Has RT dramatically improved the game?

[ShaggyCan]

I ain't no super modder, but I have one on the boil at the moment (precisely because it seems to be the best way to get devs to make balance changes). I'm hoping to try and release a first version within the week.
So far it's abundantly clear that internal trade routes are, as expected, the biggest key to the crazy imbalance - just toning them down a bit makes an ENORMOUS difference to how quickly things snowball. They're still useful, but they don't kick off so much of a ridiculous positive feedback loop. The pacing feels a lot better, I think.

There's a bunch of other stuff, but just that and removing the prosperity free settler seem to do a hell of a lot of good on their own.

I agree with everything you've said here.
Doesn't it seem to you that they added all this new stuff to the game and then didn't even touch the Virtue tree at all. There is no reference at all to artifacts, or even more glaring, to political capitol. I think a big way to fix the game would be to rehaul the virtues, as in the Community Balance Patch. Just completely change it. That and the trade would be a huge step forward.

And to reply to the other response, yeah I am just waiting, I would do my own mod, but the game doesn't seem to be written in BASIC so I'm out.

 

[bruntfca]

The game is fun....as a role play game. They've put so much unbalanced stuff in it boggles the mind - I doubt it can really be fixed at this point. I think they went down the path of ' ah screw it lets just put a bunch of fun stuff in'.

For example there are artefacts that you can find at random that can boost your airforce by 50%, insane boosts to internal trade, free extra hexes etc etc. In multiplayer it's even worse, the player who randomly finds the best artefact combos wins basically...

The AI still does not know how to play it's own game, victory is trivial but it is fun in a role play kind of way. The only real challenge is to try to shave of more turns from the inevitable victory.

I also hate 1UPT, the best solution I've seen is in Elemental Legendary heroes where there's a 1UPT tactical map, but you don't need to play a puzzle slide game on the main map.

 

[ShaggyCan]

Really never had a problem with 1UPT, and I've played Civ since Civ 2 maybe? But I also played Panzer General, and that was their influence for 1UPT. Always hated the stacks of death

 

[nimling]

I haven't played enough MP in this to judge, but I would imagine Orbital Lasers are one of the strongest paths to take for domination. It's hard to say because MP in BE is largely dead, compared to the number of Civ5 MP games being played.

The Community Balance Patch is terrible and has gross imbalances (same problem in design philosophy as BE really). Something like PolicyPlus did a good job of equalizing policy trees without adding too many weird bonuses, although Liberty was made too strong and Tradition too weak.
It was interesting that in the last version of base Civ5, policy trees were considerably more balanced, although the game was so tilted towards REX that Liberty was almost a given.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

Really never had a problem with 1UPT, and I've played Civ since Civ 2 maybe? But I also played Panzer General, and that was their influence for 1UPT. Always hated the stacks of death

The first Civilization game I played was Civ4 and I despised stacks of death. A reasonable middle ground made possible with HD 3D graphics would be to have each combat unit represent a single agent, be it a warrior, archer, knight, tank, or whatever. The strengths of these individual units then decrease to what would be realistic.
Then, you can group multiple units into a formation. Some types of units cannot share tiles with others of some different type and there will always be a limit of units per tile based off space constraints (never hide/overlap units). Protecting or escorting a peaceful unit (like a worker) could then be done by forming a protection formation with appropriate combat units. When building or buying units, you can only get 1 unit at a time though you can have a bunch in your city sharing a garrison.

Effect on game play:
No more 1 UPT but no Stacks of Death
Grouping multiples of the same exact unit has a different bonus from grouping multiples of different units.
1 medic unit can heal all the foot soldiers (warriors, archers, swordsmen, musket men, etc) in the formation to give x amount of healing per turn per medic unit
1 formation of all field medics, vets, and repair technicians can continuously heal all adjacent formations of allied combatants but get instantly killed if attacked
1 formation consisting of 1/3 shield-carrying melee units and 2/3 ranged units can safely move forward and fire attacks while being safe from front-line melee attacks from the enemy
Killer Death Robots and other gigantic units remain limited to 1 Unit per Tile
Tanks and other land combat vehicles can only share tiles with land vehicle units
Protecting a trading ship should be possible by assigning it an escort ship and protecting a trade caravan should be possible by assigning it an escort cavalry or vehicle

The problem then becomes how the AI will handle this.

 

[bruntfca]

Really never had a problem with 1UPT, and I've played Civ since Civ 2 maybe? But I also played Panzer General, and that was their influence for 1UPT. Always hated the stacks of death

Exactly, but people always want to couch the problem in binary or polarized terms. Stacks of doom in Civ 4 did suck. That's why for example in Civ 1 you had the option of stacking into an army - but it also came with downsides, unlike Civ 4 where bigger was always better.

In Legendary Heroes you get a logistic tech which determines how many units you can stack, and combat takes place on a 1UPT tactical map. My beef is not with 1UPT per se, but with 1UPT on the strategic map. The game has little enough tools to help you micro manage things as is, the 1UPT on the strategic map just pushes is over into tedium for me.

 

[poom3619]

And to reply to the other response, yeah I am just waiting, I would do my own mod, but the game doesn't seem to be written in BASIC so I'm out.

Good for you! But XML modding isn't hard and you can give Rejinaldo a pink color with few line of code (or just use him twice)

I am playing Rising Tide Demo like it was an space civilization recoloring and renaming game now It is how I have fun from this game.