Info on Next Patch

[PawelS]

I think the point is to enforce a 'natural' playstyle. In the same way that some shooters disallow firing sniper rifles that aren't aimed or make freejumping impossible they are attempting to make 'double ninja backflipping' impossible.

To clarify, 'double ninja backflipping' is playing in a counter-intuitive way in order to pump a mechanic way past its intended role. 'Natural' skillful playing would involve making a series of solid, rational decisions with an overarching goal. 'Backflipping' is usually very mechanical and flies in the face of what the game mechanics are intended to express.

Examples of what I mean by Double Ninja Backflipping:

• Inducing anarchy to avoid paying city upkeep in Civ4(I read this on a Deity strategy somewhere, I've since forgotten)
  
• Purposefully maximizing overflow on walls to get extra money with stone+protective(Also Civ4)
  
• Deliberately maximizing overflow on a tech with a high research modifier(Civ4 again)
  
• Staying level 1 on purpose to exploit the level scaling(Oblivion, others.)
  
• Severe ICS(Civ5)
  
• Ignore happiness(Civ5)
  
• Blowing yourself up with a grenade to 'jump'(various)
  
• Building nothing but builder units and upgrading them to fight(Company of Heroes)
  
• Getting a large number of your men killed so that medics replace them with more powerful men(Also Company of Heroes)

These are things that, if you take the game at face value, appear to be blatantly irrational behavior. However, due to unforeseen blind-spots in the game mechanics, they are actually quite effective.

I know this is a controversial opinion, but I like it when game designers target these tricks and make them suboptimal. I know most 'hardcore' gamers don't agree with me, but games should reward solid understanding of the mechanics and skillful, conservative play. They should not reward the person who is the best at exploiting whatever the most powerful exploit happens to be.

TL;DR: Mechanics shouldn't be able to be used in ways that circumvent/defy what the mechanic is intended to express.

I can't agree more

 

[biohazard72]

AlpsStranger - I would normally agree, but removing interesting options is not the way here. I don't care what they intended, but the mechanic is not currently broken beyond repair and the game will be less fun with the changes.

 

[ohioastronomy]

I think the point is to enforce a 'natural' playstyle. In the same way that some shooters disallow firing sniper rifles that aren't aimed or make freejumping impossible they are attempting to make 'double ninja backflipping' impossible.

To clarify, 'double ninja backflipping' is playing in a counter-intuitive way in order to pump a mechanic way past its intended role. 'Natural' skillful playing would involve making a series of solid, rational decisions with an overarching goal. 'Backflipping' is usually very mechanical and flies in the face of what the game mechanics are intended to express.

Examples of what I mean by Double Ninja Backflipping:

• Inducing anarchy to avoid paying city upkeep in Civ4(I read this on a Deity strategy somewhere, I've since forgotten)
  
• Purposefully maximizing overflow on walls to get extra money with stone+protective(Also Civ4)
  
• Deliberately maximizing overflow on a tech with a high research modifier(Civ4 again)
  
• Staying level 1 on purpose to exploit the level scaling(Oblivion, others.)
  
• Severe ICS(Civ5)
  
• Ignore happiness(Civ5)
  
• Blowing yourself up with a grenade to 'jump'(various)
  
• Building nothing but builder units and upgrading them to fight(Company of Heroes)
  
• Getting a large number of your men killed so that medics replace them with more powerful men(Also Company of Heroes)

These are things that, if you take the game at face value, appear to be blatantly irrational behavior. However, due to unforeseen blind-spots in the game mechanics, they are actually quite effective.

I know this is a controversial opinion, but I like it when game designers target these tricks and make them suboptimal. I know most 'hardcore' gamers don't agree with me, but games should reward solid understanding of the mechanics and skillful, conservative play. They should not reward the person who is the best at exploiting whatever the most powerful exploit happens to be.

TL;DR: Mechanics shouldn't be able to be used in ways that circumvent/defy what the mechanic is intended to express.

I don't have a problem per se with closing odd pathways. But this game is in desperate need of fun and options. They badly need to open some things up - speed up buildings, for example, or speed up growth of big cities, or boost tile yields. Instead it ends up just leaving people with even fewer choices, and the results can even be the opposite of what they intend. Adding some of these in at the same time that they close down other things would generate a very different reaction.

I think that some really micro-intensive and annoying approaches will be developed in response to the social policy changes, as one example.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I don't have a problem per se with closing odd pathways. But this game is in desperate need of fun and options. They badly need to open some things up - speed up buildings, for example, or speed up growth of big cities, or boost tile yields. Instead it ends up just leaving people with even fewer choices, and the results can even be the opposite of what they intend. Adding some of these in at the same time that they close down other things would generate a very different reaction.

I think that some really micro-intensive and annoying approaches will be developed in response to the social policy changes, as one example.

