Civilization 5 Announced

[darrelljs]

Sirian,

Quick question on the continents map script...is it typical/intended for at least one of the continents to block east/west access? Here are some screens from my latest game:

Thanks,
Darrell

[Dawn]

Quick question on the continents map script...is it typical/intended for at least one of the continents to block east/west access?

I have noticed this in the two continents games I've played. Didn't it also happen in Civ4? I didn't consider this to be a bug/issue/problem.

[Whosit]

I have noticed this in the two continents games I've played. Didn't it also happen in Civ4? I didn't consider this to be a bug/issue/problem.

I don't think it happened in Civ IV, or at least, not often. There was usually a passage north/south in my experience.

[Birdman]

I am enjoying this thread and, incidentally this game very much. I tend to agree with most of the complaints about the game, but am able to look past them for the most part.
One thing that I am finding in most of my games, and rarely mentioned here, is the unit promos.
I tend to not use them much, only opting for the "full heal" if a unit is damaged at the end of the round, saving it from a deadly counter attack.
I have jumped up in difficulty levels (just started winning monarch on CIV IV), but still find I loose very few units. I am not seeing much of a need for the other promos past the first one (combat bonus on rough or plain terrain.)
Does anyone else think this needs to be nerfed as well?

[Txurce]

Quotes are from Sullla.

“The thing is, the Civilization games are STRATEGY games… The more that a game dials up the tactical elements of combat, the weaker the strategic elements of the game become. Think about it: is it really a good thing if someone with 3 swords and 2 archers can defeat an army of 15 swords through superior use of terrain and movement? I would argue no. In that situation, you're playing a game where strategic elements (what to build, how to develop an economy, tech path to pursue, etc.) have been overshadowed by the tactical elements of unit movement and positioning. “

Others have already responded to this, but I’ll add my two cents. First, military and economic strategy are subsets of a national strategy – not the same thing. I would further argue that the details of both are effectively “tactics” – and that all the micro-management for which Civ is known (good and bad) are effectively tactical exercises. Adding more tactics to the military game via 1upt strikes me as a balancing aspect, and no more likely to overwhelm the importance of strategy than it is economically, where two players could have the same basic game plan, but one’s tactics on achieving it are much better than the other’s.

Your scenario seems to posit that Player 15 outproduced Player 5. It could have been a strategic decision, but let’s assume that it was a matter of outproducing. This could be due to better economic strategy, better economic tactics, or resource luck. If it’s not just luck, then Player 15 sure seems like the better player, and is highly unlikely to lose to Player 5. It’s hard to imagine his not knowing elementary tactics like dividing his army into two or even three groups.

Regardless, if you somehow reach a point where Player 5 beats Player 15 militarily , then it’s no different than a player outproducing another via better utilization of possibly inferior resources. In both cases tactics trump strategy. Doing so doesn’t make the game any less strategic than Civ4 is now. It just makes it more than merely strategic - it makes it more complex.

“Quite aside from the issues I already mentioned, combat is very slow in these games - and that's with the focus on nothing BUT combat! I'm not sure that having to micro every single unit each turn in battle is going to be fun, and scaling down the total number of units to alleviate this issue creates as many problems as it solves.”

Fun is subjective, of course, but potentially having many fewer units than in Civ4 ought to help.

“I suppose that I'm unsure exactly why such a radical change in gameplay was desirable in the first place. I have no fault with the Stack of Doom, personally; it's one tactical choice out of many options, and by no means the best solution. Remember, the Stack of Doom was very slow moving, and could only threaten one target at a time. Maybe that doesn't matter against the AI, but it's a different story against human players. Sorry, but I have to question this whole decision. It's a revolution designed to overturn something that wasn't really broken in the first place!”

Sirian has explained the SOD’s accidental genesis, but I agree it wasn’t broken. For me, it was just boring… and has been for years. I’m sure it’s a different ballgame in MP. While I would think that 1upt would be a blast on MP, I am sure that Firaxis focused on SP first, since that is presently where the money is. This, along with SODs being unintended in the first place, seemingly led them to being swept into the dustbin. And all of my comments except these have to do with SP, not MP, where the game presently sure does sound broken.

