Autumn 2017 Patch General Discussion

[PYITE]

I have been playing at Deity all of 2017, and this started happening after the Summer 2017 patch. Not quite at the beginning of the game, but playing on Marathon and Island Plates, if there are goody huts available, many, many of them spawn builders and traders. In some games, I have had 3 or 4 traders sleeping in my capital and builders sleeping in cities waiting for trade route capacity/boarder expansion respectively to do something.

It has especially happened after sailing was researched. If not enough science to get the scouts out, I would send a builder to the nearest islands with 1 build left to get the huts - most of them have been low yield gold or 20+ faith, but at least 20% are high yield builders, traders, or tech/civic boosts - so I do not think this is new.

YnAMP mod fixes the starting locations and I believe is already updated. I cannot play this game without either the mentioned mod or QUI - they are a must.

YES

For anyone who plays YnAMP that fix is not necessary and is incompatible

 

[Sobaka]

BTW, before continuing this "ideal player" fabrication is disingenuous and I won't give it time of day. The player is literally anybody who sits in front of the screen. Someone might like dog food, but that doesn't make it anything else. It's still dog food.



Games can have terrible, sub-average systems and still sell a decent number of copies. Unless you LIKE the EA comparison? Madden sells a lot too. The competition profiles aren't dissimilar, either.



Rules are not the same thing as "random variables". What the AI does is not a rule. How much yield you get for making a decision is a rule. How much a tech costs is a rule. How much WW you get for an action is a rule. The distinction between these things should be obvious.

I'm not talking about a game forcing choices with incomplete information, I'm talking about a strategy game hiding the rules to the game (even including details of victory conditions). It is impossible to hold a coherent position that the removal of information on how to play a strategy game is good for said strategy title.

I don't need to know Gandhi's ibuildunitprob equivalent in civ 6. It is a joke to obscure the precise details interconnecting tourism output and cultural victories. That's the distinction I'm making.



To clarify, I mean that 100% identical actions during turns in civ 6 can easily take 120 seconds instead of 10 seconds. Per turn. On rote, mundane inputs alone.



No, telling your 20 cities to build something is not "more complex" in civ 6. Civ 6 is just objectively worse at it because it pays no mind to how a player might give cities instructions efficiently. Civ 4 tried, and in this particular facet of UI it is objectively far superior.



Nono, take it as a disrespectful (to Firaxis' choices in civ 5 and civ 6 UI) nod to their unwillingness to invest resources into actually keeping the #inputs manageable, such that they let their titles get so bloated with mundane inputs that even Paradox outclasses them. No conspiracy necessary, this is a straight-up call-out. The modders are better and everyone knows it, apparently even Firaxis. They COULD show me I'm wrong.

If the last 5 years are anything to go by, they won't.



If that's their stance on this matter, I wish them failure so that someone better takes the mantle in TBS. The genre could use it probably. I love civ, but I hate that it's devolved in basic gameplay. Comparing it to EA used to be a joke, but the joke now is that I legitimately can.



You want to make a serious case the UI isn't core to gameplay experience? Try taking it out and watch what happens.



??? Standards/market aren't abstract. We can measure both. Right now, the TBS genre market is willing to buy dog food, the developers provide dog food, and don't have much obvious incentive to do better than dog food. Maybe there's 10 million sold instead of say 2 million, but there's no way to know.

Until legit competition does this much better, we won't know.



I didn't. See above. However, I feel similarly about anyone who's okay with an example of something like civ 6 city list + ability to interact with it vs civ 4's version. Why would a decade newer game actively downgrade that? No idea. They probably don't have an idea either, but that's just a guess.

Moderator Action: @TheMeInTeam, @Ferocitus, @Takfloyd
It's time to drop this debate, which is 98% off-topic for this thread. If any of you wants to open a new thread to debate (again) the shortcomings of the Civ VI UI, feel free to do so, but no more in this thread. -- Browd

theMelnTeam - agree with all you say. I have 3 nephews aged 8-15 - all of them say the same thing in comparison to civ 5 (where they were introduced to cis series). The UI is much worse. The game, for me at least, is not playable without modder enhancements, let alone their enhancements on game play and balance.

 

[Silverdawn]

I'm in my first game since the patch, playing as Norway on Emperor. Australia has captured the capital

Nope ... pay pay pay

What really annoys me about the diplomacy screen is the most important information is this. I would really just like to see Total = 0 on the front screen
View attachment 479272
But the summary screen does not give me my currently diplomacy balance, the most important thing for me to quickly judge by...There is plenty of space for it, instead for EVERY frigging civ I have to drill down. For those that are not aware... I could ask for friends with a civ but with a value of 0 it is less likely so I would not bother but try and get open borders or tgrade route first... Gonna try and get some good relationships this game.
View attachment 479273

I know the new tabs are under the name of the leader. But I'd prefer it if when they were selected they would be maintained as I clicked on the various leaders. For instance, if I want to compare how different leaders feel about me, I shouldn't need to switch and click the heart each time.