Very true. I'm sure there *will* be some annoying strategy where you build your first monument after the T.V. is invented, but these odd pathways do need to be closed.

What we need are some legitimate pathways to add depth.

My sincere suggestion to Firaxis is to keep doing stuff like this, but also provide a free mini-expansion that adds a mechanic or two to replace the depth that is lost. Personally, I'd opt for a 'mechanics only' mini expansion that adds sorely needed interest to the 'wheat' and 'cows' types of resources.

So yes, the game is sorely in need of depth. That depth should not be gained through unnatural exploits, but rather through actual additions to the game.

 

[smellymummy]

firaxis should of just approached it with how can make the AI do what the player is doing, instead of the other way around. it's really not that hard to come up with rules and conditions for the AI to save up culture and delay buying policies.

 

[AlpsStranger]

firaxis should of just approached it with how can make the AI do what the player is doing, instead of the other way around. it's really not that hard to come up with rules and conditions for the AI to save up culture and delay buying policies.

I actually like the idea of not being able to 'store' social policies even without factoring in the AI. It just doesn't flow naturally. Did you store a box of culture in the back room and just happen to break it out hundreds of years later?

 

[Aboikos]

Who want to understand me already did it or will do soon.

In my country as DNA we refer to the " core " of a structure, beside the biologic meaning of that word.

I didn't want to be on the right side of the discussion, I just told which is my opinion and just stated that you should reserve the right to think at this post after the the next patch will be released.

Is it so diffucult thinking on 3 dimensions considering also the time within ideas ?

I think it's easy

I understand gunter completely: diplomacy is so messed up to begin with, there is no amount of patching that will fix it. It will be like writing an all new game. It's not going to happen.

That is a perfectly sain statement, founded in an opinion about the game. I can ruin any of your (you know who you are) arguments very quickly by asking you to get overly specific: well, but which 1s and what 0s should be changed? If you can't answer that... I can't take you seriously then.

Talk about pathetic.

trolls


PS: I love you.

 

[smellymummy]

i know what you're saying, but consider that most players have adapted to that way of playing, and now it's being changed 180. if say for example they would check for stuff like an AI has a lot of coastal cities, and make the AI save up for commerce, it would give the AI a really nice boost as opposed to the AI taking tradition, liberty, honor, etc.

 

[lschnarch]

Me too. The worst idea you can put into a civ game is to tie anything to a game date or even era.

Like allowing for new SP's?

Anyway, I am really wondering about what they have in mind with the magical food suppliers.

As far as I see it, there are only some options:
1) Cut the food rate per receiver city
2) Cut the number of possible receivers
3) Enhance the costs for being friend/ally

ad 1) At the current state, maritime CS give you 2/1 when friends and 4/2 when allies.
You have to pay 250 gold for 30 influence, degrading at an average of 1/turn (no modifiers taken into account).
Which means, 1 influence costs you 8.33 gold/turn. Simultaneously, this 1 influence means 2 food*# of cities. As you need 5 TP's to finance this 1 influence, the snowball effect starts at +5 (ICS) cities.

But cutting the food rate per receiver city means that mariime cities would become almost meaningless when only being friends. This is important especially in the early game, because then it would hurt the ICS approach as well as any other approach being based on good relations with maritime CS.
Even cutting the food under allied conditions (say from 4/2 to 3/1) will hurt the non-ICS approach, as this will make it hard for the few small cities to grow.

Anything which doesn't adress the x/2-part under allied conditions will still allow ICS.

So, I don't see how any change here could fundamentally change anything for the better.

ad 2) Reducing the number of receivers
Currently, with the same investment you get literally unlimited food. More cities > more food in total delivered.
Now, if the food delivery would be cut to only the 6 biggest cities in your empire, this would still allow city growth for small empires, and simultaneously slow down the tech rate of ICS.
It won't make ICS impossible, but it will slow it down.

Nevertheless, since science is in a 1:1 relation to population, ICS will still be possible.
The maritime feeded 6 cities will maintain trading posts to pay for the external food, while the small ICS cities will maintain farms to grow to size 4.
Meritocracy + FP will make any size 4 city a net provider of happiness. Thus, the core cities don't need happiness buildings (except for one or two initial ones to spped up things)

ad 3) enhance the costs of bribery
This I don't see happen as otherwise the small empire's approach would become unviable. And it would seperate the maritime CS from the other two.

So, most likely they are going for (2).
Which in turn means: you need to have space for even more ICS cities. Thus, Thou shalt conquer and raze.
Razing cities now is additionally advantegous, as you can make use of the already availble farms, which you need anyway. You just don't have to change them anymore to trading posts as you would've done before.

Seems like we are getting finally a nice little game based on genocide. Well done.

 

[AlpsStranger]

most players have adapted to that way of playing, and now it's being changed

Honestly... too bad. That's really the only answer I have to that. I don't mean that in a hostile way, it's just that your logic would prevent any substantial improvement to the game.

