Patch Update by Greg @ 2K

[Rohili]

Didn't want to put this in a new thread so I'll post it here. Wouldn't firaxis be better off making the culture-points for new SP always the same, and using a penalty to the NET Culture applied towards the total per turn which is based on the number of cities you have?

So (and I"m just throwing numbers around here)
First policy is always at 100, next at 300, next at 600 ,etc.

If I have one city, I get 100% of culture/turn going towards the SP.
Two cities, 95%, 5 cities, 60%, etc.

That way it seems a lot of the exploits and/or problems with micro people are talking about with SP would disappear. And if properly documented in the UI I think this would actually be easier to understand since people would learn the SP levels for each new policy pretty quickly.

Please tell me if I'm missing something and this is indeed incorrect.

Cheers.

That is definitely far more elegant than 2K's clumsy approach of slapping on cellotape to whichever part of Civ V is broken. The only downside I can think of is that some players might whine that it is "unrealistic" or "not immersive" for a civilization to generate less culture the more cities it has.

Making culture costs never go down will have undesirable side effects, such as penalising players whose cities are captured rather than sold off, or players who have legitimate reasons for selling off cities (rather than using it as a culture exploit).

Unfortunately, your suggestion probably requires too much work - it is a fundamental overhaul of the SP system. It is probably easier from a programming standpoint to just prevent culture costs from ever going down, and obviously the game designers will want to take the easy route out.

 

[black213]

I've never understood the unhappiness from more cities; I wouldn't be unhappy about the fact that my country is growing.

 

[MadRat]

I've never understood the unhappiness from more cities; I wouldn't be unhappy about the fact that my country is growing.

They did that because it prevents ICS.... wait....

Rat

 

[Celevin]

Didn't want to put this in a new thread so I'll post it here. Wouldn't firaxis be better off making the culture-points for new SP always the same, and using a penalty to the NET Culture applied towards the total per turn which is based on the number of cities you have?

So (and I"m just throwing numbers around here)
First policy is always at 100, next at 300, next at 600 ,etc.

If I have one city, I get 100% of culture/turn going towards the SP.
Two cities, 95%, 5 cities, 60%, etc.

That way it seems a lot of the exploits and/or problems with micro people are talking about with SP would disappear. And if properly documented in the UI I think this would actually be easier to understand since people would learn the SP levels for each new policy pretty quickly.

Please tell me if I'm missing something and this is indeed incorrect.

Cheers.

I have a thread about this here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=9976145#post9976145
It's pretty much the exact same thing you came up with. I also suggest exactly how it should be calculated, and show how it wouldn't alter the policy gain rate significantly in a standard game.

Unfortunately, your suggestion probably requires too much work - it is a fundamental overhaul of the SP system. It is probably easier from a programming standpoint to just prevent culture costs from ever going down, and obviously the game designers will want to take the easy route out.

I don't think so at all. It just involves taking 1 multiplier out of the social policy cost equation, and dividing the culture per-turn final value by the same multiplier. It won't create any new balance issues.

 

[PawelS]

I've never understood the unhappiness from more cities; I wouldn't be unhappy about the fact that my country is growing.

As I said elsewhere, maybe it would be better if the happiness was called "stability". It's harder to manage larger empires and keep them stable.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I was going to suggest "Order", but "Stability" works too.

 

[BubbaYeti]

I've never understood the unhappiness from more cities;

In terms of the game design, they wanted something to control growth of your empire. In previous civs it was partly economic (city maintanance and corruption sapped your income). No clue why they changed, but the patch changes announced make it clear they are stubbornly sticking to happiness to try to limit empire size, instead of gold.

 

[Seek]

As I said elsewhere, maybe it would be better if the happiness was called "stability". It's harder to manage larger empires and keep them stable.

Agree with this, especially if (fingers crossed) a health mechanic is added. Happiness and health would contribute to Stability (GAs or unrest) globally, but would have seperate local effects.

In regards to the SP debate, I would propose a middle ground: You can save SPs but after 5 turns (say), there would be a small chance that the populace would demand social change, resulting in a turn of anarchy. The longer you forgo adopting a SP, the greater the chance becomes. It would make saving policies a much more risky, but potentially rewarding and exciting, prospect.

