Full Patch Notes for December Patch

[Mac2411]

I think they should also tweak 1upt, but not to the full effect that cIV had. I think that you should be able to have up to TWO different military units on one tile; one melee and one ranged.

Also, is this patch addressing the frustrating opening menu setup that never remembers your settings and always goes to default (small map, continents, chieftan)?

I agree the lack of memory of opening menu settings is very annoying and a sad reflection of the complete lack of polish for this game on release. It also should be a fairly easy thing to fix.

 

[ohioastronomy]

Valkrionn did you find the pace of discovering techs a bit too fast in beta?
I fear that with later Research buildings so much stronger we will see even faster research with low levels of production.

Huh? This is quite a punitive patch. You'll get many fewer great scientists, since you get no slots for the early building (and it takes forever to make later ones). There are a variety of mechanisms to slow city growth and a lot of new punishments for getting very unhappy. This looks to be aimed at a slower game with smaller empires. Fine if you like that, I suppose. I'm just seeing a very limited game that appears to have even fewer options.

Again, I'd like to see some positive changes - buildings faster to make (since they're already balanced with maintenance), better tile yields (so that city placement actually matters). Diplomacy could be better if it's less hostile and didn't feel so much like a pickup starcraft game online. I will be curious how that plays out.

 

[Monthar]

Exaggeration much? Unless you have not been able to beat Civ V on any difficulty past Warlord (in which case you are probably not representative of the "average" player), I doubt any of the patch changes will make it so that only "elite players" will have the chance of beating Civ V on any difficulty.

The only difference made by removing library scientist slots is that you will no longer be able to get as many Great Scientists. Seeing as the tech pace was so fast to begin with, I fail to see how removing the slots would cause problems to anyone.

All of this from removing some specialist slots? I find this hilarious.

You do realize this is "CivFanatics", right ? Wait till he finds out they have slightly changed the shade of green of the forests or something major like that.

Clearly, ya'll don't get just how much of a nerf this is to the science rate.

Size 6 city with Library and 2 sci specialists before the patch, is 9 Sci + 3 per specialist, so 9+6 = 15 total science from one city. Post patch you lose the 6 science from the 2 slots or a 40% reduction in science output in a size 6 city. This later becomes 5 sci per slot, or 10 per city with the one policy from Rationalization, or a loss of over 50% of your science output in the same size 6 cit. This is before the multipliers from University, public school and the national wonder. With the University alone that's a loss 9-15 sci per city. With university and public school that's a loss of 12-30 per city.

With just 10 cities that's a loss of 60(library with 2 specialists)-300(library, university, public school & +2 per specialist from policy with just 2 specialists) science per turn.

With the bonuses the AI gets to research and population growth, this single nerf will let the AI get a run away tech lead much easier and faster.

 

[Rohili]

Clearly, ya'll don't get just how much of a nerf this is to the science rate.

Actually, I do - because I usually don't even assign scientists to my library slots! I find the pace of science too fast and production too slow, so I prefer to have my citizens work tiles. Yet I still easily out-tech the AI on Emperor difficulty, and I consider myself an average player at best (back in Civ 3 and 4, I usually played at Warlord level).

So, to be blunt, only really poor players will struggle with tech pace after this change. It is an exaggeration to say that the game developers are only catering to the elite players. The fact is, most players find Civ V too easy, and any change that helps make the AI more competitive without giving them unfair bonuses is great IMO.

 

[qyll]

Actually, I do - because I usually don't even assign scientists to my library slots! I find the pace of science too fast and production too slow, so I prefer to have my citizens work tiles. Yet I still easily out-tech the AI on Emperor difficulty, and I consider myself an average player at best (back in Civ 3 and 4, I usually played at Warlord level).

So, to be blunt, only really poor players will struggle with tech pace after this change. It is an exaggeration to say that the game developers are only catering to the elite players. The fact is, most players find Civ V too easy, and any change that helps make the AI more competitive without giving them unfair bonuses is great IMO.

