[R&F] Devs play Tamar (of Georgia) Emergencies deep dive

[Zaarin]

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it.....but I am so glad that Spies can be used against City-States again.....like they could in Civilization V. Hopefully the first step towards a more dynamic Envoy System (where envoy numbers can fall as much as they can rise). Would be nice if Spies could "Rig an Election" or "Stage a Coup" too which, unlike "Fabricate a Scandal", would result in your Civ gaining as many Envoys in that City State as the target player loses.

Also, speaking of "Fabricating a Scandal", would be cool if you could foul-up relations between 2 Civilizations by "Fabricating a Scandal"-using a Spy.

I hate it. The envoy game is competitive enough as it is.

 

[UWHabs]

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it.....but I am so glad that Spies can be used against City-States again.....like they could in Civilization V. Hopefully the first step towards a more dynamic Envoy System (where envoy numbers can fall as much as they can rise). Would be nice if Spies could "Rig an Election" or "Stage a Coup" too which, unlike "Fabricate a Scandal", would result in your Civ gaining as many Envoys in that City State as the target player loses.

Also, speaking of "Fabricating a Scandal", would be cool if you could foul-up relations between 2 Civilizations by "Fabricating a Scandal"-using a Spy.

It will be interesting to see with the scandal action, what happens if the suzerain shifts during the action. So say Pericles is in the lead with 8 envoys, I have 7, and China has 6. I start the action hoping to take it over, but between when I start and when it takes place, China throws 3 envoys to it. Now, presumably, the action will be taken against China, however, if I was really playing the diplomatic game, maybe I wouldn't want to anger them.

Wouldn't mind seeing more actions there too, but again, we don't need too many. And If we're adding an offensive action against a city-state, we should probably add a defensive one too. If you could assign a spy to "counter-espionage" in a city-state, which has a chance of catching an opposing spy - but also has a chance at intercepting a rival envoy! - that would be awesome. Like, I throw one point of envoy on the city-state, but it's stopped by the rival spy and executed en-route, so I don't get the bonus from that. That would be an awesome way to defend against people taking over your suzerains.

 

[PhilBowles]

Hmm, on the one hand I like the Ai behaviour the emergencies promote (at least in principle), but I feel that as in Civ V the AI should just follow these sorts of rules 'under the hood' - moving on enemies close to victory, taking action to protect city-states they're invested in etc. Action against nuclear attackers can be handled by the existing diplo modifier system. The extra bonuses from winning an emergency feel like a gimmick, and yet another player bonus vs. the AI (as players aren't going to accept emergencies they can't reliably complete) that isn't really needed.

Genghis' behaviour suggests that the AI by itself will struggle to win emergencies - he slowly moved an army down and, when it finally got there, he attacked the wrong city.

Also, comments from the developers suggest they're deliberately making decisions that hamper the AI - at one point Anton said that AIs are more prone to taking action to prosecute an emergency than to prosecute a war. In other words, AIs declaring war and not sending any attackers, or being attacked and not sending units to defend, appears to be a deliberate design decision rather than an AI flaw. What possible reason is there for doing that?

Alliances look a bit more interesting, but it appears military alliances still don't entail defensive pacts by default (i.e. your ally won't automatically join a war when you're targeted), but the bonuses seem high. Is there now any purpose to research agreements when a scientific alliance produces so much yield without the restriction of specific techs?

 

[Goliht]

Yeh there's more chance of the barbs wiping you out than any ai.. the barbs aren't hampered by warmongering hate.

 

[Leyrann]

It will be interesting to see with the scandal action, what happens if the suzerain shifts during the action. So say Pericles is in the lead with 8 envoys, I have 7, and China has 6. I start the action hoping to take it over, but between when I start and when it takes place, China throws 3 envoys to it. Now, presumably, the action will be taken against China, however, if I was really playing the diplomatic game, maybe I wouldn't want to anger them.

Wouldn't mind seeing more actions there too, but again, we don't need too many. And If we're adding an offensive action against a city-state, we should probably add a defensive one too. If you could assign a spy to "counter-espionage" in a city-state, which has a chance of catching an opposing spy - but also has a chance at intercepting a rival envoy! - that would be awesome. Like, I throw one point of envoy on the city-state, but it's stopped by the rival spy and executed en-route, so I don't get the bonus from that. That would be an awesome way to defend against people taking over your suzerains.

