April 2021 Developer Livestream Discussion

[Leucarum]

Twilight Imperium is an epic game
It is epic also because millions of players didn't spend millions of hours posting tier lists, guides, exploits, demanding nerfs, and buffs from a decomposed into the prime factors mechanics. Twilight Imperium is one of those games that was not chewed by the Internet and modern mass audience. Civ is in the middle of it I am afraid.

Oh I think I misread the way you said it. I thought you meant the ability was guaranteed to stay similar to what it was.


There's also a very reduced number of factions compared to 50 different civs and 54 leaders. That being said the one thing I think would translate well from Twilight Imperium to Civ is the way the Galactic Council worked which could replicate how a World Congress could act. Whoever has the most diplomatic victory points, or whoever gets the most votes for the next session, can choose the proposals for the next session. Also it would be interesting if some things were deemed permanent.

Well balance issues raised their heads in TI4 also, even if voices didn't get as heated and it's much harder to patch a board game. Some of the additions in the new expansion were designed to shore up some of the races people were concerned were a bit weak from what I remember reading. I guess that makes the Winnu into the Georgia of TI4...

 

[Wielki Hegemon]

Well balance issues raised their heads in TI4 also, even if voices didn't get as heated and it's much harder to patch a board game. Some of the additions in the new expansion were designed to shore up some of the races people were concerned were a bit weak from what I remember reading. I guess that makes the Winnu into the Georgia of TI4...

There will be always balance problems in a game with asymmetrical fractions. It is only a matter of time to find it But asymmetrical fractions are fun and balance is not always the aim - Root. This is also a Civ dilemma. Do you want fun or balance? I prefer fun in Civilization.

 

[Leucarum]

There will be always balance problems in a game with asymmetrical fractions. It is only a matter of time to find it But asymmetrical fractions are fun and balance is not always the aim - Root. This is also a Civ dilemma. Do you want fun or balance? I prefer fun in Civilization.

I don't think the two are mutually exclusive...

For sure balance is a constantly moving target, and while there'll always be a stronger and weaker set of civs, there's a choice to be made about how large the disparity is.

I also suspect that some of the balance changes were made in the interest of fun. If you wanted to win a cultural victory it was no fun at all to find Russia or Kongo were in the game for example.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

Well, the idea with Kongo is that you pick a religion to spread to your lands that has the best beliefs for you, so not ones that depend on holy site buildings. You may have to work a bit for that, but that's the whole idea behind asymmetric civs.

I'm familiar with the idea with the Kongo. I'm not sure you know what you are talking about regarding asymmetric civs

 

[slavaskii]

I wouldn't be surprised if they were holding major reworks as a surprise for tomorrow. At least that's what I'm hoping in the case of Scotland.

I was really hoping for this too, but after seeing what they've done for certain civilizations, I highly doubt it. It seems like they're just reworking things ever so slightly for the civs not directly highlighted in the video (ie, change a start bias or a percent). Australia, somehow, got a buff to keep them on the coast, and their UA wasn't addressed at all. That leaves me fairly hopeless on them reworking Scotland's UA. Most likely, it'll just be a change to make it require one or two less amenities to get the scientist/engineer bonuses.

But that's my biggest issue with this patch: how and why did they decide on some of these changes? Look at the multiplayer meta right now, it's very clear which civs are in need of changes and which aren't. I understand completely you can't 'rebuild' a civ from the ground up, but I was scratching my head constantly throughout the video. I exclusively play single player, but I'll even recognize some civs are far easier on Deity than others. The fact someone greenlit a Korea and Australia buff while doing practically nothing for Poland is bonkers to me. Like I know I should be thankful of a free patch and all, but man do I feel disappointed and even upset. Can you really say you've been listening to community feedback when, after announcing the Korea buff, everyone in chat starts laughing?

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

I was really hoping for this too, but after seeing what they've done for certain civilizations, I highly doubt it. It seems like they're just reworking things ever so slightly for the civs not directly highlighted in the video (ie, change a start bias or a percent). Australia, somehow, got a buff to keep them on the coast, and their UA wasn't addressed at all. That leaves me fairly hopeless on them reworking Scotland's UA. Most likely, it'll just be a change to make it require one or two less amenities to get the scientist/engineer bonuses.

My biggest hope is they rework Robert's UA, and for a matter of the fact all or most of the situational CB abilities, which I'm hopeful because they got rid of the one for Georgia that was situational.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

so in conclusion: New units good
Civ rework: bad and lazy.
And they highlighted civ rework as major selling point.
When will I EVER learn...

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

so in conclusion: New units good
Civ rework: bad and lazy.
And they highlighted civ rework as major selling point.
When will I EVER learn...

