Patch Update by Greg @ 2K

[General Tso]

I dunno, I've been comparing my empires from ones where I ICS, and others where I purposely try and build less, but better cities. Know the difference?

In the ICS empire I have more cities. The cities in my core are no less powerful than my smaller empire's comparative cities. You simply don't sacrifice enough by building another city. You can buy the settler (or build it really fast with Liberty), then the new city is self-managing. It in fact brings you money and happiness, which can make your core cities even better!

The problem's in 2 parts: we have the one part that new cities take almost no opportunity cost, and are in the black pretty much immediately. The second part is big cities just aren't worth it, with growth stagnating after size 12 and 1 big city being much worse than 2 smaller ones with the same overall population.

Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes. (Added 12/3)

and

Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)

These should take care of most of the problems.

 

[Louis XXIV]

This patch better fix AI problems. It's turn 41 of a game, and I got a threat saying I conquered Siam and now everybody hates me...I've never been in a war yet. Broken AI. XD

That sounds like a straight up bug. Maybe post it in the bug forum.

 

[eviltypeguy]

If you did not disable it, then the patch should automatically get installed.

Unfortunately, the disable update thing seems to be broken. Every time I disable that, when I restart steam it re-enables itself. I gave up.

 

[eviltypeguy]

More importantly, when is this patches' eta? I've been holding off on a game for weeks, thinking the patch is coming shortly!

No ETA is available yet.

 

[lschnarch]

We can all agree that it doesn't work. The interesting question is WHY it doesn't work.

And real life reasoning doesn't work. This is an abstraction.

Both statements are connected with each other.

First, global happiness is immersion breaking, as it contradicts everything we know from real life experiences.
When there were those riots in San Francisco over the police killing a black american some years ago, this did not influence anything in New York, nor in Cornhole, Alabama.
When a friend of yours is really upset about some thing, it doesn't stop you having sex with your wife (reduced growth).

Second, as we all know, in the current version global happiness doesn't stop horizontal growth, it makes it even better.

Third, after the patch the whole system will be even more obscene. While a city growth at the other end of the world can stop your whole empire from growing, you don't have any chance to counter that in your core region.

Fourth, it is a major design fault. Shafer transferred the problems of one location to your whole empire in his attempts to punish the player for not playing as he, Shafer, thinks you have to play (regardless of map size, game speed, circumstances and whatnotever).

So, we have a system which doesn't comply with real life experiences, which doesn't work currently and which will become even more tedious in the future.

Looks to me like pretty much the description of very bad design.

Do static happiness buildings with the unhappiness being generated from population work? If it does, do we just have the numbers set wrong, or is it the system itself? Can it be solved by a tweak or do we need to change around the functions at which the happiness/unhappiness is generated, or do we need to change the system around entirely?

Static happiness from buildings did work in previous game versions, since happiness was local.
Static happiness to a certain extend even works in the current patch version, since that way both, happiness and unhappiness are on the same global level.
Static happiness from buildings capped at the current population size will not work, as now happiness is local again, whilst unhappiness is still global.

The major flaw in the current patch version is that colosseums are much too powerful for their costs and come much too early for their power.
The idea seems to have been something like margin utility, but it wasn't set up properly.

What exactly is broken?

The whole idea is broken.
Happiness works with the numbers of people you have. This number is very low.
Let us assume an empire with 5 cities of size 12, and 15 cities of size 4 each.
Quite some empire in terms of Civ5.

Yet, the total number of people is still just 120.
Having only one new colosseum effects a 3,33% of you whole empire.

Assuming that your empire is at happiness 0, only one new citizen (0.8%) brings down your empire.
Not only this, but you are taken hostage by the city governors.

Best example is gaining new cities due to peace treaties.
You are going into the red happiness-wise, and the city governors will let people in the puppeted cities starve, without you having any chance to avoid this.
Currently, you would have the chance to rush happiness buildings somewhere else.
In future, your new people will just starve until a new balance is found.

Take into account that the new cities will increase your cultural costs, and it becomes obvioius that the whole system is set up to punish you for becoming bigger.

This may adress ICS, yes. But it severely punishes any bigger empire, regardless of how and why it became big.

