NukeAJS
King
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2008
- Messages
- 850
I'm in the in-between camp now, but I'll throw in my 2cs anyways.
Someone mentioned civs being played differently. I mostly agree. India, Iroquois, Inca, Spain, Germany, Persia, Ottomans, and others, definitely have a unique feel and play to them. This is especially true when social policies get thrown in the mix.
The music.
Limited quantity of strategic resources -- makes military units even more valuable beyond their production/money cost. However, map scripts need to prioritize certain resources to certain civs. If I have to reload another Mongolian game because there are no horses within 40 tiles of me again, I'm going to write a letter with lots of exclamation points to someone! Right -- good things.
Road maintenance -- Needs to get bumped down below 1G per tile, but I do really like the concept. One thing I particularly like is that it's often cheaper to build harbors and link cities through them instead of over roads. This puts a greater emphasis on navies. However, not having roads for armies/workers can be lame so it depends on the situation.
Penalties for over-expansion -- Makes colonization take place over a longer span of time instead of the first 70 turns.
Social policies -- They're like little wonders. Where some people say Civ5 is dumbed-down, I'd point to social policies and their 1000s of synergies with the various civs as evidence against that claim. Hell there are 20 or so synergies with the social policies themselves.
Social policies/civics that don't conflict -- gone are the days of the police state/free speech empire of doom! I actually didn't have a problem with that, but I do like that some balancing was thought of when they did the social policies. Piety-Rationalism would probably be a peace-mongers wet-dream.
Golden ages -- Makes having excess happiness actually useful. Makes a non-specialist economy a more viable option (at least while the golden age is going).
Navies -- They're just more useful. Particularly being able to bombard armies is welcome.
Also, embarking.
Transoceanic invasions -- Are riskier due to 1UPT but also more dynamic since navies can assist by bombarding the defenders. Also, a defending navy can pick-off straggling embarked units -- the most useful reason for having a navy in the first place is to sink soldiers while they're on ships so a country doesn't have to deal with them on land. Basically, transoceanic invasions are more exciting and complicated logistically -- good things in my book.
Tactical depth -- This one is a blessing and a curse. 1UPT combined with ranged attacks makes the game have a greater depth to tactical movements/actions. There's sometimes over 100 different ways to fight a battle during just one turn and I love that. Unfortunately, the reason the computer sucks pretty bad AI-wise is because computers, or rather computer programs, aren't very good at this process. Basically, computers have a hard time properly prioritizing sequences of strategic choices. Often times, they'll see the "best" first move and take it when it was actually better to make that move as the third action, not first. At least the AI is prioritizing ranged attacks before melee (but still doesn't defend its ranged units as well as it should).
If you want a more in-depth explanation of this programming short-fall check-out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa#Computer_performance
Someone mentioned civs being played differently. I mostly agree. India, Iroquois, Inca, Spain, Germany, Persia, Ottomans, and others, definitely have a unique feel and play to them. This is especially true when social policies get thrown in the mix.
The music.
Limited quantity of strategic resources -- makes military units even more valuable beyond their production/money cost. However, map scripts need to prioritize certain resources to certain civs. If I have to reload another Mongolian game because there are no horses within 40 tiles of me again, I'm going to write a letter with lots of exclamation points to someone! Right -- good things.
Road maintenance -- Needs to get bumped down below 1G per tile, but I do really like the concept. One thing I particularly like is that it's often cheaper to build harbors and link cities through them instead of over roads. This puts a greater emphasis on navies. However, not having roads for armies/workers can be lame so it depends on the situation.
Penalties for over-expansion -- Makes colonization take place over a longer span of time instead of the first 70 turns.
Social policies -- They're like little wonders. Where some people say Civ5 is dumbed-down, I'd point to social policies and their 1000s of synergies with the various civs as evidence against that claim. Hell there are 20 or so synergies with the social policies themselves.
Social policies/civics that don't conflict -- gone are the days of the police state/free speech empire of doom! I actually didn't have a problem with that, but I do like that some balancing was thought of when they did the social policies. Piety-Rationalism would probably be a peace-mongers wet-dream.
Golden ages -- Makes having excess happiness actually useful. Makes a non-specialist economy a more viable option (at least while the golden age is going).
Navies -- They're just more useful. Particularly being able to bombard armies is welcome.
Also, embarking.
Transoceanic invasions -- Are riskier due to 1UPT but also more dynamic since navies can assist by bombarding the defenders. Also, a defending navy can pick-off straggling embarked units -- the most useful reason for having a navy in the first place is to sink soldiers while they're on ships so a country doesn't have to deal with them on land. Basically, transoceanic invasions are more exciting and complicated logistically -- good things in my book.
Tactical depth -- This one is a blessing and a curse. 1UPT combined with ranged attacks makes the game have a greater depth to tactical movements/actions. There's sometimes over 100 different ways to fight a battle during just one turn and I love that. Unfortunately, the reason the computer sucks pretty bad AI-wise is because computers, or rather computer programs, aren't very good at this process. Basically, computers have a hard time properly prioritizing sequences of strategic choices. Often times, they'll see the "best" first move and take it when it was actually better to make that move as the third action, not first. At least the AI is prioritizing ranged attacks before melee (but still doesn't defend its ranged units as well as it should).
If you want a more in-depth explanation of this programming short-fall check-out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa#Computer_performance
stupid 1UPT 
