it much more than any other Civ game I have owned. So overall the game is great and the patched game will still be great. I just would have approached things differently.

 

[DrewBledsoe]

I've managed to play one huge / continents / marathon game through to conclusion already with new patch (it plays much faster in late stages)...
made a conscious decision to never chop for production, didn't build stonehenge or the pyramids, and won very easily...

At monarch and above pyramids and chopping had become the equivalent of a safety blanket, and they really shouldn't be, each and every game should rely on "the right tactics for that game".....to me every game should go in a slightly different way...adapt and develop strategies on the fly as I'm sure the game's creators intended, its much more fun.

Imho, if any one tactic always worked whatever the map and opposition, then the power of that strategy needed to be diminished.

 

[Traxis]

For the single player game, the goal should be to make the AI adapt to (and use themselves) strategies that are strong. Instead of "Oh, all the good players are building the Kremlin and cash-rushing stuff to win, so lets weaken the Kremlin", it should have been "Oh, all the good players are building the Kremlin, so let's have the AI prioritize communism and the Kremlin more than it does to make it more of a challenge to get the Kremlin". I think you can see my point.

All that would do is water down the game. Other strategies would be come even less viable. If the AI chopped rushed settlers, you would be forced to do it as well to keep up.

 

[drkodos]

Stronger AI is as easy as saying it?

 

[Pantastic]

Again Bubbayeti, there weren't certain strategieS that were useful, there was one direct path that was clearly better than everything else to a huge degree. Civ is not supposed to be about finding the One Strategy and then applying it every game, also having the AI follow the One Strategy. There are supposed to be real decisions to make, and when one path is clearly far better than the others then there are no real decisions, just implementation of the One Strategy.

It's not about having an Infinite number of valid strategies, it's about having more than one.

 

[mossmonster]

Efforts to balance the game are good. This forces the player away from taking the same path every game and promotes new options and ways to win that we might not have ever tried otherwise.

 

[atreas]

There is only one thing I can't get: if they wanted to balance the SP game, wouldn't it be very natural to start from cottage spam and Financial trait? Now the effect on cottage spam is practically non existent (don't tell me that the reduction in Kremlin is serious) and the change of Financial is really unbelievable!

The only explanation I can imagine is that they had more in mind the MP games - otherwise it doesn't really make much sense.

 

[Justinian519]

I so agree that the strategies needed to be balanced. Good call.

 

[Lord Gideon]

I read about rep, chopping, and kremlin. What does it do to the pyramids?

 

[Traxis]

I read about rep, chopping, and kremlin. What does it do to the pyramids?

The Pyramids themselves weren't changed. Representation was weakened, and the Pyramids were most commonly used to get Representation MUCH earlier than normal. Now that Representation isn't as good, there is less reason for building the Pyramids.

 

[Dairuka]

Also note the Pyramids had a significant advantage over other Wonders in that it never went obselete, thus it's GP production never went obselete.

Now that other wonders retain their GP production points, even after they go obselete, the Pyramids lost it's advantage as a result.

 

[MrPaladin]

Woo hoo! Good luck to you.

just a quick note about the space race game, I was still in the 1400's and I went to the victory conditions screen to see how I was doing... only to find I was close to a domination victory after foudnign the new world, so I spammed a few more units, cranked up the culture and won 5 turns later on land area

 

[Sir Janus]

Did they purposely weaken everybody's favorite strategies?

YES!!! of course they did. The main problem with the previous civ games was that there was only one best way of winning regardless of which civilization you were (and, in most cases, regardless of terrain and map size).

With Civ4 the designers aims are/were to make sure that there is no single best way - every variation in game settings should require a different approach that best takes advantage of leader's traits, special units, map type and starting position. The aim is to find synergies - where the combined action of two things is greater than the sum of their effects individually - to take advantage of your unique abilities and the environment.

If you can choose any leader and not feel at a disadvantage, and not feel that you have to use a particular approach (which may not suit your preferred playing style) then the designer's have to a large degree succeeded.
If varying the starting options gives you a fresh experience with something new to learn then they have really succeeded.