I call shenanigans.
How do you manage to even play for 5 mins?
- Thread starter Noob-ish
- Start date
I call shenanigans.
eric_
Emperor
You have to be seriously overextended if all happiness buildings have been built in all cities and you're still unhappy. You have to pace yourself in this game, for sure, both vertically and horizontally. Also, it really shouldn't creep up on you. If your happiness dips below 0, it's time to slow or halt growth of existing cities, make peace or take that last city if you really *need* it and then make peace, and shift building queues to happiness buildings that you don't yet have. During this 'mini-builder' phase, consolidate your troops and prepare for the next assault once you are decently back in the green. Also, don't build happiness buildings until you actually need them (or, better yet, just before), otherwise, when you bump up against 0 or negative happiness, you'll have no recourse for fixing the problem.
One nice thing about unhappiness down to -10 is that it slows growth, which helps cities prevent adding new population. In that regard, I actually consider unhappiness to be helpful in combating itself. Also, two of the best ways to slow city growth are to shift to gold or especially production focus, both of which can help you bring happiness buildings or courthouses online faster.
jjkrause84
King
So, bite and hold ops, WWI style?
I could do that.....
It's still not really all that fun or accurate though.
eric_
Emperor
I find it to be extremely fun, actually, but I love playing as a builder.
As for accuracy, I guess it depends on scale. The largest military-based expansion in world history was probably carried out by Mongolia, no? And, that doesn't even touch the scale involved with, say, taking over a Pangaea map (standard settings). IME, a good, solid, well-managed, and well-supported (i.e., doesn't torpedo happiness) round of military expansion can definitely approach the scale of the Mongolia expansion (~1/2 of a land mass). Beyond that point, you have to consolidate your gains before continuing on with another round. This is actually pretty consistent with my Civ IV experiences, too. Usually after taking a lot of cities I was spread thin from shoring up flanks, etc., and needed peace to heal, regroup, replenish troops, etc.
Also, the Mongolian Empire fragmented only 20 years after it achieved its greatest territorial extent and then collapsed another ~100 years after that. IMO they overextended themselves and their gains turned out to be relatively illusory. I do agree that "Happiness" is an awkward term for what happens in Civ V, though. Some have proposed "Stability", but I think it most accurately reflects the level of administrative control a leader effectively has over an empire. High-level administrative control can impose stability on an otherwise unruly empire; a lack of control can lead to even a stable empire falling into disarray.
jjkrause84
King
Yes, but Mongolia didn't have an immortal ruler, nor did it have 6,000 years in which it's sole goal was conquest of the world. Civs have both of those advantages.
eric_
Emperor
Um...is that intended to be ironic? Or, are you saying the inherently fictional nature of Civ should preclude its empires from the real-world limitations of wanton expansion?
Doctor Phibes
Prince
Generally agreed, but then I'm a builder too. But the trouble with global unhappiness as a measure of stability is that it affects all cities equally, the distance-from-capital penalty in previous civs has been removed. Empires should have centrifugal tendencies - local unhappiness, refuseniks, revolts on the fringes.
The Mongols are an extreme example of imperial overstretch, looking at other empires, collapse has frequently been averted for a time (short of an Outside Context Problem) by shedding peripheral provinces (Rome), decentralisation policies (Ottomans, Persians), fragmenting into still-viable entities (Rome, China, Alexander), not expanding much in the first place (Egypt, lots of adventures in Palestine and Nubia, but not much else) etc etc.
There's also no way to make much of a distinction in Civ5 (as there is in Civ4) between such classical empires with culturally distinct subject peoples and purely colonial empires, where the locals are all of the original culture. The latter is often seen as late-period (like the British Empire), but most empires are a mix of the two (comparing Australia and India, for example), especially since there have been very few colonies that didn't have native inhabitants already in place (the Falklands is a rare example).
[Makes me think there should be a mechanism for absorbing/enslaving barbarian populations rather than simply exterminating them, but now I'm rambling...]
Just think that these were key Civ4 ideas that should have been built on, not discarded. Not advocating remaking Civ4, just that the design of a new game could have moved in a different direction.
jjkrause84
King
Only slightly ironic. I think Civ should operate within reasonable boundaries of logic while maintaining an internally consistant fantasy element (i.e. like, it is possible to conquer the whole world). 6,000 years is not an unreasonable time-frame in which to do so.
eric_
Emperor
Yeah, I went to the extreme example for clarity. The others you cite, however, still work to make my point. Mongolia chose their new holdings and expansion over the integrity of their overall empire (unknowingly, one presumes); Rome, China, et al, chose the integrity of their empire over continued expansion and in some cases at the expense of previously acquired territories. IMO you are forced to make similar decisions in Civ V, the mechanism just has an awkward name.
