Info on Next Patch

[PaperBeetle]

That's all very well if there is only one human per game, I imagine once you deviate from that being able to control the 'rules' is much more important.
Oh, you already can rename cities .

I was being sarcastic. I know you can already rename the cities. You can also currently store up culture if you want to. That's why we don't need it made into an option at startup.

Your point about multiplayer is valid, and the issue also has a bearing on metagame competitions like HoF and GotM, although in those last two examples all that is required is for the competition staff to rule on whether players may or not store culture.

 

[Renergy]

they could make pre-reqs for later policies, like honor-autocracy, commerce-order, liberty-freedom. probably need to buff up autocracy however to make it worthwhile, especially in light of everything you must give up to get it. same for piety.

Piety is actually very strong, though I've found out only recently. Especially Theocracy - single largest boost in happiness from policies, in my experience. Organized religion - very powerful, if you adopt it before the first "natural" GA. Free religion doesn't require any comment.

Agree on autocracy though, I actually used it just once to test it, sacrificing freedom is too high a price for me.

 

[Txurce]

But some people - many people, actually - DO save large portions of gold for periods far beyond what's realistic for purchasing/upgrading of certain things. Yes, units aren't individuals and do evolve over time, but they don't evolve over time in Civ. We've all had warriors sitting around for hundreds, thousands of years who later on we say "oh, I'll just upgrade this guy." In Civ, a unit goes from X to Y to Z in single, one turn gold fueled bursts, and oftentimes they'll go from X to Z directly, or even more extremely W to Z. Are they all exploiters too? Of course not - the things they're doing are just a parts of Civ.

These examples could all be given the "oh, they're not immersive" treatment but, frankly, they largely aren't, and few of the examples I cited are considered exploits. Many of them deserve to be judged by exactly the same standard you guys are holding against SP storing, but they aren't. Go figure, they're just part of Civ.

You mention "]I don’t think anyone saves all their gold from the start of the game – you spend it, make more, rinse and repeat" as if this exonerates the game of giving you the ability to do just that. Well, guess what - people DO save gold for extended, totally unrealistic periods of time. What's more, the fact that people are saving "gold" in periods before currency was even invented, saving it for hundreds of years, and then using it to instantly buy items in their cities... Sorry, at this point, you've already thrown reality/immersion out the window. But, it's been given a free pass because it makes sense from a gameplay perspective and there's some sort of historical phenomenon which is being hugely altered to suit the purposes of the game.

So why are we picking SP saving to be the one that "ruins immersion" and is an "exploit"? Why not prehistorical gold saving and building buying? Why not units that don't evolve over time but get instant upgrades? Why not bearskin wearing warriors being an effective garrison in an industrial aged city?

I've given a historical case for SP storing and you've even admitted there is some sense to it. SP storing - or, cultural storing, whatever you want to call it - has some reference to an actual historical phenomenon. It's a stretch to imagine it implemented as is, but as should be clearly evident from many of the examples given, the game is full of similar stretches that require similar suspensions of disbelief. Why are we picking on SP storing? Why is it an exploit, why does it ruin immersion, etc, and why not the above things? If held to the same standard, they should be. Obviously, they're not being held to the same standard.

Oh, and, just for the record:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=399722

This is a poll for how people actually use stored culture. You'll see the people who save it all from the get-go are quite the small minority.

Gold is a symbol in real life – an equivalent - and in the game as well. In 4000 BC “gold is some object of value, since early on there was no currency as we know it. For the developers to change the name as time passes would be a little anal, don’t you think? Soon after they are founded, civs make gold and spend gold on maintenance. That most players are always in the plus column doesn’t mean there’s a gold piece from 2000 BC sitting in Fort Knox.

Outdated units suddenly being modernized – one turn at a time, not in jumps like you said – due to a gold infusion is actually quite common. Look at the Yemeni armed forces today, courtesy of the USA. Same goes for a desert culture suddenly being skyscraper central. Look at Abu Dhabi.

