Civilization V: Brave New World Fall Patch Public Beta

just please remove the 5% science cost per city...

So we are back to fastest ICS wins, no thank you. And adjustment to 4% or something if any.
 
So we are back to fastest ICS wins, no thank you. And adjustment to 4% or something if any.

This, I actually like the science penalty, gives you a dilemma about whether to settle a late city just to get a resource and it nerfs the runaway AI too

Firaxis :goodjob: for releasing a beta for the patch, some quite interesting tweaks in there. Especially this "Deal AI: Have the AI accept totally even trades with the human"

Curse you Gandhi for your ridiculous 4 luxes plus all of 2 of my strategic resources in exchange for one lux when I offer him a lux for lux swap that neither of us have :aargh:
 
Deal AI: make AI aware of the value of Open Borders as players close in toward Culture Victories

Could somebody clarify how this change actually works ingame? I just played a culture game on a standard size pangea map at epic speed and Emperor difficulty (but with only seven civs) and did not notice any difference. The neutral AIs never wanted more than 2gpt (same as pre-patch) even as my culture became influential on them. The only exception was Greece (3gpt) but I suspect this was due to the fact that he didn't like me (or anyone else, really). Even as I was closing in on a culture victory Washington, who was the AI with the most culture, still took Open Borders in exchange for 1gpt. Morocco accepted mutual Open Borders even though my culture was already over 150%, i.e. I was well on my way to becoming dominant.

I also have a balance concern. Cultural Exchange seems way too strong. I finished on turn 409 (epic speed, on normal this would be around turn 272/273) even though I totally failed on World Congress control. I did not get the bonus culture from wonders nor the extra culture from Great Person Tile Improvements/Landmarks, both of which would have sped up my Victory. I also did not finish the International Games and could not get World Religion because I did not found a religion at all. I did get Arts Funding though. My chosen civ (The Inca) does not get any direct boni to tourism. As social policies I took Tradition -> Aesthetics -> Rationalism (Opener + Secularism + faster GSes + Free Thought) -> Freedom.


Other notes:
a) Washington did not care at all about the following:
Changed MINIMUM_SETTLE_FERTILITY to 20000, up from 5000 to keep AI civs from settling worthless plots. Added some logging code to track plot values.

He still spammed cities all over the map. A lot of those were either horrible (1 cow, 1 fish and between my city state ally and me; tiles available to the city: 7 flat grassland, 1 flat desert, 1 forest and empty water) or had a lot of overlap with his other cities.

b) Spain decisively missed Old Faithful. Isabella settled four tiles away. Yes, she could've gotten it easily, there was plenty of space.

c) For me both Pangea and Continents maps look a lot like Fractal. Their landmasses are too thin and snake-like and not "blobby" enough. This phenomenon was already present in BNW but it seems more pronounced with the beta patch. So far I have not seen a single Pangae map which consists of one solid landmass and a few islands off shore. They always look like cooked spaghetti on a plate with at least two huge inland seas, multiple 2 or 3 tile wide isthmuses, and large, long peninsulas. Oh, and Pangeas are always ice-locked on one side, either in the south or north, which, in combination with the points mentioned above, creates fake-oceans without access to the actual ocean. Continents maps suffer a similar problem. I don't mind a few peninsulas and there should definitely be plenty of off-shore islands to settle but I think it is important to remain true to the original form. This also has the effect of making me feel like there is a lack of space (hence the standard size 7 civ game). In most games I'm hard pressed to find even three decent settling locations in my vicinity (not counting the capital) let alone 5 or more.

d) I made the same observation as several other people. Turn times are longer, especially the calculations for City States seem to take a lot more time.

e) AIs still often settle 1 tile away from a river or coast. Given the spaghetti-ness of maps especially the latter is a problem (even more so if they take Exploration).

f) The game still has huge problems with improvement or resource graphics not showing up until you zoom in or out and it redraws the map. It also works the other way around. Very often the shadow of a forest or jungle you chopped won't disappear until you let the game redraw. Quite often there are these small red dots without a clear border on the map. These also only disappear after you zoom in or out.

g) There seem to be some inconsistencies with regards to reformation beliefs. Some like Jesuit Education and Sacred Sites work for non-founder civs which have adopted the appropriate religion whereas some others such as Charitable Missions and To the Glory of God don't work even if you have the religion in question in all your cities.
 
yes, the university/wat combo bug got fixed in the last hotfix, weeks ago.

only if you're running mods or didn't update it would that be an issue. Or if the Mac side didn't get updated.

In what version it was fixed?
 
yes, the university/wat combo bug got fixed in the last hotfix, weeks ago.

only if you're running mods or didn't update it would that be an issue. Or if the Mac side didn't get updated.

I think katfish is referring to this.
I only heard that they fixed the "Siam can buy Universities with Jesuit Education"-bug. If they fixed the bug as mentioned in the above link then I've missed the patch/hotfix.
 
Maps seem to have changed dramatically.

After trying Japan a few times yesterday, and getting no sea resources/iron at all...I started a new game today as lizzie

Spoiler :


seriously? no civs, and one city state (but zero trade routes) until astronomy? unexpected...
 
