Special abilities

[Calouste]

I will enjoy playing the Aztecs.
Iroquois will be an interesting challenge.
England will rule the seas.

But if I am playing for the win and I am able to choose my Civilization, India will be on my short list of civs to choose from.

A single Pop 20 city as India will be more than capable of achieving mid game is far superior than two Pop 10 cities or four Pop 5 cities.
1) The Pop 20 city only has to build a single instance of library, barracks, and so forth. Multiple cities must build multiple instances of these buildings, essentially duplicating their efforts and wasting hammers.
2) Hammers not wasted in multiple builds are available for more diverse builds, therefore it is to be expected that India's cities will be more fully developed. In other words, instead of building library and barracks yet again, India's cities will be moving on to build walls, courthouses, granaries, and so on.
3) Because India's cities will be more fully developed and because the bonuses received for buildings are additive (+ for library, + for observatory, + for research lab), India's Cities will have greater bonuses.
4) Thus, even though two Pop 10 cities, four Pop 5 cities, or a single Pop 20 city all work the same number of hexes and harvest the same raw amount of commerce and hammers, because more bonuses will be applied to those harvested by the Pop 20 city (due to the presence of more buildings), the effective yield for a Pop 20 city will be far greater.

Or to illustrate the advantage given to India from a slightly different angle:
The Glory of Rome gives a 25% bonus for building any building already present in the capitol. Let Rome have an empire of ten Pop 10 cities, while India has an empire of five Pop 20 cities. And then have both of them build a Forge in all of their cities at a proposed cost of 100 hammers each to keep things easy.

Rome's cost is 100 (for the capitol) + 75x9 (for each of 9 cities) = 775
India's cost is 100x5 (for each city) = 500

This hypothetical example yields India a production advantage of 275 hammers, which equates to that many more buildings, wonders, or military units.

I admit that this is a simplistic comparison and one could argue that Rome should have ten Pop 15 cities versus five Pop 25 cities for India (and thus, a full comparisons would have to include the greater number of hexes worked by the Roman Empire), but as a starting point, I hope this lays the groundwork for why I believe India's power is not to be underestimated.

We don't know yet if Libraries etc give percentage bonusses like they did in Civ4. They could give a fixed bonus this time around, or a combination of fixed and percentage, which would throw your math off.

 

[JonoLith]

I admit that this is a simplistic comparison and one could argue that Rome should have ten Pop 15 cities versus five Pop 25 cities for India (and thus, a full comparisons would have to include the greater number of hexes worked by the Roman Empire), but as a starting point, I hope this lays the groundwork for why I believe India's power is not to be underestimated.

My concern with this style of play would be that it is incredibly succeptable to losing a war simply due to being overwhelmed. Having half the amount of cities, no matter how spectacular they might be, will result in a loss of military unit production, ultimately.

My hope would be, for the Indian Army, that the 1upt system will allow them to be extremely defensive, and really grind down any enemy that hopes to attack them. This would be very fitting for Ghandi especially, who wouldn't attack back, but rather would remain quite passive.

Any word on what the Indian special unit does?

 

[ShaqFu]

I like that the abilities encourage players to somewhat follow the historical "flavor" of each leader/civ, where the style of, say, Alexander is something that you'll think "hey, this feels awfully close to how the Greeks operated." The inherent bonus with city-state relations nudges Alexander towards a large confederation of city-states, which both empowers the Greek civ (due to the bonuses and the huge diplomatic boost) while keeping it small (since you're not conquering CSes). Needless to say, this sounds strangely familiar...

The same holds for the Arabian trading empire, the French zenith during the early modern period, Germanic unification of barbarian tribes (sorry, no spiffy link on 4th century ethnogenesis), etc. It's nice to see more flavor in how the civs play out instead of two traits that may loosely resemble their empire.

 

[bjbrains]

I like that the abilities encourage players to somewhat follow the historical "flavor" of each leader/civ, where the style of, say, Alexander is something that you'll think "hey, this feels awfully close to how the Greeks operated." The inherent bonus with city-state relations nudges Alexander towards a large confederation of city-states, which both empowers the Greek civ (due to the bonuses and the huge diplomatic boost) while keeping it small (since you're not conquering CSes). Needless to say, this sounds strangely familiar...

The same holds for the Arabian trading empire, the French zenith during the early modern period, Germanic unification of barbarian tribes (sorry, no spiffy link on 4th century ethnogenesis), etc. It's nice to see more flavor in how the civs play out instead of two traits that may loosely resemble their empire.

