[R&F] New Livestream Dec 20: Mongols and Netherlands

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Unless you've selected a setting that allows duplicates of the same civ (in which case you presumably run into that issue anyway), there will never be two Greeces in a game, any more than you could have three Americas in a Civ IV game.

It's Duplicate Leaders, not Duplicate Nations though isn't? both Perciles and Gorgo can be chosen in the same game no? At least that what I thought, although it's been a while, my randomizing seems odd and i keep seeing the same civs majority of the time.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It's Duplicate Leaders, not Duplicate Nations though isn't? both Perciles and Gorgo can be chosen in the same game no? At least that what I thought, although it's been a while, my randomizing seems odd and i keep seeing the same civs majority of the time.

You can have Pericles and Gorgo in the same game, but you have to toggle the option to allow it. The default setting is to forbid it.

 

[pokiehl]

You can have Pericles and Gorgo in the same game, but you have to toggle the option to allow it. The default setting is to forbid it.

I don't believe that is correct. The setting in the game forbids duplicate LEADERS - as in two Gorgos.

 

[PhilBowles]

It's Duplicate Leaders, not Duplicate Nations though isn't? both Perciles and Gorgo can be chosen in the same game no? At least that what I thought, although it's been a while, my randomizing seems odd and i keep seeing the same civs majority of the time.

Yes, you can choose it manually, but the default random mode appears to treat Greece as one civ even though the two leaders are technically different. This makes practical sense as the main non-flavour reason to avoid duplicate civs is issues with the shared city list, and the main flavour reason to disallow them is to avoid having the same civ twice - there's no flavour problem with Gorgo and Pericles as characters co-existing in a Civ game, but there is with two Greeces. I've certainly never seen Gorgo and Pericles in the same game.

 

[Janskey]

Some people were complaining about Mongolia's hard to read city names, because they're red on a different shade of red. I'm guessing that the artists who chose the colors have pretty good and well calibrated monitors, and that's why they don't see any problem with them. Therefore, something you could try to fix the issue is calibrating your monitor. Best results are achieved with calibration tools, but this is a pretty good substitute:
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

Unfortunately, some displays are just poor, and you can't get good results, no matter what you try (mostly cheap TN panels (vs. better VA, IPS, or OLED panels)). However, unless your display came with a proper calibration report, it's worthwhile to do even with a more expensive display.

Of course, there's also lots of variation between individuals in how we perceive colors, e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2710765/

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Of course, there's also lots of variation between individuals in how we perceive colors, e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2710765/

Definitely. I have a hard time distinguishing between shades of red. And colors that have blue in them must have a lot of blue before I can tell that. Like teal just looks green to me.

 

[blackbutterfly]

Definitely. I have a hard time distinguishing between shades of red. And colors that have blue in them must have a lot of blue before I can tell that. Like teal just looks green to me.

Actually we've only just recently realised people can perceive colours differently, thanks in part to social media. Re: "The dress"

 

[evanaurora]

If they changed Australia's and Indonesia's colors because they were simply too close to the Netherlands/Korea respectively, does that mean they're going to change France or Pericles's Greece? Because talk about basically identical palettes.............. white and barely differentiated shades of blue????? Who greenlit that design choice?

 

[nzcamel]

I lived in Australia for three years and never strongly registered green and gold as its national colours - possibly sports fans may have greater awareness of it, but outside that it really doesn't appear to be a common motif. If New Zealand were added would we expect its colours to be black-on-black because of its rugby team?

Hella yeah to the black on black No, if you were to follow our sporting colours, it'd be black and white (though yeah, the white is usually a trim at best).

Sport is definitely a driver of getting used to a countries colours. I don't think Australia is any less fond of yellow and green than England is to white and red. The latter is just known better due to it being a bigger cultural entity. It's a better indicator than flags of national colours in the countries which are still part of the British Commonwealth as many of us still have a variation of the Union Jack on a blue background as our flag (recently we tried to change that in NZ, but we were not successful).

Australian Cricket with both colours as the main one:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Australian League Team:

Spoiler :

Australian Rugby team:

Spoiler :

You can't tell me that Brazil is more Yellow n Green than that!
(Though I do appreciate that different shades can be used...)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

True. But I think the punishments are:

1. Half loyalty (1/3 loyalty of a golden age)
2. Can't make a golden age dedication
3. All the buffs come with a negative
4. Can't use Wild Cards

Greece, America, and Poland are the exception to the last one.

