GothmogII said:
They kind of did that in Beyond Earth, as far as the events went or when constructing a building you would get a prompt with two or three options that would give you certain permanent bonuses or extra resources etc. Though, a lot of the choices ended up being more beneficial than others and you'd pick the same ones most of the time. The only variation is if you wanted to go Harmony/Purity/Supremacy. I did kind of like that aspect as depending on what route you picked you needed access to certain resources, so if you had a lot of Firaxite for example near your starting area is was usually better to lean toward Supremacy techs.
Though, only having three paths rather stripped the factions of their personality or any kind of uniqueness, though this is only really in comparison to Alpha Centauri.
Yeah, I kind of liked that, but you're right, there was almost always a best option, which kind of removed some of the positives of the system.
Rising Tide made it kind of 6 paths to pursue, and removed the need to stick to only what you had the resources for, which was nice, but honestly my biggest problem with that side of things was the map generation. These things always just got dumped anywhere they could get dumped, and their way of balancing that was with much smaller deposits. I'd have rathered rarer, larger deposits, that appeared predominantly in certain areas; Floatstone near the seas and canyons, firaxite near mountains and xenomass in the miasmic wilds. It'd drive conflict in the game to get these resources, rather than just plopping another city down near one of the thousand 2 giving resource, and with a handful of outlying resources, you could still have everyone get one or two resources to use anyway.
The upgrade paths units have for each of the ethics was also nice, with differing options, but again, there was usually one or two 'best' options.
Honestly Rising Tide is a great improvement to the game on most of its failing fronts, but it also introduces a bunch of new issues as well. They at least accomplished the mission of giving each leader a personality I can predict at least though, and they all seem somewhat unique at least.
lionsprey said:
"COMBINED ARMS:
Expanding on the "one unit per tile" design, support units can now be embedded with other units, like anti-tank support with infantry, or a warrior with settlers. Similar units can also be combined to form powerful "Corps" units."
the "corps" worries me. it sounds like they are incing closer to the old stacks of doom and the move away from that was the best thing about civ 5 imho. i can handle how it can get kinda awkward late game just please do not bring those fucking stacks back.
In some ways its sort of like a bunch of people's solution for an inbetween; 3 unit stacks. Rather than allowing unlimited stacking, and rather than forcing the annoyance of only one unit per tile and the late game logistics bloat that causes, allow 3 units per tile.
Mechanically they do sadly merge, rather than stack, however a merged unit is 40% stronger than an unmerged one. So if you merge two units into a "Corps", you'll get one unit with 140% of the original strength. Its not as good as two individual units, but if you've got a big army and you're not going to be able to bring both units to bare its a pretty decent option. Armies of 3 units I'd assume are another 40% more powerful still.
Corps also become only available in the Napoleonic Era [I'm assuming this is the Renaissance], whilst Armies come in in the early modern Era, when applicable technologies are researched. So they're not going to be widespread, and they're far more situational than stacks of doom. Still remains to be seen how it actually plays out, but they're not stacks of doom. It does emphasise production a bit more over tech again, and makes the two a bit more comparable [In Civ V tech ruled. Once you hit a certain number of troops, there were vastly diminishing returns due to the logistics if you wanted to pump out more, and usually a single higher-tech unit could defeat two lower-tech units. With the ability to merge excess units into a stronger one, a single lower tech unit seems potentially able to hold out against a higher tech one slightly better, and you don't run into the logistics block as early.
GothmogII said:
I was wondering if it was going to be hexes again, which it seems likely given the screenshots, but...why? It's a throwback to Civ's boardgame roots, would allowing turn and point based free movement make it less civ-like? I'm imagining something akin to how the strategic map works in the total war series, i.e. different units would have a limited distance they could travel in a single turn but you are relatively free to position your units exactly where you would like.
I'd even say the army stacking the Total War games use is worth stealing. Although I am interested in the corps and armies features they are supposed to have, was sick of my settlers getting pounded by a lone barbarian jumping out of the fog of war.
Eh, it throws a bunch of complications into the mix. For one, how do you place cities? They're pre-placed in Total War for a reason, it makes their job a lot easier. It also makes terrain defensive bonuses harder to signal and convey, army combat harder to handle, zones of control would work a lot differently, as would blocking terrain, and how would placing improvements work? and...
Total War's system works because the entire game is built to support it, and it supports the feel of the battles you have in Total War. Civ's system works better for it, as its mechanics all support that style of movement. You COULD turn Civ into Total War, but that seems a little redundant when Total War exists. People go to Civ for that more board game feel a lot of the time, and other games like Total War or Europa when they want something closer to a simulation.
As for the settler issue, ALWAYS send them out with a Warrior. Warriors and settlers, or really any military units and settlers, do stack. They CAN be a pain to move, but if you pay attention to them, its usually fine. You should do the same for workers TBH. Don't do it in a multiplayer game, and leave your worker undefended, and be prepared for an enemy scout to declare war, steal it, then make peace. Because how are you going to retaliate when you're not geared for war? And they get a free worker. Barbarians love doing it too, and its one of the biggest pluses to starting near city states; declare war, steal worker, make peace. Its so almost exploitable we actually banned the practice in the games my friends and I run. Undefended civilian units are just a bad move.