This is true for me as well. I usually don't work GS's until late medieval/early renaissance. Sure, I fall behind the AI a bit (on immortal), but I can usually catch up in the industrial/modern era.

 

[stormerne]

Enough already of the speculating and pontificating!
No more dissection of details out of game context.
I'm going to wait to see how the whole thing plays together.
After all, who knows: I might even like it.

 

[Morningcalm]

New “Angry Genghis” loading screen (replaces the “fluffy-bunny Genghis” loading screen).

YAY! I asked for this specifically (my thread: Genghis Khan, the cuddly teddy bear wrapped in leather and furs).

Maritime nerf seems a bit too much, imo. Especially now that cities grow faster....and farm improvements need a boost I think, but with lower growth thresholds maybe not. We'll see.

This is ridiculous. Reducing them from 2 slots to 1 slot would have been fine, but to completely removed their slots is excessive.

This change is enough to show me that Firaxis and 2K care nothing about the games they make nor the expectations of players that have been loyal fans of this series.

As of now, I'm done with these companies. I will never buy another game that has anything to do with these companies nor from any company that is stupid enough to hire anyone from this dev team.

Why? Because this company and dev team just showed they does NOT think about the changes they make. Instead they take knee-jerk reactions to a few elite players blowing their vision and make the entire game so much harder that only those same elite players will have any chance in hell of beating it on any difficulty.

This crap reminds me of the early days of Everquest, where that dev team ramped the difficulty up across the board to a level that sucked every bit of fun from the game. All because a few players managed to hit level 50 in 6 months of playing almost 24/7. Meanwhile the average player was lucky to be in the 30's by the end of the first year.

So once again, another dev team looks at the feats of the power games instead of the average player. Then caters the entire game to the mere 6-10% of the player base that is made up of these power gaming elite players.

I already avoid Sony games because of the crap with EQ and the even worse crap with SWG. Now Firaxis/2K wants to follow in Sony's footsteps. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll take my money to a company that cares about pleasing the majority, aka average gamers, instead of the minority, aka, power gamers.

I think you're overreacting. Consider that Egypt's Unique Building has no slots, and was suckier than both the library and papermaker before the upcoming patch.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

(replying to a post from the closed thread)

Reloading from a backup as far as I know would require activation and hence patching again.
One way around it would be if you can install the current patch-version of the game on a second computer and keep that computer in offline mode.

Unfortunately the steam-backup feature is not designed with rolling back patches in mind. It's more for people installing their games on a new computer (not wanting to do the whole download again).

Shhoootttsss, but thanks for the clarification.
It makes a Backup created by Steam... useless in a number of situations.
If so, then people are being enforced into following whatever changes are applied through patching -- which is a good thing, in a sense -- although Mods as usual can & should indeed come to their rescue if need be.

Anyhow, valid membership (in good standing, btw) on Steam allows for a somehow indirect backup of any titles purchased. Gigs worth of D/L's aren't really a problem here with High-Speed ISP but in some cases, it does matter when hours of tricky waiting over CRC checks can lead to a corrupted installation by patches.

In the meantime, i'll have to trust the new patch will be stable from the get-go.

 

[TheBlackHole]

Clearly, ya'll don't get just how much of a nerf this is to the science rate.

Size 6 city with Library and 2 sci specialists before the patch, is 9 Sci + 3 per specialist, so 9+6 = 15 total science from one city. Post patch you lose the 6 science from the 2 slots or a 40% reduction in science output in a size 6 city. This later becomes 5 sci per slot, or 10 per city with the one policy from Rationalization, or a loss of over 50% of your science output in the same size 6 cit. This is before the multipliers from University, public school and the national wonder. With the University alone that's a loss 9-15 sci per city. With university and public school that's a loss of 12-30 per city.

