ICS in Civ V

[Socrates]

Speaking of ICS : LOLZ

A few posts further in that thread, Sullla nails the coffin a little more : nail

I'm really starting to wonder WTF is going on. It seems the devs and the testing squad completely failed for Civ5.
On a sidenote, remember that, if I'm not mistaken, Jon Shafer, lead designer on Civ5, was a thinking head in one of the teams in the mythical Civ3 inter-site MP game (known as Trip).

[ProPain]

Originally Posted by Socrates

On a sidenote, remember that, if I'm not mistaken, Jon Shafer, lead designer on Civ5, was a thinking head in one of the teams in the mythical Civ3 inter-site MP game (known as Trip).

You're not mistaken

Good players are not automatically good designers

[akots]

I don't see anything wrong with ICS personally. Except that it is boring to play if you need a good result, like for example, a GOTM competition.

Overall, IMO, Civ5 is a nice game but the replay value is mediocre. But I said same thing about Civ3 prior to decent patches came out and about Civ4 up until Warlords came out and patches were introduced to make it playable.

However, Sulla is right about low activity of the forums and in multiplayer which is essentially unplayable at this stage.

THe worst thing which might happen is that Firaxis goes bankrupt and there would be no patches or addons to correct all the bugs and glitches.

[akots]

Trip was, is and will remain a thick dolt.

[socralynnek]

I also didn't own Civ4 when it came out (I think, it was 3 months in until I got it)

But I remember much more positive feedback, especially by top players. It was quite ok, already after the first patch.

OK, maybe if they didn't have steam, then they wouldn't have sent more than one patch out, but it seems like they need a lot more patches than in Civ3 to have a nice game.

I don't mind the occasional falw in game design. E.g. RCP in original Civ3 up to PTW still offered enough challenging decisions on where to place cities and how set up rings. But removing it made the game like one level harder (or let's say, the AI was a level stronger w.r.t. the game mechanics)

Sure, it might be worth waiting for the first expansion or some more patches, as probably there is a lot that can be tweaked (and e.g. if they do have proper code, they might replace happiness caps with Civ4 like maintenance or something like that)

Bottom line: Two months after Civ4 came out, I couldn't wait getting it in my hands and getting a new machine to handle it properly. Just from reading the feedbac and strategic articels in the forums. Now I feel, like I have a ot of time switching to the new version (hey, and if they don't make significant improvements, then I'll just wait for Civ6 when Sid, Soren, Sulla and PP will design the game, with Mistfit doing the graphics)

[Darkness]

Originally Posted by akots

Trip was, is and will remain a thick dolt.

In that MP game, to me he came across as a very good player, though his people skills sucked. Look up the dictionary for "pedantic" and "arrogant" and you'll find a picture of him.

I agree with akots' other post though. Civ V is a nice enough game, but I also feel there's a distinct lack of replay value. And right now, any competitive game (whether that be MP or a GOTM-like competition) is ridiculously flawed due to major unbalances in game design.


But from what I've read from Sullla so far, I can't escape the notion that he has some kind of bone to pick with either the game or the designers. The tone and trend of his posts just don't feel like he's really got an entirely open mind about Civ V... I may be wrong though...

[ProPain]

[quote=akots;129938]I don't see anything wrong with ICS personally. Except that it is boring to play if you need a good result, like for example, a GOTM competition.
...
However, Sulla is right about low activity of the forums and in multiplayer which is essentially unplayable at this stage.
[\QUOTE]

I totally agree nothing is wrong with ICS, it's been a core Civ strat ever since Civ I (where you could just build cities right next to each other iirc). I do think Civ V game mechanics power ICS too much as there really is no decent countering effect to spamming cities at all like maintenance/corruption did. Well apart from boredom that is.

The fact that the forum & competitive community isn't really warming up to the game should worry Fir/2k. In the end they are the ones carrying the game and providing replayability and feedback. I think losing them will seriously hurt a civ VI.

Originally Posted by socralynnek

(hey, and if they don't make significant improvements, then I'll just wait for Civ6 when Sid, Soren, Sulla and PP will design the game, with Mistfit doing the graphics)

Lol, think it would be much better if I won't be involved to mess things up. There's no civ game designer in me.

Originally Posted by Darkness

But from what I've read from Sullla so far, I can't escape the notion that he has some kind of bone to pick with either the game or the designers. The tone and trend of his posts just don't feel like he's really got an entirely open mind about Civ V... I may be wrong though...

Garee with that, he seems to do a fair bit of civ developer bashing. No need for that. But apart from that I do think he has some valid points about the game design.

