FEB 2011 Patch Details

[swordspider]

Ok, well here you have it. I'll just post the patch and then give you my thoughts in a second post. Feel free to chime in!

PS- I KNOW this is already posted, this is the STRATEGY Section so we can discuss the Strategy of these Changes. Mmmm-Ok?

ENGINE

* Significant turn time improvements.
* Invisible Rivers now display correctly. This caused many issues because the player could not see some rivers, like fresh water showing up in strange places, unit movement suddenly shortened, etc.. Basically, there were certain rivers that did not display where forks occurred, etc.


USER INTERFACE

* Add combat summary when a city bombards a unit
* Add a new diplomatic status "Denouncing" that displays on the turn that an AI civ is denouncing the player
* Embarked units no longer look like they have 500 strength
* User warned if about to declare war on a city state that is under protection of a major power


GAMEPLAY

* Taper off benefit of excess food when building settlers
* City-States now recognize when a road is connected for their road-connection quest.
* Golden Ages now provide +20% production per city rather than +1 hammer per tile


STRATEGIC AI

* Prevent AI from building too many AA units
* Don't allow CSs to build Manhattan Project
* AI calculation of enemy military might are tweaked based on size of enemy gold reserve
* AI calculation of enemy power now takes into account promotions


DIPLOMATIC AI

* Avoid cascades of denunciations against a single player. AI now uses its own current friendliness level with a given power to determine how much weight to place on a denunciation against that power.
* Denunciations expire after 50 turns
* Declarations of Friendship expire after 50 turns


MODDING

* Added support for policies that provide culture from kills
* Added support for policies that provide extra culture from cultural improvements
* Added support for policies that provide extra embarked movement
* Added support for policies that provide free Great People
* Online Panel now displays TOTAL downloads for a mod and not just the downloads for that specific version.
* When you click on a mod in the online browser, you may now use a dropdown to select a previous version.
* Added Line Control for modders to use when creating graphs, etc.


MULTIPLAYER

* Can now use DLC civilizations in multiplayer
* Added Ring, Skirmish and Ancient Lake maps to MP.


BUG FIXES

* Clear up cases where diplomatic status could show as "Friendly" even after that AI power has denounced the player.
* Fix situations where AI demeanor and verbiage didn't match friendliness level shown in diplomatic status string.
* Additional bug fixes and tweaks.


BALANCE CHANGES

Game Rules

* Cities must now have three or more tiles in between them (1 more tile than before), unless separated by a sea/coast tile.
* Cities now only get 1 free production and 0 free gold (1 less in both cases)
* Trade routes get bonus gold based on population of capital; formula changed a bit so minimal gold received for hooking up very small cities
* Bonus production from excess food (used when building settlers) tapers off if excess is 3 or more.
* Allied maritime city states provide 3 food per turn to the capital, not 4
* Balance pass on production and maintenance costs throughout the game.


Buildings

* Aqueduct added (entirely new building). 40% of Food is carried over after a new Citizen is born.
* Palace boosted to 3 gold and 3 production
* Granary gives bonus 1 food for Wheat/Banana Deer; cost reduced
* Market and Bazaar provide 2 gold (as well as +25%)
* Workshop provides 2 production (bonus reduced to +15% but affects ALL production); cost increased
* Windmill now has a +15% production modifier (for buildings only) and provides 2 production
* Stable gives bonus 1 production for Sheep/Cattle/Horse and can be built with Sheep or Cattle; cost reduced
* Lighthouse gives bonus 1 food for Fish; cost reduced
* Ironworks dropped to 8 production (but earlier in tech tree now)
* Factory requires Workshop; add 3 production but boost now just 25%; has 1 more specialist slot (now 2)
* Nuclear and Solar Plants now require Factory but increase to production is now 35% and provide 4 production themselves; these two now mutually exclusive
* Hospital adds 5 food (but no longer retains food), requires Aqueduct
* Forge adds +1 production to each source of Iron
* Reduced Armory maintenance to 2 gold
* Reduced Colosseum happiness to 3, and reduced maintenance to 2 gold
* Reduced Theatre happiness to 4
* Reduced Monastery maintenance to 0 gold
* Reduced Garden maintenance to 1 gold
* Reduced Observatory maintenance to 0 gold
* Reduced Opera House culture to 4, and reduced maintenance to 2 gold
* Removed the Great Person Point from Public School


