Brave New World Patch notes! Version 1.0.3.276

[qemist]

(by the way, is it me or does it "feel" a little harder after the patch? I mean, not as in related to the WM changes only, but to AI's behavior...? I don't know, may be just me "re-discovering" the game...)

I don't get those eerie peaceful games where everyone just turtles along for 200+ turns any more. Definitely an improvement.

 

[z284pwr]

Nerfing the WM penalty for CS destruction may have been a little too much... in my first complete game post patch, I see 75% of the CS in the world destroyed. 75%. Never seen such proportion. Coincidence, or a pattern? If a pattern, may be worrisome...

Anyone else seeing this?

I have played three games now where the Kahn settled only one city and just DOWed City-States one by one. Makes it pretty easy to get them out of the game early when they only settle one city

 

[Gamewizard]

I just tried one of the recent GotM where Kahn is a neighbor, and he didn't settle any cities, but he took out 2 CS early, and then took me out with a massive army. Most impressive.

 

[m15a]

I've been playing around with super cramped maps, so that's definitely a factor, but I've also seen lots of city states conquered by AI. Ethiopia and Poland each took one very early in one game. In another, America and Japan each took a couple.

 

[beetle]

I can’t say that there is noticeable changes to AI behavior. I have only played a few game through since the patch, but everything I have experienced, and all that I have read on this thread, is explainable by the RNG element and confirmation bias.

The AIs never seemed to moderate their behavior based on warmonger hate, so why would the patch change that? The patch implies more peaceful late game, not more war mongering early!

I love the new changes to warmongering and city-states.

I concur this is a good change, but I have not changed my play style. Can I conquer a CS early now and not face hate through to the end game?

 

[Aristos]

I can’t say that there is noticeable changes to AI behavior. I have only played a few game through since the patch, but everything I have experienced, and all that I have read on this thread, is explainable by the RNG element and confirmation bias.

The AIs never seemed to moderate their behavior based on warmonger hate, so why would the patch change that? The patch implies more peaceful late game, not more war mongering early!



I concur this is a good change, but I have not changed my play style. Can I conquer a CS early now and not face hate through to the end game?

True, the AI's did not moderate their behavior based on WM before... other AI's did.

Now, that moderation has been smoothed, and the WM AI's are not that much constrained anymore. A good change in my opinion, as long as it does not compromise an important sub-system of the game (CS). I know, it's too early to say anything, it needs much more games, but it is nevertheless something interesting to observe.

Oh, and yes, the patch implies more WM early, for the same long term consequence. Your rule/observation works both ways; if you don't change your gameplay style, you will probably have more peaceful late game, or viceversa, if you want to WM a little more early, it will have same long term consequences as the lesser WM before patch. That was obviously the idea: to make BOTH styles viable.

 

[beetle]

Yes, it is a good change, and the patch makes both styles for viable for the player.

Yes, it is too early to say anything, and the important CS sub-system might have been compromised, but I doubt it. The early AI game behavior will proceed exactly as it did before! Attila AI is not thinking, okay good, now I can gobble up a couple CS and stop. So what if he gets less initial hate, and early hate starts to dissipate? His aggression will still accumulate and quickly (but not quite as fast as before) result in other AI will trying their best to moderate his behavior!

I was not clear enough in my previous post: The patch implies that the AIs will be more peaceful late game, not that the AIs will engage in more war mongering early!

The difference will be for the random AI that happen to take out another AI or a CS early will not face chain denouncements all game long. So, net effect (assuming same player behavior) is that the AI will be more peaceful.

 

[qemist]

The difference will be for the random AI that happen to take out another AI or a CS early will not face chain denouncements all game long. So, net effect (assuming same player behavior) is that the AI will be more peaceful.

Peaceful to each other or to the player? Your argument doesn't support the latter.

 

[beetle]

Scale warmonger penalties by era (50% of normal strength in Ancient up to 90% in Industrial; 100% thereafter). Penalties for warmongering vs. City-States halved.

