Fall Patch changes discussion thread

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Indonesia: Just remove the continents requirement, and that should be fine.

With Candi change that would be to overpowered I think. Just give the first extra luxuries to the capital right away or after researching a certain tech (like Calendar). The other two luxuries should be in cities on a different continent. This would also refer to Indonesia's geography.

 

[Martin Alvito]

For all the hype this patch received, these are largely tweaks.

Order was already the best SP for Space. After the buff to Spaceflight Pioneers, it is now exceedingly difficult to envision a scenario where rushing parts is going to be superior to Order's package of bonuses. It also directly buffs Order's capabilities for Diplomatic victory via the GS, which I doubt was intended.

Salt really didn't need a buff. Really. Sun God is interesting, and should see play.

The civ changes will require some playtesting. I don't think the Hanse is going to break the Germans out of their Duel niche; the bonus doesn't really start getting large until around when the buildings start kicking in, and there are substantial tradeoffs for establishing those routes. Japan is somewhat more interesting in the right situational start (especially on water maps), but I'm skeptical that this will lead to a sufficiently abusive strategy to justify their comparatively weak civ bonuses.

The principal problem here is that the expansion's main problems have gone nearly unaddressed. Research Agreements have been emasculated at the lower difficulties and there are trade-offs for borrowing from AIs, but otherwise all the game's strategies survive unaffected. The SP equilibrium didn't move, vertical growth and food maximization remain king, and Tourism can still be safely ignored unless pursuing a Cultural Victory. That seems like rather a lot of global optima.

I'd be willing to overlook a lot of that if the AI is substantially more competent, but short of solving the problem of programming it to think in 1UPT terms I doubt that's a likely result.

 

[civ54lyfe]

^yeah, salt :I

what really needed a buff was Dye/Cotton.

 

[Ayestes]

I like a lot of the changes. Especially the standalone server. Only other things I'd like done without going into all minor changes would be with Pledge to Protect, Honor, and Piety.

Pledge to Protect should only be capable on those you are already Friends with as that forces you to either pay them or do a quest for them to get it.

Piety needs the opener changed to a flat bonus to faith and culture which is then boosted and moved to the holy city later on. The half cost religious buildings should be moved to the discounted faith purchases policy, and the boosted Temple gold output policy should also make Temples free of maintenance. Then that ridiculous Religious Tolerance policy should be simply changed to adding a second Pantheon to your religion, with the requirement that it's one that has already been chosen in the game. This would actually give it a chance against Liberty and Tradition, and give it an interesting start that can utilize a Religion to stay at least somewhat competitive with those two.

Honor pretty much needs a revamp. It needs some free unit maintenance, Barracks bonuses instead of garrison bonuses, and probably some other stuff. It doesn't make sense at is it is, and none of the bonuses should ever feel like they go obsolete.

I did want to mention Liberty too as well, in that I think Meritocracy should grant +2 Happy and maybe even +2 Gold as well. That'd pretty much solve Liberty in my book. There are plenty of other policy changes I'd want to make as well, but the openers I think are the highest priority right now.

 

[Greizer85]

Spoiler :

I like a lot of the changes. Especially the standalone server. Only other things I'd like done without going into all minor changes would be with Pledge to Protect, Honor, and Piety.

Pledge to Protect should only be capable on those you are already Friends with as that forces you to either pay them or do a quest for them to get it.

Piety needs the opener changed to a flat bonus to faith and culture which is then boosted and moved to the holy city later on. The half cost religious buildings should be moved to the discounted faith purchases policy, and the boosted Temple gold output policy should also make Temples free of maintenance. Then that ridiculous Religious Tolerance policy should be simply changed to adding a second Pantheon to your religion, with the requirement that it's one that has already been chosen in the game. This would actually give it a chance against Liberty and Tradition, and give it an interesting start that can utilize a Religion to stay at least somewhat competitive with those two.

Honor pretty much needs a revamp. It needs some free unit maintenance, Barracks bonuses instead of garrison bonuses, and probably some other stuff. It doesn't make sense at is it is, and none of the bonuses should ever feel like they go obsolete.

I did want to mention Liberty too as well, in that I think Meritocracy should grant +2 Happy and maybe even +2 Gold as well. That'd pretty much solve Liberty in my book. There are plenty of other policy changes I'd want to make as well, but the openers I think are the highest priority right now.

I hope you've sent your resumé to Firaxis because these changes are spot-on.

 

[Santa Maria]

Originally posted by Ayestes:
"Honor pretty much needs a revamp. It needs some free unit maintenance, Barracks bonuses instead of garrison bonuses, and probably some other stuff. It doesn't make sense at is it is, and none of the bonuses should ever feel like they go obsolete."

I totally agree.

 

[Viregel]

With Candi change that would be to overpowered I think. Just give the first extra luxuries to the capital right away or after researching a certain tech (like Calendar). The other two luxuries should be in cities on a different continent. This would also refer to Indonesia's geography.

I don't think it would be too overpowered. To be honest, on a lot of games you're going to have to settle on other continents to get full use out of the Candi anyway, and having them all on the same continent would make it far easier for Pangaea. As a complete change, getting gold from trade routes that pass through your territory would be nice.

 

[Matthew.]

I'd rather just see consulates move further down the policy tree. I don't think the policy itself is overpowered, but it is too strong for only needing to drop two polices. If it took five, it would require a much larger investment and a sacrifice likely in the form of Rationalism or Ideology policies.

