Simplification?

well we don't know it for a fact but its a reasonable assumption. after all they've made conquest (domination) victory easier, no need for vassals to avoid complete kills.
 
well we don't know it for a fact but its a reasonable assumption. after all they've made conquest (domination) victory easier, no need for vassals to avoid complete kills.

Actually, do we know what happens to a civ when they lose their capital? There was some mention/speculation about it somewhere, but I can't remember the exact details, although I think it was mentioned that the capital wouldn't move.

I wouldn't say conquest is easier or simpler, just less tedious. In Civ4 there might be an odd case where a civ might still put up a fight after you have captured its capital (and everything between the border and that capital), but not many. It solves one of the problems with Civ4, which is that you often have to play on a long time to formally win a won game.
 
What i was saying was making the comparison of civ4 miltary victory where all enemies cities had to be razed captured or vassalised. and civ 5's military victory where only enemy capitals had to be taken (or destroyed, maybe).

If you don't need to do a complete kill on a civ, i.e. you can make peace after you have the capital, theres no need to have a capitulation system in diplomacy to bring a quick end to the war and bring you one step closer to victory.

Therefore i think vassals are out.
 
What i was saying was making the comparison of civ4 miltary victory where all enemies cities had to be razed captured or vassalised. and civ 5's military victory where only enemy capitals had to be taken (or destroyed, maybe).

If you don't need to do a complete kill on a civ, i.e. you can make peace after you have the capital, theres no need to have a capitulation system in diplomacy to bring a quick end to the war and bring you one step closer to victory.

Therefore i think vassals are out.

Agree with that. And the game play of having subordinate states that was provided by vassals in Civ4 is at least partially provided by city states in Civ5.

Would be interesting to see how the mechanism exactly works. I think a civ that loses its capital should have the opportunity to reconquer it and stay in the game, but once it makes peace having lost its capital, which would basically be the equivalent of capitulation, it is relegated to secondary power status and out of the race to win the game. In CivRev you have to own all the capitals at the beginning of your turn, so they can be recaptured. Of course in real Civ this can be made a bit more complex.
 
Judjing from this site:
http://well-of-souls.com/civ/index.html
it looks like Civ5 is being very streamlined.

Not only regarding the shorter tech tree and the absence of religions (with related units and buildings).
It looks like there will be many less units and buildings. We already knew about the lack of transport ships. But for instance, if what the site says is confirmed, there will be only 3 air units (fighter, bomber, helicopter) instead of 7 (airship, jet fighter, stealth bomber, paratroopers). The lack of modern air units take us back to Civ1 times.

I believe that some simplification is a good thing, because some aspects of civ4 (resources, improvements, espionage, corporations, missionaries etc.) were a bit redundant.
I just hope it doesn't become too much dumbed down because of the influence of CivRev. Of course, we cannot judge until we get our hands on it.

Your thoughts?

Hey Rhye, great to see you here. My only thoughts are these:
(1) I doubt very much that we're seeing the entirety of the game-or even close to it-so I'm not concerned....yet ;). The removal of naval transport units is, in my mind, a good thing.

(2) No matter how simplified it is, I have no doubt that amazing Mod-Comp creators like you will give us the Civ experience we die-hards desire ;) (love RFC for BtS btw :)!)

(3) Why in the *hell* haven't Firaxis got someone as amazing as you working on their design team? You, Dale, JDog & Dom Pedro should have been involved with the game from day 1 if you ask me ;)!

Aussie.
 
(3) Why in the *hell* haven't Firaxis got someone as amazing as you working on their design team? You, Dale, JDog & Dom Pedro should have been involved with the game from day 1 if you ask me

And not forgetting Mr Game Theory so we wont get any weird exploits that totally unbalance the game. (IE: India in Civ4 Vanilla and Rome in Civrev).
 
