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Post by weaksauce on Apr 20, 2006 11:51:25 GMT -5
I was just reading some of the old posts here. I really think Tommy and MGT's point about copper is totally right on. The fact that it is so slow and costly now to get a 2nd settler out means copper in a player's capital is a huge deal.
Perhaps, the first settler produced needs to be cheaper in cost, successive settlers can require more production. Perhaps instead of getting copper, a player can 'sacrifice' another resource like cow or deer to create a settler quickly w/ copper research. It is really a game flaw though, that copper in capital is now stronger than before the patch.
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Post by longhorn on Apr 20, 2006 15:59:09 GMT -5
After reading all of the comments on how inbalanced Ghandi had become and combining that with the section on starting traits I would suggest the following for balance:
Change one of Ghandi's powerful traits to what you are citing as the 'bad one'
Creative instead of Industrial
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Post by Elledge on Apr 20, 2006 16:35:49 GMT -5
Why not just put copper in the fat cross of all front cities?
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Post by weaksauce on Apr 20, 2006 20:24:12 GMT -5
here is a thought. this sort of structure might benefit ancient game play:
Spearmen str 3, double vs. mounted. Horse Archer str 6, 10% vs. melee Swordsman str 6, 25% vs. mounted Keep the rest the same.
no one bothers w/ swordsmen and horse archers. the entire game is axemen, archers, some chariots, and cats. this sort of design might make these units more worthwhile... horse archer got no defense bonus anyway so 10% melee bonus isn't that big a deal, but makes them more useful vs. Axemen... swordsman can be more useful vs. elephant/horse archer....etc.
maybe adjust production costs a bit... again just an idea.
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Post by Levi on Apr 21, 2006 8:29:08 GMT -5
In civ3 many of the imbalance problems were solved with a mod called Vanilla. All the traits and UU's were removed and everyone was equal. If you want to make the maps more balanced, you can a mod so that none of the units need resources. This would certainly make researching certain techs pointless, but those tecks could be modded out of the tech tree.
Now I know people are going to say, "we don't want to play vanilla". So either we accept the fact that the game is going to be unbalanced when we have civs with different traits and land with randomly distributed resources, or we do not accept it.
Lets all play civ where all the civs are exactly the same, where there are no military recources needed to build military and everyone's land is just freshwater grassland and hills.
HOW BORING!
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Post by weaksauce on Apr 21, 2006 8:54:50 GMT -5
In civ3 many of the imbalance problems were solved with a mod called Vanilla. All the traits and UU's were removed and everyone was equal. If you want to make the maps more balanced, you can a mod so that none of the units need resources. This would certainly make researching certain techs pointless, but those tecks could be modded out of the tech tree. Now I know people are going to say, "we don't want to play vanilla". So either we accept the fact that the game is going to be unbalanced when we have civs with different traits and land with randomly distributed resources, or we do not accept it. Lets all play civ where all the civs are exactly the same, where there are no military recources needed to build military and everyone's land is just freshwater grassland and hills. HOW BORING! This real problem is just fundamentally how Civ4 was designed. It appears to have been designed from the perspective of a single player vs. some crappy computer AI. If you look at other games like the Age of Empire series, there is a lot more thought put into the dynamic between the different units and potential counter units (their costs, health points, and damage dealt). I've played the hell out of Civ4 and been through a couple patches now. I've spent a bit of time talking to beta testers and they all tell me the people at firaxis are smart guys. But I still think that Civ4 single player game, trying to get away with multiplayer functionality... and it really just sucks cuz it falls short. I'm not buying the expansion and will soon quit this game. Time to move on to something w/ a little higher quality MP, I think. The connectivity crap alone is enough to put one off, but the game design really is problematic too :/. I'm so sick of everything being axemen in ancient... it's so uninteresting and boring sometimes... I wonder how any game designer can think it makes sense.... this structure of Axemen being so powerful and other units like swordsma and horse archer being virtual useless. It is just so plain stupid to me. I also don't understand how all melee get defense bonuses? Why not make praetorians not have defense bonus? Why not have an attacking BONUS into woods and hills for certain units?? aoe3.heavengames.com/php/units/units.php?a=AbstractHeavyInfantry&p=fIf you look at the Unit structure for AOE3, you see each unit deals X damage to opposing unit types (Infantry, Siege, Mounted, etc.) It's far more complex and the system is more thoughtout and provides better game balance, I think. Civ4's military unit balance is really a simpleton's system at the end of the day... no depth... and that's why you get these stupid nuts units like Cossacks and the entire game depending upon catapults and axemen. Catapults are so overpowered, they practically ruin the game like Cossacks can in ren.... bleah. /weak
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 21, 2006 15:25:03 GMT -5
Well Fried has a ladder mod thread feel free to post your thoughts there, on what needs to be changed for game balance. Civ4 was designed to be simpler than C3C, that's why we have one strength value and not separate attack and defence values. I don't personally agree with all your statements about the unit problems, but there is always room to improve, and I have always felt that if you come with criticisim you should come with the solutions too.
