The Final Analysis?

[Dale]

For a confidence level of 95%, a sample size of 126 out of a population of 1.000.000 gives a confidence interval of +/- 8.7% So the results are not far off. I know, you don't understand statistics, but one day you will, you'll see.

Except the confidence level is brought into severe question when you consider that the "average gamer" would not have the high-tech level of computer that most people here would have. Also, the "average gamer" would not play for as long as most people here in one sitting.

But go ahead, stake your cred in an internet poll if you want. I'm sure you and you're 0.000126% of Civ players are completely representative of the entire Civ playing World.

 

[ds61514]

Unfortunately, the quote you've used there to support your argument is a strawman. MIght be a good idea to, you know, quote from the source

I quoted from the source. How am I misunderstanding what he's saying?

 

[bryanw1995]

Except the confidence level is brought into severe question when you consider that the "average gamer" would not have the high-tech level of computer that most people here would have. Also, the "average gamer" would not play for as long as most people here in one sitting.

But go ahead, stake your cred in an internet poll if you want. I'm sure you and you're 0.000126% of Civ players are completely representative of the entire Civ playing World.

I love statistics. as Yogi Berra would say, Ninety percent of this game is mental, and the other half is physical.

 

[Dralix]

I love statistics. as Yogi Berra would say, Ninety percent of this game is mental, and the other half is physical.

Didnt he also say, in an Aflac commercial, "they give you cash, which is just as good as money."

I love Gilbert Gottfried

 

[Krill]

I quoted from the source. How am I misunderstanding what he's saying?

Simply put, you are cherry picking one sentence from the paragraph of Sulllas' argument and infering that Sullla is being hypocritical.

Here is the whole paragraph:

Expansion is also rife with further penalties. You want to expand your empire rapidly, because it's the only way to compete with the AI on the higher difficulties and maximize your gold, science, and production. Yet the game simultaneously penalizes you for doing so, by increasing the cost of social policies and making it all but impossible to get additional golden ages. It also makes it impossible to build the various national wonders in the game, with the ridiculous "must have a monument in EVERY city" requirements. This is simply the wrong way to go about Civ5's design, creating all of these penalties for expansion (which are really silly to begin with - why are you penalizing players for expanding in an empire building game?) The correct way to implement these ideas is something along the Civ4 model: the national wonders in Civ4 (Oxford University, Heroic Epic, etc.) allow a small empire to be competitive with larger ones, but the larger empires are not prevented from building the same things entirely. It's simply impossible for a large empire to win by culture in Civ5; in Civ4, the large empire simply has few advantages over a small empire in winning by culture. Big, big difference. The right way to do this sort of design is to create subsystems in which small and large empires compete on even terms (Civ4 cultural victory). The wrong way to do this sort of design is to penalize/exclude large empires. See the difference?

Here you see that Sulla is highlighting the differences between the systems in place for each game (bolding is mine). He is not stating that penalising expansion is a bad thing, only that how it is penalised (read: BALANCED) is a bad thing.

Also, referring constantly to "BtS v2" is technically an ad hominem. It'd make better logical sense to attack Sulllas' ideas of how to create a game rather than what you think he thinks a game should be after he has already posted personally stating that that isn't what he wants from a game and others have linked to threads that contain Sullla arguing against how BtS was balanced in the first place.

 

[ds61514]

Why are you highlighting a sentence that talks about Culture Victory, the most "out there" VC in the Civ series?

Does the same analysis apply for Domination? For Space? And even then, Culture Victories have a bit of "the more cities, the better." For Pete's sake, you can't even win a Civ 4 Culture Victory without expanding!

EDIT: Now I understand, he was talking about the penalties in expansion being the inability to use National Wonders, citing the Civ 4 National Wonder system as a better model. I didn't connect the two because doesn't make any sense. Civ 4 National Wonders SUPPORTED expansion. The way National Wonders were implemented, 6 cities > 5, no ifs, ands or buts.

BTW, I never said that that he wants BTS v2. However, I do think it's telling that his Civ 4 reports used "sub-optimal" strategies that have 0% applicability to high level play (hydra LOL), while his Civ 5 AARs have him going to the maximum to try and break the game system. Where is his Civ 4 axe rush AAR?

