August 2023 Update - Patch Notes Discussion (Celebrating 32 Years of Civ!)

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Absolutely.
In civ 5, if you get a workable tile with 3 yields when you settle your capital (like +2 food and 1 production for instance), that is a very strong tile and you have a good start.
Whereas in civ 6, that is a rather weak tile and you should at minimum be looking at +2 food 2 production tiles or better.
Whereas in civ 5 again, such a tile is virtually unheard of and would be obscenely strong.
Which is part of why salt was considered the best luxury tile in civ 5, because it allowed you to get +2f2p1gold (and only when improved with a mine).
Such a tile is nothing special in civ 6 however.


Also there was no farm adjacency bonuses in civ 5, mines had 0 food on them when improved and only gave 3 flat production.
Contrast this to the absolutely stupid yields that people post on sites such as reddit, and it becomes apparent that this "yield porn" causes power creep that will at some point become unsustainable in terms of overall balance.

Also when placing certain improvements you had to chop forests, in 6, plantations, mines, etc are built on top of the feature which makes them even more powerful, also the adjacency bonuses from certain wonders.

 

[b81a98]

The civ 4 improved tiles is more powerful than civ 5 and civ 6.
A corn farm with 6F1G, a village with 1F2P7G, the iron mine with 7P.
Just because the ability of JC is a lack of consideration.

 

[Aurelesk]

I wonder how the game would have been if it was more Civilization Vish:
- If Hills and Flats lands generate as much "yields". Either -1 Production on Hill or +1 Food on Flats. If the latter is chosen, I guess Tundra, Desert and Coast need some yields too as compensation (or not be screwed by those starts).
- If you have to chop a Wood, Marsh or Rainforest each time you want to put an improvement on it, like Wood-Coal, Marsh-Oil, or Rainforest-Truffles. Which will lead to a ton of Builders charges used.
- It you could put any district on top of any resources and it will not remove it but also work it.

 

[RDomico]

Opsy.

You might have to get a refund from eShop ASAP.

TBH it looks like a snafu.

Please post what happens. Thx

So I contacted 2K support. They are no help. They would update the ticket asking me questions. I would answer. They would then pass the ticket to someone else and then ask me the same question. Then they would answer the wrong question. Eventually, I said I just want my money. They said talk to Nintendo. I just spoke to Nintendo. They said they usually don't do refunds, but they will let me know tomorrow. I don't really care. It is only $20, but it is annoying.

 

[universecreep]

I'm often critical of Firaxis but I will give them a tip of the hat for their continuing support of Civ VI.
Very nice to see!

 

[blackbutterfly]

So I contacted 2K support. They are no help. They would update the ticket asking me questions. I would answer. They would then pass the ticket to someone else and then ask me the same question. Then they would answer the wrong question. Eventually, I said I just want my money. They said talk to Nintendo. I just spoke to Nintendo. They said they usually don't do refunds, but they will let me know tomorrow. I don't really care. It is only $20, but it is annoying.

Sorry to hear that.
TBH I'm surprised with Nintendo.

 

[Jimdigriz]

Yeah he is OP as all hell now with this change (increased gold, not the XP bonus) and imo easily the best early civ by far in the game, as long as you play him on a slow speed and with barb clans active.
Played him on marathon speed yesterday, and with one pillage you get enough for your first settler or 2 warriors (4 warriors if you buy them from Clans) and you are still left with some lump gold.
Have one or two camps early on, and you can raise an army in no time and totally decimate your Deity AI neighbour without any real hassle.
It also has pretty much no opportunity cost to do this either, meaning you can play fully peacefully behind this in terms of expanding, improving tiles and placing districts.
All while raising a huge army (or buy settlers or whatever) for practically no effort.
In my current game Im farming 5 Clans every 10 turns, and I have 9 cities in the ancient era, a huge 330 military score army, and bought myself Isidore of Miletus for wonder rushing (getting great bath on deity is hard you say? Not with this guy lol) and a prophet to get a religion for zero effort.
Its just that broken.

It's like a more consistent and overall much better version of Qin.
Until this gets a nerf, he is just flat out the best leader in the game, no questions asked.

Not a fan of this either tbh, but it seems like Firaxis want people to get broken toys because that drives sales/interest.

And that's why I have Clans and Heroes etc switched off! The AI is crap as it is - the add-ons just make it worse.

 

[Aurelesk]

I have a few questions on Wu Zetian abilities, as she was updated. She basically can:
- Unlock a new Spy at Defensive Tactics, and get a free one.
- Buy Spies with Faith
- +1 level on Spy on all mission types
- Get 100% (instead of 50%) of the Culture, Science, and Faith as well, generated by the targeted city on successful offensive mission.

What she lacks is a notification that tells us how much Culture, Science and Faith the Spy got us. So we could see better how much it is worth, instead of checking on Faith balance and Tech/Civic completion level each turn.

My questions are as follow:
- What defines offensive mission? Only those who gains promotion on success, or does Gain Source / Listening Post count too?
- Does the 100% of the Culture, Faith and Science includes the +40% Culture, Faith and Science on Deity?

