Standard Communitas_79 Immortal as China. SV on Turn 419.
After running through several quick plays just to get a feel for the patch, I embarked on a full game with China to kick the tires on the new version. Ultimately turned into a very good game. I colonized my little section using Goddess of the Sea to kick off a strong start. I went Tradition -> Fealty -> Rationalism, ultimately planning to go with CV but with SV as backup. In this game the AI went HARD on the CS, basically cutting me out of the voting game to the point where I didn't even get to propose anything. The Ottomans kept allying with the CS near me and would use those as a springboard for war. Realizing that I was never going to be able to secure those CS against his 1-2k influence, I took them out, securing some puppets.
I went Order in the late game mainly to again leverage strong CV play with hard science. I managed to found civilized jewlers and use nationalization to keep it running during my permanent sanction. This turned into an interesting game CS wise, as a good portion of CS were taken out in this game, leaving only 8 by the end. I was keeping a 5-6 tech lead with the Ottomans, and steadily gain the tourism I needed to overtake him. However, the Ottomans kept a stranglehold on the remaining CS, and secured 37 out of 35 votes needed for hegemony. I was worried that he was going to get a shot at hegemony before I could secure the win, and with Tall play I did not have a great army to project force, and I feared there would be no good way to stop him. However, the AI made a strategic blunder (which I noted as a bug on github) constantly splitting its votes on trivial other proposals rather than committing everything to the World Ideology. As such, 3 such votes would occur but get knocked down, keeping my only real threat at bay. It became a race to see whether I would win SV or CV first....ultimately getting a SV by just 1 turn faster than I could have pulled off the CV because of the order's ability to speed up SS parts with great engineers.
I tried to look at a lot of the new changes, my initial impressions:
Barbarians
I was pleasantly surprised here. I was worried my games would turn into non-stop barb city, but after a few 100 turn runs (including this game) that has not been the case. Barbs are more common but not overwhelmingly so. You do need to take your security into account a bit better, build a few more troops early, make sure cities aren't left unprotected for any length of time, etc. But overall the barb numbers were pretty reasonable, and I found that as my borders expanded barbs became less frequent. They still prowled around the untamed areas of the map but never bothered me directly as had once feared. So far so good here.
Difficulty Changes
I did feel the lowered combat bonus against barbs, I could feel my units doing a bit less damage overall. Immortal still felt solidly difficult, as I mentioned above if the AI had done just one thing differently with its voting I might have lost this game, so it was quite competitive.
Happiness
A bit swingy this game. Isolation feels like it triggers faster than I'm used to, but that's probably China. Because of China's fast growth, I hit happiness issues during my expansion period, even slipping into the 34% range. While the growth reduction has been lessened, the penalty to combat and the penalty to settler production is still a noticable loss here. Eventually as I stabilized I shot up all the way to 100%. Then I would dip back down during wars and back up again. The sanctions were obviously a factor, I didn't have trade and lux trades to keep me afloat. Overall happiness felt pretty reasonable in this version.
China
The new China actually grows faster than the old in the very early part of the game, as the +2 food (compared to +1 food, +1 gold in the old version) does grow you quicker in that very important early part of the game. Its only a little later that the missing 10% food starts to kick in and your growth slows down. The new UI is VERY strong, as its easy to get perma WLTED with Tradition China, I basically had a large influx of production, science, and culture compared to old China. In summary, this new China is a straight buff from the old one, you trade out food (which loses lots of value in the later game) for culture and science (which stays relevant the entire game).
Spies
Coups seemed to have gotten double nerfed. You need to rig election before you can coup, which was working well. However, the % chance to coup has notably gone down, it used to be a straight 75% until the later stages of the game, now I was consistently seeing 48% or lower. I don't know if that was an intentional change to coup logic itself or if the AI is now more competitive with CS earlier and so drops the % down.
In terms of regular missions, the current spy screens are messed up so its hard to gauge the true value your getting. I can say I felt underwhelmed by the yields I was getting compared to just how long my spies had to stay (20-30 turn missions were common, not to mention the ~7ish turns of setup time). Ultimately I started using the kidnap missions on Security 1 cities, which felt like some of the best value. I'll have to try a few more games to get a true feel, but right now the spy changes don't quite feel there yet.
