Poll questions answered through the 2h live video

[Tomice]

Hi Guys, just wanted to give some short feedback about infos surely interesting for many of you, though I won't have time to go into details.

The three favourite poll questions have been answered more or less:

1) Diplomacy options:

The PACT OF SECRECY seems to have no actual meening other than agreeing with an AI that you don't like a third civ. While it doesn't mean that you immediately declare war, the relationship of the pact partners towards the third civ drop, making it more likely that they won't cooperate well. This is hard to explain, but as far as i can see could turn out very interesting.

The PACT OF COOPERATION was not described in detail, but it seems to have a similar function like the other pact.

Telling a civ not to settle near you makes them angry.

2) Social Policy tree switching confirmed (again), anarchy turns or other consequences not shown or mentioned. Switching was described as "rarely a smart idea".

3) There IS a proper diplomacy overview, showing a "pact history"



A big thx to Greg and Elizabeth for trying to naswer most questions and for theri patience with us

 

[Viatrix]

2) Social Policy tree switching confirmed (again), anarchy turns or other consequences not shown or mentioned. Switching was described as "rarely a smart idea".

Yush!

And switching is rarely a smart idea because social policy trees are planned so that their last upgrades give the biggest advantages. So, basically you don't want to waste your culture points on a low-level upgrade when you can pick a high-level one. They are really like talents familiar from certain RPGs.

For example, you really don't want Warrior Code (a great general appears outside of your capital) from Honor tree when you can get Communism (+5 production per city) from Order tree.

 

[DeepQantas]

The social policy trees unlock at different eras for a reason. Saving culture for 2000 years might not be that great an idea when everyone else is zooming past you due to their early culture, expansion, combat and growth bonuses.


Or did you mean you shouldn't pick Liberty/Piety if you plan on taking Autocracy/Rationalism later?

 

[thungrim]

For example, you really don't want Warrior Code (a great general appears outside of your capital) from Honor tree when you can get Communism (+5 production per city) from Order tree.

This one is still making me scratch my head. How can the most historically effective means at destroying productivity be represented as a high production concept in Civ5?

 

[bjbrains]

This one is still making me scratch my head. How can the most historically effective means at destroying productivity be represented as a high production concept in Civ5?

The same way state property caused distance maintenance to go away and Civ 3's communism caused all your cities to suffer the same corruption. It's a game.

 

[Afforess]

This one is still making me scratch my head. How can the most historically effective means at destroying productivity be represented as a high production concept in Civ5?

Feel free to find the text file in your game, and rename it "Capitalism". I know I will.

 

[Zhahz]

I wanted to know if GPP are global or per city but couldn't get logged in to chat. The way things were rolling I doubt such a specific question would've been answered anyways.

 

[Louis XXIV]

This one is still making me scratch my head. How can the most historically effective means at destroying productivity be represented as a high production concept in Civ5?

I think that's debatable. Certainly, Stalin's 5-Year Plans before the war were great for industrializing. They were terrible for raising revenue (which was why the NEP was created previously to encourage private agriculture that could be sold to buy equipment, but Stalin certainly got people working). That's my guess on what it represents, anyway.

 

[Thyrwyn]

This one is still making me scratch my head. How can the most historically effective means at destroying productivity be represented as a high production concept in Civ5?

It didn't destroy production - it destroyed the economy. Demanding that someone make something is easy. Figuring out the right thing to demand them to make is difficult

Command economies have no problem making things - they have problems making enough of the things that people need/want.

Probably, the more appropriate response is that (since this is a game), the social policy represents the realized ideal of communism - not communism as it has been implemented historically.

 

[thungrim]

It didn't destroy production - it destroyed the economy. Demanding that someone make something is easy. Figuring out the right thing to demand them to make is difficult

Command economies have no problem making things - they have problems making enough of the things that people need/want.

End result: productivity destruction.

 

[kurtkage]

The PACT OF SECRECY seems to have no actual meening other than agreeing with an AI that you don't like a third civ. While it doesn't mean that you immediately declare war, the relationship of the pact partners towards the third civ drop, making it more likely that they won't cooperate well.

In the GiantBomb video that came out a bit ago they had multiple civs contact them and say something like "it's time to make good on our pact against x civ, yes or no to declare war" so it may be more than you think there.

edit: ok I looked at that video again and what they say is "The time for war against XXX has come" and your options are "Sorry, I've changed my mind" which leads me to believe he signed pact of secrecy before to indicate that he wanted to go after them otherwise what is the CHange?, or "Let's get this started (declare war)".

