Civilization 5 Announced

[Sirian]

Sirian, while I agree with you that C5 does more to make this a choice (as opposed to Go Big or Go Home of games past), I do not think it is a fun choice. I like going big. I like the fact that doing so makes my empire all the more powerful.

While I played it all in Civ3 and Civ4, I admit I preferred the bigger maps. I liked my Fishing Villages in Civ3, in particular: nurturing some niche or poor location in to a contributing part of my empire. Civ4 killed off the Fishing Village entirely, and that was one of the factors that made it (ultimately) less fun for me than Civ3 was. Civ4 is a better game than Civ3, and I contributed some to that. But no Civ game has yet found the magic bullet when it comes to dealing with limiting empire growth and preventing the runaway snowball. The limits work, but they have various unfun elements. In Civ3 it's the uselessness of additional cities past a certain point. In Civ4, it's the sameness of growing your empire until you run in to the maintenance strain, then wait for tech before you can afford to acquire any more. Civ5's move to national happiness instead of local happiness per city is highly vulnerable to both ICS and the Uber City (aka UCS) -- and clamping down on those brings distortions. I'm not at all fond of the base happiness penalty for each new city settled, for instance, or the high maintenance costs on happiness buildings; but something has to be done to prevent ICS being the most effective approach. This is just one instance where some of Civ5's problems are actually solutions that fixed even worse problems, but came with side effects.

I had a lot of input in to Civ5's big picture. You can feel my influence in things like no tech trading. I was an advocate of that for Civ4 as well, but lost the debate -- although trading ended up limited, the AIs eventually losing the will to continue with more trades, which I feel was better than Civ3's endless, boundless brokering. Civ5 gets a lot right in what it chooses not to do. But the details of what it does do? I didn't have much input in to things like effects of individual wonders, improvements, units, tech tree, social policies and so forth.

There is much I am not at liberty to discuss, though. I am specifically forbidden from discussing "what might have been". Anything that was considered but not used, or which was tried but later changed -- anything that was suggested but for any number of reasons didn't make it in -- is off limits. I can freely discuss what's in the released game, but that is tough to do at the moment simply because I don't actually know everything that is in the final game. (As I mentioned before).

I like large, sprawling empires so much, that neither Civ4 nor Civ5 will top Civ3 or MOO1 for me in personal fun factor. But the fun of large empires lies more in obtaining them and stabilizing them. The mop up phase is also enormous, and therein lies the rub. That, and supporting larger maps and empires is problematic when improved graphics are so urgent. Steam is a 32bit app, which means a limited amount of used RAM for any game running through it. On the RAM front, there is no more available for Civ5 (as a 32bit app) than there was for Civ4 or Civ3. This poses more serious problems and limitations on what the game can actually do than you might imagine.


- Sirian

[Sirian]

Grass is "worth more" than plains. Meanwhile, grass hills are also worth more than plains hills, and MUCH more than desert hills, lol.

This isn't a system aimed at telling players the value of a tile. The system is aimed at partioning the landmasses in a way conducive to generating improved start locations and resource distribution.

- Sirian

[Txurce]

Different AIs get mad at different things. These threads from CFC shine some light on the diplo system:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=385288
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=386065

Apparently Hiawatha really doesn't like it when you conquer cities. Other AIs don't care so much (I conquered and razed at least 10 cities in my last game, but Nobunaga never seemed to care at all.). And I guess signing research agreements and pacts of cooperation helps a lot, too.

The thread about the diplo system is useful for anyone frustrated with Civ V not laying everything out with on-screen modifiers. Among other things it shows why signing pacts willy-nilly is harmful, rather than harmless. In my last game no one would trust me in peace negotiations - brutal given AI largesse - before I consciously broke any deals. I now have more of a sense of why.

Now factor in the Leader thread, presently based on skimpy data. Some things begin to make more sense. More importantly, the way the game is meant to work also becomes more clear. This is as good an example as any as to why I have more hope for where Civ V could take the series than I did with Civ IV. My sense of the designers' idea is a world where probabilities can be estimated, but will often remain fuzzy.

[SevenSpirits]

This isn't a system aimed at telling players the value of a tile. The system is aimed at partioning the landmasses in a way conducive to generating improved start locations and resource distribution.

