March Patch Notes (formerly february)

[Bibor]

now compare between the two processes , and you can see that Economy is not involved in expansion in Civ5.

I know there are Hammers,Science,Gold,....etc in Civ5 which is obvious , But The whole Economy does not affect Expansion directly and does not affect research. Everything is related to happiness which makes the gameplay dull as in:
Expand to 4 cities -> hook up resources -> Expand To 6 cities -> Build Circuses -> Expand to 8 cities -> Build Colliseums -> Expand to 10 cities -> Trade away surplus

How can happiness and science not be a part of an economy? Economy is not equal to finances. Economy is the total output of a nation's workforce. Financially speaking, Research Agreements is gold converted into science, and so is rush-buying science buildings. And rush-buying is not an added feature like it was in Civ4, it's an essential part of gameplay, much like whipping was in CIV4. Also getting new happiness is not a dull process, believe me. It's sure as hell more exciting than making a worker plant 3 floodplain cottages.

If you really need an example, I rush-buy Colosseums in old cities to sustain new cities on a regular basis, often with money gained from selling away happiness resources (10 GPT from a happiness resource pays off after 30 or so turns of having the colosseum, considering the saved-up hammer costs and 3 gold ukpeep).

 

[Deep_Blue]

@Valkrionn

Happiness now replaces Maintenance so it is logical to make unhappiness affect Research Right? why the relastion between Hapiness and Research is ignored while Happiness is considered as a replacement for Maintenance?

The problem is you can always run at 100% research with no consequences, I dont know what is the solution to this maybe we need Gold sliders to come back to the game.

 

[Valkrionn]

my turn , Let me try again:

I said:


and you said:


now compare between the two processes , and you can see that Economy is not involved in expansion in Civ5.

I know there are Hammers,Science,Gold,....etc in Civ5 which is obvious , But The whole Economy does not affect Expansion directly and does not affect research. Everything is related to happiness which makes the gameplay dull as in:
Expand to 4 cities -> hook up resources -> Expand To 6 cities -> Build Circuses -> Expand to 8 cities -> Build Colliseums -> Expand to 10 cities -> Trade away surplus

Certainly economy is involved! You need the science to be able to construct the improvements and buildings, you need the gold to pay for the buildings, the hammers to construct them.

To break it down to it's basics...

You: expand to 4 cities->Currency Tech->expand to 6 cities->Cottage Spam->Expand to 8 Cities->Build Markets->expand to 10 cities->Build Banks->Expand to 12 cities ..... and so on.

Invest science -> expand -> Invest science, create new improvements -> expand -> Invest science, create new buildings -> expand -> Invest science, create new higher building tier -> expand
​

Bibor: Expand to 4 cities -> hook up resources -> Expand To 6 cities -> Build Circuses -> Expand to 8 cities -> Build Colliseums -> Expand to 10 cities -> Trade away surplus resources -> Expand to 12 cities.... and so on.

Invest science, create new improvements -> Expand -> Invest science, create new building -> Expand -> Invest science, create new building -> expand -> Trade -> expand
​

There are very minor differences at the base level. It's all about how it is presented. You dislike that presentation; Fine, but it doesn't mean it's broken, or that it cannot be balanced.

 

[Valkrionn]

@Valkrionn

Happiness now replaces Maintenance so it is logical to make unhappiness affect Research Right? why the relastion between Hapiness and Research is ignored while Happiness is considered as a replacement for Maintenance?

The problem is you can always run at 100% research with no consequences, I dont know what is the solution to this maybe we need Gold sliders to come back to the game.

It's obviously not a 1:1 replacement, but in this case I agree with you; I'd like to see unhappiness reduce your research rate. Honestly, what I'd really like is for unhappiness penalties to be a smooth curve, rather than a series of plateaus.

Dark Ages are a small, easy step in that direction, IMO; Too much unhappiness completely prevents any production or research, for a short while at least.

Another modcomp of mine (also to be released, finally) will allow each instance of a luxury to provide 0.5 (or whatever; Set via xml). To go with this, happiness per luxury is reduced to 3. Trade becomes very important, but hooking up extra luxuries is worthwhile even while not able to trade them away.

 

[Deep_Blue]

Invest science -> expand -> Invest science, create new improvements -> expand -> Invest science, create new buildings -> expand -> Invest science, create new higher building tier -> expand
​

Bibor: Expand to 4 cities -> hook up resources -> Expand To 6 cities -> Build Circuses -> Expand to 8 cities -> Build Colliseums -> Expand to 10 cities -> Trade away surplus resources -> Expand to 12 cities.... and so on.

Invest science, create new improvements -> Expand -> Invest science, create new building -> Expand -> Invest science, create new building -> expand -> Trade -> expand
​

There are very minor differences at the base level. It's all about how it is presented. You dislike that presentation; Fine, but it doesn't mean it's broken, or that it cannot be balanced.

