The new patch has made a bad game even worse

lschnarch said:

Actually, the patch *HAS* made the game worse.

Yes, it is no longer easy to conquer the cities of a braindead AI and this a good thing.
But: this was not achieved by making the AI considerably more intelligent. Actually, I found it to be almost as bad as before. Still I got attacked by lonely archers, being an easy prey for each of my units, except workers...

Lifting the difficulty was achieved by different changes which require you to spend more time in defensive buildings, making it harder to get money by trading and building blocks of nations.

Strange enough, people were complaining about this blockbuilding due to Civ4's religion. Now, out of a sudden, when you do the same by DoF's, everything is fine? C'mon...

Furthermore, as with the last patch, new errors were implemented.
With patch 0.62, we've got a city governor which lets cities starve. Wth?

Now we've got trades which mystically are ended after one turn; we experience that the road to our allied city state doesn't have any benefit anymore.
What the heck are these guys doing?

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Please stop acting like your words are the only truth. Maybe you dont realize that your opinion that we need more production is just an opinion? You can just get a mod that buffs mines at a certain tech level if you want higher production. I like the lower production, because one thing that wrecked the late game Civ 4 was that you start getting all units coming out in 1 turn and buildings in several turns, and most of your time is spent moving those units around and selecting what to build next. Tile purchase was created for a reason, so use it to purchase hill tiles.

I dont see why you think starving cities is all that bad. Sometimes I do it too so something comes out faster or to stop my civ from going unhappy. Besides I manage my own city tiles.

Declaration of friendship is an act of diplomacy, while religion is not, but acts as the most significant diplomatic force. I dont want religion dominating my diplomacy, but I'm fine with diplomatic treaties dominating diplomacy. Makes sense, no?

Like the343danny, I definitely do not want to see more production. Instead, I would rather see less resources and clearly, slower tech research (bring back no tech overflow ). I want to see each element - city, resources, techs, tiles - to be meaningful and critical for decision-making (but they do need to be balanced, like not having tech outrace production). For example, like fighting a war over a single hill that has a hammer tile.

Civ4 was very stupid in this where you got lots and lots of everything, to the point where you can build very large cities with every single building and wonder. I guess there are Civ5 mods that gives the player unlimited gold, hammers and whatnot if you want to play that way.

Buccaneer said:

I have always had a hard time trying to read when people use CIV or CiV or whatever. I have to stare at it to see what game they are talking about. In this case, it didn't matter if you wrote Civ4 or Civ5.

But I do understand your point. It just it's been that way since Civ1 (taking different forms).

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Get rid of some of the happiness nerfs, give all AI units +25% combat strength and I'd be a lot happier.. the combat would actually be interesting, and I wouldn't be 'forced' into a linear abuse the AI's bad tactics game.

kamex said:

In conclusion, I am glad to see the end of horse rushing and ICS, but not to the point where a human can't even compete on Emperor/above.

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I thought Emperor and above were supposed to be hard?

LordTC said:

give all AI units +25% combat strength

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I shudder at the thought of the spearman vs tank threads ...

I like the new patch for the most part (except for requiring the taking of SP, but I'll live with that).

I used to play on emperor and win easily. Was able to win with some work on Immortal, the one time I tried that.

Now playing on emperor and having a tough time. About turn 276 and I'm behind at least one and maybe 2 of the civs. I've been able to keep at the front in military strength most of the time, but it's been tough. Had happiness issues a couple of times, including mid-war, and had to scramble to fix things. Needed to use combined arms effectively to take cities, which are hard to crack now. All in all, the game is much more difficult, requiring better decision making, rather than just mindlessly plowing ahead.

I will dispute the contention that you can't have a big empire post-patch. In my game, I've got the largest empire in land area (4 settled cities and 21 puppets), and am currently sitting at 17 happiness. In a war with my next victim and I expect to be able to puppet a few of his choice cities and maybe raze a few too.

You need to be selective in conquest. At certain times in the game, you just won't have the happiness to do what you'd like to do, so you either have to suck up the unhappiness or raze (and deal with temporary unhappiness).

The game isn't perfect, but the patch has definitely improved things, and made decision making a bit less one dimensional. Everyone wanted the game harder, and they've delivered, and done so in many of the right ways.

One last thing: I'll never complain about HOW the AI is built to cheat on tougher levels. That's irrelevant to me. Whether it's through happiness buffs, extra starting units, more gold or whatever - those are just handicaps to make the game harder. We wanted a harder game and we got it.

Good words, wurstburst. Not only should you be selective in conquest, but you should also be prepared for the consequences of conquest.

Agree with the OP, the patch has made the game less fun (and no, I'm not playing it above King level). Instead of being easy and boring, it's now hard and boring. Post-patch, I'm now 50% sure this game is a dead duck, simply because patches are too reactive, there is evidence of throwing in quick fixes without proper game testing or even much thought as to how they impact the overall game mechanic. If this continues, the game will start to 'thrash', oscillate wildly in terms of expected outcomes, with continued predictable outrage by dedicated Civ fans.

