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

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Also, if “I had a nickel every time Civ VI made a balance patch after the supposed end of their content, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice.”

Civ 6 developers taking the phrase "one more turn" to mean something completely different.

Change to Wu is welcome but I'm trying to figure out why they added and gave an emphasis on faith bonuses to her?

 

[Tuvok694]

Could this unexpected little update mean that Civ7 is even further away than we thought?

 

[Goodenuf]

"When targeting Barbarians, receive +5 Combat Strength and always earn normal XP."

Hey, um, pass me that Raging Barbarians mod, would ya please?

 

[blackbutterfly]

"When targeting Barbarians, receive +5 Combat Strength and always earn normal XP."

Hey, um, pass me that Raging Barbarians mod, would ya please?

Yeah.

The reason why in Civ V and Civ VI there has been a cap on barb XP is because this is easily exploitable.

As JC play tall and perhaps try Zombie mode (now that it's been nerfed).
(FYI Roman Fort has extra buffs in Zombie mode).

 

[bite]

As is tradition, this announcement dropped 5 minutes after I went to bed, Firaxis is on to me ....

I'll update the Features Thread when I get home from work.

 

[Daniel Boone]

This update is kinda like the last update to civ4: completely a surprise, and coming months after the last patch. If I remember right, civ5 came out just a few months after the civ4 patch, so maybe civ7 is coming soon?

 

[SeriousWhimsy]

I'm sure the update is lovely, but Steam now boots me up in Gathering Storm. Yes, I'm using a Mac, but I thought this was fixed.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

My word... Another sudden update.

Please, Firaxis, I'm just getting my horrible life schedule back into a semi-coherent thing, don't do this to me. Don't keep updating and making the game better.

All jokes aside, Julius Caesar is far stronger as a Leader now, and the new Leader Achievements are welcome overdue surprise.

 

[rocksinmypath]

They might've overcompensated on Caesar a tad. I was thinking +5 strength against barbarians and 5-10 gold per tech researched on top of the previous bonus when conquering a city or barbarian camp would be a good enough buff. Now, he's just busted, but then, at this point of the game's lifecycle, that's totally fine.

+2 amenities from industrial zones for Lincoln is very strong as well.

I'm not sure how to feel about Harald. Pre-update, I thought Harald was one of the worst leaders in the game, so of these, he should've received the largest buff, but did he? I think bonus influence points can be really good, and I'm glad they finally added a civ ability of gaining bonus influence points. Having said that, he still feels like a worse version of Matthias. Assuming Matthias can levy once every 10 turns, which shouldn't be that difficult considering Amani takes 5 turns to settle in a city, and levied units get +2 movement allowing them to pillage for gold easily, how many Stave Churches would Harald need to match Matthias' envoy bonus? 2 envoys every 10 turns with a tier-2 government is equivalent to 15 influence per turn. With Monarchy, Harald would need 10 Stave Churches to match that. I guess it's strong enough of a bonus to make him somewhat interesting, but I think it could be a bit stronger. Maybe +50% influence points per turn in any government on top of the buff he just received would be appropriate? That would also help toward accelerating a Medieval push, because as it is, I think it'd be difficult to build enough Stave Churches early enough for the bonus influence to contribute significantly toward getting extra envoys Harald needs to time a good city-state Berserker rush.

I'm still not in love with Wu Zetian. I don't understand why they don't just base the yields she gets from spy missions on the yields generated by the entire empire she's spying on rather than just the city her spy is in. Espionage is already so badly designed that it has no place in a strategy game. Why do they make it worse than it has to be? There's no easy way for me to gauge how much science, culture and faith an opponent's city makes per turn. Sure, I could look at all the districts and buildings it has to get an estimate, but why would I want to do that? Just make it 25% or whatever of my opponent's yields, which I can look up on the HUD. Also, 100% of a city's one turn yield is still too little.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

This update is kinda like the last update to civ4: completely a surprise, and coming months after the last patch. If I remember right, civ5 came out just a few months after the civ4 patch, so maybe civ7 is coming soon?

I second this. Civ 5 also had a really late surprise patch after months, though the time was... about 2 years? (I forget when Civ 6 was announced formally)

 

[iammaxhailme]

I'm glad to see a buff, however slight, to the Stave Church, which really really needs it. Also glad to see LP victory achievements

My biggest hope, however is that the "other issues" in "We're excited to announce that a new update is now available for the Steam, Epic, Mac App Store, iOS, PlayStation®4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch versions of Civilization VI. In addition to addressing some reported issues" includes the hall of fame not working on Switch.

 

[pokiehl]

Not really into these balance changes, either in execution or in concept. But I am glad that achievements got added and that consoles were able to get the new DLC.

 

[topsecret]

Not really into these balance changes, either in execution or in concept. But I am glad that achievements got added and that consoles were able to get the new DLC.

Unfortunately unless major changes were made, my version on the Switch was crashing a bit after T100 on any rules set of Gathering Storm I played. I won't come back.

Glad to see they're still working on something though, if only for everyone else.

 

[Aurelesk]

+2 amenities from industrial zones for Lincoln is very strong as well.

I have tested him before the update, and he was enjoying the +2 Amenities already. Now, should I assume this is just a fix on the ability(s description, or should I test if Lincoln somehow ends up with +4 Amenities with Industrial Zone?

 

[InsidiousMage]

Its nice to see Firaxis still updating the game but I can't say this will get me to reinstall the game and give these leaders another go (or for the first time in the case of Wu Zetian).

 

[InsidiousMage]

I have tested him before the update, and he was enjoying the +2 Amenities already. Now, should I assume this is just a fix on the ability(s description, or should I test if Lincoln somehow ends up with +4 Amenities with Industrial Zone?

A couple of the leaders had differing abilities from the official PR/sources than what they ended up with in the game when the Leader Pass was coming out. I image some of this is just Firaxis fixing that.

 

[Knightfall]

Does this update break mods/savegames? My guess would be not since it only changes a few things but you never know.

 

[Starina]

Update of Julius Caesar, Wu Zetian and Harald Hadrada is very very good. But what about Nader Shah and Sejong?

 

[rocksinmypath]

I have tested him before the update, and he was enjoying the +2 Amenities already. Now, should I assume this is just a fix on the ability(s description, or should I test if Lincoln somehow ends up with +4 Amenities with Industrial Zone?

Did you test this in Gathering Storm? According to the old description, you'd only get +2 amenities in the base game.

 

[rocksinmypath]

Update of Julius Caesar, Wu Zetian and Harald Hadrada is very very good. But what about Nader Shah and Sejong?

I don't think Sejong needs a buff, not in general, at least. I think they should update his ability to be dependent on game speed. I think he's fine on normal speed but should be weaker on faster speed and stronger on slower speed.