Questions about some gameplay mechanics

[InterAl]

Hi there. I wonder if some core gameplay mechanics from civ4 will also appear in civ5. Namely: Roads - I heard road-spamming is gone now, since they wanted to diminish the spaghetti-roads, and most units now operate in 2-moves. Cottages - I don't recall ever seeing towns or villages in screenshots or videos. Borders - now that we can buy tiles, what role will culture play in this game? furthermore, is the Fat Cross still there, or can you buy even more workable tiles beyond it?

 

[Specs112]

Roads: 1 maintenance per tile (2 for railroads). So spam gets expensive, and it's best to just do a few major roads connecting cities.

Cottages: Replaced by trading post improvements, +2 but doesn't have the growth to town mechanic. Also, they look like clusters of tents, which looks a bit odd.

Borders: Culture still expands borders, buying tiles is if you don't want to wait for that or have no culture. Culture is now mainly used for buying new Social Policies, which replace Civics as the government system.

Fat Cross: The maximum radius is 3 hexes in each direction.

 

[12agnar0k]

Fat Cross: The maximum radius is 3 hexes in each direction.

Also their is no "fat cross" anymore, border expansion is done hex by hex, automatically chosen, or can be brought with gold if you need something specific.

.....

Quite a few mechanics from Civ4 and previous Civ's will be around in some form or another, however there are some new ones as well, and some have disapeared or been included elsewhere by proxy.

 

[haphazard1]

Also their is no "fat cross" anymore, border expansion is done hex by hex, automatically chosen, or can be brought with gold if you need something specific.

I have to say I am concerned about the "automatically chosen" part -- how will this work? Purely random? A regular "spiral" starting next to the city and grabbing all the 1-radius hexes, then the 2-radius hexes, etc.? Some AI routine which grabs the tile it thinks you need most?

The "buy a tile with gold" mechanic probably exists because otherwise you will never get the useful tiles within your borders. I can just picture it:

"Get the iron tile, I need stronger troops to fight off Montezuma!"

"Nope, got another useless tundra tile."

 

[Polobo]

Its likely the same algorithm the AI civs use so either the game is going to be super easy or the selection algorithm understands tile value enough to pick good tiles first (resources). The city governor can be used (apparently) to influence the pick.

You get the first ring of tiles (6) automatically upon founding the city.

 

[Specs112]

I have to say I am concerned about the "automatically chosen" part -- how will this work? Purely random? A regular "spiral" starting next to the city and grabbing all the 1-radius hexes, then the 2-radius hexes, etc.? Some AI routine which grabs the tile it thinks you need most?

The "buy a tile with gold" mechanic probably exists because otherwise you will never get the useful tiles within your borders. I can just picture it:

"Get the iron tile, I need stronger troops to fight off Montezuma!"

"Nope, got another useless tundra tile."

http://well-of-souls.com/civ/civ5_cities.html says that the process is designed "favoring whatever available resource the AI thinks your city needs." So you will get a resource if possible. In theory.

 

[Schuesseled]

Hi there. I wonder if some core gameplay mechanics from civ4 will also appear in civ5. Namely: Roads - I heard road-spamming is gone now, since they wanted to diminish the spaghetti-roads, and most units now operate in 2-moves. Cottages - I don't recall ever seeing towns or villages in screenshots or videos. Borders - now that we can buy tiles, what role will culture play in this game? furthermore, is the Fat Cross still there, or can you buy even more workable tiles beyond it?

1) Roads still exist, they now have maintenance costs per hex therefore discouraging spamming them everywhere, although technically you can still do so if you are prepared to pay for it.

2) Cottage/Towns have been replaced by trading posts.

3) Your borders expand 1 tile at a time through culture, and this is done automatically without need for your input, but should you desire to speed up expansion or choose a specific tile to grab you can straight up buy it in the city screen. (Hexes are automatically choosen based on what your city needs, if the AI thinks your lacking in the production department it will net you some hills etc.)

Cities now have a 3 hex range for working tiles, compared to the 2 square fat cross in civ 4, so you'll have more workable tiles than before. Although the fat cross is more of a fat circle now, and it doesn't expand in stages but per hex, so you can have some very organic borders, every city will likely have a very different sphere of influence.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

1) Roads still exist, they now have maintenance costs per hex therefore discouraging spamming them everywhere, although technically you can still do so if you are prepared to pay for it.

Does this mean that roads and railroads now actually have some strategic value? I hated it how I could just order my workers to automatically build roads everywhere without even having to so much as worry about it.

 

[Tylerryan79]

Does this mean that roads and railroads now actually have some strategic value? I hated it how I could just order my workers to automatically build roads everywhere without even having to so much as worry about it.

Your only going to want to build roads for trade routes, or if you have a war and want a direct/faster route to move troops. Beyond that building roads is not needed.

 

[Schuesseled]

Well like i said you can spam roads everywhere if you want, you'll have the fastest moving defensive armies in the game.

 

[haphazard1]

Thanks, Polobo and Schuesseled! Very helpful info.

The AI chooses...oh boy. Unless Firaxis has made huge improvements in city management AI, it will choose poorly at least 50% of the time. I foresee lots of gold being needed to actually get the tiles you should be working, rather than stupidly chosen tiles the AI thinks you "need". Maybe the city governor settings will help, so you can at least try to specialize a city for growth, or production, etc.

So much is going to depend on the strength of the AI. Hopefully this multi-level system which has been described will have positive effects and the AI will do well with the basics: selection of city sites, management of city growth and citizen assignment (tiles, specialists, etc.), happiness management, etc. If the basics are done well, then the AI will not need as big of bonuses/handicaps to provide a challenge at higher difficulty levels; instead it can play a solid basic game and get smaller targetted boosts to provide a stronger opponent.

I really hope Firaxis invested a lot of effort in this area, as the Civ IV AI was just miserably bad at the basics much of the time. I have a personal game right now where I have a ton of EP (early Great Wall and settled G.Spies) and can investigate AI cities, and it is just horrific how bad the AIs are. Holy Rome is currently broke, losing 44 gpt at 100% cash, on strike and most of his army disbanded. (His power has dropped by ~30% in the last 10 turns, with no war.) He is in HR, so now his cities mostly have multiple unhappy citizens since their garrisons have disbanded.

So how does he respond? Does he build Rathaus everywhere to control his costs? (He has CoL, has had it for some time. Zero Rathaus.) No, he is building military in every single city, probably to try to control happiness using HR. But any unit that completes gets disbanded since he has negative gpt. He has also set his research (what tiny bits he is getting from specialists) to Divine Right -- probably in some hope of building Versailles to control costs. Of course, the tech will take him 56 turns currently....

Two other civs in this same game are in similar trouble -- one also negative at 100% cash, on strike, etc., the other only +2 gpt at 100% and still building units. The other three AI are doing well -- plenty of infrastructure, 50% or 60% science at positive gpt, etc. I have no idea what has caused the difference between the "doing OK" civs and the "busily imploding" civs, but something has gone drastically wrong.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble about a Civ IV instance of AI failure. But seeing things like that make me really hope Firaxis has made sure the foundations of the AI are strong. Multi-level grand strategy sounds like a great idea and all, but if the AI can't get the basics right it won't matter.

 

[InterAl]

What about GP and Corporations? Are they in the game?

 

[V. Soma]

What about GP and Corporations? Are they in the game?

1: yes. 2: no.