Playing without the slider...

[remconius]

I am trying to understand how to play civ without a slider. Who can help to explain and complete these mechanics?

In civ 4 you could set the slider to give you science, gold, culture or espionage points. We'll forget about espionage, but let's examine the others.

Gold
You gain gold from working tiles with gold and modifiers in buildings and trade routes, as well as one-off events such as huts, conquest or trading. Also specialists can be assigned to earn more.

Gold is used to pay maintenance for roads, buildings, and you can use gold for negociations, gifts, purchasing tiles, unit upgrades and rushing production.

Culture
I think you earn culture from buildings temples, monasteries and wonders. In these buildings you can assign specialists to increase culture.

And culture is used for city expansion and you can spend culture on social paths.

Science
You earn science from population (1 per head) With library this is increased (1.5 per head). Like culture you can assign specialists to earn more science. University gives +50% science. Also research agreements can increase science. Also Research lab and public schools.

Science is used to develop the tech tree.

Happiness
Is empire wide and is increased with coloseums, theatres and stadiums.

It is used to keep people happy as you increase in size, number of cities and conquered cities.

So you need high population to increase science, gold from trade routes and worked tiles. This will be limited by unhappiness from size, cities, etc.

Who can expand on the above?

 

[Zhahz]

I'll explain it sometime after Sept 21, when I've actually played the game for a few days.

Long term decision making and planning will be more important and I don't see lack of slider as a big deal. I actually think it's a good thing because I think it's another of those "elements of cheese" that I dislike, that is, something players can exploit that the AI most likely sucks at using.

 

[VainApocalypse]

I am trying to understand how to play civ without a slider. Who can help to explain and complete these mechanics?

In civ 4 you could set the slider to give you science, gold, culture or espionage points. We'll forget about espionage, but let's examine the others.

Gold
You gain gold from working tiles with gold and modifiers in buildings and trade routes, as well as one-off events such as huts, conquest or trading.

Gold is used to pay maintenance for roads, buildings, and you can use gold for negociations, gifts, purchasing tiles, and unit upgrades

Culture
I think you earn culture from buildings (?) temples, libraries, wonders, etc.

And culture is used for city expansion and you can spend culture on social paths.

Science
I am not sure how you earn science. Maybe based on population and library/university modifiers(?)

Science is used to develop the tech tree.

Who can expand on the above?

Its been said at some point that science will be collected from the map, like food and production. There's at least one social policy that adds credence to this by allowing your trading posts to produce it. It's also confirmed that Great Scientist built academies will now too appear outside of the cities, on the map, where they'll be used to harvest more research. It's not a far stretch to assume that the base-source of research will come from the map.

Additionally, you can be sure that specialists working in libraries, universities and the like will contribute some as well.

 

[Tomice]

I guess the game is balanced around excess gold. A certain amount of gold is needed (maintainance) but there a lot of uses for gold that are useful, but not really obligatory.

You can convert gold into production (rush-buying), culture (buying tiles) or science (research agreements). Each is useful and interesting, but you can play quite well without. You could also bribe city states or even buy cities diplomatically (which was shown in a gamelay demo vid, not sure how viable it will be).

So while science, production and culture are rather constant (*), you'll probably earn and spend gold in a much more active way, especially in diplomacy.




(*) Changing specialists, buildings and tile improvements is not as flexible as the slider was.

It's not a far stretch to assume that the base-source of research will come from the map.

The base source will be population (not only specialists).

On the map we have only seen jungles to provide science (around university cities) and of course the great scientists academy. There are SPs that can make trading posts produce science, however, which could be enough to base your economy on TP spam.

 

[remconius]

Thank you for the responses. I'll update the first post with the insights.

In the screenshots of the city there does not seem to be science on the map. Maybe trade posts with a SP as suggested. I did read that a library gives +2 science per population as well as offering two spots for citizens to generate science. Maybe each pop gives 1 (?) research without any improvements. I wonder if research buildings still give culture, or if you have to build colosuums and theatres.