To me, this seems fair, especially since you're probably behind in the game if you're in a Dark Age.

I saw no indication that Dark Age Civs can't use Wild Cards. Plus, from everything I've read, being in a Dark Age doesn't mean you're necessarily behind in the game. Just that you failed to achieve sufficient Historical Moments. I just happen to think that an increased cost for techs & civics is a more realistic representation of Dark Ages, whilst also giving a clever player the means to get around it.

 

[pgm123]

I saw no indication that Dark Age Civs can't use Wild Cards. Plus, from everything I've read, being in a Dark Age doesn't mean you're necessarily behind in the game. Just that you failed to achieve sufficient Historical Moments. I just happen to think that an increased cost for techs & civics is a more realistic representation of Dark Ages, whilst also giving a clever player the means to get around it.

They can't use Wild Cards in the sense that the Dark Age Policy card goes into the Wild Card slot. You can use Wild Cards, but that defeats the benefit of being in the Dark Age. At that point, it's a Normal Age with negative loyalty pressure.

 

[PhilBowles]

I saw no indication that Dark Age Civs can't use Wild Cards. Plus, from everything I've read, being in a Dark Age doesn't mean you're necessarily behind in the game. Just that you failed to achieve sufficient Historical Moments. I just happen to think that an increased cost for techs & civics is a more realistic representation of Dark Ages, whilst also giving a clever player the means to get around it.

Being behind the game and failing to achieve sufficient Historic Moments appear to be nearly synonymous, since you get large amounts of era score from simply playing the game efficiently. It seems unlikely to be easy to miss enough Historic Moments to fall into a Dark Age without being significantly behind. I haven't watched the full stream, but from what I've seen the era score values seem balanced around getting a normal age reliably by playing averagely, and a golden age easily when actively hunting era score.

 

[pgm123]

Being behind the game and failing to achieve sufficient Historic Moments appear to be nearly synonymous, since you get large amounts of era score from simply playing the game efficiently. It seems unlikely to be easy to miss enough Historic Moments to fall into a Dark Age without being significantly behind. I haven't watched the full stream, but from what I've seen the era score values seem balanced around getting a normal age reliably by playing averagely, and a golden age easily when actively hunting era score.

You can time things to try to achieve a Dark Age, though. If you get an early Golden Age by cramming achievements in there, you'll have a higher target score for the next era and you'll have used up some achievements for the Golden Age. That makes a Dark Age more likely. You can also hold off on a couple things in order to try to make it happen.

That said, I don't think it's supposed to be a negative. It's just a different way to play with positives and negatives. I think we'll see how it actually plays with all the new mechanics before knowing if it's unbalanced.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

You can time things to try to achieve a Dark Age, though. If you get an early Golden Age by cramming achievements in there, you'll have a higher target score for the next era and you'll have used up some achievements for the Golden Age. That makes a Dark Age more likely. You can also hold off on a couple things in order to try to make it happen.

That said, I don't think it's supposed to be a negative. It's just a different way to play with positives and negatives. I think we'll see how it actually plays with all the new mechanics before knowing if it's unbalanced.

The thing is, though, that with Eurekas & Inspirations, Dark Ages giving a slight penalty to tech & civics costs isn't really a huge negative for a player who thinks ahead.

Judging from how Golden Ages & Dark Ages work, it is entirely possible to enter a Golden Age, even if you are behind in the game. Likewise, it is possible to enter a Dark Age even if you are winning. Didn't Korea enter a Dark Age in this playthrough.....in spite of leading in techs?

 

[pgm123]

Didn't Korea enter a Dark Age in this playthrough.....in spite of leading in techs?

Korea entered a Golden Age. It was Netherlands that was in a Dark Age. I agree that techs don't give you much of a boost towards a golden age. First tech of an era gives you one. Also, building the first X might.

 

[PhilBowles]

You can time things to try to achieve a Dark Age, though. If you get an early Golden Age by cramming achievements in there, you'll have a higher target score for the next era and you'll have used up some achievements for the Golden Age. That makes a Dark Age more likely. You can also hold off on a couple things in order to try to make it happen.

That said, I don't think it's supposed to be a negative. It's just a different way to play with positives and negatives. I think we'll see how it actually plays with all the new mechanics before knowing if it's unbalanced.

