Polish gameplay article - some new info

[kaspergm]

I think there is an inherent opportunity cost in the Eureka moments.

Do you settle by the coast or by the Mountain?
Do you build those 3 Spearman or 3 galleys?
Do you build those 3 Spearman or a settler?
Do you build that settler or an explorer to find that civ.

That's an INHERENT opportunity cost.

Yes I agree completely, those examples are fine as Eurekas. The ones I object to are the ones like "meet another civ" because that seems like something you'll do no matter what, and even if for whatever reason you should decide to sit perfectly still in your starting location and not do any exploration, chance is another civ will find you and then trigger the Eureka moment anyway. So the only way I could see this *not* happening is if you start on an isolated island, which will then basically punish you double because that (at least in Civ5) was a major disadvantage in the first place (no trade, etc.).

 

[Felis Renidens]

You would meet another civ if not stranded on an island, in that case building those 3 galleys may be good...

 

[JtW]

You would meet another civ if not stranded on an island, in that case building those 3 galleys may be good...

Exactly. Even the most straightforward eurekas will sometimes be unavailable for you.

 

[kaspergm]

Exactly. Even the most straightforward eurekas will sometimes be unavailable for you.

Still not really the point. Point is it is completely decoupled from any course of action that you actively made and entirely determined by random luck.

 

[True_Candyman]

Yes I agree completely, those examples are fine as Eurekas. The ones I object to are the ones like "meet another civ" because that seems like something you'll do no matter what, and even if for whatever reason you should decide to sit perfectly still in your starting location and not do any exploration, chance is another civ will find you and then trigger the Eureka moment anyway. So the only way I could see this *not* happening is if you start on an isolated island, which will then basically punish you double because that (at least in Civ5) was a major disadvantage in the first place (no trade, etc.).

Eureka are gunna be new and confusion for 90+% of the people playing this game. I think some easier and inevitable eureka in the early game are a good light introduction to the system without the need for dry tutorials.

As for island starts and such, Civ has always been a game where certain starts are better than others. However, as an island civ you will probably develop more eurekas in a different kind and develop a very different kind of civ in the early game to deal with the situation. It would just require more focus on exploration and less on military at the beginning, with the added bonus of fewer barbarian threats to allow for this strategy to work. I just don't think it will be such a game breaking problem as you suggest, and will likely balance out. If not, well it's an early tech so god forbid you fall 3 or 4 turns behind on tech? That sorta difference could be made up monumentally quick if you're on a mountainous isolated island.

 

[kaspergm]

I think some easier and inevitable eureka in the early game are a good light introduction to the system without the need for dry tutorials.

Sorry, but introduction to new players should never be a balancing or designing focus of the main game imo.

 

[MadDjinn]

Sorry, but introduction to new players should never be a balancing or designing focus of the main game imo.

Agreed. New players are only new players until they play the game and figure out the basics.

At which point, leaving in super easy 'new player intro' eurekas just means a faster path for any non-new player.

So tutorials are the place for that.

On the other hand, opportunity cost of getting to the Eureka vs just straight researching is an important consideration for the very early game.

if the Eurekas cost is, number of turns wise, similar to or longer than just researching the tech, then it's not designed well.

Which means the very very early game techs/civics can't be too hard to get generally.

But later ones (starting in column 2-3) can be done so that you're 'doing' stuff more specifically.

 

[Seek]

I could see a system where there would be a pool of Eureka Moments (EMs) for each tech which are randomly assigned each game, and which would get reassigned if the criteria is met for the primary one before having access to the tech in question. So for example, the EM for writing might be to meet another civ one game, and it might be to establish an embassy in another, and in the first game if you met another civ before researching the prereqs for writing the EM would change to establish embassy.

Such a system would add to dynamism (each game would play differently) and strategy (do I give an embassy in this game where I've already gotten my EM? It might give Rome their EM, or maybe they just want to start trading..) while reducing the "duh" EMs (sometimes what's easy in one game will be more difficult in another). Thoughts?

 

[m15a]

Still not really the point. Point is it is completely decoupled from any course of action that you actively made and entirely determined by random luck.

I think this just goes back to the perennial question of whether random luck is good. It's a player preference thing. A lot of players like that kind of randomness - that's why good huts, which can easily have more of an impact than half a tech, have stayed in the game so long. And random start location can easily have a huge effect on the game. Some people don't like a wider variance and some people like "balanced" maps.

Since you don't like that randomness, this decision seems bad to you and it's unfortunate that, most likely, there won't be an option to disable Eureka moments (except with mods). But that doesn't make it poor design - it's just design to satisfy the preferences of certain players

 

[AriochIV]

They're making a concerted effort to make terrain have much more of an impact on the game and your decision making, instead of following a rote progression path. If you don't like randomness that will require you to deviate from your ideal plan, then you're in trouble, because they're deliberately putting it quite a bit of it.

 

[chaosprophet]

They're making a concerted effort to make terrain have much more of an impact on the game and your decision making, instead of following a rote progression path. If you don't like randomness that will require you to deviate from your ideal plan, then you're in trouble, because they're deliberately putting it quite a bit of it.

