Firaxis Livestream tomorrow, Wednesday Sept 7th at 4pm ET: Let's Play Religion

[SupremacyKing2]

Look at Madrid (Spain's capital). How would you interpret that with your "zones of influence" approach?

I use my imagination. Perhaps, Spain did not see that area as part of its influence even though it was geographically close to the capital for "reasons".

Thinking about this, perhaps "zones of influence" is not the best description. Perhaps, it is better simply to see the areas as arbitrary regions instead of continents. If the game changed "continent" to "region", it might solve some problems.

 

[Scaramanga]

I think the best solution, capitals cannot start within x tiles of a new continent. That seems to be a way to keep from exploiting the abilities too early.

Not everyone has continental bonuses. What is good for Spain here would force Teddy to turn the other way.

Some capitals were on the edge of continents. Constantinople for example.

 

[Stilgar08]

I do not see any reason why changing the English or American or Spanish bonus from "continent" to more/less then 15 tiles from the starting location of the capital is crippling the bonus.
In your view if the capital happens to be at the continent divide the bonus is OK, but when the capital is in the middle of the continent, then the bonus is crippled.

Nope. The bonus isn't crippled when the capital happen to be in the middle of a continent. Because then other possible traderoutes get the bonus. Trade routes don't need to start in Madrid,so there's no problem.
The bonus would be inferior to its actual stand, if it only occurs when crossing an ocean to another landmass - because it's harder to explore, secure, set up...

How is it that you wouldn't have an immersion problem if the bonus is not about continents at all but about distance?? This is what bugs me about your point of view... Continents are (and you can say what you will, but they are) made-up borders in order to categorize landmasses. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it's just a definition we agreed to agree on; best example is Europe/Asia with literally a line drawn in the dirt as border (Ural I know - check the maps...). That's reality.

Now the GAMING aspect of civ gets in. And somehow you have to have a rule how the spanish (or whatever) bonus works. You dislike the current rule, I don't have a problem with it. Simple...

BTW I wouldn't have a problem either with Plus Ultras borderzone nor with the simple rule that capitals couldn't start within X tiles of a new continent like Timothy001 said. I'm pretty sure it's not as much of an issue as the sceptics concerning this make it. But that's just a believe and I might be wrong (happens - Really!) - therefore subject to discussion...

 

[fmm]

Maybe the real issue is the Pangea map type?

 

[Scaramanga]

In Spain's case it's give and take. The other half of the bonus is early fleets, which would be less important with these continuous continents.

 

[Plus Ultra]

I use my imagination. Perhaps, Spain did not see that area as part of its influence even though it was geographically close to the capital for "reasons".

Thinking about this, perhaps "zones of influence" is not the best description. Perhaps, it is better simply to see the areas as arbitrary regions instead of continents. If the game changed "continent" to "region", it might solve some problems.

The problem here is that plenty of Civs have UA's that depend on the continent system to work properly.

Changing the name to Regions or using our imagination won't change that SupremacyKing2, but I wholeheartedly applaud your optimism, I really wish I could share it.

Not everyone has continental bonuses. What is good for Spain here would force Teddy to turn the other way.

That somehow seems even worse Scaramanga.

Some capitals were on the edge of continents. Constantinople for example.

That is most certainly true, but irrelevant I'm afraid, I am in no way arguing that having a city in the edge between two continents is not realistic.

My point is that having Civs with UA's based on continents, and then having a system which randomly places continental boundaries and spawns Civs on top creates unexpected problems.

Again, look at the photo I posted:

Spoiler :

Spain gets:
-Extra yields from all trade routes to/from the capital. Even to Valladolid, 4 tiles away.
-Extra faith on Missions (UI) in every city besides the capital.

In the same situation, England would get:
-Free Melee units when settling all cities besides its capital.
-Bonus gold on all harbours in cities besides its capital.
-Redcoat UU strenght increase in most of England's cities.

Doesn't all of this seem somewhat unbalanced to you guys?

I'm sure when someone at Firaxis thought about continental UA's, he wasn't expecting Spain or England to get those bonuses from Turn 1.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

This is a game. It has gamey mechanics.

