1.74 Beta's Initial Impressions?

Opinions, Opinions, Opinions!

  • I agree with practically none of the changes in AND 1.74 so far

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The AI seems to be significantly smarter in AND 1.74

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • The AI seems to be roughly the same in AND 1.74

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    19
  • Poll closed .

Afforess

The White Wizard
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Messages
12,239
Location
Austin, Texas
I'm curious what everyone thinks of the 1.74 changes? Have you used the new Castle Improvements? Have they ever proved valuable? What about the new Great Commander promotion, "Strategic Control"? Are Ruthless AI challenging enough? Does the AI get religions fast enough? Are they managing cities correctly? How are the Military Civic changes? What do you think of the improvement overhauls, and the ability to chop right from the start of the game? Are the new building upgrade chains useful, or a hassle? Are realistic corporations a pain, or a pleasant surprise? Do you use the new unit automations? Are you earning too much gold, or not enough? Where did I go too far, or not far enough? Opinions?

I need your opinions to improve before official releases. What do you think? Feel free to give honest opinions, as long as you stay on topic. ;)

Oh and don't abuse the poll. It's public, so I'll know if you do. ;)
 
Automations=Awesome

BuildingUpgrades=Great

AI Empire Building=Good, better than before somewhat.

Military/War-making=The same. AI just don't have human's intuition for long term planning, period. But it is given a good boot in unit usage so it is somewhat a bit more challenge.

Caste Improvements=Better! I attacked one of AI's city that had these caste improvements and was drawn down. Enough for me to retreat to recover to attack later on. Though this is biased because I turned off Range Bombardment in RevDCM because it is too overpowered. Because otherwise if I had it on, I could easily overrun the city.

Terrain Damage=Hate it. Wish we stick with units being bogged down (extremely slow moves through these terrain).

Military Civics=Wait until I have a chance to play through one full game before testing it out later.

Realistic Corporations=Awesome. Just want to check for sure that Guilds HAD BEEN researched by one player. If it had been researched, then it is just fine with a tiny tweaks by you left over :).

Realistic Culture Spread=Question: you fixed AI's know-how to chop down or build improvements outside of culture boundary so that it can spread to fullest potential? If yes, then I will use it.

The outstanding changes that I support most is automations :).
 
i didn't have the time to start a 1.74 game :(. but i still see much to balance on my part with the buildings. but as for now i lack the data and it seems it won't have much time as work presses and my friends force me to watch football - for our American friend: soccer - since the world championship is on...

so an request to aid me with my effort and for all who liked my building revision so far: i need save games of 1.74 games. but this time i must prerequisite my buildings mod. and for compatibility reasons i need WorldBuilder senario saves.

what i need more specifily:
an advanced game from each age, best if its on a slow game speed. so i can watch directly how health and happiness values look for developed cities and where i need to put some more :)/:mad: and :health:/:yuck:. i also wanted to experiment with some civic changes to finally put commerce income and research times into the right place for each age and empire size.

so i think best save games would be something around 1500BC, 0AD, 600AD, 1000AD, 1300AD, 1600AD, 1800AD, 1900AD, 1960AD, 2000AD, ...

that would be a great help for me as producing such saves games is really time consuming.
 
terrain damage needs balancing, or at least the AI need to learn how to evoid it or upgrade units to handle the terrain
 
I haven't had very much time to play lately, so I'm still in ancient period. I don't like the terrain damage, and I have noticed barbarians can be a pushover if your cities are near to a desert.
 
i didn't have the time to start a 1.74 game :(. but i still see much to balance on my part with the buildings. but as for now i lack the data and it seems it won't have much time as work presses and my friends force me to watch football - for our American friend: soccer - since the world championship is on...

Good luck today in the match with Ghana. I will cross my fingers :)

Back to topic: Hate the terrain damage (so far). The idea is realistic, but doesn't work good in the game IMHO. It is really harmful for exploration - your units are becoming vulnerable to animals and barbs, and waste many turns for healing. I hoped this would be optional, couldn't find that option in RoM settings though...

