Pietato
Platonic Perfection
I have compiled what I believe to be the remaining major issues. Please tell me if I missed anything obvious.
Game Modes
Apocalypse
- Offensive storms created by the Soothsayer need to be more destructive.
Barbarian Clans
- Sea clans creates some extremely deadly water barbs, which need to be toned down slightly. Delaying their city attacks would probably be best, so that it becomes possible to start by the ocean and properly prepare before the turn 20 attack.
- Snow clans are turning into city-states which have zero yields, do not grow, and remain with obsolete units.
- Zombies will completely ignore City-States which used to be barbarian camps.
- Barbarians are the tech leaders, with units way ahead of the curve until the later eras. Is this intended?
Dramatic Ages
- Zombies need to be able to attack Free Cities, otherwise you cannot use Dramatic Ages and Zombie Defense mode at the same time without the game becoming off.
- Fix the Culture Industry negative production bug which completely breaks the game.
Heroes and Legends
- Amani should only give a hero discovery chance the first time she is established in a CS.
- Hero balance is still off, with Hippolyta and Mulan being significantly weaker than the top heroes, Sun Wukong being a glorified scout/pillager, and Anansi scaling poorly into the late game.
Monopolies and Corporations
- Bug where AI does not improve resources until they unlock Economics needs to be fixed.
- Issue where monopolies generate extreme of amounts tourism, ending the game quickly, needs to be addressed.
Secret Societies
- Ley lines not being visible before picking Hermetic Order means that you either roll the dice and pray, or you reload and pick another society.
- Alchemical Society upgrade for the 2nd promotion of the Hermetic Order is often unlocked before you can even build universities, and should probably be swapped with the 3rd promotion (and then buffed). This would also bring the Hermetic Order up to the level of the other 3, by giving Ley Lines earlier yields.
- Vampire castles do not dynamically update their yields, which means you need to move your vampires all the way back to create a whole new castle to gain improved yields. The vampire is the slowest unit in the game, and is often attacking on the other side of the map, which makes this is very painful. Making the castle update yields dynamically each turn would fix this.
- Vampires have inconsistent rules when inheriting unit strength, and sometimes fail to do it. They should inherit the strength of your strongest permanent unit, no matter how it was acquired, and should inherit corps/army strength when merged. Giant Death Robots should also be included in this (why were they excluded in the first place?).
- Gilded Vault upgrade for the 2nd promotion of the Owls of Minerva can be unlocked a long, long time before you can get Banks. Perhaps move the Gilded Vault to something like Mathematics.
- The Owls of Minerva 4th promotion is very weak and needs to be changed.
Civilisation Balance
China
- Crouching Tiger is still a bad unit, and should be a Trebuchet replacement.
Cree
- Their trade bonus is great for domestic trade routes, but these tend to be quickly outshone by international ones. Maybe domestic trade routes need a buff in general.
- Additionally, their unique unit needs a complete rework. Babylon's UU is what a real scout looks like.
Egypt
- Egypt is now entirely about their unique unit, and just killing your neighbours. If they had a floodplains Appeal bonus, like Brasil does with rainforests, then they could be a lot more infrastructure based with Preserves.
Eleanor
- She needs something in addition to her loyalty ability, as this is sometimes impossible to leverage. Perhaps something like 'does not lose Diplomatic Favour for holding enemy capitals'.
France
- Tourism from wonders is very low, and the boost does basically nothing.
- The Chateau unlocks too late for how restrictive it is.
Gaul
- Harbour needs to be exempt from the no adjacency rule.
Georgia
- Faith from kills is very weak after the first era, and is only really useful for getting an early pantheon.
Mansa Musa
- His Golden Age trade route ability should be changed, in light of all the superior recent trade civs. He should gain a trade route for each new era HE hits, not the world, and gain increased trade route yields from Golden ages.
Maya
- Palace needs to give additional housing, to avoid the capital being crippled early.
- Mayan start bias is still broken, with the game putting them by oceans, deserts and tundra constantly.
