3.10 Playtest Feedback

[pineappledan]

but more than that its a prereq for the museum (which is whatever), but that is a prereq for the broadcast tower (which IS a big deal). So it still feels like a required building.

Beyond that, I dislike that it gives +1 gold per artist guild but has a -4 maintenance cost. I would rather it just didn't have a maintenance cost with no gold and call it a day.

I thought the prereq for the broadcast tower was the Opera House? Should be changed to that if it's not.

The back when the to guilds was on museums it made even less sense, because the Museum's maintenance cosr is even higher. I was going to propose that all guild boosts be increased to +2, which is a total of 6 for all guilds. Now that gallery is the same level as opera house, that would make all guild-boosting buildings net positive.

The thing that annoyed me the most about not having the Gallery was that Opera House was the prereq for the Hermitage, and how awful that felt.

 

[rkkn]

Beyond that, I dislike that it gives +1 gold per artist guild but has a -4 maintenance cost. I would rather it just didn't have a maintenance cost with no gold and call it a day.

I agree with this.

but also note that it's got balance implications. maintenance is separate from gold income. notably this affects poverty unhappiness. And the gold goes on the guilds, not the galleries. so it's a roundabout nerf for wide. that gold pushes up the gold global median, but it only can be applied to 3 of your cities, while the rest feel the poverty.

Anyway I don't like this roundabout way of doing things, so I would indeed prefer it to just have a reduced maintenance

 

[Stalker0]

I thought the prereq for the broadcast tower was the Opera House? Should be changed to that if it's not.

I doublechecked.

Gallery -> Museum - > BT

 

[azum4roll]

So the music theming building has the prereq of the musician boosting building? Then nothing should require Amphitheater.

I agree with both these changes btw.

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Doesn't Opera House do the same +1 gold to every Musicians' Guild?

 

[rkkn]

Doesn't Opera House do the same +1 gold to every Musicians' Guild?

and amphitheater + writer's guild

 

[Stalker0]

Finished up a playthrough with Austria, so how did she do?

In summary: She is juuuuuust fine with the nerfs.

• As the +1 vote is removed, a lot of Austria's other benefits start to shine (which honestly just shows how crazy OP she was before). The +50% quest benefit is actually incredible strong. Early game, it allows you to lock in CS alliances. Mid game I got 70 xp off of one city conquest! Its a very strong benefit and also quite fun, because Austria has the unique playstyle of "working for the City States", while quests are always good, they really are Austria's main driving force. What this showed me was people were right to challenge the proposals that gave her +75% or 100% quest bonus, that would have been insane tbh.
• The new marriage costs seemed reasonable enough. I secured 2 marriages in the early game, but the 3rd one is pricey, and its debatable whether 600 gold is better spent on workers and infrastructure. Eventually I got a number of marriages, but the gold cost does get very high and its always something you have to balance with Austria.
• While the passive influence is very strong, I found that the emperor AIs could overcome it quite regularly. Early game its basically locks in your alliances, but once you get into Renaissance the AI ramps up the diplo game. Ultimately the ability saves me a number of diplo units, but its no substitute, you still need to focus diplo unit play (along with coups) to keep the CS in line.
• I actually am debating if Austria is a stronger GP civ than Arabia, I had +360% something GPP near the end game.
• I'm also wondering if Austria is now more optimized for CV than DV. Ultimately while her marriages help on the DV front, she doesn't get any extra bonuses for securing CS (unlike a siam or a germany). I may now consider Germany the premier DV civ, as their raw industrial might can just crank out diplo units in a way that starts to dwarf the passive resting influence of marriages. But on the other side, an artisty tradition austria can crank out great works like its going out of style, and of course you get extra quest benefits from your tourism wins. If nothing else, I certainly think Austria is more balanced now, she can pursue DV or CV in close measure, but no longer just has a dominating club in the DV department.
• All in all, Austria felt like a fun civ with a unique CS focused playstyle all her own. She feels flexible and powerful. We definitely did not overnerf.

