Is Civ5 really more simple than Civ4?

[tom2050]

The designers have stated that the AI will be more influenced by the player's behavior rather than any specific statusses or policies or governement types. Things like number and type of units build, stationing units close to the border, probably also willingness to research and trade. Because let's face it, despite all the moaning about Katherine, the player was always the worst backstabber of all in Civ4, and the only one to whom no diplomatic rules applied at all.

The massive and glaring problem with this that was ignored by Firaxis so they could instead put in big leader pictures is that although AI may react to the player, the player can in no way react to the AI because all you can still do is: trade ore for gold, or gift an iron, gift a science unit, make a treaty.

There is no diplomacy still, nothing dynamic. Instead of wasting so much time on a big graphic and foreign speech which no one will care to understand, making a dynamic and ever-changing diplomacy model would be something that would actually impact gameplay. There are literally countless ways to add something like this in, and it could easily be modded to included thousands of more.

It could be to the point of where, no 2 epic games would ever play out the same way, given the vast possibilities such a system could yield.

 

[bjbrains]

Well, if tech trading would have been a flawed system, in which way would research treaties be better?

As far as I see it, the one would be as "flawed" as the other.

I'm not saying that research treaties are some "magic solution", but they are inherently more balanced than tech trades. Research treaties require two things that tech trades did not: Start-up costs (via gold), and a maintained peaceful relationship with the other civ. You'll still be able to cooperate with other civs, but now you're actually going to have to be *cooperating* with them (at least for the # of terms the research treaty lasts). The gold cost also prevents too much spam, and makes gold more relevant (again).

 

[Louis XXIV]

You'd argue that throughout the history of mankind, teaching others has never occured in between nations? Trading tech is an abstracted way of dealing with it, it's not a literal (as nothing in the game is).

I wouldn't argue that. Then again, I feel research pacts work just as well (and seem a touch more realistic, especially if they keep the research boost for being in contact with neighbors who already have that tech).

Okay, so now that Civ 5 has no tech trading... now we can add tech trading to the list of Civilization Horrible Things: tech trading, stacks, unit counts, and something else ridiculous.

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I've never heard a complaint on tech trading before. Now suddenly (and magically), tech trading is some horrible thing that is unrealistic and just a horrible feature (because Civ 5 does not have it).

I've heard scores of people complain over the years. Over time, they've started to convince me. Don't get me wrong, it is a big change and one I have to get used to, but I do think it's one that is possible to get used to. I've certainly built both singleplayer and multiplayer diplomacy around the concept of tech trading. It's a big difference to bring things down to strategic and economic needs in the present.

If Civ 5 did have tech trading, tech trading wouldn't be the horrible feature though, it would still be great (for some reason)

Well, it wouldn't be a praised feature, it'll just be something everybody would most likely accept without comment (aside from the people who didn't like it in the past).

 

[bjbrains]

The massive and glaring problem with this that was ignored by Firaxis so they could instead put in big leader pictures is that although AI may react to the player, the player can in no way react to the AI because all you can still do is: trade ore for gold, or gift an iron, gift a science unit, make a treaty.

There is no diplomacy still, nothing dynamic. Instead of wasting so much time on a big graphic and foreign speech which no one will care to understand, making a dynamic and ever-changing diplomacy model would be something that would actually impact gameplay. There are literally countless ways to add something like this in, and it could easily be modded to included thousands of more.

That isn't true at all. Based on what Firaxis has said:
1: The AI now reacts to actions such as unit placement, aggressive expansion, unit buildups, etc. The AI isn't as passive as it was in Civ 4
2: City States can cause diplomatic rivalries (since only one civ can reap the benefits from being allied with a city state), and will be firestarters for wars (since you don't automatically go to war if another civ invades a friendly city state, and there are obvious incentives for conquering a developed city)
3: Research treaties provide a more interesting tension than tech trades, since they aren't free, and they can be broken via war.
4: The AIs now have more definite personalities, with areas that each leader favors above others. Civ 4 had this to some extent, but it doesn't go far enough to truly differentiate each leader.
5: The AI is now actually willing to buy/sell cities, and strategic resources have uses beyond the first one. More basis for interaction.

