Fall patch discussion thread

[Flaxton]

Added additional notifications

Please tell me this includes a link where the new barb enc is??

 

[Europa Victrix]

Uuuh...

 

[Sascha77]

Personally I always found theming to be a painful micro managing experience in Civ V and it's back again.

I didn't mind it all that much in V, since it wasn't a "chore" to move stuff around. Civ VI OTOH seems to try to actively discourage you from getting the most out of your works of art/artefacts.

I actually like the idea of theming, simply because it makes sense that a "well-tended" museum draws in more visitors than one that's just a collection of "old stuff" thrown together..



S.

 

[Ravellion]

Uuuh...

Perfectly possible if you beeline cartography.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Personally I always found theming to be a painful micro managing experience in Civ V and it's back again.

I actually like the idea of theming, simply because it makes sense that a "well-tended" museum draws in more visitors than one that's just a collection of "old stuff" thrown together..

Actually, if real life is a guide, the world's top museums don't specialize. The Louvre, the British Museum, the Met. So the "theme bonuses" that Civ uses is purely a game mechanic, to make a cultural victory something you actually do and not just something you wait for. And in that sense, I have to agree with Flaxton, the shifting around of these art pieces is not compelling gameplay because it isn't decision-making, it's just pattern-matching.

 

[Wr4ith]

Anyone is facing problems with autosaves? Mine aren't working at all 0.o

 

[Magil]

This is pretty fast for Firaxis. I hate to assume the worst, but I wonder if the game was pushed out early and some of this (like the improved resource icons) was intended to go into the launch? Either way, it's a big improvement. The UI and generally how information is conveyed to the player still needs a lot of work, though.

Actually, if real life is a guide, the world's top museums don't specialize. The Louvre, the British Museum, the Met. So the "theme bonuses" that Civ uses is purely a game mechanic, to make a cultural victory something you actually do and not just something you wait for. And in that sense, I have to agree with Flaxton, the shifting around of these art pieces is not compelling gameplay because it isn't decision-making, it's just pattern-matching.

Yeah, I think I have to agree. I get that this stuff was put in to help alleviate the mid-to-late-game lull where you just press end turn until victory, but this stuff isn't really what I'm looking for in Civ. I don't hate it and I don't think it's a bad feature per se, just a rather uninspired one. It seems like micromanagement for the sake of occupying a bit of the player's time.

Heck, it seems to me like the AI will pay for artifacts/great works they don't even have slots for, so a lot of the time I simply sell the artifacts I dig up (though in the interest of avoiding "exploits" I only do this if it's making it hard to theme the museum, since it's very difficult the predict what era of artifact you will dig up).

 

[Flaxton]

I didn't mind it all that much in V, since it wasn't a "chore" to move stuff around. Civ VI OTOH seems to try to actively discourage you from getting the most out of your works of art/artefacts.

I actually like the idea of theming, simply because it makes sense that a "well-tended" museum draws in more visitors than one that's just a collection of "old stuff" thrown together..



S.

I agree, mainly though it's painful as the UI is unclear - especially in the trading screen. The 10 turns wait and the restriction on waiting for a museum to be full are additional levels that don't need to be there.

 

[Europa Victrix]

Perfectly possible if you beeline cartography.

Oh, I missed that jump in the tech tree. Figured it was a bug.

 

[steveg700]

The real question is why do horses benefit from defensive terrain and can fortify. That seems odd.

Odd? Always seemed odd to me to take defensive terrain benefits away, at least from a position of verisimilitude.

Charging up a hill is problematic, even if your opponent is on a horse. Likewise, the elevation from being on horseback isn't sufficient to prevent a tree from stopping an arrow.

I guess I can see taking fortification away though.

 

[Ogaw]

Finally! Im gonna load my crashing game (game crashes on city capture) now and retry that one

 

[Olleus]

Odd? Always seemed odd to me to take defensive terrain benefits away.

Charging up a hill is problematic, even if your opponent is on a horse. Likewise, a tree will stop an arrow for anyone.

I guess I can see taking fortification away though.

But the trees will stop you charging to meet your enemy. That's a much bigger disadvantage to a man on horse than it is to a man on foot. Hills I'll give you. But the idea that knights are harder to defeat because they're in a forest is crazy. Pretty much all cavalry that has ever existed favours fighting in open land to trees.

 

[steveg700]

But the trees will stop you charging to meet your enemy.

