Slow start is a threat to world stability

Funababbitt

Chieftain
Joined
Jul 29, 2013
Messages
45
I had just completed Banking. After making sure basic defenses were looked after, I made a beeline through Currency, and on to Guilds so I could build gold producing trading posts. I wanted to choose Aesthetics but no way my economy would sustain that. I moved to Commerce at the first opportunity. Each of my four cities had a market. I had three swordsman, four knights and each city had a composite bowman. My income was still stuck in the “teens.” I wanted to build another knight but was afraid if I did, I might fall into the red and never come back I felt vulnerable to a concentrated attack, or that if this were one of those random maps that seems to produce “raging barbarians,” I’d be wiped out.

I stop here and ask myself, why am I playing this game? I like building massive armies ready to take on civs that turn hostile, call me vermin, or attack me with missionaries, while pretending to be “friends.” Would I even buy the game for Tourism, for mindlessly reassigning Trade Routes, to vie for Diplomatic or Science Victory? No. In all likelihood would the Civilization franchise have survived without the military element? Probably not.

It’s rather pointless to argue that in History, states lacked the funds to wage major wars, obviously History proves the case to a limited degree, but I went back and checked and noted that the Battle of Thermopylae, (480BC) reputedly pitted about 10,000 Greeks against 70,000 Persians and there are loads of other examples.

Comes the second part of the same game that demonstrates why “slow start” is a fail. For the second consecutive game, playing on different maps, here’s Catherine insisting on converting my cities. I now have five cities. I make DoW skirt her minor cities and in quck succession take down St. Petersburg, then Moscow. My army: two artillery pieces, five Cavalry and a Lancer. It’s turn 907. All of a sudden I am losing 18 gp per turn. Apart from crossbows in my five cities, I have two musket men and two cavalry as rearguards. In the meantime, from all appearances with these few units I have demolished Catherine’s army. No classic battles here. (The best battle I have had in BNW so far was having to fight off waves of Catherine's MISSIONARIES).

I WANT to fight formidable armies that challenge me and I don’t want to have to wade through ten hours of game play to get there while until that time I'm slicing through my enemies like they're cheese. Now that I’m operating in the red, I have to sit tight and hope my economy recovers. This is real vanilla game play. I am spending a lot of time on BNW feeling like a footslog, wearily shouldering my musket, clicking my mouse and thinking of happier days when young Spartan women competed naked at the athletic competitions.

Let there be no misunderstanding, Civilization is moving apace to becoming a great game but it looks like they all got drunk one night and someone said, “I’m sick of all this talk that Civ 5 forces people onto the military option. Let’s get rid of that once and for all.” And thus, we have the slow start. The game is a lot duller for it and I don't think the end game offers compensation in full measure.
 
I think a few parts of your post are a bit of an exaggeration, but as a whole I agree with your argument. I have no problem with the slightly toned-down AI aggressiveness - despite many people's assertions, the AI still declares war fairly frequently (I've gotten double-DoW'd in each of my last 3 games, in all of which I was being pretty peaceful). I do agree the gold shortage was slightly overdone, but the bigger problem IMO is the way warmongering early kills you diplomatically. The problem is that the warmonger penalty now depends on the percentage of cities on the map that you captured, so if you take a capital and one more city on turn 60 (and thus took like 10%-15% of the cities on the map), pretty much everyone hates you.

Let me be clear, I still do think warmongering was changed for the better in BNW. But I also agree that it was scaled back just a little bit too much, especially pre-renaissance.
 
I think a few parts of your post are a bit of an exaggeration, but as a whole I agree with your argument. I have no problem with the slightly toned-down AI aggressiveness - despite many people's assertions, the AI still declares war fairly frequently (I've gotten double-DoW'd in each of my last 3 games, in all of which I was being pretty peaceful). I do agree the gold shortage was slightly overdone, but the bigger problem IMO is the way warmongering early kills you diplomatically. The problem is that the warmonger penalty now depends on the percentage of cities on the map that you captured, so if you take a capital and one more city on turn 60 (and thus took like 10%-15% of the cities on the map), pretty much everyone hates you.