Why would this change impact early game AI behavior at all? Pre-patch, the AI civs did not moderate their early game warmongering to avoid mid/late game hate. So why, post-patch, would the AIs now be more aggressive early game?

Peaceful to each other or to the player? Your argument doesn't support the latter.

I get that the main idea of this change is that the player has more opportunity for early warmongering.

What I am expressing skepticism to is the idea that the AIs are now more aggressive. This change should make the AIs more peaceful to each other, but only mid to late game. The early-era warmonger hate penalties being lessened means many fewer chain-denouncements, and this breaks the cascading game-long effect that early CS kills used to cause routinely.

 

[Jaybe]

Why would this change impact early game AI behavior at all? Pre-patch, the AI civs did not moderate their early game warmongering to avoid mid/late game hate. So why, post-patch, would the AIs now be more aggressive early game?



I get that the main idea of this change is that the player has more opportunity for early warmongering.

What I am expressing skepticism to is the idea that the AIs are now more aggressive. This change should make the AIs more peaceful to each other, but only mid to late game. The early-era warmonger hate penalties being lessened means many fewer chain-denouncements, and this breaks the cascading game-long effect that early CS kills used to cause routinely.

beetle, you really need to find time to play the game more!

Personally, as a lowly Prince (but HUGE/MARATHON/Continents) player vs. standard number of AI/CS civs, I've seen many more wars vs. CS post-Fall patch, many of which last most of the game!
(My games typically take 2-3 weeks and I generally stretch them out to 12-1400+ turns.)

 

[beetle]

I welcome an explanation of where my logic breaks down. But really, people seem to projecting human player behavior and response to the patch onto AI -- and then finding it because they are looking for it. If people had been instead expecting more passive AIs post patch, then that is what they would have noticed.

beetle, you really need to find time to play the game more!

I am playing too much if anything!

Personally, as a lowly Prince (but HUGE/MARATHON/Continents) player vs. standard number of AI/CS civs, I've seen many more wars vs. CS post-Fall patch, many of which last most of the game!

Aggression vs CS and game-long wars between AIs was my experience pre-patch. (Immortal, mostly continents plus, everything standard.) I really can’t say I have noticed a change one way or the other that can't be accounted for from how variable games are anyway.

My games typically take 2-3 weeks and I generally stretch them out to 12-1400+ turns.)

Yikes! But how long has it been since the patch, about 6 weeks? So you are presuming a difference based on 3 or 4 games? That is just not enough of a sample.

 

[m15a]

Why would this change impact early game AI behavior at all? Pre-patch, the AI civs did not moderate their early game warmongering to avoid mid/late game hate. So why, post-patch, would the AIs now be more aggressive early game?

Do you have evidence that the AIs don't factor in the cost of the warmongering penalty when deciding whether to declare war? (Sorry if I missed it earlier in the thread.)

 

[beetle]

Do you have evidence that the AIs don't factor in the cost of the warmongering penalty when deciding whether to declare war? (Sorry if I missed it earlier in the thread.)

Um, the evidence burden goes the other way! What traits/flavors would be related to factoring in warmonger penalty? (Yes, there are some related to warmongering generally, and several to CS attitude, but not AFAIK towards reluctance to take a Civ’s last city.) Prior to the patch, when at war, AIs conquer CS all the time. So prior to the patch, all experiential evidence is that they don’t factor warmongering penalty. What makes you suspect that any of that has changed?

 

[qemist]

Also it is common once an AI is weak and down to one city for another AI to take it out. Sometimes this leads to the second AI's being dogpiled.

 

[Carl5872]

Ive been playing an online game with my brother and some AI, and like every 5 turns it just brings up the leader picture (will you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?) for a couple minutes, then continues. WHile not the end of the world, it is annoying. Is this just something on our end, or did the patch cause this?

 

[cpm4001]

Ive been playing an online game with my brother and some AI, and like every 5 turns it just brings up the leader picture (will you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?) for a couple minutes, then continues. WHile not the end of the world, it is annoying. Is this just something on our end, or did the patch cause this?

