Fall Patch changes discussion thread

[funkymunky]

I wish they hand buffed the Zeros by giving them better attack against naval instead of no oil requirement. Or perhaps a bombing ability against ground & ships to make them a near replacement for bombers, or if nothing else, a reduced interception chance.

And I don't get the SP for buying landschnects. Seems limited in scope (what's the point after medieval/rennaissance?), and it's odd to have a unit that cannot be built.

Well, I've only tested the patch for about an hour, so I guess I need to try it some more. I do like the new diplomacy, where civs now more aggressively seek trades. And the new warmonger notices seem helpful, although I haven't noticed any differences in how much the AI views my actions. They still seem to complain alot about it. Not sure if starting a new game would make a difference in that.

 

[Polycrates]

Impressions from a couple of games with the patch (large, immortal, communitas continents):

The Hanse is an awesome concept for a building - love the trade-offs of gold vs production. The barbarian unit ability is really nice too. I like that Germany has compelling arguments for all three ideologies now as well. Good redesign.

Has the formula for border growth been changed? It seems VERY reluctant to take third-ring resources now until the second ring is pretty much completely filled. I think this needs a bit of a tweak. Perhaps a bit less affinity for "poor" tiles too (resourceless desert/tundra/coast).

I've been seeing very little pre-ideology warfare - and the same kumbaya circle of everyone being friends with each other. This may be more an issue with larger maps with more civs - it seems like once you've got a critical mass of friendship circle there's almost nothing you can do to piss anyone else off. It's also presumably partly responsible for 90% of civs piling into the same ideology. Does the bonus from having multiple of the same friends with the same civ stack? Perhaps it should stack less or be capped (eg at two mutual friends?)
Same seems to apply to the chain denunciation pile-on against the one chosen villain.

The warmonger formula seems to be much better, and the tooltip on enemy cities is very nice.

Piety is still weak. Mainly because it focuses heavily on shrines and temples, and these are still a terrible way of generating faith, because they are guaranteed to bankrupt you with their obscene maintenance cost. I feel like rather than increasing the % gold from theocracy, it should reduce/remove maintenance (and be available as a second pick).

I like the idea of the landsknechts as a policy but the window seems very small. Would be nice if it offered some other benefit once you reach eg Industrial.

The limit to aircraft numbers is really nice (although I personally still don't think it goes far enough - I'd limit it to 3 and 6 with an airport). But great war bombers are still too strong, especially with ground anti-air coming so much later.

I like that civs are coming to me with trade offers, but I haven't seen them come to me with any trades for their own excess luxuries. These trades are particularly hard to find out about unless you check the diplomacy screen every turn (which is really tedious). Would be nice if they came to you to trade off their excess luxuries occasionally.

 

[Peng Qi]

I like the idea of the landsknechts as a policy but the window seems very small. Would be nice if it offered some other benefit once you reach eg Industrial.

LS's don't have an obsoleting tech, so they should be available all game.

The limit to aircraft numbers is really nice (although I personally still don't think it goes far enough - I'd limit it to 3 and 6 with an airport). But great war bombers are still too strong, especially with ground anti-air coming so much later.

Yeah, tech tree NEEDS to be changed in this region desperately.

 

[blackcatatonic]

Still haven't completed a game yet with the new patch. Currently halfway through a game as Assyria (my first actually) and these are my thoughts so far:

- By far and away my favourite change is the AI offering to buy your luxuries. This is great and long, long overdue. All we need now is for the AI to occasionally have spare luxuries to enable swaps - it seems that currently the AI will keep the same trade agreement going with a partner for the entire game unless said partner is wiped out or their relationship falls through. It would be nice if the AI occasionally considered renegotiating the deal with someone else when it expires.

- Also a fan of the warmonger penalty changes. In my current game, Caesar hated my guts when I attacked Dido - then he changed his mind about her and joined in, and now we're besties. Sure, this is Caesar, so that's probably not going to last but it's still a nice touch.

