# Civ 5, just one more turn...



## Phaezen (Jul 9, 2010)

Anyone else looking forward to the new Civilisations game, or is it just me?

They announced the special edition game today, which includes 5 Reaper Minis.  Can't see them too clearly, but there appears to be a knight, a samurai, a modern soldier, a mech and a ????


----------



## UngainlyTitan (Jul 9, 2010)

Oh I'm lookign forward to it as well.


----------



## Merkuri (Jul 10, 2010)

Very much looking forward to it.  I haven't played Civ 4 in a while, but it's one of those games I never take out of my quick launch because I keep coming back to it.  Each Civ game has been such an improvement on the last that I find myself unable to satisfactorily go back to an earlier copy, so I'm eagerly waiting to see what sort of nifty stuff they do for this one.


----------



## LightPhoenix (Jul 10, 2010)

I can't wait for it to come out.  I think I'm more excited about Civ5 than I am for Starcraft 2.  Here's hoping it doesn't get pushed back too much.

Also, I think the mystery mini (lowest one) looks a bit like a Zulu soldier... I forget what they're called.


----------



## cignus_pfaccari (Jul 10, 2010)

We'll see.  I'm not too enthused about it.

This may be my inner grognard talking, but archers shooting two hexes pretty much breaks it for me.  If it were on some sort of battlefield, that's fine, but when one hex is several hundred miles?  That seems excessive.

Brad


----------



## Pbartender (Jul 11, 2010)

Phaezen said:


> Can't see them too clearly, but there appears to be a knight, a samurai, a modern soldier, a mech and a ????




From left to right, to me they look like:

A knight with a mace, a modern soldier, a battle mech, a samurai with a musket, and a roman legionary (albeit with a rather long sword and a rather small shield).


----------



## John Crichton (Jul 12, 2010)

Hell yes.  Will be picking this up as soon as it's available.  Been playing the heck outa Civ IV lately!  

The changes sounds VERY interesting.


----------



## SKyOdin (Jul 13, 2010)

I'm going to wait and see what the finished game looks like. I am not too keen on some of the changes that have been mentioned. While archers shooting two squares doesn't bother me, many of the possible changes to religion and so on are making me wary.

So, I am curious, but skeptical and undecided.


----------



## Shag (Jul 16, 2010)

Well since they basically took 2 of my favourite games and mashed them together.  Panzer General+Civ.  How can I loose?


----------



## xmanii (Jul 18, 2010)

I can't wait myself...

I seem to remember reading somewhere that they plan on making a facebook application as well. That would be cool, if done right.


----------



## John Crichton (Sep 24, 2010)

Loving it so far.


----------



## Serra (Sep 24, 2010)

I like Civ. I'm going to buy my copy in the next day or two here.


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat (Sep 24, 2010)

Barring catastrophe I will be buying it today and playing it when I should be preparing for a D&D 3.5 game I'm supposed to be running.


----------



## DMFTodd (Sep 24, 2010)

How long does it take to play a game on the new version? Is it still the 20+ hour  marathon?


----------



## LightPhoenix (Sep 24, 2010)

It depends on what you're doing and the setting you choose, but overall game-times are generally shorter.  I did a standard-time game going for a cultural victory with minimal cities and military in about three and a half hours game time.  However, that's a minimal time; most of my turns were allocating production, placating other civs with gifts, and hitting "Next Turn."

As an aside, I picked France for the strategy, which seemed like a decent choice (bonus culture for each city).  However, thinking it over, as France I would have been better off going culture/military and puppet-ing conquered cities early off.  Also, pursuing the city-states is fairly beneficial, and I would have been able to do that more.


----------



## Felon (Sep 24, 2010)

SKyOdin said:


> I'm going to wait and see what the finished game looks like. I am not too keen on some of the changes that have been mentioned. While archers shooting two squares doesn't bother me, many of the possible changes to religion and so on are making me wary.
> 
> So, I am curious, but skeptical and undecided.



Well, religion is still present, it's just been collapsed into the Policies system, along with governments.

I would say that mechanic works well, It essentially functions like a tech tree, except that some policies are incompatible with others. There are many policies and their benefits are good, but not as dramatic as shifts in government or religion as in previous editions.