This is definitely my favorite part of the new system. It does a good job of reflecting what made each civ famous, and some of them really make you 'play like' the civ in some sense. I can't wait to see the other 7, as well as the unique units/buildings, as they'll probably have a similar impact on the 'feel' of the civ.

Also, India does have a unique building called the Mughal Fort (which I'm now guessing is a castle UB), and large cities appear to have large strengths, so I'm guessing Indian cities will be hard to capture.

 

[Calouste]

This is definitely my favorite part of the new system. It does a good job of reflecting what made each civ famous, and some of them really make you 'play like' the civ in some sense. I can't wait to see the other 7, as well as the unique units/buildings, as they'll probably have a similar impact on the 'feel' of the civ.

Also, India does have a unique building called the Mughal Fort (which I'm now guessing is a castle UB), and large cities appear to have large strengths, so I'm guessing Indian cities will be hard to capture.

What I also like about it is that it gives the AI a good flavor, but still allows the AI to play the best they can, because they have to play in a certain way to maximize the advantages that come with their ability. Not like in Civ4, where the difference between the traits were less pronounced, and cerainly not very pronounced between certain trait combos, and a lot of the leader specific flavor was written in the AI, which in some cases severly gimped them (*cough* Tokugawa*cough*).

 

[ShaqFu]

Also, India does have a unique building called the Mughal Fort (which I'm now guessing is a castle UB), and large cities appear to have large strengths, so I'm guessing Indian cities will be hard to capture.

They also have to be held for longer, if anyone wants to raze your huge cities, and it'll take longer to assimilate into the conquering empire. Not much of a bonus (you really should be defending your cities better), but it's something to keep in mind when trying to take Delhi or Kalikut.

 

[Tregon]

What I also like about it is that it gives the AI a good flavor, but still allows the AI to play the best they can, because they have to play in a certain way to maximize the advantages that come with their ability. Not like in Civ4, where the difference between the traits were less pronounced, and cerainly not very pronounced between certain trait combos, and a lot of the leader specific flavor was written in the AI, which in some cases severly gimped them (*cough* Tokugawa*cough*).

Which can also be a bad thing. Each nation is stuck into rather tight format, and erring out of it will gimp it horribly.

Ergo, once you know how to fight nation X, you will know how to fight it in every condition. Less room for improvisation and surprises.

Human or AI opponent, both would mostly lose if they erred out of the prewritten "manuscript".

 

[12agnar0k]

I confess to not knowing how unhappiness will work in C5.
For my analysis, I have assumed that the mechanic would operate as it had for Civ 4.

Ok well the way it used to work was that if a city was unhappy a citizen would grab a banner stick it on a pole and march little circles around city hall, if your conditions that caused unhappiness continued upwards, then more of your citizens would join this picket line.

The problem with this is that with many happy citizens you were still fairly productive, by hacing X less citizen gathering food but still consuming it, your growth fell however. The city would not be anymore productive in terms of gold/hammers till you could reduce unhappiness and utilise more tiles with more happy citizens.

Even in this system, India's ability wouldnt grant +1 happy citizen for every 1 unhappy one, actually what would happen is for every 2 population only 1 unhappiness is added to the tally, (which btw is what happens in the new system). This isn't +1 happy and +1 unhappy, its simply +1 unhappy. Eventually you will reach the same problem as other civ4 civs just later.

.........

Okay now as for the current system, we don't know everything about it yet... but from what we do know.

The happiness is global, each new city you settle/annex/puppetise gives some unhappiness, annexing giving the most.
Each population point give's unhappiness, I believe even more so from annexed cities than normal cities, part of the reason why annexing has such a cost.

Positive Happiness is tallied from having "one instance" of luxury resources, gems/gold/silk e.t.c all add +5 happiness.
Some buildings add happiness, whether this is only for every "one instance" or if building multiple versions in lot's of cities increases happiness further isnt known at this time. An example though, a theatre adds +4 happiness to global happy faces.
Some social policies can also increase positive global happiness.

Now you may ask "what happens if I go unhappy in total" well I'm not sure, I would need to look closer at some footage, but from what I think is confirmed is that by going into global unhappiness all tiles produce 1 less of everything, 1 less food, 1 less hammers, 1 less gold. Sort of like a reverse golden age, and it lasts till happiness is increased or unhappiness decreased. Something I would like to know is if I have a HUGE unhappiness is this deficit of tile produce increased or can I indefinitely increase unhappiness at this point with no further fall in productivity.

