[GS] Antarctic Late Summer Patch Discussion Thread

[S1AL]

There are two ways that Firaxis could address the design that would make sense:

1) Get rid of all the 1-turn cards like Professional Army (which is bad design per se), thereby removing the incentive to swap cards on alternate turns. Then simply remove the card-swapping restriction.

2) Give the swap a timer, which you can reset with a gold payment, like at present, but removing the method of swapping civics. Maintains the "cost" aspect, but it's inferior to Option 1 from the perspective of design elegance.

Either way, from a flavor perspective, the current system is inane. You can observe any present or historical political administration and note regular changes in policy and preference that correspond to "swapping policy cards".

But applying a bunch of minor Band-Aid changes to fix "exploits" that are actually just using the system as intended is plainly ludicrous. And stems from a position of "how dare people play the game in a way of which I disapprove?!"

 

[Wingednosering]

I've always hated the civets system. I personally like to play as though they policies themselves have government restrictions. I only slot on each policy ONCE. Once I replace it, I never grab it again.

Feels more flavorful and less micromanagey.

 

[DWilson]

I mean, so long as people aren't exploiting it, I don't see how your proposals are ultimately better than the existing system.

And using the system as intended is specifically not an exploit, per this discussion, as exploit is being used to refer to using against intended use.

 

[Disgustipated]

Anyone noticing they can no longer capture spies? It seems like all my counterspy missions result in the death of the spy.

Also buying back my own captured spies is ludicrously expensive now.

 

[Rajendran_P]

I have tried the WorldBuilder and see that it is not fully functioning.

1. The largest map size that can be created with WorldBuilder is HUGE (100 x 80, I Guess). All the Civilisations in the game are real world civilisations and thus player would like to play in a real world map with all the civilisations in one game. However, player can’t create a map big enough to play all civilisations using HUGE. Why can’t developer increase the size, at least 2 x Huge.

2. Was able to create the map using WorldBuilder, but noted that the created map does not appear as a selectable map option when starting a new game.

3. The customers/players has been waiting eagerly for the WorldBuilder since the launch of Civ 6. Although the Developers has provided the Worldbuilder after a a Long period, the WorldBuilder seems not working as was intend or similar to Civ 5. Furthermore, it indicated that the advance function is still in work.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

If you play as intended, it works.

I mean, so long as people aren't exploiting it, I don't see how your proposals are ultimately better than the existing system.

And using the system as intended is specifically not an exploit, per this discussion, as exploit is being used to refer to using against intended use.

How can playing the rules as written not be playing the game as intended?

If the dev team didn't intend you to play the game based on the rules as written, wouldn't they have written the rules differently?

 

[DWilson]

Sure, it's not explicitly written "don't research most of an unnecessary civic, then stop, so that you have it banked for when you want to use a policy card only for one turn, so you don't sacrifice much value from other cards, but can still benefit from it". But they designed it such that generally your only free swaps are when you research a new civic or unlock a new card slot. It seems pretty clearly intuitive that's not how it was intended to be used. The cards are supposed to be weighed against one another, not just freely swapped about at any time without a cost.

Look, like I said, I don't care how people play, but it's pretty blatantly subverting intended design, and it's willfully obtuse to claim otherwise.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I don't research down to one turn; but I do a swap, then change govs, then change cards again. Guilty.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Despite the tooltip saying Fresh Water, you can't hook an Aqueduct to Ik-Kil. I guess the cenote is just too deep.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

How about switching cards outside of changing governments costs an increasing amount of diplomatic favour... that would give another avenue to use the darn stuff...

 

[rlw33]

2. Was able to create the map using WorldBuilder, but noted that the created map does not appear as a selectable map option when starting a new game.

I found the same thing. I had to save the map then restart the game to get my map as an option in the drop down box of maps to pick from.

 

[Haig]

AI Maori Empire just made a great naval invasion that crippled my game.

They crossed the ocean with infantry, modern armor and arty armies and corps.
They started brutally capturing my cities..

I had no naval forces deployed there so I dont know of they had warships.

I was going for culture victory as France (emperor), i was on 2nd position behind Germany on culture victory so I dont know if I had lost to him anyway or some AI would have grabbed a science victory..

Well time for another game, gonna play Macedon or Sweden nexr.

