3.10 Playtest Feedback

[Stalker0]

My notes so far having done a number of Turn 200ish runs. I will give more feedback in the late game as I settle into to some longer ones.

Withdraw
Only seen it with Jinete, but so far it seems really good. because any jinette unit I need to use horses against, they are very slippery against basic melee.

Beliefs
Universalism: No direct experience yet, feels weak in just my pursual (everytime I go to select a belief, I look at this one, but just can't find myself pulling the trigger).
God of War: Honestly even with the nerf still feels like a very strong pantheon, its still the go to for war civs imo.

CS Quests

• Find city x: I like this a lot better.
• Gift Unit X: I think its a good change, still a good quest I am still using it, but not quite as easy to do.
• Find Area X: I think this one is often just too far away to complete, its very tricky.

Tribute

• In general, its a bit overtuned. I'm looking at 3 areas:
  • Its too easy to get like 40-50 gold on a tribute from just your starting warrior and pathfinder. That's a really big boost in the early game for a minimum of cost (just the loss of the first quest, and frankly sometimes you can't really get that quest anyway).
  • I think the base gold is probably too high.
  • The authority culture from tribute might be too high, but that's debatable. We need to either/both lower the base gold/culture generation.
• Conversely the heavy tribute isn't feeling all that strong. A big factor is that going to war with a CS resets the quests, and without killing the CS units getting to 100% tribute can be very tough. Right now the gold benefits feels like the real prize, the quest benefits are secondary.

France
Enjoying the new france, I will say being able to retreat your stolen units (or pillage with them!) is a big difference maker in their utility. The +1 culture to all cities is a nice benefit but its definately not the main stay, it takes a long time to build up the kind of numbers to see some real culture boosting.

Golden Age
I think the first golden age is now a bit too slow, probably want to find a middle ground between the old number and new one.

Difficulty Adjustments

• I think the AI is notably stronger now, especially on culture. The AI will now run away with culture like it does with science, but the culture rubberband is a lot weaker in the game.

Drill Changes
I do think the new drill is an improvement over the old one, but its not a night and day difference, at least as much as I thought at first glance. At the end of the day, I still find archers are more important to city taking than melee drill units. Aka if I have warriors + archers, I can do work. If I instead upgraded to spears....I'll have a great first couple of round hits, but then my forces get too beat up and I normally have to retreat).

Galley Changes
So far I am not a fan of this change. The galley is a weak unit, it can't counter the liburna. So the liburna rules the seas until philosophy. So for example CS, most of them are on teh coast, and if they bring out a liburna it is very difficult to take them, archers can't fight them, you need cbows which take a long time to get, galleys don't count them, so they are almost invincible in this window of the game. Personally I am missing the old system, I think the sea units while rarer all had a strong niche and window.

National Wonders
I think the pop requirement is still too high, even if I have a 6 city empire (which I do not consider "wide"), it takes enormous pop requirements to get wonders like the iron works.

 

[azum4roll]

Galleys are just too slow. They need 4 moves to reasonably fight against Liburna. Barbarian ones should stay at 3 moves.

I think the pop requirement is still too high, even if I have a 6 city empire (which I do not consider "wide"), it takes enormous pop requirements to get wonders like the iron works.

You're not supposed to get it right away if you beeline the tech and don't focus on growth.

 

[Stalker0]

You're not supposed to get it right away if you beeline the tech and don't focus on growth.

There is no such thing as focusing on growth right now if you have 6 cities, you'll hit unhappiness way too hard. And I'm not talking about a beeline, I'm talking about a pretty casual push towards machinery.

 

[CppMaster]

What's the reason behind pop requirements for national wonders? Is it still needed for balance?

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

 

[azum4roll]

It's part of the tall vs wide balance.

 

[CppMaster]

It's part of the tall vs wide balance.

So it prevents tall from being OP. Would it be OP without this?

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

Definitely seconding the AI running away with culture, noticed it in several games.

 

[Bad_At_Diplomacy]

I too have noticed AI France is much stronger. Which is fine with me, they were a punching bag before.

Please don't change early CS tributes, I'm abusing all that gold early game

 

[Zuizgond]

Agree tribute is overtuned. A simple scout can grab far too much money from a CS in early game, it's ridiculous.

 

[rkkn]

So it prevents tall from being OP. Would it be OP without this?

no it prevents wide from being OP
if you go wide, you don't get your national wonders until later, and they cost more to build

 

[CppMaster]

no it prevents wide from being OP
if you go wide, you don't get your national wonders until later, and they cost more to build

Isn't it easier to have more population in empire by having more cities? In that case it limits tall more than wide.

 

[azum4roll]

Isn't it easier to have more population in empire by having more cities? In that case it limits tall more than wide.

Not when you need 25% more population for each city you have.

 

[rkkn]

yeah the pop requirement scales with number of cities. it's easier to hit it with like 3 cities than with 1, but it's much harder to hit it when you have lots of cities

 

[AndreyK]

CS quests. Played 200 turns in epic, never got a quest find a city or find civ. Only one quest to build a NW, had waited for others but didn't get any, despite having 6 of them to biuld. Bunch of useless quests to explore area 6 or 7, 2 or 3 of them already expired. Can't get to those areas because can't travel in oceans yet. Many quests to make a TR or give unit have low reward.

 

[andersw]

Not when you need 25% more population for each city you have.

Yes I play wide and I really feel this with all national wonders up to and including iron works.
The delay on circus maximus is probably most impactful.

 

[andersw]

Been hoarding barb spears, mostly useful for intimidating CS but now stealing UU, good stuff.
Sadly all captured units are zero exp (I assume intended).

Spoiler :

 

[Enginseer]

Been hoarding barb spears, mostly useful for intimidating CS but now stealing UU, good stuff.
Sadly all captured units are zero exp (I assume intended).

Spoiler :

View attachment 673476

we can buff it in a later congress into drafted xp of its origin city (if people are into that)

 

[andersw]

we can buff it in a later congress into drafted xp of its origin city (if people are into that)

Its probably good enough, just feel unusual with ZERO exp units.
I dont think I ever been #1 in soldiers before gunpowder and even then it usually happen very late in the game.
(unrelated I went to war vs Denmark to save Germany at the brink of elimination we hold the danish off and then he caps to Denmark leaving Berlin an easy grab for me ....)

Spoiler :

 

[andersw]

Well capture city quest for sure creates a lot of click work when you have a gazillion low exp units.

 

[Stalker0]

One of the things I liked about the gallery concept originally was that it was putting a lot of CV tools into a side building, so ideally it was an "extra effort" for CV players, but could be ignored if you weren't going CV. I recognize this wasn't everyone's justification for the building, but that was one of the ideas I liked.

Having played it, honestly the gallery just feels like a new extra building I always have to build. +2 culture is still +2 culture, but more than that its a prereq for the museum (which is whatever), but that is a prereq for the broadcast tower (which IS a big deal). So it still feels like a required building.

Beyond that, I dislike that it gives +1 gold per artist guild but has a -4 maintenance cost. I would rather it just didn't have a maintenance cost with no gold and call it a day.