Specialist Adjustments

* Temple -1 Artist
* Mud Pyramid Mosque -1 Artist
* Opera House +1 Artist
* Bank -1 Merchant
* Satraps Court -1 Merchant
* Stock Exchange +1 Merchant
* Observatory -1 Scientist
* University +1 Scientist
* Garden -1 Artist
* Laboratory -1 Scientist
* Public School +1 Scientist


Improvements/Routes

* Production bonus from Railroads reduced to 25%
* Removed 1 extra gold from Mine on Gems, Gold, Silver, Marble.
* Fishing Boats give 1 food, not gold.
* Fishing Boats give 1 gold with Compass.
* Camps on Deer give production instead of food .
* Remove 1 extra food from Sugar plantations.
* Trading Post gold reduced from 2 to 1 (increases back to 2 when hit Economics).
* Trading Post & Camp gold increases by 1 with Economics.
* Lumbermill production increases by 1 with Scientific Theory (moved up from Steam Power).
* Mine & Quarry production increases by 1 with Chemistry.
* Plantation & Pasture food increases by 1 with Fertilizer.
* Well & Offshore Platform boosted to 3 production (from 1).
* Academy increased to 6 Science.
* Landmark increased to 6 Culture.
* Manufactory increased to 4 Production.


Policies

* Tradition: Culture border expansion discount in cities placed on Tradition branch opener. Discount increases over the course of the game. Also grants +3 Culture in the capital.
* Aristocracy: Wonder bonus reduced by 5% to 20%.
* Legalism: Provides a free Culture building in your first 4 cities.
* Oligarchy: Garrisoned units cost no maintenance, and cities with a garrison gain +100% ranged combat strength.
* Landed Elite: +15% Growth, and +2 Food per city.
* Monarchy: +1 Gold and -1 Unhappiness for every 2 Citizens in your capital.
* Liberty: +1 culture per turn in every city.
* Collective Rule: Settler production increased by 50%, and a free Settler appears near the capital.
* Citizenship: Worker construction rate increased by 25%, and a free Worker appears near the capital.
* Representation: Each city you found will increase the cost of your next Policy by 33% less. Also starts a Golden Age.
* Order: Reduce Order production bonus to 15%.
* Meritocracy: +0.5 Happiness for each city connected to the capital, and a free Great Person of your choice appears near the capital.


Resources

* Fish reduced to 1 food (but can be boosted back to 2 with Lighthouse)
* Marble boosts wonder production by 20%, down from 25%


Technologies

* Scaled up tech costs throughout the game (slight change for early eras; close to double for Modern)
* Move Lumbermills up to Construction
* Move Bridge Building back to Engineering
* Move Ironworks to Machinery


Units

* Workboat cost increased
* Settler cost increased by 25%


Wonders

* Colossus no longer goes obsolete
* Angkor Wat now provides a 25% discount for the costs (both culture and gold) to gain plots empire-wide.


Civ Unique Bonuses

* Reduce Chu-ko-nu from 10 to 9 ranged strength
* Doubled culture from kills for Aztecs
* Krepost now provides a 25% discount for the costs (both culture and gold) to gain plots in the city.
* Paper Maker only provides 2 gold but no longer requires any building maintenance


Map Generation Changes

* Increased Oil quantity per resource.
* Minimum Uranium is now 2.
* Cut Deer Appearance in Arctic regions.
* Adjusted Sheep placement so it is more spread out.
* Decreased Wheat appearance in Plains.
* Increases Cow appearance overall, including adding up to 2 Cow tiles to heavy grass start positions.

 

[swordspider]

My $0.02.

First and Foremost, it looks like they decided to STOP ICSing altogether... you'll see this theme throughout the patch list. It also looks like they wanted to create 'longer' games as a lot of the tile improvements, cities, and buildings have been reduced in production and/or gold. Like always, there are some good changes, and some bad ones too.

Welcome some new Multi challengers... oh and more important, now you multiplayers HAVE to buy the DLC...
* Can now use DLC civilizations in multiplayer

ICS Stop #1... (Not huge unless you are playing smaller maps, but can effect building right on iron. Also stops those 'front lines' of cities from forming)
* Cities must now have three or more tiles in between them (1 more tile than before), unless separated by a sea/coast tile.

