[R&F] Where did Emergencies go wrong?

[acluewithout]

It seems like Emergencies have been a fizzer. Do people have any thoughts on why?

I think there are at least three problems:

- Emergencies should not reward the Aggressor. Given the state of the AI, there’s just too much chance of the player getting a windfall. It’s also unnecessary: an Aggressor should just factor in that, if they capture a city state etc, then there’s a risk they’ll be on the receiving end of an Emergency.

- The Emergency system shouldn’t have been seperate to the Casus Belli system. Instead of being something the game randomly declares, it should have been something you or the AI can declare if certain conditions are met. If you declare an Emergency, then others can then join in (or you could bribe them to join). You’d all still get whatever Combat bonus you’d normally get, and you could still split a pot of gold or whatever.

- Having players / AI initiate Emergencies would have made Emergencies more strategic and would encourage players and AI to join, because they could see at least one civ has joined.

- Combining Emergencies with the CB system could have allowed players to ‘jointly’ start emergencies (via joint war). It would have brought in more diplomacy, eg bribing other civs to join; improving relations by joining someone else’s Emergency.

 

[MP | Moongazer]

The main problem is with the AIs themselves. AIs don't value Emergencies and they cannot evaluate the capability of winning or losing if they join an Emergency. So if the human player did not join, Emergencies would usually end up rewarding the aggressor.

 

[The googles do nothing]

The best strategy in Civ is to have a plan. If i'm going to attack someone i'm building some cheap units, getting them promoted, then upgrading them sooner then the other civs. I think emergency could break this mold but it's going me a while to get used to there being another way to win.

 

[dunkleosteus]

Was playing a game the other day and had an emergency declared against me when I converted Spain's capital. It was a religious emergency and Spain had 15 turns to reconvert their city. Problem was I had 3 apostles with translator and proselytizer running through his cities, and I think I'd already taken out his only cities with holy sites. America hadn't founded a religion and had created a lot of cities, which I'd also been trying to convert. After the 15 turn emergency was up (and Spain had no chance of winning) I got a cool 1200 gold and all of Spain's cities generated a boost of religious pressure for my religion which flipped 3 of America's cities. I took no action and did nothing different to compensate for the emergency and was REWARDED for it. It's really a poor system since emergencies are declared when the losing side is on their back foot and the bonuses are no where near good enough to turn the tide.

 

[Morningcalm]

I think aggressive forward settling or attacking multiple leaders should also trigger unique emergencies. Citystate emergencies work ok I think--the gold pot can be a bit large but I've come to think they are somewhat more balanced than initially believed. Nuclear emergencies are really rare, as are religious conversions of a holy city.

 

[Bechhold]

That they are random events. Nobody can trigger one, not the AI or the player. Nor direct an emergency towards a specific target.

 

[Jarms48]

When I first saw emergencies I thought they would have been tied to the old world congress / UN system. When someone triggers an emergency the members of the world congress vote to enact / abstain / veto.

 

[Hammurabbit]

From my experience it's rare to get AI to join emergencies. Also, transportation of troops is a huge chore. In a 30 turn emergency its often 10-20 turns of moving troops, which is just boring. That of course applies to any war with a non-neighbor, but it specifically makes me stay away from many emergencies.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Conceptually, emergencies best serve as a mechanic to dogpile a runaway civ.

In practice, emergencies serve as a mechanic to arbitrarily throw the game or toss someone a pile of cash.

 

[_hero_]

There isn't enough variety to the emergencies and the rewards are unimaginative. The reward/penalty system for participating or ignoring is out of whack. A global emergency that can be easily ignored hardly seems compelling, yet the decision to ignore or participate is fairly easy to make when you can usually tell at a glance if you'll succeed or fail the objective.
.
I think they would be more interesting if some of them let you take sides instead of it just being an aggressor and a bunch of people fighting against that aggressor. I also don't think emergencies necessarily have to be an aggressor and victims. Why can't they just be major global events?

Things like global recessions, global warming, some civ facing a military coup where you can support the rebels or the establishment for various benefits, a major barbarian uprising threatens the continent. There's lots of potential in the emergency system, but it just really isn't fleshed out at all right now.

 

[CPWimmer]

Was playing a game the other day and had an emergency declared against me when I converted Spain's capital. It was a religious emergency and Spain had 15 turns to reconvert their city. Problem was I had 3 apostles with translator and proselytizer running through his cities, and I think I'd already taken out his only cities with holy sites. America hadn't founded a religion and had created a lot of cities, which I'd also been trying to convert. After the 15 turn emergency was up (and Spain had no chance of winning) I got a cool 1200 gold and all of Spain's cities generated a boost of religious pressure for my religion which flipped 3 of America's cities. I took no action and did nothing different to compensate for the emergency and was REWARDED for it. It's really a poor system since emergencies are declared when the losing side is on their back foot and the bonuses are no where near good enough to turn the tide.

I agree - I think that the victim of the Holy City conversion (and maybe all of the participants of the emergency) should get some free religious units to help them out.

 

[craney1987]

When I first saw emergencies I thought they would have been tied to the old world congress / UN system. When someone triggers an emergency the members of the world congress vote to enact / abstain / veto.

I feel confident that this will be the case next expansion.
I feel emergencies as they are now, are here to get us used to the idea while they work on UN or world congress etc.

I play on standard size maps and mostly ignore emergencies. I can only imagine how they would play out on huge maps.
Distance to emergency is the biggest problem if you are the responder. AI commitment is the biggest problem if you are the aggressor.

 

[Bechhold]

Or at least when one is declared the Diplomacy screen should be opened immediately to see the participants and what their decision is, right now the player is blind and the idea of early coalitions is dead in the water. Emergencies should allow larger movement points especially on bigger maps and scale of distance to whoever the emergency is towards.

 

[Leathaface]

I wish emergencies was implemented better. As it is right now I never join one and when I am the target of an emergency it's the person i'm attacking who only fights against me.