Best way to get an issue in front of the devs? These things need fixing!

Seriously, does anyone know? Do they read the forums at the 2k site? I want to know where to send this email.

The following issues are all significant and worthy of attention. I think most people on the forums would agree, so the question is, what's the best way to get these into the next patch?

Here it is:

1) The 5%/city science nerf is too extreme.

This has nerfed the AI tremendously. It nerfed player wide empires so much that quite a few social policies/UAs/UBs/beliefs are now ineffective. Try 4%, or even 3%. Please? It's an easy change.

2) You should not be able to repair pillaged improvements in enemy territory.

This has made The Pyramids the new Statue of Zeus, and makes Liberty clearly superior for Domination. It's an easy change.

3) Honor needs a boost, even if they nerf pillage-healing.

This isn't as straightforward, and there are lots of suggestions, but I think most people would agree that:
*The happiness and culture shouldn't be tied to garrisons. This is vastly more appropriate for self-defense than it is for offense. Walls was never appropriate either.. again, they're for defense.
* Increasing the spawn rate of generals in no way fixed Honor. Honor didn't need help taking cities. That isn't the hard part of playing with Honor. The hard part is overcoming the slow cultural boundary expansion, happiness issues, slow growth and resulting tech imbalance. If you're supposed to be taking cities instead of building them, then the newly-increased penalty for early city capture hurts Honor most of all.
* The production/combat bonuses shouldn't apply to only melee units. This perhaps made sense before archers/CBs/XBows became the most effective way to attack cities, but it no longer makes any sense, and at the very least it should apply to rifling units, possibly even siege units, to make them more appealing than CBs for offense.

4) The penalty for city capture is too high for City-States.

It breaks the way Genghis Khan was intended to play. It's an unfair advantage to Austria and Venice, who are now the only civs who can afford to capture a CS.

5) The penalty for city capture is too high in the early game.

It's now a bad idea to use take cities before the Medieval Era. This devalues ancient and classical UU's designed for conquest. This penalizes Assyria, Attila, Rome, Monte and Shaka, among others. Especially Assyria/Attila, who's UU can ONLY be used for city capture. Even the Celts UU description states "... Perfectly suited for early rushes..."

If early rushes are not intended to result in city capture, then building all those melee units is an expensive waste right now in the gold-limited BNW environment.

6) Piety benefits are too delayed for a "starting" policy tree.

There's no culture until the closer, no happiness at all, and even the indirect bonuses that you can get via faster faith generation don't come until too late. 200 faith for your first +happiness/+culture building (assuming that this is how Piety is supposed to give you happiness and culture) takes too long to accumulate, especially if you want to get a decent enhancer belief. Tradition and Liberty give you immediate advantages that have great synergy with each other. Piety starts to help mostly after t100.

7) Piety doesn't help secure you a pantheon, let alone a religion.

You aren't planting your second city until t30 at the earliest, and even if you build a shrine first, it isn't helping until t35. The 1st policy comes too late to start building your first shrine. The 2nd policy comes too late to get a pantheon from the +2 faith. You don't get temples until Theology. The closer comes too late to get a religion. And until you DO get a religion, nothing in the tree has any value. Imagine if nothing in Liberty or Tradition gave benefit until t70...

The civs who found pantheons are invariably those who a) find faith ruins, b) settle their second city near a Natural Wonder, or c) find a faith CS.

Something in Piety should guarantee you a pantheon or religion (if there is one left) without forcing you to sacrifice growth/culture/etc. Perhaps this is mostly a difficulty level balance issue, but Piety should be viable on every difficulty level.

8) Rationalism is so strong it's the no-brainer policy. It needs the nerf bat, somehow.

I suggest reducing secularism to +1/specialist. That'll be enough to make the other trees more tempting.

 

Regarding point one above. The 5% penalty for science is not extreme at all. Once you get a University and over 6 population (until about Public Schools) , you generate more science than the penalty. If it was lower, it would be too underpowered to go with a small, high population empire.

Penalty for city capture early game isnt too harsh. Go take a bunch of cities. Just make sure to make at least one friend before doing it. The friend wont get mad at you regardless of how many cities you take.

