Beyond the Sword Review by Solver

[Solver]

Uhmm, the testing bunch does include some of the strongest players. Blake himself is one of the strongest players.

[DrSpike]

I said many. And there's a limit to how much Blake can do when he was no doubt focusing on the AI.

Anyway, you shouldn't interpret my point as a slight. It's just a fact that a game as complex as Civ will not be well understood until a range of the best players have had chance to have a crack at it.

[Solver]

That's certainly true. Civ4, and BtS, are complex enough that they'll need a good amount of time by a bunch of high-skill guys.

[DrSpike]

So stop disagreeing with me then.

[monkspider]

I have to admit that I do see some valid points being made regarding the monetary cost and opportunity cost of corporations outweighing the benefits they provide. Founding Mining Inc and just spreading it to a few handful of cities caused a substantial increase in costs beyond what I ever expected.

I think the problem *might* be related to corporations causing inflation rates to increase beyond what was ever intended. In any event I do think there is some tweaking to do here. I do think the corporations add a really fun dynamic to the game though.

[Wiglaf]

Originally posted by 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...

I read the section on espionage, which is what I commented on..

[yin26]

Originally posted by DrSpike It also has to be borne in mind that many testers, whilst keen players, are not amongst the strongest if we are totally honest.

Yeah, I'm definitely not the strongest player around, though I think I represent a fair mix of casual and semi-hardcore, which is probably a decent test case. That said, however, the testing environment, too, has its own costs in terms of the time it takes you to post about an issue, upload a save, post screen shots, deal with crashes, etc. It's the nature of the beast. If I were to do it all over again, I'd personally do a lot of late game starts, though I'm happy my focus on using Advanced Start in the Ancient era, for example, seems to have led to something good there.

But you are right: The testing group's first job is to help with stability and decent balance. I think we came pretty close, which is saying a lot given all the new features. As for final game balance, there's no way we could match the sheer hours already put in by the public, among whom are some very strong and highly detail-oriented players.

At this point, I'm not sure how much 2K is dictating the patch effort. I can say for sure, though, that --given the chance-- Firaxis will put out some awesome patches, particularly if the public reaches some clear findings/suggestions.

[=DrJambo=]

Here's one - remove corporation maintenance from inflation, and find another way to increase late game costs and slow tech rate. One could even increase inflation further to compensate the removal of corporation maintenance!

[sneaky]

In my latest game as the Dutch I founded four corporations, Sid's Sushi Co., Civilized Jewelers, Creative Construction and almost on the end Mining Co. I think I spread Sid's Shushi Co to four cities besides its HQ, Civilized Jewelers to two or three additional cities and Creative Construction and Mining Co. also both to two additional cities. Because I was pursuing a space race and wanted to test how corporations effected my economy, I decided to not go the easy route and only spread it domestically and not to foreign civs.

Before I founded my first corporation in the late 1860's I was running 80% science with a small margin. When my fully loaded space ship launched in 1948 I was still running 80% science and was even pulling 120 gold on top of that. Of course my inflation wasn't as high as it could be 100 years later, but corporation costs were already by far the biggest part of my outcome. Nevertheless I was able to reap the rewards of my corporations, boost my city grow and production impressively and keep the science rate intact.

Although this was a game on a easy difficult level and I was mostly trying stuff out I am still not completely convinced that Corporations and increased Inflation is intrinsically bad. If played correctly I think you can reach corporations early on and increase you economy enough along the years to battle the growing costs and keep up you science rate intact. Whiile at the same time benefiting from the initial boost the corporations gave you.

[=DrJambo=]

sneaky,

Can I stop you there for a moment because I believe there are several factors about your game which will make it unlikely to even be affected by the crux of the problem. So my guess is it's not surprising you're not convinced, yet.

Firstly, you're on an 'easy' difficulty level so the effect of corporation maintenance and inflation will be significantly less overall. As you go up in diffficulty there's increased penalties on both corporation maintenance and inflation rate.

Secondly and probably more importantly, you launched in 1948! That's pretty early and most likely a reflection of your difficulty level. Inflation continues to rise throughout the game and spirals as you near 2000 AD and the end game. On Prince level I was at around 195 % by ~1986. On your 'easy' level (presuming that it was easier than Prince?) coupled with your earlier end date, inflation won't yet represent a major problem. So it's all fine and well if you can win before the late 20th century!

Of course, you could check the finance screen and give actual numbers to provide concrete evidence one way or another, but my guess is you completed your game probably without much effect of inflation on your corporation maintenance!

Regards

[sneaky]

Originally posted by =DrJambo=
sneaky,

Can I stop you there for a moment because I believe there are several factors about your game which will make it unlikely to even be affected by the crux of the problem. So my guess is it's not surprising you're not convinced, yet.