 

[Wolle68]

I will enjoy playing the Aztecs.
Iroquois will be an interesting challenge.
England will rule the seas.

But if I am playing for the win and I am able to choose my Civilization, India will be on my short list of civs to choose from.

A single Pop 20 city as India will be more than capable of achieving mid game is far superior than two Pop 10 cities or four Pop 5 cities.
1) The Pop 20 city only has to build a single instance of library, barracks, and so forth. Multiple cities must build multiple instances of these buildings, essentially duplicating their efforts and wasting hammers.
2) Hammers not wasted in multiple builds are available for more diverse builds, therefore it is to be expected that India's cities will be more fully developed. In other words, instead of building library and barracks yet again, India's cities will be moving on to build walls, courthouses, granaries, and so on.
3) Because India's cities will be more fully developed and because the bonuses received for buildings are additive (+ for library, + for observatory, + for research lab), India's Cities will have greater bonuses.
4) Thus, even though two Pop 10 cities, four Pop 5 cities, or a single Pop 20 city all work the same number of hexes and harvest the same raw amount of commerce and hammers, because more bonuses will be applied to those harvested by the Pop 20 city (due to the presence of more buildings), the effective yield for a Pop 20 city will be far greater.

Or to illustrate the advantage given to India from a slightly different angle:
The Glory of Rome gives a 25% bonus for building any building already present in the capitol. Let Rome have an empire of ten Pop 10 cities, while India has an empire of five Pop 20 cities. And then have both of them build a Forge in all of their cities at a proposed cost of 100 hammers each to keep things easy.

Rome's cost is 100 (for the capitol) + 75x9 (for each of 9 cities) = 775
India's cost is 100x5 (for each city) = 500

This hypothetical example yields India a production advantage of 275 hammers, which equates to that many more buildings, wonders, or military units.

I admit that this is a simplistic comparison and one could argue that Rome should have ten Pop 15 cities versus five Pop 25 cities for India (and thus, a full comparisons would have to include the greater number of hexes worked by the Roman Empire), but as a starting point, I hope this lays the groundwork for why I believe India's power is not to be underestimated.

One downside I see with India's trait is that smaller empire also means fewer resources. That could mean less happiness, less buildings, and worse military units. We'll have to see how the happiness mechanism works in detail, but I can't shake the feeling that I don't like this mechanism very much.

 

[Alki]

It seems to me that resources dictate number of military units not production. Many production cities could let you replace troops quicker but not 'have' more troops. Or am I very much mistaken?

 

[Tregon]

It seems to me that resources dictate number of military units not production. Many production cities could let you replace troops quicker but not 'have' more troops. Or am I very much mistaken?

It limits production of specific units. If you have enough copper for 5 units and enough iron for 5 units, you still get 10 units.

This alternative compared to earlier versions just makes you use bigger variety of units instead of spawning only the latest and greatest unit ad infinitum.

And in war ability to soak up losses makes or breaks empires. Out of two sides who start out equal one which replaces losses faster wins.

 

[Alki]

Of course. One reason Britain won the Battle of Britain was becuase downed planes over Blighty (of both sides) could be cannibalised for spare parts. The Gerry had to start from scratch for every plane. We'd also get the odd downed pilot back but the lufftewaffe rarely did.

 

[ShaqFu]

Which can also be a bad thing. Each nation is stuck into rather tight format, and erring out of it will gimp it horribly.

Ergo, once you know how to fight nation X, you will know how to fight it in every condition. Less room for improvisation and surprises.

Human or AI opponent, both would mostly lose if they erred out of the prewritten "manuscript".

Not strictly. The AIs are designed to have goals they value over others (e.g., Liz values a big navy over city-state relations), but if they're in a position where their primary goals are not viable/worthwhile, they'll focus on secondary/tertiary ones (Liz in Kyrgyzstan won't build ships and might look to gain CS allies). The term I've heard 2k/Firaxis use to describe the AI civs is "flavor," so it's more a general mindset ("ships are good!") than a follow-or-die script ("build navies in Kyrgyzstan!") they're following.

 

[Crazy George]

12agnar0k,
Thanks for the insight on how the new happiness system works. Pre-growing one's civilization past its happiness level does not appear to be a viable option. Still, India's happiness level will be effectively twice that of the competition, and being a fan of big cities, I see that as a tremendous advantage. Finally, and upon more thought, even with its happiness bonus, India's cities will be checked by Health constraints.