Piety sucks. Move it back to the Classical Era. Change opener to +2 culture from Shrines. That would at least give it a chance of being picked. The tree needs serious buffs.

 

agree about piety, and pillaging. I actually liked G&K piety better than the current version. Faith is best combined with going wide, but it's real hard to go wide without liberty (and with other nerfs to wide play in general).

 

I think piety would work with either
1. +2 faith per turn from Palace added to opener
or
2. +50 (standard speed) one-time faith boost added to opener

That means it would probably guarantee a pantheon and/or a good boost towards getting a religion.

City capture penalties in the ancient era probably could be toned down...
however, a better solution probably is
For civs...Change gameplay...don't wipe out civs (only declare war when they have 2 or more cities)
For CS... Change the rules... make it easier to bully them (possibly with a bonus to Honor allowing easier/more profitable bullying, similar to the Autocracy tenet)


Definitely agree on Rationalism.. +1/specialist would be Just enough.

 

I disagree with 1 and 3,but everyone else I argue with. Honor is very strong. Yes liberty and tradition are better choices usually but honor is designed to be strong in a certain style of winning. The 5% penalty is basically neglected the moment you build univerties. Everything else here though should be fixed by fireaxis.

 

Maybe I'm irrational, but I'm not the least bit tempted by rationalism (unless I'm going SV). In half my games, I don't even open it. Aesthetics, commerce, and ideology are much juicier to me.

Also, I strongly disagree with point #1.

Otherwise he makes some good points.

 

1. yes, Yes, YES. At least let's add policy which will lower it. NOT IN TRADITION

2. I have no opinion on that

3. YES. How about some policy (or finisher) which will reduce unhappiness penalty for occupied cities, and reduce resistance period? Finisher is terrible. Also: how about replacing possibility to replace courthouses with garrisons? As long as unit is stationed in the city - no need for courthouse.

4 and 5. Civ has become waaay to peaceful. It is idiotic (as 95% units in game are military units), and unhistorical. Let's face it: successful war was most profitable in antiquity, middle ages, and modern era until first world war. It was very much accepted by society back then. It should be reflected in the game.

6. I would change Religious tolerance to something different (looks good on paper, but not in the game). Religion should be way more important. There should not be a limit on religions you want to establish. Also there should be no "first come, first serve" system in beliefs. You get Messenger of Gods, I get messenger of Gods, do I want pagoda - yes, so do my neighbors.

8. Not really - just make religion more important, or make it exclusive with piety. Either you dwell on religion, become theocracy and start religious wars, or you start age of enlightenment - and get Gatling guns and factories faster. Strong rationalism is actually one of few historically accurate aspects of CIV 5

9. My own idea to make wide empires more viable - easy to implement:
Each city connected to capital gives you some small amount of money (via automatic trade). How about introducing something like "Trade opportunities" - each city above 4 which is connected to capital gives you bonus 5% to city connection money. Easy to implement, not THAT strong.

10. Rename "Tradition" to "Despotism" - no more political correctness

 

The only effective way (IMO) of balancing Rationalism would be completely removing it and replacing it with a tree that offers no (major) science bonuses. (I think the same of Babylon's and Korea's UAs but that is a topic of it's own.) Minor science bonuses are okay (a la Commerce's +1 beaker from gold buildings) though.

 

Rationalism is where it is supposed to be.

Either you take rationalism and in 50 turns you have steam power, or you are in the dust, using muskets to fight rifles. This is how it happen, this is how it should stay.

 

1) I don't know ... In my current game SG6 the Ottomans control a Huge Empire and are Leaders in Science ...
2) don't know about that
3) Honor + military buildings like barracks need a change imho.
at least make the GG from Warrior Code maintenance free
4) Mongols have the worst trait imho ... so if there is a replacment for that, we could think about the penalty
5) One of my first BNW games was a Domination Victory with Rome ... Catpured 2 capitals with my legions. Yes it's harder but it's possible. Best idea: Attack the a.i. Warmonger
6+7) Jesuit Education itself is worth the whole Piety Tree. Being able to buy Universities, or Science Labs in all your cities in 1 turn is crazy good.
8) Don't nerf Rationalism ... Buff Commerce and Exploration

to be continued...