Hopefully for the expansion, they'll allow you to sort the columns of reports and add more reports that compare the civs diplomatically, list all the wonders that have been completed, etc. like in the previous games. It is still too hard to get the big picture.

Endless Space 2 systems report is great:

Spoiler :

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

What are your thoughts on stupas? I'm curious because I would like to shift over to using them and eliminate the need for entertainment districts (I usually build one just for Collosseum if I need happiness, which seems a waste of a district).

I like them. They are especially useful if you have a spawn that is short on luxuries, obviously. It doesn't completely eliminate the need for entertainment districts in very large cities but can be useful in certain circumstances. As in most things Civ, use them when the situation calls for it... I usually just go for the Production religious buildings.

 

[Victoria]

For instance, if I want to compare how different leaders feel about me, I shouldn't need to switch and click the heart each time.

This is exactly what I am saying, it's a huge pain if you are wanting to play politics.

To be fair, with the fixing of religion things are better, the game is going in the right direction. The lack of CS in the game at higher levels is a pain and they are way too easy to take as there is no difficulty level fighting them. Walls would be good..
Warmongering is still fairly useless but I feel with UN or similar coming this should make things much more interesting and hopefully diplomacy more important.
If they can make the UI more ergonomic that will make a big difference and all in all I think the game will be quite playable. Yes the AI is not the best but that is the price you pay if you want some tactics in there.

 

[Esperr]

The wierd accumulated ppints thing doesn't help diplomacy either. I do not understand why they couldn't just stick with the system from 4, it was perfect.

 

[Disgustipated]

Anyone have a Units Needs Orders bug? Sometimes when I click on units needs orders button, nothing happens. Sometimes I have to click on it several times before the game finally takes me to my unit on the game map. It's beginning to get quite annoying to me. Anyone know any ways around this bug?

I've noticed the AI loves to park their units and ships on top of your religious units like apostles. I have an apostle waiting for some reinforcements (to create overwhelming force) and Kongo parked an ironclad right on top of it.

Almost finished my game as the Khmer, just need to convert the aztecs over, they are the biggest, and will still be challenging to convert. I must say as a religious type civ (I'm generally including civs that have some kind of faith or religious bonus of some kind), they are my favorite. And this is only my 2nd religious victory ever. My opinion of religious victory has went up, I used to think it was kind of boring. But it's a little more fun than science victory I think. Though I still like cultural and conquest victories better. I generally don't like religious civs, but Khmer are pretty cool. Though as I mentioned above, I never used their elephants. They are largely useless to me. They come too late for my play style. I'm done with warfare at that point in the game. But they could be useful for someone going for a conquest victory. Final Grade: A-

I generally love the religion improvements in this patch. Though I don't find gurus particularly useful, but maybe some people will like them. I never built a single one. I'm just not sure the faith investment is worth it. I didn't realize they had limited charges. I'd say these are some pretty good improvements for a patch. Though you could argue this is how it should have been when the game shipped.

 

[Rosty K]

No that's nothing new, if you already have a Religion, you only get a Apostle

Well, I thought I'd get nothing (because I could never build it before this update, obviously ), so this was a pleasant surprise to me.

 

[nzcamel]

I know the new tabs are under the name of the leader. But I'd prefer it if when they were selected they would be maintained as I clicked on the various leaders. For instance, if I want to compare how different leaders feel about me, I shouldn't need to switch and click the heart each time.

Hopefully for the expansion, they'll allow you to sort the columns of reports and add more reports that compare the civs diplomatically, list all the wonders that have been completed, etc. like in the previous games. It is still too hard to get the big picture.

Agreed. I can't help but wonder if the movement away from comprehensive reports screens was another part of the Devs wanting people to get more info "from the map" rather than screens; much like how the city screen is more integrated with the map, etc. Which I think is a nice idea...but I think they have to accept that most players like comprehensive sortable info on topic X presented in one location. If you have 20 odd cities and you can build a wonder in half of them, it's crazy at the moment that we either have to go through each and write down how long they'd take to build it; or in the underwhelming city report screen, go through each and write down their production - all just to figure out which can build it fastest. The sortable city report screen in IV and V gave you that information at the snap of your fingers....almost like you were a demanding ruler and had subjects who had to jump at your command! It was both practical and thematic.

 

[Peserwin]

Anyone else having a challenge facing Sumeria since patch? Played 3 rounds against Gilga and every time he managed to enter renaissance era around 1500bc, trashing 2 city states and one game he even managed to take out Japan and Denmark. Crazy!

