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[Dark_Jedi06]

I agree that social policies sound cool (and we get to hear more tomorrow!!) and love that they are tied to culture. I might invest in some culture this time around.

But on the wonder whoring thing, you may be wrong. See this pic:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy...?rgroup=e32010_story&tag=thumbs_below;thumb;2

Rome is only making 7 culture. It has:

2 wonders:
Sistine Chapel
Pyramids

Buildings:
Theater
Colosseum (assuming culture)
Circus (same assumption)
Temple (another assumption)

This to me feels like a lot of stuff that could give culture, especially the wonders. The wonders may not give culture anymore, especially since the culture felt tacked on to wonders in Civ4. With culture's new importance in buying civ-wide upgrades, I have a feeling we won't be seeing wonders give culture anymore (unless that is their focus, of course).

Interesting, I didn't take note of that in the screenshot...

Of course we are operating under the norms dictated by previous installments, in Civ V +7 culture per turn may be a lot for one city, though that does seem unlikely.

 

[Stile]

Looks like aluminum or oil could be one of the negatives. This could be a product of adding a bunch of tanks through an editor to make a cool screenshot.

Now, that I look a little closer, most are not 'normal start' game shots and scenes, but have been prepared to display certain parts, as evidenced by unexplored oceans with battleships present.

 

[aziantuntija]

That's nice. I strongly disagree. I don't understand why anyone playing a strategy game would prefer not to know how the game actually works.

Imagine if libraries and universities just said "boosts science output", or if farms just said "provides food" or if merchant specialists just said "increases gold".
You'd be totally unable to make meaningful strategic decisions because you couldn't compare the actual tradeoffs.

What is wrong with you Ahriman? What part do you dont understand in the word "everything"?

Lets try once more

If you have too accurate % (or whatever) information about everything whats going to happen in a game, then its not a game anymore, then it would just be all about playing right with those given percentages, and that wouldnt be a fun at all.

I could also play a bit dumb and say something like: "So do you wanna see the exact percentages about everything, like at what percent is other civ going to declare war at you? Or do you wanna see exatct percentages about where your enemy is propably moving hes forces? Or in the beginning of a war do you wanna see exact percentages about who is most likely going to be the winner of the war?"

I think you did understand what i was saying, but for some reason you still wanted to continue this pointless posting. I made a very simple statement, thats it. Can we move on now?

 

[Ahriman]

If you have too accurate % (or whatever) information about everything whats going to happen in a game, then its not a game anymore,

This is a meaningless statement that is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
You do not have accurate % (or whatever) information about everything whats going to happen in Civ4, including in the diplomacy engine.

Revealing diplomacy modifiers from your action does not provide everything about diplomacy in Civ4; you still don't know when/whether the enemy is going to invade you or not.
But showing the modifiers allows you to know which actions you take affect diplomacy, and allow you to make a diplomatic strategy. For example, if I'm considering giving you some gifts, I need to know if those are likely or unlikely to make you happy enough with me to be willing to trade.

You're completely entitled to disagree, but nothing that you've said makes me change my opinion that making mechanics deliberately opaque is bad design for a strategy game.
Unfortunately, it looks like your preference wins this one for Civ5.

Hopefully there will be BUG-type mods that fix the bad UI decisions that deliberately hide data from you.

I could also play a bit dumb and say something like: "So do you wanna see the exact percentages about everything, like at what percent is other civ going to declare war at you?"

That would be dumb, because that's clearly not what I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is to know that open borders gives +1 diplomacy modifier, that declaring war on their friend gives -2 penalty, that gifting you tech gives +3 modifier.
In Civ5, it sounds like they're going to hide all this data from us.


I understood what you said, I just don't think its relevant or logical. In my opinion.

 

[Nicolas10]

To be fair, I think, from Jon Schafer's interviews, that they are hoping to split the baby, so to speak. There's a big emphasis on more emotional and detailed interraction with the AI leaders... the goal, I think to get a feel for what things help/hurt.

