I'm so Glad the Slide is Gone

[r_rolo1]

I don't miss the slider, but the current situation in civ V of no slider + no research overflow makes this civ interaction the more MM inducing in this part of the game since civ II atleast...

I sincerily hope they really put research overflow or the slider ( most likely the first ... the second does not bode well with the rest of the game ) in civ V just to avoid the extremely unfun show of seeing 95% or a turn's worth in research going to the drain just because you had the bad luck of missing some beakers to the full tech in the previous turn :/

 

[vincentz]

No, you couldn't automate it because it wasn't always correct to emphasize tech to exactly the point of minimum positive tax income. Granted, the central pillar supporting every iteration of Civ has been "research or die" and subsequently the slider spends 90% of its time maxing out beakers, but that doesn't mean the other 10% is inconsequential. The ability to max out income is crucial to waging war sometimes, and in CIV-BtS pumping up espionage was occasionally useful as well. Even when keeping it at near-max reserch, there was still always a question of "should I play it safe at +2 coins/turn, or push for that tech one turn sooner with a -1 coin/turn deficit, or even -5 coins for two turns sooner?" How do you automate that?

Good point. My personal feeling of Civ5 was that all I had to do was hit enter. There were no longer any empire management left. I like to do micro management. Thats why I liked the civ series. Every small thing you remove about management is a downgrade IMO. I really thought they were going to add the ideas of RevDCM. Instead they removed 10-15 management tools, making it a very dull game. If TakeTwo want streamlining, I hope another company will take up empire management in the name of Civilization.

It's more like the other < 1% of the time. Maxing income is almost never important waging war in Civ IV if you've planned even marginally well. Maxing espionage might have been ok if espionage mattered (or was less annoying), but frankly I've never found myself saying "Man, if only I had a bit more espionage." The only time my science slider was less than max is once I hit the crucial techs for a culture victory, I'd disable science for culture. Stagnating for extended periods of time in order to win a culture victory is not something I miss.

Thats a shame. When Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette went for the cultural victory they seemed to have lots of decadent fun. (atleast untill they lost their heads )

 

[Windsor]

I miss the slider a bit. Science from commerce seems better than science from food. The Civ4 economy worked well, the Civ5-economy is deeply flawed.

 

[Eskel]

I have found a new system very user un-friendly. For example, f you have gold deficit, you must in each city change working tile allocation to gain additional income. It is dull, tiring, and non-sensical micromangement.

Moreover, you cannot set two (or more) preferred outcomes, as was in previous civ games. City auto-governor can focus only on one aim.

The game loses on its fluency and precision. Please bring sliders back!!! (among other features)

 

[Dun Malg]

The only time my science slider was less than max is once I hit the crucial techs for a culture victory, I'd disable science for culture.

What can I say? My play style wasn't like that. Unfortunately, it sounds to me like you're saying that since your play style with the slider could be adequately reproduced with two lines of C++ {while(TaxIncome > 0) slider--; slider++;} that arguments for wanting that control are invalid. I've had 100% tax buy me just enough defense to save my bacon from surprise attacks many times. Your way would simply have me lose the game for lack of recourse. Why not remove other choices as well? Heck, let's take 'em all away and make the game one single coin toss! (...and reductio ad absurdum for the win!)

 

[Drawmeus]

What can I say? My play style wasn't like that. Unfortunately, it sounds to me like you're saying that since your play style with the slider could be adequately reproduced with two lines of C++ {while(TaxIncome > 0) slider--; slider++;} that arguments for wanting that control are invalid. I've had 100% tax buy me just enough defense to save my bacon from surprise attacks many times. Your way would simply have me lose the game for lack of recourse. Why not remove other choices as well? Heck, let's take 'em all away and make the game one single coin toss! (...and reductio ad absurdum for the win!)

Your "reductio" is actually the slippery slope fallacy, but nice try

I honestly did not know that ANYONE was making use of that thing. Focused science is so clearly the best bet almost always that you pretty much can win on any difficulty without doing anything else.

 

[r_rolo1]

I honestly did not know that ANYONE was making use of that thing. Focused science is so clearly the best bet almost always that you pretty much can win on any difficulty without doing anything else.

You really need to dig deeper A lot of of the better civ IV players use the slider at 0% science in most of the games as a system. Just check games by acidsatyr or obsolete Both played in high levels BTW ( Imm/deity )

 

[Drawmeus]

You really need to dig deeper A lot of of the better civ IV players use the slider at 0% science in most of the games as a system. Just check games by acidsatyr or obsolete Both played in high levels BTW ( Imm/deity )

This comment is not exactly selling me on the compelling nature of the slider... even if it's true, it sounds even cheesier than I thought it was (when I thought it was just pointless).

Honestly, though, if they want to put that kind of decision-making in the game, a % slider is a pretty terrible way to do it. It's a poor design, imo. I can see the desire for that kind of influence over your empire, but I'd go with something totally different.

 

[jjkrause84]

How would you, personally, represent an empire's national budget?

 

[r_rolo1]

@Drawmeus

I am not trying to convince you of the necessity of a slider ( my position on the subject is seeable in the first post of this page ). I was just pointing you of a error in you post.

