New Civilization 5 Expansion - Brave New World

[Sirian]

...but then you'd be off playing your own mod and not really Civ 5.

That might be overstating it. One balance tweak and it's not really the same game any more? I suppose that depends on how literal you are being.

The point seemed valid. If that one rule, alone, is crashing your fun, why not consider changing it? If it really made the difference, you'd be officially having fun on an unofficial version. That's legal in at least 48 states, so why not go for it?

- Sirian

[Azza]

BNW is on Steam sale at -75% for $7.50. I almost decided to pick it up for a couple runs, but then read back up in this thread and I think Sullla has covered it already. That city tech cost penalty in particular doesn't sound like something I want to play.

It's something to nerf the city spam of the AI moreso than something to discourage the human player from building more cities.

[T-hawk]

One balance tweak and it's not really the same game any more?

Well... yeah. I think you saw from my reports where I found fun in the game, as an optimization exercise for fastest finishes. That doesn't have any meaning compared to anyone else's experiences if I start altering rules to suit myself. Of coure I could still play on my own any way I like, but it's hollow to me without some kind of comparable benchmark (CFC HOF) to measure against.

I get what you're saying and it's certainly a valid point, but doesn't fit with what I'd be doing. Playing the unmodded standard rules really is integral to my purposes with the game. But you're right that don't take my preferences as projection onto anyone else who might enjoy the game with different rules.

[MJW (ya that one)]

I think the reason why 4-6 cities is the best strategy for fastest finish is due to a variety of issues and not because of the 5% science penalty. Until you get the very powerful ideologies going wide comes with too high a price with too little reward to keep up with tall. When you get access to the ideologies that would have changed that equation there's not enough time left in the game for the new cities to pay out if you are following the best strats.

I think the bigger problem is that good players tend only to play for fastest finish in this game and that will obviously limit the strats. The reason is that you can win on IMM 100% of the time by following the standard 4-6 strat with a little mirco but you cannot win on Deity 100% of the time because there's no way to stop some AI rushes. And if you cannot win 100% of the time you then gain the option of restarting everytime something goes wrong in the opening which makes it easy again. Just don't build military and reset everytime someone DoWs you. Not having to build a military will snowball you ahead. This looks strange but there's a good reason for it: If you sacrifice your snowball for safety that would increase your chances of winning by 5% or so but that pales in comparison of being slowed down by 100 turns or so. So this is actually just a simple case of the risk being worth the reward.