One worry I have, should the AI ever be smart enough to consider Tourism steals....it may completely shut down CV. Effectively you can siphon 75% of a Tall capital's tourism...thats a LOT. Yeah it might take 40 turns to do it, but who cares, ultimately tourism is such an endgame yield that I don't always mind having to wait to get it, but once I do I get a big surge, and you lose out a major chunk of your tourism pool. I am not sure what the overall impact to your empire would be, but it FEELs like it would be a lot.
Lodge / Herbalist Change
The lodge science for tradition definitely caused me to build it more often. The cheaper herbalist feels good, it's a notable difference in cost that early in the game.
Tradition
Ultimately the +1 working range performed as I expected. I snagged a few more tiles than I would have otherwise but nothing that really breaks the bank. The biggest "buff' is honestly the +1 prod on GPTIs, that's actually a decent source of production earlier in the game. I generally found the new Tradition working well.
Bastion Fort / Arsenal Change
I didn't get attacked right when the fort came out, so can't speak on the timing that much. However, one interesting change was the push back of the arsenal. Range 3 cities come out a good bit later than they did before, giving artillery a new period of "dominance" against cities unless you counter with an airforce. I can say none of the defense numbers seemed out of whack.
Sphere of Influence
So I'm not sure if something broke in the AI logic or if the AI just doesnt' consider SOIs that important if your already an ally of the CS, because the AI did not propose a SOI even once in this game, not once.
Cooperation
Figured I would try this with the good synergy of China. One thing that is annoying about Cooperation, you want a good growth civ to use it with. Except most growth civs grow early....before you get cooperation. So it feels like a lot of yields are left on the table. I wish the belief got retroactive yields based on the city's pop when it converted there.
Overall the belief was fine, but I think Theocracy with China's perma WLTKD is the superior belief.
Medic Malus removed
A few things I noticed from this:
This made a difference, but it definately wasn't "triple" the duration, often the project would last like an extra turn, maybe two turns on the outside. Overall I think its a welcome change.
Spoiler :
After running through several quick plays just to get a feel for the patch, I embarked on a full game with China to kick the tires on the new version. Ultimately turned into a very good game. I colonized my little section using Goddess of the Sea to kick off a strong start. I went Tradition -> Fealty -> Rationalism, ultimately planning to go with CV but with SV as backup. In this game the AI went HARD on the CS, basically cutting me out of the voting game to the point where I didn't even get to propose anything. The Ottomans kept allying with the CS near me and would use those as a springboard for war. Realizing that I was never going to be able to secure those CS against his 1-2k influence, I took them out, securing some puppets.
I went Order in the late game mainly to again leverage strong CV play with hard science. I managed to found civilized jewlers and use nationalization to keep it running during my permanent sanction. This turned into an interesting game CS wise, as a good portion of CS were taken out in this game, leaving only 8 by the end. I was keeping a 5-6 tech lead with the Ottomans, and steadily gain the tourism I needed to overtake him. However, the Ottomans kept a stranglehold on the remaining CS, and secured 37 out of 35 votes needed for hegemony. I was worried that he was going to get a shot at hegemony before I could secure the win, and with Tall play I did not have a great army to project force, and I feared there would be no good way to stop him. However, the AI made a strategic blunder (which I noted as a bug on github) constantly splitting its votes on trivial other proposals rather than committing everything to the World Ideology. As such, 3 such votes would occur but get knocked down, keeping my only real threat at bay. It became a race to see whether I would win SV or CV first....ultimately getting a SV by just 1 turn faster than I could have pulled off the CV because of the order's ability to speed up SS parts with great engineers.
I tried to look at a lot of the new changes, my initial impressions:
Barbarians
I was pleasantly surprised here. I was worried my games would turn into non-stop barb city, but after a few 100 turn runs (including this game) that has not been the case. Barbs are more common but not overwhelmingly so. You do need to take your security into account a bit better, build a few more troops early, make sure cities aren't left unprotected for any length of time, etc. But overall the barb numbers were pretty reasonable, and I found that as my borders expanded barbs became less frequent. They still prowled around the untamed areas of the map but never bothered me directly as had once feared. So far so good here.