 

[Txurce]

I'd rather just see consulates move further down the policy tree. I don't think the policy itself is overpowered, but it is too strong for only needing to drop two polices. If it took five, it would require a much larger investment and a sacrifice likely in the form of Rationalism or Ideology policies.

Five may be too much, coming so late it's not part of a developmental strategy. But I definitely agree with the overall concept of the investment being more equal to the return.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Order now has not only a great T1, best T2 (because +25% science, 50% faster built factory SP carries the other meh-goodish ones), but now also a nice T3. Iron Curtain is now useful at building bigger cities with more food trade routes. I think my Venice will now prefer Order unless strictly going for diplomatic because the T3 now seems good. Before I never took anything from it, now it's a really nice change...

Kremlin being the worst Ideological Wonder is now the biggest flaw of this policy tree.

 

[DeathwatchBob]

I feel like the change to Samurai moves them in the wrong direction. They were already a unit that I rarely use in actual combat. Because of the free shock promotion, I would get an Armory up and build Cover2/Medic2/Shock3 Samurai while teching gunpowder. Then upgrade them to muskets and attack. Now that they upgrade into Rifles and have a non-combat use, this seems like an even better strategy.

I'd rather they start with a higher base combat strength (maybe even equal to muskets since Damascus steel is pretty boss) so that I would want to make a bunch of Swordsmen, upgrade to Samurai directly after researching Steel and attack with the actual Samurai units.

 

[Matthew.]

Five may be too much, coming so late it's not part of a developmental strategy. But I definitely agree with the overall concept of the investment being more equal to the return.

How so? Just flip Merchant Confederacy. It still comes quickly if you sacrifice Rationalism policies for it, and in return you get perma-friendship which results in a lot of free everything other than science.

People want alternate options to Rationalism--easy to see by a good portion of the comments in this very thread. Thus, keep consulates strong, but make it a heavy enough investment where it cuts into other policies.

 

[bonafide11]

I haven't read all of the comments yet, but I just read the patch notes and I'm a bit disappointed, to be honest. The civs don't look much more interesting (I still don't anticipate Germany or Japan being much more exciting to play with, and I was hoping other civs would get some changes too) and the game balance is still lacking. Early war still seems disadvantageous and tall still seems superior to wide. Perhaps I'm missing something...

 

[Txurce]

How so? Just flip Merchant Confederacy. It still comes quickly if you sacrifice Rationalism policies for it, and in return you get perma-friendship which results in a lot of free everything other than science.

People want alternate options to Rationalism--easy to see by a good portion of the comments in this very thread. Thus, keep consulates strong, but make it a heavy enough investment where it cuts into other policies.

I don't think it comes quickly enough if you flip it with Merchant Confederacy. And it would never cross my mind to chase Consulates hard enough that I lose out on a policy I want in Rationalism. Rationalism is too good (but that's a separate conversation). I would just move Consulates down one - parallel to Scholasticism - so it's not so easy to take en route to a presently full diet of Rationalism. It's more likely that moving Consulates down one will increase the likelihood of stopping off somewhere other than Patronage en route to Rationalism.

 

[MantaRevan]

I'm really supportive and excited for the balance issues brought to the patch, although the glaring issue for me is that Japan and Germany are still fundamentally the same as before, when I was expecting then to be reworked in a manner similar to what happened to France.

Germany is much better, especially with the Hanse coming into play, but the crappy bonus that gave you a few brutes is still there making them boring.
Japan still makes a case for itself as one of the worse civs in the game, with Bushido still present and some culture from fishing boats tacked on. I guess that's fine, but it's only going to be like 3-10 culture per turn realistically. The atoll bonus isn't really relevant since I can't remember the last time I had one in my borders. They should have just scrapped the totally irrelevant zero and given japan a UB.

 

[Matjillam]

No love for honor or piety? Huh... Very weird

Right now, Honor/piety are totally useless on anything above emperor.

You can also see it on the AI. The ones going Honor/Piety start will fall greatly behind especially the tradition AI's.

I've yet to see ANY Genghis/Monty be ANY real challenge, because they never really attack anything. ANd even if they do an conquer something, they are STILL grossly behind.

Early aggression AI's pose no real threat atm and it doesnt seem like this patch will change that very much

 

[bonafide11]

No love for honor or piety? Huh... Very weird

Right now, Honor/piety are totally useless on anything above emperor.

You can also see it on the AI. The ones going Honor/Piety start will fall greatly behind especially the tradition AI's.

I've yet to see ANY Genghis/Monty be ANY real challenge, because they never really attack anything. ANd even if they do an conquer something, they are STILL grossly behind.

Early aggression AI's pose no real threat atm and it doesnt seem like this patch will change that very much

There are small boosts for Honor and Piety with Warrior Code and Theocracy getting benefits. Warrior Code's faster GG isn't much, but Theocracy's gold increase could end up being pretty useful if you're playing a religious game.

 

[Dogmouth]

I'm actually pretty excited about the Germany and Japan changes. IMO, germany was already fine, but the additional chance to convert and the Hanse are pretty nice (I'll miss the landschnekt, however). The changes to Japan are kind of funky, but I expect Japan to be a pretty decent civ on archipelago maps. However, on land maps, they'll still be terrible!

 

[budweiser]

If landschnekt went to mercenaries, they should change the name back to Swiss Pikemen.

 

[DemonMaster]

If landschnekt went to mercenaries, they should change the name back to Swiss Pikemen.

Landsknechts where also mercenaries. Landsknecht is even a better choice since they served anyone, even both sides of the war sometimes. Swiss mercenaries did not do that.