Beyond the Monument Episode 20 - Entering the Brave New World! (discussion thread)

RealHuhn said:

That's quite a huge change actually and Madjinn didn't even mention it at all.
For example, you can open Patronage at Optics now, probably as your 2nd policy or so. Or Aesthetics at Drama and Poetry and spam Amphitheatres at a discount.

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haha, there is a super long list of things that changed which I haven't mentioned. One of which is rather important for gameplay decisions (and also explains the slowness of the AIs in the later game save vis a vis tech pace).

edit: and I didn't dodge showing Patronage It's that it was less important for the video given that it's mostly the same.

theadder said:

Does the library remain at 1 science per 2 population or is it 1 science per 1 population as was hinted earlier with Assyria?

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I should have mentioned this in the stream, but Assyria does not get 1 beaker/pop. the Library (in all forms) is still 1 beaker/2 pop.

FeiLing said:

Harbors are pretty awful now, aren't they?
Don't think you wanna start adding those to most of your cities before the industrial age and maybe never if you don't have navy to secure your sea trade routes.

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Ulthwithian said:

FeiLing: While I wouldn't consider Harbors 'awful', Carthage certainly took a blow by losing its immediate Production on Sea Resources.

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Harbours are still very useful. Distance is the main limiter wrt trade routes. Harbours are the first booster to distance for sea trade routes, so Carthage getting them early means that Dido will have access to better (or at least more spread out) trade routes early in the game. Plus, city connection gold is still the same, so getting automatic city connections right away means that the early game gold crush from not having river gold/etc isn't as much of an issue.

Overall, having the lighthouse get the hammer/sea resource is better. Too many 'nice' coastal cities tend to be ignored because you can't actually build anything (low hammers) until after harbours. That wasn't very good, so this is better.

blackcatatonic said:

Having seen the full thing, this doesn't seem to have been mentioned, although I note that in the late game save, he'd only filled out two policy trees and had unlocked quite an advanced ideology, so I'm assuming this means that policy costs are the same or thereabouts...

How much do tenets cost?

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Policy costs are about the same in the early game, and a little lower later game. The more important change is that 'regular' culture output has dropped, meaning that if you ignore the culture game/Guilds (and working them) then you'll fall behind in SPs vs. a G&K game (Completing your first SP tree is a bit slower if you don't add culture somewhere).

Tenet costs are the same as per social policy costs - they both take up culture are are effectively interchangeable wrt cost.

Seek said:

It's been confirmed that policy costs are lower - MD had five cities and ~24 SPs and his next was (iirc) 4700: even if he had three free SPs the cost would be almost double in G&K.

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In that game, I think it was closer to 5 free SPs (2 of which were shown in the stream, and 3 from before that).

So Culture is now both for Defensive Culture (defend from Tourism) and for getting SP?
Will you always be able to have enough Culture to defend against an aggressive Tourism player? Or will Tourism always be greater than available Defensive Culture?

I liked nearly everything about the videos but at the same time they reinforced my worries about the AI, especially the combat AI.

AI navies still look hopeless. On Deity, the player is at war with both the Danes and the Celts, and they achieve nothing in the turns we saw. AI units are being slaughtered and they still can't build any decent naval invasion or even a limited threat. And that's even without the player really defending the cities.

Looks like standard maps or even pangea will be the way to go for a challenge, but even then I doubt combat AI has been improved that much. Firaxis should understand a single player game is only as good as its AI, it's a major point in the game. You can have the best features in the world, they're useless if your opponent isn't challenging...

Civ 4 stack fights weren't perfect, but at least in Civ 4 the opponents knew how to make a decent city attack and a decent naval invasion (especially with BetterAI mod). I know it's a lot harder now without stacks, but it's essential for the game to be enjoyable.

MadDjinn seem to have made it look that once you gain Influential level, you're screwed, which probably isn't that surprising seeing as the Tourism has overcome your culture output.

MadDjinn said:

haha, there is a super long list of things that changed which I haven't mentioned. One of which is rather important for gameplay decisions (and also explains the slowness of the AIs in the later game save vis a vis tech pace).

