[NFP] Ethiopia Pack Patch Notes Discussion

[Kwami]

There's nothing in the game files to suggest a limit to the number of Civs that can join a SS. Also, four events seems an insufficient pool to make an accurate determination of probability imo. I think you were just unlucky.

There was some talk that your odds of getting an invitation for a particular society drop with the number of players already in that society, especially if they're on your continent. It was either in the patch notes or in the livestream. I don't remember which...

 

[IvoryPavane]

Bull Moose Teddy is only broken if you are restarting the game until you get the spawn you need. Otherwise he is great, but map dependant. Considering how potent the Diplomatic Quarter and Pingala is turning out, I actually prefer his counterpart and his envoys.

As an aside, Magnificence Catherine is undoubtedly the most potent iteration of France imo. That project is no joke.

 

[Laurana Kanan]

There was some talk that your odds of getting an invitation for a particular society drop with the number of players already in that society, especially if they're on your continent. It was either in the patch notes or in the livestream. I don't remember which...

From the patch notes:

Discovery is not guaranteed, but you are more likely to find a Society that other players have not discovered, or on continents where no Society has yet been discovered.

The four triggers all state "BaseChance" so that definitely insinuates that it can be modified as indicated above. It doesn't appear though, that those base chance adjustments are exposed to modification.

 

[DanQuayle]

Also, four events seems an insufficient pool to make an accurate determination of probability imo.

These are dice rolls ie independent events, you just multiply the individual odds: (0.3)^4 = 0.81%
If these are indeed the odds, there is an analytical solution ie no need get a sample of data (30+ observations)

The four triggers all state "BaseChance" so that definitely insinuates that it can be modified as indicated above. It doesn't appear though, that those base chance adjustments are exposed to modification.

Now, that there is the possibility that the odds are changing according to the number of civilizations that have discovered that society, I need a large sample of observations to infirm the null hypothesis that the odds are fixed at 70%.
My very limited personal experience seem to suggest that it is the case.
Or, I could just have been unlucky...

 

[Liegence]

My Hungarian Vampires and their Black Army host just sacked Vatican City. We have peaked, my friends.

 

[Pietato]

My Hungarian Vampires and their Black Army host just sacked Vatican City. We have peaked, my friends.

Is he named Vlad?

On a somewhat related note, does your vampire's base strength get increased to the Black Army's, or is it only melee units?

 

[kb27787]

Bull Moose Teddy is only broken if you are restarting the game until you get the spawn you need. Otherwise he is great, but map dependant. Considering how potent the Diplomatic Quarter and Pingala is turning out, I actually prefer his counterpart and his envoys.

As an aside, Magnificence Catherine is undoubtedly the most potent iteration of France imo. That project is no joke.

Really? I feel she is very vanilla unless you get an early wonder. I don't have time to be running projects early on... (even if you get great works, you need the slots--although obelisks are great here). But her bonuses only kick in when theatre squares are up,

With SS and early promotions, I'm thinking bull moose with Liang's ultimate promotion might work--I need to test.

 

[kb27787]

Horrible start for Moose, right? What's with all the rainforest... but hang on... I got a goodie hut and a CS first meet in SS mode and 2-promoted Reyna is there to save the day!

Some turns and border expansions later (helps that her city center immediately becomes breathtaking), well, well, well we have breathtaking tiles after all! (process may be accelerated by buying tiles, which the extra gold helps to do that)

 

[The Civs 6]

Four thoughts:

• Bull Moose Teddy is possibly the best civ in the game.
• I still don't get/don't like the secret societies aesthetic.
• There are good ideas in secret societies, the voidsinger cultists are fun (although they can really be in the background, like I barely noticed that AI civs were involved with them other than cryptic diplomatic messages)
• My biggest question is this - maybe the secret societies mechanic should just replace religion. everything about secret societies is way more interesting than how religion works, and it's basically sharing the same thematic space.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

My Hungarian Vampires and their Black Army host just sacked Vatican City. We have peaked, my friends.

I used mine to take out Jerusalem as the French. Let's just say after randomizing the names Lamorte seemed very appropriate.

Is he named Vlad?

On a somewhat related note, does your vampire's base strength get increased to the Black Army's, or is it only melee units?

I apparently got his wife, Countess Tepes.

 

[sonicmyst]

An enemy Russia spammed Cultists! So hassle to march my Mongolian troops one tile at a time to eliminate them.

 

[DanQuayle]

Or, I could just have been unlucky...

I know that probably no one cares about something as specific as "possibly varying Secret Societies invitation odds", but just for the record...
I got the Sanguine Pact invitation on the 6th Barbarian camp clear of the game on T199 when clearing Barbarian camps on little islands. It was on a continent different than my starting one, but on one already settled by an AI that had obviously already joined a secret society at that point in the game.
NONE of the 7 AIs had joined the Sanguine Pact SS, so the possibility that I was getting "reduced odds" due to the fact that other players/AIs had already joined that society is out of the window..

EDIT: I should add that I already had 2 previous invitations to 2 different secret societies. So my current best theory is that invitation to other societies reduces the odds of getting an invitation to a new one. In other words, it is unlikely that you would get 4 free additional governor titles in a single game.

 

[blackcatatonic]

I really don't know why they didn't make it a 100% toggle the first time you do the required action. Yes, it's a pretty high chance, but when in an average game you may not get to clear all that many barbarian encampments/villages or meet that many city states first due to RNG, having to wait over 100 turns before unlocking a Secret Society of your choice is just frustrating.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Really? I feel she is very vanilla unless you get an early wonder. I don't have time to be running projects early on... (even if you get great works, you need the slots--although obelisks are great here). But her bonuses only kick in when theatre squares are up,

With SS and early promotions, I'm thinking bull moose with Liang's ultimate promotion might work--I need to test.

