Full Patch Notes for December Patch

[coe]

Still no ability to do a revolution and redistribute policies? Why I must choose how to play at the first turn or lose horribly? And by this, I mean pipe like strategy.

 

[PieceOfMind]

For what it's worth, the pedia isn't available from within the menu as certain effects require an active 'Player' class, which cannot exist outside of a game.

There is, however, this link. http://civilopedia5.com/

I might say that was a pretty silly requirement then. Hopefully this can be patched.

I'm curious now how that website manages to avoid needing an active Player class. If it wasn't too hard to do there, would be it wrong to assume it can be changed in the game without much difficulty?

 

[Garett20]

I think 2 of them will be Lake Tiataca and Mt.Everest because I remember seeing them on Arioch's site in one of the early builds, but didn't seem to make it in to the final game.

 

[Celevin]

Firstly, what you don't appreciate is that Siam's Maritime allies are now worth 100% more food than those of other civs, if rounding works like before. They get +2 instead of +1. Saying they lose more food than others is not true because before, you'd be happy with getting 6 or 8 food: 3 maritime allies or 2 for Siam maybe while now you'll need 6 with a normal faction but still 3 with Siam

Food rounds properly to my knowledge. It'll be 50% of a nerfed value. If it isn't, that's another thing that I'll want desperately changed. It's rotten trying to theorycraft when a 50% bonus turns into a 100% bonus just because the underlying value got nerfed by a whole number. I hate hate hate rounding when dealing with small values.

Secondly we don't know if it's just what the UI shows or if the game itself is rounding. The former was a case constantly present in Civ4.

Secondly, the point I quoted is important. Without being able to stockpile SPs you want to wait until Renaissance, then get 3 or 4 cultural CS allies. Siam gets +50% culture from those.

Honestly even with the change to SPs I don't know if it's worthwhile to delay culture gains. It's a mathematical nitpick that "saving could be better", but we don't know how much better, for how long, or under what conditions. Just like maritimes, it's best to buy them as soon as you can sustain them. Secondly I think your point depends on how much harder it is to sling to Ren due to the additional tech requirements post-patch. In fact, Siam benefited most from a Ren sling, and now that it's harder, it might weaken them.

I think Siam is strong with a culture approach not because of anything but how easy it is to abuse static culture (ie puppets and cultural city states). I don't think it's because of Renaissance bonuses. If you were to graph the policy gain rate of an empire at different city numbers (assuming each city makes the same culture), it's actually quite a smooth graph with a slight benefit for larger empires. If you add in any substantial amount of static culture, all of a sudden you see that everything else pales in comparison to only having 1 city.

But what does this have to do with Maritimes, or the power difference pre and post patch? Siam can do this strategy both pre and post patch, and the effectiveness hardly changed. What you'd have to argue is that a cultural city state strategy is better than Siam's maritime city state strategy (if both can be seen as separate, isolated), as that would show that Siam's best strategy didn't lose any steam. Then, secondly, that the other civs didn't see any similar type of gains.



My point still holds, the nerfing of maritime city states hurt Siam more than other civs. The weaker a mechanic is, the less useful it is to have a bonus for that mechanic. I guess I should have put a disclaimer "as long as both Siam and the other civs were actively using maritimes".

 

[ipris]

Was really hoping I might wake up and find the patch was released this mornin.
/darn

 

[Willowmound]

When are patches usually released? Morning or afternoon? Is there a trend anyone has noticed?

 

[Louis XXIV]

I can't remember, but my guess is Morning Pacific time, so it'll be noon/early afternoon on the east coast.

 

[Helmling]

Was really hoping I might wake up and find the patch was released this mornin.
/darn

LOL. Me too.

 

[Willowmound]

I can't remember, but my guess is Morning Pacific time, so it'll be noon/early afternoon on the east coast.

Still a few hours left of today's window, then!

 

[Öjevind Lång]

new natural wonders, pick 3:
Everest Mount
Victoria Falls
Horn Cape or Cape of Good Hope
Titicaca Lake
Ilulissat Icefjord

Mount Everest
Victoria Falls
Lake Titicaca

 

[alpaca]

Food rounds properly to my knowledge. It'll be 50% of a nerfed value. If it isn't, that's another thing that I'll want desperately changed. It's rotten trying to theorycraft when a 50% bonus turns into a 100% bonus just because the underlying value got nerfed by a whole number. I hate hate hate rounding when dealing with small values.

Secondly we don't know if it's just what the UI shows or if the game itself is rounding. The former was a case constantly present in Civ4.

I'll give it a test

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I'll give it a test

It is possible that the Renaissance boost removes that problem though

+3 friend? +3/+2 ally?

So that Siam's bonus really isn't for other cities until the Renaissance.

 

[bryanw1995]

Hmm so if I understand this correctly after thinking about it, won't this seriously limit the AI having crazy happiness bonuses? I can only assume they get those by building happiness buildings in every city with high priority. Now that the only thing that can provide excess happiness is policies/wonders/luxuries, it should reduce how much they can be ahead.

the ai's default happiness is much higher than yours at higher levels (just like yours is much higher than theirs on settler), so they will still go crazy. they'll just all be at 40-50 happiness instead of 60-70.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

But... Natural Wonders aren't navigable in Civ V.

As if the earliest Meters vs Miles mis-matches weren't funny enough... now, i laugh out loud even more!
Why we can't drop Platforms on the double-decker Barrier-Reefs for mo'Hammers is beyond my silly hopes (btw, too)?