Depending on the answers, we could put a Spy in every Pingala cities and do risk free Spy mission, or just the Loyalty one as the less risky one.

Once we are culturally dominant over a Civilization, we also enjoy -50% spy mission, -25% with Machiavellianism, -25% with the Linguist, so a total -100% mission time (which has the undesirable effect of making Siphon Fond yield 0 Gold...). So she would like to go for a Culture victory as well?

 

[blackbutterfly]

- What defines offensive mission? Only those who gains promotion on success, or does Gain Source / Listening Post count too?

All counter espionage missions (in your own cities) are defensive missions.
Offensive is spying on another civ.

I like how Firaxis buffed Wu Zetian but stopped short of allowing her to spy on allies. (Something you could do in previous expansions/base game, though I forget when/how exactly this changed).

So, you still have to not ally with at least 1 leading civ in order to effectively use her. Shame.

 

[Kotofei]

100% this.
Its quite obvious if you look over at reddit, about half the threads there are people bragging about their insane tile yields, and Im quite certain that the devs have noticed that and are catering to it.
Its fun for a bit, but when you grow tired of abusing these mechanics, you are just left with a somewhat broken game.

I'd argue that a perfectly balanced game would get boring. Firaxis made the right call by introducing broken leader abilities to spice it up. The game has limitless possibilities for trying Weird Stuff now.

 

[blackbutterfly]

I'd argue that a perfectly balanced game would get boring. Firaxis made the right call by introducing broken leader abilities to spice it up. The game his limitless possibilities for trying Weird Stuff now.

Unbalanced is perfectly fine for single player vs. AI.

But for multiplayer, you need balance

Firaxis introduced Rulesets in Civ VI.
Really there should have been multiplayer rulesets.
MP is the one area Civ VI is superior to Civ V. From the balance maps to the MP-friendly scenarios.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm showing a 8.3 GB download. Certainly not a 532 MB.

Definitely a surprise. Here I was thinking it was another hotfix for BG3.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

I'm showing a 8.3 GB download. Certainly not a 532 MB.

The 582 MB is the download for the patch/update. The larger number indicates when Steam is actually going through and patching all the game files.

 

[Aurelesk]

- What defines offensive mission? Only those who gains promotion on success, or does Gain Source / Listening Post count too?

I have an answer: Listening Post doesn't count. Once finished, it didn't yield additional Faith.

 

[InsidiousMage]

I have an answer: Listening Post doesn't count. Once finished, it didn't yield additional Faith.

Pretty sure offensive missions are missions done in other Civ's cities, not your own. So, steal gold, steal tech, and so on.

 

[Aurelesk]

Pretty sure offensive missions are missions done in other Civ's cities, not your own. So, steal gold, steal tech, and so on.

I am not sure you can Listen to your own Post in your cities. It is a mission only achievable in foreign city.

@blackbutterfly said offensive missions was all missions in a foreign land. It wasn't all missions, only those a Spy can be caught and/or die. So I clarified this point.

 

[blackbutterfly]

@blackbutterfly said offensive missions was all missions in a foreign land. It wasn't all missions, only those a Spy can be caught and/or die. So I clarified this point.

What about Gain Sources?

I happen to be playing a Beyond Earth MP game this weekend. And my fav civ of choice is Chungsu. The hackers.
The equivalent of Civ VI's Listening Post is "Establish Network". (Though it could also be Gain Sources).

Chungsu get science for every spy mission, including the very quick Establish Network. (Though once performed you don't get to do it again in that city).
It's a little game breaking

So I see why in Civ VI they nerfed this first mission.

In fact Firaxis nerfed espionage so much in Civ VI, it's virtually useless.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I'm going to assume that Offensive Missions are any missions that can result in the spy dying/being captured. If you can't get captured/die then it's not an offensive mission.

I then also assume that defensive mission is any mission performed in your own cities.

 

[blackbutterfly]

On a completely different note has anyone noticed any difference in AI behaviour?

Am I imagining the AI builds more ships now. Also surprise! Airplanes. (Though they didn't attack me. I did kill them by city razing).
Incredibly in a play test of my map/mod Scrambled North America, the AI actually built a useful Panama Canal

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Absolutely.
In civ 5, if you get a workable tile with 3 yields when you settle your capital (like +2 food and 1 production for instance), that is a very strong tile and you have a good start.
Whereas in civ 6, that is a rather weak tile and you should at minimum be looking at +2 food 2 production tiles or better.
Whereas in civ 5 again, such a tile is virtually unheard of and would be obscenely strong.
Which is part of why salt was considered the best luxury tile in civ 5, because it allowed you to get +2f2p1gold (and only when improved with a mine).
Such a tile is nothing special in civ 6 however.


Also there was no farm adjacency bonuses in civ 5, mines had 0 food on them when improved and only gave 3 flat production.
Contrast this to the absolutely stupid yields that people post on sites such as reddit, and it becomes apparent that this "yield porn" causes power creep that will at some point become unsustainable in terms of overall balance.

But if all the tiles are more powerful, then none of them are more powerful, right? You're just changing the base numbers.