In general, most improvements in the game--great persons, wonders, unit upgrades, etc--seem to have to struck this balance pretty well. 

There are some things that are troublesome. No espionage is a real letdown. If a player's running away with the game, and you can't acquire allies to gang up on him with, more often than not you won't regain the lead. I understand that many people simply dislike espionage in these sort of games for a few different reasons, as it is typically not well-implemented, but espionage is a tool for mitigating the snowball effect, or rather should be. 

Also, as far as I can tell, you can't delete buildings that you've constructed. Just stuck paying maintenance forever. 

I also can't seem to figure out how to locate discovered resources that I can't spot a glance. May not be a way. Troublesome once the empire starts to sprawl. 

I've been playing the same game since Tuesday night. I believe I'm on year 2010 now, so it's almost over. Heard that the AI was very belligerent, but nobody ever declared war on me no matter how much I provoked. I amassed along their borders, I culture-bombed, jumped primo territory, and I insulted them. No war. Of course, I did have the snowball effect in place early on.

How about you guys?


----------



## John Crichton (Sep 25, 2010)

DMFTodd said:


> How long does it take to play a game on the new version? Is it still the 20+ hour  marathon?



Only if you want it to be.  Just like in Civ IV there are settings to make the game shorter or longer.


----------



## Felon (Sep 25, 2010)

Wow, I just noticed it's a quarter 'til seven in the AM! I played all night and didn't even stop to eat.

This game is evil.

Btw, I realize now that when I jumped into my previous game, it was on the easiest setting. On the normal setting, with random leaders and lands, it was much rougher. Japan basically attacked constantly, while the Aztecs were off on another continent with nobody to impede their progress but the putzes in Siam. Needless, it was another snowball effect.


----------



## LightPhoenix (Sep 25, 2010)

Felon said:


> Well, religion is still present, it's just been collapsed into the Policies system, along with governments.
> 
> I would say that mechanic works well, It essentially functions like a tech tree, except that some policies are incompatible with others. There are many policies and their benefits are good, but not as dramatic as shifts in government or religion as in previous editions.




I agree, I think the Social Policy idea is probably the best innovation of Civ 5.  I think some of the policies could use some tweaking (Piety, for one) to bring them a little more in balance.  Still, it's an excellent idea.



> I also can't seem to figure out how to locate discovered resources that I can't spot a glance. May not be a way. Troublesome once the empire starts to sprawl.




If you hit 'R', it will pop up icons with the resources on each tile.



> I've been playing the same game since Tuesday night. I believe I'm on year 2010 now, so it's almost over. Heard that the AI was very belligerent, but nobody ever declared war on me no matter how much I provoked. I amassed along their borders, I culture-bombed, jumped primo territory, and I insulted them. No war. Of course, I did have the snowball effect in place early on.




There's issues with the AI that as of a recent patch still don't seem to be fixed.  Specifically, empires will offer up their cities much too readily.  However, the AI in general seems to be very non-aggressive when it comes to military matters.


----------



## Nylanfs (Sep 28, 2010)

Just as a note, all of you that have it suck... ;P


----------



## Sutekh (Sep 30, 2010)

Gorram persians nuking me


----------



## Vigilance (Sep 30, 2010)

Civ 5 has been awesome so far.


----------



## Man in the Funny Hat (Oct 1, 2010)

Good so far, but I haven't taken the training wheels off yet either...


----------



## Serra (Oct 2, 2010)

Felon said:


> Wow, I just noticed it's a quarter 'til seven in the AM! I played all night and didn't even stop to eat.
> 
> This game is evil.




Yeah! The game is! They should put a warning label on it! The game is VERY Fun!


----------



## Felon (Oct 5, 2010)

So, I have pretty much figured out how everything works. A few comments:

1) in regards to the aforementioned issue about bowmen shooting hundreds of miles, I thought it worhwhile to note that archers and crowssbowmen are actually the only foot units that do this. After the discovery of gunpowder, the lore of firing a handheld weapon across vast leagues of ditance is lost to the tides of time. You see, archer upgrade to crossbowmen, which in turn upgrade to riflemen. However, riflemen are also the upgrade path for spearmen/pikemen, and are stricetly a melee-only unit. Peculiar to say the least.