I agreed that there was some sense to an ancient foundation occasionally having a sudden cultural impact many centuries later. I added that this isn’t remotely similar to the equivalent of upgrading a warrior to a GDR in one turn… which is what saving all your SP’s until late in the game resembles.

That said, there’s no reason you should agree with the notion that saving SP’s is an exploit. For you, clearly it’s not. For me, it was so screamingly outside the realm of what was intended that I never even considered saving them. This is even before people started to exploit the system, which then led to the developers addressing it.

 

[phantomkp]

So why are we picking SP saving to be the one that "ruins immersion" and is an "exploit"?

Probably for the same reason the game doesnt allow you to save up beakers and buy cannons without ever having to have trebuchets at some point in your civilization's evolution...while it would be fun gameplay for some people who want to do that...the game forces you evolve tech rather than shoot pass because it offers SOME base of strategic gameplay in a game ALL ABOUT evolving a civilization.

Otherwise its just gamers doing whatever they can to shoot to the end before the AI has a chance to go from crawling to walking.

Unless you feel the game SHOULD allow players to save up beakers and research nukes before any other previous military tech...then we should just agree to disagree on how a Civ game should be approached. You feel gamers should be allowed to slingshot with science and social policies, I dont.

I've given a historical case for SP storing and you've even admitted there is some sense to it.

Ok, but....SP storing gives you the ability to move your civlization from a prehistoric, orderless, socially inept society to an advanced industrial age social policy society in one turn.

That is rediculous. Its way more rediculous for a game that is all about cultivating a civilization through its evolution than it is upgrading a pikeman to a rifleman in one turn. Its not on the same scale at all. Unit upgrade is basically saying, hey, my civilization has evolved with research...i now know how to make guns...im gonna take those men with spears and give them the new guns we learned how to make. Ta Da. Its not THAT much of an immersion breaker.

BEing able to go from a huge civilization that never had any kind of social structure or policy but suddenly be FULLY advanced with every Industrial Age social policy wisdom??

Come on, man...i know you see the difference

This is a poll for how people actually use stored culture. You'll see the people who save it all from the get-go are quite the small minority.

Well then, if barely no one saves culture...then why are we discussing this? No need to make it an option to save culture if hardly anyone exploits it

I would have been happy if they just made a culture cap...say, you cant earn more culture after you have enough to adopt 2 social policies...thus, people who want to save up some culture to bypass earlier ones (but who dont over exploit and save up a bunch to slingshot to the end)...can do it SOME.

But i would guess people would still complain about being limited...So whats the diff? I dont want to quibble on whats an acceptable amount a gamer should be able to save up culture and what previous social policies they can ignore before just becoming an advanced social policy society...everyone is gonna have a different number.

Just dont let people save up culture. Most people save up culture and slingshot more than they should in a game like this.

 

[phantomkp]

Your point about multiplayer is valid, and the issue also has a bearing on metagame competitions like HoF and GotM, although in those last two examples all that is required is for the competition staff to rule on whether players may or not store culture.

This being the case proves that culture storing can be considered an exploit when playing a single player game against the AI.

If its a potentially gamebreaking feature when playing other human gamers...that means human gamers use it to "game the system" in single player.

Which means its a potential exploit that at the very least needs to be curbed...like all other potential exploits are in Civ games.

 

[Arsenic Steel]

Just mod the game to have all SPs unlocked at the start. I preferred saving SPs over that mod because saving SPs felt like my civ was advancing and picking how it advanced by passing over lesser policies.
Was there a leap in SPs at some point? Yes. Just like how I acquired many different civics and only changed them in bunches of 3 or more and not one at a time.
Now with this patch I will just have everything unlocked and access w/e SP I want in any era.

 

[ohioastronomy]

"Thing I don't like" doesn't equal "exploit". First off, this was a feature designed specifically into the original released game - e.g. right click to dismiss - so the word is just plain wrong. Call it overpowered, whatever, but it wasn't some obscure loophole.