 

ad 3)
I think military builduings themselves should increase the Unit Production Rate. Something like:
Barracks: +15% production towards Melee and Gunpowder units
Armory: +15% production towards Ranged Units
Military Academy: +15% production towards Air Units
Stables: Stay the same
Forge: +15% towards all Melee/Gunpowder/Mounted/Armored Units ... or ... Melee Units trained in this city get the "Cover I" Promotion

Honor's finisher should be included in "Mercenary Army" in a weaker form.
Honor should be a tree that encourages you to use your military + military infrastructure. Perhaps Culture from Citadels, Barracks or Forts. The Culture Bonus from capturing Cities. Or you could gain a small bonus on tourism every time a unit or GG is produced. Or a Tourism Bonus for every capital or City State you control. Happiness from Heroic Epic. The chance that buildings survive if cities are captured is increased by some number ...etc.

 

I agree only rail & roads should be reapairable in ennemy territory.
The others... maybe the policies could be a bit more balanced. But otherwise, things are fine the way they are.

 

Ad 3.

It might be nice idea for units stationed in the city with barracks to maintenece free\large discount.

Armoury - discount on upgrading

 

I roughly agree with the opening post.

Worst symptom for me; almost everybody going full Tradition and Rationalism all the time, whatever the game, whatever the victory condition. No need to analyse or use your brain over these strategic choices - this is a bad thing.

For Honour I once suggested making the German trait an early policy in Honour, which seemed to go down well in this forum. Germany was to be reworked anyway, except we see now it's been reworked in a different way. Still, I think that would sort it (it doesn't need to be a 2/3 chance to get a recruit from a camp, the old 1/2 would do).

Taking Tradition could do with an extra 50% unhappiness for a newly founded city (from 4 to 6 unhappy faces on a standard map), to make this more genuinely a tree for staying tall. Only problem I see here is India, maybe there should be a max unhappiness figure for a newly founded town built in, so India would remain unaffected. The combined penalties would be too big for them otherwise.
My idea would mean other civs would basically get a slice of India's trait when they were to take Tradition. They would not just get the penalty; the way Monarchy works at the moment already stimulates population growth.

Patronage has some weak later policies, and the finisher free people not genuinely being free breaks the tree.

Piety is an impossible tree to open with just now, I agree, but I haven't had insights yet on how to make it better.

The suggestion in the opening post for some pruning to Rationalism seems sensible.

 

I'm surprised more people don't see the direct connection between the 5% science penalty and Deity being much easier in BNW than in G&K. If you couldn't win by t270 on Deity in G&K, the AI would assuredly achieve a VC. Sometimes the AI would win by t250 on Deity. Now you have until at least t310, sometimes as much as 350, on Deity. That's a huge reduction in difficulty.

The AI is coded to go wide, so the science penalty hamstrings the AI. The player can adjust and build less cities, and so they do. 4-city Liberty games are very common. Because of this, on Deity, although the AI starts with a huge tech advantage, by the time the player reaches the Modern Era, the AI is 1 Era behind. By the time the player reaches the Information Era, the AI is 2 Eras behind. Because they're building 10+ cities and suffering a 50%+ science penalty.

And for players, this devalues a large part of the Order tree. I think it's telling that most people (when not pursuing domination) only build 4-5 cities, at most 7, when opening Liberty. They went too far by making it 5%, that's all there is too it. At the very least, Liberty or Order should have a policy that reduces the penalty. Personally, I think it should be 4%, then 3% with the Liberty closer, and 2% with a policy in Order.

Also, I can't believe you don't see that Honor is incredibly weak. This is not my imagination. I think it's fair to say I'm probably one of the stronger Honor players on these forums. I've won on Deity with Honor multiple times in BNW post-patch, and every single one of those victories would have been WAAAAAY easier with Liberty. If not for the heavy warmonger penalty for early city capture, it wouldn't be quite so bad. If it weren't for pillage-healing, it wouldn't be quite so inferior.

But regardless, the policies have become outdated. Conquest is all about CBs/XBows up until artillery. Providing buffs to melee production/combat is just weak sauce in the new reality. The bottom line is that Honor, as a policy tree, is not nearly as refined, nor contains as much synergy, as Liberty or Tradition.