ICS Stop #2... (You simply will not be able to support a strong army now both in building them or maintaining them by just building cities)
* Cities now only get 1 free production and 0 free gold (1 less in both cases)

ICS Stop #3... Well, if that all wasn't already enough, let's just increase the cost of the problem and make them harder to build and worse for the city that is building them!
* Settler cost increased by 25%
* Taper off benefit of excess food when building settlers

Granaries are Cheaper to build now which is nice, and further it helps validate placing a city near those 'secondary' resources
* Granary gives bonus 1 food for Wheat/Banana Deer; cost reduced

This will help make up for the cities not producing 1 gold, but again this is a balance to make the game longer.
* Market and Bazaar provide 2 gold (as well as +25%)

Not sure anyone ever had time to build stables.. but this is a nice tweek to make them more popular.
* Stable gives bonus 1 production for Sheep/Cattle/Horse and can be built with Sheep or Cattle; cost reduced

Here is a big change if you want to have big cities. Without an aqueduct you will get outpaced quickly.
* Aqueduct added (entirely new building). 40% of Food is carried over after a new Citizen is born.
* Hospital adds 5 food (but no longer retains food), requires Aqueduct

Not sure I agree with this, it seems they have taken away enough gold already to me.
* Removed 1 extra gold from Mine on Gems, Gold, Silver, Marble.

Wow dude, this is pretty big.
* Tradition: Culture border expansion discount in cities placed on Tradition branch opener. Discount increases over the course of the game. Also grants +3 Culture in the capital.

The Egyptians should feel much more gratified with their Unique Ability now since everyone else is taking a hit to wonder production...
* Aristocracy: Wonder bonus reduced by 5% to 20%.
* Marble boosts wonder production by 20%, down from 25%

RAGE be to the Aztecs! MORE Hearts!!!
* Doubled culture from kills for Aztecs

And yet more hits to poor China... have they been nerfed them to death now? The past 3 patches nothing has been added, only things taken away...
* Reduce Chu-ko-nu from 10 to 9 ranged strength
* Paper Maker only provides 2 gold but no longer requires any building maintenance

And lastly, apparently Water Tiles were just too strong and needed to be nerfed too... look at this list...
* Workboat cost increased
* Fish reduced to 1 food
* Fishing Boats give 1 food, not gold.
* Fishing Boats give 1 gold with Compass.

 

[swordspider]

ADDITION: (Please not this is care of CanuckSoldier)

I have an introduction from Dennis, the Civilization V producer at Firaxis. We wanted to give you a little insight in to the thought process behind this patch's changes, so be sure to give it a read before diving in to the changes themselves:

The upcoming patch will contain some significant balance adjustments to Civ V. We thought it would be a good idea to give everyone a quick run-down on our thoughts behind these changes and a look at what further balance work lies ahead….

This February patch comes at a great time for making balance changes; The five months since Civ V’s release has given us time to analyze reports of dominant strategies and implement and test deeper changes that will better balance the game in several key areas.

Working with our “Frankenstein” gameplay test group, we have been looking closely at the tradeoffs between building a Wide empire (one with lots of smaller cities sprawling across the map) and a Tall empire (one with just a few highly populous, highly productive cities). With this patch you’ll see a number of changes to the economic side of the game to bring these two play styles in closer balance with each other. City spacing, building effects and the Liberty and Tradition policy trees are where the most extensive changes have occurred. We’re now seeing games where a Tall empire can match or even exceed a Wide one in production and science output even deep into the game.

We wanted to improve the effectiveness of buildings. We also wanted to improve how cities interact with the map. Adjustments to terrain have increased production, while buildings that modify production have been adjusted in tune with these changes. You’ll find many buildings to be easier to build, with extra benefits, especially if you’ve settled near beneficial terrain and resources. We've continued to make improvements to pacing, diplomacy, turn times, the AI, and other aspects of the game.

With future patches we’ll continue to iterate through Civ V systems and fine tune the balance of each one. So far we’ve already identified combat, multiplayer, late-game policies, wonders and civilization-unique bonuses as additional areas that will benefit from this sort of attention. And as this journey progresses we promise to keep an ear to the ground for other areas the Civilization community may want us to address. Continued collaboration between community, our gameplay testers, and the development team will be nothing but a win for Civ V.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It's difficult to make precise predictions without seeing the precise effects of partially documented changes like tech cost increases, but:

- You're probably going to want to go NC first and take the Culture SPs in order to jump start SP acquisition. You're also going to want to be more aggressive about Cultural city states early on, since there are some extremely powerful policies in Tradition and Liberty.

