Little changes lead to Big improvements

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

As for the game state now. Civ5 main drawback is its lack of balance that makes you follow same strategy every time. I would like to make a list of features that are very easy to implement in software and that will bring Civ 5 much close to being a Civ 4 BTS Successor while keeping the new civ5 design spirit un touched.

1)Can raze buildings.
2)Repair AI peace bargaining assesment
3)Longswordsman can be available @turn 80 and will win you the game @any difficulty level. Tips: Add a tech prerequisite to steel.
4)Need a Resource screen.
5)Need an Inter AI war status screen
6) Less GPT from traded luxury resources.
7)Can't mix per turn with 1 time deals. Otherwise you just take all AI money then DOW
8)Maritime states should gift limited amout of food. Militaristic state is useless in comparision unles they own resources you want.

It takes less then an hour of programming to fix those and they can greatly improve on replay value.
Am sure you guys can come up with many more.

 

[cembandit]

AI buying unneeded luxeries needs a fix.

This gold faucet enables City state abuse.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

AI not buying unneeded luxeries.
This gold faucet enables City state abuse.

This is the biggest imbalance IMHO.

Assume a maritime states that deteriorates @1influnce per turn in Medieval age you pay her 500/75 6.6GPT. if you have only 3 cities, .86G -> 1F. that makes irrigation useless. Add to that point you mentioned above. That is, the city state will give you a resource you won;t have. This will allow you to sell your resource to an AI for avg of 280G for 30 turns. so income becomes 9.3GPT (>6.6GPT). so NOW, you get food for free AND you gain money Whipping in Civ4 is nothing in comparision

 

[BlackSpy]

I'd add

- Make capitals three or four times more powerful at self defence.
- Permanent city state war is nuts, that should be negotiable away. Maybe only if you the City State's ally or something.
- I think the Maratime food bonus should have a target city only - you pick one of your cities to get the food ever X turns or something.

 

[r_rolo1]

Your point 7) can be solved by simply enforcing a unbreakable peace treaty during the duration of the deal, BtS sytle.

 

[Aldor]

8)Maritime states should gift limited amout of food. Militaristic state is useless in comparision unles they own resources you want.

I've seen the suggestion thrown around a few times now, and tbh I don't get it. Its not like you get 10+ maritime city states in every game (even if, you'd probably be better off allying with other types of city states too)! And its not like you get that bonus for free, or right from the start...you have to work quite a bit to first get it, and then to keep it!

Food is simply too hard to come by in Civ 5 (IMO), unless you have fresh water and lots of grassland for farms around every one of your cities. So I think the food bonus from city states can stay as it is now...its fine and needs no changing.

 

[Tutkarz]

- conquered cities keep they buildings. It will possibly encourage people to dont raze city and build new at top of old one to avoid courthouse.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

I've seen the suggestion thrown around a few times now, and tbh I don't get it. Its not like you get 10+ maritime city states in every game (even if, you'd probably be better off allying with other types of city states too)! And its not like you get that bonus for free, or right from the start...you have to work quite a bit to first get it, and then to keep it!

Food is simply too hard to come by in Civ 5 (IMO), unless you have fresh water and lots of grassland for farms around every one of your cities. So I think the food bonus from city states can stay as it is now...its fine and needs no changing.

With the lack of Civ4 style granary and rapidly growing food requirement to grow (around 100F @pop10!), I can understand the idea behind maritimes. The problem is they are 2 powerfull compared to other kind of states. And the AI hardly compete for alliances so you usually get all the maritime for yourself AND for cheap. In MP, might be much more interesting. Plus, They make irrigating land kind of pointless. Ally yourself with 3 martimise and its like locking 4+ pop in every city working irrigated land. I mine most my hills, and tradepost all flat land(Fresh or not).

So either power up food bonus from irrigation and increase militaristic state benefits
or reduce maritimes food bonus.

 

[drachasor]

Maritime cities are too powerful because food is too hard to get. If food was easier to get, then maritime cities wouldn't be as big of a deal. Given how happiness works and hence the stark realities of high population, making food easier to get might be a good idea for the game too.

As for military civs, they should probably do more than give a crap unit or three. Instead they need to do things like make unit upgrades cheaper and/or decrease unit maintenance -- or some other military effect.

 

[Polycrates]

I'd be inclined to try +2 food in the capital for friends, and +2 food in the capital, +1 food elsewhere for allies, and see if that balances things out a little bit. Food is powerful, so it should still be worthwhile, just maybe not a replacement for actual farms and such.

