Has Sid realised they got Corruption wrong?

[Beeblbrox]

This occured to me when I read the CQC 1.20 patch notes:

NOTES:

* City view is disabled while playing the Conquests. This was done because the creation of art assets to fit every scenario was considered a lower priority than expanded gameplay.

* City view art for the New Wonders do not appear in the City View screen. Sorry.

* Corruption is always going to be a huge debate but we hope you enjoy the changes that have been made.

Those with long memories will remember I posted my opinion of the OCN being a useless and irritating (at best) feature of Civ3. Naturally I was quickly shouted down by a large number of people who would probably happily play Civ4 if it had an Optimal Turds Quotient purely because it came in the Civ box, and because they had found how to play a winning game despite its game spoiling effect.

I and many others are perfectly capable of winning Civ games at the highest levels despite the OCN being left as it is (indeed I rarely exceed the 'official' OCN until the very end of the game when I have constructed a large enough army to take over the world anyway) , however we usually choose to remove OCN from the game (for human and AI) purely because it ruins game pleasure (there's no fun capturing cities that will always be 90% corrupt, or playing an AI that is likewise crippled if it has managed to get the upper hand), but for newbies who aren't as Civ-knowledgable it simply ruins the game full stop.

OCN was (probably) implemented to prevent OCC sprawl which was experienced in Civ2, however at the higher levels at least the AI in Civ3 normally manages to outcolonize me in short order due to superior AI over Civ2 (basically all Civs in Civ3 use the OCC tactic themselves). This means the OCN is not only redundant but actually penalises the AI in its own tactics.

Anyway I've made a few of my most pertinent personal points, and given that I believe Firaxis are at the least concerned about the issue given their admission I believe it's time the debate was re-opened.

Beeblbrox

p.s. try it before you decry it. Use your editor to set OCN% to 1000 for your difficulty level and Regent (the AI's default difficulty setting) and the OCN for your map size to 52. After you have done this, please say whether the game was any more or less enjoyable, and why. I've tried both - if you want to argue you should too. And no advocates of the Optimal Turd Quotient principal need reply.

 

[blackhalo15]

whats ocn?

 

[Rellin]

I have made those changes to the OCN and it does make the game more enjoyable for me as well.

OCN is the optimal city number. Once you exceed this number corruption becomes a huge problem. The way corruption was done in Civ3 has always been terrible and using the editor is an easy way to change it. Each difficulty level has a lower percentage of the OCN for a given map size, like it is 90% of the OCN for a map size when playing on Monarch difficulty. So if yer playing a standard map which has an OCN of 20, you would really have an OCN of 18 (10% less then 20). On Emperor difficulty the OCN percentage is 80 and it gets worse as you go up in levels, making corruption happen very early on before you even expand through wars and what not. Setting it to 52 for all map sizes and upping the percentage on all difficulty levels to 1000 makes it so you can never exceed the OCN because it is larger then the maximum cities allowed on any map size, as the game only allows a total of 512 cities.

 

[SanPellegrino]

can you still build the FP then? IIRC it depends on the OCN when it can be build (but I still play PtW, maybe it changed)

 

[Rellin]

Well you don't need the FP if corruption is a non-issue, but if you wanted just leave the OCN for map sizes the same and set the percentage for difficulty levels to 1000 or 2000 or some other crazy high number as you normally don't have that many cities anyway.

 

[Beeblbrox]

You do still need to build the FP if you have a large/widespread empire, as the distance corruption is still in effect - very noticeably so if you have a city on the opposite side of the world to your palace, but it's 'nice' corruption - it feels right (approx 50-70% for antipodean cities), and building the Forbidden Palace actually has a significantly noticeable effect on it.

Edit: Forgot to mention the FP is based on 50% the 'raw' OCN - meaning set OCN to 52 with 1000% you get to build it at 26 cities.

 

[jb1964]

So, what file do you edit to change the OCN?