Other notes:

• DV: The AI has made DV play very challenging, and if you haven't done one in a while....you might be in for a bit of a shock. The AI targets you with absolute prejudice once you start moving into the DV sphere, every DV proposal (UN/World Ideology) is challenged by every civ. They will often recall your spheres when your trying to get in a key vote, decol all the time, and if you get the WI for example, they will often try to rescind it on the vote your trying to secure the UN. Its gotten to the point where I wonder how viable DV is without extra vote generations? (ie statecraft wonder + freedom + maybe holy land). Vote trading is crazy expensive, and normally doesn't work on the key votes. So you basically have to overcome the top 3 civs in votes in order to drag some of these proposals in play, and so you need an absolute stranglehold on all CS (and that means protecting them so they don't get taken out) and/or getting lots of free votes through other means. The funny thing is, Hegemony is often the "easy part", its getting UN and a WI operational that's the real challenge, because its you vs the entire world vote wise.
• Abode of Peace: Its a fun one to use with Austria due to the extra +25% quest power. I do think this believe needs some pressure booster for CS, CS are just so vulnerable to enemy conversions its very very expensive faith wise to keep them locked in unless they are a neighbor.
• In terms of voting, I find that the "affected by" numbers under each resolutions are completely worthless. AI would commonly vote yes on resolution hey had a -500 opinion of, or vote minimally on something they really wanted. So predicting a vote is honestly a crap shoot, I mainly just had to focus all my votes on a single proposal, because otherwise you are just guessing.
• The new envelopment promotion works well on the Hussar. Because hussars have such great movement and can ignore ZOC off the bat, its often easy to get 2 or even 3 of them surrounding a target, and now the bonuses start piling in. I consistently find the best way to use skirmisher units is either....make 1 unit just as a flank support....or make a ton of them and just whittle down everythign that moves.
• Decolonization: The AI needs a retune on this proposal. The AI just assumes decol is ALWAYS good, no matter what. An AI can have 8 CS allies, and will happy throw in a decol into the mix. They don't seem to understand that the proposal can hurt them. Further, they don't know how to prepare for it like a human can....where I will often have coups ready and a diplo unit in every CS to quickly flip them to my side.
• The archeology race is now noticably slower with new museum = archeologist prereq. Ultimately I think its reasonable, and its something the human can't optimize as much so the AI has a better shot. i wish the archeologist AI was smarter though, so often I will put them on auto and they just won't move, even though I can find several artifacts int eh world just waiting to be plucked.
• People have argued that Tradition doesn't have enough "growth", especially compared to the +3 food of progress. I think those people underestimate the power of happiness for Tall, when you have 100% happy for basically the whole game....compared to a civ that is having to cap growth and is often slipping below 50%, the difference is quite notable. My capital was 55 pop by the end of this game, I never get close to that with progress. Tradition takes longer to get going, but once it does it gets going.
• The new rationalism does have an interesting split between the left and right now. On the one hand, I wanted to go left side to get tot eh great works science bonus (which is significant for Tall), and therefore could delay the free tech....as the longer you wait the more science the free tech gives you. But on the other hand, going right gives me +25% GS yields AND +33% GS generation.....and that's just a crazy good bonus. I think those bonuses probably should be split up, ultimately GS science is such a key part of the late game tech progression (honestly probably too much)
• In general I'm pretty happy with Freedom nowadays, it has a good array of bonuses, some core stalwart policies, and a few solid niche ones when the situation calls for it. I think the adjustment to its science T3 rounded it off pretty nicely, and the new "their finest hour" is a really good tenent now.
• Holy Law: I'm starting to wonder if this one is now the top dog belief....I am finding I am moving to it more and more with my plays. Its just so darn powerful, both in number of bonuses but it gives the juicy kind of yields you always want.
• God of the Sea: I hate to say this, but I do think this one needs a bit of a nerf. Sea monopoly starts are actually very powerful already, and this belief just ramps up into overdrive. I can get a monopoly faster with a god of the sea start than any other start, and suddenly you have cities that have high food, high growth, monopoly bonuses, and 0 happiness problems....not to mention tons of gold both from the water and from selling those quick luxs you got online. Further, you can get their faith going so quickly they are basically a guaranteed founder. I think if nothing else we can remove the +2 food per coastal city, they really don't need the extra food. I dont' know if that's enough of a nerf, but its an easy one imo.
• Cooperation is a fun belief, and pretty strong. I think its stronger than diligence for Tall (though diligence is probably better for wide).

