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I always hated city states in 5. I never felt comfortable killing them because of the diplomacy hit and happiness problems. I'd prefer a "minor nation" mechanic where the nations included have a couple cities but don't really expand and nobody cares that much if you steamroll them. Or you can trade with them early on before you meet any of the regular nations.
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Sep 29, 2017 03:23
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| # ? May 15, 2024 13:41 |
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In Civ games before 5 that role was filled by whichever civs drew an unlucky start location
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Sep 29, 2017 04:05
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A lot of issues can be solved by allowing vassalage
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Sep 29, 2017 04:09
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I've slagged a lot on Civ 5 lately, so let me list a few of the design decisions from 5 that I liked: 1) I liked the one tile at a time border expansion and Social Policies way culture is handled. (Not Tourism though, Tourism was a very clumsy way to handle offensive culture) 2) I really liked the concept of religions with customizable belief bonuses, even if they never quite got the balance right in practice. 3) I personally welcomed the end of ugly road spam. 4) Great Person tile improvements are better than super-specialists. 5) I think I'm in the minority about this, but I like the simplified espionage system much better than Civ 4's convoluted one. IMO the list of bad design decisions is both longer and more impactful, but they did get some things right, insofar as "right" equals "to my liking" 
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Sep 29, 2017 04:57
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Eric the Mauve posted:5) I think I'm in the minority about this, but I like the simplified espionage system much better than Civ 4's convoluted one. i preferred the macro of civ 5's espionage to the micro of civ 4's, but the AI eventually got vision on your capital city even if they never traded/embassied with you and then they'd attempt to steal a tech every 5-10 turns on marathon and that's just not ok
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Sep 29, 2017 05:10
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I think it's just a default setting for me to have the first spy sit in the capital base murdering enemy spies. Once he levels just once, it just turns into a massacre, and I'm glowing knowing that they're sending probably 100% of their spies to certain death and waste. After the constabulary they also kinda let off. I think the spy system is fine! Except coups in city-states for 100+ loyalty, holy poo poo is that bollocks.
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Sep 29, 2017 05:21
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Yeah but that traces back to the entire city-state system being badly designed bullshit so I'm willing to give the espionage part of that a pass. Also I agree that it gets tiresome having tech stolen from you almost every turn when you're in the tech lead, but since there's no tech trading in Civ 5 it's a kind of necessary rubber banding element. JeremoudCorbynejad posted:I love city-states and I love the quests. They always gave me something to do in Civ 5; they were a superb way to keep the player busy through all the eras. I'm just appending this post from near the bottom of the last page since it makes the pro-city-state argument and even wrong arguments deserve due airtime. 
Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Sep 29, 2017 |
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Sep 29, 2017 05:27
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Glass of Milk posted:I always hated city states in 5. I never felt comfortable killing them because of the diplomacy hit and happiness problems. Just play Imperialism/Imperialism 2 for that, though.
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Sep 29, 2017 11:48
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The White Dragon posted:i preferred the macro of civ 5's espionage to the micro of civ 4's, but the AI eventually got vision on your capital city even if they never traded/embassied with you and then they'd attempt to steal a tech every 5-10 turns on marathon and that's just not ok I've been playing Civ 4 again, and I don't remember the espionage system being so miserable. I feel like I was getting cottages blown up every couple turns and couldn't really figure out a way to stop the attacks. Am I supposed to plant spies in all my own cities? I don't remember struggling with this back in the day.
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Sep 29, 2017 14:42
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How do I get a civ to declare an alliance with me without them asking first?
