August 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

Amrunril said:
But you could do the exact same thing by just putting the -10% and -20% penalty values at the original -1 and -3 amenity levels. The penalty value changes are doing all the work here. The changes to the thresholds and free amenities are just adding unnecessary confusion.
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They probably didn't want people to get a -10% penalty at -1. It's likely that they tested only changing the percentage and didn't like the result.
 
First game after the patch: Barbarians seem to be even worse than before. Seems they spawn more privateers now instead of caravels. So they can also pillage my tile improvements and not only my harbors, great.
Sometimes I wonder if those developers even play their own games.
 
Add me to the list of people who don't understand the amenity changes. Remove the free amenity, then just move the goalposts down a notch...? This is not a clean improvement, all it does is move the goalposts, I don't see this having a large impact on gameplay at all.

The only thing that I think is a clear improvement in this patch is the major adj bonus for theatre squares. How underwhelming...
 
I'm playing my first game with shuffled techs/civics and can't say I'm a fan. I don't like when RNG is added to the game. Amenities are more important now and you don't know where Irrigation is. And in my game, political Philosophy came pretty late. It's definitely harder, but only because I don't have much control over the early game. I guess it's a personal preference, but I'm not probably going to play with this again. The argument is that it increases replayability, but I don't think it really does. Replayability comes from playing a different civ, map, etc. but a blind tree is more of a difficulty change.

I also don't know why -1 amenity means your satisfied, but it shows a red alert and that you need amenities. Completely counter-intuitive. It also makes settling near amenities more important, as my second city without an amenity rapidly got to -3.

The amenity change doesn't bother me much, as I'll just adjust my gameplay, but the blind tree seems pretty extra, I might struggle finding certain techs/civics, but I can also see where I might get what I need right away.

I honestly like Apocalypse and Secret Societies over this mode.
 
GrumboMumbo said:
Add me to the list of people who don't understand the amenity changes. Remove the free amenity, then just move the goalposts down a notch...? This is not a clean improvement, all it does is move the goalposts, I don't see this having a large impact on gameplay at all.

The only thing that I think is a clear improvement in this patch is the major adj bonus for theatre squares. How underwhelming...
Click to expand...

It's gonna make it significantly harder to get the +5% and +10% bonuses, but it doesn't really have much of an impact in the negative.

It's mostly just a minor boost to 'tall' empires that can get the happy/ecstatic boost more easily. It also rebalances the amenities in that regard so they are more directly inline with population.

I.e. Before the patch, consider two 10 pop empires: Empire A is 1 10 population city. Empire B is 5 2 population cities. Empire A needs 4 additional amenities. Empire B needs no additional amenities as you get a free one from each city. Now they both require the same amount of amenities, basically (palace and 4 cities per luxury considerations non-withstanding).
 
Just starting my game, but I found i could not choose my first tech from the drop down on the upper left of the screen. I had to open the whole tech tree.

anyone else?
 
Glad to hear the volcano activity will decrease in Apocalypse Mode. It's like, first time I played it, I thought, "Well, this is fun, except for these damn constant volcano explosions!"
 
So, did they not talk about a new map? It has net been includded? or maybe I am remembering thr video wrong?
 
oSiyeza said:
So, did they not talk about a new map? It has net been includded? or maybe I am remembering thr video wrong?
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One is supposed to come in September, but I was assuming it was coming in the DLC pack.
 
I just had a huge comet that turned a desert into a 4 sided diamond tile lake. The atmosphere also turned orangey-beige.
 
reddishrecue said:
I just had a huge comet that turned a desert into a 4 sided diamond tile lake. The atmosphere also turned orangey-beige.
Click to expand...

That's part of the Apocalypse gamemode.
 
leandrombraz said:
They probably didn't want people to get a -10% penalty at -1. It's likely that they tested only changing the percentage and didn't like the result.
Click to expand...

But -10% at -2 without the free amenity is literally the same as -10% at -1 with the free amenity. Whatever testing the developers did, the set of thresholds they settled on could be presented, with equal accuracy, in two different ways:

A. ) 1 Free Amenity per city (unchanged)
Negative Thresholds at -1, -3, -5, -7 (unchanged)
Positive Thresholds at +4 and +6

B.) No Free Amenity
Negative Thresholds at -2, -4, -6, -8
Positive Thresholds at +3 and +5

These two options are functionally identical. A city with the same number of added amenities will always be at the same happiness level under either system. Any change to happiness effects will apply equally to either system. The only difference is that Option B unnecessarily changes both happiness thresholds and free amenities, in opposing directions, to arrive at exactly the same result as Option A. This creates confusion, breaks mods, and results in a less intuitive starting point for negative modifiers.

This alone would be more than sufficient to seriously annoy my pendantic self. What makes it even worse, though, is the feeling that the developers pulled a bait and switch (albeit probably a careless one rather than a malicious one). Based on the livestream yesterday, any reasonable observer would have expected they were removing the free amenity but not moving the thresholds in the opposing direction- because that would completely defeat the purpose of the change. And this would have been a really positive change, making amenity management more of a challenge while also removing an artificial incentive to spam cities and avoid growing them. The fact the the devs were (apparently) making such a change was exciting. It gave me confidence in the remaining parts of the amenity rework. It made me hopeful that future patches would include similar important but low profile changes. Instead, it got turned around into a pair of contradictory changes that actively detract from the game while accomplishing absolutely nothing.
 
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