Concerns about the new "Warlord"

[Nugog]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Yes, the scoring system favors large, populous empires, and how early you win the game.

None of this is achievable through peaceful means. Thus, if you want to be as good as Dan Quayle, then build only 3 cities and pray AIs will leave you alone so you can get away with a cultural victory. Now if you want your civ rating to be as good as Augustus Caesar, you gotta go on the offensive.

There is no incentive being peaceful if you want high scores.....

Yep - just like the real world.

Win and you prosper, lose and..........

[Addled Platypus]

dont forget the option in custom game

always peace

or

always war

[LordShiva]

nugog

[Nugog]

Originally posted by LordShiva
nugog

I don't necessarily like it, but it is the truth.

The countries that "actually" pose the biggest military threats, get their own way.

As is the case in CIV.

Our history quite clearly illustrates that either the biggest dog, or the most determined (in a close contest) gets the bone.

As can be the case in CIV.

[One_more_turn]

Which leads to an unpleasant truth in human history: the strongest civilizations today were or are all ruthless militaristic at one time in history. Genocides were an integral part of their successes.

Weak, peaceful nations must either suck up to a big brother or be destroyed!

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Blake
And in any case it's obvious that on the higher difficulties the player should need to warmonger to gain an advantage, what advantage can a human possibly have other than more land (etc)? There are limits to the gains from higher effeciency and the AI is not incomepent enough to allow itself to get out-expanded.

No, this is not obvious. A human should need to meet the right decisions on higher difficulty levels. His mistakes shouldn't be forgiven so easy as they're in the lower levels. But this does not mean he has to start wars. It should be necessary to meet the right economical decision, to choose the right terrain improvements, to research down the right path, to cleverly accept or deny technology and resource trading. And to start the right war. The right one, mind you. A game with warmongering as ultima ratio is not a better game. It is a poorer one.

As for the "AI not incompetent enough to allow itself to get out-expanded", ... ... I'm sure it is gladly accepting all the freebies and gifts it gets not to get out-expanded. This may be "clever", but it doesn't sound too "competent" to me.

Overall, so far the Warlords expansion seems to offer little of what this game needs. New Civs? Meh. New units? Meh. Scenarios? Meh. Option to vassalize? Nice but unnecessary. New traits? This is interesting. But it's the only interesting thing I see so far. I may pick it up at some point, mainly to remain compatible in DGs and PBEMs, but I am not anxiously awaiting it. Civ4 is a good game as is. It does not need to be dragged down the warmongering slope. Better: it does not deserve it.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Two_more_turns
Weak, peaceful nations must either suck up to a big brother or be destroyed!

That's why there's the vassal state option. If we ever play MP, I'll let you be my vassal

Originally posted by Sir Balph
Overall, so far the Warlords expansion seems to offer little of what this game needs.

What does this game need?

[johnmcd]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


No, this is not obvious. A human should need to meet the right decisions on higher difficulty levels. His mistakes shouldn't be forgiven so easy as they're in the lower levels. But this does not mean he has to start wars. It should be necessary to meet the right economical decision, to choose the right terrain improvements, to research down the right path, to cleverly accept or deny technology and resource trading. And to start the right war. The right one, mind you. A game with warmongering as ultima ratio is not a better game. It is a poorer one.

As for the "AI not incompetent enough to allow itself to get out-expanded", ... ... I'm sure it is gladly accepting all the freebies and gifts it gets not to get out-expanded. This may be "clever", but it doesn't sound too "competent" to me.

Overall, so far the Warlords expansion seems to offer little of what this game needs. New Civs? Meh. New units? Meh. Scenarios? Meh. Option to vassalize? Nice but unnecessary. New traits? This is interesting. But it's the only interesting thing I see so far. I may pick it up at some point, mainly to remain compatible in DGs and PBEMs, but I am not anxiously awaiting it. Civ4 is a good game as is. It does not need to be dragged down the warmongering slope. Better: it does not deserve it.

Yep, totally agree.

Plus, the reason warmongering has to be done at the higher difficulty level is because it's the only place in the game where the existing handicaps allow the human players decisions to better and thus lead to advantage.

If moving up the difficutly levels gave the AI fewer resource advantages and more military advantages then the balance between war and peace would start to be righted.

[Blake]

The AI is VERY good at expanding.
What it isn't so good at is securing that expansion with a military, and so that's the weak point humans have to exploit at higher difficulties.