 

[azum4roll]

God of the Sea: I hate to say this, but I do think this one needs a bit of a nerf. Sea monopoly starts are actually very powerful already, and this belief just ramps up into overdrive. I can get a monopoly faster with a god of the sea start than any other start, and suddenly you have cities that have high food, high growth, monopoly bonuses, and 0 happiness problems....not to mention tons of gold both from the water and from selling those quick luxs you got online. Further, you can get their faith going so quickly they are basically a guaranteed founder. I think if nothing else we can remove the +2 food per coastal city, they really don't need the extra food. I dont' know if that's enough of a nerf, but its an easy one imo.

You have troubles culture and military wise, since you delay Barracks and Walls a lot. You're also limited to coastal settles if you want the bonuses.

 

[Stalker0]

You have troubles culture and military wise, since you delay Barracks and Walls a lot. You're also limited to coastal settles if you want the bonuses.

Never been my experience, and I use it a lot. Your cities develop very quickly, as you have tons of early food, hammers, and gold at your disposal. I have never felt “behind” going god of the sea

 

[azum4roll]

Never been my experience, and I use it a lot. Your cities develop very quickly, as you have tons of early food, hammers, and gold at your disposal. I have never felt “behind” going god of the sea

Yes, but until you research other techs, you're stuck with just Warrior, Slinger and Galley as your defense.

 

[Stalker0]

Yes, but until you research other techs, you're stuck with just Warrior, Slinger and Galley as your defense.

We are literally talking one tech here (fishing), I think you are really overestimating the investment (Especially if you play progress). Sure it is an investment, but your tech tends to be faster than your production early game, so you have time to get military techs while your cities are expanding and building your initial buildings.

 

[Solic]

'm also wondering if Austria is now more optimized for CV than DV. Ultimately while her marriages help on the DV front, she doesn't get any extra bonuses for securing CS (unlike a siam or a germany). I may now consider Germany the premier DV civ, as their raw industrial might can just crank out diplo units in a way that starts to dwarf the passive resting influence of marriages. But on the other side, an artisty tradition austria can crank out great works like its going out of style, and of course you get extra quest benefits from your tourism wins. If nothing else, I certainly think Austria is more balanced now, she can pursue DV or CV in close measure, but no longer just has a dominating club in the DV department.

I'd say that this is a loss instead of a gain. Only really Austria/Siam/Germany/Greece out of 40ish civs are geared towards DV, whereas plenty more civs are geared towards CV.

 

[dpr3113]

• God of the Sea: I hate to say this, but I do think this one needs a bit of a nerf. Sea monopoly starts are actually very powerful already, and this belief just ramps up into overdrive. I can get a monopoly faster with a god of the sea start than any other start, and suddenly you have cities that have high food, high growth, monopoly bonuses, and 0 happiness problems....not to mention tons of gold both from the water and from selling those quick luxs you got online. Further, you can get their faith going so quickly they are basically a guaranteed founder. I think if nothing else we can remove the +2 food per coastal city, they really don't need the extra food. I dont' know if that's enough of a nerf, but its an easy one imo.

How much of this is 'God of the Sea is too good' vs 'sea monopoly starts are too good'? A lot of the bonuses you mention seem to come instead from how much quicker it is to get sea luxes improved than land luxes rather than God of the Sea in particular (monopoly bonuses, happiness, gold).

God of the Sea = +2 food, +1 faith per coastal city, +1 faith/prod from fishing boats/atolls. Even with a sea monopoly, your first 6 cities are probably only averaging ~3 sea resources/atolls for the coastal ones, and you'll probably have settled at least one inland unless you're on a super-snaky part of the continent as well.

Assuming 5/6 cities are coastal, average 3 sea resources/atolls per, we end up with:

10 food
20 faith
15 production

once all of our fishing boats are online & all of our sea resources/atolls are within border growth and are being worked. That's very good, and should guarantee a found, but takes both an ideal start and a fair bit of setup - we need to tech fishing & found coastal, and initially most cities are just getting the 2 food/1 faith + one atoll/fishing boat that's within initial borders. There's also no scaling component to the yields, so that amount is basically all we'll ever get and it will become increasingly less relevant over time.

