Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
I'm playing an off-line game right now with the new patch to get a feel for it before continuing with the ALCs. I thought I'd record a few impressions here as I go. Overall, the patch has not resulted in anything resembling a paradigm shift--it's a patch, not an expansion pack, after all. But there are some significant impacts on gameplay that I've noticed.
- Barb Spearmen: These used to be rare, only appearing as a result of a random event. Now they pop up almost as often as barb Archers, and earlier than barb Axemen. IIRC, barb units of a certain type appear when at least two civs have the unit's prerequisite technology and resource, or something like that; if that's true, then the Spears appear once two or more civs have Bronze Working, Hunting, and copper, which happens early on. Impact: Do NOT try to rely on nothing but Chariots to provide your early barb defense anymore.
- Barb Ships: These definitely appear more often now, especially barb Galleys, and are more of a pain, pillaging your seafood tiles willy-nilly.
Impact: Sailing and Metal Casting (and Galleys and Triremes) are higher priorities if you have several seafood tiles you need to protect. Also, early exploration with a Work Boat is less likely to be successful.
- AI Worker Protection: The AI seems slightly smarter about moving Workers out of harm's way if they're at war and enemy units are in the vicinity. It's not foolproof though. The AI also seems to prefer moving Workers to a "non-threatened" city rather than parking them in the city that's under siege, but that may not be a change that resulted from this particular patch. Impact: Negligible. Include at least one 2-move unit in the stack and you can still capture enemy Workers.
- Siege Weapon Nerfing: This is significant. The new lack of combat promotions for siege weapons seems to result in more siege weapon fatalities. And not being able to attack from aboard ship is a big loss for intercontinental invasions, at least until you have Fighters and Bombers. Impact: Build more siege weapons, because you'll lose more. The Sirian doctrine is now pretty much obsolete.
If you're invading Amphibiously, bring defensive units to protect the others you'll need to land. You may wish to have these units absorb the initial enemy attack, especially from mounted units, before landing the siege weapons--thus reducing the likelihood of flanking damage and destruction. Pick a landing spot for your stack that has good defensive terrain.
- Reduced War Weariness: It does seem to be a little less than before, but not by much. Impact: negligible.
- Goody Hut Scaling: Wow! I'm playing the off-line game at Marathon speed, and goody huts popping for gold are yielding in excess of 100 gold on average. Impact: More gold early in the game means you can research at a deficit longer. This may increase the importance of finding and popping huts; civs starting with Hunting and a Scout have an advantage here.
- Barbarian uprising events can occur only if you can build a counter unit: Thank heavens--no more games nipped in the bud (hopefully) because 4 Barb Spearmen magically appear on your doorstep when your capital is protected by a lone Warrior. Impact: Fewer abandoned games, or at least less resorting to Worldbuilder to salvage them.
- New Tectonics Map: Meh. I generated a few of these and checked them in Worldbuilder; there tend to be a lot more hills on these maps, it seems to me, making chain irrigation tougher, leading to more marginal cities. And I got the impression that with fewer choice city sites, everybody tends to start cheek-by-jowl in the same area of the continent. Not my favourite type of map, but maybe if I'm in the mood for a challenge...
(I could be in a huge minority here!) I hope it doesn't make too big a difference as war is definatley the weakest aspect of my game.
