Sullla Discovers the Major Fault Behind Civ V: The Death of Civ?

[JLoZeppeli]

I also think it would still work but just slow it down. In general, I believe it would be interesting to try to come up with house rules that break ICS, I just don't think not using maritime CS will be enough. Maybe some sort of restriction on when you're allowed to build the happiness buildings?

House rules in a computer game? And mostly single player? Urghh, it reminds me of the disputes on house rules for Games Workshop products... But in a cg still, if not an option fully implemented to be switched, restrictions appear to me a little silly...

 

[stii]

Peopel are way too excited by ICS. The game linked didn't end very fast and had no pressure from AIs. Although I guess the fact you can do evern more broken things isn't always a good thing.

 

[Thormodr]

Peopel are way too excited by ICS. The game linked didn't end very fast and had no pressure from AIs. Although I guess the fact you can do evern more broken things isn't always a good thing.

I think a lot of people just aren't getting it. It is fundamental to the core game play to have ICS!

JS programmed the AI with that in mind. Just watch how the AI operates. It either builds one city and then doesn't expand like a dumb dumb (some kind of bug I'm sure) or it ICS's like mad since it was programmed to see this as the best strategy.

Nerfing ICS will be likewise nerf the AI which is already brain dead enough as it is. Unless, you allow the computer to ICS and not allow the human player to do so. That really doesn't sound like fun at all. Neither does further restricting players than they already have.

This is no simple game play fix like some people have stated.

 

[Lightzy]

Eh, exactly how is the ICS problem going to be fixed easily?

AI and diplomacy can be adjusted, and build times can be dramatically lowered (though then we need more buildings and lower maintenance). However, I am not seeing a simple solution to ICS at all.

1) Increase food/strategic resource yields, increase production yields in mines with tech (already done in mods)

2) Reduce TPs to 1 gold (already done in mods)

3) Make CSs give you a percentage bonus to your own culture/food production in a limited way rather than gift you stuff for free.
So that a maritime CS gives you % bonus to food production in cities, rounded down.
And cultural CS gives you some small % bonus to culture production in cities (NOT TO THE TOTAL), again, rounded down.
(not to the total, so that you'd have to specialize some cities to be culture spots, which again refuses ICS viability)


That way you have to again specialize your cities and give them unique strategies.
Also, you don't get a ton of free food for nothing and your ICSs cant grow without producing REAL food (the core of the ICS strat)
Also, you don't get magic culture, but again, have to produce real.
Also, production becomes a bigger focus than purchasing (Because of the tile/improvement yield changes), which in turn promotes the creation of bigger, better placed cities.

This setup still promotes expansion, as a CIV game should, but more thoughtful and planned expansion now.



ICS fixed.

 

[Thormodr]

1) Increase food resource yield by 1, increase production yields in mines with tech by 1 (already done in mods)

2) Reduce TPs to 1 gold (already done in mods)

3) Make CSs give you a percentage bonus to your own culture/food production in a limited way rather than gift you stuff for free.
So that a maritime CS gives you % bonus to food production in cities, rounded down.
And cultural CS gives you some % bonus to total culture in a city, again, rounded down.


That way you have to again specialize your cities and give them unique strategies.
Also, you don't get a ton of free food for nothing and your ICSs cant grow without producing REAL food.
Also, you don't get magic culture, but again, have to produce real.
Also, production becomes a bigger focus than purchasing (Because of the tile/improvement yield changes)



ICS fixed.

While crippling the pathetic AI even further who actually depend on ICS to be competitive. There goes any real challenge at all.

 

[ohioastronomy]

The game would be slow as death if you cut down the ability to earn coin to buy things. You need to lower the production costs and look at maintenance costs if you lower TP yields.

 

[AgentTBC]

Make maritime food bonuses apply only to the capital. Boom, headshot.

 

[zonk]

Make maritime food bonuses apply only to the capital. Boom, headshot.

Everything's too capital centric as it is, though...

I mean, there's already a one city challenge game option -- that's enough capital-centralization.

 

[neilkaz]

I, for one, love Sulla's write ups and the fact that he doesn't pull any punches. His wrintings are a great tutorial for me, someone who hasn't played Civ since Civ 2 days.