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Sep 29, 2017 15:01
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Glass of Milk posted:I always hated city states in 5. I never felt comfortable killing them because of the diplomacy hit and happiness problems. honestly if you want something like that then the way Civ4 does it would probably be the way to go. If you leave barbs alone long enough they'll start forming cities. Like, if you play an islands game you can generally find an island or two where the barbs have 3-4 cities with roads and improvements and infrastructure. You would basically have the game say that, hey, this collection of cities is large enough and close enough together that it could form its own civ.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:07
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All the bullshit espionage stuff in 4 came from Jon Schafer and his awful BTS expac. Basically anything that might piss you off in 4 comes from that (colonial maintenance, apostolic palace, espionage etc). Vanilla 4's espionage was way better since you were limited to 3 spies at a time and could only have them in the late industrial. It really gets me because the designers of 4 made a concerted effort to remove 'unfun' gameplay elements from 3. Civ3 had a pollution mechanic that showed up in the late game, where certain tiles would get covered by pollution and become useless, and the only cure was to spend worker turns removing it. So you spent the late game playing whackamole moving workers around. Its insane to me that, even now, in Civ6, that awful whackamole bullshit is STILL in the game, with my improvements getting blown up every 5th turn by enemy spies, no matter what resources I throw at just defending myself.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:16
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I'm still surprised they took out the maturing towns function. They did a great job of making cities feel...big.
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Sep 29, 2017 15:25
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Borsche69 posted:If you leave barbs alone long enough they'll start forming cities typically these show up one tile away from the planned city location you've got a settler/archer pair reaching next turn
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Sep 29, 2017 15:33
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Eric the Mauve posted:I'm just appending this post from near the bottom of the last page since it makes the pro-city-state argument and even wrong arguments deserve due airtime. Lol, why thank you You highlighted the one big thing i hate about city-states - that god drat unit shuffle. It's terrible enough without unit animations on but when they're on it's the worst thing ever and it probably contributes to a substantial portion of the waiting time in any given game. They don't even need to shuffle their bloody units unless they've got poo poo To Do, why can't they just fortify? Ideally all the city-states would process their tile yields and other poo poo all at the same time, unless they're in a war. I see no reason otherwise. Just another unticked box on the "is this optimised" checklist for Civ5 I guess.
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Sep 29, 2017 19:49
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Fintilgin posted:I've been playing Civ 4 again, and I don't remember the espionage system being so miserable. I feel like I was getting cottages blown up every couple turns and couldn't really figure out a way to stop the attacks. Am I supposed to plant spies in all my own cities? I don't remember struggling with this back in the day. espionage in civ4 was, iirc, based on a ratio of your espionage points::enemy civ's espionage points. the greater the ratio, the more it cost them to conduct a single action. the EP you generate is divided among every civ to your specifications, by default equally among every enemy. this means that maybe you generate like 600EP/turn, but then you have your world power civs who generate... well, less. the AI is tremendously bad at synergizing its EP sources, and the game is kind of lacking in them anyway, so let's say maybe 200-300/turn, and then you have your vassal-tier civs who generate fuckin 10 right. for the sake of example, let's say there are six rival civs left, including your favorite "city-states" with only two or three cities while the world powers ice them out with one or two dozen right. the problem is, by default, you're dedicating 1/6 of your 600EP to the losers while the world powers are dedicating ALL their EP to you and completely ignoring the poo poo-tier guys, so you gotta manually manage your distribution weight so 95% of your EP goes to keeping your espionage ratio high against actually dangerous rivals instead of dedicating 100EP/turn to the 2EP that fuckboy hannibal produces from his one courthouse in his one city (ok 3, +50% scotland yard bonus from his one great spy lol). you can only maintain a certain number of spies at once, so i'm not sure how well you can keep them on patrol right. this is one of those "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" scenarios, so the best way to keep the AI from fuckin with you is to have a high diplo score so they don't pour as many of their EPs into keeping tabs on you
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Sep 29, 2017 20:08
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The White Dragon posted:espionage in civ4 was, iirc, based on a ratio of your espionage points::enemy civ's espionage points. the greater the ratio, the more it cost them to conduct a single action. the EP you generate is divided among every civ to your specifications, by default equally among every enemy. this means that maybe you generate like 600EP/turn, but then you have your world power civs who generate... well, less. the AI is tremendously bad at synergizing its EP sources, and the game is kind of lacking in them anyway, so let's say maybe 200-300/turn, and then you have your vassal-tier civs who generate fuckin 10 right. Yeah, I mean part of the problem was my own drat fault that I forgot I could even allocate income to espionage. Then I was like... is 10% enough... 20%? It's weird, because I remember playing a lot of Civ4 with expansions, but I don't remember this system at all. Must be a repressed memory.