 

[bryanw1995]

Simply put, you are cherry picking one sentence from the paragraph of Sulllas' argument and infering that Sullla is being hypocritical.

Here is the whole paragraph:



Here you see that Sulla is highlighting the differences between the systems in place for each game (bolding is mine). He is not stating that penalising expansion is a bad thing, only that how it is penalised (read: BALANCED) is a bad thing.

Also, referring constantly to "BtS v2" is technically an ad hominem. It'd make better logical sense to attack Sulllas' ideas of how to create a game rather than what you think he thinks a game should be after he has already posted personally stating that that isn't what he wants from a game and others have linked to threads that contain Sullla arguing against how BtS was balanced in the first place.

sulla has been very clear that he intensely dislikes civ5. however, at least he is qualified to evaluate it, and many of his ideas for things that should be different/improved are excellent. many very short time members here seem to think that just b/c civ5 doesn't do "it" for them that they need to endlessly troll the forums and bash the game.

based upon what sulla has said over the past 6+ years I would say that bts was nearly his ideal game and that all others are going to pale in comparison unless some sort of sequel to bts is made. he was somewhat critical of cIII, very critical of conquests, very adoring of cIV, and now he's not impressed with civ5. is this attitude common? I would say that yes it is, especially among the "fanatics" here. casual gamers, people new to the franchise, and some longtime players like me tend to like the game a lot, however. I think that the key for the "longtime" players is what level of player they were in cIII/cIV. I rarely played over monarch and generally played more of a builder/less warmonger type of game in previous civs, so ciV has given me a new experience. if you were an emperor+ player in cIV you probably either don't enjoy vanilla ciV much or you're playing mostly modded games. maybe they'll pull it all together in patches or cVI and get both camps to love it.

 

[Krill]

Why are you highlighting a sentence that talks about Culture Victory, the most "out there" VC in the Civ series?

Straw man.

Does the same analysis apply for Domination? For Space? And even then, Culture Victories have a bit of "the more cities, the better." For Pete's sake, you can't even win a Civ 4 Culture Victory without expanding!

The conclusion of the analysis is that each player, and each strategy, competes in the same arena, for the same victory condition on an even keel regardless of expansion. Now Domination would appear to be the odd one out, which is why I feel that C5 has taken a step in the right direction in removing Domination and altered conquest to only need to capture capitals - land held doesn't matter strategically. And winning a C4 culture VC with 3 cities is trivial from a strat PoV.

Note that I didn't even bother to quote the "best way = Civ 4 National Wonder" because it doesn't make any sense. Civ 4 National Wonders SUPPORTED expansion. The way National Wonders were implemented, 6 cities > 5, no ifs, ands or buts.

It's not the best way, but the C4 NW method gave the player options - where to place the buildings, city specialization, and the most important one of all, when you want to invest in them. The link between expansion and NW was not linked except you needed a minimum number of cities that was altered by map size. So while 6 > 5 in a general sense because that gave you an option of which city wouldn't need to have the building, that is a choice, which isn't present in C5, which forces the C5 player to not plant "fishing villages" or minor cities. It is also rather short sighted because it doesn't consider which cities would be building the prerequisite buildings - I don't particularly like getting universities and libs in hammer cities, for instance.

Early game NW in C5, the limit isn't so bad, but for the late game NW would have strong enough to make up a numerical city advantage. In other words, really, uber powerful. The problem is that they generally suck. To link this back to the C4 example, while 6>5, 20\>5, by a significant margin due to NW effects.

BTW, I never said that that he wants BTS v2. However, I do think it's telling that his Civ 4 reports used "sub-optimal" strategies that have 0% applicability to high level play (hydra LOL), while his Civ 5 AARs have him going to the maximum to try and break the game system. Where is his Civ 4 axe rush AAR?

My original quote was directed at Dale.

Here are the links to those reports he wrote for C4. Note as Sullla was part of the C4 beta test a lot of his reports were posted "behind closed doors" so to speak and hence aren't available to the public.

http://www.garath.net/Sullla/civ4SP.html

 

[Dale]

Just to point out, but National Wonders are geared for tall Empires, not wide Empires. That's why it's friggin' hard to get/justify them when you've got 30 cities.

