August 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[CultureManiac]

Will give the random techs a try, but it takes away one of the best player advantages at higher levels, which is beelining important techs. I have a feeling it will just lead to frustration, like trying to find laser techs to speed up a spaceship. This will make timing of upgrades before an attack - ie crossbows or riflemen - a lot more difficult. Anyway, plan to give it a couple of run-throughs.

 

[Myomoto]

I think -1 amenity should give the old -5% yields, and the positive side should start with +5% at 2 amenities going up +5% for each amenity after that, i.e. +2 / +5%, +3 / +10%, +4 / +15%, and +5 / +20%. Getting your cities to +5 amenities is an almost Herculean task right now, unless you use the policy cards granting amenities.

 

[WillowBrook]

I think -1 amenity should give the old -5% yields, and the positive side should start with +5% at 2 amenities going up +5% for each amenity after that, i.e. +2 / +5%, +3 / +10%, +4 / +15%, and +5 / +20%. Getting your cities to +5 amenities is an almost Herculean task right now, unless you use the policy cards granting amenities.

I'd love a more nuanced scale like this. But it might make Scotland's happiness bonus too much - might have to tone it down a bit.

 

[kb27787]

Woo! I do love the major adjacency bonuses to theatres...
Which also means an acropolis sandwiched between a city center and entertainment complex is now a whopping +5.

Naturalists being much cheaper now means parks are easy to come by as long as you have mountains. It would make them somewhat competitive with rock bands...

Nerfed: Water Parks, Entertainment Complex, Digital Democracy, New Deal, Colosseum etc. -- They can bring your amenity to +1 or +3, however the effect of +1/+3 are all nerfed. (Actually the previous ecstatic is only +2 content in the new version)
Building a full-price district only to provide +2 adj for another district is nonsense, so better not building them at all. However, brazilian carnivals & culture zones may be worthwhile. (Just like the Roman industrial zones)

Bonus: Garrison +1 amenity policy/ Classical Republic, etc. small amenity adjustment cards
They can be used to prevent you from negative amenities, whose punishments are doubled.

Basically the new amenity system encourages you to maintain at -1 amenity in every city. Having more amenity makes little sense, while falling below -1 yields serious disadvantages.

This also severely discourage you from growing from 10 to 11. If you're already at -1 amenity for 10 pop, the 11th pop is totally negative now.

Naturalists' prices reduced to half. This is a good change . Naturalists are useful now. A nerf to mounties as they're no longer cheaper than naturalists and therefore becomes totally useless.

As theatres are so hard to get to +3... I have to partially disagree, esp in the case where you have lots of culture CS on the map.
This means that you have the doubled culture from theatre buildings in a lot more cities now. Previously you needed a world wonder and another district and city center. Now a simple city center + theatre + entertainment complex triangle works for +3. I'm thinking that zoos (which are unlocked in the culture tree) can indeed give lots of science to rainforest so that we don't need campuses in every city.

Mounties are now trash, yes.

 

[monikernemo]

Nah, if you dont run faith econ you still can build mounties. And unlike civilian units, military units costs remains constant. So, it isnt a nerf per se.

 

[SneakySkeleton]

I noticed that too... two AI civs denounced me right off the bat prior to me earning any grievances. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with proximity... neither of the denouncers was close.

I've noticed this too, but later on into the game. Every time I've been denounced it has always been for the 'different governments' reason. I've noticed that the AI is changing governments significantly more now (due to the change) but they have also been going backwards in terms of governments. One example: I had Rome declare friendship (both of us had Communist governments). The friendship ended and he denounced me in an instant, for different governments; Trajan had decided that going back to Autocracy was what was best for Rome.
I can't say I really ever took notice of the relationship penalty for differing governments before the patch, but now it seems to be -40 on every civ I have different governments to. This has caused level 2 allied civs to become instantly unfriendly.

 

[Myomoto]

I'd love a more nuanced scale like this. But it might make Scotland's happiness bonus too much - might have to tone it down a bit.

That seems more like a Scotland specific issue, quite easy to adjust.

I've noticed this too, but later on into the game. Every time I've been denounced it has always been for the 'different governments' reason. I've noticed that the AI is changing governments significantly more now (due to the change) but they have also been going backwards in terms of governments. One example: I had Rome declare friendship (both of us had Communist governments). The friendship ended and he denounced me in an instant, for different governments; Trajan had decided that going back to Autocracy was what was best for Rome.
I can't say I really ever took notice of the relationship penalty for differing governments before the patch, but now it seems to be -40 on every civ I have different governments to. This has caused level 2 allied civs to become instantly unfriendly.

I think this is a positive change overall (except for kooky Romans declaring themselves Emperor ).

 

[Lily_Lancer]

As theatres are so hard to get to +3... I have to partially disagree, esp in the case where you have lots of culture CS on the map.
This means that you have the doubled culture from theatre buildings in a lot more cities now. Previously you needed a world wonder and another district and city center. Now a simple city center + theatre + entertainment complex triangle works for +3. I'm thinking that zoos (which are unlocked in the culture tree) can indeed give lots of science to rainforest so that we don't need campuses in every city.