As happiness is only a sub-system in the context of the whole game, I don't see options to fix happiness without adressing the whole game set-up.
Happiness interacts with very low production, which is low, since cultural expansion avoids "production hexes" as long as ever possible.
On the other hand, except for very small maps, you are literally forced to have quite some cities (causing unhapiness again) to get access to luxuries.

It all comes down to one thing: the main idea behind Civ5 was to play on small maps, a handful of cities, almost no military, just another handful of so-called opponents and then after three hours of "playing", to win.

That's the core concept of Civ5.
Nothing about creating an empire. Nothing about standing "the test of time".

Civ5 is a small dish for in between, to be consumed hastily.
It is the fastfood version of a civilization game.

 

[LAnkou]

Ischnarch (nice name by the way), i disagree on so many points that doesn't worth the effort to write them...

Basically, you don't like the idea of global happiness and we understood that. But it may be not an idea so bad that you need to make such a rant.
Do you find it better that all your cities have 1 or 2 angry citizens without having a global effect on your civ like you could have in Civ IV? When some people are angry everywhere in a nation, there are demonstration, ask for change and even revolutions...

Moreover, you criticize saying the whole system is b***s**t but you don't propose anything. So before criticizing our big fat new hamburger, explain us what kind of meal you wanted to order. If you wanted the same nuggets menu that in that 5 years old restaurant, you can still order something over there. I prefer to stay at the new one, especially since they say there are going to change the sauce recipe. (to keep your food metaphor...)

I think you got a little too much emotional on Civ V...

Moderator Action: Please abstain from using profanity on the forums

 

[Celevin]

That's why you use global happiness is combination with alpaca's city maintenance. Then just tweak things until it works out for you.

I don't think it would work to my requirements for maintenance. I don't think gold is something that should be considered as a maintenance option anymore. Gold isn't the same thing as finance from Civ4. The maintenance in Civ4 might as well have been science, while in Civ5 it's "weaker but more flexible production".

I'd sooner cost a new city in science than gold. Even then it just doesn't feel right.


My beef starts with buildings giving a static happiness. Consider a game of Civ5 where you have x cities, all happiness buildings built, and have 0 net happiness. How do you raise your net happiness? You build *more* cities, as they give more static happiness! Think about it, when you wanted to counter Civ4's maintenance, you had to have both population and infrastructure in your new city to bring it back to "in the black". It took time and was an investment. In Civ5 it's nothing but a gold buy of happiness and culture buildings, and after that it's always always in the black.

Net happiness is supposed to be more than just a "# of cities maintenance" like Civ4 finance, it's also a "raw population maintenance". There's nothing wrong with this, but the main way to raise it is to build more cities! Instead, the happiness from a building should give more depending on the infrastructure in the city. A size 20 city with 5 wonders, all the buildings, and improvements everywhere should give more happiness than a piece of crap tundra town. And no, capping the happiness at population doesn't solve this.

There's also the discussion whether marginal unhappiness from # of cities should be positive.


@Isnarch: You're just crazy.

Moderator Action: attack a player's argument, not the player

 

[silent93]

In regards to the mention of the power of coliseums, I have been wondering something.

Why, pray tell, if I'm going to have to spend 56 turns to build a colli, getting +4 happy for -3 gold after that, is the Circus going to take the same amount of time, require a developed horse or ivory to build, use the same amount of gold, and provide less happiness?

3 gold per turn is pretty painful in my normal small-empire work anyway. 3 gold per turn + specific resource + inferior output makes it a building that I refuse to construct unless I have no other options.

 

[Drawmeus]

In regards to the mention of the power of coliseums, I have been wondering something.

Why, pray tell, if I'm going to have to spend 56 turns to build a colli, getting +4 happy for -3 gold after that, is the Circus going to take the same amount of time, require a developed horse or ivory to build, use the same amount of gold, and provide less happiness?

3 gold per turn is pretty painful in my normal small-empire work anyway. 3 gold per turn + specific resource + inferior output makes it a building that I refuse to construct unless I have no other options.

Because sometimes you have no other options. When you've built all your coliseums and want more happiness, you can build a Circus.

 

[Louis XXIV]

The point is to have both happiness buildings, since they stack together. It's great if you need the extra happiness.

EDIT: What he said.

 

[atteSmythe]

Because sometimes you have no other options. When you've built all your coliseums and want more happiness, you can build a Circus.

Assuming your city is at least size 7. Well, anything over size 4, anyway.