Poland
- A weak civ who got weaker with the latest patch. Relic play needs to be more controllable without lucky city-states or Secret Societies.
- Poland is also designed around building 3 districts: Encampments, Holy Sites and Commercial Hubs, while also having their unique unit unlocked through culture, which is quite harsh.
- The Winged Hussar is just too weak. It needs baseline advantages over the Cuirassier at the very least.
Scotland
- Golf course's adjacency bonuses are very poor, and Wars of Liberation are too rare. Scotland basically has one ability, and that became harder to maximise after the amenity change.
- The Highlander is very weak, being based on the weak Ranger.
Vietnam
- Aerodromes should also not require a marsh/rainforest/forest, to make late-game desert and snow cities for resources less painful, and to also give another option for floodplains. They already require flat land, so it is strange that you have to plant a forest to build them to begin with.
Wilhelmina
- Radio Oranje's culture bonus needs to scale up slightly with era.
Overpowered civs
- There are quite a few civs which are overly strong, but it seems nerfing is not favoured when balancing, plus people like trying out new overpowered toys. So maybe they can be left like that for now.
Districts and Buildings
- The buildings in the Preserve are much too expensive, which is severely limiting their usage. The Preserve should also be allowed in National Parks.
- Sewer is weak for its cost. Maybe give it a power bonus of an amenity.
- Stock Exchange generally never pays back its cost.
- Neighbourhoods are still too weak.
Policy Cards
- Free Market is badly designed card, as +4 Commercial Hubs are extremely uncommon unless you the Owls of Minerva, plus there are much better cards for making gold.
- Grand Opera is a very weak card, as Theatre district buildings do not produce much culture (it comes from the great works).
- Public Transport really cannot be run in the competitive economic slot, even if you have multiple Neighbourhoods with breathtaking appeal. Plus, Kongo, the one who might actually spam (unique) Neighbourhoods, will have low appeal from rainforests and will not benefit from it.
- Propaganda, which replaces Retainers, is a vastly inferior card.
- Rationalism seems to be limited to Korea and Australia.
Unit Balance
- The entire Recon line of units is pretty much useless, especially when you have Barbarian Clans and/or Zombie Defense mode activated. They do not do their job well after the ancient era, and die when looked at.
- Late game oil-upkeep Melee units are much, much weaker and slower than the equivalent Heavy Cavalry, to the point where melee is better off left un-upgraded. As I do not see a proper oil balance pass in the future, it would probably be best to just remove the oil upkeep from melee, making them cheaper (they cost around the same as heavy cavalry), and making Tanks and Modern Tanks more expensive.
- Light cavalry are also better off left un-upgraded, as Helicopters are weak and use up valuable and rare aluminium which is much better off used for planes.
- AI does not understand resource upkeep at all, and will readily go into a deficit and eventually hit zero, nerfing their units and diminishing their ability to go for a science victory.
- Aircraft Carriers need more melee strength, an anti-air value, a new way to gain experience, and increased plane capacity when formed into armadas and fleets. They currently get one shot, have to melee things with their low strength to gain promotions, and serve their role better when not merged.
- Anti-Cavalry are still not doing their job.
Pantheons
These are still imbalanced, especially now that early faith is so important. Adding appeal would also open up more Preserve usage and make thematic sense, as the objects/sites of worship should not be unappealing.
- Fertility Rites changed to +2 food in the city centre, 20% increased growth rate and a free builder.
- Fire goddess changed to: Tiles adjacent to a volcano gain +2 faith and +1 appeal. Geothermal fissures gain +2 faith and +1 food. Fire goddess is currently very weak because volcanic soil has to actually be produced before it works, and Geothermal fissures are extremely bad tiles to work (great to settle on, though). This change should help with both issues.
- God of Craftsmen (Gambling) changed to +1 production and +2 faith.
- Goddess of the Hunt changed to +1 food, +1 production and +1 appeal.
- Lady of the Reeds and Marshes changed to +2 production and +1 appeal.
- Religious Idols changed to +2 faith and +2 appeal.
- Stone Circles changed to +2 faith and +2 appeal.