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Sep 29, 2017 20:13
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Fintilgin posted:Yeah, I mean part of the problem was my own drat fault that I forgot I could even allocate income to espionage. Then I was like... is 10% enough... 20%? It's weird, because I remember playing a lot of Civ4 with expansions, but I don't remember this system at all. Must be a repressed memory. I saw a guy work out a strategy where he basically researched nothing once espionage became available and just stole and traded for tech from then on.
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Sep 29, 2017 21:15
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Playing with espionage turned off in Civ 4 or cheating yourself a couple great spies at the beginning of the game so you don't have to supermicro it later are both valid options IMO.
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Sep 29, 2017 21:34
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Yeah I remember the espionage economy setup. Unfortunately you're always behind the curve (by necessity) when it comes to techs.
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Sep 29, 2017 21:36
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Eric the Mauve posted:Playing with espionage turned off in Civ 4 or cheating yourself a couple great spies at the beginning of the game so you don't have to supermicro it later are both valid options IMO. Oh, is there a switch to turn it off? Maybe that's why I don't remember it. 
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Sep 29, 2017 22:47
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Trivia posted:Yeah I remember the espionage economy setup. Unfortunately you're always behind the curve (by necessity) when it comes to techs. Not necessarily. With tech trading you can be the most advanced civ in the game without researching a single thing.
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Sep 29, 2017 23:05
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Fintilgin posted:Oh, is there a switch to turn it off? Maybe that's why I don't remember it. there is! it's an advanced setup option and it converts all EP into culture.
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Sep 29, 2017 23:31
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Yeah I played all of one half game with espionage in BtS before turning it off. I remember Soren and Schafer describing it as one of those mechanics devs feel obligated to shoe-horn in even though it's always awful.
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Sep 29, 2017 23:41
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Fuligin posted:Yeah I played all of one half game with espionage in BtS before turning it off. I remember Soren and Schafer describing it as one of those mechanics devs feel obligated to shoe-horn in even though it's always awful. I must have done the same. Even the UI didn't seem familiar, and I was picking everything else back up pretty quick.
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Sep 29, 2017 23:47
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Fuligin posted:I remember Soren and Schafer describing it as one of those mechanics devs feel obligated to shoe-horn in even though it's always awful. Ja, on this podcast. Anyone interested in Civ should probably listen to that one.
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Sep 29, 2017 23:49
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Gort posted:Not necessarily. With tech trading you can be the most advanced civ in the game without researching a single thing. I get what you mean, but stealing techs requires someone else to have it first.
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Sep 30, 2017 00:31
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Trivia posted:I'm still surprised they took out the maturing towns function. They did a great job of making cities feel...big. I was so surprised when Civ5 didn't have this, I just can't work out why they'd take out something that made it feel more real.
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Sep 30, 2017 08:37
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I also loved the cottages. It was a great thing to see them grow as time went on and you worked them. Man... I really love Civ IV. What a great game it is. I just tried playing Montezuma in Civ VI for the first time. Man... he feels pretty drat overpowered (I mean, many other civs are as well of course). Just poo poo out Eagle Warriors right from the start and go murdering everything in your path. Given his bonus to amenities, as well as the fact that you'll be getting a ton of workers from vanquishing enemies, you can just keep going for a really long time.
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Sep 30, 2017 22:58
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I think "city states as engine of cold-war shenanigans" is more relevant in multiplayer. Yeah, rump 3-city empires can serve that purpose in SP, but in MP they are much less likely to give away enough to make it worth keeping them alive and more likely to shout "from hell's heart I stab at thee!" Unless, that is, you put AIs in some of your valuable player slots. Then you have to deal with AI diplomacy and the aggravations it causes, possibly to the extent of determining games on random diplo rolls. Better to have a simplified and entirely predictable set of rules for your 'junior partners'.