Moving on to other Civilizations, in a discussion of their relative value, I would be inclined to add up the expected bonuses and compare these to one another. For example,

Aztec to get X culture for each kill
While, French to get 1 culture per city per turn prior to Steam.
Since Settlers are limited by Population Growth, Population Growth is limited by food, and this will have a statistical distribution, I'm thinking the expected French culture bonus can be pre-determined within a fairly narrow range (provided one expands are rapidly as the game will let them).
My hunch is that if the Aztecs get any less than 10 culture per kill, the French advantage will be hands down superior. But in the end, the math will tell. Even the most aggressive War Monger can only expect so many kills... unless of course, the Aztecs don't fight for victory, but fight for the glory of their gods and "milk" their enemies for Sacrificial Captives leaving the cities to act as spawning grounds. Now, that could be fun, but hardly worth the effort unless one gets at least 5 or so culture per kill.

Also, as others have mentioned, one of the unstated drawbacks of most of the advantages is that they force a certain course of action to maximize their benefit. A bonus for Wonder Construction tends toward zero if one does not build any Wonders. And to maximize its effects, one would have to go for Aristocracy and the +35% wonder synergy bonus. While Rome's building construction becomes meaningless if one does not build a sprawling civilization with a well developed infrastructure. In either case, (Wonders or Buildings) the hammers saved should be predictable within some range.

Of course, with that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if someone came up with a strategy that showed how Monty's advantage could be utilized to gain Aristocracy sooner and thus outmaneuver Egypt's Wonder Bonus. Or that the hammers saved in buildings, being so much greater than the hammers saved in wonders, that Rome's advantage would be preferable even for a strategy that relied on building Wonders.

 

[12agnar0k]

12agnar0k,
1. India's happiness level will be effectively twice that of the competition, and being a fan of big cities, I see that as a tremendous advantage.

2. India's cities will be checked by Health constraints.

1. Note quite right, India's happiness loss from population is half what it should be, but thier is nothing that will make thier happiness threshold higher.

However yes, the indian ability is advantageous, bigger cities are always better, India will build less cities than other civ's, which has its own disadvantages where gathering as many resources as possible is concerned, but these huge cities will be stronger than normal and hard to capture, as well as generating tons of hammers and science and gold and culture as they will tend to be roughly twice the size of cities from other civ's, atleast on average.

2. We have no information stating whether Health is in the game or not in any way, if it is in, then India's ability will be hampered somewhat, finding it hard to grow beyond a point, but I have a sneaking feeling that Health is out this time round, otherwise cities will never get around to fully utilising a 36 tile border. I'm sure we will see some 36 pop Indian cities if India gets enough happiness to support them.

 

[Calouste]

Not strictly. The AIs are designed to have goals they value over others (e.g., Liz values a big navy over city-state relations), but if they're in a position where their primary goals are not viable/worthwhile, they'll focus on secondary/tertiary ones (Liz in Kyrgyzstan won't build ships and might look to gain CS allies). The term I've heard 2k/Firaxis use to describe the AI civs is "flavor," so it's more a general mindset ("ships are good!") than a follow-or-die script ("build navies in Kyrgyzstan!") they're following.

The good thing I see about the strongly flavored abilities is that there needs to be less emphasis on flavoring the AI personality to have different AIs behave differently. As long as the AI is smart enough to make proper use of its resources, including the ability, UU(s) and UB, it will play in a certain flavored playstyle, not because it is programmed that way, but because it is the best way to win with the resources at hand. And if it can't make much use of its ability, it will find another way to try to win, but with less specific flavor. Although I doubt that the initial release will hold up to the lofty ideal I described, mostly due to the fact that hundreds of thousands of hours of actually playing the game by people who bought the game are going to show up some balancing issues that Firaxis simply won't be able to find in the more limited amount of playtesting they have available.

 

[ShaqFu]

The good thing I see about the strongly flavored abilities is that there needs to be less emphasis on flavoring the AI personality to have different AIs behave differently. As long as the AI is smart enough to make proper use of its resources, including the ability, UU(s) and UB, it will play in a certain flavored playstyle, not because it is programmed that way, but because it is the best way to win with the resources at hand. And if it can't make much use of its ability, it will find another way to try to win, but with less specific flavor.