Playing the game that way means that you're penalized for timing culture wrong. What you're completely missing - or refusing to address - is that by taking a policy early you're making others exponentially more expensive or completely out of reach. So, unlike other areas of the game, the three policies that I took early because I had too many monuments *permanently* lock me out of the later game policies. That's why people are annoyed about the social policies thing but less concerned about the unit promotions.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Actually, You can still do some "ICS" and have "Happy cities"
With particular policies
Collusem+Theater+Stadium +12 Happy in a city of 12 pop

If that city is a Theocracy, then you have
+12 Happy (Buildings) +9.6 Unhappy(pop) +2 Unhappy (city)
=.4 happy


If you have Freedom, a Colluseum and a 4 specialist city
Colluseum =+4
4 Specialists=-2
City=-2
Balanced... More if you have a Theater and more than 4 Specialists.


also this works well for India, and the Capital (Legalism)



Also best solution to culture would be to make it like Techs... you don't have a "culture bank" you have a certain amount of culture that is being invested into your next policy.

 

[AfterShafter]

Probably for the same reason the game doesnt allow you to save up beakers and buy cannons without ever having to have trebuchets at some point in your civilization's evolution...while it would be fun gameplay for some people who want to do that...the game forces you evolve tech rather than shoot pass because it offers SOME base of strategic gameplay in a game ALL ABOUT evolving a civilization.

Otherwise its just gamers doing whatever they can to shoot to the end before the AI has a chance to go from crawling to walking.

Unless you feel the game SHOULD allow players to save up beakers and research nukes before any other previous military tech...then we should just agree to disagree on how a Civ game should be approached. You feel gamers should be allowed to slingshot with science and social policies, I dont.Ok, but....SP storing gives you the ability to move your civlization from a prehistoric, orderless, socially inept society to an advanced industrial age social policy society in one turn.

That is rediculous. Its way more rediculous for a game that is all about cultivating a civilization through its evolution than it is upgrading a pikeman to a rifleman in one turn. Its not on the same scale at all. Unit upgrade is basically saying, hey, my civilization has evolved with research...i now know how to make guns...im gonna take those men with spears and give them the new guns we learned how to make. Ta Da. Its not THAT much of an immersion breaker.

BEing able to go from a huge civilization that never had any kind of social structure or policy but suddenly be FULLY advanced with every Industrial Age social policy wisdom??

Come on, man...i know you see the difference

Ok, you repeatedly say how this game is ALL ABOUT the evolution of a civilization and you're pretty blatantly saying that social policy storing totally ruins this impression, saying that "BEing able to go from a huge civilization that never had any kind of social structure or policy but suddenly be FULLY advanced with every Industrial Age social policy wisdom??" pointing out how ridiculous that is. Then you go on to give the example of upgrading a single warrior to a pikeman...

But that's not what Civ lets you do. Civ doesn't just let you upgrade a warrior to a pikeman. It lets you upgrade a warrior to a mechanized infantry, and it lets you do every single warrior in your empire at the same time, keeping upgrades earned from thousands of years before. Of course if you cherry pick a single minuscule example it makes social policy storing look ridiculous in comparison - but that's not representing it as it actually is. And you are not.

And I'll say it again - you're holding policy storing to a different standard than these other systems. Based on what you're saying here, I can only guess it's because you refuse to see the big picture and pretend like unit upgrading only allows for direct linear upgrading, or that only a few units can be upgraded at a time, when in reality you'll find yourself in instances of having archaic units garrisoning modern cities which you decide to instantly upgrade them through thousands of years of technology because you feel you need them in a war. You pretend like this isn't a part of Civilization and then go on about how social policy storing ruins immersion - utterly disingenuous argument on your part! If you want to consider unit upgrading, consider how it works in a more broad scope than an extremely limited example you've chosen just to suit your case.

Should I let pass the fact that you completely ignored my examples concerning great person storing? That, like mass scale unit upgrading, is a HUGE blow to immersion by the standards you're holding SP storing to. Should I let pass that you completely ignore 6 thousand year old economies which have perfect fidelity for gold storage - that my example of conquistador gold funding the current Spanish military is something you DON'T consider breaking immersion? That you seem just fine with Ben Franklin being born in 2000 BC and helping construct the Sistine Chapel in 500 AD because the player decided to leave him sitting in Tokyo for 2500 years? I cannot say this more emphatically - you're holding SP storing to a different standard than you're holding existing in game systems. To add to that, you're looking at small elements of existing in game systems and ignoring the grand implementation of it to support your case.

