Let's gather all Balance Issues in Civilization 5 Here!

[jshelr]

I have not read through the earlier posts but will tomorrow.

Just wanted to mention my impression that the AI doesn't defend well enough under the no stacking rules. Attacking AI civs walk over the city defenses with no problem. It was not entirely uncommon to find a super power emerging on a continent in Civ IV. But the normal case was some sort of balance of power.

In contrast, nearly all my civ V games so far have seen one AI civ clearly wiping out the others. Is this what everybody is seeing? If so, it takes away a lot of the mystery about what the flow of the game is going to be and will produce a sameness to the games that Civ IV was able to overcome. Hope this turns out to be wrong or fixable.

[Fidel]

I have not read through the earlier posts but will tomorrow.

Just wanted to mention my impression that the AI doesn't defend well enough under the no stacking rules. Attacking AI civs walk over the city defenses with no problem. It was not entirely uncommon to find a super power emerging on a continent in Civ IV. But the normal case was some sort of balance of power.

In contrast, nearly all my civ V games so far have seen one AI civ clearly wiping out the others. Is this what everybody is seeing? If so, it takes away a lot of the mystery about what the flow of the game is going to be and will produce a sameness to the games that Civ IV was able to overcome. Hope this turns out to be wrong or fixable.

That is what I wrote a while ago - steamrolling. Also, once those giants are made of glass and if you backstab them (or soak their initial attack) - there is absolutely nothing in the reserve.
War has to be checked by either revolts or some other crippling device. No one in the history of mankind managed to conquer the entire world in one go and this game pretty much allows you to do that without stopping.

[Fidel]

re: balance, some additional impressions
mounted units are basically too powerful, swordsmen are worthless. you need just ranged.
companion cavalry is insane.
catapults are too slow, you are better off having two archers because of mobility.
naval units should have 'ramming' ability (triremes), not just ranged attack. or am i missing something?
naval units should have double range ZOC.
almost all of the powerful civ treats should be moderated. e.g. persians should get, say, one quarter instead of one half of additional golden age turns. chinese should have just a slight bonus from GG and greater chance of spawn, greek ability should be halved, etc. some of the unique abilites are worhtless (e.g. english, there is never any navy opposing the human player).
buildings should be balanced. quite a few of them should be free of maintenance. the way it is now, i usually have nothing to build so i just build and disband scouts (wealth production is paltry).

[frenzyfol]

Upgrading units
Cheaper than building/purchasing new.
Makes no sense.

So you think newly purchased units should be cheaper than upgrading an existing unit? Can you explain why?

[Iola of Shinola]

I just fiished my 4th game. 6 players and Deity difficulty.
I am totally underwhelmed by the AI (which was expected) and by the
overall lack of challenge winning the games. None of the AI's have
presented much of a challenge yet, they almost always seem to wait
until I have a huge Tech advantage before they declare war. By then
it is too late. The last game they all ganged up on me at once--
no real threat tho because the AI is terrible at making war. So much so
that it makes the game totally unbalanced towards the player. I have played
all the "bad" Civ's so far. Or rather, those that are reported as weak choices.
Iroqois, England, Germany and USA have each dominated the world easily as
the "player" ...

This is so easy it is absurd.

[rah]

What land mass style? I'll agree that AI can be not much of an opponent, but I don't win every time on Deity, and I've been playing longer then almost everyone here.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

Is anyone else bothered about units being pushed out of the production queue when they become obsolete?

In Civ4 the standard behaviour was a free upgrade, which makes some sense.

[Iola of Shinola]

What land mass style? I'll agree that AI can be not much of an opponent, but I don't win every time on Deity, and I've been playing longer then almost everyone here.

I set everything to random, but the last game displays 'continents' as the map.

the game before would have been archapelego (just guessing from the rather large number of islands) and it was also deity.

before that i played at immortal, and the map type was most likely pangea, since it was like 2 huge land masses.

it is important to note that every victory has been domination... in the last game i actually waited like 50 turns or so for the other "superpower" to catch up tech-wise so that he might be a challenge. he was not. i took about 1/2 of his cities and his capital in 4 turns with about 1/3rd of my army engaged.

i wish my computer was a bit more high end. when i try to play with bigger maps and more players it usually crashes on me.

[jshelr]

"What land mass style? I'll agree that AI can be not much of an opponent, but I don't win every time on Deity, and I've been playing longer then almost everyone here."

I've "only" been playing the level below deity but I still agree it's too easy. I alternated between emperor and monarch in Civ IV, so that is step up for me already. In Civ V, the horseman rush to clear your continent, followed by "Who's Your Buddy," if you are far behind on tech, or the delayed efficient ICS sprawl strategy outlined over at fanatics will win nearly all the time it seems. You might even be able to do both Who's Your Buddy followed by ICS if you can up the culture enough to get the social policies required.

I'm just the old guy in the opening movie. So, if I think it's easy, it's easy.

[Iola of Shinola]

I did some quick experiments, and ran several diety level games with various settings. Small map with no CS and 9 players on fractal seemed to induce the AI to go into super aggro mode. I played this game 4 different times and I was hit with DoW every time by turn 30 or so. Usually the first AI to meet me would DoW within 5-10 turns. In each of these games, I ended up way behind, as survival was quite a challenge. The AI has sufficient advantages early on, that it is very hard to survive when they are coming at you with horsemen, swordsmen and catapults and you are defending with archers and spearmen. Note tho, that I did survive in everygame, but in my opinion, I would most likely get obliterated in the next war, since I was now totally out classed by every other civ.

This in no way says anything positive about game balance or the AI. It simply shows that if you set game settings to encourage early aggression by the AI, it will most likely win.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

to give the player more control over happiness, it would be interesting to have an option to 'liberate' one of your own occupied cities. that way you immediately gain happiness. the flip side should be that there's a chance that other occupied cities will revolt and go indy, the risk becoming smaller as the turns pass.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

in addition, i'd like to see a 3 turn "cease fire" treaty. didn't we have one of those in earlier civs?

[Zoetstofzoetje]

i just noticed something uber-super-ultra-stupid/silly. i can't raze cities any more. the reason is, i get too much food from maritime city states. major bug! lol.

[Ming]

You can still raze ciites even with every maritime city state in your pocket. I've never had a problem with that in the games when I am allied with every city state. They do eventually go away.

[Iola of Shinola]

From the things that make you go "Doh!" department:

Diety, small continents map, 6 players 3 CS turn 46 player is the Americans--
France has OB and has built up a significant number of units all around my civ.
I am in full red alert mode, because I know the caca is about to hit the fan.
Turn 47 the OB expires, and France gives me the "You are too close" DoW. Turn
50, I finish mopping up the remains of the French Invasion Force and begin the
counter attack. Turn 58, Paris falls and the Frenchies are reduced to 2 very small
cities, however... both cities are situated near large iron deposits and one has
both Spice and Whales nearby (and I am kinda short on Iron and have neither luxury)
so ... Turn 60 when they ask for peace, I refuse and close them out on turn 63.

So far so good... Turn 70 I try to do a little diplomacy only to discover that I
am now refered to as either "Bloodthirsty one" or "dishonest individual" by every
other civ I talk to, and no one will give me the time of day. So what gives? They
basically used open borders to surround my civ with units and then launched a "sneak"
attack the turn it expired, and I am dishonest and bloodthirsty because I didn't give
them the peasce they asked for after they were beaten back to the stone age?

I had hoped to try for something other than a domination victory in this game, but I
guess the other civs want to play rough....