Some fundamental flaws in the game

[Ralf]

Before someone flames me, i would first point out that below critisism only affects civer´s that have the same objectives and playing-style as i have. People who plays the game differently, with other objectives probably wont feel as much affected. Anyway:

Im one of those civer´s who...

1/ emphasize quality before quantity then expanding my empire (= fertile city-surroundings; dedicated tile- and city-improvement strategy; balanced - not too costly military upkeep), and that it should pay off nicely having this philosophy (although military perhaps somewhat risky).

In short: pursuing civil improvements because i want to do it, and building military units because i have to do it.

2/ likes to micromanage and nurture max 15-25 cities, and have the feel that this tile-improvement and city-improvement -nurturing actually makes a difference in the long run. A difference that enables me to be compared also with huge 40-60+ less nurtured and mostly undeveloped city-sleeze empires, even if they have a bigger overall population.

3/ wants city-growth to be a real challenge - not an self-evident process. Growth beyond half max city-size should be virtually impossible without at least 8-10 farmed squares, or alternatively 5-6 advanced farmed squares. Max-sized cities should require either at least 20 farmed squares, or 10-12 advanced ones.

4/ wants empire-growth to be a real economical and political challenge as well - not just a military/settler-producing one. Decisive anti-BAB (Bigger Always Better) should have been implemented in CTP-2, and it hasnt.

By anti-BAB i mean: A big empire that consists of 45 cities should (of course) have some distinctive advantages over an similarly developed empire of just 15 cities.
But also: the smaller 15 cities-empire should have some OTHER distinctive advantages (maybe much less happiness-problems then build HUGE indevidual cities) over the its bigger twin-empire counterpart.

This is basically anti-BAB, and CTP-2 dont have that, it seems. I have based all above assumptions on below review-quotes and some other tidbits of information, collected here and there.

(i hope however some of it can be tweaked through the text tweak-files, thus repairing an otherwise unbalanced game - at least seen through my specific playing-style glasses).

DARTHVEDA QUOTE:

"However, I can't let go of the fact that I could get size 20+ cities on but a single farm. In fact, farming didn't seem to do anything really useful in the game. I surrounded a size 50 city with Hydroponic Farms and a similar sized city with little farming still managed to match its rate of growth. All farming seems to do is keep the city's growth from stalling or allow players to have a city in the desert. The expanding city radius only seems to make ICS (Infinite City Sleaze), a tactic where the player only produces settlers in an expansion explosion, a whole lot easier (though I did not take advantage of it at the time)."

TILEMACHO QUOTE:

"I'm one of those guys who really liked micromanagement. I can't say that I don't like the new system but I think the main reason why it is still functional is because ICS is now even worse! Remember that the first 6 workers now work on 9 tiles...! In my last turn I have a coastal city surrounded by tundra with only 1 advanced farm and size...22!!! Something like that would never have happened in CIV2 or CTP1. In those games you should be very careful when choosing where to place you city and you should take care if you wanted it to grow (I liked that!)."

[This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 25, 2000).]

[hexagonian]

I looked at the game last night for the first time.

Those quotes also troubled me, because my playing style is the same...

Cities that are planted on the middle of tundra or bad terrain should not grow. That is common sense. When the ICS issue was being discussed a few weeks ago, Activision was discussing the mechanics of their new system. I felt then (and still do) that what they were doing (basically averaging out the food/production/gold) would totally eliminate the need to place cities based on terrain, and your first priority becomes to place them on defensible terrain. I was lulled by the presentation of info, to think that over time, bad terrain will significantly slow a city's growth and even starve it.

Of even more concern is the rate of growth of a city with tile improvements compared to a city without tile improvements. PW was fun to use, now I'm getting the impression that it isn't going to matter. And yes, I realize that you use your specialists to concentrate on food. But those specialists are pulled off the tiles, so an improvement is further diluted.

And along the lines of micromanaging...there seems to be some missing features from the CTP1 interface - and I spent a lot of time looking for this info last night.

How can I tell how many turns until a city will grow in pop. Planning Happiness improvements based on that info was critical.

A City Riot warning box in your global settings needs to be included, as adjusting settings will often push one or two cities over the edge, while the rest of your civ is still confortably happy.

Bring back the message icons on the left side of your screen, as opposed to burying messages in a tab. I do not want to use mayors, but may have to activate them now because visually having those icons was a constant reminder to check things before ending my turn.

