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Hey, is it just me or do Agricultural civs seem to have a higher probability of starting near a river (or maybe other freshwater)? Not that I'm complaining about it, but if this is so, it should be documented. Of course, that the +1 food/city bonus only applies to cities on rivers and near freshwater while under despotism still needs to be documented, though...
My favorite civ right now (which seems to change from day to day, but oh well) is the Maya. For one thing, I like the combination of Industrious and Agricultural...grow like a weed AND get stuff done faster, which leads to a fast-paced, but not unbalanced, opening game. But then, the Maya also get the Javelin Thrower, which can enslave units, and that combined with the Industrious trait gives them some insane power.
Which of course leads to the now-infamous "Javs enslaving barbs" scenario. I, too, vote for the solution that barbarians have a lower probability of being enslaved. However I don't think this reduction should be flat. I think it should instead be based on the number of workers the civ already has. (This isn't unlike mind worm capture in Alpha Centauri, where it becomes harder to recruit mind worms if you have a lot.) This way, enslaving barbs is still possible, but yields diminishing returns, so you only get so much out of it. This reduction might also be implemented (though less steeply of course) for enemy civ units, but since I have little experience with this whole enslaving strategy (I didn't find out about it until today) I can't really say whether that additional weakening is necessary. (This is the main point of my post; I didn't post about it in the other threads because they're really, really long and they're already too long for me to want to read; I feel as though anything I add there will be lost :P)
Some stuff I'd like to see fixed that has been around since vanilla Civ (pay no heed):
- As far as I know, you still have to 'optimize' your research slider as techs get to around 4 turns or fewer remaining. That is, if you don't adjust the slider as you are about to discover a tech, you'll lose gold to unneeded research points. Maybe when a tech is discovered, the "overflow" should be converted to gold, or count toward the next advance? Of course, overflow that occurs because of the 4 tech/turn minimum should still be lost, or there would be weird exploits (pump up research to get more gold!)
- No research is conducted on the first turn after establishing first city unless you go to the science advisor first.
- This is very minor, but...when you aren't researching any tech (at the beginning), sometimes when you visit the Science Advisor, then switch to something else, he says "Our mystics need guidance..." and forces you to select a tech. This can also happen if you try to visit another advisor first. Other times he doesn't do this at all. The conditions can be exactly the same and his behavior will be inconsistent; I've started the Intro1 conquest, hit B to build the city, hit enter, leave city screen, then hit F1 to adjust tax rates. Sometimes the Science Advisor interrupts me, but more often he does not.
The first point is, in my mind, fairly major (all those points add up; with two players who are equal in all respects except one is aware of the problem, the aware player will probably have a better game more often); the second isn't so major, and probably nobody cares about the last.
But I find them all kind of odd, and they stick out to me like a sore thumb...but I can live with them. If I couldn't, I'd have complained about them a lot sooner.
- Kef
My favorite civ right now (which seems to change from day to day, but oh well) is the Maya. For one thing, I like the combination of Industrious and Agricultural...grow like a weed AND get stuff done faster, which leads to a fast-paced, but not unbalanced, opening game. But then, the Maya also get the Javelin Thrower, which can enslave units, and that combined with the Industrious trait gives them some insane power.
Which of course leads to the now-infamous "Javs enslaving barbs" scenario. I, too, vote for the solution that barbarians have a lower probability of being enslaved. However I don't think this reduction should be flat. I think it should instead be based on the number of workers the civ already has. (This isn't unlike mind worm capture in Alpha Centauri, where it becomes harder to recruit mind worms if you have a lot.) This way, enslaving barbs is still possible, but yields diminishing returns, so you only get so much out of it. This reduction might also be implemented (though less steeply of course) for enemy civ units, but since I have little experience with this whole enslaving strategy (I didn't find out about it until today) I can't really say whether that additional weakening is necessary. (This is the main point of my post; I didn't post about it in the other threads because they're really, really long and they're already too long for me to want to read; I feel as though anything I add there will be lost :P)
Some stuff I'd like to see fixed that has been around since vanilla Civ (pay no heed):
- As far as I know, you still have to 'optimize' your research slider as techs get to around 4 turns or fewer remaining. That is, if you don't adjust the slider as you are about to discover a tech, you'll lose gold to unneeded research points. Maybe when a tech is discovered, the "overflow" should be converted to gold, or count toward the next advance? Of course, overflow that occurs because of the 4 tech/turn minimum should still be lost, or there would be weird exploits (pump up research to get more gold!)
- No research is conducted on the first turn after establishing first city unless you go to the science advisor first.
- This is very minor, but...when you aren't researching any tech (at the beginning), sometimes when you visit the Science Advisor, then switch to something else, he says "Our mystics need guidance..." and forces you to select a tech. This can also happen if you try to visit another advisor first. Other times he doesn't do this at all. The conditions can be exactly the same and his behavior will be inconsistent; I've started the Intro1 conquest, hit B to build the city, hit enter, leave city screen, then hit F1 to adjust tax rates. Sometimes the Science Advisor interrupts me, but more often he does not.
The first point is, in my mind, fairly major (all those points add up; with two players who are equal in all respects except one is aware of the problem, the aware player will probably have a better game more often); the second isn't so major, and probably nobody cares about the last.
But I find them all kind of odd, and they stick out to me like a sore thumb...but I can live with them. If I couldn't, I'd have complained about them a lot sooner. - Kef
I do see where you're coming from, and I guess it's a good enough response for me. I'll leave it alone.
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