So adjust your strategy for culture maximization. A strategy game is not supposed to give everyone everything at no cost.
Could this be referring to “free” policies you earn from building wonders? That’s how I read it. That’s a little different than forcing you to spend your culture immediately.
I don’t really like the expansions to Civ IV all that much. Warlords was OK, though I don’t really care whether I’m playing with it or not, and Beyond the Sword was a huge step backward. Corporations broke every design principle introduced in Civ IV, and espionage was mostly a new way for the AI to arbitrarily annoy the player.
So, no. I’m comparing Civ IV as it was first released to Civ V. Civ IV was a breath of fresh air, fixing every major problem in Civ III with no drawbacks. Civ V is like III - many innovations, but a ton of problems, particularly in the areas intended to curb rapid expansion.
You will find that you’re in a very, very small minority with that opinion. Most everyone else thinks that BtS was perhaps one of the best expansions of all time and rounded out Civ IV to the classic game it’s now considered. I remember Civ IV being a very good game, but with a number of ideas that seemed half-assed, unbalanced and with a number of technical issues. Which sounds a lot like Civ V… :)
I’d be very, very surprised if they were being that specific. The phrasing just says “social policies,” not “social policies you get from wonders.”
I can understand the negative reaction. I mostly play using strategies that depend on saving culture for later eras. But taken objectively, rather than going with my knee-jerk response, saving culture is an exploit. It’s as if you could save any hammers you didn’t immediately need in the ancient era for later. While I’d rarely save hammers for as long as I sometimes save culture, there are lots of times that I’d like to save hammers for a key breakthrough like Horseback Riding.
The social policy trees are definitely structured so the later ones are much stronger than the earlier ones. The opportunity cost of not having the relatively weak early social policies in place in the meantime generally is rather less than the difference in power between early and late game policies. +1 food in once city vs. +25% to production for all cities, for example.
I imagined it was that way because otherwise it would strike me as making a culture victory that much harder. You would almost have to finish out the early, underpowered trees as opposed to earning the better benefits later in the game. That would in turn make your empire that much less effective.
Mind you, I wouldn’t mind this approach because it creates more interesting choices for the player, but I’d be worried about any imbalance it would introduce and that strikes me as something that Firaxis is trying to reduce instead of increase.
KevinC
4127
I don’t see how it was an exploit per se considering I learned that you could skip choosing a policy then from Civ documentation. But the reason I don’t like it is because now I’d have to be gamey with culture, trying to avoid getting much of it until I’ve unlocked the trees I want.
Saving your policies already had a major downside since you were getting no benefit for potentially dozens or hundreds of turns.
Seriously? You think the upkeep model for corporations is good? If you’re playing with them on, corporation upkeep completely swamps the normal city / distance upkeep rules. It becomes the only important cost. Every other city upgrade is deliberately structured so there are no downsides to having it except the opportunity cost for spending the hammers. Adding a corporation to a city, on the other hand, can cost far, far more than it’s worth.
I remember Civ IV being a very good game, but with a number of ideas that seemed half-assed, unbalanced and with a number of technical issues. Which sounds a lot like Civ V… :)
Not even remotely close. Maybe you’re thinking of Civ III and its corruption and escalating happiness model for luxuries. Civ IV really didn’t have any “half assed ideas” as you put it. The most negative things you could say about it were that some combat units were unbalanced (a common problem in the series) and the AI wasn’t as strong as it would be later… though it was much, much stronger at release than the Civ V AI is. No one was beating the AI purely on economic terms at the hardest difficulty, which is the cornerstone of most Civ V deity strategies.
It doesn’t, really. I won my first culture victory without saving culture at all. Piety is fairly significant for a culture victory, and it unlocks with the Classical era, which you can reach around turn 40-50. Freedom is the other biggie, and that’s tougher to reach, but it’s not at all necessary to save culture to get it. Nor do you have to stay small, as is the conventional wisdom, since the increase in culture cost per city is linear. It’s only a matter of really focusing on culture once you’ve unlocked key technologies, particularly the +100% culture broadcast tower.
Saving culture is more of a keystone for strategies which are more abusive, like unlocking the entire Order center the moment you get to the Industrial age.
Two things today.
Civ V is currently the Black Monday lightning video game deal on Amazon. 40-percent off at the moment, but you can’t wait long.
The Mac version releases today, and Aspyr is going to announce the situation regarding steamplay and if you get it for free if you already own the PC version, or if there’s an upgrade free, or whether you have to buy it again if you want it on Mac.
And the Mac version is FREE if you own the PC version!
Release is actually tomorrow.
http://blog.gameagent.com/2010/11/22/civilization-v-mac-faqs-v3/
Very good news! Can’t wwait for the Mac version.
Any chance the patch will come with the latest update? (crosses fingers)
Demolira
4134
Unfortunately, the Mac version won’t be the same version as the current PC just yet.
Tony_M
4135
So whats the Steam policy on using the same game on 2 computers in one house? Can my sons Mac and my PC both be logged into steam at the same time under my name and both be playing Civ? Can we both be logged in on the same name playing different steam games?
Tony
tomchick
4136
Absolutely not. Steam is extremely hostile to LAN gaming unless you have separate accounts and have therefore separate copies of the game. In fact, IIRC, Steam was a major factor in Valve shutting down Counter-Strike as a viable LAN game.
-Tom
Squee
4137
Actually you might be able to if one/both machines have Steam in offline mode. I know it at least USED to work for Left 4 Dead 1, not sure if it would for Civ5 or not.
Some games it works just fine, others it doesn’t. Or so a little bird/Google search told me. I believe Tom is right, however - you can install games on as many PC’s of yours as you like, but the game should only be actively played on one at a time and on the technical side you can’t have two PC’s logged into Steam in online mode at the same time.
Tony_M
4139
I’m not even playing Civ right now. So theoretically I could have my son in offline mode playing civ while I play other games normally in online mode. Thats a better approximation to how I can use disc based games I buy at retail.
Tony
Yep. That’s exactly what goes on in my household.