Flavourfully, it's not a good decision to call a mechanic a 'Dark Age' if it isn't negative overall, even if it has some associated positives. Obviously it can't hamstring you enough to make it impossible to win and if it does incentivise drastically diffferent gameplay to keep up that will be all to the good - for instance, reflecting (at least popular impressions of) the European Dark Ages the civ may be forced to focus more on religion and warfare than on science, as this era of northern European history saw the merging of tribes into early states, largely through invasion, the spread of Christianity through most of the continent and the emergence of Islam and its expansion into Europe, along with the associated conflicts with Christian groups like the Franks - but a Dark Age should never be something you actively aim for.

 

[pgm123]

Flavourfully, it's not a good decision to call a mechanic a 'Dark Age' if it isn't negative overall, even if it has some associated positives. Obviously it can't hamstring you enough to make it impossible to win and if it does incentivise drastically diffferent gameplay to keep up that will be all to the good - for instance, reflecting (at least popular impressions of) the European Dark Ages the civ may be forced to focus more on religion and warfare than on science, as this era of northern European history saw the merging of tribes into early states, largely through invasion, the spread of Christianity through most of the continent and the emergence of Islam and its expansion into Europe, along with the associated conflicts with Christian groups like the Franks - but a Dark Age should never be something you actively aim for.

They're trying to avoid the rage quit problems they had in the Civ IV days. That's why Civ V only had Golden Ages. In bringing the Dark Age mechanic back, they explicitly don't want it to be a negative. I think the general idea is for it to be more difficult, but a way to play where you might come out stronger. They want it to be fun.

Besides, Dark Ages are more about written accounts than even scientific advancements. The Bronze Age collapse (including the Greek Dark Ages) saw a decline in centralized bureaucracies, but saw a wide-spread increase in the use of iron weapons and different technologies for warfare. In Medieval Europe, there were advancements in math and science. The Renaissance, which is popularly associated with scientific advances, was more about art and literature. So, historically speaking, it doesn't make sense for their to be a penalty to science. There could be a penalty to Great People generation, but given that you'll likely use the Wild Card slot for a Dark Age Policy, there is an implicit penalty for GP generation. Perhaps they could mandate you use the slot for a Dark Age Policy Card? That would give greater incentive to those who don't want to play under Dark Age mechanics.

 

[PhilBowles]

They're trying to avoid the rage quit problems they had in the Civ IV days. That's why Civ V only had Golden Ages. In bringing the Dark Age mechanic back, they explicitly don't want it to be a negative. I think the general idea is for it to be more difficult, but a way to play where you might come out stronger. They want it to be fun.

Besides, Dark Ages are more about written accounts than even scientific advancements. The Bronze Age collapse (including the Greek Dark Ages) saw a decline in centralized bureaucracies, but saw a wide-spread increase in the use of iron weapons and different technologies for warfare. In Medieval Europe, there were advancements in math and science.

The northern European Dark Ages are the time starting with the collapse of the Roman Empire (at which point iron weaponry was already widespread) and ending with the start of the Medieval period (dated to Charlemagne's conquests on the mainland and the Norman Conquest two centuries later in Britain). The medieval period is not a Dark Age.

From what we know scientific advancement was genuinely somewhat limited in this period - the Dark Ages were a period of excellent craftmanship, with swords comparable to those of the Samurai period in Japan (including a very early use of steel that appears to have been lost subsequently) and intricate burial goods such as those found at Sutton Hoo, and indeed of early literature, so a cultural malus is hard to justify - but scientific development does not seem to have been rapid (it spanned a period of close to 500 years, so obviously there was some development - the navigational advances and developments in ship construction in Scandanavia spring to mind).

 

[God of Kings]

The Chinese once said, "After a long split, a union will occur; after a long union, a split will occur."

It is used to describe the Dynastic Cycle; the Three Kingdoms period being a Dark Age, which led to a Heroic Age (Tang Dynasty).

 

[nzcamel]

They're trying to avoid the rage quit problems they had in the Civ IV days. That's why Civ V only had Golden Ages. In bringing the Dark Age mechanic back, they explicitly don't want it to be a negative. I think the general idea is for it to be more difficult, but a way to play where you might come out stronger. They want it to be fun.

Dark ages have never been in the game before.