1.20 released!

[Nightstar]

Porcelain Tower seems a bit too strong, it has contributed nearly half of the Espionage the whole empire can genarate, for other sources are so limited.

I'm going to have to second this. As an example, in my current Sejong game, I just built the Porcelain Tower and had my espionage output jump from 27/turn all the way up to 144/turn. For comparison, the next highest's (Brian Boru, with the Diplomatic trait, the Great Wall for early Great Spy generation, and about twice my number of cities) is generating all of 48/turn.

 

[Nightstar]

Another dynamic city renaming error:

 

[Xyth]

More errors appear, but I don't know which file is useful, so I uploade the whole documet.

That error will have been fixed in the last bugfix patch.

I'm going to have to second this. As an example, in my current Sejong game, I just built the Porcelain Tower and had my espionage output jump from 27/turn all the way up to 144/turn. For comparison, the next highest's (Brian Boru, with the Diplomatic trait, the Great Wall for early Great Spy generation, and about twice my number of cities) is generating all of 48/turn.

No worries, will review.

Another dynamic city renaming error:

That error is the same as the one regarding Ekbatana, just triggered by a different city this time. I still haven't been able to track down the cause unfortunately, but it will undoubtably occur with other cities too.

 

[Azoth]

I've played a few games on 1.20 now and I'd like to post my thoughts on game balance. This seemed to be the best thread for it.

ANCIENT ERA

Balance Issues

• Two base happiness per city can be quite harsh if you don't have readily accessible happiness resources near your capital. Traditional leaders get a free pass, as they can grow their capitals to over three times the size of their rivals at game start.
• Monarchy civic is the one right choice for the early game. In almost every situation, any research path other than Agriculture-Pastoralism-Monarchy or Pastoralism-Agriculture-Monarchy is suboptimal.
• Fishing is clearly the worst starting technology. The others enable improvements or happiness buildings. Fishing lets you work water tiles, which are generally inferior to land tiles, and reveals a resource that you should be able to see anyway. (Why can you see Silk and Tea at game start but not Fish? People have been catching fish forever. Heck, bears have been catching fish forever.)
• More to the point, because Fish is a sea resource, you may accidentally settle your cities such that you will never be able to work a Fish tile. Losing a high value food resource in that way is very frustrating. In general, food resources should always be revealed at game start. If there is interest in slowly revealing resources in the Ancient Era, it should be left to luxury and strategic resources.
• Tribalism Camps are too strong. A Plains Forest Tribalism Camp, which you can build almost immediately, is equivalent to a Grassland Hill Redistribution Mine without the health penalty. Grassland Forest Camps beat Agrarianism Farms and Pastures. In general, Camps create a production glut in the early game and delay the adoption of Agrarianism or Slavery far more than is reasonable. Forests are plentiful on most map scripts so it's quite possible to retain Tribalism until Industrialism!

Suggested Fixes

Technology

Fishing: Work Boat, Fishing Boats, can work water tiles
Sailing: Reveals Whale, Harvest Boats, enables trade along rivers
Seafaring: Galley, enables trade along coast
Gunpowder: Bombard, Galleas, +1 production from Camp


Civics

GOVERNMENT
Despotism
Low Upkeep
+1 happiness per military unit stationed in a city

Theocracy
Medium Upkeep
can train Missionaries without Monasteries
+2 happiness per city with state religion
+25% military unit production with state religion

Aristocracy
Low Upkeep
unlimited Spies
+25% production from trade routes
+2 happiness from Castle


LEGAL
Proclamation
Low Upkeep
+3 happiness in largest cities
+50% espionage in capital

Authoritarianism
High Upkeep
+1 espionage per specialist
+50% Great General emergence in own borders
no maintenance from number of cities

Codification
Low Upkeep
+100% growth of Cottage, Hamlet, Village
+50% culture in capital

Jurisdiction
Medium Upkeep
no maintenance from distance to palace
+2 happiness from Courthouse
+2 health from Civic Square


LABOUR
Tribalism
Low Upkeep
+100% units with free upkeep
+1 commerce from Camp
+1 production from Harvest Boat

Slavery
Medium Upkeep
-1 happiness in largest cities
+1 commerce from Plantation, Quarry
can sacrifice population for production


ECONOMY
Reciprocity
Low Upkeep
+5 commerce from Palace
+1 commerce from Fishing Boats
+20% city defense


MILITARY
Warrior Code
High Upkeep
+25% military unit production
+2 happiness from Barracks
short Golden Age with Great General emergence


Notes

• The early tech tree is reworked to enable Fishing Boats at Fishing.
• Despotism, Theocracy, and Aristocracy are strengthened to open up more choices in the Government column. The old Authoritarian bonus is a good fit for Despotism; it needs no penalties since it has to compete with Monarchy. The Legal column undergoes some changes as a result. It now has a clearer focus on culture, espionage, and city maintenance.
• The Camp commerce and production bonuses at Tribalism and Gunpowder are switched. Camps are no longer the best source of production; you must build Mines and Quarries. The Slavery penalty has been changed from health (which should really be at Industrialism) to happiness, and can be offset with Proclamation.

 

[Skidizzle]

Can you add more Civilopedia links to the opening game gfx? Specifically the traits.

It'd save the new guys a few clicks to figure out whats going on.

I like to play Saga length with everything random so I don't get the chance to really scope out the abilities before hand in the selection screen.

 

[Xyth]

Can you add more Civilopedia links to the opening game gfx? Specifically the traits.