I know some people are saying that the tech tree is shorter, but I'm really not seeing that myself. All the major techs from Civ4 are still in the game, & a number of extra ones are there also (like Archaeology, Fertilizer & Chivalry). I think where people might be getting the idea, though, is that more culturally oriented "techs"-like Polytheism & Monotheism-are now gone. However, it would seem that they're not gone-merely shifted to the Social Policy Tree instead. This, in my mind, solves a major issue I've long held with the game-namely that advances in technology don't always imply a similar advance in social areas.
My only concern with Social Policies is that it might mean the end to the more distinctive government systems I got used to in SMAC & Civ4 (Social Engineering & Civics). I'll be interested to see the mechanics up close though ;)!

Aussie.
 
And not forgetting Mr Game Theory so we wont get any weird exploits that totally unbalance the game. (IE: India in Civ4 Vanilla and Rome in Civrev).

Well, I can't remember everyone ;). I was just naming the ones who came most immediately to mind-TheLopez & Impaler should also be on that list too. Still, its good to know that the game's lead designer is a former member of our modding community :)!

Aussie.
 
I know some people are saying that the tech tree is shorter, but I'm really not seeing that myself. All the major techs from Civ4 are still in the game, & a number of extra ones are there also (like Archaeology, Fertilizer & Chivalry). I think where people might be getting the idea, though, is that more culturally oriented "techs"-like Polytheism & Monotheism-are now gone. However, it would seem that they're not gone-merely shifted to the Social Policy Tree instead. This, in my mind, solves a major issue I've long held with the game-namely that advances in technology don't always imply a similar advance in social areas.
My only concern with Social Policies is that it might mean the end to the more distinctive government systems I got used to in SMAC & Civ4 (Social Engineering & Civics). I'll be interested to see the mechanics up close though ;)!

Aussie.
Well, remember that there are real choices to make in what trees you buy into (since you have to 'unlock' a tree before you can get the really powerful bonuses), and which bonus you buy in a tree. I'm pretty sure you'll see diverse policy 'sets' (aka, what people have unlocked) with 10 trees, some of which are mutually exclusive, and all with extremely potent effects. For example, do you want to get all of the powerful bonuses of tradition, or be more flexible by going into liberty or honor? There apparently will also be long-term choices to make, since the youtube video seems to show that freedom/autocracy are mutually exclusive, but freedom unlocks earlier (This is a guess, but that is what seems to be true).
 
Well, I can't remember everyone ;). I was just naming the ones who came most immediately to mind-TheLopez & Impaler should also be on that list too. Still, its good to know that the game's lead designer is a former member of our modding community :)!

Aussie.

Same here. I was very happy with the choice of lead designer.

How could anyone forget MGT. The most annoying part about him, was he's always proved to be right. Drove me crazy.
 
I agree here. I'll believe it when I see it. The difficulty of getting a good 1upt AI is my only reservation about this change.

It is much harder to code a good 1upt AI than a stack AI that just builds an army and throws it at the closest city, which is basically what the Civ4 AI does.

I confess that I didn't play a huge amount of Panzer General, but I found the 1upt AI for People's General to be worlds better than anything Civ has given me-& that game was released over 10 years ago. I'd also say that the claims about modability for Civ4 were certainly *not* hype. When even a rank novice like myself can make significant alterations to the game-code, without breaking the game, then I'd suggest that this is unprecedented. Civ5 will have its work cut out for it to make modability even better ;)!

Aussie.
 
Judjing from this site:
http://well-of-souls.com/civ/index.html
it looks like Civ5 is being very streamlined.

Not only regarding the shorter tech tree and the absence of religions (with related units and buildings).
It looks like there will be many less units and buildings. We already knew about the lack of transport ships. But for instance, if what the site says is confirmed, there will be only 3 air units (fighter, bomber, helicopter) instead of 7 (airship, jet fighter, stealth bomber, paratroopers). The lack of modern air units take us back to Civ1 times.

I believe that some simplification is a good thing, because some aspects of civ4 (resources, improvements, espionage, corporations, missionaries etc.) were a bit redundant.
I just hope it doesn't become too much dumbed down because of the influence of CivRev. Of course, we cannot judge until we get our hands on it.

Your thoughts?

I also believe that some simplification is a good thing.
Antoine de Saint-Exupry put it well when he said, "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
 
Still, its good to know that the game's lead designer is a former member of our modding community :)!