- Sirian

Right, that's what makes this problem meaningful! If it was just advice, you could ignore it. Instead, players with inferior grassland starts are getting (slightly) smaller areas to expand into.

By the way, I could imagine a scenario where grass is better than plains, though all the good players are so far agreeing with the opposite. But grass hill = 5, plains hill = 4, desert hill = 2 is clearly going to give bad results. (Note: I could even accept grass hill > plains hill, as the grass hill will be a in a more hammer-poor area. But I doubt you can convince me that plains hill > desert hill. And the fact that plains/plains is worth less than grass/grass-hill is also a red flag.)

[uberfish]

As always your write-ups are interesting (and useful!) to read, Sullla - it's a shame you don't seem to be enjoying the game, tho. From reading this thread & your write-ups, I'm getting the impression that it's only coz I'm more at the casual-player end of the spectrum (persistent rather than good, if you see what I mean) that I'm having fun with the game :/)

I guess I'd be at the analytical end of the spectrum and I'm having fun with civ5, so the appeal is certainly not restricted to casual players

[Smegged]

I am yet to buy Civ 5 as I have been far too busy moving house and feeding the Blizzard juggernaut with my Starcraft 2 addiction.

However, it is really good to see that Sirian had a hand in the construction of Civ 5. I could see his influence all over Civ 4 and that made it a very good game.

Still, Civ 3 was my favourite, probably because it was where I really learned how to play turn based strategy games. My two favourite games there were the succession game where we ended up winning, on deity, while being by far the minnow, having the gargantuan Egypt (I think it was) swallow up the continent at the start while we were confined to our limited peninsula. My other favourite game was the RB game on Emperor difficulty, which had a "no boats" restriction that I ended up losing (due to time, by a grand total of five turns).

I hope that Civ 5 can live up to some of those epic memories .

It's really good to see Sullla, Kylearan and Sirian back and commenting on stuff though. Really brings back memories .

I look forward to making many more decisions over the next few months.

[Smegged]

While I played it all in Civ3 and Civ4, I admit I preferred the bigger maps. I liked my Fishing Villages in Civ3, in particular: nurturing some niche or poor location in to a contributing part of my empire. Civ4 killed off the Fishing Village entirely, and that was one of the factors that made it (ultimately) less fun for me than Civ3 was. Civ4 is a better game than Civ3, and I contributed some to that. But no Civ game has yet found the magic bullet when it comes to dealing with limiting empire growth and preventing the runaway snowball. The limits work, but they have various unfun elements. In Civ3 it's the uselessness of additional cities past a certain point. In Civ4, it's the sameness of growing your empire until you run in to the maintenance strain, then wait for tech before you can afford to acquire any more. Civ5's move to national happiness instead of local happiness per city is highly vulnerable to both ICS and the Uber City (aka UCS) -- and clamping down on those brings distortions. I'm not at all fond of the base happiness penalty for each new city settled, for instance, or the high maintenance costs on happiness buildings; but something has to be done to prevent ICS being the most effective approach. This is just one instance where some of Civ5's problems are actually solutions that fixed even worse problems, but came with side effects.

I had a lot of input in to Civ5's big picture. You can feel my influence in things like no tech trading. I was an advocate of that for Civ4 as well, but lost the debate -- although trading ended up limited, the AIs eventually losing the will to continue with more trades, which I feel was better than Civ3's endless, boundless brokering. Civ5 gets a lot right in what it chooses not to do. But the details of what it does do? I didn't have much input in to things like effects of individual wonders, improvements, units, tech tree, social policies and so forth.

There is much I am not at liberty to discuss, though. I am specifically forbidden from discussing "what might have been". Anything that was considered but not used, or which was tried but later changed -- anything that was suggested but for any number of reasons didn't make it in -- is off limits. I can freely discuss what's in the released game, but that is tough to do at the moment simply because I don't actually know everything that is in the final game. (As I mentioned before).

I like large, sprawling empires so much, that neither Civ4 nor Civ5 will top Civ3 or MOO1 for me in personal fun factor. But the fun of large empires lies more in obtaining them and stabilizing them. The mop up phase is also enormous, and therein lies the rub. That, and supporting larger maps and empires is problematic when improved graphics are so urgent. Steam is a 32bit app, which means a limited amount of used RAM for any game running through it. On the RAM front, there is no more available for Civ5 (as a 32bit app) than there was for Civ4 or Civ3. This poses more serious problems and limitations on what the game can actually do than you might imagine.