Welll, we're talking about defensive bonuses--receiving charges, not delivering them.

Perhaps the forest defensive bonus should be against ranged attacks, while the hill defensive bonus would be against melee.

 

[steveg700]

Each turn is measured in years. So it can be 50 years to move a work of art? Personally I always found theming to be a painful micro managing experience in Civ V and it's back again.

Well, the flow of time doesn't make sense for a lot of things, like armies being dessicated aged husks by the time they reach their target.

Maybe the delay is intended to help spies with the stealing of great works, so that works aren't as likely to be moved out from under them during their assignment?

 

[Olleus]

Welll, we're talking about defensive bonuses--receiving charges, not delivering them.

Perhaps the forest defensive bonus should be against ranged attacks, while the hill defensive bonus would be against melee.

But on the scale of civ warfare you are never purely defensive. A cavalry unit that doesn't counter charge when attack would be dead - end of. Giving woods a bonus only when defending against ranged attacks is complicated and doesn't really make sense. Being in a forest is little defence against an artillery barrage. In fact, the loss of mobility of the cavalry probably hurts it more than a branch will help against a shell.

Anyway, it's about abstraction. It is well established that cavalry units through out history have preferred and performed better in open terrain to rocky/wooded one. A way of representing that in Civ is to give cavalry a penalty when fighting in forests or hills. A simple one to pick is to negate the defensive bonus of such terrain. This also represents cavalry as being a more offensive than defensive force, which is also intuitive.

 

[DocRock]

I like the patch. It fixes a lot of stuff I criticised. Started playing again already...

 

[steveg700]

Giving woods a bonus only when defending against ranged attacks is complicated and doesn't really make sense. Being in a forest is little defence against an artillery barrage. In fact, the loss of mobility of the cavalry probably hurts it more than a branch will help against a shell.

Complicated how? It'd just be a bonus you either get or don't get. And a treeline can help against arrows, gunfire, shrapnel. If you're using shelling as a yardstick, you're basically arguing against forests giving any kind of defensive bonuses.

It is about abstraction, but simulating mobility in a turn-based game is problematic. That's one reason why real time is preferred by many. If you're going to subtract defense from cavalry, they need to be able to hit-and-move.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

But on the scale of civ warfare you are never purely defensive. A cavalry unit that doesn't counter charge when attack would be dead - end of. Giving woods a bonus only when defending against ranged attacks is complicated and doesn't really make sense. Being in a forest is little defence against an artillery barrage. In fact, the loss of mobility of the cavalry probably hurts it more than a branch will help against a shell.

Anyway, it's about abstraction. It is well established that cavalry units through out history have preferred and performed better in open terrain to rocky/wooded one. A way of representing that in Civ is to give cavalry a penalty when fighting in forests or hills. A simple one to pick is to negate the defensive bonus of such terrain. This also represents cavalry as being a more offensive than defensive force, which is also intuitive.

Actually giving cavalry a penalty for rough terrain in general (but they still get defensive bonuses) OR decreasing base strength and giving them a bonus on open terrain (and still get the defensive bonuses in rough) would probably be simpler and better.

 

[steveg700]

Actually giving cavalry a penalty for rough terrain in general (but they still get defensive bonuses) OR decreasing base strength and giving them a bonus on open terrain (and still get the defensive bonuses in rough) would probably be simpler and better.

In general, I'd rather see their main constraint be production cost. If quantity of strategic resources is no longer a hard cap, then there needs to be something to keep their quantity low relative to rank-and-file units.

Personally, I'd have rather it be a more simple formula where having access to horses allows a civ to essentially add a movement promotion onto the rank-and-file, and having access to iron allows them to snap a strength promotion onto them. Then when you get the tech that unlocks knights, you get the option to do both. All for an appropriate increase in production, of course.

 

[Ravenwild]

Horses aren't 100% better though. Horsemen maintenance is twice as high as normal ground troops. So foot soldiers early game are maintenance free with Conscription. So better if playing defensively. Warrior promotion line buffs them considerably (+7 attack, +10 range defense) where horsemen only get bonuses to lower the anti-calvary bornus to +5 instead of +10 and bonuses to attacking siege units. Also, warrior class units do not have hard counters like cavalry and spearmen.

Biggest problem is they require iron/niter to upgrade. Both seem very rare and require a tech to reveal so you are stuck with regular warriors until infantry if you don't get either one.