Regarding the AI, I seem to recall that Firaxis hired Blake who did the early Civ4 AI mods and I think BTS and a very active member of the other Civ site. I would have higher hopes that Blake could do a better job with a new engine than being brought in on the tail end of the existing engine. Of course, I have no idea if Blake is working on it or goes by another name that has already been mentioned but it gives me hope to think that the AI will be even better this time around.
 
btw, the only part of the tech tree we have seen so far is ancient/classic/medieval/renissance and the "scroll bar" was only half way across the screen, this means we have only seen 50% of the techs, (some of them so blurred we couldnt see thier names) so it looks like we will have many techs in the industrial/modern & possibly future tech stages. So we have well still have jets & supersonic jets to come after fighters & bombers & helicopters.

If anything the site is a collection of combined knowledge of what is confirmed with a lot more to come, the game has not been simplified, merely changed a little, and made a little more streamline to allow easier play from newbies mostly using tool tips and drop down menu's to hide extra options and information till you need to see it. I.e a newbie will not know how to micromanage and not need it, cluttering less of the screen up for them.
 
Would be interesting to see how the mechanism exactly works. I think a civ that loses its capital should have the opportunity to reconquer it and stay in the game, but once it makes peace having lost its capital, which would basically be the equivalent of capitulation, it is relegated to secondary power status and out of the race to win the game. In CivRev you have to own all the capitals at the beginning of your turn, so they can be recaptured. Of course in real Civ this can be made a bit more complex.

Well, isn't a civ that lost it's capital a good candidate to be a vassal?

I guess we hadn't this version in the other thread:

- If you capture the enemy city with the palace they become your vassal
- The palace might have strong defensive bonuses
- Palaces can still be moved, but it's rather costly, so only hammer-strong cities can do it in less than 10 turns. A weakened empire will not have the production left to pull this off, and the high costs prevent a "chase the palace" scenario.
- Certain conditions might allow a vassal to free itself, preventing cheesy "capital-rushes" - you could not subjdue an empire permanently when they are still strong

So overall it could be similar to civ4, only that capturing the current capital would have a much higher meaning. Also, this would not be overly simplyfied, just a bit faster. And realistic.

Thoughts? Arioch? ;)
 
It has been said that a victory can be gained by capturing all of the opposing capitals, but it has not been explicitly said (to my knowledge) what happens to a civilization when you capture its capital. I think it has been strongly hinted at that the loss of a capital means the end of the game for a civilization, but I don't think this has been verified, and there are no details on how such an "end" would be resolved (to my knowledge). So the entire question is a huge unknown.
 
Who says that capturing a capital will vassalise an enemy civ, I don't think it will do anything of the sort, I think it will just mean they have no capital, which isn't a good thing mind you with all the various capital emphasis. I.e need to conquer all capitals to win, capitals get little bonuses from some social policies, rome's main ability is to builder things cheaper if they are built in its capital.
Theres no reason to assume capitals will be able to change from simply "where you built your first city". Like civ rev this could have been removed to emphasise capital city importance. Its not that important if it gets replaced instantly.

No reason to assume this is simplification either, just a change, you replace the ability to change where your capital is, and have capitals replaced when taken, to instead emphasise the importance of protecting your capital.

One thing I would like to know is "will this captured capital still count as a capital?" so if you are Rome and capture london, will your whole empire get 20% off any building in Rome or London, or if you have both London and Rome, will both get +3 food from one of social policies. Which says "+3 food to your capital"
It would be interesting if this was the case as it would make controlling more capitals even more important than simply for domination victory, as they are really bonusified cities.
 
Its easier to play, but I really don't think it is "simplified", it still has a lot of complex stuff, just different from CIV
 
Who are these "mainstream gamers" that everyone seems to be talking about and refer to? I'm actually not so sure they exist (too a large extent) any longer on the PC. I also often get a little irritated when I see people saying that games nowadays suffer from simplification, and dumbification, since I actually thinks it's the other way around. Games are much more intricate and in some ways complicated now than they used to be, by a wide margin. However, what developers have concentrated on in the last couple of years is making them more intuitive and easy to use. And that's a good thing. I haven't read a manual in ages. You don't need to any longer.
 
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