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I'm curious now ...

I'd like to know if becoming influential with a civ makes them more friendly or more hostile.

Securion said:

So Culture is now both for Defensive Culture (defend from Tourism) and for getting SP?
Will you always be able to have enough Culture to defend against an aggressive Tourism player? Or will Tourism always be greater than available Defensive Culture?

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It's all built up over time, so if you have great sources of culture early (religions help) then your defense builds up earlier.

Depending on difficulty level, you may or may not be able to use pure tourism to catch pure culture defense. I know that on Deity, you need to use Concert Tours to finish the job.

When in doubt, kill the messenger If you see a wandering Great Musician near your borders, you might not want to let them in.


I didn't get to it in the video, but there is realistically 3 types of culture now:

1) SPs.
- Free SPs gain you nothing except more SPs. This also goes for policies/wonders that reduce the cost of SPs.

2) building based culture, Great work Culture, and culture from SPs/religion that just go into the culture pot.
- This form of culture builds up your culture defense, but it can never be converted to tourism, which you need to ensure you're pressuring others at the same rate that they are pressuring you (or more).

3) Tile based culture and wonder based culture.
- This is the best form of culture. It adds to your culture defense AND, with the Hotel/Airport/National Visitor Center, also adds into your tourism. You need tourism to pressure others and hit the various levels (exotic/familiar/popular/influenced/dominant) to ensure that other civs aren't out pressuring you. If you're going for a culture win, this is what you want.

Minor question, by what percentage have the cost of policies been reduced?

They might have not been reduced at all, XML files state that they still cost "10 culture points", the only difference is that there's a lot more "Free policies" existing in the game (Sydney Opera House, Ideology Wonders, World Games)

MrL567 said:

Minor question, by what percentage have the cost of policies been reduced?

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A few posts above you:

MadDjinn said:

[...]

Policy costs are about the same in the early game, and a little lower later game. The more important change is that 'regular' culture output has dropped, meaning that if you ignore the culture game/Guilds (and working them) then you'll fall behind in SPs vs. a G&K game (Completing your first SP tree is a bit slower if you don't add culture somewhere).

Tenet costs are the same as per social policy costs - they both take up culture are are effectively interchangeable wrt cost.

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======
Question for MD:
When you choose an ideology early on you get a few free tenets. Can these be used for SP's too? (And would it be worth it?)

MadDjinn said:

It's all built up over time, so if you have great sources of culture early (religions help) then your defense builds up earlier.

Depending on difficulty level, you may or may not be able to use pure tourism to catch pure culture defense. I know that on Deity, you need to use Concert Tours to finish the job.

When in doubt, kill the messenger If you see a wandering Great Musician near your borders, you might not want to let them in.


I didn't get to it in the video, but there is realistically 3 types of culture now:

1) SPs.
- Free SPs gain you nothing except more SPs. This also goes for policies/wonders that reduce the cost of SPs.

2) building based culture, Great work Culture, and culture from SPs/religion that just go into the culture pot.
- This form of culture builds up your culture defense, but it can never be converted to tourism, which you need to ensure you're pressuring others at the same rate that they are pressuring you (or more).

3) Tile based culture and wonder based culture.
- This is the best form of culture. It adds to your culture defense AND, with the Hotel/Airport/National Visitor Center, also adds into your tourism. You need tourism to pressure others and hit the various levels (exotic/familiar/popular/influenced/dominant) to ensure that other civs aren't out pressuring you. If you're going for a culture win, this is what you want.

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Ok that actually clears it up a bit. Thanks for taking time to answer that btw.

Follow up question if you have the time; What civ, and SP tree, to choose if you want to be as immune to Tourism as possible?
... or any other short guidelines to follow if you want to feel secure from Tourism Pressure...?

klokwerk said:

I liked nearly everything about the videos but at the same time they reinforced my worries about the AI, especially the combat AI.

AI navies still look hopeless. On Deity, the player is at war with both the Danes and the Celts, and they achieve nothing in the turns we saw. AI units are being slaughtered and they still can't build any decent naval invasion or even a limited threat. And that's even without the player really defending the cities.

