February 2021 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[AntSou]

Glad to see entertainment buildings get some love. But still, the entertainment complex as a whole needs some buff. i.e. receiving adjacent bonus from neighboring culture district (writers in the culture district boost entertainment), receiving $$$ from neighboring military district, etc.

I don't know. Given the bonuses you get at +3 and +5 Happiness, I'll want to play and see how much of an impact this change has.

Wow, that earth goddess nerf, RIP.

I didn't even know Earth Goddess was a thing until I read this thread. I do like Rainforests and turning my empire into dumps with mines and industrial zones everywhere, so maybe that's the reason.

Tall play hasn't been a thing since day 1. Just beating a dead horse at this point

- Maya
- Changes to happiness thresholds and increased bonuses at Happy and Ecstatic (plus easy to slip into Displeased)
- Changes to cards like rationalism and free market
- Changes to Audience Chamber

What are these changes if not intentional alternatives to settler spam?

Tall and Wide doesn't need to be perfectly balanced. But expand too quickly and your cities will easily be suffering penalties to yields and growth, plus the -3 Loyalty significantly reduces the aggressiveness of forward settling. That's definitely not equivalent to how it worked at day 1.

 

[Vargas1]

Nerf Earth Goddess? Fine, but 95% of the pantheons are still crap

Disagree - I'd say at least 3/4 of the pantheons are ones that situationally are worth picking. The only ones I don't really see myself ever using are:

• Fertility Rites
• God of Craftsmen
• God of Healing
• God of War (though I could see it being useful if you were warmongering without another source of faith)
• Initiation Rites
• Religious Idols

 

[CromulentRomulan]

- Changes to cards like rationalism and free market

I initially thought that those changes were incentives to playing tall but they really are not. In most games its taken me so long to reach the point where running one of these cards is better than simply running the card that doubles the adjacency yield of districts I'm not far off getting more powerful cards like Collective Activism or International Space Agency.

Maya remain the only Civ that can play tall where tall is defined by a low quantity but high pop cities. Khmer Kongo Inca Scotland and Cree all do better by continuing in the playing wide meta

 

[Isengardtom]

Love the change to Autocracy. I’ll be using it a lot more now

 

[AntSou]

I initially thought that those changes were incentives to playing tall but they really are not. In most games its taken me so long to reach the point where running one of these cards is better than simply running the card that doubles the adjacency yield of districts I'm not far off getting more powerful cards like Collective Activism or International Space Agency.

It only takes long if you expect to get high pop while ignoring policies, wonders, governments, etc, which make it easier to get high pop.

They are an incentive to playing taller, just not an aggressive disincentive to playing wide, like we had in Civ 5.

 

[Vargas1]

I initially thought that those changes were incentives to playing tall but they really are not. In most games its taken me so long to reach the point where running one of these cards is better than simply running the card that doubles the adjacency yield of districts I'm not far off getting more powerful cards like Collective Activism or International Space Agency.

Maya remain the only Civ that can play tall where tall is defined by a low quantity but high pop cities. Khmer Kongo Inca Scotland and Cree all do better by continuing in the playing wide meta

I think there's an important distinction between "can play tall" and "optimal play." It may still be strictly optimal to go wide with Scotland, for instance, but the recent changes to cards plus amenities plus this month's changes have made it much more viable to play tall (6-7 cities) instead.

 

[nauberry]

Disagree - I'd say at least 3/4 of the pantheons are ones that situationally are worth picking. The only ones I don't really see myself ever using are:

• Fertility Rites
• God of Craftsmen
• God of Healing
• God of War (though I could see it being useful if you were warmongering without another source of faith)
• Initiation Rites
• Religious Idols

I quite often pick god of the craftsmen if I am surrounded by many horses or iron in the early game. The little faith and production is usually a nice boost on otherwise already good tiles.

 

[Vandlys]

Does anyone know how to distinguish the different barbarian clans? All well and good that they now get white city state borders if they were a barb camp before, but since the clans have different behaviours, wouldn't it be handy to be able to see to which clan they belong? The names aren't really helpful unless there is a formula I haven't spotted yet. I saw a "bent tree" on the coast, so if that's a coastal clan then the name didn't help that much. Everything fishy (ghost fish, grey shark) would hint toward a coast clan, sure, but bent tree?

