Beyond the Sword Review by Solver

[Solver]

Originally posted by WangKon
Solver,

Hello, there. I am a first time poster but the proverbial long time lurker.

That's a very good critical post right there, so I want to respond.

Let me preface by saying that I have found your prior Civ IV reviews wonderfully comprehensive and nuanced. Bar none, they were the the finest in-depth game reviews I've read anywhere--and I am an avid gamer and tend to read a lot of previews/reviews.

Thanks. I myself suspect that my reviews are among the longest game reviews online - don't know if that's a good thing or not, though.

But in some sense this particular one is troubling, though it is not without the assets that burnished your prior efforts. In the first place, I do think you are under-rating and ignoring serious, possibly game-breaking, issues with this expansion, e.g. the espionage problems in longer-game settings that many are up in arms about. And I don't think trying to dismiss this issue by simply saying something on the order of "oh, the Marathon setting is just for fringe players and it's unbalanced other ways too" is really the answer for a variety of reasons.

This is a very interesting issue. Yeah, I still think Marathon
is not balanced or fair. However, upon examining the posts everywhere, I do agree that there are at least two espionage missions that are absolutely broken on Marathon. And that speed being unbalanced in other ways is not an excuse.

My response here would be that I do not pretend to have played the game under every possible setting. I haven't played it on Marathon during development, and there are, perhaps, good reasons for it. At any rate, even though I've been testing BtS constantly and, for the last two months before going gold, doing it almost full-time, I didn't and couldn't try every setting and option. And the ruleset changes quite a bit, of course.

Please understand that I am not making excuses for myself or for these missions being broken at Marathon, I just want to explain how and why I - and my review consequently - miss these things.

Relatedly, I do think there is something fundamentally problematic in that you are "reviewing" a product that you yourself, by your own admission, had such a heavy hand in developing.

Naturally. You have to admit, however, that there are also positives to this. Obviously, with many months of playing experience, I know enough about the game to review it at release. That's an upside. The inevitable bias (which, I would hope, is not heavy) is a downside. I believe that upsides outweigh the downsides in this situation.

The way I look at it, any review and reviewer has such up and down sides. The downside with most game site reviews is quite the opposite of mine - they typically review games after spending a few days with them at most, or even just the weekend sometimes. It's just not a timeframe to adequately acquaint yourself with a game of Civ4's complexity.

In fact, it is difficult to disassociate your stake (though perhaps not monetary) in the product with your obstinate failure to recognize the product's defect.

That would be where I disagree. As a tester, it's my main responsibility to recognize defects, and I honestly believe I am pretty good at it. Of course, I'd hate to see defects in the finished game, and I admit that my involvement with it may make me subsconsciously downplay some problems. I can promise, though, that at no time while writing I made a conscious decision to downplay any problem.

I'd again like to refer you to my Warlords review - I was involved with Warlords in pretty much the same capacity as BtS, and had a critical review of it, actually couldn't think of too many positives to write about.

I don't know what is the way out of this dilemma. It appears, from the description of your contribution to this expansion, that having you in the development scheme helped the expansion. Most your readers also will not likely want you to stop reviewing Firaxis products.

But perhaps you ought to try to be extra objective--even more so than you would otherwise be?

I certainly hope that I helped make BtS into a quality expansion. However, I do not believe such a thing as an objective review exists, no matter if it's for games, movies or books. An objective "review" of BtS would be limited to a dry list of specific additions. Anything else is the reviewer's opinion, and that's what reviews are about. This review, clearly, is my opinion on BtS. Of course, I do try to remain objective when writing. It's up to readers to decide whether I succeed at it or fail.


Oh, and I am honestly surprised I didn't get much more criticism for the review. Like I said previously, I am not quite satisfied with it myself this time.

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by =DrJambo=
I guess my question to Blake is now lost in the ether...

Anyway, I though the review was fine. It explained what it needed to and is much better than the standard noob friendly rubbish you see written in 'Games' magazines.

My only grumble is not the review per sé, but the lack of subsequent official response over several (obviously unfavourable) questions/gameplay issues that have subsequently been put forward. Namely:

Corps maintenance and inflation.
AI and building privateers, or lack thereof.
AI and conducting naval blockades, or lack thereof.

Maybe that requires alexman to comment on however...