You proved my point while you do not know.

The difference is:
- In CIV4 the buildings in the process are Economic Buildings -> Real Economy

- In CIV5 the buildings in the process are Happiness Buildings -> Happiness Economy

Happiness economy Does Not Exist in the history of humanity. Happiness Certainly affects everything from gold to research to production, but it is not the real basis of the Economy. Happiness affects an existing Economy and does not make it.

 

[Bibor]

@Valkrionn

Happiness now replaces Maintenance so it is logical to make unhappiness affect Research Right? why the relastion between Hapiness and Research is ignored while Happiness is considered as a replacement for Maintenance?

The problem is you can always run at 100% research with no consequences, I dont know what is the solution to this maybe we need Gold sliders to come back to the game.

Happiness is not the only thing that replaces maintenance. Maintenance is also reflected in higher policy costs, building ukpeeps, road upkeeps et cetera, really hard list them all (again).

Research at 100%? Why sure, 35 is 100%, and so is 177 or 355. You're looking at it backwards. Any new number you want to reach in CIV5 requires invesment and stays constant (until you loose a city or something). You can just add to that number. In Civ4 you could switch between culture (+happiness), gold and science.

Temporary and deliberate "stops" in research productivity are reflected through not signing research agreements, not investing into new science buildings or not running science specialists.

So it's kinda acting like a slider (you can slow down your research by up to 50%) but it's not a slider.

Personally, I find it pretty logical that you cannot shut down your research completely.

I agree with Valkrionn that happiness needs to be tweaked a bit, but that's another topic entirely.

Civ5 conomy is not happiness economy. Happiness is one part of it. You might as well call it social security, if you really want.

EDIT: Oh, before I forget, you can watch my Pachachuti game, the topic is economy and empire management. Especially part 3 which will be uploaded soon

 

[Valkrionn]

You proved my point while you do not know.

The difference is:
- In CIV4 the buildings in the process are Economic Buildings -> Real Economy

- In CIV5 the buildings in the process are Happiness Buildings -> Happiness Economy

Happiness economy Does Not Exist in the history of humanity.

No. I proved that both work in theory, and that both can be equivalently balanced.

You then objected to the reality of the "Happiness Economy". And as I said, you may not like it, but that doesn't mean it cannot function or be balanced.

You can easily find the same exact kind of arbitrary mechanic in Civ4. Objecting to it's reality is fine, but using that as a basis to say that it does not and cannot work is not.

FYI: No "happiness economy" has existed yet in human history. Note the emphasis on yet? It is quite easy to envision one coming about with adequate development into things such as nanotechnology, fusion, etc; No, it's still not realistic in the context of Civ, but saying it will never happen is foolish.

 

[Deep_Blue]

@Valkrionn

You missed my Edit:

Happiness Certainly affects everything from gold to research to production, but it is not the real basis of the Economy. Happiness affects an existing Economy and does not make it.

 

[Deep_Blue]

You can easily find the same exact kind of arbitrary mechanic in Civ4. Objecting to it's reality is fine, but using that as a basis to say that it does not and cannot work is not.

You can make it work for sure, also some one can make a copy of the game with Rabbits Economy and it will work

The Main Concept is wrong and some people cant live with this, it just give the wrong feeling of an Empire Game.

 

[JohnnyW]

You can make it work for sure, also some one can make a copy of the game with Rabbits Economy and it will work

The Main Concept is wrong and some people cant live with this, it just give the wrong feeling of an Empire Game.

I have to agree with this. The concepts driving the mechanic are pretty ridiculous. And renaming it stability (or anything else) won't help either because why would luxury resources give 5 stability? Yes, you can make it work, but why force something into the game that's unnatural?

Maybe I'll make a mod that uses pet gremlins to fight barbarians. You can only fight barbarians with gremlins and if you lose all of your gremlins you will be savaged by barabarians endlessly. To get gremlins you must denounce other players. You don't start the game with gremlins. Sure, I could balance that, by why the hell would I even add it in the first place?

 

[Valkrionn]

In this case, Johnny, I should think the point was to create a system in which you must choose between expanding horizontally, or vertically. Which it does, even if some people dislike it.

I myself don't much care one way or the other; I like the mechanic, I dislike the basis, I can live with it.

 

[JohnnyW]

In this case, Johnny, I should think the point was to create a system in which you must choose between expanding horizontally, or vertically. Which it does, even if some people dislike it.

I myself don't much care one way or the other; I like the mechanic, I dislike the basis, I can live with it.

And why is that? I think if you delve into why you'll understand where a lot of people are coming from on the issue....