CS
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Post by Tony on Apr 21, 2006 20:03:45 GMT -5
weak i hear what your saying and do agree with it generally, but not fully.
I think part of the problem is firaxis has tried too hard to make civ4 like other games, for example AoE, rise of nations, and a few others, and probally some i havn't played.
This game has been less about CIV and more about trying to convert other game fans over. Even little things have been changed like the bottons that highlights the unit and the button that is used to attack. Even the types of units, and unit categories. It seems soooo much of it has been borrowed from other games in an attempt to become more like them, and as a result, woooo there fan base in.
As CS states, the game designers have tried to make the game alot more simple, you have to ask yourself why? I belive it is for the same reason as above, they want new players to play the game and pick it up very quickly, with little micromanagment as this can be fustrating for new players, and may put them off, or put them at a disadvantage. This for me is the most disappionting thing, instead of converting others to CIV, they have tried to convert civvers into them. (You cant beat them, join them policy)
I belive CIV4 is a very cleverly designed game, for the reasons mentioned above, beacuse what you have is a situation where you can pick the game up quickly, master it pretty soon, get bored of it soon after that, just in time for the XP, and the cycle begins agian? Playing the same game for a long time dont make money, infact it costs money.
Firaxis, is a business, and making money is there primary goal. And YES they are clever.
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Post by Canucksoldier on Apr 21, 2006 23:30:56 GMT -5
Firaxis also had the problem of trying to satify many very different groups, MPer. SPers, PBEMers, and Modders, all with different goals, and all playing the same game. MP got it's fair share of attention, and considering it's the first Civ game ever to have MP OOTB,. we won alot of battles during the development. Is it perfect for MP, likely no, but it's not unplayable either, Firaxis did use the "rock, paper, scissors" euphimism when designing unit balance. The biggest problem is more the limited number of maps that are good fopr MP and give you the use of all the units. But fortunately Firaxis did one good thing for everyone, they gave us a game that is very moddable and when the default game starts to bore us, we have the power to make it into the game we want.
CS
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Post by Avogadro on Apr 22, 2006 0:17:58 GMT -5
MP "OOTB" means you can play it once ya install it right? sorry coulnt help it ;D But in all honestly I agree with you alot of the issues are surrounding peoples computers, firewalls, video card. I know we has some 14 player games in beta and it worked. Problem is should be designed accessible for the less common denominator. I like the changes in this patch alot. No more mindless chopping. Was getting to the point that some players had 2 cities and 6-7 workers to chop everything lol. Now ya gotta pay more attention to your improvements, people have smaller army early and most are getting much further in teching then before because of gold saved. I like it.
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reptile
Worker
in desperate need of a new avatar
Posts: 106
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Post by reptile on Apr 22, 2006 0:39:16 GMT -5
I was a bit late with experiencing the new patch but now I know that I like it. It seems they made the interface a little faster, which was one of the really needed points for mp. Finally the game speed is back to where it was before 1.52... - I lost a lot of motivation to play with that patch and kept on asking myself how they could do it...a patch that, by mistake, changes the pace of the game... So now the game is less rng-luck dependant or like chess, and it nicely evens out the forest chop nerfing, which is a good thing, too! People now complain about the ressources being more important, well before the patch it was even more important to have enough forest.
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