Honor is heavily reliant on early city capture, because there's nothing in the tree that helps expansion or growth, unlike Tradition or Liberty. And the devs have made early city capture unwise. By early, I mean before t60. To compensate for the lack of growth bonuses, tile improvement speed, free settlers and/or free workers, you must capture your 4th city instead of building it. If you try to build 4 cities with Honor, you just end up really behind the curve. Your empire will be inferior on t80 to an empire with Liberty or Tradition backing it up. Which means the one thing Honor is good at, conquest, is harder, because the backbone of conquest is growth,tech,production and economy.

The point is, it is *significantly* harder to win with Honor than either of the other two.

Consider, if you will, that it's too easy to win on Deity right now with Tradition and Liberty, and should be harder. If they fixed that, it'd be virtually impossible to win with Honor, without changes.

However, Piety is even worse IMHO. That tree has no synergy, no happiness, no growth, no culture, no nothing!

Here's what I mean by synergy:

Tradition:
1) +3 culture/turn means you get a free monument so fast you don't have to build it. 4 free monuments saves 160 hammers and 4gpt.

The fact that you can skip building a monument means that getting shrines up is actually EASIER with Tradition than it is with Piety!! It's easier to get military units out with Tradition than it is with Honor!!

2) Fact cultural boundary expansion helps growth, production and economy, so you can work the best tiles without spending money on them.

3) Monarchy comes just when your gpt spent on archers/workers has put you at 0gpt, and comes just when your happiness is at zero from all that early growth.

4) Landed Elite comes just when your growth is starting to slow, boosting it yet again.

5) Maintenance-free garrisons comes just when you hit Medieval, boosting your economy right when unit maintenance costs go up!!

6) (Free) Aqueducts and the bonus growth come just when your cities hit the point that growth would slow otherwise. Free aqueducts saves 400 hammers and 4gpt.

7) Aristocracy comes just when you're building the National College, and boosts happiness just when your citizenry reaches a significant level.

8) Faith-purchase of GE is just AWESOME.

Liberty:
1) The +1 production in cities and +10% to buildings comes early when it really helps.
2) The free settler comes just in time to start settling. The reduced cost settlers get your 4 cities out fast, securing your empire.
3) The free worker comes out just in time to help with the fact that you now have multiple cities. The boost to tile improvement helps even more.
4) The 2 free workers from Pyramids hits right around the same time, and boosts improvement more. All these freebies allow you to spend hammers on units or buildings.
4) Just when you have a ton of workers, you get a happiness bonus from connecting all your cities with roads. Which boosts happiness right as it's starting to hit zero.
5) Right when you need to build NC, you get a free GE if you want it. Or can build Macchu Pichu, very Liberty-friendly Wonder.
6) Right when your expansion starts to hurt your social policy acquisition, you get a reduction in cost. And a little golden age to boost your economy/production/culture to finish out the tree even more quickly.

There is definitely synergy in Honor, but none of it helps with the growth, happiness, production, or economy. (Until much later than the bonuses from Tradition/Liberty) So you hard build everything slowly and run out of happiness and gpt fast. If you actually use your units to fight, you lose the cpt/happiness. Melee units are nerfed, so those synergies add less value. The only useful synergy in Honor are:
1) The culture from barbarians and the notification of camp spawn.
2) The reduced unit upgrade cost and cheaper barracks. This comes just in time to upgrade CBs, which saves 120g or so. Compare that to the 900 gold you save from not building monuments, or the 1600 gold you save from not building aqueducts, or the 1400 gold you save from not building a settler and 3 workers. Clearly, this is *inferior*.

Piety's only useful synergy early is the reduced shrine build times early and the boost to faith generation. The temples don't come into play until much later.

 

So nobody knows the answer to my original question? Where is the best place to get dev attention with suggestions? Is it on these forums? Or elsewhere?

 

Agree, although I think a better fix than the nerf would be to not base library science on population (provides a flat +1 bonus instead) and have Philosophy give a +1 science upgrade to bonus resources. Science is population/food based, must have both large number of people and free time, but the library is a poor method for achieving this. The suggested changes also make bonus resources a valuable trade commodity.