I played on a huge map with two large continents and it had the most wild time of battles and cities everywhere. By the end, there were only four civs left (it was a time-out loss for me, coming in second in points on Prince; the winner was Arabia who had conquered the entire other continent and all city states over there). Too, there might have been only a few tiles left outside any borders, mostly snow areas and spots with no resources.
I suppose I’m surprised that people are finding so much of the world left outside a border, even on huge maps. I would like it to be the other way around, but the AI seems to be a land grabber if I don’t block their expansion.
FWIW, both of the primary economy mods (Economy Mod and Balance Economy Mod) address this very nicely, by accelerating construction and other aspects and slowly science. That means in Epic and Marathon games you get to really enjoy the various eras of technology instead of just racing to mechanized infantry.
-Weak food resources, which are no better than regular farms.
To some extent, this has also been dealt with in the economy mods, to the point where Fish and wheat on a river become fairly useful. I still think food is underemphasized in the game relative to luxury resources, but then I feel that way about strategic resources getting the shaft as well.
-luxury resources which are not scaling on larger maps. 15x5 happiness is a lot an a small map, but little on a huge map.
I think luxury scales a lot better than culture, since happiness requirements don’t really increase at the same accelerated pace. Culture pretty much requires relatively few real cities and either ignoring expansion or puppeting entire empires in order to keep it in check, and even then it’s best to build the wonders that cut its costs quickly and target those social policies. Happiness, on the other hand, can really be tilted significantly by a single theater or wonder even in the late game on huge maps (as the difference between -14 and -9 is substantial, to say the least).
Overall, though, I’d say luxuries are overpowered relative to other resources. It’s ridiculous that I’m better off in a military sense (since money is the fastest way to get powerful) starting with cotton and marble than iron and coal, even in an industrial age game.
Looking at the world realistically, isn’t it also jarring for you that civilizations in the game compete to be the sole “winner”. Because if you accept that as reasonable, then you also have to accept that they are going to try to stop you winning, even if that behaviour doesn’t reflect the real world.
I guess it’s because Civilization isn’t a simulation of the real world, it just abstracts some elements of it to make for a game where several players compete to win.
By the end of the game with railroads hooked up, you can produce things quite quickly. Perhaps bringing down the bast cost for most buildings by 10% or so would work, but I think anything faster would be too fast during the endgame.
Yeah, this should be tweaked.
Agree this should be tweaked at some point so that sheep and similar resources can give a +2 in food.
It’s still possible to have many well-developed cities. I’ve done it a number of times, though it takes smart planning and a bit of luck to get a diverse enough selection of luxury resources.
I think one of the main things they could do for both happiness and empire size is to increase the happiness you get from buildings. Rather than adjust resources, pump up the happiness you get from buildings (ex. adding happiness to temples) at the same time increasing the monthly cost of those buildings. That way, they can suck out excess gold out of the game all the while reducing how much happiness limits empire size.
Hi, does this include addressing the problems with using AI players in mutli-player games?
Currently if any slot is run by AI in MP, that AI player never contacts you or any other human player. (I’ve never had them ask for a trade or secrecy/corporation pact which happens every few turns in SP). And the AI just seems to perform weaker than in SP. (In SP games I’m always mid level in terms of points, but same settings MP game with just AI I’m always on the top of points with almost double the highest AI). Judging by posts at civfanatics and the 2K forums, I am not the only one experiencing this. Also, once you fix the contact problem, the option to have animated AI leaderheads in MP would be nice, but not required.
I know fixing AI slots in MP may not seem like a priority to many, but I almost play exclusively MP games with my friends vs a bunch of AI and I’m sure a lot of players do this as well. Not to mention sometimes a friend has to leave or drops, or you simply can’t find enough human players for all the slots and you have to use an AI.
Besides that, thanks for the great game and glad to hear you are busy working to improve it.
KevinC
3686
Speaking of AI in MP, why is it that the game squawks if you have 8 AI in a huge map in MP, yet defaults to 12 in SP?
Quitch
3687
This is going to seem really fussy, but I’d like Prince to be made a “fair” AI level. IMO, there should always be one AI level where the playing field is level.
Hmm, I haven’t had a chance to play in awhile and last night tried out DX 10/11 version after upgrading my system a bit (moving to a GTS 450 and 4GB of RAM), then turning up the graphic options, seems to work fairly well now. Am definitely not afraid to use it anymore.