Its clear to me that Civ5 was released at least a couple of months too soon, but this has been true with many games, both turn based and real time. One hopes that Firaxis can patch this into a much better game but certainly it will take some time.

It is also clear to me that Civ5 would've been a better game had Sulla and a couple more like him been used as beta testers.

However, I'd love to see Sulla play a Deity game on a single landmass map where he will have to put up with a near constant flow of enemy units. This will make ICS much harder to pull off, all though I expect he can do it to a smaller extent and then enlarge if he's able to dispose of a couple of nearby angry AI's likely using horsemen as a mainstay of his early army.

As for diplimatic victory by purchasing city states, just turn that victory option OFF.

Yes, CS can be better balanced but we need to be careful to not nerf Maritime CS into near uselessness.

The real issue with this game is how pathetic the AI is in almost every area. One looks at Sulla's game and LOLs. Why is Bismarck not expanding at all? Why is the AI so bad that he'll never see USA army units unless he goes over to his island? The AI needs to know how to play naval and mount a decent invasion across deep water.

Why does the AI sit back and just let him spam cities? Once Sulla is clearly getting way ahead of the AI's in terms of growth, they should start to hate him. Hiawatha and Cathy should have made peace and come after him and also with some navy in the bay and a combined land/water assault. As it is, the weak AI's have let him expand far too much without even attempting military action against him.

Honestly, to me the only way to get a challanging game is to play on a single land map and most certainly on a higher level difficulty than King. Currently I am on Emperor level and once I get a bit more familiar will try Immortal.

Honestly, at present, any map where civs are separated seems too easy. Last night's Emperor game on small Archi has become a trivial win by any means now that I have disposed of the two AI's that were crowding my smallish island. LOL when Ramses DOW'd me, he sent chariots vs my longbows and one cav and swordsman and missused them badly. ie... that game was too easy and hopefully Immortal level will prove to be more of a challange.

Designing a fair and competent AI for a game this complex isn't an easy task and will need MUCH more effort and play testing than has been put into this game so far.

.. neilkaz ..

 

[Lightzy]

No, it wouldn't.

Better food/strategic resource yields and improvements to mine production, remember?

Besides, the game is already slow to death. play 'standard', which is the civ5 equivalent of civ4s 'epic', more or less.

 

[AgentTBC]

Everything's too capital centric as it is, though...

I mean, there's already a one city challenge game option -- that's enough capital-centralization.

It's hard to say that the game is too capital centric when this whole thread is about how ICS is a WIN BUTTON. From the social policies and such it is clear that there are supposed to be two primary strategies; capital centrism in a small, focused empire (starting with Tradition) and a more spread out evenly grown empire (starting with Liberty). Right now Tradition is total crap except for the +33% wonder bonus.

 

[stii]

It's hard to say that the game is too capital centric when this whole thread is about how ICS is a WIN BUTTON. From the social policies and such it is clear that there are supposed to be two primary strategies; capital centrism in a small, focused empire (starting with Tradition) and a more spread out evenly grown empire (starting with Liberty). Right now Tradition is total crap except for the +33% wonder bonus.

Is it really? Was this game really that impressive? People seem to think the game is somehow broken because he won.

 

[dorn]

As it is, the only way to get more scientists is to expand and build more libraries

No my point was that you shouldn't even be allowed to use mass scientists in a dinky pop 7 cities. Temporarily yes but long term it should kill your finances or starve your cities or some such.

Perhaps we also need a new GP rule like you take -50 points to all cities whenever you pop out a GP.

 

[GIO888]

This thread confirms my decision not to get Civ V til it has been out at least a couple months.

Unwelcome memories of Ciiv IV being so-o slow late game and graphics issues made me much more cautious with Civ V and unhappily this thread proves me right.

I have been a CivFanatic since Civ 1 by the way, so not a rant, more a lament!!!

 

[Brawndo]

gg CiV


I've already stopped playing, and it's not even a month after release. I'll revisit the game around the holidays when I figure some good mods might start coming out.

 

[Roxlimn]

You mention playing at King and realistically that is probably the most fun level to play it. The AI isn't building 100 units and you can play the game without going to extremese and have some fun.