Let me be clear, I still do think warmongering was changed for the better in BNW. But I also agree that it was scaled back just a little bit too much, especially pre-renaissance.

^this. it's never a good idea to be over-exaggerate everything, as people won't take you seriously. If you're going in the red with such a tiny army, you're probably doing something else wrong.

Having said that, you do make some good points. War completely KILLS your economy. The fact that such a percentage of your gold is linked to trade routes means that at times of war, your gpt will sink quick. Some of the gpt costs of units is incredibly high. One sub costs 10+ gpt? that's nuts. And between guilds and a higher emphasis on food, you really can't afford to dedicate too much of your pop to work gold tiles. Which leaves puppet cities, but to get them to be worthwhile, you got to get them early, and getting them early means you have to have war, low gpt, diplo hits, etc etc etc. I agree with most of the things that have been said. The general idea is a good one, although the numbers definitely need to be tuned.
 
I'm not really sure what you guys are talking about, because that hasn't been my experience.

War is still plentiful, it's just it's now slightly pushed back. Gone are the rushes to CB and worldwide domination (which, let's be honest, is pretty unrealistic). Now you can at best fight your neighbour before renaissance, and then, after that, you can start moving further afield.

I'm on immortal right now in a game where, by the time I hit renaissance, I was +150 GPT. Yes, a bunch of them were from trade routes, but I wouldn't be -80GPT if I were to start a war, I would be more like +50GPT. I also wouldn't be starting war with all my neighbours (and especially not without doing the proper denounce-declare sequence). You can still trade with neighbours who are hostile. So, unless and until you choose to fight every single one of your neighbours, which is really your own fault, it's not a game killer. There are also CS if no civs around you are tradeable. They don't give you as much, but if you need gold, that's one place to get it.
 
^this. it's never a good idea to be over-exaggerate everything, as people won't take you seriously. If you're going in the red with such a tiny army, you're probably doing something else wrong.

Having said that, you do make some good points. War completely KILLS your economy. The fact that such a percentage of your gold is linked to trade routes means that at times of war, your gpt will sink quick. Some of the gpt costs of units is incredibly high. One sub costs 10+ gpt? that's nuts. And between guilds and a higher emphasis on food, you really can't afford to dedicate too much of your pop to work gold tiles. Which leaves puppet cities, but to get them to be worthwhile, you got to get them early, and getting them early means you have to have war, low gpt, diplo hits, etc etc etc. I agree with most of the things that have been said. The general idea is a good one, although the numbers definitely need to be tuned.

You hit the nail on the head with that last point. My biggest problem with the new system - and I DO like it, in general - is that you really need to be running Guild slots at almost all times, even if you're not going culture. And when you need to be running Guild slots AND science specialists once you hit Education (which is/should be pretty early), food tends to tank. When food tanks, you re-direct trade routes internally, leaving your economy to sputter.

The best way to fix it, I think, would be to slightly lower unit maintenance and/or slightly lower the warmonger hit when there aren't many cities on the map. I really like the idea that Firaxis is going for - that war hurts your economy significantly and that warring too much will get you in trouble - but there's a few kinks in the design that need to be smoothed over.
 
I had just completed Banking. After making sure basic defenses were looked after, I made a beeline through Currency, and on to Guilds so I could build gold producing trading posts. I wanted to choose Aesthetics but no way my economy would sustain that. I moved to Commerce at the first opportunity. Each of my four cities had a market. I had three swordsman, four knights and each city had a composite bowman. My income was still stuck in the “teens.” I wanted to build another knight but was afraid if I did, I might fall into the red and never come back I felt vulnerable to a concentrated attack, or that if this were one of those random maps that seems to produce “raging barbarians,” I’d be wiped out.

I stop here and ask myself, why am I playing this game? I like building massive armies ready to take on civs that turn hostile, call me vermin, or attack me with missionaries, while pretending to be “friends.” Would I even buy the game for Tourism, for mindlessly reassigning Trade Routes, to vie for Diplomatic or Science Victory? No. In all likelihood would the Civilization franchise have survived without the military element? Probably not.

