RD-BH
Human
Macro choke-point?
... seems an odd phrase,
... perhaps the gap between galactic clusters qualifies.
... seems an odd phrase,
... perhaps the gap between galactic clusters qualifies.
Why didn't like you civ5?
- Thread starter Dida
- Start date
I can't argue against your personal taste. But this quoted part is a common misconception and wrong on several layers. First, in an empire building game like Civ, it's already an achievement to create a big enough stack with up-to-date units which you are able to afford. And using it in a way that the price you pay for upkeep and the connected drop in research is worth it. "Just build a large stack".... Well go ahead, on the higher difficulties you will go bankrupt and fall behind in research if you don't do it right. Not to mention all your cities will be building units instead of useful buildings so you will fall behind even further. If you were able to consistently create larger and more advances stacks than the AI without any economical problems, your difficulty level wasn't high enough. From King on it's not at all easy. But if you do accomplish having a large army which your cities can afford due to clever management of your cities and other good strategic decisions, you should have the advantage in war. In Civ 5, on the other hand, your advange in war boils down to AI incompetence instead of strategic decisions.
Second, having the larger stack does not at all mean you will win a war. "Whoever has the bigger stack wins" is a common misconception often heard by Civ 5 players. Only a fool or inexperienced player would think like that and ignore the tactical level of combat. I learned the hard way many years ago when I sent two 50-unit stacks against Russia, and on my next turn both had completely vanished. In fact, I'd argue that Civ 4's combat tactics are a lot more demanding than Civ 5's. At least I think about stack composition, deployment of troops, how many stacks to move in, when to use collateral, when to bombard cities, how to best use terrain etc a great deal more than I ever had to think about moving my troops in Civ 5.
Third, you say the AI stupidity is moot on higher levels, but that isn't true. It's still the same stupid AI which does the same stupid things. Of course by having sheer numbers, it gets more time-consuming to mow through the enemy ranks. But unless you are new to the game you should have no problem fighting off even Diety AI's without much problem. Compare that to Civ 4, where even on Prince or King the AI can provide huge challenges by sending large armies to your lands. The AI in itself is nothing special either, but the combat system actually allows the AI to pose serious threats. Never in any Civ 5 game did I feel a fraction of the tension and danger I feel in every single Civ 4 game, when a large neighbouring Civ starts to dislike me, especially the warmongering ones.
Welcome to CFC
Playing the entire game using the 2D strategic view would make Civ feel far too much like a board game (even though that's essentially what it is) to me, but I definitely think it's a nice tool when you need the available information as it makes tile improvements/units/resources very easy to spot. Would love to have a similar view in IV.
Abegweit
Anarchist trader
I would like to return to the UI and map of CivIII. IMO it is better than that of both Civ4 and Civ5. The Civ5 strategic view is incredibly ugly. It amazes me to see that they came up with this when they had a far better example to work with.
I'm guessing that the so-called strategic view was actually the original interface to Civ5 devised by the programmers so that they could test out the game before the full 3D interface was ready. That would explain why it is so horrible.
I'm guessing that the so-called strategic view was actually the original interface to Civ5 devised by the programmers so that they could test out the game before the full 3D interface was ready. That would explain why it is so horrible.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
Physically moving faster than light does by every metric we know, which is probably limited.
However if there were another method to cross long distances without having to physically move in such a way it would accomplish the same thing. He accurately points out that such wouldn't technically be FTL travel, although assuming one could survive whatever hypothetical method existed the uitility would be identical (arguably higher).
One certainly hopes that we find such a method in the distant future (though I wouldn't mind it now either lol), otherwise as a race we'll be cooked eventually. That's something for generations that won't remember us to deal with though. For now we have to focus on not killing ourselves.
Out of curiousity, how fast can we get craft to go right now? The top speed for our space vessals is comparably pathetic to pretty much any sci-fi that leaves the solar system (some don't and are even laudable for using realistic travel times). I'm pretty sure we still couldn't hit the nearest star in a life time. Pretty sobering.
According to this http://io9.com/5786083/what-are-the-fastest-spacecrafts-ever-built
Roughly 70km/s but that is orbiting the sun. And...
"If the goal is to reach Alpha Centauri with a mission lasting, say, forty years, then we need a tenth of lightspeed, or roughly 30,000 kilometers per second"
We obviously need to grow a few more cottages!!
Abegweit
Anarchist trader
Relative to the Sun, which is what counts for this purpose, the fastest space craft is Voyager I at a speed of 17.26 km/s. It is soon to cross into interstellar space.
However, current technology is capable attaining a significant fraction of the speed of light. Solar sails have been designed, on paper at least, which can reach speeds in the range of 100,000 km/s.
However, current technology is capable attaining a significant fraction of the speed of light. Solar sails have been designed, on paper at least, which can reach speeds in the range of 100,000 km/s.
This is a straw man, of course; I've already said explicitly that I don't believe current physics is necessarily entirely correct.
It would still violate causality, so based on our present understanding it is just as impossible.
Rusty Edge
Deity
How about Panama, the Bering Sea land bridge, or where the Suez canal is ?