The problem is that you don't lose and after a while it gets boring. You know you will win and if all else fails go to war or wait till you get the UN and buy your votes. After you are done trying out the game there is little variation. Everything in the game is so linear and snowballing in nature that the outcome is determined very early. There is also little you can do to change any course other than war.

Bottom line is it gets old.

I suppose it speaks to what you (or me) were expecting out of Civ. I always play Civ at a comfortable level - I expect to win! It being possible to win consistently at King is okay with me.

I don't get bored. I make nice cities - big cities, small cities, cities with this, cities with that, and so on. If I wanted a competitive game where I expect to lose a good portion of the time, I'd play Starcraft.

I count the factory as a basic building, because it has no prerequisites. I'm talking about buildings like the stadium, bank, and research lab, which are all strictly worse than the basic building. The worst is the observatory- 180 hammers and 2 maintence, 0 scientist slots, whereas the library is a great bargain: 80 hammers, 1 maintenence, and most importantly 2 scientist slots. I guess the stock exchange is sliiiiightly better than a market since it gives +33% instead of +25%, but it also costs 6 times as many hammers to build it. In a city that's mostly running trading posts, you won't have enough production to build the stock exchange before the end of the game.

about maritime states- if you play without maritime states, all you have to do is build a granary in every city, and maybe run a farm in a few. It really doesn't change much.

Are you speculating or have you tried it? I have played games where I couldn't contact Maritimes and had to run Granaries everywhere. It was... ...different. It changes things significantly.

The Stadium I don't really understand.

The Bank and Research Lab are additive multipliers that make every tile in their influence better, I'm not sure whether making them better would really solve ICS. It just means that they build Banks, now, too! That makes it stronger, not weaker.

Also, the bonus stacks. A bunch of 8 cities covering 27 tiles of Trade Posts each with a Market would have a +25% multiplier for the tiles, and maint 3. One size 24 city covering 25 tiles of TPs can have +50% multiplier for all the tiles and have maint 4. Less specialist slots though. That seems a little counterintuitive.

 

[ChaplainDMK]

I for one found it very interesting as I had fond, fond memories of Sullla's walkthrough for cIV, just before it was released. It was positively glowing and got so many people excited about the game.

Contrasting that with this is like night and day:



The game has been essentially ripped apart and has been exposed for what it really is.
The truth is there for all to see.

Honestly though, I don't have a personal issue with the game. I, like all Civ fanatics want to see an awesome ciV. Pretending nothing is wrong or downplaying any problems by saying, "It just needs minor tweeks or it'll be awesome in a patch or two." is wishful thinking. Hopefully this work by Sullla will inspire real, thorough change with the core game mechanics. That's the real value of this article. We all deserve much, much better.

Evrey game can be ripped apart... Civ IVs semi-******ed combat system for example. Civ V for the most part just has extreme balancing issues because it was rushed, research is the same as evrey previous Civ game, all it has is messed up values meaning you can research evreything insanely fast.
You can go right now and fix the values in the game files so research takes longer, building takes less time and tiles give more output.
You can't go into Civ IV and turn off the stacks of doom or turn on ranged combat...
Research and production speeds aint core game mechanics.

 

[Biz_]

just because the AI is too stupid to outbid you for maritime city states doesn't mean it's a broken mechanic

 

[AgentTBC]

Is it really? Was this game really that impressive? People seem to think the game is somehow broken because he won.

The issue isn't that Sulla won, the issue is that it can be demonstrated that a certain non-intended and boring play style is hugely better under virtually all circumstances than more traditional play styles.

Spamming out massive numbers of 4-5 pop cities with nothing but trade posts built around them, fed via magical maritime food, and with a library to run dual scientists is demonstrably better than anything else right now. The key phrase being "right now" since it should be pretty easy to fix.

 

[Collic]

I think what this strategy highlights is they need to make the sticks pointier and the carrots tastier for avoiding ICS. For example the population growth curve for cities seems totally counter intuitive to this. They should grow far faster at larger sizes, which would almost certainly make this strategy less desirable. Other changes would need to be made, but reducing hammer costs, and boosting growth buildings (as well as base population growth for larger cities) would be an excellent start.