Or the counterspy uncovers a plot to expose a scandal and it backfires hard and the one that's doing the original scandal operation loses envoys instead.

 

[Leyrann]

Yeh there's more chance of the barbs wiping you out than any ai.. the barbs aren't hampered by warmongering hate.

I don't know... It wasn't me, but a few games ago (on immortal, for the record) the AIs slowly wiped out Japan, each one taking a city at a time, until they were eliminated somewhere around the renaissance era. It can happen. Then again, players tend to realize better they're in a hard spot so they'll focus more on defending in such a situation.

 

[Disgustipated]

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it.....but I am so glad that Spies can be used against City-States again.....like they could in Civilization V. Hopefully the first step towards a more dynamic Envoy System (where envoy numbers can fall as much as they can rise). Would be nice if Spies could "Rig an Election" or "Stage a Coup" too which, unlike "Fabricate a Scandal", would result in your Civ gaining as many Envoys in that City State as the target player loses.

I don't mind a little more competition over city-states, but I'd be a bit miffed if I lost those envoys permanently. It would be nice if they were returned to you, and you can invest them somewhere else, or give you a time limit when you can then reinvest them in the same city state. I work hard for my envoys, I don't want to lose them.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I hate it. The envoy game is competitive enough as it is.

Guess we shall Agree to Disagree then. Its not as though these missions are automatic or anything.....but I really enjoyed using Spies on City States back in Civ5. One of the most fun parts of the game. Mission failure needs to come with a very high penalty though.

I don't mind a little more competition over city-states, but I'd be a bit miffed if I lost those envoys permanently. It would be nice if they were returned to you, and you can invest them somewhere else, or give you a time limit when you can then reinvest them in the same city state. I work hard for my envoys, I don't want to lose them.

I was thinking about this very thing just yesterday.....in regards to the general idea of a Dynamic Envoy system. Envoys lost should go back into your envoy pool, but you can't add them back to the same City-State within the current era....at least in my preferred system. Envoys newly acquired via Influence or Civics could be placed as per usual, however.

 

[Trengilly]

I felt this was their best livestream. They did a great job of staying on topic and covered all their talking points. I couldn't care less about what they did with their casual gameplay.

Genghis' behaviour suggests that the AI by itself will struggle to win emergencies - he slowly moved an army down and, when it finally got there, he attacked the wrong city.

There are plenty of issues but Mongolia in this game wasn't one of them. At the start of the emergency most of their troops were up north preparing to invade Buenos Aires. There were also three Indian units up north - a warrior and archer plus a builder - that Mongolia dispatchs before they headed south.

The few units near Kabul that Mongolia had successfully killed at least two varu (capturing one of them). Then while he began bringing down the bulk of his army he held off Indian reinforcements from approaching Kabul - exactly what he should have done until he could amass enough troops to take the city.

Could he have been a bit quicker about transferring his army - sure - but he did all the correct things and I'm 99% sure he would have successfully liberated Kabul in time had not the devs done it first.

And one nice thing about the city state emergencies - since the city state has just been any city walls will likely have been destroyed - this should make retaking and liberating it possible for the AI. I'm mixed about how the AI will be able to handle other emergencies however - the nuclear one seems doomed to failure.

It will be interesting to see if there are all AI emergencies - perhaps taking place on another continent that the human player will not be able to participate in or even know about? Or will emergencies only occur when a human player can in some way be involved.

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

I felt this was their best livestream. They did a great job of staying on topic and covered all their talking points. I couldn't care less about what they did with their casual gameplay.



There are plenty of issues but Mongolia in this game wasn't one of them. At the start of the emergency most of their troops were up north preparing to invade Buenos Aires. There were also three Indian units up north - a warrior and archer plus a builder - that Mongolia dispatchs before they headed south.

The few units near Kabul that Mongolia had successfully killed at least two varu (capturing one of them). Then while he began bringing down the bulk of his army he held off Indian reinforcements from approaching Kabul - exactly what he should have done until he could amass enough troops to take the city.

Could he have been a bit quicker about transferring his army - sure - but he did all the correct things and I'm 99% sure he would have successfully liberated Kabul in time had not the devs done it first.

And one nice thing about the city state emergencies - since the city state has just been any city walls will likely have been destroyed - this should make retaking and liberating it possible for the AI. I'm mixed about how the AI will be able to handle other emergencies however - the nuclear one seems doomed to failure.

