So you want to see gameplay, huh?

[Boris Godunov]

But I ask of you, why?

It makes sense to treat fortification as an action that uses up the unit's movement for the turn. It's not like fortifying a military unit is just a matter of them crouching behind a bush, after all. The presumption is they are using up their turn action by actually building fortifications on their position, such as digging trenches and so forth. I don't see the problem in requiring the player to use up that movement just as he would for a unit actually moving in order to get the defensive bonus of the fortifications--you can't change your mind when you move a unit and take it back, either.

 

[Zhahz]

I didnt watch the entire show, but is there any reason why the African continent was this empty? Few citystates + Japan only? I would expect the biggest share of the worldmap to be divided already (since it was 1500AD).

Expansion is slower depending on how you go about it.

I did find it odd that he hadn't filled more of Africa but he had a LOT of room.

Part of it was early and lengthy war taking up his attention (and overall, they said he'd played for 10 hours to get to that point, so obviously there was a lot that nobody saw or could know about that lead to that point in time).

Still...he had a lot of idle workers and when the demo starts he's using all his iron and horses to support units, and ends up building buildings instead of uings. So, it seems like he was probably in this state often and could've cranked out some settlers to spread south or to the coast along the way. Tough to say.

I can't control to which hex my city is going to expand!? Biggest joke for me. Where is the "AI, please can you control everything - i can't think on my own"-button?

Remain calm, you can always force things by buying tiles. The mechanic kinda makes sense because people tend to spread where they want to. It's not like a leader can always control exactly where his people or culture spread at all times.

Ai on almost highest level with 4 times the points of the player can not take him down? Also a good one - I am not impressed.

Again, we didn't see the whole game. What we did see was that a couple of AIs had been knocked out and one got knocked out during the demo. It would appear that Nappy was warring on multiple fronts and doing pretty well at it. A lot of the deadlock had to do with the choke point and good use of terrain and promoted units, something that's been discussed about Civ 5 combat from the beginning. Since we only ever see a few tiles of Nappy's land, it's hard to say what his naval options were (he very well may not have had a port city on the med, for ex). Apparently Nappy did try to invade across the water and got pulvarized by ranged units.

Judging the whole game based on one demo, from one player, with a style that certainly doesn't match mine, would be kind of silly, eh? There were a LOT of good things and interesting things to be drawn from the demo, for sure.

 

[grandad1982]

Watched the whole show last night and got really into it. I found it hard to sleep as I kept thinking about how I'd play the game!

So I assume the horrid crash was that Greg was trying to load a different version save to the build on the broadcast computer? Hopefully.

One pice of advice though. Next time JUST PLAY whilst the wing man and Elizabeth talk! Or play whilst you talk! I guess its always hard watching someone else play civ as it make my fingers itch

Can't wait to get my hands on this (stupid rest of the world release date ).

 

[Falcan]

Could you ever pick where your culture was going to expand? The AI always did it for you, in a circle around the city.

 

[PieceOfMind]

It makes sense to treat fortification as an action that uses up the unit's movement for the turn. It's not like fortifying a military unit is just a matter of them crouching behind a bush, after all. The presumption is they are using up their turn action by actually building fortifications on their position, such as digging trenches and so forth. I don't see the problem in requiring the player to use up that movement just as he would for a unit actually moving in order to get the defensive bonus of the fortifications--you can't change your mind when you move a unit and take it back, either.

The reason it would not make sense to allow moves to be "undone" is because moving a unit has an effect that is not reversible. By moving a unit, you might reveal information about the surroundings (e.g. spot an enemy) that you can't just get rid of by undoing the unit's move.

With fortification, it would only make sense to use up the units movement points if there was something irreversible about the fortification action. As in my example, if the fortification of a unit gave a combat bonus to an adjacent unit, that would be an effect that cannot be reversed so undoing the fortification after the combat bonus has been taken advantage of would be an exploit of the feature.

Realism argument here is completely irrelevant. I know it takes time to build fortifications in real life.

Unless there is a good reason to do so (which I'm trying to figure out), forcing units to run out of movement points when they select fortify is about as arbitrary and annoying as forcing you to move units in the exact order they were built, or to not being able to select a unit with the mouse but only be able to cycle through units using the < and > keys.