 

[sensual benny]

Science is on the map; for example, I think after a certain tech jungles become worth 2 science.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Science is Basically based on population, and boosted by buildings or making some of those populations specialists (you can get it from the map in limited cases.. ie Jungles with a university or a Great Scientist's Academy tile)

So Science is pretty much fixed, to improve it build science buildings and increase your population (build Farms and Hapiness buildings)

Gold... Trade routes and Trading Posts/Water Tiles are the two sources
Trade Routes are pretty much based on population (so mostly the same rules as science.. just make sure the city is connected to your capital)
BUT
Trade Posts/Water Tiles are tiles, and so this is probably going to be the trae off
Farms->Food->population->Science
or
Trade Posts/Water Tiles-> Gold

Culture seems almost entirely a 'building' generated resource, so the big trade off there is maintenance cost and hammer investment (invest in gold buildings v. science buildings v.. culture buildings... v. units/happiness buildings)

 

[remconius]

Can you delete buildings?

You could have cultural buildings for the SPs and then destroy them to same maintenance costs....

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Can you delete buildings?

You could have cultural buildings for the SPs and then destroy them to same maintenance costs....

Well they continue to give you more culture for more SPs...

But, I believe they Probably would give you the ability to delete buildings because they Do have a maintenance cost.

 

[Shurdus]

While I liked the slider, it was one of those things that made the game very hard to understand, or at last it obscured important info. Without the slider, everything will hopefully be more clear, making the game more accessable.

 

[Ahriman]

I was worried about the slider removal making "bankruptcy" (zero gold, negative gold income) too common, until I learned that there is still a "semi-slider" mechanic where bankrupt civs deduct any deficit from their science income, rather than having to forcibly have units/buildings/etc, disbanded.

I think its probably a good call overall. It will make it much easier to evaluate science and gold boosting buildings.

 

[Schalke 04]

Science has always been a central concept for the Civ-series. Therefore I like the idea to accumulate knowledge about it, in one thread!

I think the sources of science in CIV V highly depened on the era. In the beginning science will be only generated by population, later on you can use specialists and/or tiles for science production.

I'm trying to make a brief overview over the possibilities of science generation, from what I know. Sources of Sciences in different colours:
Population
Specialists
Tiles
Building multipliers



Ancient and Classical era:
1 science per pop (1,5 if you have a library)
2 specialists slots per library - 3 science per specialist
(this era might be too early to create an Academy tile by a Great Scientist)


Medieval era:
1,5 science per pop (with a library)
3 specialists slots with library + university - 3 science per specialist
2 science per jungle tile (with a university)
5 (?) science per Academy tile improvement (need a Great Scientist for that)
50% more science output with a university

In Addition: Patronage->Scholasticism: 33% more science from a City State


Renaissance era:
1,5 science per pop (with a library)
4 specialists slots with library + university + public school - 3 science per specialist
Secularism: 2 Science from each specialist (even if not a scientist?)
2 science per jungle tile (with a university)
5 (?) science per Academy tile improvement (need a Great Scientist for that)
Free Thought: 2 Science points for each Trading Post
50% more science output with a university

In Addition:
- Observatory? (effect is unknown yet, maybe a science building?)
- Sovereignty: +15% Science while your empire is happy


Modern era:
1,5 science per pop (with a library)
5 specialists slots with library + university + public school + research lab - 3 science per specialist
Secularism: 2 Science from each specialist (even if not a scientist?)
2 science per jungle tile (with a university)
5 (?) science per Academy tile improvement (need a Great Scientist for that)
Free Thought: 2 Science points for each Trading Post
50% more science output with a university



In the beginning of a game everything is about population. In medieval times you can use tiles for science as well. When you reach Renaissance you really can start to focus on a science strategy as it gives a huge boost to specialists and tiles.

 

[remconius]

Interesting food for thought!

 

[bernlin2000]

I was worried about the slider removal making "bankruptcy" (zero gold, negative gold income) too common, until I learned that there is still a "semi-slider" mechanic where bankrupt civs deduct any deficit from their science income, rather than having to forcibly have units/buildings/etc, disbanded.

I think its probably a good call overall. It will make it much easier to evaluate science and gold boosting buildings.

Good to hear this (source though?), although it looks like a gold deficit is a much more serious situation than in CivIV: it's indicative that you are building too many buildings and/or roads and need to cut back and focus on gold more.

