Civilization 5 Announced

[ThERat]

I like Civ 3 (C3C that is) and the great new mod CCM makes it still very playable (and is very fast these days thanks to constant computer upgrades due to Civ 4 + 5 ).
Unfortunately Firaxis left it with many flaws, esp those that Kylearan mentioned before. We have no choice but to avoid all those shortcomings by 'honorable' play, not really a great idea.

Civ 4 added so many nice ideas, some of which I don't find well executed. But that's my personal preference. I find Civ 4 too complicated with too much stuff to consider. And for the core warmonger I am, AW was just too painful to play.

However, why didn't they keep those nice ideas from Civ 4 and combined them with some good stuff from Civ 3 + add their new great concepts such a 1upt etc ? I see the list of beta testers which has quite a number of really credible people in there

I guess they spent a lot of energy on graphics and leader animations, all good to score with casual gamers. That said, I do remember the constant boasting about the 3 layered AI and how much smarter it is now. Maybe, we have not seen the smart part cos it is dumber on lower levels?
Going to get the full game unlocked tomorrow to find out myself a little more.

By the way, reading lemmy101's game on Civfanatics is hilarious though his suboptimal play does add to the AI winning. However, I do see potential in the AI as it seems to actually WANT to win the game unlike in Civ4. I think that's at least one positive aspect.

For now, I think it is better to avoid using all the unfair tactics the AI can't handle. Makes the game too easy.

[Selrahc]

The AI is back to giving lump sums of gold for luxury per-turn deals again? Let me guess: There's no period of enforced peace after such a deal, right?


It seems it's also open to ROP-rape again (this is a fault with game mechanics, not with the AI itself).

I think maybe the rationale behind these decisions is that the AI actually has a memory now. If you escape from a deal by declaring war, or abuse rite of passage then the other AI's will avoid making the same deal with you.

That doesn't actually sound that good though. If you can only do these things once per game, then they could still have a pivotal impact on the game. Stealing all their money and then RoPraping your biggest rival could win you the game, even if it means your relations with other AI's tank.


The other stuff just sounds like pure though.

[Kylearan]

I think maybe the rationale behind these decisions is that the AI actually has a memory now. If you escape from a deal by declaring war, or abuse rite of passage then the other AI's will avoid making the same deal with you.

Hm...can you see what deals AIs have with each other in Civ 5?

If not, I would have a serious gripe with these diplo mechanics (if they really work this way) - why can the AIs act in information you, the human, does not have? (That is apart from the obvious problem you've already mentioned in your post.)

[timski]

Currently a good high difficulty (Immortal+) demo strategy seems to be limited war: Steal some workers, maybe a small city, gain a very generous peace deal after a few turns of war, then heal up and turn on someone else. How long can that last? Other civs do eventually turn "hostile" (as displayed in the diplomacy summary table), but by this stage I'd already recovered from the starting disadvantage (score-wise), and given more turns, would have a strong basis for winning a conquest victory.

Diplomacy appears to be based heavily on reputation, based on your past actions - your trustworthiness. However, this reputation doesn't decline fast enough, so trust remains even when you've done nothing trustworthy. Of course fast decline doesn't always make for fun gameplay ("OMG the entire [remaining] world just declared war on me"), so this was never going to be an easy balance.

(An example of reputation: If you move a large army up to a (not at war) Civ, you'll be politely asked to explain the move (I don't recall that in Civ 4, other than very general border tension modifiers). The first time you say "just passing through", and they say "excellent". And then the next turn you launch a full-out attack on them. Try this on a third civ and their response will be more hostile "a likely story". So, the same actions are garnering different responses based on how trustworthy you have shown yourself to be with others, not just past relations with the individual civ. Whether the AI cheats here is unclear - there are so many Scouts in play my backstabs are likely to be observed by others.)

[Cyneheard]

The AI is back to giving lump sums of gold for luxury per-turn deals again? Let me guess: There's no period of enforced peace after such a deal, right?

