Humakty
Happy Goblin
Some clever choice between totally limited or totally unlimited would seem the rather obvious thing to do, like often.... The game creators were binary on this one.
Fundamental pitfalls of CIV5
- Thread starter fuch1141
- Start date
Some clever choice between totally limited or totally unlimited would seem the rather obvious thing to do, like often.... The game creators were binary on this one.
In the interest of realism - they should have thought about something else.
I remember playing a lot of strategy/tactical games on my old C64. And in a lot of situations I would silently curse the game for the inability to combine armies, or even send in a battalion or two and reinforce a critical position. But no, the "old" infantry division had to be pushed out, and there had to be made a hole in the lines before I could plug it. Not how I imagined it in real life. But hey, that was a wargame, between two powers, on a playing field as big as a medium-sized ciV.
One hex in ciV should be big enough in real life (compared to world-map) to hold any city. So say 20 million people in a huge city. This also happens to be the total number of servicemen in all (standing) armed forces in the whole world (I actually added all up from the "list of countries by number of troops wiki page). Okay, they would need room to maneuver. But then again, I believe a hex is bigger than any city.
What are the units supposed to be, anyway? Seems that 20-30 units for a great nation is the norm. So that would be corps. I've heard about infantry, and tank and cavalry corps, but anti-aircraft corps? "No sir you cannot walk your soldiers through Denmark, it seems to be full of AA guns".
If stacks were the problem, I believe they could have solved it differently.
More collateral. Any unit winning a fight could causes collateral against a few units (some axeman battalions on the loose behind the MLR).
There is indirect fire in this version, for the first time, and that's gotta have great anti-stack potential. 10 units grouped together walking through a gauntlet of indirect (archery/cannon/artillery) fire ALL might suffer equally badly.
Add a "command modifier" which will give a negative % to attack (or defend) when you have too many untis clumped together, to simulate confusion and disarray of large formations.
Add a hard cap on your number of (ground) units - one population point needed to construct a new unit (need to have manpower to sustain the unit in the field - remember they 'heal' (get replacements) for free)
Add increasingly harsher upkeep penalties for having an over-large army. (Have to make this work against over-rich deity AIs as well)
Anything?
I remember playing a lot of strategy/tactical games on my old C64. And in a lot of situations I would silently curse the game for the inability to combine armies, or even send in a battalion or two and reinforce a critical position. But no, the "old" infantry division had to be pushed out, and there had to be made a hole in the lines before I could plug it. Not how I imagined it in real life. But hey, that was a wargame, between two powers, on a playing field as big as a medium-sized ciV.
One hex in ciV should be big enough in real life (compared to world-map) to hold any city. So say 20 million people in a huge city. This also happens to be the total number of servicemen in all (standing) armed forces in the whole world (I actually added all up from the "list of countries by number of troops wiki page). Okay, they would need room to maneuver. But then again, I believe a hex is bigger than any city.
What are the units supposed to be, anyway? Seems that 20-30 units for a great nation is the norm. So that would be corps. I've heard about infantry, and tank and cavalry corps, but anti-aircraft corps? "No sir you cannot walk your soldiers through Denmark, it seems to be full of AA guns".
If stacks were the problem, I believe they could have solved it differently.
More collateral. Any unit winning a fight could causes collateral against a few units (some axeman battalions on the loose behind the MLR).
There is indirect fire in this version, for the first time, and that's gotta have great anti-stack potential. 10 units grouped together walking through a gauntlet of indirect (archery/cannon/artillery) fire ALL might suffer equally badly.
Add a "command modifier" which will give a negative % to attack (or defend) when you have too many untis clumped together, to simulate confusion and disarray of large formations.
Add a hard cap on your number of (ground) units - one population point needed to construct a new unit (need to have manpower to sustain the unit in the field - remember they 'heal' (get replacements) for free)
Add increasingly harsher upkeep penalties for having an over-large army. (Have to make this work against over-rich deity AIs as well)
Anything?
ezwip
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2006
- Messages
- 389
Egypt on Prince. It's one of the rare games I've played since release. The game is completely patched and no mods are running. Negative currency for me has little to no effect. It might effect my research a bit but if it does that wasn't enough to notice. Someone else might want to test this and see if it is screwed.
