Rising Tide - First Impressions

[CelJaded]

Just in case anyone is still on the fence about Rising Tide, I've written up an extensive review article that you may find helpful.

Keep those first impressions coming.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Sure, partially because logical hard-counters to cities don't function in that role until end-game (siege). Instead siege is basically an inferior ranger for most of the game, a tendency from Civ V BE didn't really need .

Yeah, the siege units in BE not having 3 range till late late game is indeed confusing me

Maybe it's because the gravity is way more important in this planet, who knows?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Who knows maybe checking it out will make you put serious time into Civ 5

Unless your AI mod includes things that drastically shorten turn times and cut down on UI lag during player turns, I doubt it . I know it's not a deal breaker for everyone but for me lots of repetitive orders that the game can't even keep up with me giving make something that is otherwise fun become a chore in parts instead.

But of course, part of the problem is that 3 defensive Buildings are available in the midgame that together rival the total bonus a defensive CiV City gets.

Yeah very little in Civ V can withstand arty anyway but pre-arty siege is annoying in that too. It's like Firaxis hates siege as a concept or something, it's been non-viable for much of games for so long. Maybe they're just compensating all the years it was overly good in previous titles :/.

Maybe it's because the gravity is way more important in this planet, who knows?

When you can make tanks hover and launch satellites into orbit trivially and do these things significantly before you can fire a 3rd hex, gravity or even drag being a legit constraint for long range siege attacks is not self-consistent .

There really isn't a good reason for the present design that I can see.

 

[Barathor]

During vanilla I was toying around with a concept for 3 range Missile Rovers with indirect fire. (I also was giving Gunboats 3 range to make naval units more relevant, but I don't think that's necessary now, haha.)

It definitely made siege units more relevant before affinity 9 in vanilla. It felt more natural and was lots of fun too. Plus, having that third ring to layer units and attack from made difficult terrain attacks less cumbersome on land.

Also, missle-rover-type units did lower damage but got a huge modifier against cities. Ranged units should be the ones you go to for shooting down units, not siege.

I even tried out 3 range city attacks and that was a lot of fun too -- I loved seeing those rockets fly through the air. But, maybe it's best to keep them at a base of 2 so defenders are forced out to have to deal with the siege.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I like range 2 cities, range 3 siege that is very strong vs cities but not against units at all. This way as a defender you can punish people who just roll up and try to snipe with siege (especially if siege units are more expensive than stuff that can nearly one-shot) so attackers have to manage what's defending in and in front of cities to take them consistently. On the other hand, exposed fronts become sitting ducks and the defender can't shred with just city + ranged.

 

[Olodune]

Is the mind flower not working correctly ?
I had 20 Xenosanctuary and mindstems and still had to wait 20turns. Sad. I had finished the flower at turn 152 while using NSA xD

I just finished my first RT Mind Flower; the extended timer can't possibly be intended, can it? I don't have the patience to spam 40+ cities to get it down to something reasonable... I strongly think 10 turns should be the maximum waiting time. Maybe 15 if there was something to do that mattered during these turns.

I'm not going to click "next turn" 20+ times while my laptop CPU churns AI meanderings. This is an Apollo game where the next closest AI has only 9 affinity levels so there is literally no existential risk (I'm at 17/3/8 with plenty of armies).

Everyone loves my NSA too with at least 8/9 respect -> Win more diplomacy in action.

 

[severny]

If you don't have units to fight these 3-5 arties then I don't know why 1UPT would be the culprit. .

i can not put a garrison in the city in order to protect it. So 1UPT is a culprit.

 

[Acken]

^ Kill the artilleries. If you don't have units to do so you deserve to lose the city.

I just finished my first RT Mind Flower; the extended timer can't possibly be intended, can it? I don't have the patience to spam 40+ cities to get it down to something reasonable... I strongly think 10 turns should be the maximum waiting time. Maybe 15 if there was something to do that mattered during these turns.

I'm not going to click "next turn" 20+ times while my laptop CPU churns AI meanderings. This is an Apollo game where the next closest AI has only 9 affinity levels so there is literally no existential risk (I'm at 17/3/8 with plenty of armies).

Everyone loves my NSA too with at least 8/9 respect -> Win more diplomacy in action.

In the other thread where I got a T151 win I built 40ish Xeno+Mind and had to wait 5 turns.

I'm fairly sure the timer for Transcendance is now 45 instead of 20.

 

[severny]

Any undefended cities should fall fast. That has always been the case in civ games. And I'm not sure why you can't defend because of 1UPT ? If your units are on the other side of your empire you also deserve to lose a city. That's like strategy games 101.

1UPT makes it undefended. Since ONLY ONE unit can be left in the city. So for me actually now no big deal when i loose a city. On next turn i will get it back, since the invader will also leave only one unit to control the city. And there is no fun in those swing)))
Go and play in civ4 in order to recall cool things, like fighting with the uprising, the dependency of number of forces in just captured city and the speed of integration of a captured city to the economy of your empire.

 

[Ryika]

You know, there are more tiles around the city that you can put and barricade units on. Probably a strange design for someone who comes from Civ 4, but one that exists nonetheless.

 

[severny]

You know, there are more tiles around the city that you can put and barricade units on. Probably a strange design for someone who comes from Civ 4, but one that exists nonetheless.