With just 10 cities that's a loss of 60(library with 2 specialists)-300(library, university, public school & +2 per specialist from policy with just 2 specialists) science per turn.

With the bonuses the AI gets to research and population growth, this single nerf will let the AI get a run away tech lead much easier and faster.

Why are size 6 cities your baseline for establishing the losses? The changes now reward having large cities, in particular the public school has been buffed quite a bit.

Plus, the specialist slots lost from the library are now added to research lab and to observatory. So for well-developed (and well-placed) science cities, you have lost no specialist slots -- they've just been rearranged.

So now you have to think about building big cities and trying to build/buy research labs in your strongest science cities. Running the numbers out, if you were the type who like to build large cities (10+ population with at least public schools) these changes only barely make your science less than before. In fact, if you're not running ALL science specialists ALL the time, the change to the public school alone makes post-patch large cities output MORE science than pre-patch. (If you calculate it out, ALL cities with no science specialists but with library+uni+publicschool actually output 25% more science post-patch than pre-patch)

For an empire consisting of a bunch of small cities (ICS style, etc.), yes, the total science will be much much less post-patch. For a builder-type empire consisting of some well-placed thriving cities, the total science pre-patch and post-patch is pretty close... and sometimes, under certain conditions, post-patch can actually be higher.

In general, yes, your total overall science may be a bit less, but it's only going to be as dramatic as you say it is if you just plain REFUSE to adopt new strategies.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

How soon will everyone complain of how quickly they can get through the tech tree and that buildings become more obsolete with more advances buildings (and units) researched before you could build one?

Sooooo true. But as they say - a sword always has two sharp edges.

Maybe they WANT us all to use highest pace options (Epîc, etc) more often so that the feeling of wise but still asynchronous Science development has some real meaning.
Techs for me are simple steps in a much grander Scheme. Your mileage may differ.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

What if I want to keep playing the current version of the game with the mod I created ? What if I wrote a mod, am I forced to update my mod every time a new patch is out ?

1) You still can! Chaos theory is fun to watch.
2) You don't have to, unless the drastic gameplay balance features provided by such Mods are "doubled" by the new Vanilla context & changes -- in which case, be very proud of having indirectly convinced devs to implement *your* ideas in the official release.

Think of it this way... Modders represent an alternative solution for an otherwise missing aspect of personal fine-tuning additions to anything *you* or *anyone* may wish for.

It's almost funny to realize that soooooo much stuff was trying to hit the BrowseMods slots and that within the current patch consequences most if not all are becoming "obsolete" or in need of some serious re-coding work.
The castle of cards is now crumbling. And, that's -indeed- hilarious.

The duty of great Modders is just that; they work out on problems for good reasons. It's their responsability.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Why are size 6 cities your baseline for establishing the losses? The changes now reward having large cities, in particular the public school has been buffed quite a bit.

Plus, the specialist slots lost from the library are now added to research lab and to observatory. So for well-developed (and well-placed) science cities, you have lost no specialist slots -- they've just been rearranged.

So now you have to think about building big cities and trying to build/buy research labs in your strongest science cities. Running the numbers out, if you were the type who like to build large cities (10+ population with at least public schools) these changes only barely make your science less than before. In fact, if you're not running ALL science specialists ALL the time, the change to the public school alone makes post-patch large cities output MORE science than pre-patch. (If you calculate it out, ALL cities with no science specialists but with library+uni+publicschool actually output 25% more science post-patch than pre-patch)

For an empire consisting of a bunch of small cities (ICS style, etc.), yes, the total science will be much much less post-patch. For a builder-type empire consisting of some well-placed thriving cities, the total science pre-patch and post-patch is pretty close... and sometimes, under certain conditions, post-patch can actually be higher.

In general, yes, your total overall science may be a bit less, but it's only going to be as dramatic as you say it is if you just plain REFUSE to adopt new strategies.

As an added note, science and production are not mutually exclusive. The population points giving you your base research can work hills and lumbermills.