I guess that people cry "unfair" a lot more in the face of military penalties. I mean there's enough crying and whining about the bonus the AI gets against barbs, while no-one whines that the AI gets more units to fight the barbs with.

The basic AI is probably too focused on expansion. With the emperor+ bonuses it could afford to focus less on expansion and more on aggression.
like a "Deity Conquerer" AI profile would be a totally different beast than the "Deity Expander".

However AI bonuses aren't exactly a problem with the basic gameplay of CIV. At Monarch there's a good balance where the human can use a wide range of strategies to nice effect. that's why i mostly play Monarch, despite being able to win at emperor+. The emp+ victories are too focused on systematically exploiting the areas of incompetence of the AI. I accept that and just don't play at emp+ very much.

I also avoid systematic exploitation of the AI, such as worker poaching. The AI can't deal with that, so I wont do it.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by LordShiva
What does this game need?

As I wrote further down in my post, this game is pretty good as is. An expansion should not be made for expansion's sake, but that is pretty much how it looks.

However, there are certainly some things of the existing game mechanics, that can be vastly improved. Espionage for once. Naval and air combat. Bombardement as a whole. It is a very poor implementation as is - can we say "suicide bombers"? Other things could be newly implemented. Historical things like slave trade for instance, and their liberation in the newer eras (hello CtP2!). Maybe new resources like coffee, tea, salt and related trades, may be historical trade companies as new wonders. Introduction of stacked combat. The true one I mean (hello CtP2 again!). Military leaders; they're probably in Warlords and would be one of the few things that make this expansion worthwhile. Workers. Why is the only way to get rid of them to murder them or gift them to an AI? Forests and a way to plant them - by letting them grow over time like cottages! Pretty much un-exploitable and wonderful to balance.

It could get a new AI approach, which would step by step eliminate rule cheats. Not talking about handicaps here, but things like general map and resource knowledge. It could get a rebalance of difficulty levels. There are pretty hefty jumps up and almost unnoticeable ones.

It could get a better map generator. Am I the only one who is sick and tired of continents that look like lego blocks on the minimap? The existing maps could get a revamp. Highlands is such an exciting map type - but the lack of X and Y wrapping makes it very lame. It's not very highlandish to fight with your arse protected by the map border. And I don't give a damn if a toroidal map it is "right" or not, as long as it is fun to play.

Enough for a start? Be assured, there is many more.

This game has enough civilizations, let new ones be made by the modders, it's their job. Just like scenarios. This game has enough units as well, even more so.

[LordShiva]

That's a good list.

[Jaybe]

Introduction of stacked combat. The true one I mean (hello CtP2 again!).

Dale is working on it (Dale's Combat Mod), threads both here and especially at CFC. Still in beta status.

[SDK] Dale's Combat Mod - CFC

[Yosho]

Originally posted by Blake
The AI is VERY good at expanding.
What it isn't so good at is securing that expansion with a military, and so that's the weak point humans have to exploit at higher difficulties.

Well, the AI is good at early-game expanding, but it's bad at mid-late game expanding by conquest. An AI might kill the human mid-game or late-game, but they'll rarely conquer each other (once in a while you'll see it.)

I'm really hoping that that's something they'll improve in Warlords; if the AI's in an expansion called "warlords" turn out to not be very good warlords, I'll be annoyed, heh.

[wardhali]

Which leads to an unpleasant truth in human history: the strongest civilizations today were or are all ruthless militaristic at one time in history. Genocides were an integral part of their successes.

What about the good old USA? the closest i can think of would be teddy Roosevelt with speak softly and carry a big stick. but genocides? Ruthless Militaristic? not words you think of when you think of USA...

[One_more_turn]

We didn't become great because we were peaceful or nice. First, the Natives must be sacrificed to make room for the "manifest destiny"; next the Southern feudal lords must submit to the Northern industrialists; finally we had to arm ourselves to the teeth to beat up potential challengers. "De-housing", Hiroshima, MAD, Iraq were some notable milestones.

We still have more nuclear explosives to wipe Earth clean a few times. It takes the payload of 1 Ohio class SSBN to kill 90+% Iranians. We are still maintaining military bases 100+ foreign countries.

Since 1945, we have been fighting a war (where we sent our troops to kill someone) every other year, and that was supposedly in the biggest outbreak of peace since Renaissance.....

It's like in Civ IV: you don't become great without military power, but too many units can be quite a drag on your R&D and treasury...