How To Fix This Game

[CraigMak]

OK Firaxis, you made a pretty bad game to start off but it is salvageable. Here is a list of things that need to be changed in order for this game to be balanced and playable.

#1 Affinity is too important to get for free. Quests and Progenitor Ruins should not give free affinity points. It's just too ABSURD!

#2 The Slavs are mega op broken and need to be fixed. Slingshotting to anything including turn 42 battle suits is just bad, bad game design. Make it a set number of beakers or techs of a certain tier. ANY tech is just too much.

#3 Building Quests are too random and very strong. They need to consistently pop up or be removed completely.

#4 Prosperity is currently too strong, growth, a free settler, free worker, and loads of health is too much. The settler needs to be moved farther down the tree otherwise it is the only viable virtue option to start the game.

#4 Artists is too strong. Starting with +2 culture is so strong that all the other choices are null and void. You just get this one every time.

#5 Stations operate in a horrible mechanic. Randomly dropping and trolling your expansion locations is a very bad mechanic. You should be able to choose where they plant to some degree. Turning them off should be an option. Trading with them is currently too weak compared to your own cities.

#6 Get rid of gold from rivers OR make every player start on a river every time guaranteed. This is too luck based.

#7 The aliens need to be fixed, they need to be more aggressive. Currently they don't even attack workers and don't attack settlers 50% of the time. They should attack and pillage just like barbs did.

#8 Titanium is too strong. It needs to be toned down. +5 hammers is too much. Tectonic scanner is currently OP because titanium is OP.

#9 Crash sites and derelict settlements are too strong, loads of culture, 80 hammers etc.. is too much. Tone this luck based stuff down considerably. Culture pods, science pods and satellite pods are also a bit too strong.

#10 Internal trade routes are too strong, way too strong. Naval trade routes take it to a new level of absurdity. Tone these both down and bring naval trade routes closer to land based ones. The naval ones even seem to be safer IMO

#11 The hammer cost of marines and gunners compared to rangers and soldiers is way too far off. Were talking double the hammers for a unit that's slightly better. At the moment getting early affinity can actually leave you at a disadvantage if you don't have units ready to upgrade.

#12 The affinity unique units are way too strong and cost too little hammers compared to normal units. This is just crazy. A no brainer that these need toned way down.

#13 Purity is too strong compared to the other affinities. The teir 1 ability is by far the best and battle suits are stronger as well as easier to field because titanium is always abundant.

#14 Siege worms are way too strong and random. They are currently like random natural disasters. Isn't this a strategy game and not a roll of the dice type of game?

#15 The health system needs to be entirely revamped. Going negative health currently barely has any negative side effects. There should be steeper growth penalties for going negative. Going past -10 should be very bad.

#16 There needs to be some benefits of going tall. Currently the strategy every single game is to make as many cities as possible, land grab and get up trade routes. This is not strategy, it's the same thing every time regardless of your terrain. There should be some buildings that give you more science for having more citizens in your city or something similar to that. Going tall currently has zero advantages what so ever.

#17 Africa is total crap because the ability is void as soon as you go negative in health. Most of the game is spent in negative health. Africa needs reworked.

#18 Knowledge's first virtue is crap for the same reason that Africa is crap. It is void as soon as you go negative health. This needs reworked.

#19 Settling on a desert should not completely nerf your city. Settling on a hill should not give you less food and hammers total than plains or grassland. Come one. Make hills 2 food 3 hammers or something.

This is all that I can think of for now. Making these changes would greatly, drastically improved the game.

 

[Iduakil]

I agree with most of what you said but I`d like to add my 2 cents.

#4 Moving free settler further down the tree isn`t in my opinion the way to go. Current position of this virtue in my taste is perfect. The problem with Prosperity is that this tree overall is so strong. I suggest toning down other virtue`s but leave first tier unchanged.

#5 Option to disable Stations should be available. But the rest of your suggestion doesn`t reach to me. Stations are to easy to just raze atm. I`d suggest to actually buff their deffence a bit.

#6 I think you are overreacting. Rivers in CBE aren`t rivers like they were in one of the older versions in Civ5 before nerf hammer. Rivers are just few energy per turn, nothing gamebreaking or balancebreaking. There are other ways to get more energy , I look at you Industry virtues and Thorium reactors.

#14 I don`t get this hate towards Siege Worms. The are slow, they are predictable, they are easy to kill ...

#17 I think you meant African Sponsor

 

[blacai]

#14 Surround a siege Worm with 3 units and he will not move. You can kill it just with a range unit.

 

[Bezurn]

Wait... so you complain that health needs to be fixed to have meaning and then complain about various factions and virtues being crap because no one is ever healthy that these abilities are never useful.

#15 The health system needs to be entirely revamped. Going negative health currently barely has any negative side effects. There should be steeper growth penalties for going negative. Going past -10 should be very bad.

