Posts: 141
Threads: 4
Joined: Apr 2006
On an unrelated note, I just started a new emperor AW game with city states (no intentional war declaration on them though) playing as Egypt.
Did you guys know how insanely overpowered the war chariot can be? Once you give it the 'attack multiple times' promotion, it can actually attack four times (since that unit has 4 movement points). And since it is a ranged unit, it won't get harmed at all during the attacks.
Posts: 2,880
Threads: 16
Joined: Sep 2010
Sulla, reading your report brings up something I've noticed a lot. It's almost always a good idea to go to war with the #1 AI as soon as possible. Like you noticed, whichever AI is largest will also have the fastest research, so you need to take them down quickly. You did a good job of this by attacking France with CKN's before they had a chance to really run away in tech.
The AI, however, is programmed to do just the opposite. They will AVOID attacking the biggest AIs, because they're scared, and instead act hostile towards the smallest nations (usually you, on immortal/deity). So the aggressive warmongers not only have the largest military and fastest research, they also effectively get a diplomatic bonus which keeps them safe from attack! Meanwhile the player who's struggling to catch up will face a dogpile from everyone. This might make sense from a historical perspective, but it makes no sense at all in game play. Shouldn't the AIs be trying to win?
Posts: 1,922
Threads: 68
Joined: Mar 2004
Sulla, great writeup! Thanks for all your reports, which are both a lot of fun to read and hopefully serve as a bit of lobbying work towards Firaxis to change some things. I hope they read you reports carefully! 
Two things:
- You mentioned Bismarck and Napoleon complaining about your city on "their" half of the landmass. Is that really so ridiculous? After reading all the PBEM/Pitboss games where players virtually divided up unsettled lands and anger resulted from players founding cities in areas "belonging" to other players, this could just be a similar mechanic. Four or six tiles away doesn't mean much if the AI thinks about the area as "his", and this would nicely prevent things like forward settling and boxing in an AI and then backfill later (without distance maintenance, this is easier than ever  ).
Now I say this could be a good mechanic, because I have no idea about the AI's algorithms for complaining about settlements. If it draws something like a virtual circle with a radius of half the distance to other capitals and calls it "his" lands (or something more sophisticated), it might be a nice mechanic. But of course given the rest of AI silliness we have to endure all the time, this might be wishful thinking. 
(That the AIs themselves like to found right near you borders is another matter entirely.)
- You also mentioned that you hadn't been able to make peace with Napoleon's allied city state after making peace with France. What exactly do you mean by this? You can make peace with city states by going to their screen an click the "make peace" button, although I have no idea under what conditions they allow this. Was this button missing or not working in your game, or did I misunderstand you?
On an unrelated note, here's a gem (pun intended) from Civ 5's "cultural exapansion" department, from my current game...  
![[Image: cultural_gem.jpg]](http://www.compoundeye.net/civ5/cultural_gem.jpg)
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
Posts: 7,766
Threads: 94
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 4,471
Threads: 65
Joined: Feb 2006
good report Sulla, your conclusions about the weird balance are similar to mine. It's clear that maritime city-states in their current form literally distort the entire game and encourage ICS. The funny thing is that the designers took care to make the per-city bonuses in Freedom tree small and make sure city spammers would at least have a tough time getting to Communism, but left all that cheap food in.
I have pretty good ideas how all these issues could be fixed though, let's see what firaxis comes up with in the official patch
Posts: 50
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2010
Great report Sullla. I always gobble them up and look forward to the hour(s) of entertainment I get from each one.
I have to say though that as someone who adored Civ4, what has been put out under the name of "Civilization" is disappointing at best. Reading your Civ4 reports last year made me want to dive into the game and try all those wonderful strategies and variants RB came up with, but reading these Civ5 reports makes me shake my head and say, "wow, I'm glad I didn't rush out and buy Civ5." It looks atrociously boring to play and every comparison you made to Civ3 made me wince.
It's clearly a very different development team and testing team (was there a testing team?) from the one that created Civ4 because, as you said in your report, it's clear that Civ4 was someone's baby - cared for and polished into the best possible game it could be; whereas Civ5 seems bland and rushed by a team who didn't really understand the history of the series and probably didn't care to think about how some of their design decisions would play out.