It’s rather pointless to argue that in History, states lacked the funds to wage major wars, obviously History proves the case to a limited degree, but I went back and checked and noted that the Battle of Thermopylae, (480BC) reputedly pitted about 10,000 Greeks against 70,000 Persians and there are loads of other examples.

Comes the second part of the same game that demonstrates why “slow start” is a fail. For the second consecutive game, playing on different maps, here’s Catherine insisting on converting my cities. I now have five cities. I make DoW skirt her minor cities and in quck succession take down St. Petersburg, then Moscow. My army: two artillery pieces, five Cavalry and a Lancer. It’s turn 907. All of a sudden I am losing 18 gp per turn. Apart from crossbows in my five cities, I have two musket men and two cavalry as rearguards. In the meantime, from all appearances with these few units I have demolished Catherine’s army. No classic battles here. (The best battle I have had in BNW so far was having to fight off waves of Catherine's MISSIONARIES).

I WANT to fight formidable armies that challenge me and I don’t want to have to wade through ten hours of game play to get there while until that time I'm slicing through my enemies like they're cheese. Now that I’m operating in the red, I have to sit tight and hope my economy recovers. This is real vanilla game play. I am spending a lot of time on BNW feeling like a footslog, wearily shouldering my musket, clicking my mouse and thinking of happier days when young Spartan women competed naked at the athletic competitions.

Let there be no misunderstanding, Civilization is moving apace to becoming a great game but it looks like they all got drunk one night and someone said, “I’m sick of all this talk that Civ 5 forces people onto the military option. Let’s get rid of that once and for all.” And thus, we have the slow start. The game is a lot duller for it and I don't think the end game offers compensation in full measure.

OK in addressing your points :

1. Not sure why you mentioned TOURISM, you are talking early game when it is irrelevant.

2. Sure plenty of people like the WARGAME of Civ V, well guess what there are also plenty of people that like the Culture Game et al. It should not be all one way or the other.

3. Civ is trying to model (simplistically anyway) empire management. War is a part of that, so are other things.

4. Personally I enjoy the war part of Civ V (depends a little on the Civ I am playing admittedly), but I also like the other parts too.

5. I think Trade Routes are a fantastic addition, long overdue. It is a ridiculous assertion that it takes a whole lot of time reassigning trade routes (which are every 30+ turns IIRC) in the Classical/Medieval era. I am really trying to understand your complaint here but truly do not.

6. I think the core of your argument is that you don't have the money to facilitate warfare in the early game. Personally I do not really understand this as I have not had the same problem, perhaps this is a difference in our game setups, but more likely IMO you are not putting enough effort (and it is pretty minimal) into trade routes.

7. Yes I agree with other posters that early game warmonger penalty is a tad harsh. But then again I would not reduce it by too much.

8. You have to remember Civ designers work for a broad church. Civ V was very War focused when first released, far to much so compared to previous titles in the series. It has gradually been toned down to a more balanced level. Has it gone a little to far ? Probably, but almost every change swings the axe a little far and then is modded back into balance over time.

9. Finally Suggestions for making money early game (in no particular order) :

a. TRADE ROUTES
b. COLLOSSUS, PETRA, MACHU PICU, MOH, et al.
c. MARKET (Specialists), HARBOUR et al.
d. GOLD LUXURIES/BONUS RESOURCES
e. TRADE SPARE LUXURIES
f. BULLY CITY STATES
g. PILLAGE ENEMY CITIES, LAND PLOTS, BARBARIAN CAMPS
h. RUINS
i. DEMAND TRIBUTE
j. CITY BONUS's (ie Ocean based (*2), River Based (~25%)).
k. FOUND CITIES WHERE THE LUXURIES ARE.
l. INTERNAL (OLD CIV V) TRADE ROUTES (+keep roads to a minimum).
m. SOCIAL POLICIES (Monarchy, Commerce, Honour Finisher).
o. RELIGION (Tithe and others).