So, here's a constructive suggestion. Just for a start, hexes are neat, and curbing SoDs is a good idea, as long as the insanity of 1upt, which the AI can't handle, is avoided. Firaxis still has the codebase for Civ4 right there. Retrofit Civ4 with - just for starters - hexes (though hopefully not the dire graphics of Civ5, those cities look ugly, Civ4 cities were a handsome thing to behold), and add a stacking limit (in fact make this tweakable by the player up to some maximum value, maybe 12). I'm sure there may be a few good other things from Civ5 that could be retrofitted too (perhaps Natural Wonders, for example, not the Disneyland ones tho). Then release this as Civ4.5 *at a modest price* (and hopefully on Steam, making existing Civ4 installations dependent on that risks alienating a whole new bunch of people - big time). Stack it high, sell it cheap. And never ever forget that incremental development is the way to go.

The point is that a Civ4 retrofit should be cheap, not merely in coding, but in the vital playtesting. That is a mature codebase that is not thrashing. But by all means don't phase out Civ5, run the two in parallel - it's not impossible that the company could make money from both, there is a market for simplified games like Civ5 obviously.

oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! civ is too difficult!!!!!!!!!!! oh no!!!!!!!!!!! lets all dump civ 5 and play civ 4 on settler difficulty!!!!!!!!!!
go home
Moderator Action: Trolling is not allowed in this forum.

Doctor Phibes said:

and curbing SoDs is a good idea, as long as the insanity of 1upt, which the AI can't handle, is avoided.

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1upt is fine with ranged AI improvements and improvements to the auto-pathing.

AfterShafter said:

I'll stick around, thanks. What I'm having trouble figuring out is why so many people who think the game is fundamentally garbage are still in this forum every day informing us about it in a completely non-constructive manner?

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So am i.
Pirates don't pay for anything... so it's quite easy to come here and stir hell. They're barking at the wrong tree though, cuz if they want more attention from anybody - they can't count me out from now on.
Moderator Action: Trolling is not allowed in this forum here.

- I will resist being hooked line&sinker&pole&fisherman into their traps, trollings, complaints, wreckings, rantings -- to the best of my intellect.
- I will NOT be cursed into yet another pointless debate over what needs to patched or fixed by Firaxis Devs -- publicly in these Forums general discussion threads.
- I will never engage in silly exchanges of back&forth arguments inspired by a code flaw detected by any competent players or every other noobs through accidental rationalization of the ruleset.
-I will actively encouraged anyone to react the same way at the mere sighting of such attempts and contact or ask Moderators for immediate action against such attacks on our ciV section if needed, even tougher drastic measures directed at pseudo-members.

- As a result, I will *probably* have to limit my participation to CFC community in general.

- I will *THOUGH* continue working on my own Mods to share with people whom actually play and enjoy this wonderful Fifth iteration of a TBS concept.
- I will stay at home in the peacefulness of some or many good epic sized personally started CiV gameplay and bite my tongue when things get weird, trusting some smart coders or modders will be hanging behind the horizon underneath dark clouds to offer me great solutions rather than negative attitudes or thoughts.

It -- simply -- has -- gone -- too -- far -- for -- my -- taste.

Certainly not leaving, cuz that would justify their crazy agenda and the means by which they try destroying the harmony of positive ideas given by people.

They didn't win, i didn't lose. So should we all. Fanatics or not.
Think whatever you want from this.

End of Manifesto.

(DISCLAIMER; the above wasn't advocating Piracy or otherwise. It simply state an obvious fact that online anonymity kinda protects everyone from being revealed AS a real Pirate of a game.)

slightlymarxist said:

Also, I've seen the combat calculator still display "-33%" for Open Terrain from time to time (mostly, it correctly displays "-10%").

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Marsh still gets a 33% penalty.

Nares said:

1upt is fine with ranged AI improvements and improvements to the auto-pathing.

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I disagree. It's beyond simple pathfinding, it's now about setting up sensible formations of units and then moving them while retaining cohesion - traffic control. This is something that humans can do intuitively (but, frankly, all this traffic control is really tedious), but are a huge issue for the AI. (We are looking at seriously non-trivial algorithms here). And that's before you have those pesky workers getting in the way.

The AI may be able to assemble a static defence, but once it starts to maneouvre it's always going to be easy meat for a human unless the latter is massively outnumbered (which is what happens at the higher levels in Civ5). In the latter case we have what others have termed a Blanket of Doom, which I think is no better, if not worse, than an SoD. It's certainly a lot uglier and appallingly boring to wade through.

Even outnumbering isn't too useful, because assuming the AI has correctly positioned its ranged units, there is still a two-row limit on how much of the Blanket they can bring to bear. So retreat, forcing them to move, which messes them up. Pick off vulnerable units one by one (another aspect of traffic control is to be able to rotate damaged units out of the line, sounds easy, but not for the AI when they're in the front row of a Blanket). Or, given how hard it is to take cities anyway, set up a strong static defence of your own with city back up and wait for them to come to you - rotating damaged units with healthy ones of course[1]. Boring as hell and no intellectual challenge there at all...

Basically, under 1upt, I seriously doubt that Firaxis will ever be able to create an AI that will be able to consistently manoeuvre a viable formation. That makes it easy meat for a human.