DrJambo,

I hope not. I've so far played through one full game since Tuesday. The corporations weren't bad for me, although they did not lead to victory (which went to Pericles, who ran State Property and got a cultural win,) but they didn't sink my economy, either. What I did notice via espionage was that Mansa Musa, who spammed my corporation to all of his cities, seemed to be having trouble with research toward the end game. Justinian, however, spammed his cities with his own corporation, and it didn't seem to keep him down. (Then again, it's not like he won, either.) Only two corps were founded for the entire game.

I'm not ready to throw corporations as it is out, as I've only played one game. Still, some posters on CFC have gone through the numbers on the back end and have found that inflation has been significantly increased for BtS. (See here, here, and especially here.)

I understand some people have given the reason that this was done because otherwise people would be awash in cash by the end game. Perhaps...although, I confess, I was expecting that one result of getting corporations was that I WOULD be awash in cash, not struggling to keep a favorable cash flow.

So, yes, some feedback from Solver, or other testers (or, dare I hope, Firaxians) would be appreciated.

[Solver]

Corporations being a cash drain is, largely, by design. Under certain circumstances, you can break even, more or less, while perusing corporations. But anyway, their design idea is that they provide various benefits in exchange for money. That's the point, not swimming in money.

If corporations (or any single corporation) gave a huge surplus of money, then the game would become a race to that.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by Shrapnel12
If this is a flame, then I'm sorry, but Wiglaf is nothing more then a hater and a troller. I might give him even an ounce of credibility if:

A. He read the review before his whining.
B: His complaints were viable (he borders on downright falsehood).
C. Solver was actually paid to write the review (he doesn't owe us anything).
D. The majority of those in the forum didn't already decide to buy BTS before they read Solver's review.

Solver is a good sport for taking everything Wiglaf says in stride, but I would encourage everyone to simply ignore him from this point onward. His comments don't deserve any further attention.

I'm aware solver does not owe us anything. the work he does with Civ makes the game better, and he does it because he enjoys the game, not because he wants money. I never meant to claim he was "fixing" the review to get more people to buy it. That is absurd. however, the bias that inevitably creeps into reviews like this is present here, at least in some minor form. I think the review needs a more accurate disclaimer at the beginning to make clear what solver did exactly on this expansion.

Also, I did (quickly) read the review before replying. I think the complaints I have with the review are reasonable, especially since now even solver is admitting some features are broken on marathon.

The review has a few weaknesses:its assessment of espionage, the scenarios, and the lack of adequate disclaimer at the intro.

[Solver]

Wiglaf, your first response was 6 minutes after I posted the thread. You just can't read and take in such an amount of text in 6 minutes, not unless you can read at 2000 wpm...

[yin26]

Instead of Corporations, we could just name them "Conversion Facilities" and associate the same costs and benefits as we have now. To me, this is a good example of where semantics really has power, as I suspect that if people saw that investing and maintaining their conversion facilities allows them to turn excess resources into other benefits, we would likely see less concern.

But Corporations MAKE MONEY in most people's minds. Also, the religion model is often spoken of as the analogue to corps in BtS...but even there a person is encouraged to spread his religion to as many cities as possible with no worry about lost revenue...quite the opposite, of course, with the right buildings, etc. Thus, I am suggesting that players would generally accept a cost for converting excess resources into something else, but the wording and the analogues in play have seriously clouded this mechanic.

[jbp26]

in my limited testing i've found corporations a large burden with limited benefit. however, im not going to comment until i can read a few game reports from Blake, Sulla, Solver, etc.

[Solver]

Think about corps like this. Their maintenance depends on how many resources you have. If you don't have many resources and your HQ does have 200% in modifiers, you can approximately break even while spreading the corporation and reap its benefits. If you have lots of resources, the corporation will cost a lot, so you'll only be able to afford having it in a few cities anyhow. However, the benefits will also be large, so the cities where you can afford it will really be better for it.

[yin26]

As to Solver's review:

Let me just say, as somebody who got the chance to give input on it before it was released, that Solver worked a LONG time on this review and often canvassed other testers on various issues. And let me just tell you, the testers are a vocal group. Imagine rabid fans on posting steroids.