I also agree that there are methods better than the slider for this kind of tuning, but a slider is probably better than nothing for some functions.

 

[Abegweit]

You really need to dig deeper A lot of of the better civ IV players use the slider at 0% science in most of the games as a system. Just check games by acidsatyr or obsolete Both played in high levels BTW ( Imm/deity )

How do you play Civ4 with the slider at zero? It could be done in 3 but surely in 4 you need to research Writing at the very minimum.

 

[r_rolo1]

How do you play Civ4 with the slider at zero? It could be done in 3 but surely in 4 you need to research Writing at the very minimum.

Well, not necessarily ... ok, he teched some early stuff, but I'm pretty sure he could had skipped that as well. And this was in vanilla. In BtS it would have been even easier.

 

[KahunaGod]

I REALLY REALLY REALLY dont understand this thread. Why are you even concerned about science and culture and checking cities. Its completely irrelevant to beating the AI at any difficulty. Its kind of the opposite of "cant see the forest due to the trees". Now you havent figured out there isnt a forest cuz you cant get around one little tree.

Wether or not CiV is better/worse without the slider makes no difference, as nothing you could "slide" have any freakin impact in the game in any way.

Moderator Action: Swearing removed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Roxlimn]

r_rolo1:

The example is invalid because it was played at Monarch and as we know, "anything works on Monarch."

 

[r_rolo1]

r_rolo1:

The example is invalid because it was played at Monarch and as we know, "anything works on Monarch."

Well, not everything But most of the crazy stuff works up to monarch in civ IV, I reckon ...

Not that is any kind of argument about what I was talking about. The poster I was responding to was asking how could you play with the slider @ 0% science in civ IV without even getting Writing. My example is fair game for that

 

[Maxor127]

I liked the slider. Having no control over science, gold, or happiness is what's dumb. It was a simple but powerful tool that accurately reflected real taxation. And it made for a more dynamic game.

 

[Egnarts]

The slider is an example of a streamlined gameplay feature. I didn't mind it in civ4 and every previous civ game. I think civ5 does well without it as well.

I do find it amusing though, as does the OP, that this is a feature of civ4 (and previous civs) that people don't seem to be prepared to admit was a streamlined mechanic.

It is a bit debatable, and there are in fact some subtleties with the slider system that newbies couldn't appreciate, but on the whole it was fairly simple to use, very quick and efficient for its task.

Civ5 makes its economy as streamlined as possible not via a slider, but through making all the calculations as transparent as possible. For example, the number of beakers you see in the corner is the exact number of beakers put towards the tech each turn. A lot of people might not know this, but in civ4, there were modifiers applied to the beakers after the amount shown in the top left of the screen. For example, if multiple of your rivals knew the tech you were researching, you accumulated beakers towards the tech a bit faster. Also, not that it made much of a difference, but you always got a minimum of 1 beaker towards a tech each turn, even if it displayed 0 beakers in the corner of the screen.

I find it quite amusing how you can make it sound like "streamlining" features is a good thing. It isnt allways. Just because something is slicker or easier to grasp does not make it better. In this case it's just alot more shallow. Heck, they did the same to diplomacy, and to the point where it's completely irrelevant. Do I care if i sell my resource to guy1 or guy2? Not really. I think diplomacy and the other "streamlined" features in this game is for the people that have an attention span of a five year old. That's probably why they've got the new "awesome" gfx, to help you get distracted from the features that should matter but doesn't.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

I REALLY REALLY REALLY dont understand this thread. Why are you even concerned about science and culture and checking cities. Its completely irrelevant to beating the AI at any difficulty. Its kind of the opposite of "cant see the forest due to the trees". Now you havent figured out there isnt a forest cuz you cant get around one little tree.

Wether or not CiV is better/worse without the slider makes no difference, as nothing you could "slide" have any freakin impact in the game in any way.

Moderator Action: Swearing removed.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I beg to differ with KahunaGod. Sometimes you need gold; sometimes you need production in a city; sometimes you need to research a technology as soon as possible. Sometimes you need a concerted effort from all your cities, or as many as can be taken out of doing other things, in order to achieve something.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I find it quite amusing how you can make it sound like "streamlining" features is a good thing. It isnt allways. Just because something is slicker or easier to grasp does not make it better. In this case it's just alot more shallow. Heck, they did the same to diplomacy, and to the point where it's completely irrelevant. Do I care if i sell my resource to guy1 or guy2? Not really. I think diplomacy and the other "streamlined" features in this game is for the people that have an attention span of a five year old. That's probably why they've got the new "awesome" gfx, to help you get distracted from the features that should matter but doesn't.

In what way is diplomacy in civ5 streamlined? Is it because you don't like how it works?

 

[Jediron]

I never found the slider compelling, since just setting it to the max science your empire could support was pretty much always correct. Might as well have automated it.

I disagree. Maybe it workes well on lower levels, but on higher levels like emperor you could better LOWER your science research, building up cash and make soe war here and there to get "free techs" from the AI players. Then, at the right moment, you switched to more science research. This strategy works way better when done right.

So no, your one fits all solution isn't valid at all in all cases. There are better strategies to follow.

Diplo in CIV 5 is streamlined while you cannot trade tech anymore. That's one good example.