Looks like standard maps or even pangea will be the way to go for a challenge, but even then I doubt combat AI has been improved that much. Firaxis should understand a single player game is only as good as its AI, it's a major point in the game. You can have the best features in the world, they're useless if your opponent isn't challenging...

Civ 4 stack fights weren't perfect, but at least in Civ 4 the opponents knew how to make a decent city attack and a decent naval invasion (especially with BetterAI mod). I know it's a lot harder now without stacks, but it's essential for the game to be enjoyable.

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I think you may have missed some points in there. I had decent naval choke points with very powerful nuclear subs holding them, wars were actually all over the map (Iroquois vs. Persia, Denmark vs. multiple civs, Mongolia vs. multiple civs, etc) and fleets were all over the map (vs. before where a large chunk of the AI fleet would still be back at the civs influence area). Mongolia had already lost its capital and was getting crushed.

I wouldn't use those 10 turns as a litmus test for the AI in general, as they had all been fighting each other before DoWing me - thereby losing units. Plus I had a lot of CS allies, which the AI would need to remove their navies before getting to me (aside from Denmark but I had multiple nuclear subs killing them and they had to also defend vs other AIs). The Celts brought a semi-decent force to my eastern islands, but I was targeting their carriers and other important units. They do bring more of a navy a little later in the game, but the Celts were actually on the Tech VC path, so a pure military switch would not be good for them.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

MadDjinn seem to have made it look that once you gain Influential level, you're screwed, which probably isn't that surprising seeing as the Tourism has overcome your culture output.

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Once someone is 'influenced' their only chance to not be 'screwed' is to influence the other civ or wipe them out. Winning the game via culture requires being influential with all remaining civs.

Actually, I would like to point out that AI is not as aggressive on Diety anymore, I mean, not only did he made friends with both Portgual AND Byzantium within the first 20 turns on the Shoshone preview, but he also I don't think had major diplomatic issues (until he made Buddhism world religion) with anybody else for A LONG while in the his Portugese game.

And regaridng the influence level I was trying to say that you seem to have suggested that once you have an Influential Status with somebody it isn't possible to bounce back (they can't bounce back).

Securion said:

Follow up question if you have the time; What civ, and SP tree, to choose if you want to be as immune to Tourism as possible?
... or any other short guidelines to follow if you want to feel secure from Tourism Pressure...?

Click to expand...

Preventing Tourism pressure is as simple as ensuring that your cpt is higher than everyone else's tourism output (easy to check) as well as keeping decent tourism yourself. 'immune' will never exist, else that breaks the whole system. There is that one wonder though...

When it comes to archaeology sites though, my preference is to create landmarks if they are within range of a city to work, and only create Artifacts if not within range.

You can also use the World Congress to propose that GS/GM/GE get boosted which reduces the output of the artist/musician/writer at the same time. Less Gamw means less tourism (GWs) in the game.

anandus said:

When you choose an ideology early on you get a few free tenets. Can these be used for SP's too? (And would it be worth it?)

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I'm 'reasonably' (haven't checked lately) sure that the free choices for picking an ideology 'early' are only for tenets. It would be 'worth it' in some situations to use them for SPs, but I think it was made sure that you can't do that.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

They might have not been reduced at all, XML files state that they still cost "10 culture points", the only difference is that there's a lot more "Free policies" existing in the game (Sydney Opera House, Ideology Wonders, World Games)

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MrL567 said:

Minor question, by what percentage have the cost of policies been reduced?

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There's another thing that got reduced that I forgot to mention...

MadDjinn said:

I wouldn't use those 10 turns as a litmus test for the AI in general, as they had all been fighting each other before DoWing me - thereby losing units. Plus I had a lot of CS allies, which the AI would need to remove their navies before getting to me (aside from Denmark but I had multiple nuclear subs killing them and they had to also defend vs other AIs). The Celts brought a semi-decent force to my eastern islands, but I was targeting their carriers and other important units. They do bring more of a navy a little later in the game, but the Celts were actually on the Tech VC path, so a pure military switch would not be good for them.

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I agree we shouldn't jump to conclusions based on those videos. You've also got a point in the fact they had to fight before.