- You're going to want to limit the number of cities you found and grow by warmongering until relatively late. Landed Elite and Aqueducts will make raze and replace extremely potent later on, once you have the SPs you want and a pile of cash for rushing Aqueducts.

- The AI is going to be more aggressive, since land will be exhausted faster. This also points toward warmongering; if it's going to want to attack you earlier, you need units earlier. Best guess is that you'll be back to running up the bottom of the tree rather than pushing Education unless you have a mounted UU. Notice that powerful buildings like the Aqueduct and buffed Workshop live down there.

- Meritocracy will be a must. You'll either be using the free GP for a GE to get a Wonder you would otherwise lose out on, or a GS to accelerate the war machine.

- Upping tech costs just places more emphasis on Research Agreements and GS acquisition. I get very few techs via once I hit the Renaissance already.

- I don't see how a "Tall" empire can possibly compete with a "Wide" one. More cities still means more from Maritimes, more Specialist slots and smaller Food boxes, and the penalty from expansion hasn't changed.

 

[grandad1982]

Don't like the changes to water tiles or the curbing of food into settler production. Food is one of the best ways to get early settlers as you start with the ability to make farms.

Also not sure about removing gold from Gems etc. Seems like its in contradiction of their making map tiles more important aim.

Nice to see DoF and DoD given a time limit.

My overriding though is that this will screw my current SG!

 

[Schalke 04]

Don't like [...] the curbing of food into settler production. Food is one of the best ways to get early settlers as you start with the ability to make farms.

I think you misunderstood this part. Not the influence of food to producing settlers will be toned down, but the excess food AFTER finishing the settler, which convert into hammers. Look at this thread to know what I mean. At least this is my interpretation of this patch note.

My overriding though is that this will screw my current SG!

That's easy to fix. You can disable automatic updates/patches at Steam! When all of your SG-buddies deactivate this, you can finish this game without any problems. Well, if wanted of course.

 

[Treso]

I liked and disliked some changes. Production is a issue in Civ5.
The problem is that they want to cripple ICSing but the AI does ICS. It dont make sense.

 

[MadDjinn]

this won't have any real effect on ICSing.

you still only need a colosseum, theatre and managed pop to do it. Add Theocracy and you're done. anything else just makes it better/allows more than 10 pop cities.

cultural games will definitely see a change. Getting 4 free cultural buildings early could be massive. Of course, the question will be: What is the limit? Can I wait for broadcast towers before gabbing it to get them? (most likely temples or opera houses would be the best option)
Do I need the tech before getting them? Free monuments is cool, but I can see a 3 settler/4 monument start bumping to 4 temples being pretty strong. (in any game style)

Meritocracy: don't forget the merchant. drop it in a close CS for influence and cash. use cash for a top up and for other CSs.

The worst will be India.

-50% unhappiness from pop + Monarchy: -1 unhappiness per 2 citizens. It could work out to -75% or to -100%; either way it's nasty sized cap for them. In the latter it's infinite pop cap + all happiness buildings are translated to global happiness. bad planning.

 

[Martin Alvito]

It's pretty clear that India's going to be a monster. The only question is whether fast SPs (France), extra Great Scientists (Babylon), or bonus Food and massive midgame Culture from city-states and Wats (Siam) will trump India's gargantuan Happiness factory capital.

 

[vexing]

this won't have any real effect on ICSing.

did you read the patch notes?
maybe you missed a few key lines

Cities must now have three or more tiles in between them (1 more tile than before)
Trade routes get bonus gold based on population of capital; formula changed a bit so minimal gold received for hooking up very small cities
Trading Post gold reduced from 2 to 1 (increases back to 2 when hit Economics).

 

[MadDjinn]

did you read the patch notes?
maybe you missed a few key lines

no, I read those.

The core concept that allows ICS is happiness.

Everything else is just what happens after you do it.

a 10 pop city doesn't count as 'small'. We will have to see how trade route income is calculated, and at which point you gain enough gold to do the connections. If the capital is added to the calculations, then you could see some bonus from a massive cap tied to small cities. All you really need to do is overcome the road/harbour and/or railroad cost.