Well then, if barely no one saves culture...then why are we discussing this? No need to make it an option to save culture if hardly anyone exploits it

I would have been happy if they just made a culture cap...say, you cant earn more culture after you have enough to adopt 2 social policies...thus, people who want to save up some culture to bypass earlier ones (but who dont over exploit and save up a bunch to slingshot to the end)...can do it SOME.

But i would guess people would still complain about being limited...So whats the diff? I dont want to quibble on whats an acceptable amount a gamer should be able to save up culture and what previous social policies they can ignore before just becoming an advanced social policy society...everyone is gonna have a different number.

Just dont let people save up culture. Most people save up culture and slingshot more than they should in a game like this.

I didn't say barely anyone saves culture... I said barely anyone saves it ALL from the get-go. I certainly don't - I tried it once, found it not worth the loss of all those early benefits, and now I instantly adopt a vast majority of the time but save up so I can dump 2 or 3 into commerce immediately. Check the poll - you'll see most people chose the "I sometimes save culture for a short time" option.

And please, don't tell me about "should." Who the heck are you to tell me how I SHOULD use an in-game mechanic which the devs have decided - quite explicitly with this patch - is OK to keep? You got your option - great for you. Do NOT pretend like it's an exploit to use in-game features that the devs have decided are worth keeping as is, which they did with this patch. Again, if I were to be so arrogant to hold unit upgrading, great person storing, and unrealistic gold storing, I could point a pretty firm finger in your direction and call you an exploiter, say you happily "game the system," and say you're happy endorsing systems that throw immersion down the toiler. Frankly, I'm not arrogant enough to make those claims, because they're in game systems that obviously aren't absolutely realistic, and they're just part of the game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Actually, You can still do some "ICS" and have "Happy cities"
With particular policies
Collusem+Theater+Stadium +12 Happy in a city of 12 pop

If that city is a Theocracy, then you have
+12 Happy (Buildings) +9.6 Unhappy(pop) +2 Unhappy (city)
=.4 happy


If you have Freedom, a Colluseum and a 4 specialist city
Colluseum =+4
4 Specialists=-2
City=-2
Balanced... More if you have a Theater and more than 4 Specialists.

But you still have to grow the cities. If you can put the time and effort into having size 12 cities with the minimal distance between them, you deserve to do well. The point isn't that all tightly packed cities are bad, it's that small cities tightly packed together are better than large cities spread out and that needed to change.

 

[Baleur]

Actually, You can still do some "ICS" and have "Happy cities"
With particular policies
Collusem+Theater+Stadium +12 Happy in a city of 12 pop

If that city is a Theocracy, then you have
+12 Happy (Buildings) +9.6 Unhappy(pop) +2 Unhappy (city)
=.4 happy


If you have Freedom, a Colluseum and a 4 specialist city
Colluseum =+4
4 Specialists=-2
City=-2
Balanced... More if you have a Theater and more than 4 Specialists.


also this works well for India, and the Capital (Legalism)



Also best solution to culture would be to make it like Techs... you don't have a "culture bank" you have a certain amount of culture that is being invested into your next policy.

This is whats wrong with the game. Its overall mechanics are so utterly simple that one can concoct a formula like this for the optimal build order / win strategy.

Sure, players did similar things with Civ4, but it was so much more complex, so much else that affected your initial strategy, forcing you to adapt.

It's all reduced to a math formula..
No emergent gameplay, no thinking on the spot, no strategy, just a formula for WIN.
Sigh :/

And people on these forums generally use the Starcraft 2 comparison, but even that is by far more complex and requiring thinking on the spot and adaptation, because even with build orders, things change rapidly due to not being turn based.