Ahriman's point about not groping around blindly for the right gift strategies is well taken. But, JS says that he wants the AI to be both open but also duplicitous, and I think the expectation is that removing modifiers will keep the player on his/her toes.

In Civ IV, some AI were eminently predictable... see TheMeInTeam's Youtube's from examples.

Anyway, it's all moot until we start playing... then we can know if we miss the calculations with AI or not. They've talked a very big game on AI abilities and interractions, so we wait; I'm cautiously optimistic, however.

 

[aziantuntija]

This is a meaningless statement that is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
You do not have accurate % (or whatever) information about everything whats going to happen in Civ4, including in the diplomacy engine.

Revealing diplomacy modifiers from your action does not provide everything about diplomacy in Civ4; you still don't know when/whether the enemy is going to invade you or not.
But showing the modifiers allows you to know which actions you take affect diplomacy, and allow you to make a diplomatic strategy. For example, if I'm considering giving you some gifts, I need to know if those are likely or unlikely to make you happy enough with me to be willing to trade.

You're completely entitled to disagree, but nothing that you've said makes me change my opinion that making mechanics deliberately opaque is bad design for a strategy game.
Unfortunately, it looks like your preference wins this one for Civ5.

Hopefully there will be BUG-type mods that fix the bad UI decisions that deliberately hide data from you.


That would be dumb, because that's clearly not what I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is to know that open borders gives +1 diplomacy modifier, that declaring war on their friend gives -2 penalty, that gifting you tech gives +3 modifier.
In Civ5, it sounds like they're going to hide all this data from us.


Clearly you can't.

Im not sure should i cry or should i laugh.. ..I think im going to do them both.. At the same time

In this statement:

"If you have too accurate % (or whatever) information about everything whats going to happen in a game, then its not a game anymore, then it would just be all about playing right with those given percentages, and that wouldnt be a fun at all."

In that statement, when did i EVER say i was talking about Civ4? I was just making a statement!

Stop pointing your fingers at people if your not even sure what they are talking about Ahriman.

 

[dinofs]

Personally, I like not being able to see diplomacy modifiers. I always thought that they were silly and unrealistic. Now diplomacy will actually be difficult. Or at least, more so than in the previous games in the series.

 

[astrognash]

Yes. If Richard Lion-Heart were to have entered into peace talks with Saladin, there would not have been any indication to either of them as to how their actions affected one another than expression.

If you slap someone, you can tell that it negatively impacted them without having a box hovering next to them with numbers in it.
If you kiss someone, generally you can tell whether that has improved your relationship or if it has offended them.

 

[Never]

But from a gameplay perspective, you get better science just by having more people. Even if those people are just peasants working on farms. By that logic India and China would be technological leaders.

Well China was the scientific leader for most of civilised history, I don't think any simulation would ever produce the same result as what happened: England beating China to Industrialism.

I'm sure they produce double the scientific papers that America publish now as well.

 

[Ahriman]

In that statement, when did i EVER say i was talking about Civ4?

You didn't. But I did. But my whole argument is that I would prefer the Civ5 diplomacy system modifiers to be like they are in Civ4, where the player can see the effect their actions have.

Your argument that revealing such modifiers would damage the gam'se diplomacy system by making it 100% predictable is demonstrably false, because what I am asking for *is* the Civ4 system, where the diplomacy system is not 100% predictable despite having the diplomacy modifiers present.

See how its relevant now?

If Richard Lion-Heart were to have entered into peace talks with Saladin, there would not have been any indication to either of them as to how their actions affected one another than expression.

Nonsense. They both would have had diplomatic advisors telling them about what actions might have an effect on the other, what deals the other might accept, what the internal politics of the other side was like, which issues were important to them and which were not.
If Richard was considering giving up province X in exchange for a supply of grain, you can bet he'd have some idea of whether province X was something that actually mattered to Saladin or not.

When JFK and Kruschev were negotiating arms reductions, do you really think they knew nothing about each other at all, or the preferences of the other side, or what kinds of deals might be made? Diplomacy has always been thus.

If you kiss someone, generally you can tell whether that has improved your relationship or if it has offended them.