The Civ IV mechanisms that emulated these choices were more nuanced, for sure, but I don't think more difficult or challenging.
eric_
Emperor
Are you discovering otherwise? I've never had a problem overtaking the world when Domination was my goal.
eric_
Emperor
PS, jjkrause84, I'm confused as to what your point is, exactly.
Are you saying self-limiting military expansion is unrealistic, that the mechanism used to limit such expansion is unrealistic, or that it's pointless and fun-limiting in this game? Something else?
Are you saying self-limiting military expansion is unrealistic, that the mechanism used to limit such expansion is unrealistic, or that it's pointless and fun-limiting in this game? Something else?
Doctor Phibes
Prince
I'd agree that it works, just seems a little one-dimensional to me compared with the alternatives. I can live with it, I guess, it isn't the worst aspect of the design. In fact I'm re-evaluating Civ5 as a builder's game since the last patch. I don't think it can ever be anything other than a very poor wargame, it was a major mistake to move it in that direction, so I have a feeling that it will be moving back towards building and management, if only because code improvements in that direction are vastly cheaper than coding up a new combat engine (which I don't consider to be at all economically feasible with a pure 1upt design).
jjkrause84
King
My point is simply that it should be possible wage wars of conquest and annihilation without being too severely penalized in terms of happiness at home....ESPECIALLY in "earlier" time periods.
eric_
Emperor
In case you didn't see the edit to my last post, I spoke to that point with this comment:
Doctor Phibes
Prince
No, I missed it. Yeah, you're likely right on difficulty level, but for me they have more charm, culture wars just ain't what they used to be. It's also a question of where the game is going, seems to me the old mechanisms offered a lot more scope for future refinement and expansion, especially in the area of ethnicity.
For example, I've sometimes toyed with the idea of a civ where all tiles start with a very sparse human population (depending on the terrain, that would be very close to zero for desert and ice, highest would be river valleys), just as, with a few exceptions, was true when civilisations arose in RL. I wouldn't make this obtrusive unless the player wanted a read-out, it would simply be that when a city was founded, it would attract population from its catchment zone as part of its growth model who would then add to the growth of the city and help to determine its ethnic/cultural mix.
The significance of doing this is that your map generator would be not just about terrain, but pre-populating the world with a wide variety of cultures. You could even have language blocs and more. Religion has to be discovered as Organised Religion, as we might assume that the original ethnicities had belief systems of their own, these could be available as options for Organised Religion (or State Religion, which is really a different thing).
In effect, I'd consider putting people on the map as a resource...
eric_
Emperor
Very cool! That goes way beyond even Civ IV's nuances.
I wouldn't be surprised if a Civ V expansion brought in more of the nuance we had in IV. The postmortem article floating around the board made it sound like dealing with the major overhauls (1upt, hexes) were a serious time sink, and that some planned features had to be put off until after release.
I wouldn't be surprised if a Civ V expansion brought in more of the nuance we had in IV. The postmortem article floating around the board made it sound like dealing with the major overhauls (1upt, hexes) were a serious time sink, and that some planned features had to be put off until after release.
Doctor Phibes
Prince
Yeah, I agree they urgently have to at least patch up the worst 1upt probs with duct tape, in a hurry. I only hope they know where to stop, as I think there's a limit to what can be done by just tinkering with it, and improvements/enhancements in other areas might pay bigger dividends for less effort.
I'm not talking about how many variables are there to manage, but how the variables have been implemented.This is illogical. Two variables to address in each of a dozen or more cities are easier to manage than one single variable shared across the empire?
I bought civ5 the week it came out and i only played a few games, i stopped playing after just the second day and returned to civ4. Ever since i returned to playing civ4 i have always had a question nawing at the back of my mind... how do any of you manage to sit through an entire game when the AI has LITERALLY zero chance of winning? I don't mean or want this to be another thread that knocks civ5, i only ask because iam genuinly curious how you can do it! I couldnt start a game on civ4 if i knew before i even loaded up that the AI would have zero chance at beating me.
Every couple of weeks or so i take a peek at the civ5 forums to see what has been done in the latest patch, now from what i've seen it looks like they have done a lot to fix many issues, but they have yet to touch on the flaw that keeps me from even thinking about doing a reinstall of civ5... and that is the AI ability at raging war! The AI literally doesnt have a chance, some have said the AI is a little better but still an easy push over... so how do you bring yourself to play this game?
Again... this is not another thread bashing Civ5, i genuinly just want to hear why and how any of you play it?
Basically I start Steam, click Sid Meiers Civ V, and play. My last 5 games or something have been Small/Terra/Immortal. I think the Terra concept of an unexplored continent adds quality to the Civ experience. Ive played small maps since Civ4 because Standard seems unnecessarily large, too repetetive. if I dont increase the difficulty I try to change my playstyle for a challenge. im looking forward to civving some more tomorrow. i have maybe 150-200 civ5 hours since 21st september.
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