Firstly, you're on an 'easy' difficulty level so the effect of corporation maintenance and inflation will be significantly less overall. As you go up in diffficulty there's increased penalties on both corporation maintenance and inflation rate.

Secondly and probably more importantly, you launched in 1948! That's pretty early and most likely a reflection of your difficulty level. Inflation continues to rise throughout the game and spirals as you near 2000 AD and the end game. On Prince level I was at around 195 % by ~1986. On your 'easy' level (presuming that it was easier than Prince?) coupled with your earlier end date, inflation won't yet represent a major problem. So it's all fine and well if you can win before the late 20th century!

Of course, you could check the finance screen and give actual numbers to provide concrete evidence one way or another, but my guess is you completed your game probably without much effect of inflation on your corporation maintenance!

Regards

This is all very much true and I was aware of the points you just named when I posted. I also wasn't trying to claim I broke the system or something or that I was a great player. I was just explaining a game I played and what i experienced in it and mostly wanted to say, that if a bad player like me can get something out of it, I bet much better players can also use the feature on higher levels to much better extent.

I think the usefulness of corporations all depends on how early you can found your first one and how much room you still have to increase your empire's financial income from that point on. I didn't reach my corporations early at all and didn't spread them as effective as I could have. I also played a sloppy game and wasn't really trying to win early just trying to experience some of the new features.

Although I admittedly played on a low level, I expect that much better players can also reach similar results on higher levels. If they reach their corporation early on and can somewhat increase their empire's income they can effectively shorter the time it them take to win the game. The eventual costs could become massive but the initial head start would be huge and if timed correctly decisive to the outcome of the game.

Note, that I'm not claiming that corporations aren't a heavy burden and that late game inflation isn't massive. I am just contemplating that there is probably room to use the system to your advantage if you base your strategy on it and reach your desired corporation early enough. Corporations are a heavily balanced feature, but I think it's a feature that can be very useful to the player in some situations and if he bases his strategy on it. Spamming your opponents with your corporations could be a part of this, but not necessarily a must.

Disclaimer: It could turn out I have been overly positive and that Firaxis nevertheless eventually patches it. But for the time being this is just the way I experienced it. When I get more experience with the feature and go back to the higher levels I will let you know. :P

PS: I'm not completely sure what my maintenance at that point in the game was, but it was fairly low. Around 140% I think. Although the costs weren't killing me at that point, I also founded four corporations of which I certainly didn't need two. I also spread my corporations without too much regard and I never got around to spreading them to my opponents. I expect I could have survived at the same science rate for quite some time, if I planned better and also spread to the other continent for foreign income.

[Bkeela]

Well, I'm quite horrified at what I've read of espionage so far. There was no mention of a Hunter-Seeker Algorithm project that would provide blanket protection from spies.

When you play Civ IV as a single player, you are really playing against six other nations. Having all of them hate me, constantly destroying improvements and messing me - now from early in the game - hmmm. Sounds like hell to me.

SOUNDS LIKE MICROMANAGEMENT HELL TO ME TO HAVE TO REBUILD YOUR IMPROVEMENTS CONSTANTLY. Meh - only take you a few turns. What the hell?

[realpolitic]

Ballista Elephants replace War Elephants and can target any Mounted units first in combat outside cities. It means that, if a Ballista Elephant attacks a mixed stack in the field, it will target mounted units and not the strongest defender. This selective targeting ability is unique to the Khmer unique unit. War Elephants are powerful enough as it is, and the Ballista Elephant is probably the best counter to Mounted units in the entire game.

I don't understand the advantage here. If you're going to defeat the stack, you'll have to knock out the most powerful unit anyhow. If there's a more advanced stack that the mounted unit is catching up with, yes it does slow up the attack slightly. If you don't want to lose your most powerful unit because the probably of winning is too low, if you have a big enough stack, attack with weaker, obsolete units first, so that when you attack, your strongest will survive.

[realpolitic]

Originally posted by sneaky
I have founded Sid's Sushi Co. (seems to be one of the best) and spread it to a few of my food poor cities. I don't seem to be making any money of them so far, but boosting a food poor city by something like +7 food, +14 culture is huge!

Hmm, and to magnify that, build granaries in anticipation of the increased yield. If one of these cities has plenty of mines, it might turn it into a wonder building city, too!

[Blake]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I said many. And there's a limit to how much Blake can do when he was no doubt focusing on the AI.

You'd be surprised.

I tested many of the systems to death in figuring out how they worked so I could write and tune the AI. This is particularly true of the later era stuff...