June/July Patch Notes

@Thadian:The game suffers from a very difficult balance in the late game, where there are so many possible things to build, and they all come at the same time. It is normal that they drift so much in usefulness. At release, factories were the only way to build something in a city, and you had to rushbuild them, because they were so expensive. They have now nerfed it, while reducing (a lot, apparently) the costs of later buildings. Basically factories are the new late game workshops, which is completely cool: needed but not compulsory.
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They have also reduced the proportional cultural bonuses, which were completely aberrant before: you could more or less forget about SPs till you got free speech, radio towers, Cristo Redentor, etc (-50% policy cost adquisition and x3 culture!).
The only nerfs I don't like (yet?) are Pyramids and Sixtine Chapel, but in the later case, considering how they have taken out nearly all proportional cultural bonuses, and added more base culture, I guess it was needed. We'll still have to see how the other one works.
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And again, I love the SP work: extra much needed culture in honor, internal rebalance of Piety, later free GP from liberty, complete rethinking of Freedom, the later three SPs being mutually exclusive for extra late choices... and then the cherry on top: bonuses for completing full branches!
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We will have to see how much more difficult it is to get to Globalization now. If it is difficult enough, I may even enable diplo victories again!
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And one of the most waited fixes: RA!



Civ 5 won't play the same at all anymore. And we will have to rethink how to work on the early happiness issues much more, unless the first SPs come so early that we can get to the new/improved happiness sources. Maybe we will start trading lux resources for lux resources with the AI, now! :)
 
I...um....gosh...I hope you guys know what you're doing...

A lot of this stuff is great -
These diplo changes have been #1 on my wishlist for ages (though why no razing modifier?)
Policy finishers are a great idea
Changes to units are very good
RA changes remain to be seen but look positive
The National College change is very welcome
A bit more love for annexing over puppeting
Am I right in thinking that barracks etc now give XP to naval and air units? I like this.
Not sure about the policy changes, but the nerfs on Theocracy/Scholasticism/Landed Elite/Meritocracy are welcome, and I like the new Piety tree in particular

But quite a lot of changes seem very arbitrary (why nerf walls and castles of all things? or the seaport? or the windmill? nobody builds these as it is!). And I'm really worried about whether such a large amount of changes will be properly balanced. I'd hate for this to need another balance patch to fix all the the things this patch changed.

And no fix for the incredibly high AI valuation of luxury trades? This is easily the game's biggest game balance issue right now, I really hoped there would be something here.
 
Research agreements now give a tech boost instead of a free tech. Tech boosts start at 50% of the median value of all techs you can research. Can be boosted to 100% if you both start Rationalism and build the Porcelain Tower.

Beelining/slingshotting is pretty much dead. Note that it is the median value of all the techs you can research, not the average, so if you can (simple example) research 4 ancient techs and 3 medieval techs, you get 50% of the beakers of an ancient tech.
 
So, if we take the patch notes lead to DLC flavour school of thought, what do these suggest?

The best indicators are AI improvements, but I don't see much here. Short of a spearman/pikeman unit, these are all just very general improvements.

My thoughts:
While play-by-email is not yet implemented, we did include an in-between turn saving option for those that want to play via email.

Thank you!

New bonus resource: Stone (+1 production, improved with a Quarry). See the Stone Works building note below for additional details.

Cool. I had thought about adding various production improvements. Rubber in jungle was another idea I had. But stone is nice.

Chichen Itza now grants an additional 4 Happiness.

Already one of my favorite wonders (if for the splash screen alone). I'm defintely trying to get this in the future.

Germany: Now receives a 25% discount on land unit maintenance.
Ottoman: Now receives a 67% discount on naval unit maintenance, and can upgrade Galley’s to Trireme’s.

Cool. I liked my suggestion (Converted barb units are free), but this'll work.

Mohawk Warriors no longer require Iron.

Love this. Will definitely add a versitility to the Iroquois.

It seems happiness will be a definite problem. But I'm curious to see how this'll play.
 
Beelining/slingshotting is pretty much dead. Note that it is the median value of all the techs you can research, not the average, so if you can (simple example) research 4 ancient techs and 3 medieval techs, you get 50% of the beakers of an ancient tech.

Thanks for pointing that out, but that's slightly weird... Most slingshots actually don't care, or may be even helped by getting the median's worth instead of the average. For example, you can block optics, and progress from there with pre-patch RAs, researching everything else at lightning speed, thus always having more than 2 "advanced" techs to choose from, and only 1-2 ancient techs blocked. Other than some rifling slingshottings, the average would have been a better fix.
Luckily there's that 50% nerf too. Piety vs Rationalism will be a tougher choice, now that they have both been reworked, and Rationalism gives +50% from RAs...
 
My first impressions were wow, what a nerf! But now I'm rather excited.

I'm glad to see stupid RAs fixed, no more easy exploits. Going to miss the meritocracy GP though. Also glad NC is being moved up to Philosophy. Makes sense and hopefully gets rid of the current "NC first or die scenario".

The games sure gonna feel different (again). Also glad stone is back, though it should have some wonder related bonus like in IV. The new HG is mouth watering... exciting stuff.