Arghhhh!

quote: Originally posted by hexagonian on 11-25-2000 07:15 AM How can I tell how many turns until a city will grow in pop.

there isnt a way.

quote: Planning Happiness improvements based on that info was critical.

i dont see why you have to plan the building of hapinnes improvements. you can always see which city has a problem

quote: A City Riot warning box in your global settings needs to be included, as adjusting settings will often push one or two cities over the edge, while the rest of your civ is still confortably happy.

i believe the happiness numbers change immediately after you exit the empire manager(of course there is a global happiness number in there which changes automatically as you make changes). also there is the "happiness bar" on the top right of the screen at all times, showing how many cities are close to riot, content or happy(not very clearly of course due to the size)

[hexagonian]

[QUOTE]

i dont see why you have to plan the building of hapinnes improvements. you can always see which city has a problem

[QUOTE]

If happiness is based on the size of a city, as it was in CTP1, then coordinating production of a happiness improvement needs to be coordinated with when that city increases in size. If not...

It's the same with Granaries. In CTP1, Granaries did not take effect until after your pop. grows, so building them was tied into that info. Why build something when it wouldn't help your city until much later? Do Granaries work differently now?? Do they automatically add a bonus when finished? If so, then that info is not so important now.

I realize that I just am starting to play the game and have to get used to the new system, but a lot of what I did when playing CTP1 was tied into this type of info. Maxxing out global settings and keeping happiness on the edge to gain an advantage is important strategy, in my book, and having that info presented clearly is key to doing this.

I liked the fact that the riot box on the global settings tab in CTP1 gave me a warning that a riot was imminent on the next turn, unless I did something. Now it seems that I have to activate some menus to check that info and have to do so on a turn-by-turn basis. I noticed the bar at the top of the screen too, but the info presented is vague.

Remember that your civ could have a total happiness that is well within a safe margin, but one city could be rioting. Your total happiness could still be indicating everything is alright. A message that a city is about to riot would be nice.

Most of what I've seen in the game so far looks good though, but its these little things that are bothering me.

[Rollo Tomasi]

quote: Originally posted by hexagonian on 11-25-2000 10:54 AM I liked the fact that the riot box on the global settings tab in CTP1 gave me a warning that a riot was imminent on the next turn, unless I did something. Now it seems that I have to activate some menus to check that info and have to do so on a turn-by-turn basis. I noticed the bar at the top of the screen too, but the info presented is vague.

If I remember correctly, there is some message that tells when your city is on the verge of riot. Some sort of spinning black disk lands on your city and a message pops up saying "The citizens of (city) are very unhappy. If this continues they may riot!" or something to that effect.

[This message has been edited by Rollo Tomasi (edited November 25, 2000).]

[GoodGimp]

I seem to notice a fairly large difference depending on terrain. If I place a city surrounded by Tundra, the growth is stagnant (can't place farms) unless I make all the citizens of the city into Farmer specialists. That makes it so the city is generating little to no production, science, or gold - all that just to keep the city going.

The number of farms also greatly effects how well your city grows. Build a city with no farms and check the population growth. Next turn, place farms all around it and check again. It's 2 or 3 times what it normally is (keeping in mind that the size of the city has an effect on this).

[Simpleton]

One of the biggest flaws I see is charging full price for a game that is at best a patch!
That is a disgrace!
I would say 30% of the game has been restructured. Thus, this game should cost 30% of the original plus inflation!

[Forster]

quote: Originally posted by GoodGimp on 11-26-2000 02:13 AM I seem to notice a fairly large difference depending on terrain. If I place a city surrounded by Tundra, the growth is stagnant (can't place farms) unless I make all the citizens of the city into Farmer specialists. That makes it so the city is generating little to no production, science, or gold - all that just to keep the city going. The number of farms also greatly effects how well your city grows. Build a city with no farms and check the population growth. Next turn, place farms all around it and check again. It's 2 or 3 times what it normally is (keeping in mind that the size of the city has an effect on this).

Once available, you can always terraform the surrounding terrain.

