Simplification?

[JonoLith]

Thanks for the effort.

Unfortunately, your examples are flawed, as the basic assumptions are already flawed.

In Civ4, the slider is used to split the surplus of commerce (not being used for units, city maintenance, civic upkeep and inflation) between treasury (gold) and science (beakers) - just to stay with the two basic ones, I will just ignore culture for the moment.

Which is exactly what I've done. You work very hard to not understand when people talk to you.

Already wrong.

You will have 15 commerce, which by the slider you can split in steps of 10% between treasury and science.

I told you already, correcting my math will simply illicit an "I don't care", from me. The math, itself, is well outside my actual point, which you have missed. So, as promised...

I don't care.

This is broken down to the individual cities relating to their contribution to the nation's overall commerce.

I know. I put that in my example, if you would have read it. Psst... here's a hint. The words "Gold" and "Commerce" are interchangeable.

I will admit that there are problems due to Firaxis' unfortunate affection to go with small integers (which later was partially reworked to allow for decimals, too) and the resulting rounding.
Nevertheless, the principle stays the same:
You have created 20 commerce, of which 5 are taken away for maintenance, thus leaving 15 to be split between treasury and science.

Since in your example no further costs are to be covered, you may set the slider to 100% science, thus creating 15 beakers each turn.

Assuming equal maintenance per city (2.5 in your example), city A would generate 7.5 beakers per turn. Since that building is generationg additional 100% of the beakers, the total of city A would be 15 beakers.
The total for your empire (which would be displayed next to the slider) then would be (7.5 + 7.5) for city A and 7.5 for city B, totalling up to 22.5 for your empire.

Here we face the undenied weaknesses of Firaxis' kind of thinking, because this will lead to 22 beakers for science with the rest being added to your treasury.

All you have done here is repeat what I have already said. My point isn't "Look at my math" my point is "Look how needlessly complex and confusing this system is." All you are doing here is illustrating my own point for me. The basic point is, and will continue to be "The Non-Slider System is Easier to use then the Slider system." You've basically confirmed that in this section here.

Luckily, the slider functionality will do all these calculations for us (with the mentioned problems of roundings, since beakers are of non-fractional dimension) and will display all the resulting values.
I can even run local deficits, and nevertheless I can adjust the slider for my empire according to my likings.

According to a general idea of your likings, this much is true. It is plain that your likings, and my likings, are entirely different. They've already made your game, now it's time for mine.

Honestly, I cannot really see where the problem is.

The problem is, as I've already stated before, a lack of control, and focus. Perhaps I would like to collect more gold? Perhaps I'm playing a strategy that involves shifting around which tile is getting worked when quite alot, and I'd be very interested to know quickly exactly how much of every resource I can have available, and where it's coming from. The "Where it's coming from" is extremely key. And not just in a general wash kind of way. Let me be blatantly clear.

I want to know exactly what each and every tile in my civilization is doing at all moments and exactly how I can adjust them to best suit my needs on a turn by turn basis. The slider system is a confusing one that allows only for a general washing of information, at best. You get an idea that a city is doing X or Y, but I want concrete information.

Honestly, I think the slider system is easier, since all I am interested in (as far as getting technologies is concerned) are the total number over all of my empire.

I just don't care whether city A or city B or city Z are producing more or less (under the assumption that I've set up each city in a way in which it produces the max of what it shall produce [food, production, science]).

And this is where you and I differ entirely. I do care whether city A, B, or Z are producing more or less. On an intricate and detailed level I deeply care. I very much want to play a game where I can view all my cities, turn by turn, on marathon mode, and maximize their output to my needs; making some cities science beacons of amazement, and others produce culture wildly successfully, and other pushing out nothing but military units.

You seem perfectly happy with general information and basic gameplay. I am more interested in specific information and deeper gameplay.

Since technologies are a nation-wide effect, all I am interested in are the total number for all of my empire => slider.

Then enjoy playing Civilization 4!

While I appreciate the idea of enjoying a system that already exists, you've gone so far as to illustrate my own point for me. The slider system is confusing, and you basically need to play with a calculator beside you if you want to adjust anything, or put up with moving things around and seeing what happens, which is arduous.

By your own description, the system you claim to enjoy is difficult. Why don't you want to play in a system that is less difficult?