And probably others I have forgotten.
 
9. Finally Suggestions for making money early game (in no particular order) :

a. TRADE ROUTES
b. COLLOSSUS, PETRA, MACHU PICU, MOH, et al.
c. MARKET (Specialists), HARBOUR et al.
d. GOLD LUXURIES/BONUS RESOURCES
e. TRADE SPARE LUXURIES
f. BULLY CITY STATES
g. PILLAGE ENEMY CITIES, LAND PLOTS, BARBARIAN CAMPS
h. RUINS
i. DEMAND TRIBUTE
j. CITY BONUS's (ie Ocean based (*2), River Based (~25%)).
k. FOUND CITIES WHERE THE LUXURIES ARE.
l. INTERNAL (OLD CIV V) TRADE ROUTES (+keep roads to a minimum).
m. SOCIAL POLICIES (Monarchy, Commerce, Honour Finisher).
o. RELIGION (Tithe and others).

And probably others I have forgotten.

Build roads (to a minimum as you suggest), and Harbours (as you suggest) for connections to the capital. I always struggle until that is done, then get comfortable, then rich once I start TP spamming. Then I can kill, kill, kill! :king:
 
2. Sure plenty of people like the WARGAME of Civ V, well guess what there are also plenty of people that like the Culture Game et al. It should not be all one way or the other.

3. Civ is trying to model (simplistically anyway) empire management. War is a part of that, so are other things.

Yeah, I like the empire building aspect of Civ, where I focus on beautifying my cities with wonders, buildings, and improvements. The military aspect of the game is okay, but it's not even close to my favorite part. I love diplomacy with the AI's, and developing culture.
 
AI can't even hurt me. Their armies vanished with BNW.

And in current gameplay I have killed off greece, ethopia, and Celts.

And then Autocracy bloc is about to kill off India, and america.

The autocracy bloc is running hogwild and killing every freedom/order civs. Greece was autocracy but he pissed off the autocracy bloc. :p

Venice got killed off in classical by greeks.

I took a city from ethopia and razed it during ancient/classical era.

On huge map.

Firaxis' obstinate is a problem here though.
They refuse to see the current happiness system of civ 5 sucks.
And they're too lazy to rename the rebels that spawn as rebels instead of barbarians.

I am very poor compared to gods n kings. I could be rich like crazy pulling in 1k gold a turn but here on gods n kings its more like 300 gold a turn bleh.
 
War is almost always a win for the human player because the AI is still horrendously bad at it.

It does not know how to concentrate its attacks. It sends a really scary invasion force that then moves it around weirdly, attacks multiple cities, fails to use range effectively, and cannot regroup if it loses one battle.

All this stuff had to be fixed before it been be a good war game.
 
War is a staple of mankind, ever since Man picked up the 1st stick to use on his brother. :(

WE should be having MORE wars in the ancient to Medieval times with them decreasing in modern times, save for the 2 or 3 world type wars.
 
War didn't get pushed back.

What happened is two-fold:
a) people already know how to play. You learned how to not settle too close to AI, learned how many units to build (simply having them often prevents war automatically).
b) the AI has better things to do in early game. Building trade routes, attacking city states etc.
c) Barbarians are more active now and yes, really, in the Acient (and often even classical) most of us (both players and AIs) are busy clearing those nasty Axemen. Otherwise Swordsmen and Horsemen start showing up.

I had Japan for a neighbour. Yes, he showed up with 17 units (on a small map!) on my borders. This was in classical. So no, wars are not gone. Depends on AI opportunities and traits.

As for the GPT issues, having a really large military (say 8-10 units on a small map) simply forces you to either be aggressive with trade routes or city state bullying. I think people underestimate the money you can get from bullying. And then there's the obvious choice of actually using those units for their intended role - attack. No point in wasting so many hammers on expendable resources and not using them. A working road network is also very important (on the route to Horsemen anyway, tech-wise). Not only for the network gold, but also for the fact that you can send your caravans to larger cities with different luxuries (more gold).
 
