Questions about Brave New World that don't deserve their own thread.

[Aussie_Lurker]

I've been wondering if there is going to be some restriction on the Science victory. With the other three victory conditions now you have to fight against the other civs to win, and you can have a balanced state where no one is winning. With Science, it is just about who gets there first, and what other civs do in the Science field has little influence, and Culture and Diplomacy don't really seem to be able to stop Science. That makes Science a rather unavoidable victory, which is what the time victory should be really. Or in other words, you can defend yourself against someone else winning a Domination, Culture or Diplomatic victory while trying to win in a different way, but you can't defend yourself against someone winning a Science victory unless you beat them to victory.

I have to say though, that with changes like science leakage from trade routes, & the special abilities granted by some of the ideological tenets, the Science Victory has now become slightly less "unavoidable".

 

[AriochIV]

I have to say though, that with changes like science leakage from trade routes, & the special abilities granted by some of the ideological tenets, the Science Victory has now become slightly less "unavoidable".

Those things don't help to avoid the Science Victory; on the contrary, they make it come faster.

 

[werothegreat]

Well, the leakage makes it just a tad bit easier to catch up to someone who's ahead of you technologically, especially since your spies will be diplomats to make sure you can take away their science funding.

 

[Hyper Nova]

I have two questions....

First one is to do with the new culture victory. Currently you win a culture victory by staying small/tall, generally 2-4 cities otherwise policies become too expensive. Will the new version still be aimed at small civs ie some sort of restriction on tourism if you are a large civ ie you need more tourism to become influential or will the way tourism adds up not make any real difference whether you go wide or tall?

And second is to do with rivers and trade routes, as we know rivers and coasts lose their gold but for coasts there is still a incentive (from a gold point of view) to build cities on the coast as the trade routes overseas are more lucrative than land routes. But what about rivers? Do cities next to rivers get trade route bonuses or the ability to use the river to connect longer trade routes? As it seems to me if there is no gold bonus in the cities next to rivers then those cities aren't much better off than other cities.

 

[AriochIV]

First one is to do with the new culture victory. Currently you win a culture victory by staying small/tall, generally 2-4 cities otherwise policies become too expensive. Will the new version still be aimed at small civs ie some sort of restriction on tourism if you are a large civ ie you need more tourism to become influential or will the way tourism adds up not make any real difference whether you go wide or tall?

We don't know the specifics yet, but it seems likely that the culture penalty for having larger empires has been ameliorated (or perhaps even removed).

And second is to do with rivers and trade routes, as we know rivers and coasts lose their gold but for coasts there is still a incentive (from a gold point of view) to build cities on the coast as the trade routes overseas are more lucrative than land routes. But what about rivers? Do cities next to rivers get trade route bonuses or the abity to use the river to connect longer trade routes? As it seems to me if there is no gold bonus in the cities next to rivers then those cities aren't much better off than other cities.

Cities on a river do get a +25% bonus to Trade Route gold income.

 

[Hyper Nova]

Cheers Arioch. That makes senses. I'd have liked to see some sort of way the trade routes made use of the actual river. But a simple bonus works for me just as well. I guess I'll just wait and see on my culture question. Just curious what was the source on the 25%?

 

[AriochIV]

Just curious what was the source on the 25%?

You can see it in IGN video. (Image by Seek)

 

[Hyper Nova]

Awesome thank you very much

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

We don't know the specifics yet, but it seems likely that the culture penalty for having larger empires has been ameliorated (or perhaps even removed).

I most certainly hope this *isn't* true, as that & happiness are the only two things which help to ameliorate Infinite City Sleaze IMHO.

Aussie.

 

[AriochIV]

I most certainly hope this *isn't* true, as that & happiness are the only two things which help to ameliorate Infinite City Sleaze IMHO.

They've said that they don't want to force Culture players to be restricted to just a few cities, and they've added a lot of later game social policies and ideological tenets that are specifically targeted at non-Culture victory types, so clearly they must have changed something along these lines, either reducing the per-city penalty or decreasing the cost increase per policy, or decreasing the costs of policies overall.

 

[Calouste]

I most certainly hope this *isn't* true, as that & happiness are the only two things which help to ameliorate Infinite City Sleaze IMHO.

Aussie.

Additional cities can only add a very limited amount of culture. 2 from the Monument, and then 1 each for the next three culture buildings. All the Guilds are National Wonders from what we have seen, so more cities aren't going to give you more GWAM slots, GWAMs, and Great Works. and those are going to be the main source of culture by the looks of it. Sure, you can indeed generate more culture if you have more cities, but 100 for an Amphitheater that gives a base 1 is not going to be an efficient use of hammers.

 

[Louis XXIV]

I do hope that social policy costs still at least increase a little bit per city to offset whatever additional culture you can get. You already get more science, production, military support, etc. for larger cities. There's no need to have more policies if you're bigger even if we're ok with them now getting the same amount. Although social policies are now in the realm of "nice," not "necessary."

 

[AriochIV]

Now that number of social policies is no longer a victory condition, I don't see the reason to continue to penalize players for number of cities. It makes sense for the cost of each successive policy to rise (as does the cost of each successive technology), but there's no equivalent penalty for number of cities for technology, production, or any of the other resources.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Just so something is better for tall civs. Some are good for tall civs, some are good for wide civs. There's no reason wide should always be better.

 

[DeathFace]

The same way you unlock any Social Policy. They are unlocked via culture gains.

Of course the biggest difference is that you get to choose out of a selection what actually goes into your ideology tree, instead of having the tree drawn out for you!

Has this been confirmed? Wouldn't it make more sense for tenants to be gained through tourism somehow(ideologies giving international influence) with culture gaining social policies (giving internal bonus')?

 

[Calouste]

I do hope that social policy costs still at least increase a little bit per city to offset whatever additional culture you can get. You already get more science, production, military support, etc. for larger cities. There's no need to have more policies if you're bigger even if we're ok with them now getting the same amount. Although social policies are now in the realm of "nice," not "necessary."

It looks like a lot of the Culture in BNW is going to come from Wonders, and if you are going wide, you're going to build Settlers, Workers, and military to protect your new cities, not Wonders.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

Just so something is better for tall civs. Some are good for tall civs, some are good for wide civs. There's no reason wide should always be better.

I agree, the "Wide is always better than Tall" Empires scenario is what most frequently bugged me about Civ1 to Civ3. I'd really *hate* to see the progress over the last 2 iterations lost!

Aussie.

 

[kingchris20]

Now that number of social policies is no longer a victory condition, I don't see the reason to continue to penalize players for number of cities. It makes sense for the cost of each successive policy to rise (as does the cost of each successive technology), but there's no equivalent penalty for number of cities for technology, production, or any of the other resources.

There is for happiness.......

 

[kingchris20]

Has this been confirmed? Wouldn't it make more sense for tenants to be gained through tourism somehow(ideologies giving international influence) with culture gaining social policies (giving internal bonus')?

Yes, it has been confirmed here: IGN Vid Starting at 6:15

 

[AriochIV]

There is for happiness.......

Happiness is a "resource" that exists almost exclusive to limit the size of cities and empires, so... yeah.

The current problem with Culture is that currently, unless you're actually going for a Culture victory, after the mid-game Culture becomes completely useless for you. It would be nice if Culture and Social Policies became meaningful for the other 90% of the games you played.