 

[AlpsStranger]

And in addition to this, I would prefer if they would have adressed the known issues of Civ4 by fixing them, instead of replacing them with completely new features, which are likely to come with the same load of problems.

That is pretty much asking for Civ4.5. There is nothing wrong, really, with wanting Civ4.5, but that isn't how Civ3-4 transition went. This may be more radical than going from 3 to 4, but it's not outside of the realm of change for a sequel.

There are quite some chances that these new design elements will no longer have the old flaws. Ok. But they are likely to have new ones and - god forbid - they might be even worse.

I suppose that's what we're all waiting to see. If the game sucks I'll be disappointed, of course, but I am still fairly optimistic about it.

For the record, removing the slider sounds good to me, but I would be just as happy if they announced that they were putting it back in. 1upT is the idea that I am *really* in love with

 

[AlpsStranger]

Then move on... I'm sick of listening to people constantly say how much Civ 2, 3 and 4 just suck and how horrible they are, because now that Civ 5 is doing something 'this way', it is the right way and 2, 3, and 4 are horrible and wrong.

I never said that Civ4 and Civ3 were horrible. I really didn't play Civ more than once or twice before 3, but I still like and respect Civ3 and Civ4. I merely think/hope that Civ5 will be better. ( I pretty much stopped playing Civ3 cold when Civ4 came out. We'll see if that happens with 5. )

Don't take anything I say to mean I hate Civ4. In the grand scheme of gaming Civ4 is still one of my favorite games.

 

[PieceOfMind]

The reason why the slider is gone because it was just a means of putting all your gold into science, because gold wasn't worth a damn. Now because the slider is gone, gold has straight away become more important as its not simply a "means to get more science", now it has many purposes right from the start, such as rushing production, increased diplomacy options, gifting to city states, and so on. If the slider was left in the game, then the importance of gold production in civ5 would be right out the window again as it would simply be a means to get more science.

The seperation of gold & science is a good move, it makes each important in its own right and not simply having gold secondary to science in your concerns. Now if you choose to go with trading posts to generate gold you will do so not to "get science and ocasionally get some gold when its needed" but purely for the generation of gold, if you don't want gold then you will build a different improvement, as it should be.

This post to me suggests there is a misunderstanding of what the slider actually does, or perhaps just a misuse of terminology which is something all of the following quoted posts do as well, so I will respond to all at once:

Stop that. That's rude, and does not reflect what people are saying. People are saying that some mechanics in Civ 4 were not optimal/weren't as good as they could have been. There's no need to respond with hostility to that.


What he's saying is that now that you cannot easily convert potential science to gold (and vice versa), along with the increased importance of gold (For unit/road upkeep, rushbuying from the start, city-state relations, and tile 'rushexpanding'), you now have make more decisions about your cities. You still have control over those incomes, but, unlike civ 4, you have to work to produce each one separately. Gold was pretty much irrelevant in Civ 4 beyond niche uses (late game rushbuying mainly), and city upkeep was just subtracted from your research (effectively). You get to control your output based on how you develop your cities, the same way you did in civ 4 with GP farms, Production cities, and commerce cities. Now you actually have to make decisions about gold and science instead of just running the slider.

What he said, in civ4 gold was 99% of the time, simply put maximum into science, because this is the best way to win, and in civ5, science again will be just as necessary, so if the slider was left in the importance of gold would be decreased because all the options that you can do with it as I listed will simply be for the most part ignored and science will be golds primary use, which again demeans its importance. May as well remove gold all together. Instead they have removed the slider differentiating between gold and science, so now gold is more important simply because its not just a "means to a scientific end". While technically with a slider you could use gold as it will be used in civ5, you wouldn't if you had any desires to win the game, they have removed the obsolute feature which allows for much better game play.

I'll try to be as plain as I can. I dislike the gold/science slider because it adds a layer of confusion to something that can be simple. It's removal has made the system simpler in the way that it is easier to manuever.

Let's say we have a worked tile that produces 10 gold. (I understand this is not the case, ever, but it's an example.) In civilization 5, with the removal of the slider, I will always recieve 10 gold. I know exactly where that gold is coming from, and I can see exactly where it's going. If I look at a simple "Where is my gold going to" screen, it will go into Maintenance, and Army, which are directly tied to gold.

