Info on Upcoming Patches from Jon Shafer

[Guardian_PL]

He says they can't cheat and purchase Research Agreements, but half of the time a CPU Civ is offering me a research Agreement, their trade window clearly shows their Gold amount as being well below the cost of the Trade Agreement!

...That's because the sum for RA is substracted from the gold you both have. So it'll have like 43gold with 250gold RA on the offer. If you'd be to reject that you'd see sth like 293 of gold.

 

[SuperJay]

American slang? Wow, I have only ever heard it used by British actors and the Brits in this forum (and those of us infected with it by them )

So I thought is was British slang ... if not, then I am serously out of touch?

Edit: from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot-on

"Spot-on is also British slang meaning "just so" or "exactly right".[1]"

Whew! I feel relieved ...

dV

My bad! I shouldn't have said "American." Weird. I've heard it used by enough Americans that it never occurred to me that it's originally a British expression.

 

[HeavyTwenty]

He says they can't cheat and purchase Research Agreements, but half of the time a CPU Civ is offering me a research Agreement, their trade window clearly shows their Gold amount as being well below the cost of the Trade Agreement!

The gold amount in the trade window already has the 200-300 gold subtracted because of the Trade Research... if you click the trade research to take it off the negotiation window, I believe the gold is refunded.

 

[ByblosHex]

Oh, I see. So they're getting a sudden 250-300 Gold when they had 0 gold and -22 per turn the previous turn. Anybody know how I can get Gold like that without cheating?

 

[SuperJay]

Anybody know how I can get Gold like that without cheating?

Become a lead designer at Firaxis, apparently? ZING!!

I'm totally kidding, Shafer. We're still cool, you and I.

 

[Conspirator]

Perhaps they did some sort of deal with another Civ and came up with a windfall?

 

[dcm21]

Any news on hot seat?!?! I am dieing for some hotseat I mean I like the game i just want to play with my family and friends I don't see why it's so hard to release a small hotseat fix I guess there just planing on screwing there fans that like hotseat because no mention of it at all very disappointed

 

[Guardian_PL]

Oh, I see. So they're getting a sudden 250-300 Gold when they had 0 gold and -22 per turn the previous turn. Anybody know how I can get Gold like that without cheating?

- sell a resource to another civ for ~300gold
- fail to build a wonder and get a gold instead (can be several at the same time)
- conquer a city
- sell Open Borders to another civ, take a loan, and disband a bunch of your units (like ten workers)
- demand money from another civ
- sign peace treaty on good conditions (gold/gpt/luxuries etc)

I'm sure there's more, these are just off the top of my head.

 

[zonk]

Can someone help me out -- what exactly are the UI issues?

I know there have been some complaints about missing info/missing that/can't find this -- but the UI isn't the issue.

I suppose UI issues are generally easier to resolve -- whatever they are -- than AI issues.... but why is time being wasted on the UI when even V defenders readily admit the AI is a near complete disaster?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Can someone help me out -- what exactly are the UI issues?

Stuff like multiple clicks and fiddling required to set up city build queues (compared to Civ4). Diplomacy screens being a mess, all text with no graphical representations (compared to Civ4). Demographics being a mess, with no graphical representations (compared to Civ4). City info boxes having extremely limited info (compared to Civ4). Advisor screens having limited info (compared to Civ4). Stuff like that.

 

[da_Vinci]

About the UI ... am I the only one who thinks that those green "coin heads" just add clutter to the city view? I think I would rather have the subtle white circles we had in Civ 4 (and circles fit hexes even better than squares! ). Have the circle color change to indicate a locked assignment if you like that part of it.

dV

 

[r_rolo1]

No, you aren't. I promissed my self that I would mod them to be semi-transparent until hovered , but I've been too lazy to check if that is feasible on lua and XML alone :/

 

[Bad Brett]

About the UI ... am I the only one who thinks that those green "coin heads" just add clutter to the city view? I think I would rather have the subtle white circles we had in Civ 4 (and circles fit hexes even better than squares! ). Have the circle color change to indicate a locked assignment if you like that part of it.

dV

My favourite is when you enter city view with tile yield on... There's _no_ way to see which tiles are being worked without expanding that right box...

 

[SlothMD]

- sell a resource to another civ for ~300gold
- fail to build a wonder and get a gold instead (can be several at the same time)
- conquer a city
- sell Open Borders to another civ, take a loan, and disband a bunch of your units (like ten workers)
- demand money from another civ
- sign peace treaty on good conditions (gold/gpt/luxuries etc)

I'm sure there's more, these are just off the top of my head.

Whack some barb camps.

 

[photophor]

Thanks for the post. Great news and I'm one of the 'silent majority' who likes the game a lot.

That makes at least two of us. Any more?

 

[r_rolo1]

A slient majority of 2 players that posted that they belonged to the silent majority ... sorry couldn't resist

 

[eviltypeguy]

You do realize that every Blizzard game has had 'drastic' balance changes constantly because their games actually have a level of competition that has elevated them to become a professional e-sport? They're balancing around intense top-end gameplay examination for 3 very different races. Civ 5 doesn't even have to handle half that pressure and it's having issues.

You do realise that has always been true for Blizzard long before they had a professional e-sport level of competition for their games?

You'll have to come up with a better excuse than that.

 

[Achilleslastand]

I usually just click the "small user interface" option. The UI has got console written all over it.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I really don't see this game translating well to a console. Then again, Civ games generally translate poorly (ever play Civ2 on PSX?). Anything's possible, but I'm not sure that interface would be the best evidence of whether or not this is true. Generally, one wants the best influence possible and it's been an advertised design decision since Civ4 to keep as much info on the main screen as possible (Civ4 didn't even have a city screen until late into development when tested started calling for one).

 

[Asylumer]

You do realise that has always been true for Blizzard long before they had a professional e-sport level of competition for their games?

You'll have to come up with a better excuse than that.

Perhaps you should have read that with more care.

You do realize that every Blizzard game has had 'drastic' balance changes constantly because their games actually have a level of competition that has elevated them to become a professional e-sport? They're balancing around intense top-end gameplay examination for 3 very different races.

Blizzard got their games to e-sport status because of the effort they put into balancing their games for player competition. It isn't entirely fair to compare Starcraft with Civilization due to different game styles, but to suggest that Blizzard's constant balance changes are a sign of failure is laughable. Any other developer would have stopped caring about their product and went to create the next money milker. The level of effort Blizzard gives their games is commendable and should be an industry standard.