TP spam will still be fine. Hitting Economics before getting 2g/TP is ok. No one really ICSs until around that time anyways. It just means an RA focused push to get there for the cash.

the increase is space between cities is nice. So duel/tiny maps might not see ICS (why would you anyways) but larger maps will still get them. There'll just be a few less cities on the map overall. That's a good thing. (I don't like ICS btw)

 

[vexing]

one of the main bonuses of ICS was ridiculous trade route income, a 4 pop city would be +3 gold from trade route alone (-2 for maintenance, +5 from pop). now it's unclear what it will be.

to say ICS is not going to be affected is absurd... i'm not saying it won't still work, but it's definitely going to be different. especially considering you can't even place nearly as many cities

 

[Martin Alvito]

The core concept that allows ICS is happiness.

This is a common misconception. The reason ICS works is because the penalty for founding an additional city isn't sufficiently great to deter you from doing so, given the benefits. 2 per city doesn't produce much of a hard cap on cities, given the existence of luxuries. All other unhappiness can easily be cured on a per city basis with buildings.

Once you've done that, you've got another stream and a stream from the trade route, and those streams get large fairly rapidly due to the existence of Maritimes and the small growth boxes at low city sizes. Just as importantly, you've got the ability to produce another round of specialist buildings, increasing Great Person production.

Aqueducts will enable large cities to continue to grow, but those cities still won't be able to build additional specialist buildings until you unlock the relevant technologies later in the game. Further, the rate of growth still won't compare to that of small cities, and the ability to buy Aqueducts with cash will make turning a size 1 city into a size 10 city a very rapid process.

Civ 4 controlled your growth in two ways. First of all, city maintenance forced you to get into the midgame and stabilize your economy with a specialized gold production city in order to afford significant horizontal growth. Second, there were numerous multiplier buildings (particularly Wonders) that caused a few of your cities to become much more valuable than all the rest. The result was that focusing on key cities was just as effective as going horizontal for a very long time.

Eventually those mechanisms broke down and massive expansion became optimal, but this was very different from Civ 5 where aggressive expansion is optimal starting very early in the game.

TP spam will still be fine. Hitting Economics before getting 2g/TP is ok. No one really ICSs until around that time anyways. It just means an RA focused push to get there for the cash.

Focusing on output is still going to be optimal for those cities where you control the build order. Hammers are a more efficient way of producing things than gold, and the buffed Workshop is going to strengthen a hammer focus. It's almost certainly going to be the case that you're going to want cities you found to focus on hammers, and use TP spam in puppets to accelerate infrastructure production in your core while keeping SP costs down.

 

[MadDjinn]

This is a common misconception. The reason ICS works is because the penalty for founding an additional city isn't sufficiently great to deter you from doing so, given the benefits. 2 per city doesn't produce much of a hard cap on cities, given the existence of luxuries. All other unhappiness can easily be cured on a per city basis with buildings.

Once you've done that, you've got another stream and a stream from the trade route, and those streams get large fairly rapidly due to the existence of Maritimes and the small growth boxes at low city sizes. Just as importantly, you've got the ability to produce another round of specialist buildings, increasing Great Person production.

Aqueducts will enable large cities to continue to grow, but those cities still won't be able to build additional specialist buildings until you unlock the relevant technologies later in the game. Further, the rate of growth still won't compare to that of small cities, and the ability to buy Aqueducts with cash will make turning a size 1 city into a size 10 city a very rapid process.

Civ 4 controlled your growth in two ways. First of all, city maintenance forced you to get into the midgame and stabilize your economy with a specialized gold production city in order to afford significant horizontal growth. Second, there were numerous multiplier buildings (particularly Wonders) that caused a few of your cities to become much more valuable than all the rest. The result was that focusing on key cities was just as effective as going horizontal for a very long time.

Eventually those mechanisms broke down and massive expansion became optimal, but this was very different from Civ 5 where aggressive expansion is optimal starting very early in the game.

The only way to spam more cities is to have more happiness. Growth/hammers/gold do not factor into it at that point. So the 2 for the city has to be managed before you can spam more cities. Yes, lux/etc can help there, but they will also be used for population unhappiness/raze time/annezed cities/etc. and there is a hard cap on the number of lux. available on the map, so Infinite coverage they do not provide. Not to mention that Ghandi is the spammer mccheeser of them all and he gets 4 unhappy/city. That's only 1 city/lux for coverage. Infinite it is not.

