Initial Thoughts on the new patch

[russelljimmies]

Has anyone tried Terra yet?

 

[nokmirt]

Are shrines taken out? I have no shrines. They are not listed under the pottery tech or in the ancient buildings list.

 

[Txurce]

Shrines are where they always were - in Pottery. I didn't bother looking at the tech tree.

 

[Gamewizard]

Yes, but it's not nearly enough -> if it was enough, games wouldn't almost always be decided by the Renaissance.

This really comes down to the AIs inability to play the game as well as a human. A human knows how to keep a lead and knows how to slow down an AI runaway. For example, selling resources to the AI is broken. Gold in the hands of a human is OP. You can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING with it. And the resource that the AI just bought from you is useless to them since they have a limitless supply of happiness to begin with. This problem is worse in the early game because gold is harder to come by, but the AI doesn't care if its turn 10 or turn 250...they always under-value their gold and will always throw it away.

Another problem is military strength calculation and the resulting capitulation. I was playing a game yesterday where I DOWed Catherine in the classical era. I killed ONE warrior of hers, rush bought 2 archers, and because this barely put me ahead of her in military strength she decides to surrender her only non-capital city to me even though I'm not even trying to take her cities. The AI is unable to clearly calculate the threat level of a conflict and regularly gives up too much because of it. A human would NEVER give up a city to end a war for 10 measly turns. Giving up a city this early in the game is suicide but it just doesn't have a clue.

I play on Immortal by the way.

 

[apocalypse105]

I also find with the "pillage heals" rule that I am more likely to use melee units to assault cities before bringing them completely down with ranged units. I can't tell if this observation is related to the increased AI success at capturing cities.

Well the AI just steamrolls eachother especially the warmongers because of the heal after pillaging...

Wich causes agressive Ai's to steamroll their entire continent wich wasn't allways possible before the patch.

Thinx about it we humans are smart enough to finish of a unit while i've seen the Ai sometimes randomly shoot a unit whith a archer and a other unit with the city which isn't helpfull because they jsut heal by pillaging

 

[Socratatus]

I can`t say much about the Patch in detail since I don`t anally follow the numbers, but

1. It is smoother in play.

2.The arrow cursor doesn`t get stuck like it used to and when it swaps around it`s not annoyingly jumping away from a unit before I`m done with it.

3. Raging Barbarians seem a lot more aggressive.

4. Civs settle more now. I actually likeed how it was prepatch, but no big deal. In fact Siam saved my butt (and caused itself trouble) by settling a City right between me and some raging barbarians that I`d been having trouble with. I left Siam to it.

5. Civs seem to like going to war with CS` more. It`s like the kid gloves are off.

6. Communication with Civs feels slower in peace.

7.The Americans attacked me and took a city, but were quick to want peace two turns later even though they were winning (they wanted a city for peace). They hadn`t even lost any units. It seemed strange that they started a war that they wanted to end so quickly when I hadn`t done anything to them and even lost a city to them. But my spy told me they were looking at attacking japan soon. Could be that the distances were too far for a sustained war?

Oh yea, and for the first time ever I actually ran out of Science which has meant I`ve fallen well behind in research and had to resort to nicking technology- never ran out of science before.

 

[The_Quasar]

I'm pleased to say that the performance on my PC is much quicker and smoother. Well done Fraxis.

I disagree completely with all this "can't come from behind" stuff. In my current game, I was last (of 4) coming out of the Renaissance, but I'm now 2nd, and a few turns away from a Science victory (Celts/Small/Immortal/Ring). Just because you're behind on points doesn't mean you're not on the right track, especially at Immortal and Deity.

The mechanics are already in place, and work!

 

[animalguy]

I believe they were reffering to the AI. Any competent player can come from behind... thats the point of higher levels. Anyway back to the topic at hand, I agree that the Ai is much more agressive now, but for me they seem to have no money, even on emperor. It is about turn 150 now and everyone is making below 20 GPT, except for Persia due to their golden ages.

 

[Drawmeus]

This really comes down to the AIs inability to play the game as well as a human. A human knows how to keep a lead and knows how to slow down an AI runaway. For example, selling resources to the AI is broken. Gold in the hands of a human is OP. You can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING with it. And the resource that the AI just bought from you is useless to them since they have a limitless supply of happiness to begin with. This problem is worse in the early game because gold is harder to come by, but the AI doesn't care if its turn 10 or turn 250...they always under-value their gold and will always throw it away.

Another problem is military strength calculation and the resulting capitulation. I was playing a game yesterday where I DOWed Catherine in the classical era. I killed ONE warrior of hers, rush bought 2 archers, and because this barely put me ahead of her in military strength she decides to surrender her only non-capital city to me even though I'm not even trying to take her cities. The AI is unable to clearly calculate the threat level of a conflict and regularly gives up too much because of it. A human would NEVER give up a city to end a war for 10 measly turns. Giving up a city this early in the game is suicide but it just doesn't have a clue.

I play on Immortal by the way.