I updated my initial post in this thread with some additional stuff. :) It's now way too long.
 
The point is to find incremental ways (like this) that steers the game in making it more challenging, not even easier.

well you might just as well add science cost per population then. But adding it to the number of cities favors easy playing style.
 
just please remove the 5% science cost per city...

I found it pretty strange when I started playing the expansion. But after some time I realised it was a pretty good idea. It's true that it makes playing wider a little harder, but it's still possible to do that. But the point now is when you found new cities you have to develop them and use your caravans to bring them food and production. No longer can you just spam (as well as the AI) 1 pop cities wherever you want, as now you have to choose their location carefully. This also makes cities more specialized since you now try to steer them in a certain direction. If you really want to have a smaller penalty, you can play on Large (3% penalty) or Huge (2% penalty) maps.
 
well you might just as well add science cost per population then. But adding it to the number of cities favors easy playing style.

If you add a science penalty to population, you're making the entire science system work against itself, and it STILL favors wide over tall, because it's easier to get more population by building more cities.

Any player worth their salt can make a wide empire and generate faster techs than a tall player. The science penalty is largely to prevent the AI from running away with the game if they decide to spam cities everywhere. 5% is not that much, it is reduced on larger maps, and it does not compound off itself. As long as you build up your cities, you'll make up for the extra cost easily. If you have 10 cities, for example, you need only have 30% more science than a 4-city empire to be even with them, and as long as you're not an idiot settling in spots that Shaka wouldn't touch, you'll have WAY more than that. Way more. Even more extreme example: If you have 20 cities, you'll need 80% more, but considering you have five times as many cities as a 4-city Tradition, that isn't going to be a problem.

Oh right, because ICS was so much better than 4 city tradition in G&K

It was, unless you were going for culture. Didn't matter if all your other cities were puppets, because without a science penalty, more cities is necessarily better; more cities = more science = faster tech. Unhappiness was not enough to even the score, especially for the AI, and it is precisely because the AI could abuse this so much that it went into effect.
 
So I've played a bit with this new patch and must sadly conclude that many balance changes are not well thought out, and many balance issues remain unaddressed.

Basically agree with everything you say here, except, Indonesia isn't the only civ who's UA is only useful on certain maps. That's consistent, if not great. Polynesia, Carthage, Askia's UA, all are more useful on continents, and yet more useful on Archipelago. We get too caught up in thinking of Pangaea as the "normal" way to play because of Deity. But really, Continents is the "normal" way to play, and many of these civs are more effective on Continents.

That being said, taking away Indonesia's UA for conquest is bad IMHO. It's fine for trade deals because that avoids exploits, but in Continents specifically, there's hardly any room for a new city when you finally get there. Admittedly, you might find an otherwise bad location that is only salvageable because of the unique lux, but for the most part this is only useful for tiny islands. Is the extra tech and social policy cost worth a tradeable luxury? Not really. Tiny satellite cities to get one resource are (because of the extra tech cost) just not worth it in BNW unless it's like a strategic resource you absolutely can't do without, and realistically it is way more effective to just trade for that resource.

But otherwise I agree... Salt was already too powerful, wheat didn't need a boost, although bananas maybe... jungle starts suck. God-king doesn't go far enough for OCC, Byzantium (and Piety) both still fail to help you get a religion, Honor is still inferior in most cases to Tradition and Liberty. (Liberty shouldn't be the go-to for warmongering, but it is. Honor should be...)

Even Liberty is still somewhat nerfed. Going wide is very difficult until you get multiple policies into Order. The first few happiness policies just make up for ideological pressure. I also find it ironic that (on Deity at least) Liberty is more effective at getting 4 cities out than Tradition, because of the AI expansion rates.
 
If you add a science penalty to population, you're making the entire science system work against itself, and it STILL favors wide over tall, because it's easier to get more population by building more cities.
You mean just like increasing the cost per city does?
Any player worth their salt can make a wide empire and generate faster techs than a tall player.
That doesn't mean it's easier to go wide. It means it's more EFFECTIVE to go wide.
 
That doesn't mean it's easier to go wide. It means it's more EFFECTIVE to go wide.

I don't see what the problem is then. He was complaining that the change made tall more effective (which he objected to because going tall is very easy), and I argued that Wide was still more effective, just not indisputably so if you do it brainlessly (as with ICS).

You mean just like increasing the cost per city does?

I don't think you understand words. Increasing science cost per city favors empires that build up their cities and put thought into where they settle each city, which Tall empires do as a goal, rather than favoring the ICS/Super Wide tactic of plopping new cities anywhere, just because each new city grows faster than already-tall cities. Increasing science cost per point of population nerfs all science, for tall and for wide, but still favors wide empires unfairly, because even if they have diminishing returns on science, they still have more science. Increasing the science cost per city has a completely different effect on the game than increasing science penalty for every point of population, and the latter is not a fun game mechanic. The former at least involves a choice, but the latter just makes science get more frustrating the longer you play.

Diminishing returns on the only mechanic that grants science in the first place also makes it very difficult to get a tech lead, or catch up from a tech deficit. It effectively breaks the entire science game. It's a bad idea. Period.
 
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