Glad to see Honor is buffed, as are Ottomans and Germans (though still not enough to tempt me playing). Poor Arabia has been kicked in the balls though... The Bazaar is now crap, their obly good thing...
 
an interesting list, and I'm happy to see more game.events available, but about modding I've noted 2 things :

  • Hot-Seat is now available through the multiplayer menu.
    • You can have as many humans playing as available slots in the game.
    • Password protection is built in.
    • All maps, including purchased and user-created, are available to play in Hot-Seat.
    • While play-by-email is not yet implemented, we did include an in-between turn saving option for those that want to play via email.
does that means that mods won't be allowed in hotseat game ?

I could understand that mods are desactivated in network games if there are still some important bugs to fix there before allowing them, but for hotseat ?

As we move into summer, we’ll continue to bring new and exciting additions to Civ V, including improvements to Multiplayer, and other core areas of the game.
What about the dll SDK ? could we hope it to be an "exciting additions", or should we assume we won't get it before "improvements to [...] core areas of the game" are all done ?
 
Social policy and RA changes look particularly interesting in this. The 'finisher' policy reminds me of an idea that was proposed on these forums just a couple of months ago... :mischief:

Although I hope the GP isn't being taken away from Meritocracy.

Rationalism seems...powerful.

The culture bonus in Honor also seems to echo what some have been saying in Ideas & Suggestions.
 
I like the changes. Nerfs to overused strategies such as NC rush and RA spam. Tweeks to many wonders bringing the OPed ones into balance and different flavor to the inferior wonders. And best of all I think is the reworked policies. I think a lot of people who are complaining about the happiness nerfs are forgetting that it will be easier to acquire policies early in the game, while finishing the 5 trees will still take dedicated effort.

I see Honor being a very strong tree now for either a Tradition or Liberty path. Especially...

Military Caste now provides +1 Happiness and +2 Culture for each city with a garrison.

Not only does this help your empire with happiness, but also increases your culture output during peacetime. So in either case you can get 2 happiness per city with either trade route or 10 population and a garrisoned unit. To negate all per city unhappiness you can either take Piety or Rationalism. Once you have any of those 3 trees in play with the happiness taken care of you can prioritize which path to take depending on your strategy.

So long as getting to those policies isn't that difficult I see the game becoming a lot more dynamic now that all but Patronage and Commerce have a per city happiness effect.

Lowering the culture cost of additional cities to the empire lets people who play bigger maps or larger empires expand at a decent clip without crippling policy acquisition.

I'm REALLY looking forward to putting these changes through their paces
 
This sorta looks like "Dear Civ 5 Players, I ated your game. OOps! Here is a new game. Sawry, hugs, bai!"

For good or for Ill, this is a completely new game.

In general, I dislike removing % modifiers in favor of absolute ones. Makes it seem like you are trying the importance of terrain decisions.
 
  • Policy “Finishers” added to all 10 policy trees. Taking all policies in a tree will grant an additional bonus effect.
  • Ottoman: Now receives a 67% discount on naval unit maintenance, and can upgrade Galley’s to Trireme’s.

Big fan of these 2, great job.
 
no change at brandenburg gate (weak) , statue of liberty ( the last superior wonder ) ?

where should we get all the new happiness ? I read, that happiness will be even a bigger problem than ever.

Building costs will be adjusted, but it seems to me, that it even become more trivial what to build and should I still build anything with the new patch ... numbers

But all other changes reads very well, especially those about the policies. Maybe in the next Patch we can have the civ4 system again ;)
 
The nerfs to happiness are the most worrisome for me, will need to see how this pans out but it could be disastrous.
 
Wow. Just wow. Thank god RAs have been a lot nerfed. But also almost everything else, and AI should be smarter. Watch out deity players, this is not gonna be easy. We will receive a 3rd new game since last september!

Gotta work this out and pull a new multiplayer strategy some days after. Iroquois don't need iron to build his UU? LOL

(Cough Cough...plz...i need happiness....or i'm gonna die...)
 
Made backstab routine more transparent (the dialog will clearly state that they are backstabbing you).
Can anyone explain this to me what do they mean with dialog?




best thing i ever seen for diplomacy:
AI remembers if you fought against a common foe (positive modifier, decays over time, based on damage done to the common foe).
Track trades between players and allow that to positively influence relationships (the better the deal for the AI, the stronger the modifier). Particularly useful for bribing a hostile AI.
AI remembers if you satisfied one of their requests (positive modifier, decays over time, based on value of items granted).

Howly crap it is like they read my post on this forum genius!!!!!!!




Germany: Now receives a 25% discount on land unit maintenance.
Ottoman: Now receives a 67% discount on naval unit maintenance, and can upgrade Galley’s to Trireme’s.

Damn firaxis you can read my mind stop it anybody happy that they see those civ boosted?
 
wow. looks like it's going to be a completely new game. gogo beta process.

National College moved to Philosophy and reduced by 2 science.
...
Great library now gives 3 additional science, and provides a free Library in the city where it was built.

if GL is still giving the free tech i guess the new standard opener will be beeline writing, build GL for philosophy, build NC.
 
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