Religions - much better. It is almost impossible to get 6-8 religions, as I used to before. And this is obviously better as the game is more challanging now.

AI seems to be smarter as it comes to empire building.

For more details I need to play a little bit more. World Cup doesn't help much in this area :)
 
I also want to mark myself down on the "hate terrain damage" area. My units on automate wander into it, the AIs units trudge trough it, and in general it feels weird for civ. I want to put my mark down for increased movement speed - providing a bulwark against mounted units, but not putting incoming troops into "free xp" hitpoint levels.
 
as for the "terrain damage" is that the problems ware predictable
this also has the benefit that it won't be necessary to write new scripts for the AI to let it understand how to deal with damaging terrain and that it is to avoid. it will have the very same problem as the idea of support and units receiving damage without support access.

this is why i suggested:
i still support my concept of limited movement on dangerous terrain for military units. as for the damage... it would be better if it worked together with movement restrictions and have a damage cut off. so if you are allowed to pass dangerous terrain you won't die but you still can suffer considerable damage, maybe up to 50% health.

my concept (military units only):
dangerous terrain + no road + not within borders + no promotion = impassable
dangerous terrain + no road + not within borders + terrain promotion = passable but receives damage
dangerous terrain + no road + within own borders + no promotion = passable but receives damage
dangerous terrain + no road + within own borders + terrain promotion = passable
dangerous terrain + a road + not within borders + no promotion = passable but receives damage
dangerous terrain + a road + not within borders + terrain promotion = passable
dangerous terrain + a road + within own borders + promotion or not = passable

recon units:
dangerous terrain + no road + not within borders + no promotion = passable but receives damage
dangerous terrain + no road + not within borders + terrain promotion = passable
dangerous terrain + within borders = passable
dangerous terrain + a road = passable

all civilian units (workers, settlers and caravans, missionaries, ...) can always pass hostile terrain without any restrictions.

there could also be less dangerous terrain (jungle, tundra, swamp) that behaves like dangerous + road in matters of passability/damage.
the concept is simple: if units can die on certain tiles then they shouldn't walk onto those. best thing to do it cleanly without granting any exploits for non AI players is to disallow all military movement on these tiles.
and if terrain can do damage it must be limited and not deadly, otherwise its too nasty. however the damage cut-off can depend on the situation and might be high in case of a promotion.

this is the only way i see the dangerous terrain feature be implemented into the game without causing too much distress.
 
as for the "terrain damage" is that the problems ware predictable


this is why i suggested:

the concept is simple: if units can die on certain tiles then they shouldn't walk onto those. best thing to do it cleanly without granting any exploits for non AI players is to disallow all military movement on these tiles.
and if terrain can do damage it must be limited and not deadly, otherwise its too nasty. however the damage cut-off can depend on the situation and might be high in case of a promotion.

this is the only way i see the dangerous terrain feature be implemented into the game without causing too much distress.

I wholly agree with this idea even though I haven't tried the beta yet :) We'll see if I side with the anti-TD team. For now, all the improvements listed look great to me, hope they will play out good in reality. The only thing I'm worried about is that I have a Clash of Civilizations modmodmod, so I have to ask if it will tamper with the beta.

Keep the mods comin' :)
 
I also want to mark myself down on the "hate terrain damage" area. My units on automate wander into it, the AIs units trudge trough it, and in general it feels weird for civ. I want to put my mark down for increased movement speed - providing a bulwark against mounted units, but not putting incoming troops into "free xp" hitpoint levels.
I agree.
 
I think that it would be better if you switched back to the old system for Universities. Other than that, it's a very good mod. Of course, there is always room for improvement.
 
Hate terrain damage as well. I'd definitely make it an option in game so it can be turned off completely.
 
Could we call "terrain damage" something else, by any chance? Perhaps "attrition"? I learned of the concept in Europa Universalis and it makes more sense to call it that because your people are being worn down due to the harsh nature of the region. The terrain itself is causing no damage, therefore not warranting the coined term "terrain damage". Or am I insane and making no sense?
 