Not in Civ5 you can't.

And more importantly, you need to know something about what the impact will be on your relationship *before* you take the action. It's too late, afterwards.

If giving the other side a gift has no chance of making them willing to trade with me, why should I waste my gold on doing it? And how fun is it (and how meaningful strategically) if I have no idea beforehand whether the gift will have any effect?

Anyway, I think my views are clear, lets be done with this.

Well China was the scientific leader for most of civilised history

Until ~15th century or so, yes.
But then it wasn't.
So large numbers of peasants alone aren't enough to give scientific progress.

I don't think any simulation would ever produce the same result as what happened: England beating China to Industrialism

Really? This happens in plenty of well-designed Civ4 mods, because of tech-trading in Europe.

I'm sure they produce double the scientific papers that America publish now as well.

I don't think this is true at all - particularly papers of any significant value. Source?

 

[Never]

Until ~15th century or so, yes.
But then it wasn't.
So large numbers of peasants alone aren't enough to give scientific progress.

It wasn't due to a lack of neighbours to trade with though, was it. It was out of choice. They decided to become isolationist because they didn't see a need to become any more advanced. Also due to the immense size of China all the best minds were too busy managing the empire. Furthermore they had no need to mine for coal because wood was in abundance (the steam engine was invented to pump out water from a flooded mine).

England was the first nation into the industrialist age due to a number of reasons but least to do with tradeing of technologies and mainly due to its huge deposits of coal (only a few places in the world have as much coal and China is one of them).

Furthermore it's accepted that Buddhist philosophy and modern physics come to strikingly similar conclusions which shows they did know their back then.

I don't think this is true at all - particularly papers of any significant value. Source?

Yeah sorry I just checked they're second to the US and England is 3rd. In any case the Chinese have historically been a lot more advanced than anywhere else in the world and I think it's a given they're heading back to that position with alarming speed now they're starting to take advantage of all that coal that's layered under most of their country.

 

[Me,myself,and,I]

ZOC... Zone Of Control.

The area around a unit in which enemy's cannot move/provoke an attack if they move through.

 

[Ahriman]

Also due to the immense size of China all the best minds were too busy managing the empire

Which suggests to me that technological development shouldn't just be based on number of peasants.
Which was my point.

(only a few places in the world have as much coal

Yeah, that's not the case.
Coal is incredibly common.

All through central Europe (Germany, Poland), South Africa, Botswana, tons in Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Appalachia, Montana/Wyoming, Australia.... etc.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The problem with diplomacy modifiers is that they are Like/Dislike.

This should NOT be part of AI Civ diplomacy (unless it is also forced on the human player)

What AI civs Should be basing their decisions on is Cost v. Benefit

ie
War with you
Cost... depends on the relative size of our armies AND what I think you will give me for peace**
Benefit..whatever I can take from you by force

That needs to be the AI decision
**This term is the key one, the AIs guess as to what You will do to preserve the peace... because if the AI thinks that you will keep giving it Tech Treaties and Resources.... why "buy the cow if you get the milk for free"

Esentially to stay at peace you have to make sure that the AI would lose more than it gained by attacking you.

A "Diplomacy Advisor" should be able to help with this.. but only to a limited degree since it depends on
1. Knowledge of the relative powers of your armies
2. Knowledge of the Other side's knowledge of the relative powers of your armies
3. Knowledge of what the other side most values of yours (based on knowledge of what you would want if you were in their position... which you don't know completely)
4. Knowledge of the reaction of all other contacted powers (based on factors 1-3 for them)

So there should be diplomacy modifiers but they should be vague, based on your knowledge of the other side... and they should NOT be Like/Dislike


as for Tech from pop.... this is how it has ALWAYS been done
Pop worked cottages/sea tiles/became specialists

With the exceptions of Trade routes and some special bonuses, the vast majority of your science came from population.
Not all population is Equal and that was absolutely key. I anticipate it being that way in Civ 5 as well. Some pop will give more science than others (better social policies, better buildings, etc.)