2) Strategic resources aren't very strategic at all. This is easily the biggest source of disappointment with Civ V for me. For the most part, you can get by fine without any resources present on your land. Having iron, horses, oil, and aluminum just mean you get to build some military units you otherwise wouldn't have access to, but can certainly do without. Coal lets you build factories and that is pretty much it. Uranium gets you nuclear plants and the purely gratuitous nuke. Moreover, you don't use the resources to maintain or fuel any of that stuff, so it's easy enough to trade for it with another empire. You don't even need it to finish construction, just to start it. So, you can happily trade with the guy you are about to invade, because one round of access should be all you need. So, basically, there never need be blood shed for oil. because civs run fine without it 

3) Luxury resources, on the other hand, are well worth cutting a throat or two over. Blood for sugar is definitely a possibility. Attaining access to na ew luxury resources is the #1 reason for a civ to start a new city.

4) The Ai will go to war, but it would much rather you be the aggressor. Leaders will pop up for no other reason than to bait you with insults about how little culture or science you're generating or how few cities you've started. Then you click your response and they go away. Pretty pointless, and you have no recourse to similarly provoke them.

5) Everyone takes Piety once it unlocks. Everybody.


----------



## Sutekh (Oct 6, 2010)

I must admit, I am a little disappiointed. Some thoughts below:

*I was expecting a cool cut scene when I was going for the Scientific Victory. You only get a stock 'photo' and a bit of an explanation. 

*The AI isnt very bright. It seems to have no grasp at all of how to wage battle (not that Im much better).

*City states get very agressive and cocky once you get allies with one and ply them with advanced units (I gave Stockholm a Infantryman and he went bananas attacking the Aztecs)

*I kept getting messages from Ghandi and others 'threatening' me. It didnt seem much like a threat, but It also was not a friendly chat. They were annoyed with my warlike ways. 

* While I do like the policy bonus features, I do miss Religon.  There is no option for a Crusade! now 

*I still think Flying units are just too difficult to make work properly. By the time I have them I still fight my landwars with tanks, infantry and later the Giant Metal Robot . Ive NEVER built a Carrier in any game of CIV I have played.

* I wish there was an option to make units auto attack bandits if they find them while exploring. I lose workers when they set sail to parts of my lands that need attention. The unit destroyed only tells you a unit has been destroyed, it does not tell you WHAT unit was.  My  Frigate and later destroyers would really benefit from that.

* I was hoping that you would be able to do something with Mountains esp in the later ages. Deep mining? I assumed some future tech might help.  On some maps Ive restarted if there are too many mountains. 

* Does future tech do anything but boost your final score? If not, this seems a bit wasteful.


Final:  I am still finding Civ 4 .. better. I dont know why, that game had some faults also. Civ 5 just seems to lack in certain key areas. Although to be bluntly honest, I realy wanted an Alpha Centauri 2 over a Civ 5.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 6, 2010)

Sutekh said:


> Final:  I am still finding Civ 4 .. better. I dont know why, that game had some faults also. Civ 5 just seems to lack in certain key areas.



Compare it to Civ IV at launch and you'll find that game had a ton of flaws, too.  IV has been patched and expanded on a ton to make it more fun.  I'd be shocked if Firaxis didn't do the same for Civ V.


----------



## Sutekh (Oct 6, 2010)

I actually didnt pick up CIV 4 until I got it in  a joint pack with alpha Centauri. I ended up playing alpha way more and then tried Civ 4 a bit. I just loved the whole ... angle of Alpha C. Im guessing that version of Civ 4 was a more updated less bugged version. 

I dont think Im alone in my views of Civ 5 either. There are quite a few neg reviews out there on it, where people are stating that they really want to like it more.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 6, 2010)

Sutekh said:


> I dont think Im alone in my views of Civ 5 either. There are quite a few neg reviews out there on it, where people are stating that they really want to like it more.



