Autumn 2017 Patch General Discussion

[Rosty K]

I'm pretty happy with the patch overall, and haven't noticed the starting position bug myself. It's not perfect, but a marked improvement over what we had through the summer. I've found the religious game is much easier to manage--although it can still use a bit of work, at least it's not seizure inducing when it switches back and forth. I'm still getting the "exit to desktop" freeze, for what it's worth.

I'm getting used to the new diplo screen, so not sure what to say yet...
Finally, and the ONE thing that really stands out as ruining the diplomatic part of the game: The "occupy city" penalty that NEVER goes away after hundreds of turns, and thousands of years...really, it's probably the biggest problem of the diplomatic aspect of the game. The only solution, barring a completely peaceful game (which is nearly impossible on higher levels) is to completely annihilate your enemy. Leave even one city, and he will hate you for the rest of the game, and his allies will, too, and it will always come back to bite you. It never reduces from its initial value. The alternative is to commit genocide, and everyone eventually forgets as your warmongering penalty drops over time...

I know this last bit is a bit off topic, but since they seem to have spent time on the diplomatic aspect of the game this time around, I thought it might have been fixed...

There's another solution. Take the cities you want + 1 and return that extra one in a peace deal. That'll remove the 'occupy city' penalty. Also I think others suggested that even settling a rubbish city and giving it to them will remove the penalty, but I haven't tested that myself.

 

[kingofsealand]

I'm pretty happy with the patch overall, and haven't noticed the starting position bug myself. It's not perfect, but a marked improvement over what we had through the summer. I've found the religious game is much easier to manage--although it can still use a bit of work, at least it's not seizure inducing when it switches back and forth. I'm still getting the "exit to desktop" freeze, for what it's worth.

I'm getting used to the new diplo screen, so not sure what to say yet...
Finally, and the ONE thing that really stands out as ruining the diplomatic part of the game: The "occupy city" penalty that NEVER goes away after hundreds of turns, and thousands of years...really, it's probably the biggest problem of the diplomatic aspect of the game. The only solution, barring a completely peaceful game (which is nearly impossible on higher levels) is to completely annihilate your enemy. Leave even one city, and he will hate you for the rest of the game, and his allies will, too, and it will always come back to bite you. It never reduces from its initial value. The alternative is to commit genocide, and everyone eventually forgets as your warmongering penalty drops over time...

I know this last bit is a bit off topic, but since they seem to have spent time on the diplomatic aspect of the game this time around, I thought it might have been fixed...

I used to say I would agree but Poland has surprised me in my latest game as Saladin. She denounced and tried to declare an ancinent no penalties war but I DOWed first. Took her two best cities leaving only her capital and forced her to cede them in the peace deal

I took hardly any warmonger penalty so everyone else has remained mostly friendly, and recently (about halfway point on standard speed) Poland's red face has disappeared and she hasn't denounced me again! I didn't check if that modifier is gone but i had never seen someone i robbed "get over it". Either way was pleasantly surprised.

 

[Archon_Wing]

One possible workaround is to take their crappy cities (pillage like mad) and slaughter their army. Then you demand their best cities for peace and return the worthless one

Even better if you can liberate a city that they captured.

It is probably better to just kill them though.

 

[bbbt]

That diplomacy penalty makes sense to me overall, I think to me is more the issue that there's not really a lot of major positive diplomacy things to outweigh the major negatives. I.e. it could be a sore spot but it's been since surpassed by the positives you've done/in your relationship.

Also, unless this was fixed, even if you trade the city away the dipo penalty remains. I think it should transfer to the new owner (but with the negative accounted for in the trade logic!)

 

[Victoria]

The "occupy city" penalty that NEVER goes away after hundreds of turns, and thousands of years...

There's another solution. Take the cities you want + 1 and return that extra one in a peace deal. That'll remove the 'occupy city' penalty. Also I think others suggested that even settling a rubbish city and giving it to them will remove the penalty, but I haven't tested that myself.