 

[bjbrains]

Good to hear this (source though?), although it looks like a gold deficit is a much more serious situation than in CivIV: it's indicative that you are building too many buildings and/or roads and need to cut back and focus on gold more.

The removal of the slider definitely adds strategy and choices to the game- gold and science are no longer two sides of the same coin, but separate resources that you need to manage. It's the same reason that I love Social Policies - they make culture something with real value outside of border popping/border wars. I mean, stonehenge only does two things now: +8 culture, and +1 GE point (subject to change). To summarize: The removal of the slider is a good thing.

 

[Psycedilla]

The removal of the slider definitely adds strategy and choices to the game- gold and science are no longer two sides of the same coin, but separate resources that you need to manage. It's the same reason that I love Social Policies - they make culture something with real value outside of border popping/border wars. I mean, stonehenge only does two things now: +8 culture, and +1 GE point (subject to change). To summarize: The removal of the slider is a good thing.

couldnt agree more

 

[lemmy101]

"semi-slider" mechanic where bankrupt civs deduct any deficit from their science income, rather than having to forcibly have units/buildings/etc, disbanded.

Also if you get to -5 gold and have 0 or less income per turn you will have a unit disbanded. Adds actual consequences to having too many roads / too many buildings / units I think it's great personally. In Civ 4 if I start running a deficit I can just click the - button and the problem goes away. There's no real such thing as losing money, just losing science. Also just zeroing science to save up for a rush build seems cheap to me with hindsight.

Plus since in Civ 4 if you were running 100% science then banks / markets etc were of limited use. Here since the systems are completely seperated you build a library your science increases, you build a market your gold increases. Makes logical sense, easier for newcomers and makes it clearer what state your economy is in.

It makes the problems and solutions a lot more immediate and logical. I'm losing money per turn! Disband some units or build some trading posts! My science is lower than my neighbours! Increase my population and build science buildings / hire specialists! My happiness is too low and I'm not growing! Build a colleseum and trade for some dyes.

None of this arbitrary tweaking the economy which pretty much dampens any real consequences except falling behind on tech or languishing with no gold.

Science:

You get one beaker of science per population, and also buildings like Library = 0.5 beakers per population (or 1 beaker per 2 population) then of course there are your specialists. Afaik no science comes directly from tiles or improvements except the academy.

Observatory = +50% science.

Patronage->Scholasticism: 33% more science from a City State

This is actually if you are allied with city state you will get extra science to the amount of 33% of the science they produce.

 

[Ahriman]

Good to hear this (source though?),

2K Greg quote:

If you are out of gold, and your income is negative, it comes out of your research. Basically for every 1 gold deficit you have, you lose 1 research point.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9441520&postcount=10

Nope. It's proper vintage. If you go to -5 gold and have 0 or less income per turn you will have a unit disbanded

Source please? This contradicts Greg's claim.
I believe that this happens only after your research is reduced to zero. So, with 10 research per turn, you would need -11 gold per turn before anything was disbanded.

This is a *far* better solution than living in constant fear of having an entire unit or building disbanded because you happened to slip into negatives for a turn (eg having your capital with its naval trade routes blockaded).

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Nope. It's proper vintage. If you go to -5 gold and have 0 or less income per turn you will have a unit disbanded. Adds actual consequences to having too many roads / too many buildings / units I think it's great personally. In Civ 4 if I start running a deficit I can just click the - button and the problem goes away. There's no real such thing as losing money, just losing science. Also just zeroing science to save up for a rush build seems cheap to me with hindsight.

The issue is then how is it decided which unit/building is disbanded, and what happens if disbanding just 1 unit/building doesn't give you enough gold to cover the deficit.

Since the-1 science per gold deficit doesn't allow you to use science to rush buy or get city state favor or get a research pact, and the penalty is directly proportional to the shortfall, then it seems quite reasonable
(especially if 1 science is harder to get than 1 gold.)

 

[lemmy101]

2K Greg quote:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9441520&postcount=10
Source please? This contradicts Greg's claim.
I believe that this happens only after your research is reduced to zero. So, with 10 research per turn, you would need -11 gold per turn before anything was disbanded.

Yeah I edited my post before you posted your reply.