I can then do the same with Science. Presumably buildings will create science, and I can cleanly see what is producing how much science. Let's say I have a single building producing 10 beakers, or science. Easy and clean to see how much science I'm making, and a simple "This is how much science you have" that simply adds up all the buildings producing science you have.

This system is simple, and easy to see where both my gold and science are.

In Civ 4, with the slider, it is more confusing. A certain percentage of your gold is transfered into science, and so to find out exactly how much science you are producing, you have to calculate the total amount of gold you're making, then find the percentage of that going into science, but then you also have to factor in amount of percentages from buildings that are effecting individual cities, and then you have factor in how much money each individual city is putting into science to be effected by gold, and so on and so on.

Under the slider system, it becomes VERY difficult if I desire to balance my books. Perhaps I see value in sacrificing gold production for culture, or food, or what have you. I which to know EXACTLY how that effects me. A system without a slider is much more precise, and I can decide, on a tile by tile basis, how to effect my empire, rather then just a blanket wash of tens of percentages.

That's the real point I want to arrive at. It's the control and precision that the new system provides. I can have one city dedicated ENTIRELY to gold production, and another ENTIRELY to production, and another ENTIRELY to science and so on and so forth, and it will be precise choices, rather then simple guesswork, and general ideas.

I hope I've been clear with why I like the removal of the slider.

The slider system is impossible in Civ 5, now that I see what is going on (or what is thought to happen).

The slider cannot exist because it cannot do anything with the way Civ 5 economy seems to be setup.

Before, the slider would divide the total gold of your empire. But in Civ 5, each citizen makes a seperate gold and a seperate science beaker, so there is nothing at all to 'Slide and Divide' (as I like to say , and won't be able to do anymore!)

So if wealth and science are seperate, slider was taken out because it just doesn't function when each citizen of a city creates wealth and science 100% seperately.

It's too bad, Slide and Divide had strategies of it's own. Goodbye Slider, you will be missed until you are re-introduced in Civ 6.

First: Commerce does not equal gold . Please start forcing yourself to follow this convention.

You never convert gold into science in civ4. It just cannot be done.

In each and every city, commerce is collected from different sources (most of the time it is trade routes and yields from tiles). It is then divided up into both gold and science according to the global slider position. (For the moment I will ignore the culture and espionage slider but technically they should be included too).

What people mean when they say converting gold to science is that they run at a gold deficit by converting so much commerce into science that they cannot cover all the expenses without their income going negative.
For the way that most people play the game, the bulk of the player's gold comes from commerce. Other sources of gold income include gold from holy shrines, gold from buildings because of the Spiral Minaret, gold from Corp HQs, gold from trades with other civs, and perhaps some more that I forgot. These extra sources usually make up only a tiny fraction of the total gold a player or civ is producing. Most of the gold needs to come from converted commerce.

I said it in one of my previous posts, possibly in more than one of those posts, but I'll say it again:
In civ5 there is no longer "commerce". As tom2050 correctly said, "there is nothing at all to 'Slide and Divide'".

That is the reason the slider is gone.

If anyone wants to debate the fundamental change here, please debate the removal of a neutral commerce type. Arguing about problems with the "slider" is about as misleading was what people accuse the slider of doing to civ4 newbies. The slider was just a necessary tool as part of the commerce system of civ4. It (in civ4) wouldn't have worked without a slider, and an economy like civ5's has no need for a slider. It is almost meaningless (though not obvious) to debate the "removal of the slider".

I know. I put that in my example, if you would have read it. Psst... here's a hint. The words "Gold" and "Commerce" are interchangeable.

Then you should (yes, I know should is a strong word but I will use it anyway) stop using them as if they were interchangeable because in civ4 (which is what we're discussing) they were not. Confusing the two is one of the most common civ4 newbie mistakes actually.

 

[Shurdus]

Wow this takes me back to when I was new...

I think the removal of the slider is a good thing since I cannot recall ever doing something other than maxing it out or setting it to 0. I thought it was a needed evil, something that civ did because that was what civ did. Now that I think of it I am very very glad to see it gone.