- On the negative side, the AI does seem to be a little tamer than usual, particularly against the player. This might not be truly representative as I've only played a couple of games (neither all the way through), but in a game as Bismarck, my neighbour Poland clearly wanted to attack me but did the shuffle-my-units-around-your-territory-and-then-run-away thing. He still had a stronger army than me as well which was weird. Also in my current game, pre-patch I would have expected Genghis Khan (my neighbour) to have DOWed me a long time ago, but instead we're getting along swimmingly.

- On a related note, and I think I posted this elsewhere: the AI is still doing its thing where it builds a city next to yours and then, the next turn, tells YOU off for forward-settling. This is pretty dumb.

- The AI seems to be teching a little better, which is a good thing. I've seen Wonders going impressively early.

All in all, a good patch so far, but I echo the comments of many re. Japan's changes.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Overall the changes from the patch sound quite nice. Looking forward to play the final version.

However, I wonder about a few things:

(1) Why is the new german building called "Hanse"? Shouldn't it be something like "Hanseatic Bank" or "Hanseatic Office" or "Hanseatic Kontor"?

(2) The Japan changes feel somewhat... strange.
Culture from fishing boats / atolls is awesome and the idea to use Samurai for building them is a nice historical touch, but it feels so... counterintuitive? And while a zero-Zero-oil (*ba-dum-dum-dush*) requirement for the UU isn't bad, I'd still consider them one of the worst in the game.

(3) Speaking of planes: Why not make combustion engine a pre-requirement for air units? Feels a bit odd to have Great War Bombers running on Steam Engines.

(4) Landsknechts via SP sounds awesome, but will they upgrade during the later stage of the game? Or do you have to buy and upgrade every single unit manually?

And a question for the beta testers:
Are the changes to piety good enough to make it viable vs. Tradition / Liberty?

 

[DemonMaster]

1) Hanseatic League is also called Hanse. Since it is a building we are talking about, I think Hanse is a better choice of words than Hanseatic League.

2) Japan needs culture to symbolize their strong culture, fishing boats and atolls is as good as anything else I think, the end result is the same. Regarding Zeros, you haven't met them in an Atomic Era war have you - oil used for battleships, carriers, tanks and bombers AND they have fighters to go with that free of oil charge. I had battleship, tanks, bombers and fighters for my oil. Short story, my offence became a big defence and a nice draw.

3) There are some late game techs that needs adjustments, yes.

4) I have not build them, but I have read about other people who have and you have to pay for upgrades manually.

 

[Loucypher]

And a question for the beta testers:
Are the changes to piety good enough to make it viable vs. Tradition / Liberty?

Sorta. The problem with me is still Religious Tolerance which is such a horrible policy. All the others pull their weight, the +25% gold is very nice, but nothing can beat Tradition still. It at least becomes more viable then it was, leaving Honor truly in the dust.

 

[Nikolai II]

(1) Why is the new german building called "Hanse"? Shouldn't it be something like "Hanseatic Bank" or "Hanseatic Office" or "Hanseatic Kontor"?

Hanse is the right word out of those. A Hanseatic office/Kontor was known as a Hanse.

 

[xxhe]

Sorry for bothering. Can anyone explain this fix to me? I find it hard for me to understand: "Fix a legacy bug that prevented the AI from ever putting together offers for a luxury that a human player now has available for trade."

 

[Browd]

Moderator Action: Threads merged

 

[Quineloe]

Sorry for bothering. Can anyone explain this fix to me? I find it hard for me to understand: "Fix a legacy bug that prevented the AI from ever putting together offers for a luxury that a human player now has available for trade."

AI civs suddenly open up trade windows, asking for your precious spare luxuries. A bug prevented them from asking for anything other than open borders and free money before.

What a "legacy bug" is, I have no idea.

 

[Light Cleric]

AI civs suddenly open up trade windows, asking for your precious spare luxuries. A bug prevented them from asking for anything other than open borders and free money before.

What a "legacy bug" is, I have no idea.

I think it's a really old bug that's persisted for a long time. I'm not really sure though, I see software etc. referred to as legacy but I've never seen a bug called such.