 

[Babri]

Here are some things I believe are missing from the patch:
- remove 1UpT

What are you waiting for. Play cIV.
Upt is a core mechanic & don't expect the developers to remove it in a patch. However you can use a mod for that purpose

 

[No_such_reality]

I suspect the library nerf is a bit much. I'd have said 1 slot and/or a nerf to each Great Science slot. It reads like a knee jerk reaction.

I've been percolating on it. I think the net result will be slower classic, middle and renaissance eras and then rapid industrial/modern era tech advancements. Your slots and the public school lift show up late. Net, I think it'll be quicker, but slower in the early part.

So, what will that do to the run away AI problem?

 

[JohnnyW]

I think the net result will be slower classic, middle and renaissance eras and then rapid industrial/modern era tech advancements.

Exactly how it should be.

So, what will that do to the run away AI problem?

IDK. I'm looking forward to these science changes a lot though since they make a hell of a lot more sense. (IMO)

Still frustrated about limiting happiness from cities.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

Exactly how it should be.


IDK. I'm looking forward to these science changes a lot though since they make a hell of a lot more sense. (IMO)

Still frustrated about limiting happiness from cities.

Without limiting happiness, the rebellion due to -20 happiness would never happen. When they introduced the risk for a rebellion/civil war (which is a good thing IMO) they also had to make it more than a theoretical concept. Anyway, the previous version where buildings in a city could create more happy faces than there were people in the city was ridiculous. Note that Wonders are excepted from this new rule, for obvious reasons.

 

[Tabarnak]

[*]Reduced some combat bonuses: flanking (15 to 10), Great Generals (25 to 20), Discipline (15 to 10), Military Tradition (2x to 1.5x)[/list]

How about China's GG? Gonna be 40 or 35? If it's 40 it means their GGs will now double power of units compared to other civs, making them even stronger.

No specialist slots for library or paper maker is a bit too drastic. One slot would be enough to calm down science grow without letting the option of an (not so) early bulb key tech in dust. Better, i would expected a static amount of beakers provided by Great Scientists like it was in civ4.

Now in multiplayer, on ancient era start, everyone with same grow will discover the same techs on same turns and fighting with the same units in same eras for the first 120 turns because nobody with a good development will not have the possibility to get an edge and build faster crossbowmen, longswordmen, etc. and get rewarded for this strategy.

Because of limits of happiness and population grow, it will be even more difficult to dominate technologically through the game. Now i'm going to build even more spears and swords and less libraries. Yawn.

 

[fed1943]

It looks very good! Just two points:

The library slots: couldn't agree more. My first game was Babylon deity and I won; sad
thing to win 1st game at highest level. GScientist at one time the easiest to get and the most powerful, obviously a wrong thing; it keeps being the strongest but not the easyest. Hum, shall my first GP be a Sci or a Eng?

The flatland penalty: 1UpT+hexes+30% flatland penalty=too much jam. The trouble was not to defeat a city, just to arrive there. Now it looks jam still exists (logistics is
the true name)but not so severe and cities and defensive units can defend better.

Then, more true, good options, as a strategic game must have.

But experience shall have the last word.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Research overflow?

 

[blind biker]

What are you waiting for. Play cIV.
Upt is a core mechanic & don't expect the developers to remove it in a patch. However you can use a mod for that purpose

I do, in fact, play Civ IV, right as we're speaking actually. But I would like hex tiles and the Civ V resource system. So I would like to see Civ V fixed and improved, and removing 1UpT would go a very long way to improve Civ V - to make it less deadly tedious than it is now. We don't need to go back to infinite unit per tile, but rather a balanced system. Each unit would have a value called "footprint" or some such, and so you could have a number of units per tile until the total footprint is 1.

The longer Firaxis insists on 1UpT, the higher the likelyhood for a startup to offer what Civ V should have really been, siphon all the dissatisfied people away, and then, buh-bye Firaxiño.