Mounties are now trash, yes.

Well, the double culture card requires an expensive branch policy whose inspiration is hard to get. Also, even if it is doubled you actually only get +4 extra culture per city (requires +3 adj and 10 pop) with T2 culture zone buildings.

Unlike science, most of your culture don't come from the raw yield of Culture Zone Buildings!

I can confirm that the double culture card is useless. You spend 1000+ culture unlocking that card, you use 1 policy slot to slot that card. What do you get? Even assuming you have 5 museums each with +3 and 10 pop, you only get 20 culture per turn.

 

[bengalryan9]

Nah, if you dont run faith econ you still can build mounties. And unlike civilian units, military units costs remains constant. So, it isnt a nerf per se.

Canada can still take advantage of both national parks AND rock bands while a lot of other leaders are going to have to make a choice between what to spend their faith on.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

Love the updates thus far on my first playthrough...the tech/civic randomizer is great. Just wish the natural wonder picker didn't have to be checked each time.

 

[Potworny]

My only itch after this update is -1 amenities being a neutral state. x out of x+1 amenities needed being okay as well as it showing the warning on the city banner annoys me mildly.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

My only itch after this update is -1 amenities being a neutral state. x out of x+1 amenities needed being okay as well as it showing the warning on the city banner annoys me mildly.

I imagine someone will mod this pretty quickly, probably with a number that shows how many amenities the city needs.

 

[Tuvok694]

Privateers actually make a lot more sense for barbarians than caravels. They plunder and disrupt. It's annoying but make sense.

So let me think about this for a moment.
What is worse for me when playing my favourite game?
A) The game constantly keeps annoying me (by overpowered barbarians) or
B) The game is not 100% historically accurate in some aspects.
I think I know my answer to this...

 

[ShimmerGloom]

I totally agree. The buff to EC isn't really big enough for me to build them, but it does help when you want to build one anyway (eg brazil, or one for the zoo/colloseum).
This change made the Colloseum less good for amenities, but at least it's culture is slightly buffed. Not only do you get +2 for every city in the radius, but now you get 2 +4 TS spots, which is pretty nice.

 

[nzcamel]

I imagine someone will mod this pretty quickly, probably with a number that shows how many amenities the city needs.

I'd hope it gets modded so the warning doesn't pop up at all. I mean the actual notification which I now get every single turn. A number in place of the warning on the city bar would be good.

 

[hhhhhh]

It appears to me one aspect of the amenity change is not fully discussed yet - loyalty management for conquests.

Before the update I was like, -20 pressure from nearby population? not a problem, Governor +8, Ecstatic +6, Occupation +5, Monument +1, that's enough to counter the -20, although there will still be some penalty from grievances but these will make sure you can hold 10+ turns and you can conquer nearby cities during this period.

Now with the amenity change... even get a +3 from being happy will be hard. So good luck for all the warmongers.

 

[monikernemo]

Canada can still take advantage of both national parks AND rock bands while a lot of other leaders are going to have to make a choice between what to spend their faith on.

Hmm, I don't necessarily think so. Thats a false dilemma; you are implying that if one chooses one then they can't have the other but that is obviously not true since national parks unlock much earlier than rock bands so one can invest in naturalists first before going for rock bands when naturalists get too expensive. Its just that because of mounties Canada can be more efficient in building national parks be it faith purchasing using Grand Master Chapel or hard building with +50% light calvary.

 

[bengalryan9]

Hmm, I don't necessarily think so. Thats a false dilemma; you are implying that if one chooses one then they can't have the other but that is obviously not true since national parks unlock much earlier than rock bands so one can invest in naturalists first before going for rock bands when naturalists get too expensive. Its just that because of mounties Canada can be more efficient in building national parks be it faith purchasing using Grand Master Chapel or hard building with +50% light calvary.

Well I think there's still some overlap there eventually, especially if you're putting down a lot of parks. Even in the window where you have access to mounties but not rock bands it still allows Canada to save a lot of faith that can be spent elsewhere (great people, units with Grandmaster's Chapel, districts with Moksha). I don't think they're useless, though they do give you a bit less bang for your buck now.

 

[hhhhhh]

Not sure if this is a bug so let me ask here - in your existing game, has the price of naturalists changed? I have a game where I bought one naturalist already, the price for the next one is still equivalent to 1400 (instead of 700) if we ignore the adjustment by speed and Theocracy.

For those who have an on-going game that haven't made any purchase of naturalists... do you see the price as 600 or 1200?

 

[Gedemon]

Here: https://steamdb.info/patchnotes/5468887/
That should be a bit more specific

Well, it's not really helping for the "Various AI improvements", "Additional crash fixes" or API changes, but still, here is attached the full .diff for the patched files that are human-readable. At least you'll find the "Various UI bug fixes and polish" there.

To put things in perspective (even if it's maybe not fully relevant without knowing the work that has gone in binary files) the diff file size is 1,808KB this time.

It was 9,801KB for the July patch, 3,182KB for the June patch and 6,787KB for the May patch.