Population is and always has been the biggest thing in civ.. more pop=more power over the long term

Note: It is alo realistic... If you compare similar countries, say US, UK, Canada, Australia, the # of scientific papers produced is probably roughly proportional to population (there would be distortions due to international collaboration)

 

[Ahriman]

This should NOT be part of AI Civ diplomacy (unless it is also forced on the human player)

What AI civs Should be basing their decisions on is Cost v. Benefit

For this discussion, see the previous threads on this topic.

 

[Never]

Which suggests to me that technological development shouldn't just be based on number of peasants.
Which was my point.

I suppose you're right if you look at examples like ancient Greece. But it does play a significant part.

Yeah, that's not the case.
Coal is incredibly common.

All through central Europe (Germany, Poland), South Africa, Botswana, tons in Russia, India, China, Indonesia, Appalachia, Montana/Wyoming, Australia.... etc.

It was easily attainable in Britain at roughly the same time that wood was becoming ever more scarce within the British Isle. Coal can be found in many places but it is abundant in England which set it well as a new source of energy was required when the wood ran out. When this happened to other island nations in the past they simply perished, like Easter Island. England moved into industrialism because it had loads of coal and because it ran out of wood.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I suppose you're right if you look at examples like ancient Greece. But it does play a significant part.

Ancient Greece is an excellent example, but illutrates the complicating factors

1. Tech Trading, a group of 'civs' that are in contact advance technologically as if they were one 'civ'...one gets a tech, then they all get it
2. Types of societies can act as a multiplier
3. Tech v. ideas (they had a simple steam engine but never bothered with it because the same thing that gave them lots of leisure time for ideas..slaves, meant that implementing the ideas wasn't particularly important)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Please, can we not get into another debate about hidden vs visible diplomacy modifiers? I mean, though I *personally* like the direction they've taken-in some respects-I can also see Ahriman's point of view too. Personally, I'd prefer a system where diplomacy modifiers are hidden, but where player & AI actions alike are, to a greater or lesser degree, constrained by the opinions of their people (via happiness benefits & penalties). But I digress.

I concur with Ahriman regarding the non-exclusivity of Social Policies. The great thing about past civ games was the strategic decisions involved in choosing your government, & I fear that this could be lost if you can just collect them like trading cards. At the very least, if you go down one Social Policy path, then accumulating policies in a diametrically opposed path should become prohibitively expensive-if not downright *impossible*! I'd also like to hope that, even if you can "collect" multiple social policies, you have to elect 1 from each category as your "primary" policy-to define what your nation currently stands for.
To put it another way, I always felt the pre-Civ4 governments were much too rigid & unrealistic, wheras the Civics system was sufficiently amorphous that it allowed you to mix & match different approaches in different parts of your society. My fear is that they've made governments *completely* amorphous-which would be as bad, if not *worse* than a system that's too rigid.
Needless to say this is the one aspect of the game where I want far, *far* more info!

As to ZoC, I must say I LIKE IT! It has all the best bits of Civ2 ZoC, but none of the annoyances-& might finally force enemies to *attack* units, rather than simply go around them to avoid the fights they don't like!

Aussie.

 

[Ahriman]

My fear is that they've made governments *completely* amorphous-which would be as bad, if not *worse* than a system that's too rigid.

Yeah, this is my worry. Structure can be helpful, particularly when it helps us imagine civs into archetypes from real history.

We'll probably learn more over the next couple of days, so I will endeavour to refrain from being too judgemental too soon.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Personally I'd like to think that your population is the thing that will have the *least* impact (though some impact) on your science output-with specialists, trade routes, resources, Social Policies & Science Pacts having a far, far more significant impact. If you look at the screenshot with Rome-for instance-it has a population of 12, but its science output is +11. So assuming no other modifiers, its not even 1-for-1. Who knows, maybe using civilians to work certain tiles means they *don't* contribute anything to your science-unless that tile has some direct benefit to your science output (e.g. it contains a resource which boosts your science output). This would stress the need for a specialized population-rather than having every single pop point working all available tiles!

Aussie.