I think it will be a good move, since now you need to really focus on teching faster and you can no longer research into your money reserves. Add that to the fact that tech trading is out, and the global tech pace should be sufficiently low for wars in every era to be feasable. Finally. It was due too, since renaissance wars only was getting so boring...

 

[PieceOfMind]

I think the removal of the slider <snip>

Shurdus, did you accidentally miss the point of my post? Is it not more correct to be discussing the removal of "commerce" (hence as a result the slider?).

If we removed workers from the game, we would not debate the removal of worker actions nor would we describe it that way.

 

[Thyrwyn]

You are probably right, but since neither exists without the other it doesn't really matter: you can't have commerce without some mechanism for converting it to gold & beakers (the slider); you can't have a slider without something to convert.

 

[PieceOfMind]

You are probably right, but since neither exists without the other it doesn't really matter: you can't have commerce without some mechanism for converting it to gold & beakers (the slider); you can't have a slider without something to convert.

I agree with you that technically there is some equivalence in what is being discussed, but for anyone participating in the discussion it is much better to talk about things more clearly. Focusing on the "removal of the slider" is the trap to fall into because it is the most visible thing. In terms of the underlying mechanics, it's the removal of the commerce that actually matters.

Onto the debate:
An important advantage of the neutral commerce being in civ4 was that it was very natural for AIs to make use of the slider. You can in fact find many parts in the AI code where their decision making or reactions will cause them to bump a part of the slider up or down. With no such commerce for the AI to easily adjust where it goes, AIs will now need to make several more micro-ish decisions in order to effect large-scale economy changes. If the economy system of civ5 has been so far simplified that there will be fewer such problems for the AI to deal with anyway, then it might be ok. But realistically I think it more likely that AIs will be less effective at managing their economy.

I still maintain that I'm happily prepared to see how it goes in civ5 and reserve judgement til then, but I truly struggle to see how this change can be made without moving more economy decisions to a more micro level. Again I don't judge this yet as a bad or good thing but I got the impression that most of the changes that are being focused on in the discussions about civ5 are in regards to simplification, streamlining or making things more "macro" (e.g. empire-wide happiness). Removal of the neutral commerce type is a shift away from macro control of the economy, so it looks to be the opposite direction to where other changes are taking the game.

 

[12agnar0k]

T
First: Commerce does not equal gold . Please start forcing yourself to follow this convention.

Ok I guess I should have been more specific, I didn't realise people called comerce anything other than gold, as that is what it is, its currency, collection of wealth, or gold as it can be refered to, as gold is the oldest currency. All modern currency has a gold value, as gold is golbal recongised standard of monies.

But anyway, if you wish to make sure it is known that gold and currency/commerce are too seperate entities then fair enough as you are correct in this, what I should of said is in the spoiler.

As the contents of the spolier is just slightly re-worded already made statements I would recommend against reading it . Unless you wish to read a slightly pedantic slight correction of a previously fine statement if you ignored the lack of differentiation between commerce and gold.

Spoiler :

The reason why the slider is gone because it was just a means of putting all your commerce into science, because gold wasn't worth a damn. Now because the slider is gone, gold has straight away become more important as commerce has been removed as a way too be a "means to get more science", now gold has many purposes right from the start, such as rushing production, increased diplomacy options, gifting to city states, and so on. If the slider was left in the game, then the importance of gold production in civ5 would be right out the window.

The seperation of gold & science with the removal of commerce is a good move, it makes each important in its own right and not simply having gold secondary to science in your concerns. Now if you choose to go with trading posts to generate gold (previously commerce) you will do so not to "get science and ocasionally get some gold when its needed" but purely for the generation of gold, if you don't want gold then you will build a different improvement, as it should be.

What he said, in civ4 commerce was 99% of the time, simply put maximum into science, because this is the best way to win, and in civ5, science again will be just as necessary, so if the slider was left in the importance of gold would be decreased because all the options that you can do with it as I listed will simply be for the most part ignored and science will be commerce's primary use, which again demeans its importance.
May as well remove gold all together if it is simply "secondary" to science as far commerce conversion is concerned. Instead they have removed the slider differentiating between gold and science production, so now gold is more important simply because comerece is not just a "means to a scientific end". While technically with a slider you could generate gold as it will be used in civ5, you wouldn't if you had any desires to win the game, they have removed this obsolute feature which allows for much better game play.