Hopefully there are some game altering patches coming down the pike and I look forward to seeing your feedback in the future. Hopefully Firaxis wisely listens to communities like RB and CFC moving forward rather than the glowing, but ignorant reviews the game has been recieving.
Posts: 4,471
Threads: 65
Joined: Feb 2006
The AI takes into account some fraction of the strength of other parties fighting its enemy when deciding whether to make peace or not, example:
America and France are at war with Egypt, neither will make peace
rance loses a city and wants peace now, America still doesn't
France signs peace
America will now accept peace
AI also seems to get just as upset at other computer civs as it does with the human player for excessive warmongering or encroaching on its territory. You can tell whom they are currently upset with by all the requests for pacts of secrecy / joint war decs. The trouble is that the larger AI often tends to crush the smaller one quickly. There IS some sort of stop-the-leader system in place that ignores the power ratings, in my last game I had Catherine declare on me in the endgame saying something along the lines of "I know I'm probably going to lose, but I might as well go down fighting now." It probably just kicks in too late most of the time.
Clearly a lot of thought went into the strategic-level AI as this is an improvement over "mostly predictable religious blocs with a few psychopaths who declare war at random", unfortunately like a lot of civ5 it's one step forward and one step back in a different area. Apparently pacts of secrecy are so secret that you don't even know what you are signing up to, nice job not explaining that one.
Posts: 4,471
Threads: 65
Joined: Feb 2006
Bismarck: Let's sign a pact of secrecy against Napoleon
Elizabeth: Sounds good, but what would that involve?
Bismarck: If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret
Elizabeth: How does anyone keep these pacts then?
Bismarck: It's a secret to everybody
Elizabeth: Forget it then
Bismarck: Ok, how about a research pact?
Elizabeth: How does that one work?
Bismarck: We both pay 250 gold to fund a joint research project
Elizabeth: Researching what?
Bismarck: It's a secret research project, of course
Elizabeth: Look, we could both really use steam power, why not tell the scientists to research that?
Bismarck: That's not how science works. All your scientists will work secretly in half the lab and all of mine in the other half on whatever they choose, and not tell each other anything.
Elizabeth: What do we need each other for then? I could just pay my scientists 250 gold while you paid yours 250 gold separately and tell them to go research something.
Bismarck: I've tried. The scientific union won't consider it unless there's another country involved.
Elizabeth: Why not?
Bismarck: That's secret even to me.
Elizabeth: This conversation is so ridiculous I'm going to declare war on you just for it.
Bismarck: Wait. Sign the pact first, we can have the war next year. The scientists are clever enough to know when there's going to be a war and will finish their research faster.
Elizabeth: But how do they know when there's going to be a war?
Bismarck: It's secret.
Elizabeth: I hate you.
Bismarck: I'd tell you how I really felt about you, but that would be giving away secrets.
Posts: 5
Threads: 0
Joined: Oct 2010
Hi, my first post here.
Am I the only one who thinks this whole happiness mechanic just isn't working?
I mean, the penalties are too soft. growth reduction doesn't hurt that much and the combat modifier is offset by promotions and/or GG.
example: I played China on a King level. I dominated the other civs on a pangea standard size map. A few dozen of highly promoted units wrecked havoc on the world. By the end I had every city on the continent in possesion and even with colloseums my unhappiness was below -100. This didn't stop me from winning the game in 1400AD.
Posts: 8,293
Threads: 83
Joined: Oct 2009
De Bartman Wrote:Hi, my first post here.
Am I the only one who thinks this whole happiness mechanic just isn't working?
I mean, the penalties are too soft. growth reduction doesn't hurt that much and the combat modifier is offset by promotions and/or GG.
example: I played China on a King level. I dominated the other civs on a pangea standard size map. A few dozen of highly promoted units wrecked havoc on the world. By the end I had every city on the continent in possesion and even with colloseums my unhappiness was below -100. This didn't stop me from winning the game in 1400AD. You could replay it and see would you do better or worse if you stay by the boundaries of happiness.
|