The reviews have been overwhelming positive with some nitpicks here and there.  And as I mentioned before, many of the gripes and game balancing aspects will be patched and expansions will add things that will make the game better.  All this happened with Civ IV, too.  Which also got high marks (90%+) with some griping.

I'm not saying that people don't have valid complaints because they do and I have some myself.  I'm saying that it's a fantastically fun game that has a few flaws, just like many other really fun games.


----------



## Pbartender (Oct 6, 2010)

I get the impression that you should be able to save your policy choices until you unlock the later policy trees.  I can't seem to figure how to do it, though...  I get the little "Choose Policy" button, and I can't end my turn until I pick a policy.

Does anyone know if it can be done, and if so, how?


----------



## Felon (Oct 6, 2010)

Sutekh said:


> I must admit, I am a little disappiointed. Some thoughts below:
> 
> *I was expecting a cool cut scene when I was going for the Scientific Victory. You only get a stock 'photo' and a bit of an explanation.
> 
> ...



I agree with a lot of this. Did you play Civilization Revolutions a couple of years back? It had a much more fun presentation, especially with regards to victory. You got to see the spaceship launch, and you got a big closing credits scene where all the people of the world are celebrating your victory. Here, you just get...."Return to Main Menu". That is so very anticlimactic. 

Also true is that the AI is very easy to lure into deathtraps. Indeed, I've virtually wiped out entire armies from the comfort of one of my cities.

Late-game combat is set up to be fairly complex, with air, land, and naval units aplenty, but nothing has ever happened at that stage of the game for me. The units just sit around collecting dust if I'm playing peacefully, or they destroy everything in their wake if I'm being warlike. The stuff that cost resources to build--battleships, jet fighters, giant death robots--are pure overkill.

Still, I'm losing plenty of sleep to this game, and have faith that Crichton will prove correct. Maybe we'll even get espionage back.


----------



## Felon (Oct 6, 2010)

Pbartender said:


> I get the impression that you should be able to save your policy choices until you unlock the later policy trees.  I can't seem to figure how to do it, though...  I get the little "Choose Policy" button, and I can't end my turn until I pick a policy.
> 
> Does anyone know if it can be done, and if so, how?



As with any of the notifications, right-click on the circular icon that accompanies it and it will go away.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 6, 2010)

Felon said:


> I agree with a lot of this. Did you play Civilization Revolutions a couple of years back? It had a much more fun presentation, especially with regards to victory. You got to see the spaceship launch, and you got a big closing credits scene where all the people of the world are celebrating your victory. Here, you just get...."Return to Main Menu". That is so very anticlimactic.



Totally agree.  They really dropped the ball on things like this, world wonder movies and the like.  Also, I really dug the "first civ to prove the earth is round" thing.  Little things like that should be easy to implement.  

The core of a great game is there and I have every confidence that the fans will be heard.  



Felon said:


> Still, I'm losing plenty of sleep to this game, and have faith that Crichton will prove correct. Maybe we'll even get espionage back.



Ugh.  As long as I can shut it off, that's fine.  I hated espionage in Civ IV!  Blech! 

However, I will welcome religion back with open arms!


----------



## Pbartender (Oct 6, 2010)

John Crichton said:


> Ugh.  As long as I can shut it off, that's fine.  I hated espionage in Civ IV!  Blech!




I always liked the idea of espionage, but practice it was just more trouble than it was worth.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 6, 2010)

Pbartender said:


> I always liked the idea of espionage, but practice it was just more trouble than it was worth.



Couldn't agree more.  The implementation was awful in Civ IV.  I could see how some people could enjoy it but it was too much to pay attention to after a certain point.  All in all it was just an annoyance.


----------



## LightPhoenix (Oct 7, 2010)

Sutekh said:


> *City states get very agressive and cocky once you get allies with one and ply them with advanced units (I gave Stockholm a Infantryman and he went bananas attacking the Aztecs)




Sounds like a nice distraction to me.  



> *I kept getting messages from Ghandi and others 'threatening' me. It didnt seem much like a threat, but It also was not a friendly chat. They were annoyed with my warlike ways.




This annoys me too, especially late game when wars are common.  I was on a Scientific Victory and every turn I'd have three or four civs asking me for various pacts, usually the same ones every turn.  Blah.