Compare a few other (easy to calculate) non-scaling terrain-dependent pantheons in their ideal starts:

Earth Mother (assuming mining monopoly, bronze working rush & decent iron luck to get 15 resource mines across 6 cities): 21 faith, 15 culture, 6 production
God of Craftsmen (assuming quarry monopoly, healthy stone/marble to get 15 quarries across 6 cities): 23 faith, 21 production, 1 science, 1 culture
Goddess of Springtime (assuming plantation monopoly, bananas to get 10 plantations across 6 cities): 10 gold, 10 food, 22 faith, 6 science
Goddess of the Hunt (assuming camp monopoly, deer to get 15 camps across 6 cities): 15 faith, 15 gold, 15 culture, 12 food
Which are all in the same general ballpark of God of the Sea, I think.

That said, I agree that God of the Sea generally feels stronger than all of those, although I'm not convinced it's by that much, nor that these sorts of pantheons are stronger than the more generic ones that usually include some scaling elements (Ancestor Worship et al). Possible reasons that occur to me:

1. God of the Sea doesn't have any building component, unlike the others (monument, stone works, herbalist, smokehouse respectively); it just gets the 2 food/1 faith for being coastal.
2. Atolls are immediately accessible, and fishing boats are relatively fast to go up because of instant build, while all the others rely on time-intensive improvements (especially Springtime)
3. Ideal or near-ideal God of the Sea starts are meaningfully more common than ideal starts for the others (?), although I'm not convinced on that one
4. It's easier to identify ideal God of the Sea starts in time to pick it as a pantheon because the only tech you need to check is the always-early Pottery, compared to Bronze Working/Wheel/<N/A>/Trapping, respectively

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Given all that, I would lean towards any nerfs directed at God of the Sea making it more similar to the others - maybe move the food/faith to the Lighthouse rather than just being on coastal cities (would probably need to be number-buffed) - rather than directly nerfing the numbers. Alternatively, we could target sea starts themselves, but that sounds like a risky change given how foundational it is to a lot of other elements of game balance.

 

[Stalker0]

Assuming 5/6 cities are coastal, average 3 sea resources/atolls per, we end up with:

10 food
20 faith
15 production

once all of our fishing boats are online & all of our sea resources/atolls are within border growth and are being worked. That's very good, and should guarantee a found, but takes both an ideal start and a fair bit of setup - we need to tech fishing & found coastal, and initially most cities are just getting the 2 food/1 faith + one atoll/fishing boat that's within initial borders. There's also no scaling component to the yields, so that amount is basically all we'll ever get and it will become increasingly less relevant over time.

Compare a few other (easy to calculate) non-scaling terrain-dependent pantheons in their ideal starts:

Earth Mother (assuming mining monopoly, bronze working rush & decent iron luck to get 15 resource mines across 6 cities): 21 faith, 15 culture, 6 production
God of Craftsmen (assuming quarry monopoly, healthy stone/marble to get 15 quarries across 6 cities): 23 faith, 21 production, 1 science, 1 culture
Goddess of Springtime (assuming plantation monopoly, bananas to get 10 plantations across 6 cities): 10 gold, 10 food, 22 faith, 6 science
Goddess of the Hunt (assuming camp monopoly, deer to get 15 camps across 6 cities): 15 faith, 15 gold, 15 culture, 12 food
Which are all in the same general ballpark of God of the Sea, I think.

I feel like this analysis underestimates the speed that God of the Sea gets online. Take god of craftsman for example, getting the amount of quarries you mentioned takes forever and a day to get (quarries take a long time to build and it takes time to get to the tech), not to mention the stone works you need to build. Further, craftsman and earth mother have the same issue, food. Its simply not possible to work that many non-food resources that early in teh game, you just don't have the growth (the exception is the salt monopoly for earth mother).

As the ones you mentioned, the only one I think is comparable is Hunt, which does have the ability to get online very quickly (as camps are early tech and build pretty fast). But this is where I think the sea start overtakes the heavy camp start, which is ultimately what puts sea ahead.

The other secret advantage of Sea is that its pretty easy with early scouting to know if you have a good sea location. Simply having sea resources in your capital is the first indicator, and then some basic recon will pretty quickly show you if the coastline is worth settling or not. Contrast this with earth mother, which normally takes iron reveal (an expensive tech path) to really bring online. Craftsman is honestly a gamble, you have to beeline to construction and often get hallicarnassus to make the pantheon effective enough, and if you don't wind up getting access to the craftsman pantheon you are just screwed. Meanwhile a sea start is still a solidly quicker opener even without god of the sea itself, so if you happen to not get it, your still in a good position. And by the time I am choosing a pantheon I always know that sea will be a good choice or not, whereas some of the others its more questionable. That is a robustness that is important to consider.