War didn't get pushed back.

What happened is two-fold:
a) people already know how to play. You learned how to not settle too close to AI, learned how many units to build (simply having them often prevents war automatically).
b) the AI has better things to do in early game. Building trade routes, attacking city states etc.
c) Barbarians are more active now and yes, really, in the Acient (and often even classical) most of us (both players and AIs) are busy clearing those nasty Axemen. Otherwise Swordsmen and Horsemen start showing up.

I had Japan for a neighbour. Yes, he showed up with 17 units (on a small map!) on my borders. This was in classical. So no, wars are not gone. Depends on AI opportunities and traits.

As for the GPT issues, having a really large military (say 8-10 units on a small map) simply forces you to either be aggressive with trade routes or city state bullying. I think people underestimate the money you can get from bullying. And then there's the obvious choice of actually using those units for their intended role - attack. No point in wasting so many hammers on expendable resources and not using them. A working road network is also very important (on the route to Horsemen anyway, tech-wise). Not only for the network gold, but also for the fact that you can send your caravans to larger cities with different luxuries (more gold).

I've got to disagree, war is noticeably reduced beyond the parameters you mentioned at emperor difficulty and lower. I've played a few games now quite differently, but all based on a good amount of expansion with bare minimum units (1) to hold it together. In my latest game i spawned next to Attila. My capital was 5 tiles from his, i expanded to take all the good city spots so he was stuck to his one. I became friends with Carthage who was also surrounding him. I even lost my only archer to barbarians and didn't have an army for about 30 turns. The huns were just friendly, from the moment i met them... We had such little space there were no barbarians around him. Something is clearly out of balance here, since this warmonger easily had an opportunity to jump way up the points and knock down a neighbour. Before BNW he woulda taken this and probably woulda had some success. Instead he sat there, remaining terrible.

I've had other experiences like this as well, and generally found a complete lack of warfare directed at the player at least pre-renaissance. I like all parts of this game, i don't want it to be a war game, but right now it feels like military is completely out of balance with everything else, and it's really quite upsetting since i was so happy with the balance in G&K :sad:
 
I've got to disagree, war is noticeably reduced beyond the parameters you mentioned at emperor difficulty and lower. I've played a few games now quite differently, but all based on a good amount of expansion with bare minimum units (1) to hold it together. In my latest game i spawned next to Attila. My capital was 5 tiles from his, i expanded to take all the good city spots so he was stuck to his one. I became friends with Carthage who was also surrounding him. I even lost my only archer to barbarians and didn't have an army for about 30 turns. The huns were just friendly, from the moment i met them... We had such little space there were no barbarians around him. Something is clearly out of balance here, since this warmonger easily had an opportunity to jump way up the points and knock down a neighbour. Before BNW he woulda taken this and probably woulda had some success. Instead he sat there, remaining terrible.

I've had other experiences like this as well, and generally found a complete lack of warfare directed at the player at least pre-renaissance. I like all parts of this game, i don't want it to be a war game, but right now it feels like military is completely out of balance with everything else, and it's really quite upsetting since i was so happy with the balance in G&K :sad:

In your example, something might be off with the AI, because In my latest game I've had an Attila with 1 city (4 tiles from my 3rd city) and he declared like 10 turns after I settled it. The war dragged on till renaissance.
 
I wanted to build another knight but was afraid if I did, I might fall into the red and never come back

for me the problem with going to war is never the money, it's always the damn happiness. No matter how many happy buildings, religious bonusses or policies I take for :c5happy: it's hovering around +5 or +10 at best. Even after razing worthless cities, allowing your puppets to build courthouses and other happiness buildings and forming alliances with the right city states and civs. I don't know what else I can do.

It's a real fragile balance because by the time you really get the war machine going the ideology penalties kick in. And don't think about fast conquest.

I am spending a lot of time on BNW feeling like a footslog, wearily shouldering my musket, clicking my mouse and thinking of happier days when young Spartan women competed naked at the athletic competitions.

I love this forum. People casually insert gems like this into their page posts frequently.
 
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