> *I still think Flying units are just too difficult to make work properly. By the time I have them I still fight my landwars with tanks, infantry and later the Giant Metal Robot . Ive NEVER built a Carrier in any game of CIV I have played.




All of my victories (except Scientific, for obvious reasons) have come before aircraft even come into play.



> * Does future tech do anything but boost your final score? If not, this seems a bit wasteful.




Nope.  Then again, you shouldn't really ever be researching Future Tech unless you've somehow maxed out the tech tree, in which case you should have already gotten a Scientific Victory.

(Personal Rant)

Which, as an aside... Scientific Victories are *boring*.  There's no real reason to ever go on the offensive as there's no scientific advantage to battle.  One thing I wish they'd bring back is tech looting.  It makes a military/science build viable.  Right now you're always better off doing science/commerce and taking advantage of City States and Research Agreements.  It doesn't help that the AI is lacking and will heavily avoid pissing off scientifically advanced civs, especially if you have one or two modern units.  It's a little better on the higher difficulties, but not by much.


----------



## Sutekh (Oct 7, 2010)

For some reason Ive always tended to go for Scientific Victories. I guess i just love researching tech. I just wanted a nice small movie to make it so 

In Civ 5 Ive noticed I tend to attack the city States while leaving the other nations alone. The city states tend to build up a lot faster than the nations.


----------



## Felon (Oct 7, 2010)

John Crichton said:


> Ugh.  As long as I can shut it off, that's fine.  I hated espionage in Civ IV!  Blech!






Pbartender said:


> I always liked the idea of espionage, but practice it was just more trouble than it was worth.



It's very easy to implement espionage incorrectly. It often feels very all-or-nothing in terms of investment, meaning that if you didn't go out of your way to be good at it, then you really suck at it and wind up at the mercy of anyone who did specialize in it.

It's also annoying that spies in these games tend to be little invisible imps that can runrampant with impunity, and that they can destroy 20 or 30 rounds worth of work in a suicide run.

I think that espionage should be overhauled. Essentially, a spy should be a worker that can build things in enemy city territory. That's how spies work, by establishing themselves in a specific territory, setting up safehouses and making local connections. Then you give them the spy equivalent of hit points, which represent a threshhold of risk-taking. Now whenver they try to get away with theft or sabotage, they lose risk points. Players can deter enemy spies with not just specialized counter-expionage stuff, but also with things that already exist for other purposes--walls, castles, garrisons, etc. can all result in greater risk for the spy. 

So, let's say you set up a black market. that can allow you spend gold to steal a nearby resource from a city, but only if the target civ has more than one of that resource (black markets re-route surplus, not main supply lines). That's beneficial to the espionage player, but not devastating to the target. 

The reason to have espionage is that it gives a way to push against a player that has gained a lead that can't otherwise be overtaken--particularly a military lead.


----------



## John Crichton (Oct 7, 2010)

Felon said:


> It's very easy to implement espionage incorrectly. It often feels very all-or-nothing in terms of investment, meaning that if you didn't go out of your way to be good at it, then you really suck at it and wind up at the mercy of anyone who did specialize in it.



It always turned into a thing where just about all the AI Civs would have their spies "beating me up" at a certain point.  And that's just not fun especially if there is no way to know how to actively combat it.



Felon said:


> It's also annoying that spies in these games tend to be little invisible imps that can runrampant with impunity, and that they can destroy 20 or 30 rounds worth of work in a suicide run.



Yeah, that's no fun either.  



Felon said:


> I think that espionage should be overhauled. Essentially, a spy should be a worker that can build things in enemy city territory. That's how spies work, by establishing themselves in a specific territory, setting up safehouses and making local connections. Then you give them the spy equivalent of hit points, which represent a threshhold of risk-taking. Now whenver they try to get away with theft or sabotage, they lose risk points. Players can deter enemy spies with not just specialized counter-expionage stuff, but also with things that already exist for other purposes--walls, castles, garrisons, etc. can all result in greater risk for the spy.
> 
> So, let's say you set up a black market. that can allow you spend gold to steal a nearby resource from a city, but only if the target civ has more than one of that resource (black markets re-route surplus, not main supply lines). That's beneficial to the espionage player, but not devastating to the target.
> 
> The reason to have espionage is that it gives a way to push against a player that has gained a lead that can't otherwise be overtaken--particularly a military lead.



