Civilization 5 Announced

[Jaffa]

I might try but honestly... without trading posts I don't think ANYTHING would work. Cities would barely be able to pay for themselves, even with just the minimum of buildings. You wouldn't be able to afford a military at all. You'd be completely dependant on milking the AIs for gold, and if they decided to go to war with you you'd be completely screwed. I could do it with Songhai, since they get massive gold from conquering cities, but with other civs I'm pretty sure it's impossible.

So somewhere between "spam trading posts everywhere for an easy victory" and "cripple yourself by refusing to use trading posts at all" there might be a happy medium where the game is balanced and fun?

If Firaxis can fix the game balance by fiddling with trading post rules -- say, only allow a gold bonus from up to two trading posts per city -- that's a lot more doable than changing fundamental game mechanics.

[Tredje]

So somewhere between "spam trading posts everywhere for an easy victory" and "cripple yourself by refusing to use trading posts at all" there might be a happy medium where the game is balanced and fun?

If Firaxis can fix the game balance by fiddling with trading post rules -- say, only allow a gold bonus from up to two trading posts per city -- that's a lot more doable than changing fundamental game mechanics.

While it would be nice to think it was this easy, I have a couple of arguments against this. I will leave general criticism against the economic system out of it.

1) While limiting trade post benefits would make ICS somewhat more difficult, it would make having any economy at all difiicult. Try to do a OCC without building trade posts, it will harm you just as much, if not more.

2) Generally I would say that "nerfing" the only tile improvement that is actually worth getting is not the right way to fix a game. There are lots of positive changes they could do instead, such as improving the gains from mines and special resources or adding a new tile improvement. The problem isn't really that trade posts are so good, but that land in general and tile improvements are so bad. Like Sulla said, if I could put a trade post on sheep I would, because the pasture is horrible.

[Jaffa]

1) While limiting trade post benefits would make ICS somewhat more difficult, it would make having any economy at all difiicult. Try to do a OCC without building trade posts, it will harm you just as much, if not more.

My OCC cultural victory didn't use a single trading post.

[Gold Ergo Sum]

My OCC cultutal victory didn't use a single trading post.

I won an OCC on Immortal without having a single city-state of any kind. But I am pretty sure I spammed trading posts on every non-river farm and was still bleeding -10 gpt. The only thing that saved me was resource trades and Golden Ages.

[luddite]

So somewhere between "spam trading posts everywhere for an easy victory" and "cripple yourself by refusing to use trading posts at all" there might be a happy medium where the game is balanced and fun?

If Firaxis can fix the game balance by fiddling with trading post rules -- say, only allow a gold bonus from up to two trading posts per city -- that's a lot more doable than changing fundamental game mechanics.

Yeah like Tredje said... it's not that trading posts are really imbalanced, it's just that all the other tile improvements suck! Especially on flat land, where your only choice is between farms and trading posts (compare to civ IV where you can build workshops). A farm wouldn't help at all, it'll just lead to another pop poingtand another unhappiness penalty. SI don't want that! So if I can't use trading posts, I just won't use flatland at all. And of course the only cities which are at all profitable are the ones on rivers, otherwise you're broke from maintenence. China's paper maker would become even better than it already is (the rich get richer, the poor get poorer).

You could use merchants but... every merchant requires two food to feed it. So basically every merchant needs a farm to feed it, which makes them only half as good as a trading post.

You're right that taking out trading posts would nerf ICS but here's the thing- it would make any other strategy completely impossible! Other strategies usually involve larger cities and more advanced buildings, and without trading posts you can't afford those. I think I could still make ICS work, because the trade route gold would still cover the cost of a coloseum and library everywhere, but I definitely wouldn't make any other buildings.

[darrelljs]

Cultural-diplomacy is pretty good, but it requires 3 weak policies first to get it, so I think that's too expensive. Also it's just a fixed happiness bonus, so it doesn't scale as your empire grows.

Doesn't it also double the amount of food/culture from city states?

Rationalism- Well, I see two major flaws with it. One is that science is already so fast in this game, and production is so low, that speeding up science doesn't do much except unlock things you can't afford to build. It's good for doing what Sullla did- beeline to globalism and win with the UN- but it doesn't help much in military victories.

I agree...its good for space, not domination.