I will endevour to as you say "Force myself to notice the distinction" in the future, not that I concieve it to be overly important, rather a bit of semantics arguing.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It is important because it's an essential part of understanding what the slider's function is. It tells your cities how to distribute the collected commerce into beakers, gold, espionage and culture.

I know it looks to be pedantic, but honestly most of what we are already arguing is pedantic anyway!

Looking at your re-worded posts, thank you, they make a lot more sense now...

I still disagree mostly with your points though. Experienced players did use gold a lot. Unless you are running the science slider at 100% for the entire game, then you're obviously using the gold for something.

Civ4 had lots of expenses and just because they weren't constantly in your face didn't mean they weren't there. I invite you to load up a 20th century gamesave from BtS and go to the economy screen. Have a look at the expenses and then tell me that gold wasn't important.

Perhaps what people are trying to say is that spending the gold wasn't very fun. That may be easier for me to agree with. Earning gold purely to fund my huge army and maintenance costs I admit isn't very exciting. Using it for rush buys and unit upgrades is more interesting. Being able to buy land or buy research pacts will also be more interesting. But both of those things would still be possible with a system that had commerce and an associated slider.

There was simply a lack of fun things to do with gold.

 

[12agnar0k]

Thats true, I guess you could define it as "not fun" things to spend gold on, but also it wasnt as beneficial as having science increased. The way it worked though, you could maximise science to a point (depending on maintanence) so as to not go into negative gold income, then this little bit of gold income you could use to do the few "not fun" activities. Usually this little bit of gold production was enough, unless you had a massive army to upgrade. Now however with more fun and just more ways to spend gold, and also more important things to spend gold on such as allying with city states, even if the slider was still in gold would be more important and used more, but thier would still be the tendancy to put most of the commerce into science production and not gold because science is so important. Now everything is seperated I think it will be "easier" to manage gold/science/culture production without the need for commerce sliders, and it should make sure we get ample supplies of all science/gold & culture to have fun with, with less temptation to "promote science more".

Its my opinion really and your welcome to disagree, you may of played all of civ4 on 10% science and the rest making lots and lots of gold, though I think you wouldnt win many games that way. You may prefer using the slider always at 50%, but now with it gone the "choice" or "complication" as I like to call it is gone. And each has their seperate ways of being earnt.

P.s nothing wrong with being pedantic .

 

[Celevin]

Despite the mechanics on reaching there, all that matters is the end result. Commerce VS gold speaks of this very thing - A lot players don't know the difference, nor does it matter. To them they make gold, and convert as much as they can into science. Marketplaces, Great Merchants and everything else might as well make science instead. So I have a question that we should consider.

Pretend we're playing Civ5, and we're on a huge landmass with no nearby neighbours, though we have some trade routes. Pretend we're not concerned about anything than maxing our science. How would we do so?

If this was Civ4, we would expand rapidly, cottage spamming the entire way. Maintenance would hurt us, but there's still more benefits than detriments to spamming cities. We would max some scientists in our cities hoping for Great Scientists, and would build buildings that would also give us gold or science, or reduce maintenance. We would also try for some crucial wonders (Great Lighthouse, Pyramids, Great Library, Parthenon, etc), and might try and fail-build some other wonders just for the extra cash so we can raise our science bar. Finally, we might try and found a religion and spread it.

In Civ5, with separate currencies, there's less knobs that we can turn. Increasing gold inflow doesn't seem like it'll help at all, so there's no cottage spams, marketplaces, "wonder build failing", etc. So what do we have? We have population (1 pop = 1 beaker), and buildings like libraries, and research agreements. Do we have anything else that we can do? Wonders and Great Scientists? To increase our science, it sounds like the goal is to increase population, and increase the number of cities so we can build more libraries to house scientists. Since population and empire size is now held back by happiness, it sounds like happiness is the new "gold" used to indirectly increase science.

My point is it sounds like it's harder for an empire to increase its science. Moreover, unlike in Civ4, total empire size seems like it matters a lot more. I think they are trying to rein in science a bit, making it harder to get those 0AD liberalisms, or attempts to build a spaceship before 500AD, and keep the civs a bit closer in science to each other. Yes, I know I haven't played the game yet. We can still speculate.