See, that sounds reasonable as opposed to the clusterflark of Civ IV's espionage.   A system that is actually a real system that's easy to see and figure out what's going on is what I'd want if it were to be brought into Civ V.


----------



## Felon (Oct 7, 2010)

LightPhoenix said:


> This annoys me too, especially late game when wars are common.  I was on a Scientific Victory and every turn I'd have three or four civs asking me for various pacts, usually the same ones every turn.  Blah.



Sounds oddly different from my experiences. Civs taunt, but I've never had them propose a defensive pact. They propose research agreements early in the game, but in the late game most civs are seriously broke. I also don't see them proposing trades, just one-sided requests for handouts (when they have nothing to offer in return). And war in the late game? They definitely steer clear of me.



> Nope.  Then again, you shouldn't really ever be researching Future Tech unless you've somehow maxed out the tech tree, in which case you should have already gotten a Scientific Victory.



Again, this piques my curiosity as it doesn't jibe with my experiences. It takes long enough to get all the spaceship parts constructed that a science juggernaut can have many rounds of future tech research, even if I've switched everyone into production and gold mode.



> (Personal Rant)
> 
> Which, as an aside... Scientific Victories are *boring*.  There's no real reason to ever go on the offensive as there's no scientific advantage to battle.  One thing I wish they'd bring back is tech looting.  It makes a military/science build viable.  Right now you're always better off doing science/commerce and taking advantage of City States and Research Agreements.  It doesn't help that the AI is lacking and will heavily avoid pissing off scientifically advanced civs, especially if you have one or two modern units.  It's a little better on the higher difficulties, but not by much.



Well, if you define a bloodless victory as "boring", then building a techno-utopia is definitely ho-hum. I do miss the tech-looting. In Civ V it certainly feels as if you are expected to acquire all technologies on your own eventually, rather than acquire them from other Civs. 

As to the AI being gun-shy, there does seem to be a trick to getting them to attack. I've been attacked three times by other Civs, and nearly attacked a few other times, and I've gathered that the AI has a decided preference for sneak attacks by overwhelming forces. There was one time I pulled my scout off the hilltop on a strip of land separating me and Greece. Sure enough, Alexander sent a bunch of Hoplites and archers ona long, one-move-per-turn trek across the tundra forests and hills to take my flegling city. Alexander and Nobunaga are both insanely belligerent (which makes Greece's special seem rather misplaced).

On another occasion, I was cruising around in my brand new caravel when I bumped into a sizable army of Iroqois from a neighboring island disembarking onto a section of unsettled desert land I had neglected. The result was hilarious to me at the time. Realizing the jig was up, they jumped back in their canoes and sailed away as fast as their little paddles would carry them. Invasion averted just like that.

So, if the goal is to provoke an attack by AI, my observation is that the player has to leave an opening--or at least appear to leave one. If you have a road, it is pretty easy to pull back far enough that they can't see your units, but still be able to rush in once they declare war.


----------



## Vigilance (Oct 17, 2010)

I think they got rid of tech-looting for a good reason.

I miss it too, but tech-looting makes war _really_ attractive. You mean, I get their land, some of their gold, and a free tech too? Sign me up. 

I agree with everyone else that espionage as a concept is nice, but the implementation SUCKED, and I'm pretty sure Firaxis knew it.

Sid Meier said the #1 request they got after Beyond the Sword, which they granted in a later patch, was an option in the game menu to turn Espionage off entirely. 

It usually seemed like an unstoppable hurricane to me. Like, oh, Hurricane espionage just destroyed my mine, guess I'll rebuild it.


----------



## LightPhoenix (Oct 17, 2010)

Felon said:


> Again, this piques my curiosity as it doesn't jibe with my experiences. It takes long enough to get all the spaceship parts constructed that a science juggernaut can have many rounds of future tech research, even if I've switched everyone into production and gold mode.