The second big flaw is that, when using scientists, the real value is the gpp. Let's say it takes 300 gpp to produce your next great scientist, which is 100 turns for 1 scientist specialist. if that great scientist bulbs a tech worth 2500 beakers, your scientist has effectively produced 25 beakers/turn! add in the 3 normal beakers, and that's 28 beakers/turn! Adding secularism only takes you from 28 to 30 beakers/turn, which is a very minor increase.

That's a pretty static analysis. I usually get about 8 GS's in a game, and they probably get me on the order of 20K beakers. If you are running 40 scientists a turn, that's 80 extra beakers/turn, which gives me (ballpark) about 20K.

I am starting to think our difference of opinion is that I go space and you go domination .

Darrell

[luddite]

Doesn't it also double the amount of food/culture from city states?

No cultural diplomacy just boosts resources. You get double strategic resources, and a 50% boost to happiness resources. So if you're getting 4 happy resources, that's +10 happiness. Not bad, but not as good as the other social policies that boost happiness (planned economy is worth at least +40 in a large empire, for example).

That's a pretty static analysis. I usually get about 8 GS's in a game, and they probably get me on the order of 20K beakers. If you are running 40 scientists a turn, that's 80 extra beakers/turn, which gives me (ballpark) about 20K.

I am starting to think our difference of opinion is that I go space and you go domination .

Darrell

haha you might be right about the last part! I don't feel satisfied unless I've conqured the whole planet.

For the first part, I have to question your estimate. 40 scientists is really a lot, you're not going to get that until at least turn 200. By then the game will probably end within another 100 turns, so that's 100*80 = 8000 extra beakers, which is about 3 late game techs.

[darrelljs]

No cultural diplomacy just boosts resources.

Good grief I misread that policy impact badly.

I can actually calcuate how many scientists turns I've had by looking at the GPP counters for each city, and then adding in turns for the GSs that ahve been born. But, I'm really lazy and won't do that . Even if its half what I estiamte that is still a lot of beakers.

Darrell

[chaunceymo]

Well this is sure to make a lot of folks happy: http://www.garath.net/Sullla/Civ5/liberteordre.html

Hi, occasional lurker on and off for years, first time poster.

Just wanted to say that I enjoyed your writeups of Civ4 and, for totally different reasons, 5. I was extremely excited for 5, fired up by the glowingly positive reviews, and utterly disappointed when I picked it up. I'm glad I have your writeups to point people to when they ask "What's wrong with the game?", since you lay out its shortcomings much more coherently than I could.

Just to add my two cents: I've been playing the series since the original Civ. Every game follows the same pattern: initial extreme giddiness (although never quite as extreme as when I was 13 and booted up the original), followed by a brief period of nerd rage over changes from the previous, followed by a long, happy period of playing the game. Unfortunately I don't think the nerd rage is going to end with 5 until they patch the bejeesus out of it, if then. I also have the sad suspicion that instead of remedying some of the major faults with a patch, they will be bill what are fundamentally bug/exploit fixes as "enhancements" and attempt to sell them in DLC or expansions.

Right now the only ways to succeed at even moderately high levels seem to be actions I consider to be exploits. If you don't ICS/horse rush/GS tech slingshot/maritime food your way to victory, even Emperor feels borderline impossible. While higher levels in past games certainly limited your choice of strategies and tactics, it never essentially forced you to cheat if you wanted to keep up with the aggressive AI civ that inevitably winds up owning its entire continent by ~1500 AD.

If nothing else positive comes of this for me, though, it has at least inspired me to dust off Civ4 and try out some of RB's long backlog of epic games. That's certainly going to be more enjoyable than trying to find a new way to exploit my way to victory in Civ5.

[T-hawk]

If nothing else positive comes of this for me, though, it has at least inspired me to dust off Civ4 and try out some of RB's long backlog of epic games.

<plug type="shameless">
May I recommend Adventure 45? It was pretty popular. If you want a save with your own choice of wonders, I'm happy to supply one.
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A few favorites that I didn't sponsor were Epic 22 Tree Huggers, Epic 23 Focal Point, and Adventure 38 Farmer's Gambit. All were moderate on difficulty but fun to play through.

And if you want something completely off-the-wall for Civ 4, try Adventure 43.