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2008
- Messages
- 27,995
The key phrase is our present understanding. Still, if you asked me to pick between the possibility of brute-force accelerating past c or finding a different way that "teleports" or "reality distorts" or whatever the heck you want to call it, I'd say the latter has better (though still dismal) chances.
I guess we could always look into energy-efficient cold storage + resusitation and just fire people off at .05c or some such lol. Alternatively we could find some way to halt aging so that travel time is somewhat trivialized! Lol. So many implausible possibilities!
Gogo "launch ship" ---> 2000 turns to victory!
mynystry
jaguar warrior from hell
Well, to be honest I really don't remember that well how Civ3 Diplo worked. What I mean is that Civ4 Diplo was not a big advance as far as i remember, because Diplomacy is one of the things which I think urgently needs more thought and improvement.
I really dislike when other Civ ask you to help them at war and you cannot put a price on it. It would be also interesting if one could negotiate borderlines, or force them on peace treaties (even without a complete capitulation), etc.
On the other hand I don't think that the espionage system is complete crap, as many say. But I certainly think that I could be improved.
That's just "science might be wrong" again. Sure, it might; but then _anything_ is possible and the word "impossible" has become meaningless.
(And, to the other, wormholes look like plausible technobabble now - but in the 30s EES's "inertialess drive" looked pretty plausible. I don't think you can meaningfully comment on the relative probabilities.)
Much more realistic! But not fun. And I think that's sort of my point (although I suppose the game need only go on until every civ has either launched a ship or been eliminated, or until a ship is now impossible to overtake (eg, launch a ship with all components, you win immediately), removing the criterion that your capital must survive until ship arrival.)
Welcome to CFC
Playing the entire game using the 2D strategic view would make Civ feel far too much like a board game (even though that's essentially what it is) to me, but I definitely think it's a nice tool when you need the available information as it makes tile improvements/units/resources very easy to spot. Would love to have a similar view in IV.
Thank you, and yes its pretty subjective. There are those who PREFER it to feel like a boardgame. Its defintly somethign I would have liked to have seen in IV, as the game slows to a crawl sometimes.
A neat little trick in V is to switch to the 2D view for turns, the turns calculate quicker then for some reason.
Odin2006
Apolytonian
My machine is too slow for Civ5, so I'm stuck with 4.
Oh, and I've been gone for several years and the forum layout is exactly the same?
Oh, and I've been gone for several years and the forum layout is exactly the same?
I have played civ games for well over a decade now, so I think the reason I find stacks in IV depressing is due to the way I play. I spend half the game turtled up focusing on perfect city placement and econemy. I build my capital into an uber city and use that to produce miltary units in a few turns as an when I need then for defence. About halfway through the game I use the capital to suddenly churn out unit after unit after unit. Building up a huge army very quickly to the limits my econ can afford or close too, then just go and roll over the AI who has a lesser economy.
Also the RNG for combat felt totally out of whack for some reason.
I tended to play on Noble so maybe it was too easy. Perhaps I should revist IV again at some point seeing all those posts made me feel like giving it a go again.
Welcome to CFC
Playing the entire game using the 2D strategic view would make Civ feel far too much like a board game (even though that's essentially what it is) to me, but I definitely think it's a nice tool when you need the available information as it makes tile improvements/units/resources very easy to spot. Would love to have a similar view in IV.
Thank you, and yes its pretty subjective. There are those who PREFER it to feel like a boardgame. Its defintly somethign I would have liked to have seen in IV, as the game slows to a crawl sometimes.
A neat little trick in V is to switch to the 2D view for turns, the turns calculate quicker then for some reason.
No, that's just "Science might not know everthing there is to know yet" again. And I really don't get the massive problems you seem to have with that point of view...
To be honest I don't relly get how 2D vs. 3D grafics make a game feel more or less like a board game. Think about a computer chess game. Even if you have the board and pieces rendered in 3D and you can zoom in and out or rotate the board in whatever direction you want to - it still feels perfectly like a board game. It just looks a bit more elegant and realistic than in 2D. Same with Civ IV/V. Yes, the pieces are presented in 3D, yes you can zoom in and out. But it's no more or less a board game than it ever was. So 3D for me is perfectly OK, but what I don't like about the CIV IV 3D grafics is the sloppy way they are drawn sometimes with buildings, aquaducts and other stuff beeing ridiculously distorted or positioned overleaping or other stuff like that. And what I hate about Civ V on that issue is that they did not bother to improve things. Placing world wonders into the sea is just ridiculously bad!
From what you describe, it definitely sounds like it. Once you've learnt the basics, noble is really an easy difficulty. Move up to Monarch (or Emperor if you are daring). Preferably with K-mod (and Bug-mod while you're at it). Broadly speaking you can still use the same strategy you mentioned, only that it will be a lot harder to pull off, and the AI's will be a lot more resilient. Compare the depth of thought required for tactical considerations under these circumstances with the combat in Civ 5. I'm curious as to wether you will change your mind about the challenge the differerent combat systems provide.
How many times do I have to say that I'm not arguing with that point of view and it is manifestly correct? I don't have any problem with it.
It's just not a useful argument for saying "FTL is possible" because if you accept that, then X is possible for all X, and "impossible" has become a meaningless word.