 

[fmm]

Spain gets:
-Extra yields from all trade routes to/from the capital. Even to Valladolid, 4 tiles away.
-Extra faith on Missions (UI) in every city besides the capital.

In the same situation, England would get:
-Free Melee units when settling all cities besides its capital.
-Bonus gold on all harbours in cities besides its capital.
-Redcoat UU strenght increase in most of England's cities.

Doesn't all of this seem somewhat unbalanced to you guys? I'm sure when someone at Firaxis thought about continental UA's, he wasn't expecting Spain or England to get those bonuses from Turn 1.

If you want of all this, you do have to settle in a particular "direction" though.

 

[kaspergm]

This is a game. It has gamey mechanics.

That is the worst argument for anything. Yes it's a game, doesn't mean one can't and shouldn't try to make it as meaningful as possible.

Some capitals were on the edge of continents. Constantinople for example.

I agree with Plus_Ultra, this observation is irrelevant, because yes, in real life some capitals are on continent boundaries, but also in real life, there is no such thing as a combat bonus when fighting on a different continent, nor is there any extra yield from trade routes just because they are on different continents.

This is an abstraction over real life, and as such, the different elements of the game need to be coherent with each other. The problem is, if you design civ bonuses the way they are, it's simply not coherent with continent boundaries passing right through capitals. Any game mechanism that is design so that it results in absurd outcomes by definition is poorly designed. The fact that if this had been London, the redcoat would have a combat bonus if fighting one hex to one side of London, and no combat bonus if fighting one hex to the other, clearly is nonsensical. So either they need to make it so that continent lines pass between civ starting locations and not through, or they need to have these bonuses scale with distance to capital rather than these arbitrary continents. I know the developers think this continent idea is a super cool feature, but really, the way it's currently designed it's really poorly implemented.

 

[Plus Ultra]

This is a game. It has gamey mechanics.

Oh c'mon Eagle Pursit, that can be used to justify anything and you know it.

Gamey mechanics can be good or bad.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Oh c'mon Eagle Pursit, that can be used to justify anything and you know it.

Gamey mechanics can be good or bad.

I'm just saying, moderate your expectations.

 

[Scaramanga]

The problem here is that plenty of Civs have UA's that depend on the continent system to work properly.

Changing the name to Regions or using our imagination won't change that SupremacyKing2, but I wholeheartedly applaud your optimism, I really wish I could share it.



That somehow seems even worse Scaramanga.



That is most certainly true, but irrelevant I'm afraid, I am in no way arguing that having a city in the edge between two continents is not realistic.

My point is that having Civs with UA's based on continents, and then having a system which randomly places continental boundaries and spawns Civs on top creates unexpected problems.

Again, look at the photo I posted:

Spoiler :

Spain gets:
-Extra yields from all trade routes to/from the capital. Even to Valladolid, 4 tiles away.
-Extra faith on Missions (UI) in every city besides the capital.

In the same situation, England would get:
-Free Melee units when settling all cities besides its capital.
-Bonus gold on all harbours in cities besides its capital.
-Redcoat UU strenght increase in most of England's cities.

Doesn't all of this seem somewhat unbalanced to you guys?

I'm sure when someone at Firaxis thought about continental UA's, he wasn't expecting Spain or England to get those bonuses from Turn 1.

In either case you'll have to hit them where it hurts, either at home for England or in Spain's colonies. Redcoats don't come until fairly late.
The bonuses strengthen them but it leaves them horribly exposed.

 

[Sansa_Stark]

I find interesting what Anton says when talking about saving city state envoys. He says that there were some reasonable complaints about that not being possible, so HE went back and changed it. I'd expect some team of devs to make decisions like that.

 

[Magil]

Is it a reasonable inference that, due to the mechanics of VI, the archipelago map won't be in the game? That's kinda what I got out of their statement at the start, and that it was being replaced by the island map script they were using, but I'm not certain. At any rate, they did state that mountains were less common on that map script, so something like the Norway UB would be more useful there to boost Holy Sites.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Have anybody mentioned the fact that commerce hubs river adjancency bonus only applies once to each river, this make it alot weaker then previously thought and kind of make harbour more valuable (both give trade route) and also provide the same adjacency bonus to commerce hubs.