Could we call "terrain damage" something else, by any chance? Perhaps "attrition"? I learned of the concept in Europa Universalis and it makes more sense to call it that because your people are being worn down due to the harsh nature of the region. The terrain itself is causing no damage, therefore not warranting the coined term "terrain damage". Or am I insane and making no sense?

Insane :). But no worries. I will explain this one:
It is a feature that has deserts/tundras,marshes and few others to inflict actual loss of unit's HP per turn. Then if enough turns happen and an unit is still on that terrain plot causing damage, it will die.
 
Yeah, that's attrition. Just like in Europa Universalis when travelling through heavily desertic and jungle areas. You lose men contantly when on those provinces until, if un-claimed, you colonize it or, if claimed, something boosts your national manpower, to support the natural loss of men.

There is admittedly a flaw to the EU system, though, as units can not die unless destroyed by another unit.

Done editting. >.>
 
Good luck today in the match with Ghana. I will cross my fingers :)

thx! the luck was somewhat needed today, hehe. but i'm happy that the ghanans made it too as they were playing really well - and they're the last african team left in this african tournament.

back on topic:
I think that it would be better if you switched back to the old system for Universities. Other than that, it's a very good mod. Of course, there is always room for improvement.
what's the problem with the universities? the library restriction or some of its other stats? in the future version there will be a kind of national/elite university (nat. wonder) that is a sligtly better university and has no such restriction for the purpose of one city challenges.
 
I support Killtech's idea about Terrain Damages.
it may be too complex to implement, though. (We know the one who implement ideas is Afforess, don't we? ;))

About Building Upgrades, I can't exactly get the effect of this :crazyeye:
Sometimes the benefits of buildings seems cumulative, and sometimes does not.
If it is cumulative, that's weird since upgrade chains are introduced to prevent cumulative benefits.
 
thx! the luck was somewhat needed today, hehe. but i'm happy that the ghanans made it too as they were playing really well - and they're the last african team left in this african tournament.

You will need more luck in the next matches. England and Argentina ahead :)


As for topic:

Killtech, I really like your idea, but I would like to make it very simple:

Reckon units:
can pass all tiles of dangerous terrain with no damage.

Military units:
will have to wait one turn after each move in dangerous terrain, no health damage

This restriction should be removed:
- after the military unit gets a terrain promotion
- if a recon unit is travelling in a stack with it.

I personally don't understand Killtech's idea of "within/outside" cultural borders. Peat bog is a peat bog, march is a marsh, and desert is a desert, no matter where it is.
 
About Building Upgrades, I can't exactly get the effect of this :crazyeye:
Sometimes the benefits of buildings seems cumulative, and sometimes does not.
If it is cumulative, that's weird since upgrade chains are introduced to prevent cumulative benefits.
the building upgrades serve primarily the purpose to prevent building obsoletion and make it more natural (instead of obsoleting buildings are replaced). builings usually become better with each upgrade step (there must be a reason why to upgrade after all). but their stats are tweaked such that there is no more such overflow in hammers and commerce. this changes are independent of the upgrade system.

You will need more luck in the next matches. England and Argentina ahead :)

oh yeah, that will be a hard game. but thrilling for sure.

As for topic:

Killtech, I really like your idea, but I would like to make it very simple:

Reckon units:
can pass all tiles of dangerous terrain with no damage.

Military units:
will have to wait one turn after each move in dangerous terrain, no health damage

This restriction should be removed:
- after the military unit gets a terrain promotion
- if a recon unit is travelling in a stack with it.

I personally don't understand Killtech's idea of "within/outside" cultural borders. Peat bog is a peat bog, march is a marsh, and desert is a desert, no matter where it is.
i wanted to keep the damage system as it was what many wanted due to realism and intended to turn it into a playable version.

the "within/outside cultural borders" is intended to prevent dump AI behavior. it will surely send its troops trough deserts with roads on its into the battle. so at least for defense purposes there shouldn't be a penalty (otherwise the player will have a too easy time finishing off half dead troops). it's also a kind of defender bonus and may represent that cultures living in hostile terrain are better adapted to it.
 
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