 

[YoHo]

I would think that the most realistic method for technology transfer would be via trade. After All Marco Polo didn't trek to Asia to discover fireworks. He went for trade purposes.

so to me that should be tied to trade. Technology could also be a diplomatic thing, but the fundamental mechanism throughout history is trade.

 

[Louis XXIV]

There also seems to be non-transactional contact as well (according to some Firaxis comments). For instance, if you settle near their border, they will express displeasure and you can assure them that it was a mistake. If you then settle a second city near their border, they will know that you were lying to them and certainly won't trust you (and might instead declare war).

 

[YoHo]

Namely, I know this has been proclaimed weird before/nobody else on the forums ever seems to agree, but I'd rather place some more significant limitations, via in-game mechanics, on foreign relations decisions. The short story is, I think, any attempts in previous civ games where a "democracy" would not want to go to war or something, angered players, so this was all removed from the game. But I'd really enjoy, to discuss in civ4 terms, a system where trade profits, happiness of your citizens, and so on would be actually influenced by relations with neighbors. As it is, nobody really ever cares if an AI is "Friendly" if you want to kill them or raze their cities or whatnot, and more importantly, as a human player, no such statuses even exist for you or your people. Anyway, static bonuses which persisted over larger amounts of time would work well with this - basically, if doable in civ4 maybe a new Propaganda civic category and few other changes could be close. But they only just barely touched on this idea with changing the UN/AP in civ4, and I doubt any such ideas will make a return - we'll be forever in the days of backstabbing "friendly" civs willy-nilly

(Interesting story, which I give credit to many involved, but on the entire other end of the spectrum, people have done a lot of work with civ4 AI's that want to "win the game." As in, just like a human, the AI will completely ignore any actual diplomacy like "pleased" or "friendly" and just attack to stop your space or cultural win or whatever. And for those who enjoy this, it's great they were able to do so, anyway I know I am in the small minority with any ideas to go the other way)

I actually like this idea.

I always thought the notion of Democracies ending the war and having to maneuver the situation such that you could even declare war to be far more realistic and interesting.


I'm also somewhat surprised people thing Civics shouldn't be an influence on relations. In the real world, are we not in a war right now that is at least in part due to different religions and different politics?
Did we not have a Cold War over differences in politics?

The problem I see is that, at least in Civ 4. Diplomatic victory is near impossible (and really, why would any competitor vote to lose? And Cultural victory leads to war.

Perhaps City States will affect this since they are not playing to win.

 

[Celevin]

Namely, I know this has been proclaimed weird before/nobody else on the forums ever seems to agree, but I'd rather place some more significant limitations, via in-game mechanics, on foreign relations decisions. The short story is, I think, any attempts in previous civ games where a "democracy" would not want to go to war or something, angered players, so this was all removed from the game. But I'd really enjoy, to discuss in civ4 terms, a system where trade profits, happiness of your citizens, and so on would be actually influenced by relations with neighbors. As it is, nobody really ever cares if an AI is "Friendly" if you want to kill them or raze their cities or whatnot, and more importantly, as a human player, no such statuses even exist for you or your people. Anyway, static bonuses which persisted over larger amounts of time would work well with this - basically, if doable in civ4 maybe a new Propaganda civic category and few other changes could be close. But they only just barely touched on this idea with changing the UN/AP in civ4, and I doubt any such ideas will make a return - we'll be forever in the days of backstabbing "friendly" civs willy-nilly

I think you should try out the Hearts of Iron series. In it, you cannot outright declare war on another country. Instead you must convince your citizens that they're evildoers who must be destroyed, using propaganda, adjusting your staff, and changing your political views such that your population wants the other country's blood. I didn't play it too much, and a lot of this is off of memory, but you might see some stuff in the game that you'll fall in love with.