So, do you see my point about the difference between actions that are reversible and those that are irreversible?

Examples of reversible actions in civ4 were: Sleep, Fortify, Sentry, Sea Patrol, Air Intercept Mission
All of those actions had something in common - they did not have an immediate effect on the current turn - the action could be reversed.

Examples of irreversible actions in civ4: Movement, Attacking, Build a tile improvement, Bombard, Pillage.
All of these had an immediate effect during the player's turn, one that could not be reversed.

Blockade in civ4 was an interesting one. Theoretically it could be reversed because it didn't have an immediate effect during the player's turn, but its implementation was such that the unit's turn would end with that action. As I said before, there may have been underlying reasons to do this, like avoiding computationally demanding trade-route recalculations.

 

[TheMystic]

Just want to chime in, I doubt he played that single game for 10 hours unless he was constantly distracted or on/off the computer throughout the session. Perhaps he just spent 10 hours playing multiple games until he found one that he wanted to show off. Based off the front line he had setup I imagine he thought he could have pushed into French territory, and just wasn't expecting France to be so far ahead in tech. My guess is that for where he was in the game if f he was really playing seriously and consistently it would have only taken a couple of hours to get to that point.

Also, not once have I seen that graphic issue during my playthroughs with the press build. It really looked like major heat tearing to me, nothing else. The stream system probably has a faulty video card, or whoever works at that station may have been overclocking it.

 

[Schuesseled]

I'm wondering if putting a ranged unit on sleep will preserve a set-up action, so that a unit can wake up at your will and start shooting without wasting a movement point.

Because if it doesn't to keep a ranged unit ready for battle you would have to skip its turn every turn, wasting a ton of time playing the game.

 

[TheMystic]

I'm wondering if putting a ranged unit on sleep will preserve a set-up action, so that a unit can wake up at your will and start shooting without wasting a movement point.

Yep, deployed is deployed. You won't lose that status unless you move.

 

[Szpilman]

Just want to chime in, I doubt he played that single game for 10 hours unless he was constantly distracted or on/off the computer throughout the session. Perhaps he just spent 10 hours playing multiple games until he found one that he wanted to show off. Based off the front line he had setup I imagine he thought he could have pushed into French territory, and just wasn't expecting France to be so far ahead in tech. My guess is that for where he was in the game if f he was really playing seriously and consistently it would have only taken a couple of hours to get to that point.

Also, not once have I seen that graphic issue during my playthroughs with the press build. It really looked like major heat tearing to me, nothing else. The stream system probably has a faulty video card, or whoever works at that station may have been overclocking it.

But do we know the speed he was playing in?

Yep, deployed is deployed. You won't lose that status unless you move.

So you mean we'd deploy it, than we could simply put it to sleep, if I understand it right? Sounds about right.

 

[Polobo]

The way I think of fortify is that you have to have at least 1 movement point in order to fortify and in order to get the fortification bonus THAT TURN you have to use it to fortify. If you expend all your movement points getting somewhere you are not able to fortify until the following turn.

 

[Schuesseled]

thats good to know thanks mystic, if it wasn't for that, having a defensive line would be a real pain in the bum to maintain.

 

[Louis XXIV]

PieceOfMind, it strikes me as an oversight rather than anything else. It was something that existed in all civ games until Civ4. Maybe they just forgot to pay attention to how they implemented it in Civ4, simply programmed the fortification mechanic, and never asked "wait, didn't we do it better in Civ4?". It's something that works, but just not as effectively as it worked last game. Hopefully it'll be something changed in a patch because, like you, I can't think of any practical reason for a change (unless it gives line of sight bonuses like Civ3, but even that only worked after the turn was done).

And realism arguments are pointless because they can go both ways. Sure fortification takes time, but it can be represented by the time between the end of your turn and the beginning of the next players turn. There's no reason "digging in" has to be in the same time scale as movement or research.

 

[Polobo]

In CIV fortify meant you would increase defense but 5%/turn until 25%; we don't know how fortification works in CiV so deciding whether it should require a movement point/end-of-turn is difficult.