Now that said, your note about moving the +2 food to the lighthouse might be a good compromise. It still slows down sea a bit; I think its probably not enough, but if people feel that sea could use some nerf but not as strong as I was suggesting this seems an easy way to do it.

 

[rkkn]

I feel like this analysis underestimates the speed that God of the Sea gets online.

I don't think it did, given that it was trying to say that God of the Sea itself is not the problem, but rather the general nature of sea resources, which come online far faster than anything else.

Your post also reads like you're agreeing, since you said that you're fine even if you don't get God of the Sea. So clearly the pantheon isn't the issue.

 

[Stalker0]

Your post also reads like you're agreeing, since you said that you're fine even if you don't get God of the Sea. So clearly the pantheon isn't the issue.

my point was that the sea start still gives me a solid base to utilize other baseline pantheons and still have a good start. Its not as good as if I had gotten sea but its better than some more brittle pantheons.

 

[dpr3113]

I don't think it did, given that it was trying to say that God of the Sea itself is not the problem, but rather the general nature of sea resources, which come online far faster than anything else.

Your post also reads like you're agreeing, since you said that you're fine even if you don't get God of the Sea. So clearly the pantheon isn't the issue.

Yeah, you phrased it better than I did in my initial post.

Essentially, I think God of the Sea’s raw numbers aren’t out of whack, but the speed of the sea lux start makes a fairly standard terrain-dependent pantheon feel disproportionately good if the stars align.

So I’m concerned if we just hit God of Sea’s raw numbers we’ll end up exacerbating the problem by creating a weak pantheon only made viable by the extreme speed of the only start where you use it. While that’s a possible niche, I’m not sure it’s a healthy one. It becomes a bit of a trap for players on lower difficulties, for example, where overall tempo is a lot lower. It also means that if we ever do decide to weaken tempo on sea luxuries that we risk leaving God of the Sea on the rubbish heap.

I think it would be healthier if God of the Sea was more in line with comparable pantheons in terms of speed, and moving some of its bonuses to be building dependent would be a way to do that. There might well be a better way, though.

 

[Stalker0]

So I’m concerned if we just hit God of Sea’s raw numbers we’ll end up exacerbating the problem by creating a weak pantheon only made viable by the extreme speed of the only start where you use it. While that’s a possible niche, I’m not sure it’s a healthy one. It becomes a bit of a trap for players on lower difficulties, for example, where overall tempo is a lot lower. It also means that if we ever do decide to weaken tempo on sea luxuries that we risk leaving God of the Sea on the rubbish heap.

I’m not sure how this is special to sea. Every terrain based pantheon…is dependent on its terrain. Hunt also has a very fast start, springtime is very dependent on plantation build times and often forest clear times.

The two are inexorably linked, you never use a terrain pantheon when you don’t have that terrain, and so the strength of the pantheon is always a combination of strength of pantheon + strength of terrain.

 

[Anarcomu]

I've never been a fan of how pantheon needs different times to come online because of needing improvements ; I'll probably propose next congress to make all faith bonuses from pantheons to apply to resources instead of improvements.

 

[dpr3113]

I’m not sure how this is special to sea. Every terrain based pantheon…is dependent on its terrain. Hunt also has a very fast start, springtime is very dependent on plantation build times and often forest clear times.

The two are inexorably linked, you never use a terrain pantheon when you don’t have that terrain, and so the strength of the pantheon is always a combination of strength of pantheon + strength of terrain.

Sure, you’ll never use terrain-dependent pantheons without that terrain. No issues there.

But you might use other pantheons than the terrain-dependent one even if you have that terrain, as you noted. So we should balance God of the Sea around itself, not around the general strength of sea starts.

And looking at it on its own, its numbers don’t seem out of line, but its speed does. So I think we should hit the speed, not the numbers.

 

[Stalker0]

And looking at it on its own, its numbers don’t seem out of line, but its speed does. So I think we should hit the speed, not the numbers.

Ok so you want to remove bonuses from the resources and...towards a building perhaps? I know on discord we discussed moving the +2 food from coast cities -> the lighthouse, which I could see.