[MWatts]

quote: Originally posted by Ralf on 11-25-2000 03:31 AM DARTHVEDA QUOTE: "However, I can't let go of the fact that I could get size 20+ cities on but a single farm. In fact, farming didn't seem to do anything really useful in the game. I surrounded a size 50 city with Hydroponic Farms and a similar sized city with little farming still managed to match its rate of growth. All farming seems to do is keep the city's growth from stalling or allow players to have a city in the desert. The expanding city radius only seems to make ICS (Infinite City Sleaze), a tactic where the player only produces settlers in an expansion explosion, a whole lot easier (though I did not take advantage of it at the time)." TILEMACHO QUOTE: "I'm one of those guys who really liked micromanagement. I can't say that I don't like the new system but I think the main reason why it is still functional is because ICS is now even worse! Remember that the first 6 workers now work on 9 tiles...! In my last turn I have a coastal city surrounded by tundra with only 1 advanced farm and size...22!!! Something like that would never have happened in CIV2 or CTP1. In those games you should be very careful when choosing where to place you city and you should take care if you wanted it to grow (I liked that!)." [This message has been edited by Ralf (edited November 25, 2000).]

I would like to know their secret!
I have a city surrounded by swamp tiles, one hill, one jungle, and a water tile. By the time the population got to 6, I received a message that my city would starve and shrink, if the shortage was not resolved.
It must be the government type they are using?

[Hans2]

Is it just me or is the number of turns until your city grows easy to determine? I mean, you just look at you population, look at your growth rate, and figure out how many turns it will take to reach the next level. Is this really so hard or am I missing something?

quote: Originally posted by Hans2 on 11-28-2000 11:39 AM Is it just me or is the number of turns until your city grows easy to determine? I mean, you just look at you population, look at your growth rate, and figure out how many turns it will take to reach the next level. Is this really so hard or am I missing something?

no, you're not missing something...

of course a "turns to next growth" number somewhere on the city manager would also be nice

[Alpha Wolf]

I'm not sure if this is a flaw or a feature. I found a city that was just beyond my existing border. When i tried to build a road to it, i found that I could not actually build outside of my borders, even to extend an existing road. has anyone else noticed this? and did you figure out a way around it short of sending a settler to build a city (to extend borders) for long enough to finish the road.

On the subject of borders, I thought I remembered that borders would be based on first civ to explore an area. i t now seems totally dependent on cities.

Lastly, I built a city that overlapped an existing AI city. i destroyed that city but the border of my city did not seem to expand to the now unowned tiles. Has anyone else noticed this and does it correct itself at some point, such as when my city expands upon reaching 7 or such.

Thanks.

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History is written by the victor.

[Carrion]

quote: Originally posted by Alpha Wolf on 11-29-2000 02:44 AM I'm not sure if this is a flaw or a feature. I found a city that was just beyond my existing border. When i tried to build a road to it, i found that I could not actually build outside of my borders, even to extend an existing road. has anyone else noticed this? and did you figure out a way around it short of sending a settler to build a city (to extend borders) for long enough to finish the road.

You aren't the first to experience the borders and roads issue. I extend my borders with fortifications. It also helps patch holes in my national border so the AI won't build on your continent.

quote: Originally posted by Alpha Wolf on 11-29-2000 02:44 AM Lastly, I built a city that overlapped an existing AI city. i destroyed that city but the border of my city did not seem to expand to the now unowned tiles. Has anyone else noticed this and does it correct itself at some point, such as when my city expands upon reaching 7 or such.

I will assume you mean the dashed line that your city draws its resources from. This is true it won't expand until it reaches size 9, I think. I had the same deal last night and I bought the city and disbanded it and my National borders went back to normal and my city border stayed the same because it didn't grow.

[Metamorph]

Firstly, to build roads outside of your national borders, simply march a settler over to the general area; found a city; drop the roads from orbit; then disband the city; all in the same turn. Who says Settlers don't build tile improvements in CtP2?

As far as the city growth model, please first refer to my post on the creation forum, titled The Production Model Unveiled:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum44/HTML/000053.html?6

Since the city tile is harvested for free in addition to the innate city bonus, and farmers produce 30 food of their own volition, it's possible to have absurdly huge cities smack dab in the middle of tundra wastelands. Having tiles around which actually produce food is merely a boon; and bothering to improve them with farms won't actually have a very exciting effect.

I also suspect that there's a "max growth rate" of some sort, hard-coded; I intend to investigate this further, hopefully tonight.

- Metamorph

quote: Originally posted by Metamorph on 11-29-2000 10:26 AM I also suspect that there's a "max growth rate" of some sort, hard-coded;

it's not hard-coded. i believe it's in citysize.txt

[Alpha Wolf]

I was referring to my national borders not expanding, sorry for the being more specific. I wiped out an AI city yet he seemed to still control that land even tho it now fell exclusively within the radius of my city.

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History is written by the victor.