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Sep 30, 2017 23:45
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silvergoose posted:Just play Imperialism/Imperialism 2 for that, though. God drat the second one is 18 years old. It was my go to for many years for dosbox on my work PC. Borsche69 posted:honestly if you want something like that then the way Civ4 does it would probably be the way to go. If you leave barbs alone long enough they'll start forming cities. Like, if you play an islands game you can generally find an island or two where the barbs have 3-4 cities with roads and improvements and infrastructure. You would basically have the game say that, hey, this collection of cities is large enough and close enough together that it could form its own civ. Sure, but I'm talking about codifying that mechanic into the game with actual civs. And there's no guarantee that you'll find that in Civ 4 anyways. By the time you discover the island nation of pirates it's usually not worth it to fight them. I just kind of hate the city state mechanics as a diplomatic endgame anyways. In V it just felt like you were buying friends, especially if you were going for a diplo victory. In VI the bonuses really seem to lend themselves to spreading your envoys or whatever around and only focusing on some when you're in a tug of war with another major civ. It doesn't really help that they're shoehorned into categories of resources they provide. I feel like it should feel like the city states/minor nations have differing value in the world beyond whatever resource they provide. Sort of like, "Hey we care more about what Canada has to say than Liberia." Maybe Canada has more cities, a great port and/or a bigger army or a special resource or something, but are otherwise relatively static. You want to make an alliance with Canada more than Liberia, which is a bit more dynamic and interesting than, "I'm focusing on religious city states so I can pump out missionaries."
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Oct 1, 2017 01:32
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Glass of Milk posted:God drat the second one is 18 years old. It was my go to for many years for dosbox on my work PC. And I still install it and play it every couple years at least. It's on GoG!
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Oct 1, 2017 15:49
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silvergoose posted:And I still install it and play it every couple years at least. It's on GoG! Imperialism 2 especially has a ton of forward-thinking design decisions. You can click on unit portraits to center the screen on them, toggling through menus is intuitive and you can get relevant info at a few clicks, and it's all easy to understand. It's remarkably playable for a nearly twenty year old game. I remember a podcast where Reynolds called it a "road not traveled down" for 4X games.
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Oct 1, 2017 17:11
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Triskelli posted:Imperialism 2 especially has a ton of forward-thinking design decisions. You can click on unit portraits to center the screen on them, toggling through menus is intuitive and you can get relevant info at a few clicks, and it's all easy to understand. It's remarkably playable for a nearly twenty year old game. I remember a podcast where Reynolds called it a "road not traveled down" for 4X games. Huh. I'm following his let's play the experts twilight struggle thread, sounds like I can ask him about imp 2. 
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Oct 1, 2017 18:45
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Borsche69 posted:All the bullshit espionage stuff in 4 came from Jon Schafer and his awful BTS expac. Basically anything that might piss you off in 4 comes from that (colonial maintenance, apostolic palace, espionage etc). Vanilla 4's espionage was way better since you were limited to 3 spies at a time and could only have them in the late industrial. i played a game with vassal states on just recently boy was that a mistake
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Oct 1, 2017 19:00
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Glass of Milk posted:I feel like it should feel like the city states/minor nations have differing value in the world beyond whatever resource they provide. Sort of like, "Hey we care more about what Canada has to say than Liberia." Maybe Canada has more cities, a great port and/or a bigger army or a special resource or something, but are otherwise relatively static. You want to make an alliance with Canada more than Liberia, which is a bit more dynamic and interesting than, "I'm focusing on religious city states so I can pump out missionaries." With both 5 and 6 the whole game feels more like a game. City States and the AI "playing to win" sort of take me out of it all and it doesn't work as well.
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Oct 2, 2017 08:16
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Prav posted:i played a game with vassal states on just recently iirc vassal states is from warlords
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Oct 2, 2017 08:22
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Disable Espionage, one of the best Civ5 options.
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Oct 2, 2017 10:58
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Tahirovic posted:Disable Espionage, one of the best Civ5 options. That just makes science even more overpowered.
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Oct 2, 2017 11:18
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| # ? May 15, 2024 13:41 |
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Science has always been overpowered, all the way since Civ 1, and there really is no way to make it otherwise. Civ 5 doing away with tradeoffs and just making everything add stuff without ever subtracting anything (i.e. no more sliders) kind of exacerbated the problem though.
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Oct 2, 2017 14:19
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