 

[Browd]

I think he is referring to a bug that existed prior to the beta patch (that is, not a bug created by the beta patch itself).

 

[Quineloe]

That's probably the case. I remember from pre-beta games the AI would only beg for luxury resources, never actually ask for a trade.

 

[Snuffleupagus]

Played a full game with Germans. It's hard to tell a lot from one game, i.e. what is due to changes and what is due to the circumstances of that one game. Thoughts:

On Germany:

- The increased barbarian conversion was great. The military units I built in the game went as follows: scout - scout - great war infantry. That's right, the first non capture unit I had to build after scouts was a GWI. I captured three warrior, two composite bowmen and a handaxe - upgrading these units through the eras was more than enough to keep me comfortable with my military. And the early units helped me clear barbarians, make space and expand nicely. I did get lucky with decent luxury resources to be able to pay the maintenence.

- I'm worried about the Hanse. I'm not sure of any UB or UA that has such a strong synergy with an ideology tenant as the Hanse does with Freedom. Taking Freedom as Germany seems like a 99.9% must. The Hanse means youw ill be sending trade routes to CS's, and if you're doing that already (and forgoing the extra money) then youw ill want to get the freedom tenant that increases 4 influence with city state's for trade routes. This seems like a must, and I'm concerned that such high level of synergy takes away some player choice.

The game: I have no idea if this was just the experience of this one game but I noticed this in my game:

- the AI was way slower and less aggressive in spreading religion. On Emperor I founded the first religion with a shrine and stonehenge - which usually doesn't happen. Even the cultural AI's weren't shoving their religion down my throat like they usually do.

- The AI was slower to expand early. Maybe just a one game fluke.

I love the diplomatic changes. It was actually possible to change my diplomatic relations with effort, once an enemy did not mean an enemy for all time, and liberating cities or city states actually felt like liberation, which is a much needed change.

 

[Gamewizard]

- I'm worried about the Hanse. I'm not sure of any UB or UA that has such a strong synergy with an ideology tenant as the Hanse does with Freedom. Taking Freedom as Germany seems like a 99.9% must. The Hanse means youw ill be sending trade routes to CS's, and if you're doing that already (and forgoing the extra money) then youw ill want to get the freedom tenant that increases 4 influence with city state's for trade routes. This seems like a must, and I'm concerned that such high level of synergy takes away some player choice.

I went Autocracy in my Germany game. I dipped into patronage and picked papal primacy so I was already allied with 75% of the CS, so more influence would have been unnecessary. I do see what you are saying, though. If you aren't allied with many CS and ideologies roll around, Freedom would be hard to pass on...but then again, you would miss out on panzers with lightning warfare. Roll tanks, roll!

 

[BroOfTheSun]

- I'm worried about the Hanse. I'm not sure of any UB or UA that has such a strong synergy with an ideology tenant as the Hanse does with Freedom. Taking Freedom as Germany seems like a 99.9% must. The Hanse means youw ill be sending trade routes to CS's, and if you're doing that already (and forgoing the extra money) then youw ill want to get the freedom tenant that increases 4 influence with city state's for trade routes. This seems like a must, and I'm concerned that such high level of synergy takes away some player choice.

Why not go Order for the extra hammers? As Germany, you can get more Hammers from Order than any other civ just because of the Hanse % boost.

It's not a 99.9% must to go Freedom with Germany.

 

[Gigaz]

Five-Year Plan+Hanse+Kreml seems really like a fail-save way to get rid of an oil surplus

 

[BroOfTheSun]

Five-Year Plan+Hanse+Kreml seems really like a fail-save way to get rid of an oil surplus

one panzer per tile plz for every tile on the map

 

[Forkandles]

Anyone notice that all AIs dont love the World Congress proposal Historical Landmarks anymore?
This used to be my go to second proposal after the Worlds Fair. Mostly cos everyone loved it so it was free diplo bonuses with all and also because I dont mind the free culture either.
Now it seems some civs will dislike this proposal... Ive never seen that before