 

[Eddogegr3]

I love that they are working to improve this game. I vowed I would stop playing it until the first two patches are released. The first one was a good start, this one is good enough for me to try the game again--whenever it hits. I can wait.

There is one basic change I would like to see. I would like a way to edit what notifications we can see. Maybe all of the ones that are addressing the same thing (e.g. cities that demand ----, or DOW on ---, etc) can "Stack" on top of each other rather than fly up your screen. Just need a better way to categorize them.... and simplify. And some, maybe just turn off.

 

[atteSmythe]

There is one basic change I would like to see. I would like a way to edit what notifications we can see. Maybe all of the ones that are addressing the same thing (e.g. cities that demand ----, or DOW on ---, etc) can "Stack" on top of each other rather than fly up your screen. Just need a better way to categorize them.... and simplify. And some, maybe just turn off.

I'd love a way to 'dismiss all notifications of this type' - I don't need to know that a brazillion cities all want Spices now, or grew to size 2, or were connected to the trade network.

 

[Drakarska]

Both statements are connected with each other.

First, global happiness is immersion breaking, as it contradicts everything we know from real life experiences.
When there were those riots in San Francisco over the police killing a black american some years ago, this did not influence anything in New York, nor in Cornhole, Alabama.
When a friend of yours is really upset about some thing, it doesn't stop you having sex with your wife (reduced growth).

Second, as we all know, in the current version global happiness doesn't stop horizontal growth, it makes it even better.

Third, after the patch the whole system will be even more obscene. While a city growth at the other end of the world can stop your whole empire from growing, you don't have any chance to counter that in your core region.

Fourth, it is a major design fault. Shafer transferred the problems of one location to your whole empire in his attempts to punish the player for not playing as he, Shafer, thinks you have to play (regardless of map size, game speed, circumstances and whatnotever).

So, we have a system which doesn't comply with real life experiences, which doesn't work currently and which will become even more tedious in the future.

Looks to me like pretty much the description of very bad design.


Static happiness from buildings did work in previous game versions, since happiness was local.
Static happiness to a certain extend even works in the current patch version, since that way both, happiness and unhappiness are on the same global level.
Static happiness from buildings capped at the current population size will not work, as now happiness is local again, whilst unhappiness is still global.

The major flaw in the current patch version is that colosseums are much too powerful for their costs and come much too early for their power.
The idea seems to have been something like margin utility, but it wasn't set up properly.


The whole idea is broken.
Happiness works with the numbers of people you have. This number is very low.
Let us assume an empire with 5 cities of size 12, and 15 cities of size 4 each.
Quite some empire in terms of Civ5.

Yet, the total number of people is still just 120.
Having only one new colosseum effects a 3,33% of you whole empire.

Assuming that your empire is at happiness 0, only one new citizen (0.8%) brings down your empire.
Not only this, but you are taken hostage by the city governors.

Best example is gaining new cities due to peace treaties.
You are going into the red happiness-wise, and the city governors will let people in the puppeted cities starve, without you having any chance to avoid this.
Currently, you would have the chance to rush happiness buildings somewhere else.
In future, your new people will just starve until a new balance is found.

Take into account that the new cities will increase your cultural costs, and it becomes obvioius that the whole system is set up to punish you for becoming bigger.

This may adress ICS, yes. But it severely punishes any bigger empire, regardless of how and why it became big.

As happiness is only a sub-system in the context of the whole game, I don't see options to fix happiness without adressing the whole game set-up.
Happiness interacts with very low production, which is low, since cultural expansion avoids "production hexes" as long as ever possible.
On the other hand, except for very small maps, you are literally forced to have quite some cities (causing unhapiness again) to get access to luxuries.

It all comes down to one thing: the main idea behind Civ5 was to play on small maps, a handful of cities, almost no military, just another handful of so-called opponents and then after three hours of "playing", to win.

That's the core concept of Civ5.
Nothing about creating an empire. Nothing about standing "the test of time".

Civ5 is a small dish for in between, to be consumed hastily.
It is the fastfood version of a civilization game.

Ok bro. I followed you up to the point to where you had happy=local, and unhappy= global. you kinda lost me after that. Caught back up with you again on your pop 120 thesis, then you lost me once more on gaining access to luxories. I think I follow you on your basic premise, but there is some ambiguity there that I'm having problems with. Could you please clarify your example?