Just to clarify.
If you do not specify to keep city before making peace on the same turn then more fool you, if it's that annoying then you should not be doing this.

The fact that the AI sometimes does this is annoying. There is no solution I am aware of to get rid of its occupied status. I tried dealing back , giving away etc.. no luck

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

2kqa_d just updated with all the usual stuff. Hopefully they are testing a hotfix.

 

[bbbt]

2kqa_d just updated with all the usual stuff. Hopefully they are testing a hotfix.

On one hand it seems a lot of testing this early if it's not the hotfix. Otoh it seems a lot of testing for the hotfix.

 

[TurboJ]

I was just "fighting" some Norwegian frigates. One normal frigate, one fleet. While I bombard their coastal city into submission, the enemy frigates do not react. AT ALL. OK, city is mine so it's time to kill those frigates. I engage them and sink them (took around 4 turns). Enemy frigates do not fire ONE SINGLE SHOT. Even when they could shoot while stationary, and even if they outnumber me, still they will not shoot even once. And I remember they were talking about improved naval AI? Deity bonus doesn't help enemy ships all that much if they are all completely unarmed...

 

[bbbt]

Yeah I feel like I've seen that before with land units too, like they fall off the AI's mental list of units it has. I wonder if there's some bugginess where if the AI has units it doesn't have something to do with at the very moment, it tables them, and then ends up forgetting them.

 

[nzcamel]

I've found the religious game is much easier to manage--although it can still use a bit of work, at least it's not seizure inducing when it switches back and forth.

Agreed 100% on how much more gentle the religious screen is on my eyes!

Finally, and the ONE thing that really stands out as ruining the diplomatic part of the game: The "occupy city" penalty that NEVER goes away after hundreds of turns, and thousands of years...really, it's probably the biggest problem of the diplomatic aspect of the game. The only solution, barring a completely peaceful game (which is nearly impossible on higher levels) is to completely annihilate your enemy. Leave even one city, and he will hate you for the rest of the game, and his allies will, too, and it will always come back to bite you. It never reduces from its initial value. The alternative is to commit genocide, and everyone eventually forgets as your warmongering penalty drops over time...

I know this last bit is a bit off topic, but since they seem to have spent time on the diplomatic aspect of the game this time around, I thought it might have been fixed...

It is odd that they've allowed this confusion to remain in the game so long...

 

[Gedemon]

Yeah I feel like I've seen that before with land units too, like they fall off the AI's mental list of units it has. I wonder if there's some bugginess where if the AI has units it doesn't have something to do with at the very moment, it tables them, and then ends up forgetting them.

Yes, I had seen something like that once in a test game in autoplay, I don't remember if I was using/testing an AI mod at the time, but the AI seemed to have completely forgotten a small group of units located in the same area, never doing anything them. As you're saying, it may be units collected by the AI for an operation then for a reason or another the operation get stuck in the middle of a decision tree.

 

[cvb]

I was just "fighting" some Norwegian frigates. One normal frigate, one fleet. While I bombard their coastal city into submission, the enemy frigates do not react. AT ALL. OK, city is mine so it's time to kill those frigates. I engage them and sink them (took around 4 turns). Enemy frigates do not fire ONE SINGLE SHOT. Even when they could shoot while stationary

Any remote chance to provide 'them' a (repeatable) savegame for a bug report? Now this is a BIG FAT BUG in the central nervous system of the game, not just UI dummy ...

Anyone wants to argue "it works like intended"?

 

[Victoria]

Anyone wants to argue "it works like intended"?

If it's intended that only one Civ city shoots per turn then yes.

 

[cvb]

You are right. I should have mentioned, that it was me who boldified some text in the quote.

 

[TurboJ]

Any remote chance to provide 'them' a (repeatable) savegame for a bug report? Now this is a BIG FAT BUG in the central nervous system of the game, not just UI dummy ...

Anyone wants to argue "it works like intended"?