#17 Brasilia is total crap because the ability is void as soon as you go negative in health. Most of the game is spent in negative health. Brasilia needs reworked.

#18 Knowledge's first virtue is crap for the same reason that Brasilia is crap. It is void as soon as you go negative health. This needs reworked.

So once they make more negative effects for going wide by increasing the health penalty and decreasing the effects of internal trade routes, the issues 17 and 18 would be not as bad. I do think Brasillia does need a better UA though.

In addition there are random elements in the game, such as map generation and resource, resource placement, and damage done in combat. I've never lost a unit to a seige worm, they are very easy to deal with outside of your borders. Build a ultrasonic fence if they are pillaging your lands.

Here is my short list of annoying things I'd like fixed

• City screen
  • A city cannot be told to focus on a specific yield while also have citizens locked to certain tiles.
  • When the build queue ia city is building a development project (wealth, science, ect), in order to tell the city to build any unit/building/wonder, the "Show Queue" box needs to be unchecked. I should be able to assign it a new item to replace the current development project.
  • Citizen tile circles need to have a toggle, right now they are too large and make your yields harder to see. Decreasing their size would be good in addition / alternatively
• Unit Management
  • Wait Command - Previous versions had a wait command, this is useful if you wish to move other units nearby and cycle back to this unit. There are work arounds using (.) (,) but it would be nice to carry over the same functionality as previous iterations of the franchise
  • Workers do not have the "Fortify until fully healed" command when inside a city.
  • Some keybinds for trade units would be nice (Bring up trade list), (Change City)
• Diplomacy
  • After killing a station leaders will call you up and let you know about it. over and over and over again.
  • No easy way to see which AI is at war with whom. Would be nice to know which AI's are trading with certain stations, but this can be found out with some scouting.
  • Favors need some work, cannot cash in if an AI gets made at you, favors should be able to gain positive relations in case of misteps on your part. Their value is subject to how the AI feels about you. I have seen some absurd deals asking me for many things for just one favor.
• Misc
  • Pillage land will play the pillage sfx at times whenever the tile gains focus on the screen, doesn't seem to happen every time however. Will try to isolate and duplicate.
  • Civlopedia could use some polish and additional information to show full yields of all buildings, improvements and resources. Perhaps building quests rewards should be shown once the user has completed the quest once.

 

[soprof]

I agree with OP on almost everything.

I had the same feeling after a dozen of hours

The problem with Prosperity is that this tree overall is so strong. I suggest toning down other virtue`s but leave first tier unchanged.

Nah, you're probably wrong. Only first tier is needed in Prosperity, the rest is irrelevant 'cos of "-100 health" gaming.

 

[Lanth]

Wait... so you complain that health needs to be fixed to have meaning and then complain about various factions and virtues being crap because no one is ever healthy that these abilities are never useful.

The point is, going negative is a slap by a wet bus ticket, *unless* you voluntarily choose options that makes it worse for you. These are silly choices to make, effectively making them non-choices that are inferior to other choices. There's really no reason to choose African sponsor when the others actually have true bonuses.

 

[Gort]

Thing is, Barre's bonus of +10% growth would be rubbish even if it didn't say "only when healthy".

Here's an example of how it works:

Your empire is healthy and has a city producing a surplus of 2 food. The city grows as though it has a surplus of 2.2 food instead.

That's really underwhelming even if it worked while you were unhealthy. It might shave a turn or two off growth here or there, but even then population isn't the game-winner it was in Civ 5, trade-routes are. The yields population gives you are dwarfed by trade yields.

Hutama's two extra trade routes are far more of a powerful growth tool than Barre's bonus (since you can get food out of trade routes) and they work even if you're unhealthy.

 

[ShaggyCan]

I'm just sitting here hoping Thal comes out of the shadows with a Communitas-like mod to fix everything, so that Firaxis can basically take 90% of it and put it in the game then probably not pay or thank him in any way.

The game is totally fixable though, and runs rock solid on my machine, so I'll keep playing and hopefully we'll get some patches.

 

[Kutuzov]

You might have more success bringing your points to the developers' attention in the thread they created for us and stickied at the top of the page.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=537545

 

[Lanth]

Thing is, Barre's bonus of +10% growth would be rubbish even if it didn't say "only when healthy".

Here's an example of how it works:

Your empire is healthy and has a city producing a surplus of 2 food. The city grows as though it has a surplus of 2.2 food instead.

Right, so even if you had a food metropolis that had a surplus of 50, you'd get an extra +5 food. A single internal trade-route can easily yield +6 or +7 food...

 

[Manannan]

#1 I dunno that it's THAT strong, but yes, I would like to see this gone.

#2 Yea, this gets out of control with a human being in control.

#3 Seriously. Nerf the stupidly op ones and put them on a more reliable timer. Reliance on RNG makes for bad games.