I'm playing my first Monarch game on a small continents map. I claimed my continent by killing off the Aztecs. I'm a republic with about 50% of my income going down the drain. I have been culling some of my cities as the culture of other cities expands to cover the territory.

This is a real dilema. Claiming territory is needed for resources, to secure boarders, to increase your score, etc. And the best way to claim territory is to build cities. The penalty for this seems quite steep.

My $0.02 worth.

 

[kb2tvl]

I think ocn is an important part of civ to slow down unlimited growth and to not overly reward fast civs with early dominate UU that can place a player in the top score early and keep that player there.

I think there are other issues involved that ruin the game and OCN's effect should be reduced while adding other issues.

One issue might be the balance between improving tiles and number of workers. The world would become larger if it took longer to irigate and road.

Having more expensive settlers which consume more population or a population requiring twice the food of shields might make the map smaller. Unfortunately, the ai on higher levels still can out settle you.

This leaves what I think is the core problem of civ, the AI. I think the ai is pretty complex but the ai does not change from level to level. The required shields to build anything do. To make matters worse, corruption goes up and this reduces your shields. In addition, tech costs go up A LOT.

 

[Beeblbrox]

You mean you can out-colonize the AI on Deity/Sid? Please tell me how you manage that - I've never succeeded and have never been in any danger of 'unlimited growth' at those difficulty levels.

 

[warpstorm]

The other thing OCN does is tells the AI to stop building settlers. If it is too high the AI will keep cranking out settlers.

 

[Catt]

Originally posted by Beeblbrox
Those with long memories will remember I posted my opinion of the OCN being a useless and irritating (at best) feature of Civ3. Naturally I was quickly shouted down by a large number of people who would probably happily play Civ4 if it had an Optimal Turds Quotient purely because it came in the Civ box, and because they had found how to play a winning game despite its game spoiling effect.

Great way to start! Anyone who doesn't share your opinion is an idiot, and anyone who disagrees with you is shouting you down!

p.s. try it before you decry it. Use your editor to set OCN% to 1000 for your difficulty level and Regent (the AI's default difficulty setting) and the OCN for your map size to 52. After you have done this, please say whether the game was any more or less enjoyable, and why. I've tried both - if you want to argue you should too. And no advocates of the Optimal Turd Quotient principal need reply.

I tried it long ago in Civ Vanilla. I didn't like it. It makes the game very linear and dictates an optimal play strategy (which you can choose to deviate from, of course, but which substantially devalues other approaches that have value with the current implementation). Without somehting limiting the usefulness of expansion, peaceful or militaristic, endless expansion produces greater and greater power, particularly in a zero-sum game where one's expansion not only strengthen's one's position but weakens the opponents' positions. Whether you like OCN or the corruption implementation generally, I believe something must inhibit massive expansion, and distance corruption alone doesn't do enough, IMHO.

Have you considered that your playstyle dictates your strongly stated preference:

(indeed I rarely exceed the 'official' OCN until the very end of the game when I have constructed a large enough army to take over the world anyway)

Sounds to me like your games do play out in a linear fashion pretty often -- in such a case, your mod might make the game more enjoyable for that given approach - but I maintain that it reduces strategic options and game variability for those whose games play out differently depending on civs, maps, terrain, etc.

 

[SirPleb]

Originally posted by Beeblbrox
You mean you can out-colonize the AI on Deity/Sid? Please tell me how you manage that - I've never succeeded and have never been in any danger of 'unlimited growth' at those difficulty levels.

Given a good start position it is possible to easily out-colonize the AI at Deity. This thread has a game where I did that and shows how.

A more important thing about that same game is that I in effect played with the suggestion you are making here. Although I had to jump my Palace a few times to do it, the result was that I had almost unlimited growth possible without rank corruption. As you'll see in that thread the result is plain silly. It was fun to do once, but every time? As Catt has pointed out, with the corruption constraint removed, the optimum path becomes too obvious, choice is reduced, and the game is less fun. I wouldn't want to play that way again even with the requirement of having to jump my Palace. Doing it your way would remove even that part of the puzzle, there'd be no effort at all involved.

