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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:37
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My fear is: yin26 will not show us himself eating his copy of CIV. |
Alright. For the record! Here is what I said:
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If ICS isn't still the dominant strategy in Civ 4, then I'll eat (at least part) of the cardboard box! And if combat isn't as dull as ever, I'll eat more parts! |
I hereby affirm that I will follow through on this. In fairness, though, it's hard to imagine a Civ game that isn't dictated by ICS (not the exploit version but the mass cities everywhere version) and dull combat. Certainly nothing announced about Civ 4 appears to counter this, though Briggs said some tweaks to the game mean you don't "necessarily" need to build lots of cities. Well, heck, you don't necessarily need to build two cities in Civ for that matter!
On the second point, stack-to-stack combat doesn't bore people to death any more? But, giving Firaxis the benefit of the doubt for a moment, maybe they've worked this angle enough. I'd be happy if carefully planned combined arms, accounting for terrain features, are essential to winning wars. That is, I'm not interested in the eye candy but I do want combat that is meaningful and challenging (not just more 'amass and attack').
If Firaxis delivers, however, on a game where the quality of your cities is far more important than their number, and where combat isn't more about micromanagement than it is strategic thinking, then I will eat part of the box. In fact, I have recipes ready, and I already know that I'd do this over three meals during one day. I will provide digital photos of the entire process, should one occur. 
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yin26
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This space reserved for Darkstar.
Apr 1999
time: 14:37
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Pessimism is optimism looking for light in the wrong damn direction! |
Nice one!
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I'm afraid that Yin won't understand the new concepts of the game and will not like it because of that! |
Possible, of course. More likely is I'll understand it perfectly well and still hate it. I'll just say now, though, to save some time, that any single item that is a baby step forward won't get my support. However, if all the baby steps add up to a game that's at least not a complete annoyance to play, then I'll gladly annouce it a success over Civ 3 and will gladly await the mod process to begin.
P.S. Let's not start the "Yin only wants a revolution" stuff again. I understand many players at Poly are completely happy with incremental improvements to the Civ series, and I certainly don't begrude you. In many ways, in fact, I wish I were less demanding of my computer gaming experiences. However, a polished Civ 4 with great modding and MP options does sound appealing (but this is the negativity thread, so ignore that!).
Last edited by yin26 on 03-08-2005 at 02:08
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Darkstar
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Huntsville, AL, USA
May 1999
time: 23:37
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quote:
Originally posted by yin26
I hereby affirm that I will follow through on this. In fairness, though, it's hard to imagine a Civ game that isn't dictated by ICS (not the exploit version but the mass cities everywhere version) and dull combat. Certainly nothing announced about Civ 4 appears to counter this, though Briggs said some tweaks to the game mean you don't "necessarily" need to build lots of cities. Well, heck, you don't necessarily need to build two cities in Civ for that matter!
On the second point, stack-to-stack combat doesn't bore people to death any more? But, giving Firaxis the benefit of the doubt for a moment, maybe they've worked this angle enough. I'd be happy if carefully planned combined arms, accounting for terrain features, are essential to winning wars. That is, I'm not interested in the eye candy but I do want combat that is meaningful and challenging (not just more 'amass and attack').
If Firaxis delivers, however, on a game where the quality of your cities is far more important than their number, and where combat isn't more about micromanagement than it is strategic thinking, then I will eat part of the box. In fact, I have recipes ready, and I already know that I'd do this over three meals during one day. I will provide digital photos of the entire process, should one occur. |
Dream on.
War won't change. What is it now in a Civ style game? Let's put aside the "alpha strike" whereby you just instantly invade all your opponent's cities, and look purely at the military units. What's that leave? Purely micro-management. You want to destroy more units of the enemy then he can replace, while preserving more of your units then you lose, so that you can, once again, take his cities (and thereby further decrease your opponents ability to make military units). This will not change so long as: tiles -> cities -> units.
Of course, you will always want more cities so long as:
tiles -> cities -> Everything else.
Whether it's turning money into research or shields into units, as long as it is cities that transform the raw resources (tiles) into everything else, the most best quality cities will always win. So ICS will always be the one true path to victory. Change how tiles get processed into everything else, and then, ICS won't matter.
Consider, if you had to build a barracks to turn shields into infantry... but you could build barracks ANYWHERE. Not just in that special city tile. By allowing roads, rivers, rails, or other ports to be your production distrubition network, your barracks could then pull in a share of your production, and use that to make a military unit. (If the barracks wasn't attached to your production network, it would be limited at half capacity to collect from adjoining tiles... as if it was a tiny city or hamlet.) Whats this gain you? You want to make 10 armies every 5 turns? Build 10 barracks, connect them to your infrastructure (road them to other things), and have the raw resources (whether by trade with neighbors or by your own hard work). No need for 10 cities.
You could do that for every major layer of Civ, easily. Cities then aren't cities. They'd just be government centers or commerce centers.
Easy to do. You'd still be concentrating on your tiles though, because that is the source of all things, in Civ. But you wouldn't worry so much about the cities, as you would the infrastructure that converts those resources into whatever you need.
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Senethro
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My worst fear?
That in erring on the side of caution and in an effort to placate all the cowardly builders out there, defenders are favoured in some way in combat.
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Adm.Naismith
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Milano - Italy
Oct 1999
time: 06:37
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quote:
Originally posted by Darkstar
Of course, you will always want more cities so long as:
tiles -> cities -> Everything else.
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AFAIK the problem is born when one city size2 < production than two cities size 1.
Cities *are* hubs to commerce, culture and (in industrial suburb) production, while food come from far when city grown from a village status. In real life large cities have advantage and disadvantage over more sparse small town, but is unrealistic that *ever* small town can grown to large metropolis in the end.
So, unleashing the ICS horde of settler is bad for the game, but an empire built on a couple of cities is silly on many point.
*IF* the Firaxis health concept is spawn over all the territory, you can compute a reasonable population grown on a full *territory* base, nevermind if you grown population in a single city or five small town.
The failure concepts have been: more food on worked tile=automatic grow of population; more population=more shield/hammer; more cities= more "free tile" production *and* more early surrounding tile.
If healt can cap the population on the whole area, and a kind of migration model can force you to juggle with shifting pop. between many small town or a more stable single city, may be you can shift the ICS enough to bring back the joy of a lenght game.
Well, I have hope
There must be a slice of hope in the negativity post, as in "the darkest hour of the night is just before dawn" kind of quote. 
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Sir Og
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Lurking in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
Jun 2001
time: 07:37
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My worst fear is that the new features (religion etc.) would suck as much as culture/culture flips used to suck.
I also fear that the combat system will be stupid.
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Sir Og
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Lurking in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria
Jun 2001
time: 07:37
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I must have missed this "culture flips got fixed in Civ4". I only know that in one of the exp. packs for civ3 thay added an option to play without cultureflips.
And i thought that culture is out of civ4. Or at least that it is totally reworked.
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02-08-2005 20:36
Oops! This isn't the positivity thread! Sorry, folks... 
Very suspicious. I'm afraid that Firaxis cut out all diplomacy. Crazy bastards! 
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