It seems like the developers value gold only half as much as the other resources so 2 gold is worth one other resource such as 2 gold is worth one science. A citizen working a commerce hub give 4 gold while one working a campus give 2 science.

Trade routes seems to be by far the most important way to make gold and can provide a nice amout of resources. Im not sure how strong the Spanish bonus is, to me it look like you get one extra food and one extra production but I guess it will add up as you can have massive amounts of trade routes going on, Egypt also have trade bonuses while England have unique harbour district so they will likely big one of the big trade civs. One thing about a large empire is that it can send all trade routes or atleast most of its to a single city to mass produce wonders but limited space mean you need to cycle between cities to take maximum advantage of this.

 

[fmm]

Is it a reasonable inference that, due to the mechanics of VI, the archipelago map won't be in the game? That's kinda what I got out of their statement at the start, and that it was being replaced by the island map script they were using, but I'm not certain. At any rate, they did state that mountains were less common on that map script, so something like the Norway UB would be more useful there to boost Holy Sites.

They basically said that the island map script they showed in the Norway game (forget the exact name they used for it) replaces archipelagos. And they explained the reason: the islands have to be a bit bigger because of "unstacked cities."

 

[Cerilis]

well it doesnt stop them to also add ultra small islands-archipelago with the "extra" maps (along the lines of donut, highlands and all those, not with the "common" and random-able ones like continents, pangae, etc.)

 

[Khalid]

Nope. The bonus isn't crippled when the capital happen to be in the middle of a continent. Because then other possible traderoutes get the bonus. Trade routes don't need to start in Madrid,so there's no problem.
The bonus would be inferior to its actual stand, if it only occurs when crossing an ocean to another landmass - because it's harder to explore, secure, set up...

The same applies if the bonus would be defined as X tiles from capital. But I agree that a requirement that the starting location must be at least X tiles from other continents is fine as well. You can move the settler and still settle at the continent border but at least it requires some effort and a delayed start and you can be stopped by barbs.

How is it that you wouldn't have an immersion problem if the bonus is not about continents at all but about distance?? ...best example is Europe/Asia with literally a line drawn in the dirt as border (Ural I know - check the maps...). That's reality.

For me the Spain bonus is about trading with overseas colonies. That should mean with far away lands, not with the next city. The same holds for the redcoats. Why should they have bonus 1 hex to W and not 1 hex to E?
The Europa/Asia is exactly the great example. I believe people living there completely ignore the imaginary line and live exactly the same on both sides of the border. It's not like trading in the Asian part is much better than in the European part.

 

[Plus Ultra]

I'm just saying, moderate your expectations.

Having a bad day, are we?

The problem is, if you design civ bonuses the way they are, it's simply not coherent with continent boundaries passing right through capitals. Any game mechanism that is designed so that it results in absurd outcomes by definition is poorly designed. The fact that if this had been London, the redcoat would have a combat bonus if fighting one hex to one side of London, and no combat bonus if fighting one hex to the other, clearly is nonsensical. So either they need to make it so that continent lines pass between civ starting locations and not through, or they need to have these bonuses scale with distance to capital rather than these arbitrary continents. I know the developers think this continent idea is a super cool feature, but really, the way it's currently designed it's really poorly implemented.

My sentiments exactly

The bonuses strengthen them but it leaves them horribly exposed.

Could you elaborate? How is Spain terribly exposed in this scenario?

 

[Mustakrakish]

I'm sure there will be new map scripts via mods in no time that will also fix how continents are generated. I really dislike their continents script even without taking continent lens into account.

BTW I think some of you are thinking wrong about the requested "better continent boundries". It's not that the map script should create mountain ranges etc. at continent boundries. It's that the map script should create "boundries" afterwards where it's logical.

"Here's a mountain range that starts at the coast and then after it follows that river, after which there doesn't seem to be any "physical" boundries so we just cut to the coast straight through those 2-3 tiles of grassland."