Beta 7 Talk

[youtien]

I was wrong about Chivalry. It is set for 1230 give or take 60 years, so 1197 isn't too far off. The AI can build a wonder in 15 - 20 turns on a high productivity city, maybe less depending on the wonder, make that even less with Golden Age and/or Great Engineer.

I actually wonder if we should disable tech trading, since the AI trades way too much. If anyone gets a tech, then they immediately trade it to everyone else. Or maybe make a tech unavailable for trading until X turns pass its historic date. Tech brokering is already disabled.

Yeah, Chivalry too late. In my French game I founded Teutonics before chivalry, then I could built the most powerful unit that time.

 

[Science Rules]

Minor Bug: The worker action buttons says "Build a Winery" even though the improvement has been replaced with a vineyard.

 

[Opera]

Today I got to do something I don't do very often, I played a game of RFCE. I played with Venice. UHV 1 is fine, you get to conquer Ragusa and build 2 cities. It was close, but doable.

Second UHV is problematic. While the code works (there are no bugs), the Byzantines are ridiculous. First, it was the French that took and kept Jerusalem, which means no Crusades to deviate. Second, the Byz had at least 20 units in Constantinople. Even thought I had enough Trebuchets to get the city defense to 0%, I still needed over 40 Heavy Lancers to capture the city (40 Heavy Lancers were curtsy to the World Builder). In the mean time I lost at least 6 of my own HL to Byzantine Cataphracts. Something is off here ... The only good thing was that once I got the city, Byzantium collapsed. Also, my stability was OK.

Why do you guys think the Byz got so strong. The AI still gets the old penalties (only the human was buffed). They still lost two cities to the Seljuks. I didn't take too long to attack Constantinople, I declared war the turn before I entered their borders and two turns later I lost two Heavy Lancers. Cataphracts are not cheaper than HL (just stronger since they are the UU). Even a Crusade would have not taken that ...

The big changes that we made involved stability, which the Byz got anyway since it is their UP. Another one was the tech rate, but the Byz are just not that far behind behind.

Damn, I really was lucky with my horse-archer-guarded Constantinople

 

[Daffy]

Yeah, Chivalry too late. In my French game I founded Teutonics before chivalry, then I could built the most powerful unit that time.

how about making the military orders require chivalry

 

[youtien]

Cordoba UHV #1 is bugged again(fail before the date).
Venice UHV #1 also bugged... does conquer means no single foreign tile? If so, we'll have to conquer or wipe out Thessaloniki to secure Epirus.

 

[Zipzapzup]

The big changes that we made involved stability, which the Byz got anyway since it is their UP. Another one was the tech rate, but the Byz are just not that far behind behind.

I haven't looked at AI Byzanz now but i think in previous versions they were very busy recapturing cities they lost to bad stability, especially in Anatolia. I wonder if that is still the case. The Seljuk invasion also has a very small impact now, in the past byz lost mostly all cities in anatolia and now they lose like 1 or 2.

 

[Veshta]

Playing England (in love with the Hammer!) and tech rate is much better, even managed to pick up some random cheapsies for Aristocracy. All civs have roughly the same techs with FRA/GER being in lead by a couple.
Byzanz is firmly in the lead and in control of Anatolia with a staggering amount of hardware moving around, they could steam-roll Arabs and Bulgars easy but don't .. no independents at all and just one city has fallen to Seljuks so something is definitely off.

Spain and France just got Knights in 1140 after having France took (and lost) Jerusalem thus getting the GA .. Spain just hijacked a crusade and showing Cordoba a thing or two about Euro steel.

One thing I have noticed that applies to all the AI civs, city placement appears much more thought out. FRA/GER has very little if any overlap and the same for Poland who is growing albeit slowly.

Now if only I knew where to settle the damn Isles to minimize hassle, overlap and maximize everything else

Edit: Ok, problem is stagnating research still exists for England. With just the starting cities + Edinburgh I have 10% research and still bleeding money .. lack of rivers really cuts deep.
1233: Krak was built in 1210, all the AIs have knights and patronage researched so I expect them to get military tradition soon™ .. I am still 10 turns from Guilds

Perhaps allow the English to build workshops with Civil Service? Wales and Scotland have great production but matters little when all other cities struggle to build even basic buildings/troops.

 

[ezzlar]

The Keshiks on the other hand managed to destroy Kievans, capture half of Hungary and Poland, and the rampage is not yet over (in a game as the Lithuanians).