 

[Louis XXIV]

In terms of the game design, they wanted something to control growth of your empire. In previous civs it was partly economic (city maintanance and corruption sapped your income). No clue why they changed, but the patch changes announced make it clear they are stubbornly sticking to happiness to try to limit empire size, instead of gold.

Previous Civ, not Civs. Civ4 was the only one entirely economic. Civ3 and 2 hurt production through expansion. I suppose Civ1 was economic, but you could never go in the negatives, just reduce positive gold.

 

[Zydor]

..... In regards to the SP debate, I would propose a middle ground: You can save SPs but after 5 turns (say), there would be a small chance that the populace would demand social change, resulting in a turn of anarchy. The longer you forgo adopting a SP, the greater the chance becomes. It would make saving policies a much more risky, but potentially rewarding and exciting, prospect.

Thats a nice idea, I like that - devil is in the detail and need to crunch the numbers a little for balance blah blah in the final incarnation, but as a way to go, works for me

Regards
Zy

 

[ddd123]

I've never understood the unhappiness from more cities; I wouldn't be unhappy about the fact that my country is growing.

yeah in china they are happier for every new kid is born

 

[BubbaYeti]

Previous Civ, not Civs. Civ4 was the only one entirely economic.

I thought I remembered civ iii had corruption, but it has been a long time since I've played it. I stand corrected.

 

[neilkaz]

I absolutely HATE this change. I'm not aware of the culture cost exploit, but this change is going to destroy the ability to capture a city and then give/trade it away to my civ of choice. Now the only effective options will be raise/liberate/puppet/annex.

I like being able to conquer territory and then assign it to my civ of choice, often returning cities to previously conquered nations. It's sort of like what the United States did in World War II.

Terrible, terrible change. Please reconsider.

EDIT: I'm really pissed about this. My style of play, which is far from an exploit, and is altruistic in nature, will be effectively ruined. It means the only option post-conquest if you don't want to keep a city is to raise it. That's just terrible.

I hate this change also. We don't need Firaxis to baby sit us and prevent us from trying the extremely lame tactic of selling razing cities late game to rush a cultural victory. No one with an ounce of integrity would try to win that way. That being said, it would suck to lose a MP game to that lame tactic.

What I fear is that when you conquer a city and then immediately raze it, it will be counted as annexed and then your culture cost goes up. The fix to this is simple and this also fixes a reload save happiness bug.

Cities should be razed as puppets NOT as annexed cities. .. neilkaz ..

 

[Louis XXIV]

I thought I remembered civ iii had corruption, but it has been a long time since I've played it. I stand corrected.

It had corruption, but it could never go negative. Adding new cities would add more gold, but it would be greatly reduced (most of it would be wasted). Basically, it led to useless cities. Civ4 was the first to actively penalize you for more cities (by potentially forcing negative gold return).

 

[Clement]

* Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). (Added 12/3)

I absolutely HATE this change. I'm not aware of the culture cost exploit, but this change is going to destroy the ability to capture a city and then give/trade it away to my civ of choice. Now the only effective options will be raise/liberate/puppet/annex.

I like being able to conquer territory and then assign it to my civ of choice, often returning cities to previously conquered nations. It's sort of like what the United States did in World War II.

Terrible, terrible change. Please reconsider.

EDIT: I'm really pissed about this. My style of play, which is far from an exploit, and is altruistic in nature, will be effectively ruined. It means the only option post-conquest if you don't want to keep a city is to raise it. That's just terrible.

Does'nt this just mean that the culture won't be affected? we'l still be able to liberate and give away cities won't we?

 

[Danild111]

Does'nt this just mean that the culture won't be affected? we'l still be able to liberate and give away cities won't we?

You will still be able to give cities away and liberate them, the culture cost for SPs just won't decrease.

 

[Clement]

You will still be able to give cities away and liberate them, the culture cost for SPs just won't decrease.

thank you

 

[lietkynes]

great changes, 2 or 3 patches like this and civ5 will be epic

 

[BubbaYeti]

It had corruption, but it could never go negative. Adding new cities would add more gold, but it would be greatly reduced (most of it would be wasted). Basically, it led to useless cities.

I thought I remembered something like that. So, a large number of smaller cities would not be as good economically as a fewer number of medium sized cities...sounds like a reasonable answer to ICS so long as gold is hard to come by (but gold is pretty easy to get in civ v as it stands)

 

[Bob1475]

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

I am a little concerned about this. What happened to global happiness?