“I won't get into the potential red flags raised by the ranged bombardment units, or the problems with tying specific number of unit builds to strategic resources. And let's assume for the moment that the AI will understand all of this, and be able to play as effectively as a human, and that there will be no ways to exploit combat so that the human player takes disproportionately small losses…”

The current AI is good enough to handle the casual player. It certainly can’t handle 1upt combat against even pretty good players right now. That is a major disappointment for me. But as Krill alluded in skipping over strategy vs tactics because he just grows like a weed and spreads, the AI in all versions of Civ sucks. Like many players here, I can only get a good game out of it at the highest handicap levels. Given that, I would rather venture into a potentially much richer arena – 1 upt – and wait for the AI to slowly start catching up. I have no doubt many others feel differently, but seemingly this is what Firaxis decided as well.

“No longer will the winner be determined by the player who can pump out the most units in the shortest amount of time.”

Boy, that sounds boring.

“Are we really sure that's a good thing? In a strategy game, shouldn't the empire with the most cities and the most units in the shortest time be the winner?”

In a good strategy game, there should be more than one way to win. This seems to be what Firaxis is attempting – which, by the way, is why you probably can’t achieve a cultural victory with a large empire. Going in one major direction or another is what strategy is all about. This applies to the usage of Social Policies as well.

That aside, I would think that the empire you described would win militarily most of the time. If its leader somehow loses, I would say he deserved to most of the time… and that I would have loved to have watched that game!

[Txurce]

I have jumped up in difficulty levels (just started winning monarch on CIV IV), but still find I loose very few units. I am not seeing much of a need for the other promos past the first one (combat bonus on rough or plain terrain.)
Does anyone else think this needs to be nerfed as well?

Instant heal seems to be what you usually need. Of course it's hard to know when the other bonuses actually made a difference. I take them whenever possible because it strikes me as theoretically the smart thing, however unnecessary practically. I do recall in Firaxis' 2kGreg's streamed demo that he had a trebuchet that kicked ass due to its many promotions. That one definitely made a difference.

[Txurce]

On two occasions trying to bombard a city - one with a catapult and one with a caravel - my range finder shrank so as to prevent me from shelling the city. In the case of the catapult I tried moving to various locations, but couldn't force it to include it. Anyone know what could be up with this?

[haphazard1]

Your scenario seems to posit that Player 15 outproduced Player 5. It could have been a strategic decision, but let’s assume that it was a matter of outproducing. This could be due to better economic strategy, better economic tactics, or resource luck. If it’s not just luck, then Player 15 sure seems like the better player, and is highly unlikely to lose to Player 5. It’s hard to imagine his not knowing elementary tactics like dividing his army into two or even three groups.

If player 15 is the Civ V AI, it is very, very easy to imagine.

The current AI is good enough to handle the casual player. It certainly can’t handle 1upt combat against even pretty good players right now.

I question whether the current AI is good enough to provide a challenge even to the casual player. To someone who is completely unfamiliar with 4X games, maybe. But I think any player of even middling skill, not even of average skill, will find the AI lacking.

[Aretii]

Sounds like there was an obstruction in the way. Hills and forests can do that.

[Txurce]

I think sunrise has made a very good point here. I've only played two partial games so far, but I found myself missing the Civ IV feeling of "I really need to get X unit into the field - they will totally change the balance of power". Maybe the first siege unit gives that feeling, because it is adding a new type of unit to your forces. But most of the new units are just small incremental steps -- a slightly tougher melee, a slightly stronger ranged, etc. The additional value of a spearman over a warrior (7 vs 6) is almost nothing. (Yes, I know it gets a bonus (how big? not mentioned) against horse. But for many situations that does not matter.) Even a swordsman which requires a precious iron resource is less than twice the strength of a warrior, compared to Civ IV's 3 times. Maybe the starting warriors are just too strong at 6?

Maybe if the AI wasn't so pathetic at war I would actually need (and care about) those small incremental improvements. But it isn't.

I have had the same feeling with regard to the relative values of warriors, spears and swords. It's hard to be certain because, as you note, the AI is pretty bad at war. I have found that I don't to wheel out catapults - hitting a city with four units (or often three if an era ahead) is usually all that's needed.

But anecdotally - early in my only, still-ongoing game - I gifted a spearman to a CS that was just enough to stall the Aztecs. Then another CS gifted me iron, which allowed me to build one swordsman. That turned the tide against the Aztecs, who also had no iron. (Two out of five civs had iron on my continent.) In both cases I had that old sense of excitement.