 

[Trengilly]

I can't help but wonder if the movement away from comprehensive reports screens was another part of the Devs wanting people to get more info "from the map" rather than screens

I think you might be on to something - I certainly have found the report screens so painful to use that I end up not bothering.

And as for the new diplo screens, they are no help at all. I spent endless hours clicking over to the little heart icon to find out what each leader thought of me.

There should be a SINGLE diplo summary screen that shows you how ALL the leaders feel about you.
Likewise I still want a global summary screen that shows who are friends, allied, denounced, and at war.

To be fair the new religion lens is a huge improvement. And I like how you can see how many turns until a city is going to convert - but only if you have selected a religious unit. If you just select the religion filter for some reason it doesn't show the conversion times. Unclear why its different.

Anyone else having a challenge facing Sumeria since patch?

Sumeria hasn't been in my post patch games. But Kongo has been kicking butt, Indonesia took a city from Monty (with land troops), and there seems to have been lots of other assorted AI warfare with cities being captured. The CS have generally been left alone in my games (playing Emperor) possibly because the AI's were too busy fighting each other.

 

[Swissy]

Anyone else having a challenge facing Sumeria since patch? Played 3 rounds against Gilga and every time he managed to enter renaissance era around 1500bc, trashing 2 city states and one game he even managed to take out Japan and Denmark. Crazy!

Good luck with that. Sumeria is a civ that starts with the most powerful unit in the game before Iron Working and an improvement that gives +2 science. The added AI aggressiveness in this patch just makes Sumeria overpowered vs city states and other AI. Build walls, hook up that iron and pray.

 

[Trengilly]

I'm also getting the starting too close 'bug'. Had a start where Kongo's initial settlers were 3 tiles away from mine and visible when the game launched. And another with a city state. It really seems like a bug but at least you can restart.

Although the AI is very aggressive they do seem to have fixed all the diplomacy issues that were added on the last patch. I've had no trouble getting alliances and joint wars. And was successful in keeping alliances despite quite a bit of warmongering. And the trade deals seem good.

All in all I'm very happy with this patch.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Whoa. I got a harbor and lighthouse pillaged and the repair was 1 turn each. Pretty sure that's not right.

 

[Disgustipated]

Anyone else having a challenge facing Sumeria since patch? Played 3 rounds against Gilga and every time he managed to enter renaissance era around 1500bc, trashing 2 city states and one game he even managed to take out Japan and Denmark. Crazy!

Sumeria was in my last game. He built 2 cities, and I conquered both eliminating him. I did it fairly early (though I founded my religion first), but not real early. He sent several war carts against me, but if you have enough archers ready, it's not a problem. As usual Kongo was the science leader in my game. But I didn't care, as I was going religious victory, and my religious people don't need that new fangled science. They were content to worship their gods in an ignorant state. I got my religious victory, but Aztecs put up a pretty good fight. They had a crapload of inquisitors making it somewhat challenging. Although the AI did some stupid things like attack my apostles in neutral territory. And they would have been more effective not attacking, but just converting cities after I convert them. As their units are cheaper than mine. But with a holy site in every one of my cities, they didn't stand a chance either way. I was cranking out over 270 faith per turn (epic speed standard earth map).
_______

So anyone know exactly what those numbers mean when you click the religion tab underneath a city (when you have your religious units selected of course)? I'm unsure what those numbers mean. There's a + and a number after that, but a weird symbol before the + sign if I recall correctly.

 

[nzcamel]

Whoa. I got a harbor and lighthouse pillaged and the repair was 1 turn each. Pretty sure that's not right.

It's a nice change from a million turns to repair them lol...but yah, sounds like another bug.

 

[Disgustipated]

It's a nice change from a million turns to repair them lol...but yah, sounds like another bug.

Not necessarily. Late game with a lot of production that sounds about right. A workshop usually only takes 2 turns to repair (on my epic speed games), and I think lighthouses might be cheaper than workshops.

 

[Guandao]

Whoa. I got a harbor and lighthouse pillaged and the repair was 1 turn each. Pretty sure that's not right.

I thought the repair usually only takes one turn? It does in my games (at least before the Autumn Patch). I haven't repaired pillaged stuff yet.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Not necessarily. Late game with a lot of production that sounds about right. A workshop usually only takes 2 turns to repair, and I think lighthouses might be cheaper than workshops.

I'm not in the late game, and I don't have an IZ anywhere near this city.

 

[Disgustipated]

I'm not in the late game, and I don't have an IZ anywhere near this city.

What game speed are you playing? I usually play epic, and 2 turns is pretty normal from maybe Modern age on.