There are quite a few techs that you don't need to research if you're going for science.  I do have a confession though - I've only ever done Scientific Victory once.



> Well, if you define a bloodless victory as "boring", then building a techno-utopia is definitely ho-hum. I do miss the tech-looting. In Civ V it certainly feels as if you are expected to acquire all technologies on your own eventually, rather than acquire them from other Civs.




Personally, I feel that combat is the main thrust of the game.  Even if you're not out to conquer everyone, you still need to defend yourself.  I don't really feel the AI is aggressive enough in that area.  In particular, the AI seems to place a large emphasis on tech levels.  If you have high tech units, the AI will avoid attacking them altogether.  So in the case of a Scientific Victory, you end up sitting around.  It's compounded by the fact that you don't have much incentive to attack other players.



Vigilance said:


> I think they got rid of tech-looting for a good reason.  I miss it too, but tech-looting makes war _really_ attractive. You mean, I get their land, some of their gold, and a free tech too? Sign me up.
> 
> I agree with everyone else that espionage as a concept is nice, but the implementation SUCKED, and I'm pretty sure Firaxis knew it.




I don't claim to be an expert on game design, but why not make it a choice?  Right now, you basically get the choice between gold (razing) or a free city.  In the latter case, capturing cities is usually more trouble than it's worth - between unhappiness and inefficiency, I've often found it better to raze and rebuild a city.  Personally, I'd love to see a player get the following options:

1) Raze - get gold/science/culture based on city size (destroy city, lower happiness and relations)
2) Liberate - become a city-state (with all that entails, but no control)
3) Annex - acquire city (control city, lowered happiness)

This way, you have three options of dealing with a conquered city that each victory choice can take advantage of.


----------



## Felon (Oct 18, 2010)

LightPhoenix said:


> Personally, I feel that combat is the main thrust of the game.  Even if you're not out to conquer everyone, you still need to defend yourself.  I don't really feel the AI is aggressive enough in that area.  In particular, the AI seems to place a large emphasis on tech levels.  If you have high tech units, the AI will avoid attacking them altogether.  So in the case of a Scientific Victory, you end up sitting around.  It's compounded by the fact that you don't have much incentive to attack other players.
> 
> I don't claim to be an expert on game design, but why not make it a choice?  Right now, you basically get the choice between gold (razing) or a free city.  In the latter case, capturing cities is usually more trouble than it's worth - between unhappiness and inefficiency, I've often found it better to raze and rebuild a city.  Personally, I'd love to see a player get the following options:
> 
> ...



With regards to tech-looting, my ideal compromise is that instead of outright gaining the tech, you gain insight into some of their tech that reduces the number of beakers needed to complete it. Helpful, but not overpowering.

My experience with the AI is certainly not telling me that it's timd or unopportunistic. If I leave a city looking vulnerable, and it's near a border, then it's a target. And they will persist in attacking in a lemming-like fashion until their forces are all but annihlated. However, for all of this to happen it seems the AI needs to take a good look at the city in question and determine that it has a superior attacking force. That's a major culprit for all of those open oborders requests. Line-of-sight is only 2 hexes, so while denying open borders requests might make the AI hostile and unwilling to make deals, but it also keeps a civilization enshrouded in a big cloud. The AI does not want to attack a cloud.

Not sure what to say when you comment that the AI places a high emphasis on tech levels. I think most human players would be hesitant to declare war if it meant attacking tanks with pikemen. Technological superiority outght to be a serious deterrent, to my mind. Maybe I'm reading you wrong? Anyway, this hearkens back to what I was saying about espionage helping the science underdogs. It also does underscore something I hadn't noticed before: the AI has ganged up on me.

There are a lot of reason I find to attack, but the most basic is competition for space and luxury resources. If I have room to grow and good access to luxuries, then I'm fortunate and can have a nice, blissful  game until I win or get bored. 

Also, if another civ's score is beating mine, that's something I tend to resovle through a well-planned attack. Once spanked--and a few cities razed--a civ has a tendency to grant beathing room. 

I'll raze and resettle a city if its only purpose is to access a resource, but if I want a prodcution or gold hub, I certainly don't want to build that up from scratch if I don't have to.


----------