It is not a strange desigh. It is a nonsense. A city is a natural barricade. And i want to place my soldiers not on the open air but behind the defense lines of a city. It is pure sense.

 

[Acken]

You defend with units outside the city in 1UPT.

If you just rely on the 1 city garnison you're doing it wrong.

 

[severny]

You defend with units outside the city in 1UPT.

If you just rely on the 1 city garnison you're doing it wrong.

I am not relying. I am saying that it is a stupidity to force a player to defend a city outside a city......
Men, you haven't played th civ4, that is the problem. but nevermind

 

[Ryika]

It is not a strange desigh. It is a nonsense. A city is a natural barricade. And i want to place my soldiers not on the open air but behind the defense lines of a city. It is pure sense.

In all of history if all you could do is sit behind walls the aggressor would just starve you to death (and maybe hurl rocks at your castle). It doesn't make sense to put an army - a whole army - into a city and expect things to be alright either. So where's your complaint that in Civ 4 your city wouldn't starve if an army is around and eventually swap ownership without the Army having to take it by force?

Truth is simple: It's a video game. It doesn't try to 100% accurately portrait battles, it tries to have fun mechanics mixed with immersion.

Either way, from a mechanical point of view defending cities works just fine.

 

[Olodune]

I'm fairly sure the timer for Transcendance is now 45 instead of 20.

I wonder why Firaxis would do this? If the goal was to slow down the game this is the worst possible way to do so, no?

In some ways I don't mind the insane acceleration (still far more modest than SMAC), as long as the final push isn't pointlessly inflated.

 

[Acken]

I am not relying. I am saying that it is a stupidity to force a player to defend a city outside a city......
Men, you haven't played th civ4, that is the problem. but nevermind

I disagree so I haven't played civ4 ? That's some impressive logic there.

I wonder why Firaxis would do this? If the goal was to slow down the game this is the worst possible way to do so, no?

In some ways I don't mind the insane acceleration (still far more modest than SMAC), as long as the final push isn't pointlessly inflated.

Pretty sure it's to slow down the victory yes and yes it's dumb. But I'd say it's mostly reflective of how poor the design of these victories are to begin with.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In all of history if all you could do is sit behind walls the aggressor would just starve you to death (and maybe hurl rocks at your castle). It doesn't make sense to put an army - a whole army - into a city and expect things to be alright either. So where's your complaint that in Civ 4 your city wouldn't starve if an army is around and eventually swap ownership without the Army having to take it by force?

Truth is simple: It's a video game. It doesn't try to 100% accurately portrait battles, it tries to have fun mechanics mixed with immersion.

Either way, from a mechanical point of view defending cities works just fine.

Standing armies and bringing supplies weren't a thing throughout all of history, and Civ IV was (for most periods of the game) dominated by collateral initiative + defensive terrain control excepting water maps (where fork + raze was gg).

Armies that had to live off the land really couldn't be stationed extended periods in cities/forts. Those were more to stall, but even then having enemy soldiers plunder the food/water off local populations could result in lasting damage/depopulation.

Civ IV and dragging pre-arty siege all over the place en masse' wasn't particularly more or less realistic than the zoc-block archers-outrange-longbarrel rifles setup of Civ V, they're both nonsense from a logistics/realism/tactical perspective.

I wonder why Firaxis would do this? If the goal was to slow down the game this is the worst possible way to do so, no?

Poor choice? Absolutely, but be careful what you say, I doubt it's the WORST possible .

Pretty sure it's to slow down the victory yes and yes it's dumb. But I'd say it's mostly reflective of how poor the design of these victories are to begin with.

They're mostly science victory re-skins. If the AI didn't game-throw they'd be less boring. From a design standpoint though I think it's a good thing to have to balance a non-military victory with nevertheless avoiding getting smashed in the face while making the final run. Too bad all that entails right now is "end turn".

 

[omniclast]

I wonder why Firaxis would do this? If the goal was to slow down the game this is the worst possible way to do so, no?

In some ways I don't mind the insane acceleration (still far more modest than SMAC), as long as the final push isn't pointlessly inflated.

I could be wrong, but doesn't Transcendence also depend on when you build mind stems/xeno sanctuaries? You get 1 point per turn towards Transcendence, which I always thought started to count the turn you finished each mind stem. Or is it only the number of them you have that matters?

I sort of like the idea that getting a Transcendence victory requires you to control a lot of cities, that seems like a semi-interesting win condition behind "science then build." But if that's the idea here it should definitely be clearer.

 

[Acken]

They're mostly science victory re-skins. If the AI didn't game-throw they'd be less boring. From a design standpoint though I think it's a good thing to have to balance a non-military victory with nevertheless avoiding getting smashed in the face while making the final run. Too bad all that entails right now is "end turn".

Yes absolutely. But what I meant is that its very symptomatic of the victories themselves being some sort of poorly thought out science victories and the main thing they have control over is on the wait period for these victories or the affinity requirement. In this expansion they turned up both variables but it's just not making these victories more interesting or challenging.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

When the, transcendence wonder, whatever it's called, is built it counts up all the mind stems and xeno sanctuaries and subtracts that number from the number of turns you wait. There's no number setting for how how many turns for different buildings, it just had a flag for each, does it speed transcendence, yes or no, so each building is the same.