 

[AlpsStranger]

science is in a 1:1 relation to population,

This is the biggest thing that needs to change. A size 25 city should produce several hundred times as much base research as a size 1 city. I'm surprised I haven't seen more people call for this.

 

[smellymummy]

Honestly... too bad. That's really the only answer I have to that. I don't mean that in a hostile way, it's just that your logic would prevent any substantial improvement to the game.

well yes thats fine if you feel like that but I'm just pointing out the way things are. it is a complete different way, even though i was pointing out earlier in the thread that 1) the AI can't do this and 2) its apparent that this was the original design (buy policy no) just by observing the lua, and 3) this is why this change is happening

and my logic is always for improvements, when i clearly posted that firaxis should make the AI build up some data for future policies instead of only checking the here and now when buying a policy. commerce example again, but on an archipelago map, the AI should always go for the extra hammer boost

 

[dlk]

Most of the posting as to the new patch deals with cosmetics or brush strokes.....Many players have had the canvas stolen. THIS GAME CRASHES IN THE LATTER STAGES for many of us. Is there going to be a fix for THAT????????? I haven't played for 3 weeks because it is a waste of my time to play for umpteen hours and have everthing freeze.

 

[eviltypeguy]

Maybe Firaxis should consider improving the AI so it CAN do some of these things?

I know, I know -- it's a radical notion. Actually adding things to the game, instead of taking out yet more things. I'm sure Firaxis never even considered the possibility.

You mean like the free Mongol DLC? Or what about the ability to sell buildings? What about the new preferences / options for controlling workers?

Oh right, those must all be imaginary *additions*

 

[eviltypeguy]

The gaming market and civ franchise may never be the same and many true fans have been left in the dust but yes lets all forget and move on. Are you too lazy to care about "the big picture" or too selfish to concern yourself with your brothers?

Way to go insulting other forum members

But seriously, just because someone doesn't agree with your viewpoint doesn't mean they're not a true fan which is what you are strongly implying.

"true fan" is such flamebait, I don't even know where to start.

 

[Pouakai]

You mean like the free Mongol DLC? Or what about the ability to sell buildings? What about the new preferences / options for controlling workers?

Oh right, those must all be imaginary *additions*

Yeah, the 8 gold you get for selling a building is so worth it.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

Are there any changes in the upcoming patch change log which will help stop early game, runaway AIs? Everytime I've play CiV so far, a few AIs completely (or almost completely) wipe out several other AIs by the Middle Ages. I play on a continents map and by the time I discover the "other" continent, one or two AIs are huge; while 8 or 9 AIs are either completely destroyed or down to just one or two cities.

I like to play with 16 civs on a large map. But before mid-game, there are usually only two or three super civs left. I expect some AI civs to be gone or down to just a couple of cities by mid-game; but not most. Does the upcoming patch show any hope of solving this problem? Because of this problem, I've never gotten past the middle ages without quitting my campaign. In Civ IV BtS, the industrial era was my favourite part of a campaign.

 

[Montov]

Yeah, the 8 gold you get for selling a building is so worth it.

No. The 1-4 gold per turn you save in maintenance is worth it. It even makes buildings like Barracks, Walls, Stable and Castle more attractive (still underpowered but it helps).
Luckily selling a building is not profitable.

 

[Montov]

Are there any changes in the upcoming patch change log which will help stop early game, runaway AIs? Everytime I've play CiV so far, a few AIs completely (or almost completely) wipe out several other AIs by the Middle Ages. I play on a continents map and by the time I discover the "other" continent, one or two AIs are huge; while 8 or 9 AIs are either completely destroyed or down to just one or two cities.

I like to play with 16 civs on a large map. But before mid-game, there are usually only two or three super civs left. I expect some AI civs to be gone or down to just a couple of cities by mid-game; but not most. Does the upcoming patch show any hope of solving this problem? Because of this problem, I've never gotten past the middle ages without quitting my campaign. In Civ IV BtS, the industrial era was my favourite part of a campaign.

If the AI wouldn't do it, the industrial era would be too easy. Normally you'll be dominant on your own continent, and you need a few worthy AI's in stead of 8-10 small AI's ready to defeat one at a time.

 

[Marshall Thomas]

If the AI wouldn't do it, the industrial era would be too easy. Normally you'll be dominant on your own continent, and you need a few worthy AI's in stead of 8-10 small AI's ready to defeat one at a time.

I aggree, but it's a question of degree. I don't usually like having 25+ cities. It makes decisions for each city less meaningful. But when a couple of civs (out of 16) blob up to 25+ cities, I need to go on a huge conquering spree just to compete. I want some AI civs to be bigger than others; but not the largest having almost 30 cities and then several smaller civs either having two cities left or none at all.