The patch seems to have made multiplayer desyncs (what you're describing) more frequent, but it really varies between people - some are saying multiplayer's so unstable as to be unplayable, while others aren't reporting any real problems at all. I myself have been playing a game with three other people and a couple AIs and we haven't been having that many more desyncs than we would've prior to the Fall Patch.

 

[Atreju]

Also it happens when loading an mp game, the turn is being skipped.For example you load turn 223 and when loading is finished the turn is over and it is 224.AI controlled units are attacking you two times in a row and you couldn't give any orders to your cities or units.
Does anyone know if the bug existed already before the patch or not?Because by replacing the folder "Gameplay" in expansion2 by the Gameplay folder that was up to date before the patch was published I can play mp without the resynch bug.Instead there is the diplomacy bug again but that's much more comfortable to play.
The bug causing turns to be skipped after loaded is still present.If the bug didn't exist before the patch, then we have to replace other data than only the gameplay folder too.

 

[beetle]

For Piety, Reformation lost a connection, meaning that you can reform an early religion faster (one SP faster) and therefore 'maybe' use early game Reformations more viably.

Have people noticed much difference from the AIs that is attributable to this change?

Personally, I have only filled out Piety in couple games since the patch, and great reformation beliefs were available, and I have not abandoned the Piety tree because the best Reformation beliefs were gone. I do think I see religions getting reformations earlier (which makes sense) but I am not sure it’s more of them, and I have not noticed more AIs opening Piety. But maybe I am just not paying enough attention? Missionary / GPr spam seems about the same too.

Stonehenge is going much earlier, but I don’t see how this change to the Piety tree, from the perspective of the AI, would drive that. SH does not help get to Reformation faster, it only gives better reformation choices. The AIs like a fast religion, but they seem pretty incoherent with their belief picks, so the change to the Piety tree does not really explain why SH now goes early. Actually, given the general AI fondness for founding, it is quite surprising that SH was reasonably accessible before this Halloween patch. I would very much like to know what is driving the AI prioritization of SH, and if you think it’s the change to the Piety tree, please explain where my reasoning breaks down!

 

[fbruun]

Because by replacing the folder "Gameplay" in expansion2 by the Gameplay folder that was up to date before the patch was published I can play mp without the resynch bug.Instead there is the diplomacy bug again but that's much more comfortable to play.

Wait are you saying there's a way to go around the new patch and go back to the old version? This is big.

 

[Atreju]

Wait are you saying there's a way to go around the new patch and go back to the old version? This is big.

Yes.A friend of mine often played with modified folders with me.So we for example removed the X-Com Squad just because we don't like that unit.Each player in the mp party has to have the same modified folder, otherwhise there will be resynchs each turn and everything what happened in the game thanks to modifications will be recorrected otherwhise.Therfore we both made a backup of our expansion 2 folders(expansion2 is the only one we needed to edit to play with our little mods) so we could always exchange the original expansion 2 folder by the modified folder if we wanted to play with someone else or an FFA (where you should come in with clean folders) for example.

Now when the patch was published, my expansion 2 folder was updated but luckily I still had the modified folder.Remodding it would also be no problem.I replaced the patched expansion 2 folder by our edited prepatch folder.When I played with my friend again(he did the same) there was no cocao etc., the diplo bug was there again but no resynchs all the time.In the main menu it still shows the number of the latest patch, as if I would play with the latest patch.

Maybe someone out there didn't go online yet with his steam account since the patch was published.Wich means such a person could before starting steam copy the who le Sid Meier's Civilization V folder to have a backup and when he starts civ V and steam updates it he can just replace the whole updated civ V folder by his or her backup.

Sadly I only have the "prepatch"-expansion 2 folder and there is that annoying bug when you load a saved mp game the current turn that still needs to be played just gets skipped.So is my speculation that the bug was added by the patch somewhere outside of the expansion 2 folder but still inside of the Sid Meier's Civilization V folder.