City Development

[alpaca]

This is quite possible. These mods nerfed Greece and China and buffed a few of the low scorers, but there is definitely a way to turn siam into a powerhouse. However I think all these revisions need to be tried before pushing one down again. For example, the Ottomans are now also quite impressive, like Persia.

I actually expect Siam to become a powerhouse even in vanilla with the next patch. They get +50% culture from city states which is extra-useful without being able to stockpile social policies. Why? Because you will stockpile money instead and bribe all available cultural CS once you hit the Renaissance. Your Wats also produce extra culture because they come online at about the same time. Having them yield 50% more culture is strong. Why 2? Because Siam gets +50% food, which makes it more likely to get you over the rounding threshold, like it already is in this mod.

I'm not advocating nerfing Siam, by the way. I merely want to point out that it is maybe the most underrated civ because they not only have a good ability but the rest of the package is also quite good. In this way they are similar to China, who also have no extremely good special ability, unit or building but since all of them are good the civ becomes very strong.

 

[Txurce]

I actually expect Siam to become a powerhouse even in vanilla with the next patch. They get +50% culture from city states which is extra-useful without being able to stockpile social policies. Why? Because you will stockpile money instead and bribe all available cultural CS once you hit the Renaissance. Your Wats also produce extra culture because they come online at about the same time. Having them yield 50% more culture is strong. Why 2? Because Siam gets +50% food, which makes it more likely to get you over the rounding threshold, like it already is in this mod.

I'm not advocating nerfing Siam, by the way. I merely want to point out that it is maybe the most underrated civ because they not only have a good ability but the rest of the package is also quite good. In this way they are similar to China, who also have no extremely good special ability, unit or building but since all of them are good the civ becomes very strong.

Very good points. It's interesting that China matched Greece as highest rated. My guess is that it's from the voters weighing UUs too much, and SAs and UBs too little.

By the way, using these mods I have had a size 35 city in the nineteenth century, and a population of 55m with 8-9 cities.

 

[Thalassicus]

Sounds fun! Cities can cover so much space in Civ V, yet in vanilla it's difficult to really get any use out of that fun new feature.

I agree Siam is rather underrated. Still, remember they also got a nerf in the next patch, since melee mounted units get an attack penalty against cities. It affects Siam a little moreso than other civs since their UU is in that category.

 

[alpaca]

Sounds fun! Cities can cover so much space in Civ V, yet in vanilla it's difficult to really get any use out of that fun new feature.

I agree Siam is rather underrated. Still, remember they also got a nerf in the next patch, since melee mounted units get an attack penalty against cities. It affects Siam a little moreso than other civs since their UU is in that category.

I thought this applies to horsemen only? If not, it depends on how large a debuff it is so I'm refraining from comment

Agree about the culture by the way. I think border growth culture requirements should be significantly lower. This is one of the more overlooked reasons why ICS is so strong: You grab all the land with settlers instead of waiting far too long to claim it by culture.

 

[Thalassicus]

Yeah, item #5 under gameplay changes:

* Melee horse units combat value lowered, and now receive a penalty when attacking cities.

Apparently they're taking the approach of nerfing horsemen, knights AND cavalry.

I suspect the promotion used is the one tanks have, -40%.

 

[alpaca]

Yeah, item #5 under gameplay changes:



Apparently they're taking the approach of nerfing horsemen, knights AND cavalry.

I suspect the promotion used is the one tanks have, -40%.

Hmm this is realistic but I'm not sure if it's a good idea as it may make knights and cavalry pretty weak compared to their non-mounted counterparts (seeing that they aren't stronger and have counters already).

On the other hand, maybe the Songhai UU becomes useful now, and the issue wouldn't be so bad if there weren't hundreds of riflemen promoted from pikemen around. Ideally, I'd like game mechanics that reward you for balanced forces in the early eras but it's hard to pull off and I doubt we'll see that. In principle, knights should be very strong but more expensive to build and maintain than infantry. In a 1on1 fight they would normally win but they can be countered and you can have more infantry for the same price.

Maybe the change in vanilla actually goes in the right direction. Making horses weak against cities is the first step apart from the upgrade path that incentivizes you to build infantry. Horses are good in the field but drop them in a city and they become bad. Kind of like tanks are supposed to work so the change makes sense, really. Unfortunately, if you don't do anything to actually make knights stronger than their inf counterpart, there's not much reason to build them anymore (slightly higher attack and move don't balance out the upgrade path ending in my opinion).

 

[Thalassicus]

Worst part is it appears the attack strength of knights was reduced. This is why I specifically avoided nerfing the mounted unit line too hard... the problem is not just that mounted are overpowered, but alternatives are weak. Big nerfs to mounted units alone doesn't solve the other problems, like the siege promotion, city defenses, ranged unit cost-effectiveness, and the disparity between acc/bomb and shock/drill in attacking cities.

 

[Txurce]

On the other hand, maybe the Songhai UU becomes useful now, and the issue wouldn't be so bad if there weren't hundreds of riflemen promoted from pikemen around. Ideally, I'd like game mechanics that reward you for balanced forces in the early eras but it's hard to pull off and I doubt we'll see that. In principle, knights should be very strong but more expensive to build and maintain than infantry. In a 1on1 fight they would normally win but they can be countered and you can have more infantry for the same price.

In the current mod pikemen upgrade to lancers, so no concern about zillions of riflemen! These in turn in upgrade to AT guns and then choppers, all of which makes logical sense and has your head spinning.