But as I was one of them, I should also put in this disclaimer: I wanted *every* aspect of BtS to be 100% perfect. I'd be a horrible tester if that weren't the case. We all also wanted an X-pack that truly went beyond the standard "just add a few more civs" kind of stuff. There's a challenge mixing those two goals, of course. It's a lot easier to get closer to perfection the more you limit your ambitions, which were very high for BtS.

My take is that some of these additions, even with a core group of rabid fans pounding on them non stop for months, ultimately requires mass experience on a public scale to get finely tuned. Let's not gloss over the entire MP layer of discussion here, either, because that one's far more complicated than even balancing the game across several game speeds and difficulty levels.

Could Solver have been more critical? Sure. Do I think he would have been more critical had he NOT been a tester? No. It's in Solver's nature not to pass extreme judgments on either side unless and until he knows his subject matter inside and out. My guess is that Solver is less satisfied with this review precisely because, despite all the full-time testing, he is still learning aspects of BtS himself. The X-pack was that big!

So he did his best with the time given (and his best is pretty damn good, IMO). I, for one, completely opted out of doing a review because I felt fairly incapable of making pronouncements on some key items such as corps because, despite my own efforts, I couldn't find more hours in the day to give to testing. Had Solver chickened out like I did, we'd have no in-house review, and I think a lot would have been lost in that bargain.

[Solver]

My guess is that Solver is less satisfied with this review precisely because, despite all the full-time testing, he is still learning aspects of BtS himself.

That's actually a good point. Given that some espionage and corporation rules in particular were only finalized late in development, I indeed don't feel like I have fully explored BtS yet. I think I'd need a couple more months of playing to feel that way myself.

Let's not gloss over the entire MP layer of discussion here, either, because that one's far more complicated than even balancing the game across several game speeds and difficulty levels.

Yeah, that's a beast. I won't comment on it. BtS could be absolutely broken in MP for all I know, but I am just in no position to evaluate that.

My take is that some of these additions, even with a core group of rabid fans pounding on them non stop for months, ultimately requires mass experience on a public scale to get finely tuned.

Here's an interesting thing to consider, the general public already has more experience than the testers, combined of course. If 50 testers play 20 games each, that's 1000 games - far more people have bought the game now, and there are many more games played. Corporation maintenance, in particular, is one of the aspects that needs lots of public feedback to get 100% right.

[Jvstin]

Originally posted by Solver


Here's an interesting thing to consider, the general public already has more experience than the testers, combined of course. If 50 testers play 20 games each, that's 1000 games - far more people have bought the game now, and there are many more games played. Corporation maintenance, in particular, is one of the aspects that needs lots of public feedback to get 100% right.

And of course, the hope is that the feedback generated will lead to patches, rebalancing and improvements overall.

Playtesters can't cover every scenario, especially in MP (where the number of combinations and strategies are an absurdly huge number). However, for a range of SP experience, the best one can hope from a game is a decent outing, which can be improved on subsequent iterations.

Games plainly broken out of the box rub me the wrong way.
It doesn't sound, so far, like BTS is broken out of the box, even with grumblings about corporations and poison wells in higher speeds.

[jbp26]

Originally posted by Solver
Think about corps like this. Their maintenance depends on how many resources you have. If you don't have many resources and your HQ does have 200% in modifiers, you can approximately break even while spreading the corporation and reap its benefits. If you have lots of resources, the corporation will cost a lot, so you'll only be able to afford having it in a few cities anyhow. However, the benefits will also be large, so the cities where you can afford it will really be better for it.

well my big problem was that they come so late in the game that they effects are pretty marginal. sure you can add some hammers to a city, but by then everything has a pretty good production rate, or you have enough production cities that it doesn't matter. im sure theyre much more effective with smaller civs, but then the maintenance cost is a bigger issue.

i did find a fairly interesting use in my last game. i founded sids sushi and put it in my 4 largest cities that had hit their growth cap. then i acquired as many fish resources as possible. so the cities were getting something like +34 food a turn just from the corporation, and cost -40 maintenance. with all this food and being at the growth cap, i was running absurd numbers of merchant/scientsts specialists, and coupled with representation, the net effect was just over positive. i will admit this is horribly gamey, however.

[=DrJambo=]

By the way Solver, I noticed you have not won an Apostolic victory yet. Would it surprise you then that my very first game ended with an Apostolic victory as the HRE?