 

[3Miro]

Venice UHV 1 is bugged, it requires you to capture Morea along with the rest. I removed this for the next version, in the mean time you guys can use the WB.

 

[3Miro]

Cordoba UHV #1 is bugged again(fail before the date).
Venice UHV #1 also bugged... does conquer means no single foreign tile? If so, we'll have to conquer or wipe out Thessaloniki to secure Epirus.

Do you have an autosafe from right before it does that?

 

[3Miro]

1233: Krak was built in 1210, all the AIs have knights and patronage researched so I expect them to get military tradition soon™ .. I am still 10 turns from Guilds

This is not wrong. Krak des Chevaliers was build in 1250AD.

I think England should start with at east Heavy Lancers and perhaps a few more techs.

 

[Veshta]

Oh no doubt the timing is accurate, just very disheartening when you are at least 40-50 turns from even getting the tech yourself

They already get 2 H.Lancers +3 on FRA declaration. Big problem is techs (goes for all the late comers really), with the new much more uniform tech landscape there is no trades available and you'll always be behind as opponents are already "at speed" .. only way I see is to rampage and collapse everyone but I doubt stability will like that

You mentioned changing tech trading, start with that and see where it ends up. I have a sneaking suspicion that is one of the main reasons for the very uniform tech landscape.

PS: Loving the province thing, seems to work nicely for the AI as well.

 

[merijn_v1]

Minor Bug: The worker action buttons says "Build a Winery" even though the improvement has been replaced with a vineyard.

Fixed in the next version.

 

[Daffy]

Oh no doubt the timing is accurate, just very disheartening when you are at least 40-50 turns from even getting the tech yourself

They already get 2 H.Lancers +3 on FRA declaration. Big problem is techs (goes for all the late comers really), with the new much more uniform tech landscape there is no trades available and you'll always be behind as opponents are already "at speed" .. only way I see is to rampage and collapse everyone but I doubt stability will like that

You mentioned changing tech trading, start with that and see where it ends up. I have a sneaking suspicion that is one of the main reasons for the very uniform tech landscape.

the 2 lancers are needed to defend against the barb spawns in wales and scotland(if you've used up your free wins against barbs by capturing edinburgh they are the only ones that stand a chance against those welsh longbowmen and highlanders)
in many cases you start already at war with france, thus no extra troops
iirc this was intentional

i'm also curious about how disabling tech trading might work out

 

[3Miro]

i'm also curious about how disabling tech trading might work out

It is either disabling tech trade, or disallowing tech trade for X turns after its historic date. Thus whomever gets Chivalry first, will not be able to trade it for some time (and others will not get it instantly).

 

[Daffy]

It is either disabling tech trade, or disallowing tech trade for X turns after its historic date. Thus whomever gets Chivalry first, will not be able to trade it for some time (and others will not get it instantly).

sounds even better

haven't gotten that far in beta7 yet but in beta 6 the AI didn't value coal (willing to gift it)
but running dutch autoplay so I'll find out soon enough

 

[Leoreth]

Will this trading limitation only affect the AI or also the human player? Because focusing on later techs to trade them away afterwards is usually a legitimate strategy in Civ.

 

[rob85]

The dynamic names for all civs are broken. Everyone has the 'empire' name from the start to the end of the game. Only vassals are renamed. Someone has already reported this but there was no answer.
I've started 4 games as Austria, and the Germans always founded Salzburg. It's quite annoying because I can't raze this city before it flips to me (it's rather a crappy city).

 

[youtien]

Do you have an autosafe from right before it does that?

Sorry, no.

Trying English now. All early wonders are built by AI gradually, I only managed to found Hanseatic League. Calais was razed, I flipped Caen and conquered Antwerp & Liege(raze) from Burgandians. French collapsed by themselves around 1200, took Paris with a little effort.

It's not easy for English to get resources, luckily in my game Paris has a gold, And it popped a gem near Caen in 1320s. Now it is 1340 and I am going to settle Norway (west from the fur).

 

[ezzlar]

It is either disabling tech trade, or disallowing tech trade for X turns after its historic date. Thus whomever gets Chivalry first, will not be able to trade it for some time (and others will not get it instantly).

Sounds really good. Maybe 30-40 turns? Then you can trade lesser techs.

Germany and France could use a tech nerf.