Religion
- Passive religious pressure is too weak, and needs to be buffed. This also makes the pressure beliefs, Itinerant Preachers and Scripture, rubbish.
- Work Ethic is too good in nearly all situations.
- Zen Meditation is too weak and generic.
- Warrior Monks never do anything.
- Missionary Zeal should also ignore ZoC.
- Stewardship and Lay Ministry need higher values. One gold is not equal to one science/culture.
- Worship buildings are too expensive.
Natural Wonders and General Appeal
Preserves have made most of the rubbish Natural Wonders much better, but some are still bad due to lacking appeal or being unworkable.
- Mount Everest is huge, unworkable, spawns in a mountain chain and really bad. Please rework it.
- All lake and coastal tiles need their own appeal values, to improve both their tile values and Natural Wonders based on these tiles.
- Change the code so that Natural Wonders do not spawn surrounded by unworkable tiles, e.g A volcano wonder surrounded by mountains and water.
Other
- Give each AI a uniquely catered preference setup towards faith/science/culture/gold, instead of turning science up to 11 for everyone and breaking the game. Each should include proper paths to victory (e.g not ignoring science victory techs), and shift due to circumstances.
- Fix the bug where Deforestation level instantly jumps to severe 50% causing a rapid spike in warming and sea level rise.
- Properly adjust the game for the different selectable speeds (barbarian spawn rate and numbers, CS troop levy length, trading for strategic resources being locked at 40, etc)
- Add flooding and Dam placement to TSL maps when using GS rules.
- Golden Age dedications need to be balanced better, as currently Monumentality dominates.
- Consider slowing the entire game down, especially when the beneficial Secret Societies are activated, so that the game goes beyond the Renaissance era.
- Stop AI from draining all their gold then deleting all their units.
- Pathing is still messed up, particularly in coastal areas. A move that could be done in a single turn, will take 2-3 because the pathing decides that disembarking and embarking is better than just sailing around the tiny piece of land.
- AI do not seem to be interacting with disaster emergency competitions properly. Might have something to do with their recent lack of gold.
- Finish the World Builder.
Game Modes
Apocalypse
- Offensive storms created by the Soothsayer need to be more destructive.
Barbarian Clans
- Sea clans creates some extremely deadly water barbs, which need to be toned down slightly. Delaying their city attacks would probably be best, so that it becomes possible to start by the ocean and properly prepare before the turn 20 attack.
- Snow clans are turning into city-states which have zero yields, do not grow, and remain with obsolete units.
- Zombies will completely ignore City-States which used to be barbarian camps.
- Barbarians are the tech leaders, with units way ahead of the curve until the later eras. Is this intended?
Dramatic Ages
- Zombies need to be able to attack Free Cities, otherwise you cannot use Dramatic Ages and Zombie Defense mode at the same time without the game becoming off.
- Fix the Culture Industry negative production bug which completely breaks the game.
Heroes and Legends
- Amani should only give a hero discovery chance the first time she is established in a CS.
- Hero balance is still off, with Hippolyta and Mulan being significantly weaker than the top heroes, Sun Wukong being a glorified scout/pillager, and Anansi scaling poorly into the late game.
Monopolies and Corporations
- Bug where AI does not improve resources until they unlock Economics needs to be fixed.
- Issue where monopolies generate extreme of amounts tourism, ending the game quickly, needs to be addressed.
Secret Societies
- Ley lines not being visible before picking Hermetic Order means that you either roll the dice and pray, or you reload and pick another society.
- Alchemical Society upgrade for the 2nd promotion of the Hermetic Order is often unlocked before you can even build universities, and should probably be swapped with the 3rd promotion (and then buffed). This would also bring the Hermetic Order up to the level of the other 3, by giving Ley Lines earlier yields.
- Vampire castles do not dynamically update their yields, which means you need to move your vampires all the way back to create a whole new castle to gain improved yields. The vampire is the slowest unit in the game, and is often attacking on the other side of the map, which makes this is very painful. Making the castle update yields dynamically each turn would fix this.