Sadly I don't have the savegame anymore (autosaves deleted after certain number of turns). But I will see if I find the same phenomenon again. Before the patch I pretty much expected the enemy naval units to never do anything at all, but after the patch notes I have been looking more closely.

FWIW I did witness AI attacking one of my cities with land units in the mid game on an earlier post-patch game. Before the patch I don't remember seeing AI do a coordinated city assault after very early warrior/archer rushes. 1040 hours of Civ VI played and I've yet to see AI utilize its naval units apart from rare, single attacks by a single ship. Sad part is so far I can't see anything changed by the patch. Or perhaps there is one thing, AI ships retreating more readily than before. But as fot shooting? Not so much

 

[Disgustipated]

I was just "fighting" some Norwegian frigates. One normal frigate, one fleet. While I bombard their coastal city into submission, the enemy frigates do not react. AT ALL. OK, city is mine so it's time to kill those frigates. I engage them and sink them (took around 4 turns). Enemy frigates do not fire ONE SINGLE SHOT. Even when they could shoot while stationary, and even if they outnumber me, still they will not shoot even once. And I remember they were talking about improved naval AI? Deity bonus doesn't help enemy ships all that much if they are all completely unarmed...

I've had several pretty cool naval battles since the patch. My last one against England in my World domination game (where I aim to conquer every single city on a large Earth TSL map). I'm playing Indonesia, and currently working on taking North and South America (I'll save the rest of Asia for last) and had some good battles with England in the Caribbean Sea. England is my chief rival right now, and she had a lot of ships.

I think what happens is when the AI is backed into a corner, they just huddle up and do nothing with their units. But when their units are outside their territory (as in the cases I described above) they are more aggressive with their units. It's like the AI doesn't risk attacking with their units when they are on the defensive, but really they should with a unit like a frigate.

 

[Balkans]

I'm aiming to play a new game on this patch, but i see there are some discussions about issues with spawning locations. I saw also that there is a mod fix, but some people in the comments are complaining that it causes other type of issues ... Is it that bad to roll a game without a fix? What do you suggest, install a mod, roll without a mod, or wait a couple of day/weeks since it's likely that even Firaxis can fix such a minor bug in a reasonable time frame?

 

[nzcamel]

Ok, so not new and an appalling bug to not fix for a major religion revamp.

I think this religious promotion bug is new. It's different to the old one where you would eventually run out of promotions, but have two choices till then. Now I don't get a choice

 

[cvb]

Sadly I don't have the savegame anymore [...] But as fot shooting? Not so much

Reading "[AI TUNING] Improved AI’s naval gameplay, including protection and healing of naval units, building a proper navy, and assaulting coastal cities" I think:
Probably the problem isn't you "engaged them and sank them (took around 4 turns)" quicker than they could heal. The frigates might have (try to) protected the city ... or not, wherefore ever ... still than they refused to protect themselves!

I suppose the frigates are in the same group of units. Might be interesting to change the affiliation of one frigate to another or a own group and look whether this influences anything. (Provided the units are not simply "forgotten" by the system, which is possible as well)
Would also like to know, what the current agenda of those units is ... "eNavState_countTinyWaves"?! ... which (other) states are valid? ... even "eNavState_defendCityArea" ... ...

Tools? What tools? (We are still in an early phase of game development. )

 

[Rosty K]

Maybe they just "optimize" the AI turn time by straight limiting it, and that's why 'forgotten' units? Just a thought, I know nothing.

I must say that the war between Indonesia and Norway on a watery map is quite entertaining And the AI Harald makes good use of his ability so that his ships just suddenly appear from everywhere (pre-cartography). He even managed to really pull a 'surprise' war on me by stealing my builders on the coast right after declaring. He couldn't take them too far though.

And I've noticed that the AI slightly changed their settling habits. They still attempt to forward-settle, but at least that normally happens later than their second city. And if you block their path to the spot, they change the target.