 

[AntSou]

Does anyone know how to distinguish the different barbarian clans? All well and good that they now get white city state borders if they were a barb camp before, but since the clans have different behaviours, wouldn't it be handy to be able to see to which clan they belong? The names aren't really helpful unless there is a formula I haven't spotted yet. I saw a "bent tree" on the coast, so if that's a coastal clan then the name didn't help that much. Everything fishy (ghost fish, grey shark) would hint toward a coast clan, sure, but bent tree?

There's supposed to be an icon. Maybe you're using a conflicting mod?

 

[robal1991]

It seems like the Observatory also gains major adjacency bonus from Great Barrier Reef. But why no Seowon?

 

[Duke William of Normandy]

It seems like the Observatory also gains major adjacency bonus from Great Barrier Reef. But why no Seowon?

It's designed to cap at a +4 Adjacency Bonus, with or without any modifiers that would affect regular Campuses. It does, however, lose the Adjacency Bonus by -1 for every adjacent District beside the Government Plaza.

 

[CromulentRomulan]

It only takes long if you expect to get high pop while ignoring policies, wonders, governments, etc, which make it easier to get high pop.

I'm not really sure what you're implying here but it does seem like you are making presumptions. I listed the Civs that I've played since those card changes came out, all of which make it easier to get high pop. For other Civs that have to pursue high pop through the measures you mention they'd be making trade offs in not securing other wonders or bonuses from different policies. Scotland could get by with 6 - 7 cities but that's because like Maya they are geared towards a science victory.

I haven't crunched the numbers and I don't intend to. But visually comparing policy cards throughout my games using the Extended Policy Card UI has lead me to conclude that there is very little benefit from the changes made to rationalism et al

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

It seems like the Observatory also gains major adjacency bonus from Great Barrier Reef. But why no Seowon?

Does the in-game description of the Observatory change to reflect that it now benefits from the Barrier Reef? To be fair, you can get maximum 1 better Campus from this Natural Wonder, it is super duper situational anyway so it is not really a big change.

 

[KayAU]

The Earth Goddess nerf is going to hurt the Inca, one of my favorite civs. The Audience Chamber buff is going to benefit the Maya, though, my most favorite civ.

I'm mostly fine with the various changes, but my interest in this update hinges entirely on the new Barbarian Clans mode. I look forward to trying it out.

 

[robal1991]

Does the in-game description of the Observatory change to reflect that it now benefits from the Barrier Reef? To be fair, you can get maximum 1 better Campus from this Natural Wonder, it is super duper situational anyway so it is not really a big change.

It's not written in the short in-game description, but you can see the details in the civilopedia.

More wierd is, that Observatory has no adjacency bonus from standard reef tile...



Regarding Barbarian Clans mode its nice to let your scout be killed by barbarian eagle warrior, then you can ransom a builder. So cool

 

[Zegangani]

Seems bribing a Barbarian Clan doesn't stop it's Units to attack (from Tile adjacent to your Border) your Units that are inside your Borders :/ That ain't fair for the Gold spent!
I hope this will get a Fix some Time.

 

[UWHabs]

I quite often pick god of the craftsmen if I am surrounded by many horses or iron in the early game. The little faith and production is usually a nice boost on otherwise already good tiles.

Yeah, I've actually had a couple games recently where I got a late pantheon and within my first 2-3 cities I saw 4+ horse/iron, and figured that would be a nice bonus to pick. The biggest flaw with it is that if you get even a moderately early pantheon, you get your pantheon choice before even knowing if it will impact you at all early.

 

[TreVor_ish]

Seems bribing a Barbarian Clan doesn't stop it's Units to attack (from Tile adjacent to your Border) your Units that are inside your Borders :/ That ain't fair for the Gold spent!
I hope this will get a Fix some Time.

I think, they specified that in their stream - bribed or not, barbs will still attack Your units. Money only keeps them away from cities.

 

[kryat]

Do bribed barbarians pillage?

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah, I've actually had a couple games recently where I got a late pantheon and within my first 2-3 cities I saw 4+ horse/iron, and figured that would be a nice bonus to pick. The biggest flaw with it is that if you get even a moderately early pantheon, you get your pantheon choice before even knowing if it will impact you at all early.

Yeah it seems to require a bit of future predicting.