- Vampires have inconsistent rules when inheriting unit strength, and sometimes fail to do it. They should inherit the strength of your strongest permanent unit, no matter how it was acquired, and should inherit corps/army strength when merged. Giant Death Robots should also be included in this (why were they excluded in the first place?).
- Gilded Vault upgrade for the 2nd promotion of the Owls of Minerva can be unlocked a long, long time before you can get Banks. Perhaps move the Gilded Vault to something like Mathematics.
- The Owls of Minerva 4th promotion is very weak and needs to be changed.
Civilisation Balance
China
- Crouching Tiger is still a bad unit, and should be a Trebuchet replacement.
Cree
- Their trade bonus is great for domestic trade routes, but these tend to be quickly outshone by international ones. Maybe domestic trade routes need a buff in general.
- Additionally, their unique unit needs a complete rework. Babylon's UU is what a real scout looks like.
Egypt
- Egypt is now entirely about their unique unit, and just killing your neighbours. If they had a floodplains Appeal bonus, like Brasil does with rainforests, then they could be a lot more infrastructure based with Preserves.
Eleanor
- She needs something in addition to her loyalty ability, as this is sometimes impossible to leverage. Perhaps something like 'does not lose Diplomatic Favour for holding enemy capitals'.
France
- Tourism from wonders is very low, and the boost does basically nothing.
- The Chateau unlocks too late for how restrictive it is.
Gaul
- Harbour needs to be exempt from the no adjacency rule.
Georgia
- Faith from kills is very weak after the first era, and is only really useful for getting an early pantheon.
Mansa Musa
- His Golden Age trade route ability should be changed, in light of all the superior recent trade civs. He should gain a trade route for each new era HE hits, not the world, and gain increased trade route yields from Golden ages.
Maya
- Palace needs to give additional housing, to avoid the capital being crippled early.
- Mayan start bias is still broken, with the game putting them by oceans, deserts and tundra constantly.
Poland
- A weak civ who got weaker with the latest patch. Relic play needs to be more controllable without lucky city-states or Secret Societies.
- Poland is also designed around building 3 districts: Encampments, Holy Sites and Commercial Hubs, while also having their unique unit unlocked through culture, which is quite harsh.
- The Winged Hussar is just too weak. It needs baseline advantages over the Cuirassier at the very least.
Scotland
- Golf course's adjacency bonuses are very poor, and Wars of Liberation are too rare. Scotland basically has one ability, and that became harder to maximise after the amenity change.
- The Highlander is very weak, being based on the weak Ranger.
Vietnam
- Aerodromes should also not require a marsh/rainforest/forest, to make late-game desert and snow cities for resources less painful, and to also give another option for floodplains. They already require flat land, so it is strange that you have to plant a forest to build them to begin with.
Wilhelmina
- Radio Oranje's culture bonus needs to scale up slightly with era.
Overpowered civs
- There are quite a few civs which are overly strong, but it seems nerfing is not favoured when balancing, plus people like trying out new overpowered toys. So maybe they can be left like that for now.
Districts and Buildings
- The buildings in the Preserve are much too expensive, which is severely limiting their usage. The Preserve should also be allowed in National Parks.
- Sewer is weak for its cost. Maybe give it a power bonus of an amenity.
- Stock Exchange generally never pays back its cost.
- Neighbourhoods are still too weak.
Policy Cards
- Free Market is badly designed card, as +4 Commercial Hubs are extremely uncommon unless you the Owls of Minerva, plus there are much better cards for making gold.
- Grand Opera is a very weak card, as Theatre district buildings do not produce much culture (it comes from the great works).
- Public Transport really cannot be run in the competitive economic slot, even if you have multiple Neighbourhoods with breathtaking appeal. Plus, Kongo, the one who might actually spam (unique) Neighbourhoods, will have low appeal from rainforests and will not benefit from it.
- Propaganda, which replaces Retainers, is a vastly inferior card.
- Rationalism seems to be limited to Korea and Australia.