 

[Krill]

Early game NW in C5, the limit isn't so bad, but for the late game NW would have strong enough to make up a numerical city advantage. In other words, really, uber powerful. The problem is that they generally suck.

Dale, I believe the term is...reading comprehension?

 

[gaiko]

Sulla's CivV review 2.0 was much better and more objective that 1.0, which was indeed tinged with Civ4 nostalgia. This time he manages to minimize that, though when unfavorably comparing the CivV happiness mechanic with Civ4's city maintenance, he neglects to mention one of the most unfun aspects of Civ4 (along with managing SoDs): the big and unfun penalization of overseas colonization, and in connection with this, the broken GLH that recreated an economically OP'ed coastal ICS in all but Pangaea maps.

But I don't think Sulla is criticizing 1UPT per se - I think stack limits to get rid of SoDs and the whole giant stack spam mess are always good things in themselves, although it doesn't mean that is has to be 1UPT. What Sulla is clearly criticizing via his use of someone elses quote is basing the initial design decision on a purely military criterion - unit stacking - thereby making this the design axis for the entire game, to which the builder side of the game is bent.

This legitimizes the criticism that says that CivV broke with the fundamentals of the Civ series, where empire building was the major aspect, with an important but subordinate aspect of wargaming. Now that has been reversed due to the decision above.

A Civ design should always first begin with the design of the builder game, and only then add on the design of the military game as an extension of the core game.

... thankfully

But really, while I disagree with some of Sullla's points, especially the criticism of 1UPT, I find that most of the article I can agree with.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

For a confidence level of 95%, a sample size of 126 out of a population of 1.000.000 gives a confidence interval of +/- 8.7% So the results are not far off. I know, you don't understand statistics, but one day you will, you'll see.

Self selected samples do not count. Seriously, internet polls are worth less than something you would wipe off your shoe.

Stop using high school level statistics.

A Civ design should always first begin with the design of the builder game, and only then add on the design of the military game as an extension of the core game.

This I definitely agree with.

 

[Doctor Phibes]

[...]

What Sulla is clearly criticizing via his use of someone elses quote is basing the initial design decision on a purely military criterion - unit stacking - thereby making this the design axis for the entire game, to which the builder side of the game is bent.

This legitimizes the criticism that says that CivV broke with the fundamentals of the Civ series, where empire building was the major aspect, with an important but subordinate aspect of wargaming. Now that has been reversed due to the decision above.

A Civ design should always first begin with the design of the builder game, and only then add on the design of the military game as an extension of the core game.

Agreed, that's what I saw as the most important theme in his piece. A case of the tail wagging the dog, basically.

 

[Dale]

Dale, I believe the term is...reading comprehension?

It was a generic comment not directed at you but at the audience at large who seem to believe that NW's are for ICS empires. For once I was actually agreeing with you.

 

[Krill]

You had 8 minutes to read my post Speed up!

 

[LAnkou]

Dale, if I read well, you are still reporting to devs?

Well, as they decided to get back on the invisible diplo, could they give up on road maintenance? it will give more mobility to units, helping (i hope) tha AI in managing wars: the AI will calculate the position it wants to attack from and then calculate how to position its unit in this way...result mean the AI will need a lesser unit advantage on higher level, so combat being more deadly for the player, more unit will be needed, so higher production will be needed so either building cost or tile yield needs to be changed? (maybe a little too much extrapolation on this...)

If you can ask to change massive unhappiness to gold and science penalty instead of combat or production penalty. As it is now, being in massive unhappiness is very easy (just accept the cities the loser is willing to give) and means you're basically dead. It's a broken system as it is now...

 

[rschissler]

In regards to road maintenance, like Sulla said, they removed it for graphics reasons. It ruins the beautiful landscape. However, it totally screws up the 1UPT. If Firaxis is set on keeping 1UPT, they should at least get rid of road maintenance. Another benefit is that it would give workers something to do. In my CivV games, I have so many workers with nothing to do. That hardly ever happened with previous versions of Civ. It gets to a point where I send workers out into the oceans as explorers or scouts, but that doesn't seem right either.