I mean if you solely base the opinion off of Korea sure.
If you base it off of Spain and Khmer then no it's not lazy.
Maybe we should all wait and make a final judgement when the patch notes do come out?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You can like them or not like them; but I'm sorry, I just don't see the "lazy."

 

[Linklite]

so in conclusion: New units good
Civ rework: bad and lazy.
And they highlighted civ rework as major selling point.
When will I EVER learn...

I feel similar. I mean, there's room for this to be much better than I think it is, but still. I feel like Firaxis oversells itself. It says grand things like it's working on 33 civs which sounds great, but in reality it's like 5 civs with minimal changes to the rest. It would be better to just say that they're making changes to 5 civs and minor alterations to a few more.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I mean if you solely base the opinion off of Korea sure.
If you base it off of Spain and Khmer then no it's not lazy.
Maybe we should all wait and make a final judgement when the patch notes do come out?

that is only 2 out of 50 civs and they promised similar treatment with other civs that they are changing... clearly even here devs chose to play the favorite cards and ignore civs that NEED some chaining... I wouldn't be surprised if Netherlands and Scotland receives small or smaller change than Korea did. If Korea didn't get meaningful change what makes you think Netherlands and Scotland gets a change.

 

[UWHabs]

All in all, I was hoping a few more civs got the same love and rework that Spain and the Khmer got. But I guess we're not far from the full patch notes. There's bound to be something in there that they glossed over or failed to mention, but completely changes how a certain civ plays. Even a lot of the basic adding in new units, and reformatting other UU to appear in the main chain of units might end up really changing some civs around way more than we otherwise expected. Like suddenly being able to upgrade into Samurai, maybe making them stronger or potentially earlier, and now you really do change how they play.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

You can like them or not like them; but I'm sorry, I just don't see the "lazy."

they could have taken look at civ expanded mod and take some ideas from there...
but NOPE. Even if a fan has answers right in front of them, they refuse to take some of it. Even 10% of that mod was too much for them!

 

[InsidiousMage]

I think the fundamental issue is that NFP raised the bar on what people expected and the changes in the update video generally reinforced that but when, say, Scythia gets some really minor buffs it seems odd in comparison. I mean, what good is tourism on the Kurgan when Scythia is probably going to be doing a domination heavy game and they have no other real buffs for a culture win? The change to the Horse Archer is also kind of bad because the fundamental issue with the two ranged cavalry units is that they upgrade into ranged units so any strategy based around them eventually stops working and you have to pivot to something else. The patch notes tomorrow will have all of the details but based on what's been revealed in the stream I can't say I'm expecting much. I wouldn't be surprised if they changes in the update video are all of the really big ones and everything else is just minor tweaks and buffs.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

You can like them or not like them; but I'm sorry, I just don't see the "lazy."

As another poster put it, they've set themselves up for being perceived as lazy when they spent some time hyping that there would be balance changes to 2/3 of all Civs. That was overpromising on the scale of changes.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

But I guess we're not far from the full patch notes. There's bound to be something in there that they glossed over or failed to mention, but completely changes how a certain civ plays..

I really doubt this. They spent a good chunk of time in the video recapping the Khmer and Spain changes which were already detailed in the April update video.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I think the fundamental issue is that NFP raised the bar on what people expected and the changes in the update video generally reinforced that but when, say, Scythia gets some really minor buffs it seems odd in comparison. I mean, what good is tourism on the Kurgan when Scythia is probably going to be doing a domination heavy game and they have no other real buffs for a culture win? The change to the Horse Archer is also kind of bad because the fundamental issue with the two ranged cavalry units is that they upgrade into ranged units so any strategy based around them eventually stops working and you have to pivot to something else. The patch notes tomorrow will have all of the details but based on what's been revealed in the stream I can't say I'm expecting much. I wouldn't be surprised if they changes in the update video are all of the really big ones and everything else is just minor tweaks and buffs.

and they got proud of themselves when they said this patch notes is the longest yet... I wouldn't be surprised if this is longest because they've filled out patch notes with meanings words like "um" and "and errr..." and "huh?"

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I guess I will play with civ expanded if I wanted some REAL changes to Korea. Dev has lost the balls with this one. a fan can do better why can't devs?

 

[DWilson]

Well, there sure are a lot of negative Nellys commenting at the moment. I guess you can't win them all.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I guess I will play with civ expanded if I wanted some REAL changes to Korea. Dev has lost the balls with this one. a fan can do better why can't devs?

they could have taken look at civ expanded mod and take some ideas from there...
but NOPE. Even if a fan has answers right in front of them, they refuse to take some of it. Even 10% of that mod was too much for them!

I don't care for most of that mod actually. Making things OMGEXTREME isn't the opposite of "lazy." We'll see how the changes work in practice but often subtle takes way more work.