You're just frightened of change, that's all. :neenernee
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Civilization 5 Announced
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SevenSpirits Wrote:Incoming balance changes announced! I often hire one-hammer specialists if it saves me a couple of turns on a Wonder build! Also, "Can now sell Buildings in a city". Yay! Now I can build those walls for early defence without worrying about having to pay maintenance on them for all eternity. Brian Shanahan Wrote:Seriously, come on, Birdman was talking about an AI which brought him into war against a second AI and then got pissy because he took the capital of their mutual enemy. That is both in real life, and in game terms unrealistic and badly done diplomacy.Thanks Brian. That's exactly what I meant. Their actions caused me to turn on them (much later I must add). The fact that they asked me to join a war, then refused to trade with me when I did, makes no sense. 
v8mark Wrote:I think this is unnecessarily confrontational. Criticising something that does not meet expectations is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, especially when the arguments are thought through and fair, which is something the RB community prides itself on. From what I've seen of Civ5 so far, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect better than this from the Civilization franchise. I didn't suggest it was unreasonable. I agree that Sulla is perfectly entitled to be unhappy that his expectations were not met, and his expectations regarding game quality are reasonable ones. I am talking about the manner in which such criticism is presented. If one presents criticism in the form of 'this is no good, and here's why', that is less useful than 'this feature needs improvement, here's why, and here's your chance to improve things. Prove to me you're capable of better.' I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for this level of civility in discussions regarding Civ 5's problems. I agree that those problems are real, but I also know that vinegar draws fewer flies than sugar. As far as wanting Civ5 to be Civ4 goes, I can't agree. Civ was indeed in need of simplification (but not dumbing down, and not in unbalanced fashion!) Civ 5 is a different game from Civ4 and this is a good thing; if you want Civ4 by all means play Civ4! What is not good is that Civ5 was released with so many glaring problems, but we will have to wait and see what is or can be done about it. I don't share the fatalistic view that nothing can be done, and I find such thinking to be quite pessimistic and unproductive. Birdman Wrote:Thanks Brian. That's exactly what I meant. Their actions caused me to turn on them (much later I must add). The fact that they asked me to join a war, then refused to trade with me when I did, makes no sense. It makes obvious sense. You emerged from the war a different entity than you were when you started - one the AI found threatening. And rightly so - you walloped him next. Like I said, you don't have to like it, but the "revised evaluation" makes total sense for an AI programmed to compete to win. Txurce Wrote:It makes obvious sense. You emerged from the war a different entity than you were when you started - one the AI found threatening. And rightly so - you walloped him next. Like I said, you don't have to like it, but the "revised evaluation" makes total sense for an AI programmed to compete to win.I know where you are coming from, and partially agree. An AI should be able to re-evaluate, but that was pretty harsh. I could understand the other civs not trusting me, but the one who acts as an friend at first, then gets mad for doing what he asked me to do. It wasn't like I built an insane army and had a scary power rating. Two jags, a chariot archer and a horseman were all I had for my entire civ. To turn on me so quick was what threw me. And I didn't go after him next. It was a long time into the game. He was "hostile" throughout and refused to even trade at a great deal for him.
I would not agree that this "makes sense". Somebody already wrote it I think: Whatever you do, you are screwed. You either deny to help the AI and it does not like you for that. Or you help it and it does not like you.
And that really does not make sense in any way. They have screwed up the AI. It is not programmed a different way which we have to learn to understand, it does not have some underlying really smart functions which you only have to adapt you. It plain simply will always declare on you - except for the time when you are clearly in the winning position, because then it does fear you... yeah, makes perfectly sense for an AI programmed to win.  I was now already writing some paragraphs about that programming an AI to win makes it unfun (does that word exist?) - but thinking about that, I am not even sure. The AI in Civ5 is screwed up, so maybe if they do polish it and put down the right values in the AI files instead of making it wanting your blood for simply the reason that you exist might help making it "fun" to deal with? I probably would be sufficient if the AI would really try to win instead of try to not let you win - because right now the AI seems to give away a possibility to win by a certain condition simply to attack another AI or the player. This attack does not help the AI to win - it seems to be more a way to make sure that the attacked one cannot win as well. But that is not what a human would be doing. If I have nearly finished the spaceship, I do not stop to produce the last part only to attack another player which might grow to strong and be able to win in 20 turns by dominiation. I will keep quiet and try to make sure that someone else is attacking this player to give me the last 5 turns I need to actually win. v8mark Wrote:You're just frightened of change, that's all. :neenerneeTelling a luddite that they're frightened of change. 