Difficulty Changes
I did feel the lowered combat bonus against barbs, I could feel my units doing a bit less damage overall. Immortal still felt solidly difficult, as I mentioned above if the AI had done just one thing differently with its voting I might have lost this game, so it was quite competitive.
Happiness
A bit swingy this game. Isolation feels like it triggers faster than I'm used to, but that's probably China. Because of China's fast growth, I hit happiness issues during my expansion period, even slipping into the 34% range. While the growth reduction has been lessened, the penalty to combat and the penalty to settler production is still a noticable loss here. Eventually as I stabilized I shot up all the way to 100%. Then I would dip back down during wars and back up again. The sanctions were obviously a factor, I didn't have trade and lux trades to keep me afloat. Overall happiness felt pretty reasonable in this version.
China
The new China actually grows faster than the old in the very early part of the game, as the +2 food (compared to +1 food, +1 gold in the old version) does grow you quicker in that very important early part of the game. Its only a little later that the missing 10% food starts to kick in and your growth slows down. The new UI is VERY strong, as its easy to get perma WLTED with Tradition China, I basically had a large influx of production, science, and culture compared to old China. In summary, this new China is a straight buff from the old one, you trade out food (which loses lots of value in the later game) for culture and science (which stays relevant the entire game).
Spies
Coups seemed to have gotten double nerfed. You need to rig election before you can coup, which was working well. However, the % chance to coup has notably gone down, it used to be a straight 75% until the later stages of the game, now I was consistently seeing 48% or lower. I don't know if that was an intentional change to coup logic itself or if the AI is now more competitive with CS earlier and so drops the % down.
In terms of regular missions, the current spy screens are messed up so its hard to gauge the true value your getting. I can say I felt underwhelmed by the yields I was getting compared to just how long my spies had to stay (20-30 turn missions were common, not to mention the ~7ish turns of setup time). Ultimately I started using the kidnap missions on Security 1 cities, which felt like some of the best value. I'll have to try a few more games to get a true feel, but right now the spy changes don't quite feel there yet.
One worry I have, should the AI ever be smart enough to consider Tourism steals....it may completely shut down CV. Effectively you can siphon 75% of a Tall capital's tourism...thats a LOT. Yeah it might take 40 turns to do it, but who cares, ultimately tourism is such an endgame yield that I don't always mind having to wait to get it, but once I do I get a big surge, and you lose out a major chunk of your tourism pool. I am not sure what the overall impact to your empire would be, but it FEELs like it would be a lot.
Lodge / Herbalist Change
The lodge science for tradition definitely caused me to build it more often. The cheaper herbalist feels good, it's a notable difference in cost that early in the game.
Tradition
Ultimately the +1 working range performed as I expected. I snagged a few more tiles than I would have otherwise but nothing that really breaks the bank. The biggest "buff' is honestly the +1 prod on GPTIs, that's actually a decent source of production earlier in the game. I generally found the new Tradition working well.
Bastion Fort / Arsenal Change
I didn't get attacked right when the fort came out, so can't speak on the timing that much. However, one interesting change was the push back of the arsenal. Range 3 cities come out a good bit later than they did before, giving artillery a new period of "dominance" against cities unless you counter with an airforce. I can say none of the defense numbers seemed out of whack.
Sphere of Influence
So I'm not sure if something broke in the AI logic or if the AI just doesnt' consider SOIs that important if your already an ally of the CS, because the AI did not propose a SOI even once in this game, not once.
Cooperation
Figured I would try this with the good synergy of China. One thing that is annoying about Cooperation, you want a good growth civ to use it with. Except most growth civs grow early....before you get cooperation. So it feels like a lot of yields are left on the table. I wish the belief got retroactive yields based on the city's pop when it converted there.
Overall the belief was fine, but I think Theocracy with China's perma WLTKD is the superior belief.
Medic Malus removed
A few things I noticed from this:
- March is just really good now, it feels like its the best promotion overall compared to Overrun or Mobility, whereas before I had a balance of all of them.
- Medic is really strong for late game recon units. Survival 2 + Medic makes a recon unit very tanky, and it becomes a great garrison.
This made a difference, but it definately wasn't "triple" the duration, often the project would last like an extra turn, maybe two turns on the outside. Overall I think its a welcome change.
