August 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion
- Thread starter Laurana Kanan
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AntSou
Deity
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- Jun 8, 2019
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Besides the wheels and pedals a bicycle is nothing but a glorified metal rod.
bengalryan9
Emperor
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- Nov 13, 2018
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"Various AI improvements" did not include review of diplomacy and trading, AI is still largely open to being shamelessly exploited:
Spoiler :
For the record, I totally get that these are pretty stupid and it shouldn't be in the game, but at the same time... you can just police yourself and not do it.
I understand that it drives some people crazy, but me personally? I'd rather them focus on issues that are outside of my control rather than exploits I can just choose not to use.
MrRadar
Deity
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- Nov 8, 2014
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- 2,322
Perhaps I could, perhaps I couldn't. Despite posing here as a cold metallic box, I'm only human inside, vulnerable to all sorts of temptation
On a more serious note, this kind of things just diminishes the game. Diplomacy and trade are pretty important factors in the relations between nations, so I prefer the game to have sensible representation of that, and for sure I do not want to exclude these aspects from my gameplay just because they are so lacking in quality here. Civs I to V somehow managed to do better in this respect.
Morgawr
Civ Fanatic
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- Apr 6, 2007
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I paid close attention to AI trading and they fixed a lot of it but not all the way which is why it appears broken still. They capped the gpt an AI is willing to pay for luxuries depending on how much amenity trouble they're in. I have not seen it higher than 10 gpt in my games. On the other hand they sell it to you for super cheap like 2 gpt if you're friends or Allies. They don't however if they don't like you.
So to me it seems not to be a bug but a deliberate design choice by the devs (even if we may not agree) so I am able to live with myself as I rip off my friends. (I play on deity so they're all rich anyway.. mansa literally s*** gold)
So to me it seems not to be a bug but a deliberate design choice by the devs (even if we may not agree) so I am able to live with myself as I rip off my friends. (I play on deity so they're all rich anyway.. mansa literally s*** gold)
Wait, I had for a long time assumed that the +culture from city states gets doubled as well?! It doesn't? That's why I bother running that card to begin with. If you have 4-5 culture CS for example the numbers look hugely different.
If you wait until the right time to build it, Bolshoi can easily refund you the culture cost you spent on going for that leaf civic by giving you 2 whole free late game civics worth a lot more than 1000 culture.
Archon_Wing
Vote for me or die
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- Apr 3, 2005
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- 5,257
Yep Grand Opera is a giant meme card; I don't even run it in CVs because it increases culture by so little.
Bolshoi is good, but that civic is just awful otherwise.
Bolshoi is good, but that civic is just awful otherwise.
Lily_Lancer
Deity
No +100% policy applies to city state bonuses.
ducksinwar
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2020
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- 4
Nope, Amrunril is right. The change to content threshold literally counteracts the removal of the free amenity. Using your own example, try to compute for yourself the exact amount of amenities needed for 10 cities of 4 citizens to remain content before and after the patch and you will see what I mean. The only change to amenity they have accomplished with this patch is:
1) Harsher penalties to cities that drops below the content threshold
2) Make it extremely hard to get a bonus by sharply increase the happy threshold
3) Literally rename 0 (the previous content threshold) as -1
While 1) is a great change as it will slow down the game and make warmongering harder, 2) basically kills the usefulness of amenities above the content threshold. I think making the happy threshold higher is the right idea as we do not need more bonus to early game science output, the bonus for achieving happy and ecstatic is way too low. A 10%/30% might be a good idea given how much work you have to do to achieve it and it might give EC/WP with tier 3 buildings a purpose for late game.
As for 3), I am really really disappointed in the developers in this. I am not sure if this intentional to trick us into thinking that the free amenities for new cities are removed. If not, then the developers obviously did not bother to even sit down and do a simple computation on what they have changed. If people really care about tall vs wide balance, we really need to speak up and let them fix this.
Pfeffersack
Deity
A "house rule" here might only solve the problem of such questionable deals getting exploited by a human player - I don't know how diplomacy between AIs is handled, but if they use that function here as well, it can still have unwanted gameplay effects (e.g. DoWs which would not happen, if the price tag would be correct or payed compensation impacting the allies economy)
Galvatron
Prince
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- Jul 28, 2017
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- 352
It's quite brave to post such a clearly unpopular opinion.
lockstep
Prince
This is incorrect -- before, it was -7 to +3.
lockstep
Prince
In my Happiness Rework mod, I changed the happiness thresholds for Happy/Ecstatic cities to +2/+4 amenities (instead of +3/+5) and the non-food yield bonuses to +10%/+20% (instead of +5%/+10%).
To follow-up on my response here Suk has updated their Civ Selection mod & Seeling has updated YnAMP to work with the new update so it should be safe to re-enable those now.
DeckerdJames
Prince
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- Nov 1, 2019
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- 373
You are right. I didn't read his table the right way. Thank you! I revise what I wrote. It is below.
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The total number of steps from lowest to highest amenity value has been increased. Previously it was -7 to 3. Now it is -8 to 5. The old system had a range of 11 steps while the new system has 14 steps. The additional 3 steps are an expansion of the nuetral range in which there is neither a penalty nor bonus.
In the old system, the neutral point between penalty or bonus yields only existed at step 0. The neutral point has been expanded and now encompasses 4 steps, -1 to 2. Besides the capital city, new cities innately start at step -1 meaning they lean toward unhappiness.
In the new system, just as in the old system, bonus yields are granted on only the top 3 steps with the top bonus on only step 5. The bottom 7 steps, -2 to -8, award penalties to yields but are now more linear increasing by -10% until it is at a maximum of -40%.
As another player said, without free amenities, taller empires are not penalized for having fewer cities.
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acluewithout
Deity
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- Dec 1, 2017
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Having played a bit, I certainly can't see any appreciable difference early game with the current Amenity changes. My Cities are as content as they've ever been.
I think @lockstep 's Mod might be the right approach. I've just downloaded to try. If I understand it, all it really does is make -1 Displeased, so new Cities actually start miserable and with reduced yields (unless you have at least one Luxe online or Garrison a Unit with Retainers ), and you get more pay-off if you actually get to Happy.
I suspect the only tweak it's missing is giving the AI some starting Amenities at higher levels, but possibly that's not even needed. I'll need to play around with it.
Pietato
Platonic Perfection
Soothsayers give you a massive diplomatic favour penalty when used.
footballciv
Chieftain
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- Aug 25, 2020
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- 24
Has anybody else noticed that after the update, mods enabling are complete nuts? Game doesn't respect the mods I select. It enables sometimes more, sometimes less than what I enable in the mod menu. I use a few different presets of mods, but what the game enables is not just a different preset.
