I just realized that 7 is so tightly balanced that being near 3-4 quartz versus only having 1 near your first three settlements, that kind of thing, can make or break an advantage. Also, having an AI declare total war on you for idiosyncratic reasons means you’re going to fall behind and never catch up (and neither will they, but everyone else won’t care).
I realized that the design solution comes from board game logic where position of things like quartz has to be just right or else balance falls apart. Symmetrical play arenas basically.
The other way to solve this, which only computer games can accomplish, is through scale. Where you expand quickly and if your position has few good resources you go find them and if that means prioritizing scouts and movement bonuses so be it, and so that’s what makes it interesting. It’s balance within a frenetic, giant world. Difficulty level and competitive ability scale with a players ability to process scale and keep track of things and yes this mean auto-governors but so what?
Civ can’t be a board game because it’s about settling and exploring the world not min maxing yields. It’s not turn based StarCraft.
I keep hearing this idea that adjusting a couple values on growth rate and adding should have been there day one quality of life UI features will “save” Civ. It won’t.
We’re going to need a fleshed out religion system. A real modern age culture victory. Dozens of UI fixes.
For gods sake the city connections don’t even work! I should be able to see the connections in a map layer, have a way to change them. Interact with them to fine tune my empire and make town specialization planning lore interesting and meaningful. To control where food yields go.
What does Firaxis do? They let you do global city connections by water for lakes… which makes no sense and is the laziest most half hearted solution to what they’re acknowledging is a real problem that’s still bugged!
And no, I’m not going to accept a solution that’s 1/3 of these features implemented in the same awful looking UI for $50 for an expansion. They all need to be fixed, for free. Maybe make us wait for the expansion and bundle in related new mechanics with the expansion, but the stuff I mentioned above has to all patch in for free or I’m not touching such a greedy, cynical expansion.
Just sayin’
Yes it’s a rant but I worked hard to make substantive points and contributions to discussion and I’m nearing acceptance.
I realized that the design solution comes from board game logic where position of things like quartz has to be just right or else balance falls apart. Symmetrical play arenas basically.
The other way to solve this, which only computer games can accomplish, is through scale. Where you expand quickly and if your position has few good resources you go find them and if that means prioritizing scouts and movement bonuses so be it, and so that’s what makes it interesting. It’s balance within a frenetic, giant world. Difficulty level and competitive ability scale with a players ability to process scale and keep track of things and yes this mean auto-governors but so what?
Civ can’t be a board game because it’s about settling and exploring the world not min maxing yields. It’s not turn based StarCraft.
I keep hearing this idea that adjusting a couple values on growth rate and adding should have been there day one quality of life UI features will “save” Civ. It won’t.
We’re going to need a fleshed out religion system. A real modern age culture victory. Dozens of UI fixes.
For gods sake the city connections don’t even work! I should be able to see the connections in a map layer, have a way to change them. Interact with them to fine tune my empire and make town specialization planning lore interesting and meaningful. To control where food yields go.
What does Firaxis do? They let you do global city connections by water for lakes… which makes no sense and is the laziest most half hearted solution to what they’re acknowledging is a real problem that’s still bugged!
And no, I’m not going to accept a solution that’s 1/3 of these features implemented in the same awful looking UI for $50 for an expansion. They all need to be fixed, for free. Maybe make us wait for the expansion and bundle in related new mechanics with the expansion, but the stuff I mentioned above has to all patch in for free or I’m not touching such a greedy, cynical expansion.
Just sayin’
Yes it’s a rant but I worked hard to make substantive points and contributions to discussion and I’m nearing acceptance.