The loading-while-intro delay/skip thing still bugs me though…
— Alan
Quitch
3689
Well, it’d be nice if it told you what it was doing, but it beats sitting on a loading screen.
Thanks for the update, the save games files are still disgustingly huge and crash the game upon a reload… which is less than fun.
dexters
3691
Hiya Jon,
We’re overjoyed over at the civfanatics forum to finally hear from you post launch and to get some details on what is to come in the 1st patch. But also saddened this wasn’t communicated to anyone in the ‘rabid’ fan community. Actually there’s been zero official presence at CFC since release, at least outside the tech help forum.
You touched on diplomacy,happiness,AI bonuses/cheating on your previous posts. I’d like to clarify on a few points.
Will:
-
Puppet State AI be fixed so they don’t build the whole military line /defensive buildings which become a serious drain on our treasury ?
-
Deficits appear to be common in this game, even with successful empires. As you touched on extensively, AIs get no special bonuses here at prince. But implied they get help with puppets and maintenance at higher difficulty.
Will you or your team revisit the gold/commerce issue. Because human players also need help. It appears the commercial line of buildings and the commercial policy path is way underpowered in this game.
I recently had an island start on King difficulty, so every city on my island continent were mine. I eschewed military buildings save for 2 military cities and avoided defensive buildings entirely (walls/castles) and did not build stables. And yet by the modern era, I ran into deficits. I exited one golden age with -140 gpt.
I did have about 9 military units and 9 workers. which I quickly disbanded as much as I could. But that only closed the gap. I did not enjoy the +30-70 gpt I had been enjoying for most of the first 3rd of the game again. The late game feels like its about running out the clock before your treasury runs out, and popping golden ages. I don’t like that. It doesn’t feel like a sustainable empire to me. It feels like (for their cost) Stock exchanges needs a boost and maybe there needs to be a modern era boost to trading posts. This avoids adding buildings to an already taxed production game
One observation I have is that the game seems to discourage players from building ‘everything’ helpful to them which is usually the science/culture brand plus a windmill/factory and granaries/watermill. This doesn’t make sense as most players would still want to build up the science/culture branches (can’t have too much of science or culture)
Lastly, one of the most common complaints with the AI is that it doesn’t know how to handle its ranged units properly. This is most obvious with city states, which likes to build 1 ranged 1 defensive units. In times of war, they parade their ranged units out into the field (when the enemy is closing in-- so its not like they are moving out to attack) where they are usually killed off. And it doesn’t even require a human player to do this. A city state defending against and AI attack will do the same thing, with the same result. Ranged unit die within the opening moves, and their defensive capability drop. I assume the same AI algorithm applies to the ranged units being controlled by the non-city state players as well.
Strato
3692
The loading thing did annoy me at first, not so much because of the load time, but rather because it was that same video which was hiding whatever was happening in the background. Purely psychological of course.
However, if the April Fools joke for Civ V made it as a ad hoc loading screen, then I would be much happier
A man can dream… to sleep I go!
I hope you are working on the load times!
Enjoying the game…
DeepT
3694
I would actual like Food to be a global resource. Take Rome for example. This city was famous for its demands upon the empire for food. There are many examples of this in history.
razarok
3696
An interesting point. In contrast I would want happiness to be localized.
Yes, that city you just sieged for a few and partially destroyed in the process probably has some unhappy citizens, but why should this affect the rest of my empire?
Quitch
3697
Are map sizes weighted when set to random? I seem to always end up on a small map.
How about these modifications?
[ul]
[li]Keep food independent until you build a road between the cities (at which point any connected cities share)
[/li][li]Keep happiness independent with some global modifers until you get some more advanced technology (such as electricity) for quick communication between cities.
[/li][/ul]I’m not sure how either of those would wind up working, but at first glance they seem better than the current all-or-none approach being used.
Mitya
3699
SMAC had supply carriers, which I never used extensively but came in handy occasionally for boosting up a city temporarily. Rather than connecting with roads and having things automatically click in, I could see something like that being added, though with the option for automation. It would allow for disruption in war, and hijacking the caravans through espionage.
jfletch
3700
I read through some of the Civ V thread at NeoGAF and it was startling - it looks like they are firmly on the other side of the “Chick Parabola.” Well, I plan to get a new PC next year and hopefully it’s fixed up by then.