And there's absolutely no reason for them to have done it this way. Why couldn't they have done "X gpt for a lux for 30t"? Civ4 explicitly went away from allowing trades of per-turn things (OB, resources, gpt) for instant ones (gold, tech, maps) because it exploited the AI too easily. The only possible explanation I can think of is that they thought a gpt trade was too "complicated", unless they really thought their AI was so good that this wouldn't be an issue. Because Shafer definitely played Civ III and should have known how easy it was to do end runs around the AI.

And I think worker steals are the new worker-buying loophole: it's far too easy to do (especially with 4-move horsemen!), and the AI doesn't know how to defend it.

[Twinkletoes89]

Anyone who hasn't already, should read this playthrough thread:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=380899

Its really entertaining and does go through quite a lot of stuff and shows that the AI isn't totally awful!

[Birdman]

Diplomacy appears to be based heavily on reputation, based on your past actions - your trustworthiness. However, this reputation doesn't decline fast enough, so trust remains even when you've done nothing trustworthy. Of course fast decline doesn't always make for fun gameplay ("OMG the entire [remaining] world just declared war on me"), so this was never going to be an easy balance.

(An example of reputation: If you move a large army up to a (not at war) Civ, you'll be politely asked to explain the move (I don't recall that in Civ 4, other than very general border tension modifiers). The first time you say "just passing through", and they say "excellent". And then the next turn you launch a full-out attack on them. Try this on a third civ and their response will be more hostile "a likely story". So, the same actions are garnering different responses based on how trustworthy you have shown yourself to be with others, not just past relations with the individual civ. Whether the AI cheats here is unclear - there are so many Scouts in play my backstabs are likely to be observed by others.)

I rather liked this part of the game. But will have to play more to get a better feel. I agree the AI is insipid. Spent most of my game gobbling up wonders and decided to go after the Aztecs. In over 100 turns he still hadn't gained more than 1 city! I still clung to the SOD theory and brought way too many troops. the 1 unit per tile made logistics interesting to say the least.

But I confess I wasted too much time with workers, running out of things to do pretty quick.

[Whosit]

I've played a few more games on the demo. I, too, have noticed that the AI tends to build their second relatively far away from their first. I've also found it hard to whip up a good military force within the first 100 turns, but I'm probably just not doing it right.

By the way, is it possible to cash-rush items currently in production at a discount? It doesn't seem possible to me, which is a pain, since if I've half-built a granary or something, it would be nice to buy the rest of it.

And it's definitely seeming to me, even with my much more limited, demo experience, that gold is key (well, obviously). It seems generally better, or perhaps more what the developers wanted, to build trappers everywhere. Well, still a lot to figure out. Fun reading everyone's opinions.

[T-hawk]

And there's absolutely no reason for them to have done it this way. Why couldn't they have done "X gpt for a lux for 30t"? Civ4 explicitly went away from allowing trades of per-turn things (OB, resources, gpt) for instant ones (gold, tech, maps) because it exploited the AI too easily.

That's a positive to much of Civ 5's target audience. To the casual player, the moment he figures out he can bilk his opponent by breaking a per-turn deal is a strategic success. That it's an exploitable flaw in the AI over many future games does not matter because the casual player does not play many future games.

Besides that, it was a deliberate design decision. The ability to trade a lump-sum good for a future-credit good makes the diplomacy table considerably more flexible, and Civ 4 did receive its share of criticism for disallowing it. When such a deal completes its course unbroken, it has worked to the favor of both parties, in a realistic and satisfying manner. Civ 4's cure may have been worse than the disease. The occasional hoodwinked AI may be an acceptable price to pay to keep the mechanic in the game for legitimate use.

By your logic, the game will open big, lose the dilettantes quickly, and then crash with bad word of mouth from the long-time fans.

Isn't this exactly what happened for Firaxis's last four games in a row? Civ 4 Colonization, Civ Revolution, CivCity Rome, Railroads.

[Aretii]

I like that if you do choose to backstab an enemy, the other AIs will realize it and not trust you. My concern is that this is not punitive enough - a human can make much better use of ROP rape than an AI, and if you pull it off, the rest of the world doesn't have much to threaten you with.

I just wish someone would call me out for being a jerk and declare war on me .