Obligatory constructive suggestion, offered many times by many people - the CtP solution, limited stacking - and get rid of the workers entirely while you're at it - Public Works (oops, that brings back sliders...)

[1] Medic promotion is great here. But has anyone seen the AI make good use of it - again I'm not sure it even uses medic units, though I suspect even if it did it would just fling them into the front line anyway.

Zyxpsilon said:

So am i.
Pirates don't pay for anything... so it's quite easy to come here and stir hell. They're barking at the wrong tree though, cuz if they want more attention from anybody - they can't count me out from now on.

[...]

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Utterly outrageous bit of trolling Moderator Action: Accusing someone of trolling is not allowed here. Use the report post button if you see a troll post. , and I think you should retract that allegation right now. It's pretty clear that most of those who find this game deeply flawed (inclduing myself) have been shelling out money to Firaxis every time there's a new release (in my case back to Civ 2). That's *one of the reasons we're disappointed with Civ5*. A pirate is less likely to complain, they've invested nothing.

LordTC said:

In essence, the game has one clearly optimal strategy which the AI is using and a system (happiness) is introduced in a way that doesn't affect the AI using that strategy but which closes it to the player. This violates every notion of the game being a symmetric strategy game.

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Now, i would like to comment on if you don't mind.
Perfect(ed) symmetry; the dream of the archer, King's Arthur Holy-Grail, myth or truth?

Truth and i can prove it to you.

Algorithmic patterns do not currently have the CPU clocking edge necessary to mimic human intelligence
It's not a matter of being able to design the perfect routines while creating the most challenging AIs possible... it's a physical transistored-pipelined-memorized-virtualized obstacle built in the PCs we must use.

AIs need to have a cheating edge (somehow) in order to be perceived as competitive enough. Obvious or not to the naked eye watching in awe.
One last remark; i'll even link it for easiness.
Read it immediately before you step any further into claiming symmetry should be obvious or minimally effective - but warning - this will feel like a huge Fountain of Knowledge discovery about some magical coding tricks...

Design principles.

Doctor Phibes said:

Utterly outrageous bit of trolling, and I think you should retract that allegation right now. It's pretty clear that most of those who find this game deeply flawed (inclduing myself) have been shelling out money to Firaxis every time there's a new release (in my case back to Civ 2). That's *one of the reasons we're disappointed with Civ5*. A pirate is less likely to complain, they've invested nothing.

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Disclaimed. To my defense.
I might add that it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Thus, if the hat fits wear it. If not, well, all is cool with me.

Zyxpsilon said:

Now, i would like to comment on if you don't mind.
Perfect(ed) symmetry; the dream of the archer, King's Arthur Holy-Grail, myth or truth?

Truth and i can prove it to you.

Algorithmic patterns do not currently have the CPU clocking edge necessary to mimic human intelligence
It's not a matter of being able to design the perfect routines while creating the most challenging AIs possible... it's a physical transistored-pipelined-memorized-virtualized obstacle built in the PCs we must use.

AIs need to have a cheating edge (somehow) in order to be perceived as competitive enough. Obvious or not to the naked eye watching in awe.
One last remark; i'll even link it for easiness.
Read it immediately before you step any further into claiming symmetry should be obvious or minimally effective - but warning - this will feel like a huge Fountain of Knowledge discovery about some magical coding tricks...

Design principles.

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All this is obvious, of course a high degree of symmetry cannot be obtained, as I pointed out. The issue is not about whether the AI needs a helping hand, it does. It's firstly whether the cheating it's allowed makes the game more or less fun for the human (and I don't find the way Civ5 does things fun). And secondly, more importantly, not putting extra obstacles in the AI's way, which 1upt is. The two inter-relate, because the impossibility of 1upt means that heavier cheating (in this case the happiness thing among others) has to be invoked to give the AI some sort of chance.

My personal opinion is that it is partly the interaction of these two dynamics that leads to this being less of an immersive empire-builder's game than previous Civs and more of a simple-minded wargame (though I think some of that is also designer's philosophy).

Zyxpsilon said:

Disclaimed. To my defense.
I might add that it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. Thus, if the hat fits wear it. If not, well, all is cool with me.

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Grudging, at best. Still unacceptable.

You don't give up so easy, do you?
Grudge, me? Get real.
But, wait, we're both actually trolling each other, aren't we?
I should take my own advice and stop, so consider this partial Off-Topic line locked & over. My excuses for any misunderstandings.

PS; About the infamous 1upT - you're most welcomed there too.

Zyxpsilon said:

You don't give up so easy, do you?
Grudge, me? Get real.
But, wait, we're both actually trolling each other, aren't we?
I should take my own advice and stop, so consider this partial Off-Topic line locked & over. My excuses for any misunderstandings.

PS; About the infamous 1upT - you're most welcomed there too.

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You can't lock it. But, yeah, it's getting a bit silly, consider it dropped.

Just to clarify, though, I said 'grudging' - that means insincere, weasely - not quite the same as holding a grudge (though the two can be connected).

If you cant hang in the higher levels... move down a level. What is so difficult about this?

I'm playing on Prince and I'm having a blast