It'd save the new guys a few clicks to figure out whats going on.

I like to play Saga length with everything random so I don't get the chance to really scope out the abilities before hand in the selection screen.

Good idea, that should be possible. Added to my todo list.

 

[Skidizzle]

Found a bug in the random event "Brothers in the Faith"

Adding coal to the list seems to have bumped the list descriptions out of order. The option for coal reads "their vehicles need diesel." Oil reads "Anything our brothers need." And the Uranium option has no text at all.

Are there any other strategic resources that should be added to this list? Are natural gas or rubber required for any military vehicles?

 

[Alexej]

Only tried to check civilopedia, after clicking on English Man of War boat game ctd`s, best result was seeing some skelet of the ship and ctd right after that :-/ applied bugfix too. Running singleplayer and adding this boat to game using Worldbuilder results in unpleasing graphical effects, hardly bearable for my eyes

 

[Xyth]

Found a bug in the random event "Brothers in the Faith"

Adding coal to the list seems to have bumped the list descriptions out of order. The option for coal reads "their vehicles need diesel." Oil reads "Anything our brothers need." And the Uranium option has no text at all.

Are there any other strategic resources that should be added to this list? Are natural gas or rubber required for any military vehicles?

Fixed for 1.21 (I think, will need to double-check). Gas and Rubber are not required by any units currently.

Only tried to check civilopedia, after clicking on English Man of War boat game ctd`s, best result was seeing some skelet of the ship and ctd right after that :-/ applied bugfix too. Running singleplayer and adding this boat to game using Worldbuilder results in unpleasing graphical effects, hardly bearable for my eyes

There's been a couple reports of that unit doing that, which is strange as it's taken straight out of Colonization. Works fine for me, in game and in the pedia. Possibly a OSX vs Windows thing, but more likely due to differing graphics cards/drivers. Can anyone who read this please check the Man of War (in the pedia and via the Worldbuilder) and report whether it works, your OS, and your make of graphics card (e.g Intel, NVIDIA, etc). Might be a pattern.

 

[Alexej]

Well i can see Man of War in Colonization without trouble, Win7 Nvidia here.

 

[Xyth]

Well i can see Man of War in Colonization without trouble, Win7 Nvidia here.

I took it from the Mac version of Colonization, so that could be a factor. Very strange if it is though. Colonization does have a more advanced graphics engine than BTS, but the unit models themselves shouldn't be different between Mac and Windows. Other Colonization units I've used seem fine, e.g. the Anazasi's Rifleman and Cavalry (might be worth checking those).

What BTS graphics settings are you using?

 

[Boggy]

Only tried to check civilopedia, after clicking on English Man of War boat game ctd`s, best result was seeing some skelet of the ship and ctd right after that :-/ applied bugfix too. Running singleplayer and adding this boat to game using Worldbuilder results in unpleasing graphical effects, hardly bearable for my eyes

Same problem, Windows 7, Intel and high graphic setting.

 

[Alexej]

Anazasi`s Rifleman and Cavalry are both ok, i am playing on 1920x1080 high graphic setting and antialiasing 2.

What scenario or map are you guys playing in multiplayer? we tried mediterranean packed in mod with girlfriend and in first game there was like 15 lines of errors each turn, and in second try infinite waiting time for end turn. It`s because of scenarios where game puts civs on their real starting locations or what? We wanted to play as Leonidas and Agamemnnon. Generated maps without culturally linked starts are working in multiplayer so far, i`ll keep trying other settings

 

[Nightstar]

The Man of War is displaying properly on my Mac.

 

[Xyth]

What scenario or map are you guys playing in multiplayer? we tried mediterranean packed in mod with girlfriend and in first game there was like 15 lines of errors each turn, and in second try infinite waiting time for end turn. It`s because of scenarios where game puts civs on their real starting locations or what? We wanted to play as Leonidas and Agamemnnon. Generated maps without culturally linked starts are working in multiplayer so far, i`ll keep trying other settings

Sorry, I missed this edit. It would be a big help if you could post your PythonErr.log from this. Sounds like a multiplayer specific problem.

The Man of War is displaying properly on my Mac.

I'm going to try track down a copy of Colonization for Windows and extract the Man of War from that. Will post a patch when I do, so those with the issue can see if it makes any difference.

 

[Nightstar]

Playing with the new GPP system beta patch, the Scout, Explorer, and Humvee cannot take the Guerilla II promotion (for double hill movement), even though the Civilopedia entry for the promotion says it should be available to Recon units.

 

[Xyth]

Playing with the new GPP system beta patch, the Scout, Explorer, and Humvee cannot take the Guerilla II promotion (for double hill movement), even though the Civilopedia entry for the promotion says it should be available to Recon units.

Hmm, seems setting them to only defend blocks them from getting Guerrilla II for some reason, Amphibious too. Other attack modifying promotions aren't affected. Will fix for 1.21. Allowing them to attack doesn't hurt, but I will have to lower the strength of the Humvee.

 

[Nightstar]

Will they be able to capture Workers and/or cities? That might change things quite a bit.

 

[Xyth]

Will they be able to capture Workers and/or cities? That might change things quite a bit.

I can allow or disallow that separately. May be other unintended consequences though, perhaps it's best to just disallow those two promotions, adjust the pedia accordingly, and live with it.

 

[Nightstar]

Losing the potential for double movement in hills could be painful for their scouting ability, though. It might be better to simply adjust the terrain promotions to give equal attack/defense boni at each level. Perhaps +15% each for I & II and +20% for III?