CEP 3.3.4 feedback (long, with specific examples)

CEP 3.3.4 is coming along well. I am back playing Civ 5 and enjoying it in BNW, since you're modding away most of the broken bits of vanilla (again). Here is some feedback to do with what you will.

Feedback Point number 1: The tech tree and the popups for tech completions do not match the CEP tech tree very well. I will give some specific examples.

Example 1: Clearing a marsh should have a machete icon on the tech tree, or a star with text, or something. Instead it's just not there. Now I know, by having moved a unit onto marsh, that it requires masonry in CEP, but an icon should be on the tech tree.

Example 2: When you discover a new tech, a popup box comes up with some flavor text. At the bottom of this flavor text is a summary of what the new tech does for you in a gameplay sense (icons, etc). THESE icons do not match CEP. Specific example: The discovering bronze working popup shows that it will reveal iron on the map (with iron icon and text)... which is not true.

Feedback Point number 2: I was fairly sure after reading the most recent unit rebalance thread that Thal was splitting march away from the recon branch and moving it to the end of drill 3, etc for melee units. In my CEP 3.3.4 game, ranged units DID correctly get march after their second drill promotion, but melee units WERE NOT able to get march even after acquiring drill 3. This did not match the civilopedia entries, and there is no in-game method of determining the promotion hierarchy. I suspect a bug, but I'm going to keep leveling up a unit to see if I ever see the March promotion. I agree with the rebalance, but I think it's not fully implemented in 3.3.4.

Feedback Point number 3: Pointless buildings, and "temporary effect" policies. While the argument can (and I'm certain it will, in the replies to this thread) be made that situational buildings and temporary (albeit powerful) policies are reasonable choices... they don't feel good to me.

Example 1: The mint prior to this most recent mod beta patch. It literally did NOTHING for most cities. At least with the passive +2 gold boost... if I have a city idling and doing nothing... it can work on a mint. The same is true for the garden prior to this most recent mod beta patch. The +1 food at least gives it SOME benefit to offset the maintenance cost. I really feel like you understand me about this point, but you just haven't had a chance to finish rebalancing the buildings completely.

Example 2: "temporary effect" policies. At the end of one of the ideologies is the "gain +25% attack, for 25(?) turns" ideology. This is supposed to be my huge military end perk of awesome? Really? What good global war is over in 25, 50 turns? If you were killing them that badly... you certainly didn't need that policy. ALL of the tier 3 ideology policies make me want to cry. They should be so awesome... but instead most of them are "+1 tourism, woot." The tier 1 and 2 policies have some of the most powerful effects of all social policies in the game with regards to food, happiness, even military in the game. However, the tier 3 policies in general are lackluster, and the temporary buff is one of the worst. Who wastes a valuable pick in such a way unless you are already at the last 25 turns of the game?

At any rate, those are my thoughts for now. I know you're not fully done reactivating the GEM fixes, but those are the things that I think about as I am playing the current version of CEP.

 

The building changes that have been implemented so far were cautious to avoid upsetting the BNW general economic balance in culture and gold in particular. There was a "contentious" but friendly debate over several thread pages about opera houses and a long debate over the barracks that hasn't made any official change yet at all, so any more significant changes on buildings than most of those that have occurred is likely to be slow in coming while other changes to policies or leaders or wonders or possibly the interface get worked in and the general economic balance is felt out. I think there's a couple that were either missed or undocumented that could be done in the meantime (hydro plants and windmills for example) but in either event, I would not expect buildings to get to a GEM style major overhaul versus modest adjustments to cost or upkeep rather than function to balance them. At least not any time soon.

The temporary effect policies are by default. We haven't modified those yet. There hasn't been as much debate about ideologies yet versus some of the early policy trees. I expect those kinds of policies will be high on the chopping block for reform.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

First, there are lots of tooltip and other errors. These will take a long time to find them all, but they are inevitable in a beta.

The gardens gives a large great person point bonus. That's what the garden is for, it is far from pointless. I don't really see the problem, it is a powerful building. You build it in your specialist/great person cities; if you aren't using specialists or generating great people, then don't build it. The mint I suspect should still be locked to cities with gold/silver/gems.

We haven't done policy rebalancing yet and haven't really discussed tenets at all. So these are all the vanilla BNW effects. I think a 50 turn boost actually does cover a long time, that is a big bonus for a significant war, and a big war late game against your main opponent can be what wins you the game.

Some tenets are certainly underpowered, but others are excellent. For example, the +6 influence per turn from trade routes with city states in Freedom.

But the most important thing about tenets IMO is that because you won't be getting all of them, there is much more scope to make the tenets be narrower in their effects than policies, where you have to get them all in a tree to get the finisher.

 

I'm not trying to make anyone who works on the project defensive in any way. My feedback merely reflects my thoughts while playing the latest beta build.

That being said... the garden great person bonus is only useful in the few cities that are specialist focused, and previous to this very last beta... could only be built next to a lake. That's pretty limited scope in my opinion. However, the most recent changes, which are very reminiscent of GEM unlock it for all cities, and give it a (small) use in cities with no priority building to work on that are not your main specialist hubs. I very much LIKE the current incarnation, and the point of that segment of feedback is that I hope every building will eventually reach a similar modicum of usefulness outside of the initial (pre beta 3.3.4) narrow scope.

 

I don't take offense, just explaining that the project goals are not as broad yet. We would agree finding a use for less-useful buildings is on the list though.

I'd say gardens were fine either way. The advantage of non lake/river construction was that you could have city specialist buildings outside of such places, not that it makes the garden better. The food bonus is just to give it a little boost where you already want it. But there are many other buildings for which GEM/CEP changes are much more noticeable (stables, markets, forge).

 

Well...yeah. Part of the design of Civ V is that you shouldn't be building every building in every city. There are maintenance costs on buildings to force you to make a choice. Which set of buildings can you afford to build? This city might be specialized in tourism output, so you build culture buildings to house all your great works. This city might be science oriented, so you make sure it has a lot of farms/granary/science buildings/etc. You don't bother building expensive buildings which cost you maintenance in cities that cannot fully take advantage of them. Most of the time you have better options.

 

You should try to temporary effect ideologies.
The +25% attack during 25-50 turns (depends game speed) lets you take over at least one of your opponents if you've got a decent army.

Especially later in the game taking over all their cities, great works and wonders is immense.

Temporary effects are so much more powerful and helpful if you're able to take full advantage of them

 

Toward the end of the game 25 turns is an eternity if you have a large army and are conducting operations every turn. Late game units have so many moves that you can cover alot of ground and that extra 25% could be the key to an overwhelming blitz.

Yeah its poo if you try it in the industrial or modern eras, but once you get to the atomic and information eras 25 turns is plenty. In my experience well planned late game wars can happen and end very quickly.