 

[gaiko]

Actually, the valid point Sulla made was not about 1UPT per se, but (in quoting someone else) about how this essentially military design criterion was then made the centerpiece of the whole game design. Commentators on this thread are tending to not get this very key point. If true, it explains alot and gives weight to certain claims about the game design: That the designers didn't understand the game they were designing. There is no evidence that the designers deliberately intended to drop the empire building essence of the Civ franchise, but by giving priority to a purely military criterion -X-UPT, note it doesn't really qualitatively whether it is 1 or 2 or whatever - they in effect did just that despite themselves. In the confusion, we got a mediocre wargame + a derivative builder game.

And I say that while at the same time I have had enjoyable moments with the game, and will probably still continue to play it.

Great analysis by Sulla and I agree with nearly all of it. In particular I agree with his assignment of many of the fundamental problems with the game to the 1UPT decision. This version of the game was doomed once that poor design decision had been made. Strangely I knew it, instinctively, as soon as I heard 1UPT was going to be the basis of the combat system, but could never quite explain why that would be so

Hexes are great but 1UPT is just not suited to a strategy game stretching over 1000's of years and encompassing the whole world, it is suited for small scale tactical battles based around scenarios. 1UPT does not scale with the range of difficulty levels that a game like Civ has always used to accommodate a wide range of player abilities. Unlike a combat system based on a SoD (or limited stacking) the game can't be made more difficult militarily by simply increasing the AI players production levels as only 1 unit per hex soon runs out of space and becomes useless. That's probably why so many players of mediocre ability can beat Deity Civ 5 and still lose to Emperor on Civ 4 BtS

The SoD had its problems but it could not have distorted and wrecked the whole game like 1UPT has. The solution to the problems with the SoD were limited stacking and a much improved combat interface. It's a pity Firaxis didn't explore that avenue for Civ 5, hopefully the expansion will follow that route.

Several other siren voices, besides Sulla, have given good criticisms of the choice of 1UPT, explaining why it is so bad for this game, but Sulla here has given a complete set of reasoning and I've bookmarked his article for future reference.

 

[Jester Fool]

Do the civ V AIs in anyway appear to play for a certain victory condition? In other words... do they play as if they had a goal of winning the game in a particular way?

Catherine absolutely LOVES going for a space victory. In a game I just finished, she was building the spaceship (2 parts completed). The *friendly* AIs (loved me the whole game - even Catherine when I swiped her city states) waved goodbye as my spaceship launched to victory.

 

[Ahriman]

It ruins the beautiful landscape. However, it totally screws up the 1UPT. If Firaxis is set on keeping 1UPT, they should at least get rid of road maintenance.

In Civ5 there is a strategic tradeoff between having more movement flexibility in your territory and paying more gold.
How are strategic tradeoffs a bad thing that need to be removed?

A Civ design should always first begin with the design of the builder game, and only then add on the design of the military game as an extension of the core game.

I disagree with this, I don't think the two can be separated, particularly in a 1upt environment. 1upt means there need to be fewer units overall, which means unit construction times need to be longer, which affects what building times should be, what tile yields should be, what tech costs should be, etc.

For all the people complaining about aggressive AIs attacking you, I think there's also another point which should be obvious but seems too often to be missed: warfare is basically the only manner in which the AI poses a threat to the human player, and actually frustrates your attempt to win.

Everything in the game basically ends up mattering strategically in a competitive sense in terms of how it affects your military. Tech matters because it allows more advanced military units and things that buff your economy, and economy matters because it allows you to build more military units, build more structures that buff your economy or your military or research more tech - for more military. Social policies matter because they either buff military directly, or improve your economy.

There are a few exceptions (and are more exceptions in Civ5 than in Civ4, with city states for example), but this is basically true, and has been basically true in every game in the Civ series, and is true in basically every 4X strategy game.

If the AI isn't aggressive, particularly when you're weak, then you can basically ignore it, and focus on infrastructure, under-investing in the short-term in military, which lets you grow economy more instead, which lets you have a larger/better military in the long-term, which lets you conquer the AIs.

Complaining about AI aggression is a lot like complaining about rushes in an RTS game; without rushes, there is nothing that makes teching a risky strategy.

Now, there are all kinds of reasons to complain about weakness of the tactical AI, and that the tactical AI is too aggressive, and so forth, but I don't think that military and warfare is something that you can or should try to separate out from the game as an afterthought, since it is integral with how the AI players interact with and frustrate the human's attempts to win.