It will be interesting to see if there are all AI emergencies - perhaps taking place on another continent that the human player will not be able to participate in or even know about? Or will emergencies only occur when a human player can in some way be involved.

I concur. This was definitely their best stream so far. I thought the AI did pretty good. Holding off Indian reinforcements the way he did was quite clever. Were it not for Anton levying Geneva's military, I think Mongolia would have proven very helpful in taking Kabul directly.

 

[Zaarin]

Honestly, I hate the whole espionage game and have since Civ5. I use spies to defend my cities, and I usually don't even think to do that until one of my Industrial Zones has been sabotaged. This is just one more way for the AI to screw over the player, IMO.

 

[Victoria]

So upon digesting the meal properly

A nuke emergency is rather late, often people have finished
A backstab is some time after you have got alliances
A “you are winning” Dom emergency is rather late
A holy city converted religious can be earlier but how on earth do I convert it back.
A city state one seems to be the only exception to this, it’s the early emergency and on deity with 80% of the CS going in the first 50 turns could be rather chaotic but I guess 3000 gold that early is awesome, perhaps even OP

Emergencies mostly come too late to affect the game and do really seem to be a victory speed up for you.

I was hoping for something to stifle runaway warring behaviour so am a little let down in that regard. Of all the new toys this one seems to be the least value

 

[Japper007]

This whole Emergency thing seems like it's going to do the opposite of preventing runaway warring (well maybe in MP but warring is fine there as is). Since the defender can get a large reward when they get an emergency declared on them, and AI can never win a war from a human opponent. I predict new SP meta will be causing emergencies and then crushing the AI to get massive rewards. Ergo warring becomes even better!

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

@FXS_Sarah thank you and Anton for a very informative stream - you both are a great team. A question from me: will the golden age saturation and dark age darkening effect be applied only when the game environment time is set to around noon and there is no animated day/night cycle? And can those age brightness effects be turned off? Thank you. ps: you've got a nice laugh)

 

[KyivanRusCivPlease]

So the Fabricate Scandal spy mission only takes away envoys for the duration of the mission?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Honestly, I hate the whole espionage game and have since Civ5. I use spies to defend my cities, and I usually don't even think to do that until one of my Industrial Zones has been sabotaged. This is just one more way for the AI to screw over the player, IMO.

Spy game is fun. My only complain is the overall envoy competition balance. If there are additional sources of envoys (or existing sources are rebalanced), that should be fine.

 

[KayAU]

Emergencies mostly come too late to affect the game and do really seem to be a victory speed up for you.

I was hoping for something to stifle runaway warring behaviour so am a little let down in that regard. Of all the new toys this one seems to be the least value

I think the speeding up victory part is fully intentional, and it is addressing an annoying aspect of the game: you generally know that you have won long before you actually win. It is also a potential catch-up mechanic (primarily for the human player), but I think you are right that in most cases it will come too late. Perhaps they will build on the framework later, and add more emergency types.

 

[darkace77450]

Speaking of spies, with at least two new missions (Fabricate Scandal, neutralize governor) the promotion pool is going to be even more diluted than it already is. I'd personally be happy if promotions for spies was reworked to be more standardized. A tree akin to what regular units get would suit me fine.

Also speaking of spies, I actually hope the envoys are permanently destroyed by Fabricate Scandal.

A) I don't think we should be able to compete for suzerainty of every city-state. Picking and choosing where to fight our foreign relations battles should be the aim of envoys.

B) It might actually make players weigh culture a bit heavier. As is, it's spam Campus in every city. If the loss of envoys hurts players bad enough they might actually sprinkle in a few Theater Squares, and that would be a good thing.

PS - it's also possible the new Government Plaza will have a project that generates influence towards envoys, allowing us to recoup the loss of envoys a bit faster if we desire.

 

[Leyrann]

B) It might actually make players weigh culture a bit heavier. As is, it's spam Campus in every city. If the loss of envoys hurts players bad enough they might actually sprinkle in a few Theater Squares, and that would be a good thing.

Theater Squares don't grant envoys though? I mean, they indirectly do through the Culture Tree, but in my experience you milk almost all those envoys anyways.

 

[Disgustipated]

Only with Greece do they give envoys. Envoys can be hard to come by. The AI will only take my envoys from my cold, deads, but most likely their cold, dead hands (or whatever the AI uses to play the game )