It would probably be better if any unit that does not consume all its movement points gets 5% defense for each movement point remaining (max 25%) automatically and not actually have a "fortify" button at all; skip-turn or sleep would function just as well. Then, you can keep "fortify" for simply "oblivious to the world unless attacked" meaning that it will not awake if units approach it.

 

[V. Soma]

If I "designed" it, fortification would cost one "action point",
and to get out of that stat would cost also one point (while remaining on the tile the unit is on)...

Sleep would require no cost of point to get out - but sleep would not give defensive bonus, either...

 

[Mannu]

Re. fortification movement points:

This decision might also have something to do with the simultaneous turns multiplayer rules. If fortifying could be undone to regain a movement point then you would be obligated to fortify all of you troops until you could get around to moving them.

 

[Polobo]

If I "designed" it, fortification would cost one "action point",
and to get out of that stat would cost also one point (while remaining on the tile the unit is on)...

Sleep would require no cost of point to get out - but sleep would not give defensive bonus, either...

Too harsh IMO. I'd maybe tie fortifications to the tile instead of the unit; so if you leave a fortified location it remains and can either be re-defended or even used by the enemy. You would have to pillage it to remove the fortifications. Kinda like having a Legion-lite for all military land units (maybe just melee) with a smaller bonus.

Otherwise I kinda like the implementation as it is; you get a benefit from holding a location longer but are allowed to quickly sortie forth but you give up all your defensive organization.

I'd maybe include a bonus for "fortify" in your own culture (as opposed to neutral/enemy) since you should have better knowledge of your own land and how to maxmize defenses.

 

[Schalke 04]

Greg said, that it's pretty much predictable which tile the AI chooses next for our city expansion. Mostly it will be a tile with a resource. But what about the following situation:

Lets say the adjactent tiles to the existing city radius do not contain any resources. However there is a resource three tiles away from the city. Will the AI be smart enough to "beeline" to this resource? Or will it expand to other directions, perhaps because it worships a grassland tile more than a plain tile which would lead to the resource-tile...?

 

[Schuesseled]

I like that in civ 4 you could change your mind and go back to a unit who's turn you had skipped or had fortified.

I however did not like that if you woke up a unit and then told them to go back to fortifying they lost the 35% bonus they had gained. I was only examing him, i didn't move him or anything.

Greg said, that it's pretty much predictable which tile the AI chooses next for our city expansion. Mostly it will be a tile with a resource. But what about the following situation:

Lets say the adjactent tiles to the existing city radius do not contain any resources. However there is a resource three tiles away from the city. Will the AI be smart enough to "beeline" to this resource? Or will it expand to other directions, perhaps because it worships a grassland tile more than a plain tile which would lead to the resource-tile...?

I would imagine, that it would. Although it might not if the terrain connecting the resource and the city is of a shoody nature. i.e. that resource is surrounded by a wall of snow tiles

 

[Polobo]

I like that in civ 4 you could change your mind and go back to a unit who's turn you had skipped or had fortified.

I however did not like that if you woke up a unit and then told them to go back to fortifying they lost the 35% bonus they had gained. I was only examing him, i didn't move him or anything.

They fixed this in one of the patches....

 

[PieceOfMind]

Re. fortification movement points:

This decision might also have something to do with the simultaneous turns multiplayer rules. If fortifying could be undone to regain a movement point then you would be obligated to fortify all of you troops until you could get around to moving them.

That might apply if fortification gave you an instant bonus to defense. This was not the case in civ4. In civ4 you had to have not moved for the turn at all, before the counter would even start. On the following turn, you'd start off at 5% fortify bonus.

In a way, the fortify button was completely pointless, or at least not a good description for what it did. The fortify button just meant: Stop asking for orders and don't wake up. The actual fortification bonus the unit received was a reward for it not moving for a few turns (hence why skipping unit - pressing spacebar - achieved the same fortify bonus).

So yes, if fortification gave you an instant bonus to defense, it would make sense to require at least a movement point (or all remaining movement points) in order to avoid having it abused in mp.