 

[PieceOfMind]

I'm inclined to agree with Celevin here.

Technological advancement in civ5 is probably going to be just as or more important as it was in civ4. If the player is faced with two choices of building - one that gives gold and one that gives science - or two choices of tile improvement - one that gives gold and one that gives science - unless the balancing of techs has changed players are still going to choose the science route.

In civ4 if you didn't have commerce or the slider, players would still put a lot of emphasis on increasing their research and only make enough gold so as to achieve that goal. It's my view that commerce and its slider is a red herring in this discussion.

When you choose to take some route in civ5 that increases gold production, that will usually come with some opportunity cost - an opportunity to increase science production instead.

Commerce and the slider is effectively a scapegoat. There are reasons to remove commerce from the game and hence this slider, but they are not the focus in this discussion (or at least barely the focus). The reasons for removing the commerce and slider are along the lines of it being too confusing. Making gold more important relative to science is a different issue. It can be solved while keeping commerce and the slider if desired. My point is not that I want them to be considered for civ5 however. What I'm doing is describing why the slider was important in civ4 and that it's wrong to accuse the commerce system of being the reason that there weren't more interesting ways to spend gold. In the end, the slider did too much for you, working silently up in the corner. You didn't need to manage the production of gold at a city level - you just needed to make sure you built plenty of commerce sources (aka cottages) and then adjust the slider accordingly.

 

[JonoLith]

Then you should (yes, I know should is a strong word but I will use it anyway) stop using them as if they were interchangeable because in civ4 (which is what we're discussing) they were not. Confusing the two is one of the most common civ4 newbie mistakes actually.

Gold and Commerce are interchangeable words. Yes, on a technical level they are different, but the reality is that in Civilization 4 commerce results in gold, science, or culture. I choose to simply call commerce, "Gold" as that is the default result of what happens to my commerce if there is any overflow from culture and science. Creating a distinction is largely meaningless, especially as we move into Civ 5 where "Commerce" IS "Gold".

If your entire counter-point to why the Slider system is vastly inferior to a Non-Slider system is one that is a technicality and a largely meaningless one at that, then you're welcome to have it. My point is, and will ALWAYS be "The Non-Slider System is Easier then the Slider System." No one seems willing to actually address that point, and rather insists on talking about the pointless aspects of the argument.

I'll say it bluntly. The only point in my argument that I care about anyone actually discussing is this; The Non-Slider system gives more control and focus to the player, and allows then to know exactly what each tile in their empire is doing much much more easily then the Slider system. Debating meaningless technicalities, or whether the math is right is pointless.

 

[Celevin]

Well even if there were more interesting ways to spend gold, I don't know how much they'd actually be used. Science is mandatory in Civ, and you can never have too much of it. There are no diminishing returns. As such, it shouldn't be linked with any other purchases, unless those other purchases were absolutely crucial and could decide the game. Science is just a "leftover commerce dump".

I didn't before, but now I like the idea of science being well regulated. I think Civ would be more fun if the ages slowly advanced over time, minutely being influenced by how the Civs act, than by going about methods just to rapidly increase science. It lets the designers pace the game much better.

I like the idea of players building improvements, shifting specialists, and choosing buildings more based around strategic factors than just "advancing the ages". Tile purchases, social policies, and such are more fun and don't feel completely mandatory.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Gold and Commerce are interchangeable words. Yes, on a technical level they are different, but the reality is that in Civilization 4 commerce results in gold, science, or culture. I choose to simply call commerce, "Gold" as that is the default result of what happens to my commerce if there is any overflow from culture and science. Creating a distinction is largely meaningless, especially as we move into Civ 5 where "Commerce" IS "Gold".

If your entire counter-point to why the Slider system is vastly inferior to a Non-Slider system is one that is a technicality and a largely meaningless one at that, then you're welcome to have it. My point is, and will ALWAYS be "The Non-Slider System is Easier then the Slider System." No one seems willing to actually address that point, and rather insists on talking about the pointless aspects of the argument.

I'll say it bluntly. The only point in my argument that I care about anyone actually discussing is this; The Non-Slider system gives more control and focus to the player, and allows then to know exactly what each tile in their empire is doing much much more easily then the Slider system. Debating meaningless technicalities, or whether the math is right is pointless.

