December 2020 Developer Livestream Discussion

[kryat]

Maybe the research alliance? That was my most important one. The other ones don't seem that great, unless you feel you want some added defense (which is usually useless) from someone DOW'ing you.

I agree that the cultural alliance is probably the most important alliance. Depending on your neighbor *cough, Eleanor, cough*, a cultural alliance can make a huge difference. I also really like getting a military alliance with someone like Poundmaker or Dido to help fill in my map. An economic alliance with Mattias can also be fun once it hits max level.

 

[MrRadar]

Well, this wording is most unclear. Apart from misspelling (Suzerian? - somebody from Armenia? ), what the heck is 'Suzerain's city'??? I have no idea. What Suzerain's? This one or that one? Whose? Is it a city state you're the Suzerain of?
I mean, if the player becomes the Suzerain of a city state, that city state becomes player's Vassal. So should I read 'Your trade routes to an Ally's city or Vassal city state provide..." ?

 

[Datgingah]

Always has been

huh weird, maybe they were talking about it in pre-development context as a change. I do remember them stating that though.

 

[Tech Osen]

Depending on your neighbor *cough, Eleanor, cough*, a cultural alliance can make a huge difference.

I'm pretty sure she is hardcoded to demand huge compensation for a cultural alliance. On several occasions she would readily agree on the other alliances but ask tons of gold for the cultural one.

 

[Foulweather]

I'm pretty sure she is hardcoded to demand huge compensation for a cultural alliance. On several occasions she would readily agree on the other alliances but ask tons of gold for the cultural one.

Yeah, I think she’s on to us.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

Hippolyta is no longer melee - now anti-cav

Always has been

Hippolyta has the Anti-Cavalry Promotion Class, but also has the CLASS_MELEE TypeTag attached to her. So depending on whether a modifier is using the Promotion Class or TypeTag in it's requirements, she could be either. I haven't watched the stream yet, but I assume they meant switching the TypeTag to CLASS_ANTI_CAVALRY.

 

[MrRadar]

New Information era boosts. Finally, Babylon can into space!

 

[leandrombraz]

Maybe the research alliance? That was my most important one. The other ones don't seem that great, unless you feel you want some added defense (which is usually useless) from someone DOW'ing you.

Cultural Alliance is pretty good, if you care about great people. It's my favorite. Military alliance is great when you're being aggressive, and religious alliance is a great boost for religious victory, though you'll probably win long before you reach tier 2, since religious victory is broken. Scientific was good for trade routes, but now you can just trade with a scientific city-state, if you have one nearby. The tier 2 bonus is nice, but it triggers every 30 turns, so you won't be getting a lot out of it. The economic alliance is the best alliance... for the AI. Because of how easy it's to get suzerainty over every CS, mainly if you're playing with Heroes (Himiko), you won't be getting anything from both tier 2 and 3. The extra gold for trade routes was great, but you can just trade with a CS now.

They really should take a look at alliances. Tier 3 comes too late to matter and some of the bonuses really need a boost to be relevant. Alliances can help a player that is behind, giving them some help to catch up to other Civs, but if you're doing well, most of the bonuses become irrelevant, mainly the economic ones.

 

[Amrunril]

Very glad to see the amenity change. "Removing" the free amenity from cities and simultaneously giving it back via reduced thresholds was such an incredibly bizarre decision. Also glad @lockstep 's mod provided a workaround in the meantime.

The changes to rationalism are also very welcome. While 15 pop cities and +4 campuses are very achievable, they're much less spammable than 10 pop cities and +3 campuses, so this should encourage a bit more diversity in city planning strategies.

The Eureka changes are a bit more of a mixed bag. Some, they were definitely right to make easier (4 entertainment complexes). Others (2 coal power plants) feel like they've moved from "fairly easy" to "practically automatic", which I think is a mistake. I do think that at some point the developers should also take a look at eurekas that are too easy. "Build a lumbermill" in particular comes to mind.

For the secret societies, the increased adjacency for leylines seems like a good change. The change to spawn locations seems unnecessarily convoluted, though. If the goal is to make more leylines available, why not just increase the number of leylines?!?

The trade UI changes really just remind me how glad I am that I rarely play against the AI. It's good to have options here, I guess, but individually marking each item you don't want to trade to each AI (with a confirmation popup each time) seems like a huge amount of busywork to reduce the number of unwanted popups. Perhaps they should add an option for single player diplomatic offers to work like multiplayer ones, appearing on your turn as notifications that you can choose to open or ignore.

 

[AntSou]

I don't see the point of Eurekas if they're designed to be nearly inevitable. Wouldn't removing them from the game and cutting tech/civic costs by 40% accomplish the same thing?

Yeah a mode with harder Eurekas would be nice, especially now that they made them even easier.

Note: Eurekas are useful in Shuffle mode because they uncover their location in the tech trees.

