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.