Sorry, if Civ 5 did not have Research Treaties, but had an improved tech trading; then none of the current talk of 'The horrible tech trading' would exist.

I hated tech trading in Civ4, and I hated that diplomacy felt empty without it. It's an abomination that leads to too quick of changes in tech levels between players. It dominates all forms of trade. Half the time I had it turned off. Don't lump people together with this argument, it looks bad on you and derails threads.

Trade should be about things over time, resources, science over time, and such. Not raw techs as currency.


I don't like research agreements though. It sounds clunky in that I will want to keep it active 24/7, but I have to constantly be re-activating it. No "cooldown" or "timed" ability in any game should be this way. If they act in this manner, they should just be passive, which brings me to my main point

I explained how I think techs should just "bleed" over time. That is, everyone who you have open borders with gets 2% of your research towards the exact same tech you're researching (even if they're unable to currently research it). It's a better system than these research agreements, and actually represents reality more as people using the open borders to travel between different countries benefit from each other more. It would solve the "exploration dilemma" that Earthling brought up, and it would really STING to lose open borders with a high-science country, like it should. Finally, and almost most importantly, is it helps bring the underdogs closer at a controlled rate with the further someone is behind, the faster they catch up.

And with no gold->science conversion, there should also be a science threat in the same manner as there is a gold threat. You give x% of your science to the person who's threatening you. It would give something more to give to a country that you want to make peace with. It would also help production war-like civs keep up in the science war if they have wussy neighbours.


Maybe I'll get back into programming through Civ modding.

 

[Commander Bello]

I'm not saying that research treaties are some "magic solution", but they are inherently more balanced than tech trades. Research treaties require two things that tech trades did not: Start-up costs (via gold), and a maintained peaceful relationship with the other civ. You'll still be able to cooperate with other civs, but now you're actually going to have to be *cooperating* with them (at least for the # of terms the research treaty lasts). The gold cost also prevents too much spam, and makes gold more relevant (again).

The only difference which I see is the ex ante approach for the research treaty and the ex post approach for the tech trading?
If I want to trade techs, I have to have had at least some kind of peaceful relationship with that other civ in the past.
If I want to have research treaties, I have to keep it in the future.

In both cases I have to pay gold.

And last, except for the last 60 years or so, research treaties were not that common, to say the least.
What was common, though, was trade itself and by this trade, the spreading of news and scientific discoveries. In these terms the tech trade is the much better abstraction of what was going on for the most time in world history.

I wouldn't argue that. Then again, I feel research pacts work just as well (and seem a touch more realistic, especially if they keep the research boost for being in contact with neighbors who already have that tech).

See above.

I've heard scores of people complain over the years. Over time, they've started to convince me. Don't get me wrong, it is a big change and one I have to get used to, but I do think it's one that is possible to get used to. I've certainly built both singleplayer and multiplayer diplomacy around the concept of tech trading. It's a big difference to bring things down to strategic and economic needs in the present.



Well, it wouldn't be a praised feature, it'll just be something everybody would most likely accept without comment (aside from the people who didn't like it in the past).

 

[bjbrains]

The only difference which I see is the ex ante approach for the research treaty and the ex post approach for the tech trading?
If I want to trade techs, I have to have had at least some kind of peaceful relationship with that other civ in the past.
If I want to have research treaties, I have to keep it in the future.

In both cases I have to pay gold.

And last, except for the last 60 years or so, research treaties were not that common, to say the least.
What was common, though, was trade itself and by this trade, the spreading of news and scientific discoveries. In these terms the tech trade is the much better abstraction of what was going on for the most time in world history.

You don't generally have to pay gold in civ 4 for tech trades (maybe a small amount if the AI doesn't quite like the trade), while you have to pay gold up front for research treaties. That is, even if the treaty only lasts for 1/10th of its duration, you're still out the gold. It makes it a lot more risky.
I disagree that tech trades are a better abstraction. Europe didn't 'trade techs' with the middle east, rather it was a slow bleed of ideas as a result of trade. Research treaties aren't perfect either, but they fit better than "You instantly now know all the secrets of metalworking", or "you now have figured out how to build and pilot boats" system of civ 4.