Your science is reduced by the amount of your negative gold so you're losing 18 beakers a turn. This is actually a lot like previous civs, essentially you are being forced to change your "science slider" even though one no longer exists. I think it makes more sense than forcibly selling random buildings or units.
ezwip
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2006
- Messages
- 389
Does it ever get to a point where I have to disband units? I'm guessing when I run out of research point it will. I can still spit those out and build an army which is kind of screwy in my opinion. This means I can triple forces pre invasion. With the strat I play I can spare plenty of research points. 
I haven't tested. I think the idea is that they wanted to get rid of the research slider, but didn't want to lose the ability to pay for things like buildings and units by lowering the amount of science you produce.
It takes away some complexity from the game, but avoids annoying issues with micromanaging a slider.
It takes away some complexity from the game, but avoids annoying issues with micromanaging a slider.
It will increase relation with nation A whom you sign open border with, and also will worsen the relation with nation B who is the worst enemy of nation A.
so signing a treaty/exchange resource or not is quite tricky in CIV4, especially in higher level game.
I think the OP missed one very key issue.
What I feel is most important that is missing is the tension in the game. There is no real urgency to be the first to anything. Civ4 does it well in creating and sustaining this tension throughout the ealy to mid-game. First to reach a religion, tech or to complete a wonder brings with it desirable rewards. Or first to settle some 'perfect' city spot. IMO Civ5 is just missing this - there isn't much to keep you trying to beat the AI to something, anything.
Thw whole discussion about SOD or 1 UPT, to me, is moot. I don't care about the whole hoo haa is about realism vs gameplay. The first thing that *I* care for is "is it fun and user friendly?". Introducing ctrl/ alt + select in Civ4 really made it easier to play. In fact, I think both SOD and 1 UPT-system work fine in both games, AI capability not withstanding- they are both fun to play with.
I'm sure this has been said before in other threads. Bring back the tension. If there's no real benefit to be the first to anything, then people get bored. Ok, *some* people may get bored.
What I feel is most important that is missing is the tension in the game. There is no real urgency to be the first to anything. Civ4 does it well in creating and sustaining this tension throughout the ealy to mid-game. First to reach a religion, tech or to complete a wonder brings with it desirable rewards. Or first to settle some 'perfect' city spot. IMO Civ5 is just missing this - there isn't much to keep you trying to beat the AI to something, anything.
Thw whole discussion about SOD or 1 UPT, to me, is moot. I don't care about the whole hoo haa is about realism vs gameplay. The first thing that *I* care for is "is it fun and user friendly?". Introducing ctrl/ alt + select in Civ4 really made it easier to play. In fact, I think both SOD and 1 UPT-system work fine in both games, AI capability not withstanding- they are both fun to play with.
I'm sure this has been said before in other threads. Bring back the tension. If there's no real benefit to be the first to anything, then people get bored. Ok, *some* people may get bored.
For me, a thinker of mechanism design, am more concerned about mechanism problem, so I left gaming psychological aspect to other treads
However indeed, you do point out the essense of gameplay -- intensive challenge
And that is why *some* of the players feel sense of lose in civ5
(p.s. In fact I don't care about SOD or 1UPT either. For the completeness of discussing game mechanism, I have to point it out. For my personal concern, I would like to talk about happiness/ trade mechanism because I made HDI mod and trade route mod for alternative and fun gaming experience)
CIV5 "might" be more delicate in diplomacy than civ4 be
However there are two problems
1. Diplomacy is irrelevant. I have demostrate that diplomacy/trading in civ5 is broken. Few cards can be played on diplomacy table, and moreover the battle is toooooo easy that I can completely ignore the importance of diplomacy.
