December 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[Duke William of Normandy]

I’m still getting offers of 1 to 3 gold per turn and at once for bonus resources. It’s just not worth it.

But you can't trade Bonus Resources...

 

[tsf4]

But you can't trade Bonus Resources...

maybe it’s luxuries then lol

 

[679x]

AI still goes a bit over the top with the spaceports.
This is standard size/speed deity with only SS mode enabled, 5+ spaceports on average per AI (3 to 7, I built none in this game), and they still got nowhere at t300 (and what with those unimproved luxuries and bonus resourses?):

Spoiler :

There are certainly a lot of unimproved resources in that screenshot. I believe this has been a problem for a long time. If the AI plans to work a tile, would they improve it? I'm trying to see how much the lack of improvements is ultimately hurting them. Surely working a stone quarry on a grassland hill is going to be more valuable than another specialist or whatever they're doing instead, and they could trade the luxuries away if they'd be duplicates. I don't understand why the AI won't improve tiles - it seems like such an easy thing to do. It reached the point where for a while I thought tile improvements were removed in a city's borders when the city is conquered because I'd be capturing cities and having to improve almost every tile in them.

 

[Pietato]

There are certainly a lot of unimproved resources in that screenshot. I believe this has been a problem for a long time. If the AI plans to work a tile, would they improve it? I'm trying to see how much the lack of improvements is ultimately hurting them. Surely working a stone quarry on a grassland hill is going to be more valuable than another specialist or whatever they're doing instead, and they could trade the luxuries away if they'd be duplicates. I don't understand why the AI won't improve tiles - it seems like such an easy thing to do. It reached the point where for a while I thought tile improvements were removed in a city's borders when the city is conquered because I'd be capturing cities and having to improve almost every tile in them.

I initially thought it was them failing to improve them after storms and war destroyed them, but that would show most of them as pillaged. So no idea what they are doing.

 

[Kotofei]

I think I saw some other people mention this, but I want to agree with those posters: the AI is now giving me a TON of money for strategic resources. Some AIs are giving me ~20 gold per turn for the standard requested heap of coal (12 or 13 coal units, I think? I wonder why they always seem to ask for this amount). I suppose that's pretty realistic... world trade focuses a lot on these kinds of resources. But it feels a little unbalanced.

I wonder if this is an attempt to make trade meaningful in the late game. I find that in the later part of the game trade is usually a waste of time. I already have everything I need by then, and the quantities of gold the AI would offer for stuff weren't worth my time.

 

[Stringer1313]

One thing I noticed is after this patch the ai was a lot more aggressive and actually sent their armies to my cities (maybe just because of that one game though) and also that they were a lot more willing to trade great works for other great works instead of just asking for mine with none in return. I'm curious if other people saw that as well

For the very first time in the 3.5 years I have played Civ (Emperor level mostly) an AI declared a "pure" Surprise/Formal War on me after Medieval (it was in the Modern era). In the past, the only time AI declared war on me after Medieval was in a Joint War (this happened literally one time only) (and of course, if i DOW one of the AI's allies), and in an Emergency. I hope this keeps up.

The AI actually traded tons of their Great Works to me in exchange for money and luxuries and strategics. I won a solid Culture victory b/c AI kept giving me their stuff in exchange for resources. However the things they gave me were mostly secret society relics. I don't know if this was intentional.

 

[Abaxial]

One thing I noticed is after this patch the ai was a lot more aggressive and actually sent their armies to my cities (maybe just because of that one game though) and also that they were a lot more willing to trade great works for other great works instead of just asking for mine with none in return. I'm curious if other people saw that as well

I've certainly seen AI civs offering great works in trade much more frequently than before and was quite surprised.

 

[Nicc]

The AI actually traded tons of their Great Works to me in exchange for money and luxuries and strategics. I won a solid Culture victory b/c AI kept giving me their stuff in exchange for resources. However the things they gave me were mostly secret society relics. I don't know if this was intentional.

I recently discovered that, at least most of the time, you can offer 1g for a relic, ask what would make it fair, and they'll say the exact same deal is acceptable. I don't know what's up with their new valuing logic but something didn't get playtested too much.

 

[Pfeffersack]

So the AI now often pays up to 12 Gold for a unit of Iron, Horses or Niter...but they are still refusing to buy beyond 40 units on the slower game speeds for more than 1 Gold (which means they will not even buy what is often needed for constructing a single unit on Marathon)...?

 

[Equilin]

I initially thought it was them failing to improve them after storms and war destroyed them, but that would show most of them as pillaged. So no idea what they are doing.

disasters can also destroy an improvement completely

 

[Nicc]

There appears to be another unmentioned effect of this: It applies to other cities within your own empire now as well. I was previously able to build wonders like Biosphere next to another of my cities' neighborhood (etc.), but now the district has to belong to the city building the wonder. I recall this also used to be the case even with wonders that said "adjacent to a blank owned by this city", though I can't recall specific examples with certainty. Not sure how consistent the new rules are with the "owned by this city" wording in the in-game text either.

Update, Temple of Artemis next to someone else's camp is still fair game.

 

[Tuvok694]

Since december patch I experience more game crashes than ever before. I hope they do something about that, it's very annoying.

 

[Equilin]

Update, Temple of Artemis next to someone else's camp is still fair game.

So the new change only applies to districts then.

 

[Tychusfindlay919]

eh, Spears SHOULD wreck warriors. They basically are warriors only with all of the benefits that come with owning a long pointy stick.

Legions called, they said phalangists are still crying from the macedonian wars.

 

[Dotsworthy]

Played a couple of games trying out the ley lines and there is a definite improvement with their distribution on the map which makes them a viable choice in games where getting a good early campus or holy site agency is hard. I do wish we had the opportunity to see where they are prior to making the choice.

One thing I would definitely like to see is some rebalancing of heroes or just better AI prioritisation. My current game on a Highlands map sees Germany proudly showing off their hero Sinbad. Landlocked in a one tile lake...

 

[Buktu]

Not that the AI does it I guess but Heroes can teleport like great people. So in theory Sinbad should be able to get out of there.

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Not that the AI does it I guess but Heroes can teleport like great people. So in theory Sinbad should be able to get out of there.

Can confirm this. Sinbad can teleport but only if the City is coastal or has a Harbor.

 

[Buktu]

Can confirm this. Sinbad can teleport but only if the City is coastal or has a Harbor.

Don't you have to have a coastal city/harbor to get sinbad in the first place?

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

Don't you have to have a coastal city/harbor to get sinbad in the first place?

No, you just need a City adjacent to a Lake or Coastal Tile.

 

[Pietato]

disasters can also destroy an improvement completely

I know. But they mostly pillage them, and I cannot see the AI being hit by enough disasters to completely remove all improvements.