Fall patch discussion thread

[Esperr]

I havnt noticed any difference with the AI so far in the two games Ive played.

So I understand the next patch will be a "winter patch", then "spring patch", which is quite ridiculous.

And then maybe even a summer patch!*Gasp*

 

[darko82]

And then maybe even a summer patch!*Gasp*

That would give us only four patches a year and make us wait months for many important fixes, lol.

 

[elitetroops]

In IV or V, getting a solid economy up and running could be quite a challenge - especially if you were running more than a handful of military units. In VI ... it just happens. Making early units maintenance-free feels a lot like a crutch for the AI to me. Think about it: If they had to pay for those huge early armies they love to run, they'd probably be bankrupt for much of the early game.

In IV it was tied to difficulty level. On Noble you'd have lots of free units and those you payed for cost only 50% of deity upkeep. In addition deity players payed much higher upkeep for cities, while the AI got more and more discounts the higher the difficulty.

So far I haven't seen anything in terms of economy that would scale with difficulty in VI. Or are there discounts to unit/building upkeep on the lower levels? I admit I haven't examined gold flow that closely. If not, then it means the system has been designed for the average low difficulty player to be able to handle the upkeep, which makes it way too easy for more skilled players. Deity AI will also have a lot more gold to trade you, to make it even easier.

 

[nokmirt]

Does the AI use aircraft now?

 

[greygamer]

That would give us only four patches a year and make us wait months for many important fixes, lol.

I think you are assuming a lot based on the word "fall". Maybe it is a patch they were working on over the fall period. Other patches may be more or less frequent.

 

[ddd123]

As far as I saw, nobody complained about the card until the selling exploit was discovered

And who cares???
It is as shallow as saying "nobody complained of that murder before a body was found"...
Now we complain cause it is totally dumb and bad gameplay and it is a wrong mechanc, end of story, who cares what ppl thought 2 minutes after release.

 

[Zalcron]

Wish they could add demographics, All the civ games have had them apart from this one. Love to see how my nation is doing on the gnp, mfg front etc.

 

[LDiCesare]

Wasnt that bad, still room for improvement though. I was really suprised since i was never rushed like that after classical era before the patch. I saw the diplomatic intel that Arabia hit the medieval era, 2 turns later he declared war on me and came with 6 mamluks and a carpet of warriors.

Prior to patch, I saw 8 AI mamluks attacking a city of mine and getting slaughtered never even attacking the city.
The patch notes say nothing aboutAI attacking cities, which is the single thing that stops me from running the game again, so if anyone actually sees an AI attacking a city in the mid/late game, I'd love to know. Getting better units is irrelevant if you can defend your 10 cities empire with 1 city and 1 unit.

 

[Evs]

very pleased with the update so far. game is much more challenging in so far as the ai takes down cities properly now

What difficulty ?

Do you have screenshots ?

 

[chumchu]

A reasonable solution for melée units is to add an early promotion that lets them ignore terrain costs.

 

[Onii-chan]

Soo just me or are observation balloons not working at all after the patch? Like the stacking was supposed to be gone (which it evidentially is), but now even one balloon does literally nothing as far as I can see. Still 2-range artillery, 3-range rockets

 

[MarkM]

So I understand the next patch will be a "winter patch", then "spring patch", which is quite ridiculous.

No more ridiculous than obsessing preemptively about the arbitrary name given to a game patch.

 

[Sascha77]

Pretty much all cavalry that has ever existed favours fighting in open land to trees.

Yup. By their very nature, horses are animals adapted to open terrain. I pretty much grew up on horseback and riding through woods at anything above walking pace isn't something you want to do. You'd run all sorts of risks (your horse tripping over tree-roots, the rider getting knocked off the horse by running into branches, etc). I can't even imagine what it would be like to fight on horseback under these conditions. Your advantage of speed and mobility is completely gone in a forest as is your ability to maintain unit cohesion (say, to mount a charge).

Pretty much all cavalry always fought offensively, not defensively. Roman cavalry were only considered auxiliary troops, used mostly for "harassment".
Medieval Knights charged enemy infantry formations to break them up.

I can't think of a cavalry unit whose main purpose was to hold and defend territory. Why would you need a horse on defense anyway? It would only get in the way and/or panic and run away. And a trained cavalry horse isn't something you want to "throw away" - they're expensive to breed and train and their training takes time. The main strength of cavalry is high mobility on the battlefield. Dismounted cavalry are just worse foot-soldiers (since they're trained to fight from horseback, not on their own feet).
And all that can also be applied to the cavalry's successors in modern times (tanks). You don't use tanks to conquer territory, but rather to mount fast attacks and to drive the enemy from their positions. To *hold* whatever territory the tanks charged through, you still need infantry.

So I find the idea that cavalry is now able to fortify not just problematic but plain wrong.

 

[Al Bundy]

It seems that they did not fix the bug that prevents showing the last thing you built in a city. It still shows you the second last thing you built....

 

[AmtrakQuebec]

It seems that they did not fix the bug that prevents showing the last thing you built in a city. It still shows you the second last thing you built....

Yeah, that is an annoying cock up.

 

[Siptah]

I'm on mac and so I can't apply the patch yet. Has anyone tested the new balanced maps? How good are those?

 

[LDiCesare]

It's nice they show us when the city grows and where.
But it would really be nice if, when the city grows, it actually grew where it said it was going to grow!
They are giving false information. I ook at a city, it says it's going to grow onto the stone, and when it foes grow, it grows onto the rice.
WTH?

 

[darko82]

No more ridiculous than obsessing preemptively about the arbitrary name given to a game patch.

"Arbitrary" or "meaningful". The name implies it is not arbitrary. The question remains why they called this a "fall patch".

 

[skallben]

So has the AI learnt to rule the seas yet? Or they still build no navy and leave all units exposed at sea?

 

[steveg700]

I am not a fan of this modifier. I can maybe understand it in the late game as the world divides into fascist/democratic/communist blocs, but in the early game? The Deity AI is going to hit Political Philosophy way before any player possibly could, and getting slapped with a -6 penalty during that time is just lame.

Moreover, it's essentially just a role-playing modifier. It's not as if as a monarch I should be bothered that another civ is a merchant republic. Rather, I want to leverage my envoy bonuses, which is only advantageous if other players don't have them.

Plus, certain governments are heavily favored over others. Oligarchy eclipses republic and oligarchy. Monarchy is pretty much never stuck with.