The "joke unit" is totally imbalanced

[Ahriman]

by the time I could build a new military unit it was already obsolete!

You know you can upgrade units, right?

Build a rifleman, upgrade him to infantry if need be.

less than what it takes to build the UN.

UN costs the same as a single GDR.

but don't you think it should be slightly more difficult to conquer the whole world?

Once you've finished the tech tree? No. The game is done at that point, it should be ended.

More importantly, don't you think modern warfare should be about something besides racing towards the GDR?

It is. I've never got to the GDR, I can win long before then, including by late-era conquest of any other civs (beelining their capitals).

I agree that high end tech costs aren't high enough though. Science rates increased at a faster rate than populations do.

 

[Thecos]

I agree that against the AI they're just stupidly good once you get them. To me they effectively almost feel like an entirely separate victory condition. I'd like it if you could disable them similarly to how you can disable cultural or diplomatic victories. I think sometimes I'd rather just have a prolonged modern/future era conflict without it being dominated by the robots.

For some reason when I was reading previews before the game came out, I had thought it was a limit of 1 per player, so I was very surprised after I finished my first one and then noticed I had the gold to immediately rush-build a second. I feel like they should be treated almost like wonders, so you can't just instabuild them with gold. If they were irreplacable, it would also make it more significant if you managed to actually defeat one, even if doing so costed more than the robot itself.

 

[pi-r8]

You know you can upgrade units, right?

Build a rifleman, upgrade him to infantry if need be.

The upgrades have a hard break in the modern era. My cavalry and artillery were stuck with nothing to upgrade to, which is why I still had them. Nothing upgrades into tanks, or bombers. I guess I could have built a mass of rifles and upgraded them to mech inf, but I'd be really surprised if that was effective.

UN costs the same as a single GDR.

But I can rush buy a GDR instantly!

Once you've finished the tech tree? No. The game is done at that point, it should be ended.

And if another player is also finished with the tech tree, and he doesn't agree? I was way behind him for the entire game. There's no reason it shoulld have been that easy to conquer him.

It is. I've never got to the GDR, I can win long before then, including by late-era conquest of any other civs (beelining their capitals).

I agree that high end tech costs aren't high enough though. Science rates increased at a faster rate than populations do.

Have you ever fought a late-era war on deity level? If so, what units did you use, and how did you manage fight it quickly enough to win before teching fusion? And bear in mind that a single modern armor costs almost as much as a GDR.

In the end though, I guess I have to agree with Dhaeman. It's hard to tell what's actually imbalanced when the AI is just so terrible at warfare. Part of the problem might be that units remain buildable for so long after they should be obselete. For example, I can still build lancers even at the end of the tech tree. I'm guessing the AI might just pick randomly from it's list of available units to build.

 

[r_rolo1]

The game is supposed to be over by the time you reach them, they're supposed to be a way of finishing the game off once everything has been researched rather than sitting around in boring "future techs".

They're not supposed to be stoppable.

That was funny ... especially when 2K Greg devoted a entire post to say that GDR was necessary to the game balance before the game got out , when some ( me included ) were trying to understand how could a 150 str unit fit in any kind of balance with the rest of the land untis , that top somewhere near 50 str.

So, in the words of the official Firaxian voice, they are suposed to be part of a game balance... that means that they should had been stoppable They were ( suposedely ) not made to do what you are telling

 

[tibbles]

yeah right.. I am sure there is a strategy to beeline the entire tech tree by 0AD...

Lol, it was a joke, but really, you look at some of the other dates people can hit in the first week the game is even out, play on a slow enough speed to leverage, someone can and will have one of these frighteningly early.

 

[Ahriman]

So, in the words of the official Firaxian voice, they are suposed to be part of a game balance... that means that they should had been stoppable

Logic doesn't follow. Just because they're part of intended game balance doesn't mean they're supposed to be stoppable.

My argument is just the opposite. They're part of game balance, in that they're supposed to provide another way (other than space-ship) for someone who has out-teched the other civs to just finish up the game and Win. Thats how the game is supposed to work.

Otherwise, being 5-10 techs ahead in the modern game isn't much of a military advantage at all.

 

[ShaqFu]

So, in the words of the official Firaxian voice, they are suposed to be part of a game balance... that means that they should had been stoppable They were ( suposedely ) not made to do what you are telling

I'm curious as to what role they fill in the game. I'd guess that GDRs are designed to expedite late-game cleanup, since most games that go until Fusion are won anyway, and crushing Musketmen armies is faster with a super unit.

That's not balance, though, so I'm not sure what they balance. Maybe end late-game stalemates? But then the AI should be aggressive about taking them - if someone has 12k gold and hits Fusion first, there's absolutely no excuse for losing.

 

[r_rolo1]

Well, that was my point in the thread where 2KGreg said that ( later, mind that ) and his response was a clear and direct awnser to those expressed concerns: GDR are needed for game balance ( according to him ).