 

[mattpilot]

The Unit maintenance modifier needs to be halfed, maybe more. "8" is way to to much. After the medieval era', you slowly go bankrupt until your in the modern area and can't afford a fraction of the units you had during the early game despite 'earning' more money.

 

[Mad Hab]

- Permanent city state war is nuts, that should be negotiable away. Maybe only if you the City State's ally or something.

Agreed. In a game I played, Sidon declared permanent war against Siam, who was at war with me. It was ok when I was at war with Siam too, but when I signed peace, Siam kept threatening Sidon, and I had to do something to defend it (!). So I placed units all around Sidon - Siam would bombard the city at will but could never take it, since my armies were neutral...

It would be way much easier for me to force Sidon to accept peace with Siam (even more because it would end up annexed if I didn't interfere).

Cheers!

Mad Hab

 

[CNightwing]

I think there are certainly many small balance issues that need addressing. Mostly with regards to tile yields, improvements, production costs, building benefits and gold costs. My recurrent concern is that there's not enough food. Food resources are too weak, or there needs to be another +1 food for farms technology bonus. Anyway this post is mostly about my suggestions for city states:

If military states must give you units, they should damn well appear in your territory (after all, when you send them a unit, it appears in theirs). I would scrap this altogether though and instead give a % production bonus for military units (greater in your capital) OR an experience bonus to units you produce OR an experience bonus per attack/defense (probably abusable and won't scale with era though) OR just make them build more good units themselves so that they are valuable allies in a war (this requires the AI to be fixed though). They possibly shouldn't provide you with their strategic resources in this latter case.

Maritime states need renaming (they are not always on the coast). Perhaps 'bountiful' or something. The food bonus should be a % growth bonus rather than a flat increase in available food - as discussed a lot around here, they are overpowered compared to granary/watermill and in general. It would be nice if each could be associated with an otherwise unavailable luxury resource - but there just aren't enough to go around. Heck, maybe they should provide happiness - a generic 'we give you nice things' effect that will allow your population to grow larger anyway. Makes them more valuable unconquered too! I really like that idea.

Cultured states are about the only ones that currently make sense. They're nice if you're not going for a cultural victory and essential if you are, which makes for good dynamics. Their bonus is reasonable, though perhaps the rate of increase with era needs to go up as policies are ever increasing in cost (triangular numbers) and a linear increase in culture doesn't keep up with this.

 

[Namel]

As for military civs, they should probably do more than give a crap unit or three. Instead they need to do things like make unit upgrades cheaper and/or decrease unit maintenance -- or some other military effect.

They certainly don't give crap units. I pretty much always seem to get best unit of that type I could produce. Quite often it will be my best unit. I wouldn't start making big changes to military city states. It is just that maritime is so much better.

How about changing maritime to give production instead of food? What issues that would cause?


I am very happy that we are finally getting posts about how to fix things instead of "it should be exactly like in Civ IV" posts.

 

[troytheface]

i have read this premise a few times, this "follow the same strategy" crap

you don't have to follow the same strategy

you can do whatever you want

it is a choice to follow the same strategy

i would give some tips but its like most are incapable of creativity so it is pointless

the evidence is clear

 

[Polycrates]

How about changing maritime to give production instead of food? What issues that would cause?.

Not a bad idea! Although that much extra production could be pretty problematic too...and I guess it kind of doubles up the "rush buy" mechanic a little bit in the sense of trading gold for hammers.

Another option that fits with the whole food theme is having them give you an extra population in one of your cities every now and then, representing immigrants or something. Achieves a similar end but still needs enough farms to feed them.

 

[THE_COW_IS_OK]

I also like the option to investigate a new city before deciding to puppet or raze.

On the city screen, I would like to get a column of maintenance per city. (Very helpfull for puppet cities)

On the resource screen, I would like to know which resources I get from CS so I can sell my own without loosing hapiness. eg: I own silk, a CS is giving me silk. So Even IF I sell my only silk, I don't get a happiness penalty.... Currently, I got the patronage tree full in and there is no way to check what redundant resources CS are given me

 

[Sc_0pe]

As for the game state now. Civ5 main drawback is its lack of balance that makes you follow same strategy every time.

How does it make you follow the same strategies every time?

Be creative and don't be afraid to try out new strategies even if it means you are going to have harder times. To me that's part of the fun - to get challenged!

Until some things get fixed or improved, this is how I enjoy my game at least.