 

[Aramel]

The only difference which I see is the ex ante approach for the research treaty and the ex post approach for the tech trading?
If I want to trade techs, I have to have had at least some kind of peaceful relationship with that other civ in the past.
If I want to have research treaties, I have to keep it in the future.

In both cases I have to pay gold.

And last, except for the last 60 years or so, research treaties were not that common, to say the least.
What was common, though, was trade itself and by this trade, the spreading of news and scientific discoveries. In these terms the tech trade is the much better abstraction of what was going on for the most time in world history.

But with tech trading, you could really get something out of nothing; you could trade alphabet for currency, iron working, and literature, then trade iron working and currency for drama, and so on. The same will not be true of research treaties. Not to mention that research treaties will not involve me researching techs I don't want because the AI doesn't have them.

 

[Hafnia]

But with tech trading, you could really get something out of nothing; you could trade alphabet for currency, iron working, and literature, then trade iron working and currency for drama, and so on. The same will not be true of research treaties. Not to mention that research treaties will not involve me researching techs I don't want because the AI doesn't have them.

This was what annoyed me the most about the Civ4 system. The whoever-gets-to-sell-it-first system which allowed people to gain 6 techs in a trade for one was just silly.

I much prefer the research treaty system. If it could be coupled with some sort of catch-up system (Like the 'price' of the tech going down by 5% for every other Civ that has the tech), it would be my dream tech system.

 

[Earthling]

I think you should try out the Hearts of Iron series. In it, you cannot outright declare war on another country. Instead you must convince your citizens that they're evildoers who must be destroyed, using propaganda, adjusting your staff, and changing your political views such that your population wants the other country's blood. I didn't play it too much, and a lot of this is off of memory, but you might see some stuff in the game that you'll fall in love with.

Yes, I know of a lot of series with systems like this, Europa Universalis too, generally it's classified as "casus belli." So I could summarize that to start I would not be opposed at all to have casus belli in civ5, but since that only deals with warfare, I think there should be a bit more to peacetime interaction/trade in a similar way too. I'm not for always trying to say civ should copy something from a specific other game series - in this case though it's really that the civ franchise is the odd man out among many strategy games.

To comment on some things - I think tom ought to be fair in recognizing there have been many complaints about tech trading, in fact in civ4, going into BtS, they introduced a whole new (and horrible, horrible, horrible to me) option. "No Tech Brokering" was introduced for players who hated how the AI played/traded a certain way. This isn't exactly the same discussion as in civ5 - but compared to some other things (science/gold and barbarians or whatever, I agree it's interesting how some new takes on civ5 are at this point) there was always legitimate concerns over tech in previous games too.

Fundamentally, I do think research pacts may serve some of the same purposes. Certainly some of the more exploitive or ridiculous situations are gone - but civ4 could have fixed these things within its system too (Remove the AI's weirdness around vassal states and tech whoring, for instance). So I'll try to be optimistic here - the thing I'm worried about is flexibility, that research pacts may only really work with a neighbor or one or two other civs, and then the player has no incentive to do anything but ignore others (You've rightly addressed this too).

As for civ modding - I don't know if I'm boring Celevin or not, but I've always, always loved the concept of technology "bleeding" through other ways as well. What I'm working on in civ4 terms, which I actually think could suit rather well, is splitting up "directed research" in the ancient/classical/medieval eras - about through education or printing press in the tree. (For the record, this isn't the same as other directed research changes - if you are familiar with some mods here, having non direct research means you invest in tech but you don't choose which tech, it kinda randomly results in one as a breakthrough - that's too far off from the base civ model though, but there are some cool mods with it)

