Australian Summer Patch discussion thread

[Chibisuke]

I played many more Immortal games and I've come to this conclusion:

Without walls: the AI is downright brutal. I once had every civ in the game declare war on me by turn 60. They effectively swarm your cities and capture them. I had two games in a row that I lost by turn 100 just because I wasn't expecting them to attack the way they did.

With walls: AIs are timid and almost never come within range. They will wait until they have a siege unit or two (which makes sense), but even then, they can't position them correctly. Once you have ancient walls, you can basically coast to the end of the game.

They need to split the difference somehow. The early game shouldn't be all death, war and mayhem. Peaceful play should be possible, even if it isn't realistic. At the same time, by the time all your cities get fortifications for free, the AI has no more cards up its sleeve and has no way to take the victory away from you.

Barbs just further complicate this whole issue. I made a separate thread for them, so I won't rehash it here. Needless to say, they went the wrong direction with them.

This is more or less true. The new walls system is a double edged sword. It slows down early player zerg rushes so that a super aggressive human player cannot totally steamroll all of the world within the first 100 turns (AI seems to get walls up by about turn 40-50.) However, because walls are so powerful, AI simply cannot handle them if it is against a player who knows what they are doing.

So in sum, the current walls (A) slows humans, and (B) stops AI. The devs might think this is a fair tradeoff for the immense AI bonuses on deity or immortal, but for lower difficulties it certainly would make the game a cakewalk.

Again though, I don't know how they can weaken walls at this point without throwing off the balance even further unless they just make a modifier that makes humans walls weaker on low difficulty setting.

 

[Stringer1313]

From my perspective on deity play, there are two ways to get the AI to declare war on you in mid to late game. (1) make them hate you a lot by being a warmonger for most of the game, and (2) start to win by a lot.

The first should be obvious since the AI's hatred of you does seem to contribute to their likelihood of declaring war, but I have also noticed that any game where I start to pull away on a victory conditions or if I just get lucky early on and start to seriously dominate, multiple AI civs will DoW me.

Thx for this advice. I am not sure if I have seen #1 happen even when my warmongering penalties are past -100. And I also agree with teh above poster re walls

 

[Stringer1313]

This is more or less true. The new walls system is a double edged sword. It slows down early player zerg rushes so that a super aggressive human player cannot totally steamroll all of the world within the first 100 turns (AI seems to get walls up by about turn 40-50.) However, because walls are so powerful, AI simply cannot handle them if it is against a player who knows what they are doing.

So in sum, the current walls (A) slows humans, and (B) stops AI. The devs might think this is a fair tradeoff for the immense AI bonuses on deity or immortal, but for lower difficulties it certainly would make the game a cakewalk.

Again though, I don't know how they can weaken walls at this point without throwing off the balance even further unless they just make a modifier that makes humans walls weaker on low difficulty setting.

What if they just removed the ability for walls to fire? (You actually have to station a ranged) And obviously changed the AI cost-benefit algorithm.

Also I don't love how civic engineering automatically gives you walls. They should make the prior walls obsolete (and maybe have them start generating tourism/culture) but I don't like that you automatically get them.

 

[EditorRex]

True Earth Start with Cleopatra, the computer put me literally right next to Saladin, who insta-settled, of course. That's some great playtesting there, guys.

It does seem like True Earth Starts should control for era since some of the civs in the game (or who will be in the game) overlap with others. Just speculating, but there might be rules like:
Ancient/Classical starts: China, Japan, India, Sumer, Egypt, Greece (one or the other but not both leaders), Scythia, Rome
Medieval/Renaissance starts: China, Japan, India, Arabia, Russia, Norway, Poland, Germany, France, England, Spain, Montezuma
Industrial or later starts: China, Japan, India, Arabia, Russia, Norway, Poland, Germany, France, England, Spain, Congo, America, Brazil, Australia

I'm probably forgetting someone, but you get the idea.

 

[EditorRex]

Dunno why so many people dislike Victoria. She's incredibly good. You can steamroll better with her than anybody IMO.

I played a huge Island Plates map for the achieves as her and it was a blast. I started with four boats and ended with nearly every city on the map under my control and about 40 units. Barely had to build anything.

Granted, that is partially thanks to the state of the AI.

A lot of strong players spend most of their time on Pangaea maps where civs with strong naval traits make less sense. I don't believe Victoria is one of the stronger civs in VI, but she probably has gotten an unfairly bad reputation. In Continents maps in which you can capitalize on her colonizing advantages, she seems quite strong. The free Redcoats are quite remarkable.

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

What does one of the Balance Changes in the latest patch "Units that are embarked now use an era-based strength value instead of their base combat value" mean?

 

[Chibisuke]

I think that is meant to nerf the defensive power of melee or ranged units who are in the water. Previously they kept their regular strength which didn't make sense since they should be more vulnerable.

 

[joncnunn]

What does one of the Balance Changes in the latest patch "Units that are embarked now use an era-based strength value instead of their base combat value" mean?

I think that is meant to nerf the defensive power of melee or ranged units who are in the water. Previously they kept their regular strength which didn't make sense since they should be more vulnerable.

As a practical matter; it's now extremely easy whenever fighting an AI on a different landmass from you to slaughter their army as they attempt to cross it even when your navy is right next to the crossing they are attempting.

 

[sa1vy]

I guess this means it's a pretty big buff to naval units, which is good. Hopefully the AI recognizes this and will now build any naval units.

 

[joncnunn]

I guess this means it's a pretty big buff to naval units, which is good. Hopefully the AI recognizes this and will now build any naval units.

That would be a No, it currently doesn't from what I've seen.
AI China built a lot of land units in Quill's game as Australia but no navy at all; it's the one that got slaughtered I alluded to in the above post. (And remember this was an Island Plates map; so if there any modifiers to AI behavior for water based start it was already in effect)
AI America did build a navy (quite a few Frigates), but no army to speak of.

It's known that in Civ V Navy flavor was separate than Army flavor and it's likely the same in Civ VI.

 

[Pietato]

What does one of the Balance Changes in the latest patch "Units that are embarked now use an era-based strength value instead of their base combat value" mean?

Each era adds 5 (I think) defense to embarked units, and every unit has the same defense. It really helps low defense units like scouts, who no longer get one shot in the Ocean by barbs.

 

[sa1vy]

That would be a No, it currently doesn't from what I've seen.
AI China built a lot of land units in Quill's game as Australia but no navy at all; it's the one that got slaughtered I alluded to in the above post. (And remember this was an Island Plates map; so if there any modifiers to AI behavior for water based start it was already in effect)
AI America did build a navy (quite a few Frigates), but no army to speak of.

It's known that in Civ V Navy flavor was separate than Army flavor and it's likely the same in Civ VI.

This is unfortunate

Each era adds 5 (I think) defense to embarked units, and every unit has the same defense. It really helps low defense units like scouts, who no longer get one shot in the Ocean by barbs.

I like this system. It did get annoying having your scouts die super easily in the water. Although, does this mean they could have higher defense in the water than on land? That doesn't make much sense.

 

[Pietato]

Much, much higher defense on the water than on land for Scouts. I think they (and everything else) had 60 in the modern era.

 

[sa1vy]

Lol, that's dumb. I don't really like the system anymore. It still seems super exploitable.