Simplifying a turn based game to this level is.... Sigh.
But thanks for the formula, without those we cant show the devs whats wrong with the entire feel (read: math) of the game.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I still think there are complications that affect this. Hostile neighbors, city-states you might encounter, barbarians, bad terrain, etc. To say that he's suddenly solved the game is wrong.

 

[cf_nz]

I was being sarcastic. I know you can already rename the cities.

I know but it was much more fun making you explain it .

P.S. nice forum Christmas theme .

 

[Luckystrike77]

I still like the idea of scarce resources, even if they are not scarce enough imo. Civ4 was ridiculous in that you can rapidly build up a city for food, production and/or gold. The consequences was being able to build everything everywhere because we got way too much resources. Too much in that it rendered fighting for resources irrelevant, as well as resource trading.

Civ5 improved that, allowing us to think better about how we want to grow (I don't do something as stupid as ICS). And to better prioritize building of units, buildings and wonders. Key resources like iron, horses and oil are still too abundant (standard start), both in locations and quantities (and from city-states) to make them that strategic.

In the end, I like the limited tile yields and wish that key resources are more scarce so we can fight over them. It's sad that some wants to play with a mod that gives them more, more and more.

Agree very much!

 

[phantomkp]

"Thing I don't like" doesn't equal "exploit". First off, this was a feature designed specifically into the original released game - e.g. right click to dismiss - so the word is just plain wrong. Call it overpowered, whatever, but it wasn't some obscure loophole.

I dunno. There are alot of "featured designs" in this game that they are fixing because they have become exploits.

So you can have a featured design and still have it be exploited and want to change it.

For example, im sure we all loved how we could take a scout and through proper exploring of ancient ruins in the early stages of the game, were able to upgrade said scout to a marine while all the other civs were barely getting archers.

Multiple upgrades to a single unit through ruins was a "featured design"...but people tend to agree it was an immersive breaking exploit, so they changed it.

As well as other unintended exploits, which include culture hoarding and SP slingshotting. Heck, they are event restructuring the tech tree to prevent gamers from slingshotting too quickly with what was its original "featured design"

game features that gamers learn to exploit to play the game other than it was intended...its called an exploit. Trust me, the devs didnt intend on players to hoard culture like that and jump through a late game social policy without ever having to explore the other ones. Thats why they changed the ability to hold of on picking a social policy right away, cause............gamers were exploiting it at the expense of intended gameplay?

Playing the game that way means that you're penalized for timing culture wrong. What you're completely missing - or refusing to address - is that by taking a policy early you're making others exponentially more expensive or completely out of reach. So, unlike other areas of the game, the three policies that I took early because I had too many monuments *permanently* lock me out of the later game policies. That's why people are annoyed about the social policies thing but less concerned about the unit promotions.

Ok, but thats a problem with how social policies are structured and doled out. There is a good argument to be made that only one policy tree is worth getting, thus wanting to save up culture points to suddenly aquire the whole tree once its unlocked.

Im saying, the answer to this problem ISNT to allow players to hoard culture points and do this...its called the devs giving in and letting gamers exploit essentially a "broken system", or at the very least a poorly constructed system.

Retool the social policy design a bit so other trees are more attractive than just one tree. Change the structure, or give players a culture cap allowing them to wait on social policy picking till they can afford 2 or 3...but not to a point they can afford 10.

But to allow culture point hoarding is the worst way to solve the problem of most of the social policy trees being unattractive to gamers.

Again i say, if thats your desired gameplay, then i should be able hoard beakers and click on "CANNON" when i have enough and not have to bother with Trebuchet research or any other military pre req research...i should have that choice right? The tech tree pre-reqs as designed now are essentially forcing players to choose a tech as they aquire a certain amount of beakers...exactly the same concept as forcing a player to pick a policy as soon as they have enough culture points.

If you are lamenting about players having the choice to bypass early social policies and save culture points purely for later ones...i dont know why you arent also demanding the devs to give players the choice on how they use their beakers. According to the pro culture hoarding argument, forcing players to spend beakers on undesirable early tech pre-reqs is ruining people's gameplay fun...?