Both of the issues you raise are serious problems for sure. I'm not putting forward a grand theory of everything that's wrong with Civ 5 in a nutshell here. I'm pointing out a fairly specific flaw in the game design - when you get to roughly the Renaissance, either there's an AI which is so far ahead that it's going to win, or you're going to win, assuming you're high enough skill (presumably somewhere around regularly beating Prince) to press an advantage. If the AI was better, this would be even more significant, since if you were behind, you'd be unable to use the various near-exploit gambits like selling your luxuries to take advantage of AI flaws.

For skill level reference, I can occasionally beat Deity (without cheating via firetuner or via cheeseball game setup) and reliably beat Immortal but prefer the more relaxed play on Emperor.

 

[nokmirt]

This patch is ridiculous really. We never had problems like this with CiIV, never man. Now I am deleting steam and every trace of CiV from my pc. Then I'll have to reinstall all of this crap. What a frickin pain. The next time you devs patch the game test it first. I did not waste all of my money to have to do this every patch. Take time and test the patch properly. We don't mind waiting. We really don't. You should have us complain before the patch, not after.

On top of that, before the patch we do not here a whisper from 2K, but you sure have plenty to say after the patch comes out. Oh yeah, you guys sure are talkative then. When you have to try to fix the mess we all stepped in. This will give you a bit of good reading tomorrow over coffee.

Now let's deal with this other guy who cannot fathom that shrines could be missing from the techtree. Let's enlighten him.

Shrines are where they always were - in Pottery. I didn't bother looking at the tech tree.

Alright dude, maybe you have X-Ray vision, but do you see a shrine there? I sure as hell don't.

GnK and all my DLCs are enabled.

No shrines. I never would have imagined it.


The shrine building does get mentioned though.

Now do you believe me???

 

[russelljimmies]

Amphitheatres are missing too

 

[animalguy]

As are all G&K additions, plus DLC wonders if you own them

 

[The_Quasar]

Looks like pure vanilla to me...

 

[animalguy]

It looks like vanilla, but you can see in the text that it mentions faith and the shrine

 

[paceybaby]

I find that the distribution of strategic resources on civ 5 is generally quite generous. Like people have said, if they were more sparse or distributed into smaller pockets, that would be a source of potential power. I remember in older civ games that I could come back very strong in the late game by selling oil.

 

[paceybaby]

Just noticed that my great general isn't giving me any added combat strength post-patch. It pops up as: Near Great General : 0%

 

[nokmirt]

As are all G&K additions, plus DLC wonders if you own them

Looks like pure vanilla to me...

Composite bowman is there. I own all DLCs and GnK and all DLCs are enabled. Anyway, I redownloaded steam. After deleting eveything off of my PC, except for my firaxis modbuddy folder. Which means I will have to redownload SDK, never a fun experience, because Visual Studio 2010. Anyway, I went directly to the steam store and clicked play now on Gods and Kings, then it began downloading CiV again. If this does not work it must be a bug of some sort, or my Gods and Kings files at steam are somehow corrupted. Hopefully this works.

If not I'll have to wait until they patch the patch. In the meantime, I can go play Empire Total War. I want to try out DMUC 8.0 Platinum anyway. CiV is not going anywhere.

 

[nokmirt]

OK, I am back in business. My GnK buildings are back. When steam updated my game with the new patch, it somehow screwed up my GnK files. Steam needs to work on that. I do not want to have to clear my pc everytime a new patch comes out.

Later, I'll start a new game and see if there are any further issues. It would also be nice to see how this patch goes, and how it has changed the game.

 

[anandus]

OK, I am back in business. My GnK buildings are back. When steam updated my game with the new patch, it somehow screwed up my GnK files. Steam needs to work on that. I do not want to have to clear my pc everytime a new patch comes out.

Later, I'll start a new game and see if there are any further issues. It would also be nice to see how this patch goes, and how it has changed the game.

Next time you have issues with a Steam game, you can 'verify files'.
To do this right-click the game, choose properties, the tab 'local files' and then there's a button with something like 'verify local files'.
Most of the time it fixes issues.
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And to be a bit more on topic:
I'm playing a huge map, the game is significantly faster, I couldn't decently play huge maps before, but now the turn times are very bearable.
I do notice a more aggressively settling AI, also I believe AI is doing better in general. But I'll see how it works out.

 

[Hengoroth]

I like the new path and its unforseen consequense of making the barbarians stronger since they pillage-heal as well, but i have one - two major issues now, the game freeze crashes on me now for three games in a row when a leader screen are loaded for the first time and sometimes the second time. this is annoying since it occures in the early game. I am also experiencing the usual ram -drain graphical anomalies earlier than i used to get them ( they allways occured in the renessance era when all civs have many cities and soldiers. Now i see them at turn 90 and earlier.

P.s. i almost play exclusive on terra, about 12-13 civs and imortal and most graphical options on high or medium .
P.P.s the first save, the game freeze-crashes when you click on bodicca to negotiate with her. the last save the game freeze-crashes when you go north and meet the Wilhelm von oranje for the first time.