 

[Captain Murphy]

p.s. try it before you decry it. Use your editor to set OCN% to 1000 for your difficulty level and Regent (the AI's default difficulty setting) and the OCN for your map size to 52. After you have done this, please say whether the game was any more or less enjoyable, and why. I've tried both - if you want to argue you should too. And no advocates of the Optimal Turd Quotient principal need reply. [/B]

Perhaps, if you're truly interested in debating corruption, you should not insult people who have a view different than yours.

I've played the game OCN settings similar to yours, and I also found that the game becomes very predictable. Expansion at any cost becomes the order of the day, and other strategies or methods of playing come up short.

Without corruption, your power increases greatly with each new city, and your opponent's power decreases. The game becomes very predictable, and it's not so viable to try and win with strategies that don't expand your empire constantly.

I personally don't see what the big deal about corruption is, I think the system works well enough. Could they improve it? Probably. I have fun leaving the default corruption model in.

 

[Beeblbrox]

Great way to start! Anyone who doesn't share your opinion is an idiot, and anyone who disagrees with you is shouting you down!

I quickly learned from this forum that any opinion that differs from the established status quo is either ignored or poo-pooed. My opening aggressive gambit seems to have had the desired effect

It makes the game very linear and dictates an optimal play strategy

And you believe that OCN enhances play strategy options? Over a non-OCN model? How so exactly? You admit that 'the "linear" strategy may be deviated from', I do not see why these other tactics become any less valid in the non-OCN model whatsoever. What is limited is the domination strategy under the existing OCN model - there is absolutely no point in pursuing it whatsoever. Removing OCN merely provides an incentive to try this strategy rather than a penalty.

I believe something must inhibit massive expansion

And therein lies your prescribed strategy. How powerful would the USSR have been if it had consisted of 2 Baltic States and the Ukraine? Or the U.S.A. if it consisted of Iowa and Alabama? Let's face facts, there *must* be a reason for pure common sense to take a hand in the direction of Civilization - build an Empire to stand the Test of Time ring a bell to you?

Having said that I must agree there must be penalties for having to maintain such large territories - but the OCN is way out of whack - and herein lies where I believe I find common ground with yourself and other posters such as kb2tvl - the OCN was an attempt at addressing this issue, but a wrong one - or at least an improperly implemented one. all the OCN has done is remove any significant incentive for expansion, and in a game of building empires you must agree that is a retrograde principal

linear is bad, linear is bad, linear is bad....

Er - Civ is 100% linear and always has been - there is certainly no getting away from that. Hence the tech-tree, the progression towards cultural points, the acquisition of territory, resources and influence. If you want a non-linear game I suggest role-playing. Sorry - unnecessarily aggressive but I want no straw-man arguments here.

Personally I would love to see more dynamic implementations of human kinds development. Wrapping up religion as a technological development is frankly insulting to many people, although the introduction of culture development smells nice. Pity the biggest non-wonder culture generators happen to be 'scientific' &lt/OT&gt


Lastly, all the arguments seem to be that 'expansion needs to be inhibited because its just too tempting to go for it when OCN is not there'. Frankly that just means the option is more appealing - not any more valid - to you. The other options are still perfectly valid ways of winning the game without OCN. If you really wanted to win the game by totting up a mass of culture points there is nothing that removing OCN inhibits. You would probably win the game far faster and hence acquire more points by a culture victory than I ever would through a domination victory.

What *really* needs to be addressed as has been mentioned by others is the real problems of a large and diverse empire, not implementing some senseless mechanic of 'every city you own beyond your 20th is mostly useless'. It's damaging Civ, its damaging it's relevance, it's damaging it's fun and it' damaging its appeal.