 

[phantomkp]

Ok, you repeatedly say how this game is ALL ABOUT the evolution of a civilization and you're pretty blatantly saying that social policy storing totally ruins this impression, saying that "BEing able to go from a huge civilization that never had any kind of social structure or policy but suddenly be FULLY advanced with every Industrial Age social policy wisdom??" pointing out how ridiculous that is. Then you go on to give the example of upgrading a single warrior to a pikeman...

But that's not what Civ lets you do. Civ doesn't just let you upgrade a warrior to a pikeman. It lets you upgrade a warrior to a mechanized infantry, and it lets you do every single warrior in your empire at the same time, keeping upgrades earned from thousands of years before. Of course if you cherry pick a single minuscule example it makes social policy storing look ridiculous in comparison - but that's not representing it as it actually is. And you are not.

The difference is, there is at least some basic groundwork of evolution when you talk about spending gold to upgrade a warrior to infantry. We arent talking about promotion which requires experience, we are talking about upgrades which requires technology and manufacturing.

Yes, its a game, alot of realities are bended and stretched...but in this case you give at least you can say "ok, my civilization did years of research up the military tree, i put all the time and effort to learn how to make guns and perfect them...and ive been able to produce a set of infantry guns in my factory...now i can spend some gold to put a bunch of rifles in the hands of my warriors and make them essentially infantry"

There is some connective tissue of reality to all this at least. You did the years years of research, you finally have the money, now you can start building a mechanized army with the unmechanized warriors you once had. You travel to the New World in the 1800's, give native Americans a bunch of rifles...suddenly you have a mechanized infantry that last year were archers and axe wielders. There is SOME basic groundwork to that.

Now, if in Civ 5, you could hoard science beakers (not have to spend them on pre-req techs on the tree) and then cashed them all in at around 800 AD making each axe weilding warrior on the map a mechanized infantry soldier...without ever having to research any type of technology for over a 1,000 years to get to that point...then i would agree with you that its virtually the same as hoarding culture points. And i would hope you would agree with me that both are immersion breakers that dont belong in a game like this.

But thats not how the tech tree works and upgrading units work (thank god).

Unlike the way research works...requirements and beaker spending and using gold to upgrade units based on current technology evolution of your civilization...the way social policies work is being able to store culture points in a vault like money, and spend them like cash to suddenly be able to be a beautifully, advanced culture with complex social policies without ever having any basis of social policy understanding before that point in time

You have to be able to see the huge difference between the two.

Again, in order for me to see unit upgrading as the same rediculousness as culture hoarding..the system would have to be constructed to allow players to hoard beakers and not have to follow any kind of tech tree or pre req...simply build up beakers, put them in a vault and spend them all on tanks when you have enough. and suddenly every unit of yours on the map are now tanks.

Dont even bother needing your civilization to have researched the wheel or know what metal is!

I see the current exploit of culture point hoarding and slingshotting as basically that.

The idea of having an industrialized social policy without your civ ever having to explore any kind of social policy before that point?

totally game immersion breaking for this game in a way that unit upgrading isnt.

 

[qyll]

With the nerf to social policies, cultural victories ought to require only 4 trees completed instead of 5.

 

[AfterShafter]

Meh, done with this argument. Fact is, the devs decided that it was a viable gameplay mechanic and I'll get to continue doing what I'm doing entirely within the rules of the game. If a snob wants to call that exploiting, let him fill his boots.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

With the nerf to social policies, cultural victories ought to require only 4 trees completed instead of 5.

I don't see how any of the changes make it harder to get social policies. Oh, you mean the exploit of selling cities. Well that was an exploit. It's just becoming normal.

 

[joyous_gard]

My problem with the SP change is that social policies don't build on one another. Commerce is just a medieval SP. I could have anything before it. It's not like science where I need Archery to get to Catapulting. It's just a random SP picked by some dev. Nothing builds on it to get it. It just unlocks when medieval hits.

My point is, I should be allowed to save pink points in order to get commerce going before some of the unrelated earlier SPs.

I have given up on realism for Civ V, so I don't care if in reality a real civ wasn't allowed to store pink points before getting to medieval.