Good point; the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Civ5 has one generic AI that, instead of being governed by variables in an XML file, simply plays to its advantages/disadvantages. If it does, it'll be great for keeping the game interesting (no more knowing beforehand exactly how the AI will react in diplomacy/war), and it'll be a godsend for modders. To create an interesting new civ, they'd just need to give it a good ability/UU/UB, and the AI will sort out the rest (e.g., a mod civ that gets a bonus to research when in a research agreement will be quite the diplomat, and one that gets a SP discount will shoot for Utopia wins); no more tweaking modifiers in newciv.xml until the new civ acts right.

Although I doubt that the initial release will hold up to the lofty ideal I described, mostly due to the fact that hundreds of thousands of hours of actually playing the game by people who bought the game are going to show up some balancing issues that Firaxis simply won't be able to find in the more limited amount of playtesting they have available.

Naturally; that's why expansions/patches/mods exist. They've touted the AI moreso than any other direct improvement over Civ4, and I have a fair amount of good faith in Firaxis to pull it off. I'm not expecting HAL/SHODAN/Skynet, but if the AI manages to be flexible/organic enough to provide interesting games (and less scripted behaviors), they'll have done well enough by me.

 

[King Jason]

What bugs me is that some special abilities seem so isignificant and in fact have a smaller impact than social policies.
Egypt get's 20% to wonder construction but aristocracy gives +33%.
Sure, Egypt might still get a 53% but if they go another social policy route there are civs who'll be better at building wonders than the one that has wonder building as the thing that sets them apart from others. Of course Egypt would still have an edge building the earliest wonders before anybody has unlocked aristocracy, but I would have prefered the civs to be more unique.

If Civ 4 showed us anything it's that most people began playing civs toward their strengths... So I suspect most people would get the 33% bonus from Aristocracy when playing Egypt simply to pile it onto their 20%, should it work like that.

Also, it's like you said, those with the 33% bonus have to pursue the aritocracy policy tree to get their 33% bonus and be "better" than Egypt. Where as Egypt gets a bonus to wonder building without bothering with policies... meaning they can choose something other than Aristocracy and still be competitive in wonder construction.

 

[sucksforyou112]

Which can also be a bad thing. Each nation is stuck into rather tight format, and erring out of it will gimp it horribly.

Ergo, once you know how to fight nation X, you will know how to fight it in every condition. Less room for improvisation and surprises.

Human or AI opponent, both would mostly lose if they erred out of the prewritten "manuscript".

You have already had a response to this, but in addition to what ShaqFu said, the traits of the civs will differ each game, but will be close to how they were the previous time. For an example, which I actually heard, stated that Napoleon's willingness to declare war is an 8, but each game it can change, going anywhere from 6 to 10 (1 being never declaring war pretty much, 10 being always ready to declare).

I forget where I heard that, I think it was a podcast but maybe not.

 

[bjbrains]

You have already had a response to this, but in addition to what ShaqFu said, the traits of the civs will differ each game, but will be close to how they were the previous time. For an example, which I actually heard, stated that Napoleon's willingness to declare war is an 8, but each game it can change, going anywhere from 6 to 10 (1 being never declaring war pretty much, 10 being always ready to declare).

I forget where I heard that, I think it was a podcast but maybe not.

I believe it was in a preview (one of the earlier ones I believe). What he says is correct though, each leader will have varying levels of 'flavors' that influence their victory condition/ strategic planning. Elizabeth, for example, has a strong flavor for naval dominance, but it will be at different levels in each game. Also, leaders who find that their primary strategy is failing will attempt to shift to a backup one. For example, if Napoleon fails at conquest, he'll shift to culture instead of continuing pointless warmongering.

On another note: I find that there are three main 'types' of abilities (with obvious mixtures/degrees).
Type 1: The 'free' bonus. These abilities give less powerful boosts, but don't require you to play in any particular way to take advantage of most of their potential. France, Arabia, and America fall fully under this in my opinion, as they provide useful boosts to any strategy, and do not provide any huge benefits for changing your playstyle.
Type 2: The 'mixed' bonus. These abilities give boosts that will be helpful most/all of the time, but get much stronger if you play to them.
Rome (although this definitely straddles type 1), Egypt, England, Greece, Germany, and the Iroquois (this one definitely approaches type 3) fall under this type IMO.
Type 3: The 'absolute' bonus. These abilities are weak unless you play a specific strategy, in which case they offer grander benefits. Aztecs, China, and India fall under this type. In India's case, it could be actively bad