And yes, I realize happiness was put in to effect expanding, but so could gremlins. You have to denounce players to get gremlins to fight the barbarians that would otherwise tear your cities apart, and after denouncing other players you will have to worry about fighting them.

See? My system makes just as much sense as not being able to claim more land because your civilization doesn't have pearls......

 

[Deep_Blue]

Maybe I'll make a mod that uses pet gremlins to fight barbarians. You can only fight barbarians with gremlins and if you lose all of your gremlins you will be savaged by barabarians endlessly. To get gremlins you must denounce other players. You don't start the game with gremlins. Sure, I could balance that, by why the hell would I even add it in the first place?

exactly that is what I was trying to explain.

 

[Valkrionn]

I know exactly where you are coming from. As I've said repeatedly, whether a mechanic is realistic, whether it is liked, does not make it a broken mechanic or unbalanceable. This is the part I objected to.

But honestly, it's a game. There's no easy, realistic way to force you to choose between the two methods of expansion (short of food loss while creating a settler, but that is extremely temporary), and that was evidently one of the desires of the development team.

 

[Bandobras Took]

I have to agree with this. The concepts driving the mechanic are pretty ridiculous. And renaming it stability (or anything else) won't help either because why would luxury resources give 5 stability? Yes, you can make it work, but why force something into the game that's unnatural?

This argument is valid so long as you ignore Civ 4's fundamental premise that a city's capacity to research is directly related to the number of suburbs it has. If you talk about something that's forced and unnatural, that's got to take the cake.

 

[Deep_Blue]

I know exactly where you are coming from. As I've said repeatedly, whether a mechanic is realistic, whether it is liked, does not make it a broken mechanic or unbalanceable. This is the part I objected to.

But honestly, it's a game. There's no easy, realistic way to force you to choose between the two methods of expansion (short of food loss while creating a settler, but that is extremely temporary), and that was evidently one of the desires of the development team.

You already said that you dont like the new system but you dont mind it, which means that we agree that the Main concept of the new system is wrong. And I am sure that you and Bandobras will not mind a new realistic Model.

For Civ5 the current model will stay , maybe some mods bring something new after releasing the Game engine source code.

 

[Buccaneer]

If I recall correctly, the first big patch that significantly improved vanilla Civ4 took 6 months after release. We are now at 5 months after initial release of Civ5.

 

[Valkrionn]

You already said that you dont like the new system but you dont mind it, which means that we agree that the Main concept of the new system is wrong. And I am sure that you and Bandobras will not mind a new realistic Model.

For Civ5 the current model will stay , maybe some mods bring something new after releasing the Game engine source code.

No, to be completely clear I said I like the gameplay effect, but dislike the lack of realism.

It is my firm belief that Gameplay should always trump Lore.


For a realistic model... Please, feel free to provide a realistic model that forces choice between vertical and horizontal growth.

 

[Martin Alvito]

A pop 4 city with 2 maritimes (2 food) will work 4 tiles. Lets say 3 of these tiles are grassland trade posts (6 gold), and one hills trade post (2 gold, 2 hammers).

Considering it will "hammer in" eventually (after a 100 turns or so) a library, marketplace, bank, university, colliseum, it will produce a grand total of 14 gold, 8 science and 4 hammers per turn.

This is a total distortion of the truth. If you're playing optimally under this patch's rules, you're running Siam with Colosseums and Wats under Secularism. That yields 15 per city just from the two Scientists; 18 with a Market. Add in Freedom and you're looking at happiness neutrality and 22 for the low low upkeep of 5 , less whatever you make on the city tile and the tile you work for food.

Grabbing all of those SPs forces you to delay the second expansion wave a bit longer than you'd like, but that really isn't a big deal since you're not Babylon and you won't get a GS from second wave cities anyway. The whole reasoning behind pushing for 15+ cities was that you could spawn a GS in each of them.

More importantly, you're getting all of this during the only period when hard teching matters: Medieval and Renaissance. Classical gets destroyed by the National College, and by the time you hit Industrial techs are so expensive that you clear them almost exclusively with Research Agreements and Great Scientists.

All this patch did was introduce a reason not to ICS right out of the gate (NC) and a reason to delay your second expansion wave (no SP saving). But it also introduced the possibility of peaceful existence on a Pangaea (and the attendant research agreements), which covers for the gimped GS production resulting from the nerf to specialist slots.

 

[MAntoninus]

Would it be possible to write a mod to play the game, thousands of times, with AI's functioning with player restrictions, and just observe the outcomes of patch X to patch Y?

It would seem to me that a simulator should be part of the developmental architecture. Was it present in the past?

That alone might settle some of the arguments we see here - and identify primary problems.

You can't govern chaotic systems easily, but you can identify top issues and then model and simulate to attempt to anticipate unintended outcomes.

I should quite my job and write it, but then who would pick up the garbage?