Unit Balance
- The entire Recon line of units is pretty much useless, especially when you have Barbarian Clans and/or Zombie Defense mode activated. They do not do their job well after the ancient era, and die when looked at.
- Late game oil-upkeep Melee units are much, much weaker and slower than the equivalent Heavy Cavalry, to the point where melee is better off left un-upgraded. As I do not see a proper oil balance pass in the future, it would probably be best to just remove the oil upkeep from melee, making them cheaper (they cost around the same as heavy cavalry), and making Tanks and Modern Tanks more expensive.
- Light cavalry are also better off left un-upgraded, as Helicopters are weak and use up valuable and rare aluminium which is much better off used for planes.
- AI does not understand resource upkeep at all, and will readily go into a deficit and eventually hit zero, nerfing their units and diminishing their ability to go for a science victory.
- Aircraft Carriers need more melee strength, an anti-air value, a new way to gain experience, and increased plane capacity when formed into armadas and fleets. They currently get one shot, have to melee things with their low strength to gain promotions, and serve their role better when not merged.
- Anti-Cavalry are still not doing their job.
Pantheons
These are still imbalanced, especially now that early faith is so important. Adding appeal would also open up more Preserve usage and make thematic sense, as the objects/sites of worship should not be unappealing.
- Fertility Rites changed to +2 food in the city centre, 20% increased growth rate and a free builder.
- Fire goddess changed to: Tiles adjacent to a volcano gain +2 faith and +1 appeal. Geothermal fissures gain +2 faith and +1 food. Fire goddess is currently very weak because volcanic soil has to actually be produced before it works, and Geothermal fissures are extremely bad tiles to work (great to settle on, though). This change should help with both issues.
- God of Craftsmen (Gambling) changed to +1 production and +2 faith.
- Goddess of the Hunt changed to +1 food, +1 production and +1 appeal.
- Lady of the Reeds and Marshes changed to +2 production and +1 appeal.
- Religious Idols changed to +2 faith and +2 appeal.
- Stone Circles changed to +2 faith and +2 appeal.
Religion
- Passive religious pressure is too weak, and needs to be buffed. This also makes the pressure beliefs, Itinerant Preachers and Scripture, rubbish.
- Work Ethic is too good in nearly all situations.
- Zen Meditation is too weak and generic.
- Warrior Monks never do anything.
- Missionary Zeal should also ignore ZoC.
- Stewardship and Lay Ministry need higher values. One gold is not equal to one science/culture.
- Worship buildings are too expensive.
Natural Wonders and General Appeal
Preserves have made most of the rubbish Natural Wonders much better, but some are still bad due to lacking appeal or being unworkable.
- Mount Everest is huge, unworkable, spawns in a mountain chain and really bad. Please rework it.
- All lake and coastal tiles need their own appeal values, to improve both their tile values and Natural Wonders based on these tiles.
- Change the code so that Natural Wonders do not spawn surrounded by unworkable tiles, e.g A volcano wonder surrounded by mountains and water.
Other
- Give each AI a uniquely catered preference setup towards faith/science/culture/gold, instead of turning science up to 11 for everyone and breaking the game. Each should include proper paths to victory (e.g not ignoring science victory techs), and shift due to circumstances.
- Fix the bug where Deforestation level instantly jumps to severe 50% causing a rapid spike in warming and sea level rise.
- Properly adjust the game for the different selectable speeds (barbarian spawn rate and numbers, CS troop levy length, trading for strategic resources being locked at 40, etc)
- Add flooding and Dam placement to TSL maps when using GS rules.
- Golden Age dedications need to be balanced better, as currently Monumentality dominates.
- Consider slowing the entire game down, especially when the beneficial Secret Societies are activated, so that the game goes beyond the Renaissance era.
- Stop AI from draining all their gold then deleting all their units.
- Pathing is still messed up, particularly in coastal areas. A move that could be done in a single turn, will take 2-3 because the pathing decides that disembarking and embarking is better than just sailing around the tiny piece of land.
- AI do not seem to be interacting with disaster emergency competitions properly. Might have something to do with their recent lack of gold.
- Finish the World Builder.
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