So they aren't entirely just vs. cities . Especially if you want large pop cities at the core of the empire (or for puppets that grow despite the TP spam where you can't control their growth or building choices). The only thing that the dev really need to fix to prevent easy ICS is applying happiness building to the adjusted, and actual, population . That is, a colosseum + Theatre in a 10 pop Indian capital should only produce 5 , not 9 . (currently)

AFTER you get past the happiness factor, growth is generally easy as long as you aren't in a desert/snow area with no base food. Get maritime CSs, granaries/etc and you'll grow. Freedom helps with the less food/specialist so you can get to higher pops there anyways. At that point, the TPs generally cover any building maintenance (markets/banks are free) + the trade route income.

Focusing on output is still going to be optimal for those cities where you control the build order. Hammers are a more efficient way of producing things than gold, and the buffed Workshop is going to strengthen a hammer focus. It's almost certainly going to be the case that you're going to want cities you found to focus on hammers, and use TP spam in puppets to accelerate infrastructure production in your core while keeping SP costs down.

I do like the switch of the windmill and the workshop for effects. It'll make it easier to get wonders, which IMO is the only reason for that switch. (workshop 20% was better than windmill 15% if you were making a building...) Even in normal ICS games, you only TP spam the 'ICS' cities and not the core ones.

 

[Civsassin]

I liked and disliked some changes. Production is a issue in Civ5.
The problem is that they want to cripple ICSing but the AI does ICS. It dont make sense.

They aren't crippling ICS. You can still do it all you want. Your cities will just be a little further apart...

The AI has the same distance restriction, so it can't do it any more than you can. It just has to concern itself less with happiness than the human player does.

 

[Martin Alvito]

So they aren't entirely just vs. cities . Especially if you want large pop cities at the core of the empire (or for puppets that grow despite the TP spam where you can't control their growth or building choices). The only thing that the dev really need to fix to prevent easy ICS is applying happiness building to the adjusted, and actual, population . That is, a colosseum + Theatre in a 10 pop Indian capital should only produce 5 , not 9 . (currently)

That would kill India entirely and wouldn't fix the ICS problem. Freedom and three specialists alone will solve the 2 per city. The initial release solution that I used was simply to slap up Colosseums, Libraries and Universities everywhere under Freedom and stop growing via specialist usage everywhere except the part production cities. That let Babylon hard tech about half of the Renaissance in 20 turns while RAing the rest, and then GS and RA all the expensive Industrial and Modern techs well before turn 200.

India's bonus makes the whole engine more effective, but it isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of meaningful penalties incurred by adding another city to your empire.

 

[MadDjinn]

That would kill India entirely and wouldn't fix the ICS problem. Freedom and three specialists alone will solve the 2 per city. The initial release solution that I used was simply to slap up Colosseums, Libraries and Universities everywhere under Freedom and stop growing via specialist usage everywhere except the part production cities. That let Babylon hard tech about half of the Renaissance in 20 turns while RAing the rest, and then GS and RA all the expensive Industrial and Modern techs well before turn 200.

India's bonus makes the whole engine more effective, but it isn't the problem. The problem is the lack of meaningful penalties incurred by adding another city to your empire.

not really. Freedom drops the per pop unhappiness, so the adjusted pop unhappiness would drop, but not the city. So it'd still be fine.

There are plenty of per city happiness/unhappiness modifiers in the game, so India wouldn't be messed up. (Planned Economy drops it by 50%, so that's down to 2 for them, etc etc) They are supposed to be a vertical growth civ, given that they were given double unhappiness/city; the intent is fairly obvious. What currently happens is spammy mccheeser as the mechanic isn't working yet.

edit:

the 'meaningful' part is that when you go unhappy, things stop working. (lack of growth, then lack of production, then rebels) happiness is also supposed to be the limiter on number of cities.

 

[Treso]

A 4 pop city with a colosseum still "producing" 2 unhapiness due "number of cities" unhapiness. The luxuries available is limited. How do you "infinite" city sprawn if each city have a negative unhapiness?

 

[Antarion]

after patch a colosseum only gives you 3 happiness, not 4 anymore, so the cost for a 4 city would be 3 unhappiness.

 

[MasterMishi]

fish only 1 food and dearer workboat means a coastal start is even worse - urgh