I have no objection to a large empire being difficult to manage - I have an objection to a game of empires making it pointless to manage.

 

[ainwood]

What they are getting at when they say that having no OCN causes linearisation is that it limits the strategies that you can use to win with the highest score. This is especially important in tournaments etc, where different playing styles should be equally as competitive.

A high OCN (or no OCN) essentially means that if you want the highest score, you need to focus solely on expansion, to the detriment of things like culture etc, simply because its the guy with the most cities / territory that will win.

Large empires with many cities corrupt are not necessarily that bad -> as long as you have a productive core around your palace and around your forbidden palace. There is still incentive to gain more territories, because you still get points for them regardless of whether they are productive or not.

Remember that one of the key focuses of the developers was to offer more variety in terms of winning than simply conquest / spaceship. In my opinion, your removal of the OCN will negate all this, and make the domination strategy the only really viable one (with maybe a token conquest / spaceship finish).

From a delinearisation perspective, I'm more interested in how we get to the destination.

 

[zurichuk]

yep the linear problem

well they need to do something to balance the game out but what?

in RON the more units/improvements you build of one type, the more expensive they become, that could be a possibility, possibly calling the increase in costs 'bureaucracy'

also i'm not sure whether a nation twice the size of another would be able to research twice as fast in RL (if there was no corruption), so a different factor there may have to be implemented, there are some really relatively tiny nations in this world who are technologically advanced for one reason or another

 

[Beeblbrox]

-ainwood-

Surely that just means there is an overemphasis on large empires=large score? Arguing that to keep a senseless mechanic in the game purely because the tournaments are currently geared to a certain scoring system is not an argument for keeping the mechanic in place?

edit: i realise the tournaments have to use Civ score - I'm saying that to satisfy this the Civ scoring should shift away from large empires. I( have absolutely no problem with that occuring

 

[ainwood]

That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is the the developers aim was to try and delinearise the game by offering more ways of winning than simply out-expanding everyone else.

Playing on your own, you might be quite happy to follow the same linear expansion-dominated game every time, in which case go ahead and mod the OCN.

My point about tournaments is that if you want to win, you should have equal opportunity to do it no matter what your prefered style is, and still be on an equal footing. With no OCN, (or more particularly, no corruption), the game linearises into an expansion race. The key point is that tournaments are more enjoyable where you can compare different strategies; not just the relative success of lots of people trying the same strategy.

 

[ainwood]

Originally posted by Beeblbrox
-ainwood-

edit: i realise the tournaments have to use Civ score - I'm saying that to satisfy this the Civ scoring should shift away from large empires. I( have absolutely no problem with that occuring

Actually, in the Game Of The Month, we don't.

Well, this is a bit Off-topic, but anyway:

We use the civ base score, but have modified the end-game win bonus. The idea being is that it usually takes longer (for example) to win by spaceship than by domination, so the win bonus should be proportional to the victory type. In addition, in most cases 'milking' the game to 2050 ad resulted in the highest scores, but least fun -> the guy with the most time on his hands (and most skill at milking) would win. So we factored the amount of points that could be gained by milking in as well. Sort of. Read this for an explanation.

 

[Beeblbrox]

SirPleb

I read your thread with great interest - you clearly know your stuff, and the tactics used were intuguing. However, did it not occur to you that maybe you managed to get such a large empire because the AI was constrained by the very mechanic I am arguing against? It has been commented by somebody else that the AI will not crank out so many Settlers purely because of the OCN?

Also I noted you had chosen a very large map with very few opponents. Perhaps if you had chosen a full complement of opponents your success would not have been quite so devastating?

I am by no means whatsoever trying to demean your demonstration game (I'm not *that* arrogant ), it clearly shows how somebody who knows such an immense amount of the Civ machinery will always win over the AI, and gives all us lesser knowledgeable folk a thing or two to think about