You may have missed when I said this.

I still maintain that I'm happily prepared to see how it goes in civ5 and reserve judgement til then

*************

If your entire counter-point to why the Slider system is vastly inferior to a Non-Slider system is one that is a technicality and a largely meaningless one at that, then you're welcome to have it.

In that, you are presenting a strawman to me. I never said one system was vastly inferior to the other. I can see merits in a game that has commerce and a game that does not have commerce.

My point is, and will ALWAYS be "The Non-Slider System is Easier then the Slider System." No one seems willing to actually address that point, and rather insists on talking about the pointless aspects of the argument.

In what ways is it easier? Do you mean it is easier to understand? Do you mean it's more apparent what the output of your tiles are doing? These things I could agree with.
However, ease of use is a different matter. The slider was extremely easy to utilise. It was designed that way. You just pick a setting and your whole empire of cities adjusts their commerce distribution as necessary.

The Non-Slider system gives more control and focus to the player, and allows then to know exactly what each tile in their empire is doing much much more easily then the Slider system.

I would argue it doesn't give any more control than before, but it can be argued that it is more obvious to the player how the economy system works and that is a good thing.

Debating meaningless technicalities, or whether the math is right is pointless.

It's important if the technicalities relate to basics of what the slider actually does. Even if you understand the distinction (and honestly I believe you did all along), I still say it's important to be clear in your use of the terminology. It helps others to better understand the argument you are putting forward.



***

@Celevin,

Yes I think I too will enjoy having science separated from the other income types. The economy system of civ5 is likely to be easier to understand and will have fewer newbie traps. I don't always treat simplification as a bad thing and this is definitely a case where I am prepared to see how it goes and

reserve judgement til then

I wanted to end on a happy note

 

[JonoLith]

In what ways is it easier? Do you mean it is easier to understand? Do you mean it's more apparent what the output of your tiles are doing? These things I could agree with.

I mean exactly that it is easier to understand, and it is more apparent what the output of tiles are doing. If you agree with that, then I agree with that, then we are in agreement.

However, ease of use is a different matter. The slider was extremely easy to utilise. It was designed that way. You just pick a setting and your whole empire of cities adjusts their commerce distribution as necessary.

To try and compile my thoughts concicely.

The slider is easy to use simply because it lets players give control over to the computer, allowing the game to play itself for the player.(As a note; I don't think this is bad, or negative. There are multiple occassions where I will simply say "God, I just want to hit the end turn button." and it's important that the option is there for the enjoyment of the game. More options are always better.) However, it would be foolish to think that the development team won't have a system to do just that in a non-slider system. So, I'm not a fan of calling the slider system "Easier" as the only thing that makes it "Easier" can, and should, be in place in a non-slider system.

The moment a player tries to actually use the slider system, however, it becomes much more difficult to utilize then a non-slider system, as we've already agreed on. So, I have no difficulty in saying that the non-slider system is far and away the superior system, even before I've gotten my hands on it.

 

[12agnar0k]

When you choose to take some route in civ5 that increases gold production, that will usually come with some opportunity cost - an opportunity to increase science production instead.

Well that depends on how science is created, for example it may be the case that science is not made by any tile improvements (though it may be), this means that the choices on tiles is either gold or prod or food, which means that you should be able to get a good gold production whilst never choosing to "opt out" of science maximisation, as yes this will still be a goal.

We would need a better look at the game to know for sure if gold has really been seperated so that improving gold production won't decrease science production, because as you say, this would be indifferent to the slider system.

 

[Wolle68]

When I heard about the slider going away, I immediately thought they were trying to reel in obscene science levels and trying to keep all players to a closer standard. But the entire "1 beaker per citizen" sounds like it's completely breaking away from that, as all it'll end up being is bigger empire = more science. At least in Civ4 a bigger empire will have higher maintenance, lowering your science and balancing things out.

That's the worst part about breaking up science and gold. Now you can't use maintenance to limit science.

This is pure speculation, but maybe unhappy citizens don't produce science. In that case, the happiness penalty of a too big empire would still limit science.

 

[Indiansmoke]

Stupid question. How do you know civ 5 will have no commerce? Just asking because in the confirmed featured thread it says some tiles will give commerce and others gold.