 

[bryanw1995]

Food rounds properly to my knowledge. It'll be 50% of a nerfed value. If it isn't, that's another thing that I'll want desperately changed. It's rotten trying to theorycraft when a 50% bonus turns into a 100% bonus just because the underlying value got nerfed by a whole number. I hate hate hate rounding when dealing with small values.

Secondly we don't know if it's just what the UI shows or if the game itself is rounding. The former was a case constantly present in Civ4.


Honestly even with the change to SPs I don't know if it's worthwhile to delay culture gains. It's a mathematical nitpick that "saving could be better", but we don't know how much better, for how long, or under what conditions. Just like maritimes, it's best to buy them as soon as you can sustain them. Secondly I think your point depends on how much harder it is to sling to Ren due to the additional tech requirements post-patch. In fact, Siam benefited most from a Ren sling, and now that it's harder, it might weaken them.

I think Siam is strong with a culture approach not because of anything but how easy it is to abuse static culture (ie puppets and cultural city states). I don't think it's because of Renaissance bonuses. If you were to graph the policy gain rate of an empire at different city numbers (assuming each city makes the same culture), it's actually quite a smooth graph with a slight benefit for larger empires. If you add in any substantial amount of static culture, all of a sudden you see that everything else pales in comparison to only having 1 city.

But what does this have to do with Maritimes, or the power difference pre and post patch? Siam can do this strategy both pre and post patch, and the effectiveness hardly changed. What you'd have to argue is that a cultural city state strategy is better than Siam's maritime city state strategy (if both can be seen as separate, isolated), as that would show that Siam's best strategy didn't lose any steam. Then, secondly, that the other civs didn't see any similar type of gains.



My point still holds, the nerfing of maritime city states hurt Siam more than other civs. The weaker a mechanic is, the less useful it is to have a bonus for that mechanic. I guess I should have put a disclaimer "as long as both Siam and the other civs were actively using maritimes".

It will depend upon how they add the +50%. if siam's non-capitol cities only get +1 food pre-renaissance and +3 food post renaissance then they have been hurt. I haven't played a non-modded game in a while, I forgot how early I also snap up every single maritime on the planet. if siam gets +2 pre-renaissance then they will still usually snap up all the maritimes quickly, if they only get +1 then it will be situational and culturals could be more useful quite often. What they really need to do is to give a buff to military cs's, that would indirectly nerf siam but more importantly make military's a viable alternative some times.

 

[alpaca]

It is possible that the Renaissance boost removes that problem though

+3 friend? +3/+2 ally?

So that Siam's bonus really isn't for other cities until the Renaissance.

Is there a Renaissance boost? They didn't list any in the patch log

Ok, tests with always 2 Maritime allies:

+1 for allied in all cities, +1 extra for allied in capital, 0 for friends: +6 in capital, +4 in other cities (should be +6/+3)
+1 for friends in all cities, +1 extra for friends in capital, 0 for allied: +6 in capital, +2 in other cities (should be +6/+3)
+1 for friends, +1 for allies in all cities, +1 extra for friends, +1 extra for allies in capital: +12 in capital, +6 in other cities (should be +12/+6)
+2 for friends in capital, +1 for allied in all cities (like new patch): +10 in capital, +4 in other cities (should be +9, +3)

With 4 Maritime allies:

+1 for allied in all cities, +1 extra for allied capital: +12 in capital, +8 in other cities (should be +12/+6)
+1 for friends in all cities, +1 extra for friends in capital: +12 in capital, +4 in other cities (should be +12/+6)
+2 for friends in capital, +1 for allied in all cities (like new patch):


So this bonus doesn't work like it should. What you get from allied CS is always rounded up, what you get from friends is always rounded down. Since the bonuses are symmetric in vanilla so far, it didn't show up, though. In the new patch, they will get +2 per city state ally, though.

 

[Ahriman]

Is there a Renaissance boost? They didn't list any in the patch log

We don't know.
I'm guessing that the bonus will probably still increase by era - even though it probably shouldn't. The bonus already scales as you build more cities.

So this bonus doesn't work like it should. What you get from allied CS is always rounded up, what you get from friends is always rounded down.

And they round before adding across multiple CS alliances?
Bah, idiocy.
How hard is it to track decimal values - or at least to only round once, and round consistently?

 

[GenericPlayer]

Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
Research Lab has two specialist slots.
Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.

So...which one is correct for public schools?

 

[alpaca]

And they round before adding across multiple CS alliances?
Bah, idiocy.
How hard is it to track decimal values - or at least to only round once, and round consistently?

Yes, as you can see from the test data. In my opinion this behaviour is so unintuitive that I call it a bug

 

[Celevin]

We don't know.
I'm guessing that the bonus will probably still increase by era - even though it probably shouldn't. The bonus already scales as you build more cities.

I completely agree. Add to it that 1 food early game means less than 1 food late game does, and the abuse for maritimes is seen. (My logic: simply 1 population offers more gold/production through multipliers in the late game compared to early game)

And they round before adding across multiple CS alliances?
Bah, idiocy.
How hard is it to track decimal values - or at least to only round once, and round consistently?

Yeah and it's giving me a headache... it's unbelievable.


Due to this, Alpaca, you're right, Siam's going to remain a powerhouse. I can't believe rounding errors of all things are giving it double its normal bonus. Really stupidly though, what if the Ren bonus post-patch for Allies is +2 food/city? Then when Siam switches to Ren, it sees a penalty of its bonus from 100% to 50% compared to everyone else.