I think you said it really well. The randomness they want in the game is not the kind that is only being advantageous or only disadvantageous, but rather that they give you opportunities to certain path over others. So thinking you got unlucky is likely because one was set in following one specific path even before checking the map but got something not very good to that path, instead of getting a bad start in all senses.

 

[m15a]

And if the tech tree is like Civ V, you could even hold off on research Writing for a while (and research sailing or maybe mining or something) if you want to make that trade off to get the Eureka Moment.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

And if the tech tree is like Civ V, you could even hold off on research Writing for a while (and research sailing or maybe mining or something) if you want to make that trade off to get the Eureka Moment.

I think that I will probably research some techs half way then switch to another if I anticipate getting the Eureka Moment in short order.

 

[Barathor]

Mmm, eureka micro. Perhaps we'll have a strategy guide here focused solely on eureka's.

The techs which have easily obtained and more controllable eureka's may often get switched with another tech before being researched too much.

Unless Firaxis introduces much harsher beaker atrophy when a tech isn't actively researched. Though... that would actually hurt the eureka system and cause you to avoid them since the boosts would waste away; never mind. Another option could be to lock you in until completion when tech is chosen.

Or maybe... the research costs are going to be very high anyway. A eureka moment may grant up to 50% of the research cost of techs. Perhaps, after that boost is granted, the tech costs are then at the "normal" cost (not a cheap cost), or more. As in, tech's now cost double what they would cost if it was Civ5, or again, even more! This would also help deter players from tech paths that they "don't have experience with" or can't gain eureka's from in a timely manner to make it worthwhile.

 

[m15a]

The techs which have easily obtained and more controllable eureka's may often get switched with another tech before being researched too much.

Unless Firaxis introduces much harsher beaker atrophy when a tech isn't actively researched. Though... that would actually hurt the eureka system and cause you to avoid them since the boosts would waste away; never mind. Another option could be to lock you in until completion when tech is chosen.

They can still have partial research decay, but only have it apply to beakers actually researched and not the reward from the eureka moment. That shouldn't be hard to do and could be more intuitive to do it that way depending on how the tech boost is represented. To be more extreme, switching research could just be disabled completely.

Although researching everything to half comes with the inherent penalty of potentially not being able to use techs earlier, too. And you're limited to the few techs you have open to research at any time anyway.

 

[ftl]

I do hope so. Given that they're always going to be the same, in every play through, it's likely a player will follow the same script every time to get the eurekas as quickly and efficiently as their situation allows making your game play a bit "samey" in the same way that the national college start in civ v is just a standard de facto start for every game...

They said they wanted to move away from that style of game but the eurekas being so simple, and being the same every time (so you'll learn them all in due course) don't help this in my humble opinion.

Based on what they've said, it seems like the gameplay they're aiming for is for the Eureka moments to interact with your current strategy and setup to make sure each game you're really reacting to what's going on, and not just following a preset build/research order.

So, one game you start next to the coast. So you get a bonus to researching sailing so maybe you do that earlier, which gives you the opportunity to build some ships which gives you the eureka boost to navigation, and so you find an island and settle on it which gives you a eureka boost to something else sea-related.

Another game you start next to an opponent so you get the eureka boost for writing really early, which lets you specialize in that direction. Another game maybe there's a barb camp that is right next to you so you build a slinger to fight it, giving you the boost to archery, so you do some fighting with your archers and that gives you more military tech boosts.

But you couldn't just decide to follow "the same strategy" because the boosts you get in different games will be different. One game you'll get the writing boost early and the sailing boost late, one game you'll get the military boosts early and some other game you'll get culture boosts early. So optimal strategy will depend a lot on the situation you find yourself in.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

They can still have partial research decay, but only have it apply to beakers actually researched and not the reward from the eureka moment. That shouldn't be hard to do and could be more intuitive to do it that way depending on how the tech boost is represented. To be more extreme, switching research could just be disabled completely.

Although researching everything to half comes with the inherent penalty of potentially not being able to use techs earlier, too. And you're limited to the few techs you have open to research at any time anyway.

I belive I heard it said that Eureka does not give bonus research/culture, just cuts the tech/civic cost in 1/2.

 

[stiiknafuulia]

I belive I heard it said that Eureka does not give bonus research/culture, just cuts the tech/civic cost in 1/2.

I hope so. That's a wise implementation, since it avoids annoying micromanagement. This way there's no benefit in 'pre-researching' a tech before a Eureka; on the contrary, it's detrimental since you no longer get the full bonus (50 % of total tech cost, for an unresearched tech).

 

[m15a]

I hope so. That's a wise implementation, since it avoids annoying micromanagement. This way there's no benefit in 'pre-researching' a tech before a Eureka; on the contrary, it's detrimental since you no longer get the full bonus (50 % of total tech cost, for an unresearched tech).

I don't think that's how it works, unless I'm interpreting the demo video wrong. The way I think it works (based on the comment above) is that the cost of research will be half, but your current research isn't halved.

So, say a tech costs 50 and you have 30 science in it. Then, if you get the Eureka Moment, the cost goes down to 25 and your 30 science will complete the tech.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

The B-Roll the peopel got indicates that completing a Eureka moment ADDS 50% of the research/culture into the tech.

When the video met Teddy, he researched Writing afterwards, without a turn change, indicating that the bonus is just a lump sum of research/culture into that tech.