 

[Zenstrive]

I think Mali needs to have bonus to production to walls (+1 production per desert) once they hit feudalism. It's either chopping time or wait for oh so long to build walls as Mali.

 

[ezzlar]

I wonder what the half resource cost civic is to represent. You need only half the iron for a swordsman. Does he have his own supply? Thinner plating? Shorter sword? It does however even more promote the upgrade approch since hard building requires double amount of iron.

 

[Infixo]

There are two ways that Firaxis could address the design that would make sense:

There certainly are many more reasonable options, e.g. Make changes possible only when you change the government, or only when a new era is entered.

I would however settle with an easy to implement option of a cooldown period e.g. 10 turns. A policy can be „unslotted” or „re-slotted” only after the cooldown period has passed.

 

[Stilgar08]

...But I will call you out on the other half of your comments. For myself, I believe the deluxe edition was something like $90, add to that the $30 odd for R&F, and the near $60 for GS, and look at that, over $150. And I'm not sure why someone willing to pay full price for the game shouldn't also be invested in the quality of said game.

My comment was more about that it's not an argument either.
I'm from Germany and know nothing of $ prices, but I know what I paid. I bought DD vanilla, R&F and GS all well before release from decent keysellers with good discounts. I paid roughly 110,- € (about $ 125,-it seems). So far I sunk +400hours into the game... Not a bad deal after all and even if I would have played just a tenth of that it would have been decent...

I haven't played much since patch, trying to finish a Phoenicia game I had going before the patch that is now in that weird limbo state where I can still play but seemingly without all the features of the patch. Though things have leaked through and are a little glitchy ... for example, all the civ colours have reverted to their original banner colours, and the health bar for each city no longer shows.

In any case, trade is a large part of the game, and the immersion and fun of playing the game I can see being ruined by outlandish trade deals. It's one thing to ignore the overvalued offer for a new work (supposedly fixed by the patch, which is another thing they should have been running the game and observing trade offers for) or to not use the 'sell 1 resource for lots of gold' exploit, but it is another if every trade offer starts becoming a farce. I will probably lower the offered gold to something more reasonable just so that I can continue enjoying the game at my preferred pace, but I do hope that they fix the issue quickly.

I completely agree. I even agree that this "Fail" shouldn't have slipped. But we are all humans so that happens...

I haven't even installed the patch since I'm in the middle of a game and therefore stay in offline mode until I'm finished. I hate these limbo games you describe and wait for the hotfix to drop...

 

[ButtBillionaire]

Just a little message about the origin of the new Norwegian palace and the possible origin of the new German palace:
Norwegian palace

Spoiler Inspirational/origin building :

Stortinget ("Great Thing"), the seat of the Norwegian parliament in Oslo. Frankly I would've expected Firaxis to use either the Royal Palace or some sort of Viking Age-inspired building. Either way I'm glad Norway finally has its own palace model.

German palace

Spoiler Possible inspiration :

Main inspiration seems to be Ehrenburg Palace in Coburg, Bavaria, which served as the main residence of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg. The central/main tower doesn't match, though.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Problem is, the original Policy System in Civ 5 was a pernament one, and nobody was fond of it either, since you had zero opportunity cost (well, except timing),

I think the problem isn't the system, it's that there isn't any worthwhile Policy Cards that yell "oh I have to choose?".

 

[Smity2k1]

There certainly are many more reasonable options, e.g. Make changes possible only when you change the government, or only when a new era is entered.

I would however settle with an easy to implement option of a cooldown period e.g. 10 turns. A policy can be „unslotted” or „re-slotted” only after the cooldown period has passed.

Or what about only being able to change one policy card (for free) each time a civic is researched? Just thinking out loud.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Sure, it's not explicitly written "don't research most of an unnecessary civic, then stop, so that you have it banked for when you want to use a policy card only for one turn, so you don't sacrifice much value from other cards, but can still benefit from it". But they designed it such that generally your only free swaps are when you research a new civic or unlock a new card slot. It seems pretty clearly intuitive that's not how it was intended to be used. The cards are supposed to be weighed against one another, not just freely swapped about at any time without a cost.

Look, like I said, I don't care how people play, but it's pretty blatantly subverting intended design, and it's willfully obtuse to claim otherwise.

You're extrapolating your own views as the dev team's intent.