Still, Deity is the maximum level in the game, it should be extremely hard to be successful at that level. If even before the game release somebody can beat it on one of its first games it's hardly challenging enough as a max level.

I saw multiple stupid AI decisions like not defending at all units at sea. The AIs should be able to guess your submarines will destroy their units when they do it every turn at the same place on the map. Make a better threat assessment procedure, make the units retreat to the city maybe.

You say you had more city states allies, that's okay but why didn't they try to take them from you ? Why didn't they fight better for delegates despite the huge bonuses they get ? I know it's really hard to make a good AI, but it just seems to me they didn't fight hard enough here.

Once again, I'm still really excited about the game. I just feel frustrated we have to give the AI huge bonuses to make it even slightly competitive. It brings the fun level down a little bit for me. The game looks superb otherwise, that's the only worry I have really.

From I believe one of the other previews clips, I believe I saw that you cannot adopt a policy from an ideology-adopt bonus, you can't "adopt" any policies, only tenets.

TheKingOfBigOz said:

Actually, I would like to point out that AI is not as aggressive on Diety anymore, I mean, not only did he made friends with both Portgual AND Byzantium within the first 20 turns on the Shoshone preview, but he also I don't think had major diplomatic issues (until he made Buddhism world religion) with anybody else for A LONG while in the his Portugese game.

And regaridng the influence level I was trying to say that you seem to have suggested that once you have an Influential Status with somebody it isn't possible to bounce back (they can't bounce back).

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Oh, they're still about as aggressive.

Keeping in mind that being 'DoF' friends with an AI early game can still lead to a backstab if they think it's in their interests. Plus if they were both looking to wonder spam a bit, or just expand, then it's less in their interest to fight right away. The concept that 'just because' you have a close neighbour means that they will auto-DoW you early doesn't really exist. Some types of neighbours definitely do that (Monty, Attilla, Greece, etc) but that's mainly because their preferred method of expansion also includes taking someone else's stuff (depending on the randomness of the flavours).

As per the Portugal game, my neighbour (Denmark) was sharing his religion with me (bonus) and was busying fighting off the aggressive mongols for most of the game (weird random bit that they shared an island). Most others were too far away for 'close borders' to affect them, aside from the Iroquois. I did what was needed to keep them happy with me (including supporting their proposals).


As per the Influential status, yes that's correct. Once it's achieved, you can't have it removed shy of killing them.

klokwerk said:

Civ 4 stack fights weren't perfect, but at least in Civ 4 the opponents knew how to make a decent city attack and a decent naval invasion (especially with BetterAI mod). I know it's a lot harder now without stacks, but it's essential for the game to be enjoyable.

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Perhaps but it is far, far more fun to play with the traditional hex-based wargame model of Civ5.

But you also have to realize that MadDjinn is an extremely skilled player. Just watch his previous Deity-level LPs and he makes everything looks easy while some of us Immortal players get humiliated trying for normal/standard Deity.

MadDjinn said:

Oh, they're still about as aggressive.

Keeping in mind that being 'DoF' friends with an AI early game can still lead to a backstab if they think it's in their interests. Plus if they were both looking to wonder spam a bit, or just expand, then it's less in their interest to fight right away. The concept that 'just because' you have a close neighbour means that they will auto-DoW you early doesn't really exist. Some types of neighbours definitely do that (Monty, Attilla, Greece, etc) but that's mainly because their preferred method of expansion also includes taking someone else's stuff (depending on the randomness of the flavours).

As per the Portugal game, my neighbour (Denmark) was sharing his religion with me (bonus) and was busying fighting off the aggressive mongols for most of the game (weird random bit that they shared an island). Most others were too far away for 'close borders' to affect them, aside from the Iroquois. I did what was needed to keep them happy with me (including supporting their proposals).


As per the Influential status, yes that's correct. Once it's achieved, you can't have it removed shy of killing them.

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so influential status with a civ is kind of like a space ship part (or coming in first /second in a World Leader election)... you have achieved something, and it can't be taken away.

Can you get influential status on someone who previously achieved influential status on you?