#4A Or just buff up the other trees to do the things they're supposed to do, god knows they haven't had issue making seemingly everything else in the game stupidly op. I mean, that I don't notice a real difference in my tech/virtue timings with or without the knowledge tree is pretty atrocious to say the least.

#4B Mostly agree, but engineers are pretty legit. The extra production can be worth it over the extra culture for getting everything rolling early. At least get rid of the extra health from artists though.

#5 For the love of goat, yes.

#6 Eh, whatever. That's like saying "make sure players don't start in tundra every time"; you deal with the dirt you're dealt.

#7 Yes please. I get that they're supposed to be neutral to the player at the start, but come on; my workers are never in danger unless I'm wandering them right next to a nest I didn't know was there.

#8 Well, I wouldn't say tectonic scanner is op given that it takes so few turns to research the tech to see titanium (and you're going to get it on your way to autoplants anyway), but yes, waaaaaay too many hammers.

#9 God yes. 80 free production? Seriously? That's what, the cost of a worker? There's a reason why workers/settlers didn't pop from goodie huts in CiV beyond the noobie difficulty levels.

#10 Dead horse has been beaten into the ground, but yes.

#11 This is annoying, but please don't fix this before fixing everything else; between not needing a military most games and getting way too much production way too easily this isn't a big deal at the moment.

#12 Eh, what? I dunno about that. Kinda the point of the game to go after those silly strong special units. I don't see taking away the best toys making the game more fun.

#13 Seriously. You've been hearing that purity lvl1 explorers are OP for how long and you haven't nerfed them? And in what reality was making the strongest lvl4 affinity unit require generally pretty easy to amass titanium, while the weaker ones required far more limited firaxite or xenomass a good idea?

#14 If the less scary aliens would actually do their job and harass my colony I would agree, but as is I'd rather see the wurms get buffed. They just kinda wander around near my colonies and never really do anything most games.

#15 Dead horse again, but also yes again.

#16 While I agree, I find the issue more that you can go wide AND tall in every game with no downside. At no point in any game do I ever think about stopping growth in my satellite cities because health is so incredibly meaningless. And again, if the knowledge tree did what it was supposed to and actually functioned as the "hey pick me if you're going tall stupid" tree this wouldn't be such an issue.

#17 *void when you realize ranged combat still means easy wins against the AI

#18 Whole tree is crap period. Waste virtues on 1 extra science and culture for every 4 citizens, OR I can go into the tree that lets me spam more cities to make up that science and culture twofold in no time. Less of a penalty to research/virtue costs for more cities, completely ignoring the fact that my tech times are still nil because my science is gonna go through the roof with more cities and be aided by spies regardless of the increased cost, and frankly after you finish getting the important virtues in the prosperity tree culture is meaningless.

#19 Meh, as long as internal trade routes are broken I give zero hoots about this

 

[CraigMak]

I agree with most of what you said but I`d like to add my 2 cents.

#4 Moving free settler further down the tree isn`t in my opinion the way to go. Current position of this virtue in my taste is perfect. The problem with Prosperity is that this tree overall is so strong. I suggest toning down other virtue`s but leave first tier unchanged.

#5 Option to disable Stations should be available. But the rest of your suggestion doesn`t reach to me. Stations are to easy to just raze atm. I`d suggest to actually buff their deffence a bit.

#6 I think you are overreacting. Rivers in CBE aren`t rivers like they were in one of the older versions in Civ5 before nerf hammer. Rivers are just few energy per turn, nothing gamebreaking or balancebreaking. There are other ways to get more energy , I look at you Industry virtues and Thorium reactors.

#14 I don`t get this hate towards Siege Worms. The are slow, they are predictable, they are easy to kill ...

#17 I think you meant African Sponsor

Stations are a terrible mechanic as they are. I have had several games where my first settler is moving to a nice location and one pops up right there. This means that all the settler's travel time is wasted. Also, If I wan to take the spot I now must waste time making high hammer cost units to take it out early in the game. No, this is bad. It slows you down massively and is pure luck.

Gold from rivers imbalances the game massively. If one player has a river and the other player doesn't they are at a huge disadvantage. BNW getting rid of river/water gold was a huge step in the right direction for actual balance.

Siege worms are a crazy luck based hindrance that are not easily killed. I have had games where there was more than one of theses stupid things rolling around pillaging my territory with my units engaged in battle. Bad, game design with regard to a strategy game.

Yes, I meant Africa, my bad.

 

[CraigMak]

Wait... so you complain that health needs to be fixed to have meaning and then complain about various factions and virtues being crap because no one is ever healthy that these abilities are never useful.

Yes, I realized that solving one problem on this list would drastically improve another. However the list is for current problems and not theoretically what if all this was actually fixed.

Right now their ability is very bad even when you're healthy it's marginal. Just like grabbing the 10% growth pantheon in Civ 5 was really weak.