- Sirian

I wonder if we could have the best of both worlds, with unhappiness penalties for tile overlap and diminishing returns on happiness structures (the first temple gives you X happiness, the second gives you X-1 etc...). This could obviously only work with civ wide happiness. I too loved the ye olde fishing village and was sad to see it go in Civ 4.

I loved the sprawling empires of Civ 3 and yet hated ICS. I would love a version of Civ that encouraged lots of cities while discouraged ICS.

Anyway, I look forward to playing as much Civ 5 as I can.

[Sirian]

But grass hill = 5, plains hill = 4, desert hill = 2 is clearly going to give bad results.

I don't think so. You're overreading the individual tile, from my point of view. Not every plains site will have an abundance of rivers. Without the river, there aren't any farmable hills and there isn't the extra food to put those mined hills in to use. Some plains hills and many desert and tundra hills will be unusable. This is part of what is reflected in the weighting system.

Whether the grassland region is ultimately a weaker terrain set than elsewhere is beside the point as well. It's the zone that will support the highest population count, the most food at any given city site, and is thus best enabled to grow vertically.

The amount of land isn't just about strength, but also style.

I don't expect you to agree, at this point, but I did not do this haphazardly. You can mod it over to your preferences if you wish.


- Sirian

[T-hawk]

While I played it all in Civ3 and Civ4, I admit I preferred the bigger maps. I liked my Fishing Villages in Civ3, in particular: nurturing some niche or poor location in to a contributing part of my empire. Civ4 killed off the Fishing Village entirely, and that was one of the factors that made it (ultimately) less fun for me than Civ3 was.

Ironically enough, the feature of BTS that redeems fishing villages is corporations. Then any city at any site can feed all its workable tiles, build all its multiplier buildings in good time, and usually hire a few Representation-boosted specialists.

But if a city in a niche or poor location can contribute meaningfully, isn't that actually ICS? Where is the line between good fishing villages and bad ICS? I remember your performance, Sirian, in Civ 3 Epic 24, the Speed Racer game. You turned in the best economy by cramming in the most fishing villages. (It wasn't an issue for the competition since economy wasn't actually the limiting factor as compared to the hard cap of minimum research time.)

That, and supporting larger maps and empires is problematic when improved graphics are so urgent. Steam is a 32bit app, which means a limited amount of used RAM for any game running through it. On the RAM front, there is no more available for Civ5 (as a 32bit app) than there was for Civ4 or Civ3. This poses more serious problems and limitations on what the game can actually do than you might imagine.

Civ 5 is actually hampered by the limitation of 4 gigabytes of addressable RAM? That offends my sensibilities as a programmer enough to avoid it on that basis alone. (Especially if that limitation is induced by the DRM scheme!) By comparison, Alpha Centauri could scale up to 256x256, far bigger than any Civ3 or Civ4 map, without any memory or performance problems on modern computers (not quite at SMAC's release, but 256 MB memory is plenty for it.) (Sirian, this isn't directed at you, I wouldn't expect you to be responsible for the game's RAM budget.)

[Sirian]

But if a city in a niche or poor location can contribute meaningfully, isn't that actually ICS? Where is the line between good fishing villages and bad ICS?

Fishing villages give you an opportunity to do something constructive with difficult and handicapped areas of the map. ICS cares nothing for the map: cities are crammed in at minimum distance without regard to what's on the map, aiming to exploit the "free" city center tile and other "free" bonuses and effect that occur per city. In Civ5, the per-city bonuses would include things like the French cultural bonus, the trade routes (for connected cities), and the Arabian trade route bonus.

ICS and Fishing Villages are polar opposites and mutually exclusive. One is about ignoring the map completely: the other is about the deepest possible immersion in to, and interaction with, the map, developing every corner of it in to something positive.

Civ5's global happiness system offers the potential for bringing back the fishing village. You only consume as much happiness as you have population (plus the per-city penalty).


A responsible community like RBCiv might be better off with a combination of a rule set that defines and prohibits ICS/UCS as strategy, plus a mod that undoes all of the anti-ICS and anti-UCS game rules in favor of a game environment that can safely assume that players won't try to break it wide open with these exploits.


- Sirian