I think it will be much improved in the next DLCs, but for now, diplomacy is irrelevant
2. No relation statistic table. Without diplomatic statistics, how do I know the "depth" of civ5 diplomacy is?
(Gladly, Firaxians decide to restore it in next patch. Blurred gameplay has been proved to be unfriendly for decades in gaming industry)
cf_nz
Prince
Whilst I agree that the game and AI needs to do a better job of explaining what is going on in diplomacy it doesn't need to be in the form of a numerical modifiers in a statistics table (or am I reading this too literally?).2. No relation statistic table. Without quantitive statistics, how do I know the "depth" of civ5 diplomacy is?
(Gladly, Firaxians decide to restore it in next patch. Blurred gameplay is proved to be unfriendly for decades in gaming industry)
Ya truely they need to explain what is going on in diplomacy, and explain it smartly (and that is the designer's job!!)
I do not mean it has to be a form of numerical modifiers. sorry I mislead you!
*modify the post*
I laughed.
So did I.
I think its a lot harder to make things like flanking and discipline work in a fair manner with 5UPT. Although I'd rather see a total war style approach where you have stacks of doom on the strategic map and a seperate tactical map to play out battles. This would also be cool in that two units could actually kill each other in less than 30 years in the ancient era
For me, a thinker of mechanism design, am more concerned about mechanism problem, so I left gaming psychological aspect to other treads
However indeed, you do point out the essense of gameplay -- intensive challenge
And that is why *some* of the players feel sense of lose in civ5
(p.s. In fact I don't care about SOD or 1UPT either. For the completeness of discussing game mechanism, I have to point it out. For my personal concern, I would like to talk about happiness/ trade mechanism because I made HDI mod and trade route mod for alternative and fun gaming experience)
You're right. I apologise for that. It is true what I mentioned wasn't mechanics per se.
I do however believe, all/most game mechanics should be geared towards creating this tension throughout the game. There should be plenty of choices and trade offs, pros and cons. If I do this first, what will happen to this other option. What if I do this other thing instead. There should be a constant need to choose and decide. And there should be benefits to paths and choices made.
Scouts, finding goody huts and CS first did okay for Civ5. But then it kind of stopped.
There isn't any benefit to being the first to anything. Most Wonders are lacklustre.
Discovering a new tech and new buildings are not *that* exciting; nothing happens if you get it a turn or 10 turns later - because most buildings don't affect your civ that much. And since there's no tech trade, you don't need to care if techs come later because there's no urgent benefit for it. Except maybe Construction for Colloseum.
There's no benefit to ally with a CS first. Anyone can just buy you out with gold later.
Perhaps what I'm trying to get at is that the game just doesn't provide enough drive for the player to keep. So much so that the players themselves have to create their own drive. Beat 200 turns. Survive OCC with Autowar. Etc etc.
But for what it's worth, Civ 5 was fun. A good entertainment. But not great.
What if someone who gets tech first gets some advantage/ bonus - happiness boost for a few turns? What if social policies grow over time and the earlier you get it, the more time it has to grow? First CS ally gets a bonus compared to a second Civ? First to find a natural Wonder gets the bonus, no one else does- or 2 happiness instead of 1? First to Liberalism gives a free tech- oh wait, there's no more liberalism tech.
All these need not be game breaking or overly strong. Circumnavigating the globe bonus was a nice bonus but not necessary for any winning strat. And yes, not everyone plays on Deity or Immortal that reuires the perfect strat, though for Civ5, almost any Tom, Dick and Harry come on to the boards saying how they've played Civ since forever and are Immortal/ Deity players.
Sorry, think I went off topic again.
Volstag
Chairman of the Bored
I, for one, am also glad that stacks of doom are gone. 1upt is way more interesting, way more tactical. I honestly can't believe anyone preferred the SoD -- warfare in Civ IV was trivially easy because of it.
-V
-V
I like 1UPT on paper, and didn't like SODs, but I assumed Civ5 would be built to handle 1UPT - and it wasn't. It's a feature that was clearly shoehorned in, and the rest of the game mechanics and the AI are not structured to handle it. Maybe someday, the modders will make it work, but it requires a pretty thorough revamping of so many core mechanics that I think that's a long shot at best.