But back to civ4 - what I would actually do is make tech dependent on the commerce slider - find a way to separate commerce here (I really don't mod all the stuff I think all the time due to more amateur programming skills too) - split to bleed over between all civs. But then - the dynamic part - tech from specialists and lightbulbing specifically, ONLY goes to your own civilization. I think this could also go an awful long way to reducing other weird brokenness and exploits with specialists and Great People being necessary at higher levels (altering Rep and some world wonders for instance, and maybe giving better choices on what to bulb, rather than basically having to bulb down the specific great scientist paths). So through the ancient ages specialists represented the real directed efforts of your civ, rather than just general increasing tech levels as a whole, which is what the commerce slider beakers will do bleeding across all civs. Add in some new preferences for the AI to focus more on monopolies in its tech (or move tech trading a little later in the classical era too) and anyway, that's another thing I'd try in a mod. And by industrial/modern times most players are used to AI reluctance to trade anyway, having to focus there own techs a bit more, the bulbing game and so on is less of a problem too.

So unfortunately I've not actually heard if they have any "bleeding" in civ5, but yes, I'd be fully onboard for that too.

 

[Celevin]

I also hope research pacts cost a lot of gold and give a large bonus to consider. I want to actually have to put consideration into doing it, like if I have enough gold to do it, or want to benefit the com. It should be very powerful, very expensive, and fairly short. I don't want it so cheap that it becomes a passive thing that I need to look at every 30 odd turns.

 

[Calouste]

This was what annoyed me the most about the Civ4 system. The whoever-gets-to-sell-it-first system which allowed people to gain 6 techs in a trade for one was just silly.

I much prefer the research treaty system. If it could be coupled with some sort of catch-up system (Like the 'price' of the tech going down by 5% for every other Civ that has the tech), it would be my dream tech system.

There is too emphasis in Civ4 on the benefit for just being the first to a certain tech (trading it, founding religions, free great persons, free tech) rather than being the first to be able to properly use the new buildings, units, improvements etc that come with that specific tech. Most higher level games shown on these forums simply seem to revolve around winning the race to Liberalism. I'd also be happy to see tech-bulbing, GM trade missions (i.e. instant army upgrades) and instant wonderbuilding with GEs gone. More medium term planning and less instant effects.

The catch-up system is already in Civ4, so it could well stay in Civ5.

 

[Calouste]

I also hope research pacts cost a lot of gold and give a large bonus to consider. I want to actually have to put consideration into doing it, like if I have enough gold to do it, or want to benefit the com. It should be very powerful, very expensive, and fairly short. I don't want it so cheap that it becomes a passive thing that I need to look at every 30 odd turns.

150 apparently, which is a whole lotta moollah in the early game. Sp you need to find a civ that also has a bunch of gold, that you are friendly with, that has the prerequisites and that is also looking to research that tech at that point in time.

 

[White Elk]

Is Civ5 really more simple than Civ4?

Who knows at this point. But one thing is already clear...
The purchasing of Civ4 was a great deal more simple that Civ5!

 

[Aramel]

Is Civ5 really more simple than Civ4?

Who knows at this point. But one thing is already clear...
The purchasing of Civ4 was a great deal more simple that Civ5!

Nah I had to go to a store to purchase Civ4.

 

[Celevin]

So unfortunately I've not actually heard if they have any "bleeding" in civ5, but yes, I'd be fully onboard for that too.

I think it would be a simple mod. It just requires some new effects into open borders, or some others type. It would be harder to do if you only wanted part of your science affected.

We should look into this after Civ5 comes out. Then again this is the ultimate speculation - Already talking about modding a particular part before the game's even out due to reasons of not liking it

 

[White Elk]

Nah I had to go to a store to purchase Civ4.

I didn't. I pre-ordered and it was delivered to my door. ;~p

If I was still going to buy Civ5, I'd be having to check all the various swag pack options at all the different vendor points. And I'd be facing that tough decision to buy through CFC and support the forums, or just grab the swag and forget you all Actually, paying that kind of money for insignificant mods wouldn't have appealed to me anyway. That would have narrowed the choice.