I've always liked the realism of making knights more expensive, just because they were. Of course this runs up into the reality that it's fun to build mounted units. That horses shouldn't be effective against cities makes sense, of course, but the new mod already achieves that. You pretty much need siege units against anything with walls... and the walls go up surprisingly quick.

 

[Thalassicus]

I've managed to take quite a few walled cities.. typically with UUs. I've even taken some with just swordsmen... it depends on the surrounding terrain, defenders, and how big the city is.

Castles definitely require siege though, those are tough.

 

[Txurce]

I've managed to take quite a few walled cities.. typically with UUs. I've even taken some with just swordsmen... it depends on the surrounding terrain, defenders, and how big the city is.

Castles definitely require siege though, those are tough.

City size is a big factor. I just hit a size-6 walled Rome (archer defense) with three swords and two archers - all with the city-buster promotion. The archers barely made a ding in it after healing and the swords attacks would have been "costly," so I held off for trebuchets a few centuries later. Three trebs and those two archers took a size-15 Rome down in 3 turns or so.

I have taken them under special circumstances, of course, including with costly attacks that seem likely to work... or better work before I'm redlined!

 

[alpaca]

City size is a big factor. I just hit a size-6 walled Rome (archer defense) with three swords and two archers - all with the city-buster promotion. The archers barely made a ding in it after healing and the swords attacks would have been "costly," so I held off for trebuchets a few centuries later. Three trebs and those two archers took a size-15 Rome down in 3 turns or so.

I have taken them under special circumstances, of course, including with costly attacks that seem likely to work... or better work before I'm redlined!

A question that comes to mind: How does the AI handle this change? I've never seen it siege a city before artillery yet (in vanilla, haven't played with the mod much).

 

[Txurce]

A question that comes to mind: How does the AI handle this change? I've never seen it siege a city before artillery yet (in vanilla, haven't played with the mod much).

Shafer spoke about an AI decision tree, and how it gets better in the higher levels. It doesn't get nearly better enough, of course - but I have seen Songhai roll through AI and CS cities using catapults. (Out of curiosity I reloaded the game several centuries earlier, played more or less the same way, and the Songhai used no siege weapons.)

More recently Russia attacked me in an unwalled city with siege weapons in more or less rational formation. But these are definitely the exceptions.

On the whole I do wonder how the AI will do against the current mod, and how much walls have to do with the absence of runaway AIs.

 

[SlightlyMad]

I think the walls & castle balance are an incredible step in the right direction, and am loving them so far. In my current game, Bismark actually send a mass of cannons to take out my wall & castle cities, and successfully bombarded them down to nothing. Unfortunately, he didn't bring a single melee unit with which to actually capture the city, so I was able to knock out all those cannons in a counter-attack and obliterate the poor bastard.

Hopefully that will be fixed by the planned patch change of not accidentally sending ranged to the front lines to provide flanking bonuses. That should both make sure there's melee in front to protect them, as well as increase the number of ranged units in their armies by allowing them to stay alive longer.

 

[Txurce]

I think the walls & castle balance are an incredible step in the right direction, and am loving them so far. In my current game, Bismark actually send a mass of cannons to take out my wall & castle cities, and successfully bombarded them down to nothing. Unfortunately, he didn't bring a single melee unit with which to actually capture the city, so I was able to knock out all those cannons in a counter-attack and obliterate the poor bastard.

Hopefully that will be fixed by the planned patch change of not accidentally sending ranged to the front lines to provide flanking bonuses. That should both make sure there's melee in front to protect them, as well as increase the number of ranged units in their armies by allowing them to stay alive longer.

This is a good point - I see the AI bombard cities down to 1 hp, but have no one with whom to take it. This happens with naval as well as siege bombardment.

 

[Thalassicus]

@alpaca
In my current game the AIs have wiped out 2 civs and about ~5 citystates. (epic immortal large pangaea) It's typically more than this but the terrain is very unique, large mountain ranges blocking off civs from one another. City-states are the toughest to take since those focus on defense buildings and have a Palace for an extra +4, so it's my baseline to see if the AI is coping well.

 

[Gaster]

I haven't played the latest city development update, but the previous one had a small display bug - the Oxford national wonder mouseover tooltip says it has 2 engineer specialist slots when it should say scientist.

 

[alpaca]

@alpaca
In my current game the AIs have wiped out 2 civs and about ~5 citystates. (epic immortal large pangaea) It's typically more than this but the terrain is very unique, large mountain ranges blocking off civs from one another. City-states are the toughest to take since those focus on defense buildings and have a Palace for an extra +4, so it's my baseline to see if the AI is coping well.

Ok that's definitely good news.

 

[Thalassicus]

@Gaster
Yep I noticed that too, it's been fixed for v. 10.

 

[Txurce]

@alpaca
In my current game the AIs have wiped out 2 civs and about ~5 citystates. (epic immortal large pangaea) It's typically more than this but the terrain is very unique, large mountain ranges blocking off civs from one another. City-states are the toughest to take since those focus on defense buildings and have a Palace for an extra +4, so it's my baseline to see if the AI is coping well.

I am playing a lot and find the AI at a virtual standstill. In my current game Siam and Rome have been at war for about a thousand years. Siam took one city, then lost it. They are pretty evenly matched, though. Speaking generally, there seems to be some imbalance early in the game, so that when I meet the other continent one civ is smaller than the others. Then near the end with artillery another shift occurs. But I have yet to see a runaway AI with the new mod. That's several games.

 

[Txurce]

@Gaster
Yep I noticed that too, it's been fixed for v. 10.

Thal,

Do you mean an upcoming v10, or one I downloaded last week that has yet to be approved?