v8mark Wrote:In essence, the solution is to make Civ4 again then! Perhaps others will disagree, but another Civ4 (and by this I mean a game designed along the same lines as Civ4, not merely a copy) is something I would have welcomed with a big smile on my face. The designers of Civ5 could have made changes to the tech tree, the buildings, the units, the wonders, the tiles, the resources, etc; they could have implemented Social Policies instead of Civics and got rid of religion. As long as they kept the mechanisms that underlie Civ4 and continued to reward the player for making strategic choices. Of course they would have been criticised for being too conservative, but they would have made a good game. I am not saying Civ4 was perfect, but it was a very entertaining game. I agree with a lot of the criticism posted here, but I figured I would provide my own reason for loving Civ4 and why I don't feel the same way towards Civ5. This critique comes in addition to major problems like the moronic AI, obtuse diplomacy, having to watch the useless AI attack my City State ally for 50 consecutive turns and other basic design flaws. I am not sure the developers understood the consequenses of them altering some of the very foundations of the Civilization franchise. I am not talking about hexes or 1UPT, but the overall balance when building your empire. There were definite choices to be made in Civ4, say between going to war early and developing a strong research base. You could not do both effectively, although you could alternate between them or attempt to balance them off against each other. The same was true for expansion vs income/research. My main concern is the way science and the economy works in Civ5. In Civ4, like I said, the player had to prioritize. In Civ5 science is to a large degree based on population, which means that the traditional dilemma of extensive growth vs intensive growth is effectively removed. To get more science you need more citizens, and due to several factors small cities can contribute just as well as big cities, particularly early in the game. There is no option besides expanding. Anything else, like focusing on workers or infrastructure will only put you behind those that expanded. As for gold you simply have to connect your cities, spam trade posts (you don't need many farms if you have Maritime City States and mines only give +1 production.) There are some other elements that influence how you design your empire: 1) Small cities are great. City growth after ~size 10 is very slow. Maritime City States allow for fast growth of small cities and no farms. The area surrounding a city is of secondary importance, since so many bonuses can be accumulated for the city center. Collosseums and social policies make sure you have the happiness to expand indefinitely. Buildings and wonders take a long time to build, and the benefits they provide are negligible compared to more cities. 2) A small elite army is able to conquer the world. Units (especially late in the game) have very long construction times. Upgrading units is relatively cheap, especially with all the gold you get from trade posts/captured cities. The AI is poor, so you will hardly lose any units. This means building units early and using them is worth it most of the time. With upgrades they will form the backbone of your army for millennia. The result is that spamming cities across the map is the best playstyle throughout the entire game. Science will not suffer, like in Civ4, because science is a result of your population. In fact science will increase. Income will not suffer because new cities will get only the necessary building and you will spam trade posts / capture cities. In fact, the economy grows. Happiness will fall periodically, but this is easily negated with the correct policies / colosseums. This is the reason that the aggressive AIs can spam units, crush their weaker neighbours and still have good science and a massive economy without building any science/economic buildings. This, to me, is poor work by the developers. Where are the decisions and the trade-offs between different approaches? As for the player strategies, I fear that they will merely be variations on the theme I have outlined here. Perhaps some will get enough culture for the necessary social policies, and then go for massive expansion, or you will simply expand from the get go. Either way, it's not too important, as long as you keep expanding. Is it possible to remedy the situation? To a degree, certainly. Increasing the value of land by reworking improvement gains and resource gains (+1 production means next to nothing) should enable cities in good spots to outperform spam-cities. I also think something has to be done about city growth after, say, size 10. Building costs and benefits provided could be changed in order to make it profitable to focus on intensive growth. I don't think limiting happiness more would be a good change, since it only puts another constraint on the player. I'd like positive changes that reward the player for choosing to improve his empire in certain areas. Not like now where infinite extensive growth is rewarded. But I am unsure if any changes made in this department will be effective as long as science and income work the way they do now. At the end I would like to include a couple of things I like about Civ5: I do like the Seaport building, it means cities with a lot of coastal resources can become powerful later in the game. I also like buildings like the Observatory and Solar Plant being tied to certain tiles like deserts or mountains. It encourages a player to make certain choices when creating their empire. Of course none of these choices mean anything as long as the economy in Civ5 continues to operate along the lines mentioned. |