 

[No_such_reality]

Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes. (Added 12/3)

and

Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)

These should take care of most of the problems.

Population should grow as a function of population. Excess food should accelerate that threshold. Lack of food slows but not stops growth and generates unhappiness.

Selecting avoid population growth should also create unhappiness and should slow but not stop.

That will require several mod changes to share food on the trade network of your empire, ramp up food yields with techs and shift production to happiness (commercial goods).

Just thinking out loud for future mod opportunities.

Currently, IMHO, population is way too manageable.

 

[Drakarska]

Population should grow as a function of population. Excess food should accelerate that threshold. Lack of food slows but not stops growth and generates unhappiness.

Selecting avoid population growth should also create unhappiness and should slow but not stop.

That will require several mod changes to share food on the trade network of your empire, ramp up food yields with techs and shift production to happiness (commercial goods).

Just thinking out loud for future mod opportunities.

Currently, IMHO, population is way too manageable.

Ok, this I follow. Is that what Ischnarch is trying to say?

 

[lschnarch]

Ischnarch (nice name by the way), i disagree on so many points that doesn't worth the effort to write them...

Basically, you don't like the idea of global happiness and we understood that. But it may be not an idea so bad that you need to make such a rant.
Do you find it better that all your cities have 1 or 2 angry citizens without having a global effect on your civ like you could have in Civ IV? When some people are angry everywhere in a nation, there are demonstration, ask for change and even revolutions...

Apples and peaches?

While I was talking about one additional citizen, you are constructing the case of nationwide unrest und revolt.

Moreover, you criticize saying the whole system is b***s**t but you don't propose anything. So before criticizing our big fat new hamburger, explain us what kind of meal you wanted to order. If you wanted the same nuggets menu that in that 5 years old restaurant, you can still order something over there. I prefer to stay at the new one, especially since they say there are going to change the sauce recipe. (to keep your food metaphor...)

First, I don't have to own Burger King to be enabled to criticize McDonald's.

Second, out of the hat I could think of various different ways to put some kind of "horizontal growth control" in place.
The most obvious one would be to have "government points", provided by the palace (let's say 5 government points; all numbers just as they have come to mind) and "governor's residence" (3 gp, 5 gold maintenance and say 200 hammers building effort).
In this system, happiness would be local, as real life experience tells us it to be.
As soon as you pass the available number of government points, one of your citizens becomes idle (in a city without palace or governor's residence, as their the control would be the highest). As soon as you are lacking 3 gp, an additional citizen becomes unhappy (due to missing organization, no garbage collection anymore, whatever). Once again, this would happen in a city without palace and governor's residence.
Unhappy citizens would cause for additional gp consumed.

And so on. Point is, cities and population will consume control, and there is always a soft limit for how much of them you can control. If you want to extend your empire, you have to "pay" for it.

And this is just one idea. Yet, much more flexible, even in terms of allowing for modding.

 

[lschnarch]

Ok bro. I followed you up to the point to where you had happy=local, and unhappy= global. you kinda lost me after that. Caught back up with you again on your pop 120 thesis, then you lost me once more on gaining access to luxories. I think I follow you on your basic premise, but there is some ambiguity there that I'm having problems with. Could you please clarify your example?

Ok, this I follow. Is that what Ischnarch is trying to say?

Not, it was not.

About your questions, I don't get where I have lost you.
I will gladly try to make myself more clear, but I would have to ask you to point out what exactly you didn't understand?

 

[LAnkou]

ok, your counter argument is just "you didn't understand my point", then you just recreate exactly the current system (calling happines point as governement control) except the idle citizen part that is obscure...

To use correct language as moderator just taught me, i think your argument are complete rubbish.

so, Ischnach => ignore list
Moderator Action: Mentioning to put someone on the ignore list is seen as trolling.

DNFTT

 

[SuperJay]

so, Ischnach => ignore list

So... someone explains they don't like a feature, they describe the reasons why they don't like that feature, they respond to questions and provide some constructive suggestions regarding alternate approaches to that problem.

You respond to these opinions and suggestions by swearing at him, saying his posts are BS, and putting him on your ignore list (which you make a point of announcing to the world). And somehow HE is the one that's getting "too emotional" about Civ5?? Look in the mirror, man.
Moderator Action: And backtrolling is also not allowed here.