Anyhow, regarding corps, you and Yin say that in general the purpose is conversion rather than profit. Ok, fair enough, I can deal with that. However, if you're then charging a GP to found one and then 150-250 gold just to 'attempt' to spread it to each city, notwithstanding the cost in hammers to build the executives, then one might just expect corps to reap some benefit to the owner. As it is, if anything, the constant rise in inflation means that eventually corps turn sour, owner or no owner.

This is also under the best case scenario too! I.e. +200% (with Wall Street), running Free Market, a courthouse in each city and actually owning the corp! So if the best case scenario runs at even or more likely a loss, then it doesn't offer much scope for other interesting strats with corps, such as with Mercantilism for example.

Not only that but some AI civs spread them like wildfire in their cities, e.g. Mansa, even if they don't own the HQ. Therefore, a human player will always know that spreading a corp to a civ like Mansa will typically result in a late game slump. If they're touch and go, then surely the AI must be designed to use them properly?

Does that make any sense?

[jkp1187]

Originally posted by Solver
Think about corps like this. Their maintenance depends on how many resources you have. If you don't have many resources and your HQ does have 200% in modifiers, you can approximately break even while spreading the corporation and reap its benefits. If you have lots of resources, the corporation will cost a lot, so you'll only be able to afford having it in a few cities anyhow. However, the benefits will also be large, so the cities where you can afford it will really be better for it.

So, basically, corps are (to borrow examples from real life) for a Japan-like civ, giving them the chance to turn a lack of resources into actual resources?

That isn't bad, by itself. And the ability to spam a few branches into foreign lands isn't necessarily bad, either. But I agree with Yin26 -- I came into this expecting corporations to be a monetary boon, and they are anything but. Spreading religions throughout your cities can be fun. Spreading corporations throughout your cities can be dangerous.

I'm also worried that the AI may not know how to handle corporations with the subtlety that their apparently complexity demands. They sure seem to think more = better and spam corporations thoughout their cities.....

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by yin26
As to Solver's review:

Let me just say, as somebody who got the chance to give input on it before it was released, that Solver worked a LONG time on this review and often canvassed other testers on various issues. And let me just tell you, the testers are a vocal group. Imagine rabid fans on posting steroids.

But as I was one of them, I should also put in this disclaimer: I wanted *every* aspect of BtS to be 100% perfect. I'd be a horrible tester if that weren't the case. We all also wanted an X-pack that truly went beyond the standard "just add a few more civs" kind of stuff. There's a challenge mixing those two goals, of course. It's a lot easier to get closer to perfection the more you limit your ambitions, which were very high for BtS.

My take is that some of these additions, even with a core group of rabid fans pounding on them non stop for months, ultimately requires mass experience on a public scale to get finely tuned. Let's not gloss over the entire MP layer of discussion here, either, because that one's far more complicated than even balancing the game across several game speeds and difficulty levels.

Could Solver have been more critical? Sure. Do I think he would have been more critical had he NOT been a tester? No. It's in Solver's nature not to pass extreme judgments on either side unless and until he knows his subject matter inside and out. My guess is that Solver is less satisfied with this review precisely because, despite all the full-time testing, he is still learning aspects of BtS himself. The X-pack was that big!

So he did his best with the time given (and his best is pretty damn good, IMO). I, for one, completely opted out of doing a review because I felt fairly incapable of making pronouncements on some key items such as corps because, despite my own efforts, I couldn't find more hours in the day to give to testing. Had Solver chickened out like I did, we'd have no in-house review, and I think a lot would have been lost in that bargain.

QFT, though it doesn't really do this justice. Particularly para 3 - given the amount of stuff that appears to be added it is unreasonable to expect everything to be 100% out of the box. People are a little spoilt these days; the appropriate counterfactual is one where there was no community involvement. Like Civ3 for instance, which took months and several patches just fixing basic exploits.

It also has to be borne in mind that many testers, whilst keen players, are not amongst the strongest if we are totally honest. The true nature of balance (which is delicate in a complex game like Civ4, and it just got a lot more complex) will only be determined by a lot of the best players trying their hardest to find effective strategies.

So Firaxis have done pretty well so far, but by far the most vital thing is that they offer patch support until the game is polished. Based on past history I am not totally convinced this will be the case, but I truly hope it will be because the game clearly has the potential to be the finest TBS game for years to come.