Why the early wonder though?

To clarify also, being the best version of France is still not going to set the world alight, as the Civ itself has fairly forgettable bonuses.

That being said, I’m finding Magnificence Catherine to be quite potent. From what I can gather it turns each excess luxury into 50 tourism and 50 culture, so it actually somewhat lessens the need for wonders and theatre squares in every city. I’m finding I can spend much more time building up a decent infrastructure.

For reference, I’m on turn 120 now and have I six cities, two of them have theatre squares and are pumping out 400 culture and tourism every 10 - 15 turns. The other cities are taking care of the rest (science, money, military).

Its a solid, consistent, always useful LA and in complete contrast to Teddy’s extremely powerful, but somewhat inconsistent LA. (Unless you just shop around reloading until you get a decent appeal start, then yes- it’s exceedingly powerful...but somewhat against the spirit of the beast)

 

[kb27787]

Why the early wonder though?

To clarify also, being the best version of France is still not going to set the world alight, as the Civ itself has fairly forgettable bonuses.

That being said, I’m finding Magnificence Catherine to be quite potent. From what I can gather it turns each excess luxury into 50 tourism and 50 culture, so it actually somewhat lessens the need for wonders and theatre squares in every city. I’m finding I can spend much more time building up a decent infrastructure.

For reference, I’m on turn 120 now and have I six cities, two of them have theatre squares and are pumping out 400 culture and tourism every 10 - 15 turns. The other cities are taking care of the rest (science, money, military).

Its a solid, consistent, always useful LA and in complete contrast to Teddy’s extremely powerful, but somewhat inconsistent LA. (Unless you just shop around reloading until you get a decent appeal start, then yes- it’s exceedingly powerful...but somewhat against the spirit of the beast)

Drama and poetry eureka... and to get +2 culture from nearby luxuries and also she has zero early culture going for her as chateaux are way up there in the civic tree. 400 culture every 10-15 turns is 26-40 extra culture per turn... nothing to sneeze at but not bull-moose level (nor perhaps even Mapuche level) at that turn number.

The tourism maybe useful at quick wins on lower difficulties. but probably nowhere near enough to catch the deity AI in an early culture victory.

 

[Casualty of war]

Still trying to get a full grasp on Bull Moose Teddy, but he makes me feel like a gardener manicuring my lawn to make the most appealing tiles. Paired with Granada will be preposterous. Here's your No-District civ, and it wouldn't even be hard.

 

[EmJayLambert]

I really don't know why they didn't make it a 100% toggle the first time you do the required action. Yes, it's a pretty high chance, but when in an average game you may not get to clear all that many barbarian encampments/villages or meet that many city states first due to RNG, having to wait over 100 turns before unlocking a Secret Society of your choice is just frustrating.

I think it's good that you can't plan a strategy around meeting a certain SS just like you can't guarantee to meet a CS or find a Natural Wonder that you want.
Perhaps another way to do it would be to only be able to find one every 2 eras. So you are guaranteed to find one the first time you do the required action (or some related action given that you'll run out of stuff to find by late game) in each of the 4 eras when the promotions kick in. Then you could choose to wait for your prefered SS knowing that you're losing 2 (or more) eras-worth of benefits.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Drama and poetry eureka... and to get +2 culture from nearby luxuries and also she has zero early culture going for her as chateaux are way up there in the civic tree. 400 culture every 10-15 turns is 26-40 extra culture per turn... nothing to sneeze at but not bull-moose level (nor perhaps even Mapuche level) at that turn number.

The tourism maybe useful at quick wins on lower difficulties. but probably nowhere near enough to catch the deity AI in an early culture victory.

Thats 400 per city. So if Bull Moose is getting 20-40 culture in one city from his LA then I’m seriously missing something. It would be more if I had more luxury copies. I imagine there will be smarter people who could figure out how best to optimise it but I’m going to win my Immortal game quite handily, but I could give a deity a roll and see how it fares.

Still not seeing the “nowhere near Bull Moose Teddy”. In the three games I’ve played as Catherine, my friend has played Bull Moose and they have had 0 starts where his ability worked. America has no starting bias so it’s literally a crap shoot. He was able to get his appeal up so he got the bonuses. It was great, but didn’t propel his early game.

And again, I’m not arguing Magnificence Catherine is the new omglolz queen of deity. I’m saying her new LA is solid, reliable and the best of the current Frances.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Still not seeing the “nowhere near Bull Moose Teddy”. In the three games I’ve played as Catherine, my friend has played Bull Moose and they have had 0 starts where his ability worked. America has no starting bias so it’s literally a crap shoot. He was able to get his appeal up so he got the bonuses but it was good, but didn’t propel his early game.

Bull Moose Teddy seems like the closest thing in VI to Spain in V. Highly dependent on an RNG start, and if you find some nearby natural wonders, you're pretty OP. Otherwise it's feast or famine.

 

[IvoryPavane]

Bull Moose Teddy seems like the closest thing in VI to Spain in V. Highly dependent on an RNG start, and if you find some nearby natural wonders, you're pretty OP. Otherwise it's feast or famine.

What I like about it though is that even if you don’t get any initially , you can still build up the appeal and benefit. It encourages a slightly different play style, or you can be lucky and have a really great opening salvo.

Which is also what I like about Peach Cathy, I won my last game with four theatre squares, and about 120 tourism per turn. I had four production heavy cities running the project solely and they we generating a combined total of 1600 culture and tourism every 10-20 turns, while the rest of my cities were as normal (science, military etc).

It opens up a completely different way of playing the culture game that no other Civ can replicate until Rock Bands, and that’s exactly what I love in an ability.