He could had said how, though .... still can't see it

 

[tibbles]

That makes some sense. Let's say the AI actually built spaceship parts (I think there was a thread that they built the program, but didn't get anywhere on parts for a loooong time). There is just no way you could bull through that giant sea of deity units with tech parity in time on a higher speed setting. You'd need lots of nukes and/or a super military unit to have any chance of winning by conquest before they finished their victory.

 

[Ahriman]

If you just removed them, then the lower part of the modern tech tree is underpowered. It does mess with game balance.

 

[r_rolo1]

That is a argument for something in par with the other units of the same era in that part of the tech tree. That is NOT a argument for a 150 str unit in that part of tech tree

 

[Kid R]

IMO they're needed because 1UPT stalemates all the military action in gridlocked maps by the modern era. So to extrapolate from Greg's words, "needed for game balance" probably means "needed to address the problem of everlasting game balance, by deliberately introducing imbalance". In which case complaining that the GDR is totally imbalanced is missing the point of it.

 

[Insanity_X]

Rolo, isn't it obvious how the GDR is ballanced? Gyroscopes. Duh.

And the real reason that the GDR was included is that programmers, like scientists are incredably sad people. We must remember that geneticists consider it awesome to name genes after pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehog and Ivo Robotnik (which inhibits the Sonic Hedgehog gene). Programmers err more towards the technical side and thus considfered it awesome to incluse an overpowered, mildly nerfed (attack penalty vs cities) giant death robot. Ballance be damned they wanted an insanely powerful robot.

 

[Iberian]

Every late game option seems broken. The AI can't handle late game or early game for that matter. I have won with 1/4 of the cities the AI has and with 4x the cities and it doesn't matter. I didn't even build a single unit outside the ancient era once.

If the AI gets large he cripples himself with insane costs, if he is small he has no chance with any victory condition. It is really sad.

This isn't like Civ IV where it was hard for most people to win on anything above Monarch. This game needs serious AI programming though given the complexity of the battle system it may not be possible.

 

[patrickkrebs]

Like a lot of people, I thought the GDR felt really out of place in game of civilization. But then I thought, "well it doesn't really matter, I almost never use modern armor in Civ IV, and this will be even more advanced, so it will be very rare to see it."

How wrong I was.

I just finished my first conquest victory on deity, continents map. I gained control of my continent with companion cavalry abuse, while Nobunaga took over his. I wanted to invade him, but a Deity AI with over 50 cities is not an easy foe. He produced so many units that it seemed like I had no chance at an invasion.

The biggest problem was my lack of production. I was teching pretty fast, so before I could even finish building a unit, it would already be obselete. 20 turns to build a fighter, but only 5 turns to research lasers for jets. 25 turns to build a tank, but again 5 turns to research modern armor. Meanwhile I kept popping great scientists, with the result that before I could put together any sort of real invasion force, I had already reached the end of the tech tree!

Well, thanks to Big Ben, plus a stockpile of gold, I was able to immediately buy 4 giant death robots. (they take a long time to build, but you can buy them instantly, whereas other victory conditions require you to actually build an expensive project) These were my entire invasion force, except for a few old cavalry and artillery. I had one city and one allied city-state as an invasion base. Nobunaga had an entire continent of deity-level production to throw at me. The result?

He never stood a chance. The GDRs tear through anything and everything. Pretty soon they leveled up enough to take blitz, auto-repair, and mobility, and then they were each killing multiple units in one hit, every turn, usually taking no damage at all.

These things are waaaaaaay too strong for a joke unit.

A human player would have been able to trash your 4 GDRs, then you would have been out of gold and out of luck.

 

[pi-r8]

A human player would have been able to trash your 4 GDRs, then you would have been out of gold and out of luck.

Another human player would have much less production power to throw around, though. Do you think a human would be able to kill 4 GDRs for less than what it cost to make them? A nuke seems like the only way.

 

[Earthling]

including by late-era conquest of any other civs (beelining their capitals).

This is supposed to be impossible though right? According to everyone who said that the killer tactical combat against the AI and one-unit-per-tile make such a victory not possible, at least to any normal player...

 

[Ahriman]

But I can rush buy a GDR instantly!

For how many thousand gold? (with which you could win a diplomatic victory, no?)

This is supposed to be impossible though right? According to everyone who said that the killer tactical combat against the AI and one-unit-per-tile make such a victory not possible, at least to any normal player..

I literally have no idea what you're saying here.

Did people ever claim that you wouldn't be able to head for a capital and conquer it? No.
Is this anything to do with 1upt or not? No. You could head straight for a capital in any of the civ games.
Did anyone say that 1upt would make the AI better? No. We just said it would be more fun.
Its always been clear that its harder to make a 1upt AI than a stack AI, but that is true precisely *because* 1upt is more interesting and fun, with more options.

 

[Drago Askani]

My one and only beef with them in a way is being able to buy them, BUT that being said you can buy nukes which are pretty much just as devastating. So bleh.

 

[civhawaii]

Hard to tell whether a unit is imbalanced or not when the AI is so stupid.