[Beam]

Originally Posted by socralynnek

I also didn't own Civ4 when it came out (I think, it was 3 months in until I got it)

But I remember much more positive feedback, especially by top players. It was quite ok, already after the first patch.

OK, maybe if they didn't have steam, then they wouldn't have sent more than one patch out, but it seems like they need a lot more patches than in Civ3 to have a nice game.

I don't mind the occasional falw in game design. E.g. RCP in original Civ3 up to PTW still offered enough challenging decisions on where to place cities and how set up rings. But removing it made the game like one level harder (or let's say, the AI was a level stronger w.r.t. the game mechanics)

Sure, it might be worth waiting for the first expansion or some more patches, as probably there is a lot that can be tweaked (and e.g. if they do have proper code, they might replace happiness caps with Civ4 like maintenance or something like that)

Bottom line: Two months after Civ4 came out, I couldn't wait getting it in my hands and getting a new machine to handle it properly. Just from reading the feedbac and strategic articels in the forums. Now I feel, like I have a ot of time switching to the new version (hey, and if they don't make significant improvements, then I'll just wait for Civ6 when Sid, Soren, Sulla and PP will design the game, with Mistfit doing the graphics)

Imo the graphics in Civ5 are pretty good. If only the rest of the game was at least that good.

[Shabbaman]

Originally Posted by akots

However, Sulla is right about low activity of the forums

Well, for CDZ standards the game seems to be generating a lot of traffic. At least there are more posts on civ5 strategy than on civ4 over the past few years. And don't forget that civ4 was a slow starter as well (proof). Personally I think the game is enjoyable, and if you play without city states (and without city bombardment) I think 1 UPT will make for very interesting multiplayer games. As for single player, AI behaviour is easily patched. If the AI has maritime CS as it's highest priority, the current basic strategy is unusable (well, I mean buying maritime CS, not conquering your neighbours with just 3 units, that seems rather unfixable).

There's a point to be made that the game is too easy (with me playing on Deity as proof...), but only 4% of the (paying) players have beaten king and under 1% has beaten immortal or deity. It might be a very vocal part of the community that claims that the game is so easy, yet with all this information available from the likes of Sulla there are very little (paying) players able to reproduce it.

Now, I'm explicitly mentioning "paying" players, because in the end I doubt Firaxis will give a rat's ass about pirates claiming the game is too easy. If the percentages for king were higher, I'd be worried. But it's not. People are dumber than we think. But, unfortunately, there's no depth in the game. OK, I'm not a complete retard and I have some serious civ baggage, but if I'm beating this game without much effort then there's something seriously wrong.

Or.

Seriously good? Because apparently the core mechanics are very understandable for a long time civ player, yet the game has changed a lot. But still, calculating everything in gold (instead of, dunno, hammers that carry over from previous turns) doesn't make a complex game. But civ4 isn't the shining example of complexity. At least civ3 had some serious broken stuff that could be exploited (like RCP), but I guess that wasn't added intentionally but was rather sloppy programming. Civ4 got complex because of the added layers like espionage and religion, but in itself the game was easy compared to previous versions.

But civ5 is intrinsically flawed. For example, the AI's inability to fight. Perhaps this is also fixable by AI preferences (for instance: more weight on flanking bonuses?), but it doesn't seem like that to me. Even ICS seems fixable by lowering city tile production and lowering trade network income. Where it goes wrong is that cities aren't a drain on your treasury. There's no corruption. Instead, you just get a boatload of puppets (or ICS, apparently), and the only drain is on happiness. And the worst part: the AI values happiness, so puppets will build happiness buildings automatically. This also prevents the AI to go ICS on your ass. But who cares about happiness, as long as you don't get too deep into unhapiness (<10 iirc) there's not a real penalty. Civ5 is too light on penalties (for instance: no more oil? Oh, keep your bombers, you'll just run at -1 oil for the rest of the game), but this also seems tweakable. The core mechanic, calculating everything in gold, that's what makes the game easy.

[Darkness]

The AI just can't deal with combat in Civ V. IMO that's the main reason why people claim it is too easy. In older versions (III and IV specifically) at higher levels the AI could "compensate" for it's lack of a real strategy thought by making huge stacks (>100 on deity was not an exception for me). With the 1-unit-per-tile (1upt) rule in Civ V the AI's main coping mechanism for lack of strategy has been taken away, and that makes them significantly weaker than in previous versions.

That said, I do like the 1upt rule. It makes positioning your units much more important. Running huge stacks into enemy lands is not really a challenge, whereas 1upt strategy and movement is. But the AI needs some serious improvement to get it to work. One of the main flaws is that once an Ai decides to attack, it keeps no forces in reserve and attacks with everything its got. So if you defeat that, basically they have zero defense remaining...