CivRev: Optional Buildings

Gameplay Ideas

from Elemental Forums

Yesterday, I played civilization revolution for the first time and it is way much better than Civ IV. There is still a few flaws like diplomacy is very limited, but in general, it plays much better.

Anyways, what I want to get at is that in CivRev, the way the buildings are designed makes each of them not necessarily essential in each of your city. In Master of magic, constructing buildings takes a lot of time and most of the time, there is no interest in not having them all. Which creates a huge list of buildings to build before a city is ready to do other stuff. This can be annoying with races which has a lot of building. Here is an comparison example:

In MOM, the "sawmill" building gives you 25% production bonus if you have a forest around your city. Unless you do not have any forest, there is no reason not to build this building. Generally, have a city with 1 forest tile is relatively easy especially when you have the change terrain spell. So you are going to build a saw mill in each of your cities.

To make the "Sawmill" works like a CivRev building it would look like this: "Each forest tile double their production value".

In this case, if you do not have much forest tile, it does not worth loosing time making a sawmill becasue the production bonus you would gain are very limited. But if you have nothing else to do, or if your production in this city is so low that you want to get any bonus possible then you could build the sawmill.

In CivRev, there are many upgrades that works by terrain, like the trade post which add 2 points of trade in deserts. If you have no or few deserts, it's useless. Libraries double the research gain from trade if set in research. Since a city can either produce gold OR research, if you do not intend to do some research with this city, there is no interest to build a library. There is also barrack which allow creating veteran units. If you don't intend to build units because for example, it is a low production city, you don't need any barrack.

But in MOM, you need a barrack in all your cities because it unlocks access to units. While in CivRev, You have access to all units. You need a library in each of your cities, because it gives you a free 2 points of knowledge. etc.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are other elements that makes CivRev Pleasurable.

No unrest/health/Starving: In all civ games, I always ended up with the problem that population is unhappy and in order to make them happy, you must not make them work which reduce the food you produce and make you city starve. In CivRev, there is no way a city can stave. I think if you have 0 Food, it simply do not grow, but you can never starve.

No Maintenance: You do not play for army and building maintenance. The advantage, is that you can build without worrying if you will have the ressources to maintain it. I remember in some Civ/Mom/Moo games that I did not build certain buildings because since the maintenance cost was so high, it would place my city in deficit (In Orion 2, that was the case for food replicators which had a 10 credits maintenance)

The disadvantage, is that you could build an infinite army size. Also if you lose cities, it does not force you to lose military units since you do not need to maintain them by supplying food. So it's hard to destabilize a player by capturing key cities since he has nothing to maintain. It only prevent him from brigning back new units.

 

5,843 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

You lost me at CivRev being better than CIV IV.

 

This is heresy and blasphemy... I just cant make myself read the rest.. 8(|

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

OK, I don't want to debate Civ IV vs CivRev so I'll make it quick. I know that there is some missing features that I would have liked (ex: unit upgrade, better diplomacy, beign able to produce nothing) and there are even features I would have removed (worker placement). But in general, I prefered the CivRev experience. In overall, it took approximately 8 hours to finish a game of CivRev.

While playing Civ 4, in 8 hours, I had the time to build 3 cities. I played on a tiny map and it tooks for ever (I was bored before finishing it). I even had technological advantage before starting a war and it took some much time to attack and the ennemy cities have so much defense bonus, that in the end, not only I did not win but also lost all my tech advantage since I was producing units instead of developing cities. So Civ IV, never again. CivRev, maybe. But I won't buy it.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Sounds like you didnt give CIV IV enough time to grow upon you.

I consider CIV IV to be the best strategy game ever made (Master of Orion II and Total Annihilation in joint second).

 

Edit: The attacker actually has the advantage in city battles due to catapults. Check them out if you ever play again. I play marathon speed on monarch difficulty and it is a great experience (I usually dont win, but I dont mind)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Dont attack whit archers, Swordsmen get a 10% city attack, give them the city raider promotion and they get even better at it. ;) have whit some axemen, they slay mele units, maybe some mounted too. definitly the Catapults for dealing whit city, and weakening the enemy stack..

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Are you certain that MoM sawmills give you a hard 25% boost?  Mine says "increases the production of forest tiles by 25%", but the game is pretty buggy...  I only built it early if I had five or more forest tiles in the city's influence or wanted archers.  The issue is that the Sawmill opens up the Forester's Guild, and that does give a static production boost.  Lots of my non-military cities also went without a barracks.  You're definitely right that most MOM cities look the same, but we already have pretty strict building limits in Elemental to encourage specialization.

Adding a military cap depending on houses/barracks/whatever would be a pretty easy way of getting around infinite armies without upkeep, but I'm okay with upkeep costs if it's done GC2 style, where upkeep costs are minimal if the building isn't being used.  Of course, GC2 was kind of pesky about tying upkeep directly to work accomplished, so the upkeep of a lab sitting on an intact Precursor Library was just as much as eight other libraries (if I recall).  I also like Unrest/Health/Food (at least food, maybe not health) in that it adds more interesting ways of messing an opponent up.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I know that upkeep/Unrest/Health and food is important if you want to be possible to destabilize your opponent. What I don't like is when you must prevent your self to do certain things in order not to screw yourself over.

Another example, in Civ 1, I never built aquaduct. The reason why is because when I get more than 10 people in my cities I start getting unrest which paralyse my city. In order to remove unrest, I need to remove 3 workers, which reduce the food produce and starve the city. Which mean that in the end, If I build and aquaduct my city starve.

It's also a reason why I do not capture enemy cities because they are generally wrongly placed or too close to each other which makes them eventually starve by stealing each others production.

By the way, about civ IV, I had Knights, samurais and catapults, the enemy had archers and legionaire I think ( can't remember names). I sent hordes of soldiers and most of the time I needed 3 soldiers to kill 1 when attacking cities since cities gives +100% bonus. I could destroy approximately half of his cities but could never capture his capital. In then end, he could produce knights which just told me that I lost my technological advantage by that time. By the way, I have problems playing at "Chieftain" and I don't think I could play higher (as in all other previous civ games).

Another by the way, My girl friend started a CivRev Game and she ended in in 4 Hours. One of the thing I like i CivRev Is that I can create armies which allow me to punch through any city defense the defender could have. I could expect playing higher difficulty level in CivRev.

In MOM, I can play at hard, sometimes. I found a new trick, If you make very small continents, it prevent the AI from spreading settlements like crazy and gives more chances to win.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

I think this is one of those L2P scenarios.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting larienna, reply 6

By the way, about civ IV, I had Knights, samurais and catapults, the enemy had archers and legionaire I think ( can't remember names). I sent hordes of soldiers and most of the time I needed 3 soldiers to kill 1 when attacking cities since cities gives +100% bonus. I could destroy approximately half of his cities but could never capture his capital. In then end, he could produce knights which just told me that I lost my technological advantage by that time. By the way, I have problems playing at "Chieftain" and I don't think I could play higher (as in all other previous civ games).
 
End of larienna's quote

First use the bombard defenses whit catapults to lower the defenseboost from city, then attack whit the catapults FIRST, even if they (most likly die) they will weaken the whole stack of enemies, then use the rest of your units to capture the city..