Why would it say you Changed your mind unless you agreed to something before? Wouldn't it just say "The XXX are a threat to us all" or "Please help us with XXX" or whatever? Also the fact that multiple civs contact him in a row asking to declare war leads me to believe he signed pacts of secrecy (or some other unknown pact of agression).

http://www.giantbomb.com/civil-service-the-road-to-civ-v/17-3013/

at about 34:10

Then again maybe I am reading too much into it and this is the standard request to DOW, and the multiple civs are threatened/pissed at the chinese at this time that they just happened to both ask the same turn.

 

[bjbrains]

In the GiantBomb video that came out a bit ago they had multiple civs contact them and say something like "it's time to make good on our pact against x civ, yes or no to declare war" so it may be more than you think there.

That was just speculative. What it said was: "It is time to declare war on X, will you join us?". A pact of secrecy probably just makes that more likely to happen, as it says in the video.

 

[Louis XXIV]

End result: productivity destruction.

No, usually things are produced just fine. The problem was with waste (the items not being used because they weren't wanted). For the production represented by the game system, which focuses are large scale things, it would theoretically be just fine.

Honestly, I had given this some thought before. A good way to represent communism vs. capitalism would be to have a sliding scale for production where, the more state control the slider has, the more gold gets converted into production (with a bit of waste). Laissez-faire systems would allow you to get the most gold, but you wouldn't have as much production (and would have to buy improvements). Full state control would give you far, far less gold, but you could build requested improvements more efficiently. Of course, this is a far too unnecessary complexity for a game that represents a much broader period of history. It was just my random musings.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Feel free to find the text file in your game, and rename it "Capitalism". I know I will.

Hmmm, maybe we need a Free Market Policy that causes a random GFC every half a dozen turns. If you fail to spend *all* your gold, then production stops in all your cities!

 

[Marshall Thomas]

No, usually things are produced just fine. The problem was with waste (the items not being used because they weren't wanted). For the production represented by the game system, which focuses are large scale things, it would theoretically be just fine.

Honestly, I had given this some thought before. A good way to represent communism vs. capitalism would be to have a sliding scale for production where, the more state control the slider has, the more gold gets converted into production (with a bit of waste). Laissez-faire systems would allow you to get the most gold, but you wouldn't have as much production (and would have to buy improvements). Full state control would give you far, far less gold, but you could build requested improvements more efficiently. Of course, this is a far too unnecessary complexity for a game that represents a much broader period of history. It was just my random musings.

Interesting idea! What's your opinion of how Civ 5 will represent communism vs. capitalism? I thought that Civ 4 did a pretty good job at representing it (abstractly); especially when corporations were introduced. But in Civ 5 foriegn trade routes (which free market capitalsim gave you more of) and the distance penalty/coruption (which state property eliminated) are gone.

 

[Tomice]

I wanted to know if GPP are global or per city but couldn't get logged in to chat. The way things were rolling I doubt such a specific question would've been answered anyways.

I asked, but only once. Forgot about it later. Too much info, too busy getting poll questions answered...

Hmmm, maybe we need a Free Market Policy that causes a random GFC every half a dozen turns. If you fail to spend *all* your gold, then production stops in all your cities!

good one!

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I have to say that Social Policies are the one thing that I am *so* going to be modding! Not sure if you're familiar with Hearts of Iron, but I really did like their "Social Policy" system, & this is something I'm hoping to replicate. So your Government Policy will be Democratic on the one hand & Autocratic on the other. Your Legal Policies will be Order on the one hand & Freedom on the other. Economic Policy will be Command on the one hand & Free on the other, Military Policy will be Hawk vs Dove etc.

Aussie.

 

[stealth_nsk]

End result: productivity destruction.

But first it builds it. Both USSR and China went through extreme industrialization under communism. You see, state management is good at building big things, like factories or hydro plants. It went very bad when you need to micromanage or work with consumer product.

 

[sputnik323]

Communism never had a problem producing things... it had problems in producing QUALITY things. They have tons of nukes... just not many quality missiles which can actually take off and hit their targets... They have TONS AND TONS of tanks, but one A10 could take out dozens of tanks, and the new CBU-97 can take out a battlefield of tanks. If you want quantity, go with communism. If you want quality and quantity go with capitalism.

 

[VikingMaekel]

If you want quality and quantity go with capitalism.

Actually in CiV, you'd go with Facism
100% extra strategic resources will give you double the resource hogging stuff like tanks, fighters and what not. Where as Communism leaves you with the less impressive resource free units