 

[UWHabs]

I don't see the point of Eurekas if they're designed to be nearly inevitable. Wouldn't removing them from the game and cutting tech/civic costs by 40% accomplish the same thing?

Yeah a mode with harder Eurekas would be nice, especially now that they made them even easier.

Note: Eurekas are useful in Shuffle mode because they uncover their location in the tech trees.

I think the very early simple eurekas make sense, all the stuff like mining a resource, settling on coast, etc... because those are legit hard sometimes with your territory.

And I think some of the other ones wouldn't be terrible if the target was very shortly after the unlock. Like if the eureka for Steam Power was build a coal plant, and coal plants are literally only unlocked a technology earlier, then I think that would be fair. But yeah, having almost 2 eras to build a single lumbermill is kind of a gimme, and certainly could use something more. Even the 4 entertainment complexes honestly I didn't find that hard, since I'd often capture enough cities to get there normally anyways.

 

[Gedemon]

I forgot to make a screenshot and you now can't see it anymore in the chat log...but the official in the chat mentioned as a reply to a question in a message that one of the free updates next year will bring a change to TSL map scripts.

Now I'm curious about what was the question.

 

[Setis]

Japan with Hermetic Order sounds tempting now.

 

[8housesofelixir]

The change to spawn locations seems unnecessarily convoluted, though. If the goal is to make more leylines available, why not just increase the number of leylines?!?

This is because the mechanics of the current map generation.

Under the existing map generation rules, the spawning of "resources" are semi-exclusive, they are generally not likely to cluster with each other. For instance, if a given region has a lot of Forests, then resources such as Horse and Iron will be very unlikely to spawn in this particular region, since 1. Horse and Iron cannot generate in Forests 2. the resources are coded to be not spawning too close to each other.

Ley Lines is labelled as "resources" in the code. This means that most of Ley Lines will spawn in Snow, Tundra, or Desert, since there are very few existing resources spawn in these regions to compete with Ley Lines' spawning rate. The player's complaint about Ley Lines are not entirely because they are really rare, but because they are rare in normal regions but can be abundant in the Desert or Snow. If just "increase" the number of Ley Lines, it will only result in more and more Ley Lines spawning in the worthless snowy regions.

By limiting the spawn locations, Ley Lines are "forced" to be spawn in no-Snow region, therefore making them more accessible to players.

 

[Pikachaoomega]

I will honestly miss my polar leyline cities, but I'm happy that this will make leylines more useful and abundant on good parts of a map.

 

[UWHabs]

This is because the mechanics of the current map generation.

Under the existing map generation rules, the spawning of "resources" are semi-exclusive, they are generally not likely to cluster with each other. For instance, if a given region has a lot of Forests, then resources such as Horse and Iron will be very unlikely to spawn in this particular region, since 1. Horse and Iron cannot generate in Forests 2. the resources are coded to be not spawning too close to each other.

Ley Lines is labelled as "resources" in the code. This means that most of Ley Lines will spawn in Snow, Tundra, or Desert, since there are very few existing resources spawn in these regions to compete with Ley Lines' spawning rate. The player's complaint about Ley Lines are not entirely because they are really rare, but because they are rare in normal regions but can be abundant in the Desert or Snow. If just "increase" the number of Ley Lines, it will only result in more and more Ley Lines spawning in the worthless snowy regions.

By limiting the spawn locations, Ley Lines are "forced" to be spawn in no-Snow region, therefore making them more accessible to players.

Yeah, it's the sort of change that in some level feels like a weird way to fix things, but for them, it was probably super easy to just remove what types of tiles they can spawn on, and that shifted enough of them to closer to areas that you usually settle to end up as desired. Simply increasing the number of them by 25% or whatever would probably have shifted even more of them to the snow region and unbalanced things that way.

 

[greenOak]

Does anyone know if free market and grand opera have been changed like rationalism?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

+20% is good for playing Tall, and Tall is a playstyle that will naturally have less yields than Wide.

This playstyle is not really in an over-yield situation, and I don't really see a problem here.

IMHO the number 1 cause of excessive yields is the scaling of chopping, not the %-based yield modifiers. Nerf chopping first of all, which I firmly support - one should not be able to use a forest to launch a rocket.

I'd like to say, the best way to get high amenity is to lower your population.

 

[MrRadar]

Does anyone know if free market and grand opera have been changed like rationalism?

Yes, for all of them, they moused over Simultaneum and Free Market to show the same changes.

Edit: they posted the stream on YT, you can see for yourselves at 9:35 mark

 

[Jeppetto]

Well, this wording is most unclear. Apart from misspelling (Suzerian? - somebody from Armenia? ), what the heck is 'Suzerain's city'??? I have no idea. What Suzerain's? This one or that one? Whose? Is it a city state you're the Suzerain of?
I mean, if the player becomes the Suzerain of a city state, that city state becomes player's Vassal. So should I read 'Your trade routes to an Ally's city or Vassal city state provide..." ?

I presume they intended to write Souzerained city but got confused.