Future Update - Speculation Thread

[Eagle Pursuit]

A strange thing I noticed, is normally SmokeX or 2Kqa_X get updates to Main game (2 depots), both EXP's (2 depots) and DLC 01 (Vikings) and DLC 05 (Nubia). But lately, DLC 02 (Poland) has been given much love from Firaxis.
Also they seems to be "thin red line" in updates to SmokeX and over to 2Kqa_d the last couple of months. The last thing, are updates to a branch has not the same DLC's in encrypted_size_2 and encrypted_gid_2. Can someone explain the difference in this? Look at latest Update https://steamdb.info/changelist/8265644/, smoked: DLC 02 are in both size and gid, but DLC 05 are only in gid.

I suspect that new content are hidden inside the DLC/EXP, when Firaxis and 2K are updating the branches. And keep in mind; 2Kqa_a and 2Kqa_b seems to have been tested by Aspyr, 5 months ago.So I believe 2 "things" are done, and 2Kqa_c and 2Kqa_d also must be tested by Aspyr. When that happens I believe announcement are imminent, If they would have same version on all platforms.

A thing that intrigues me is that 2kqa_d updated 5 times in two days last week, plus once on the preceding Saturday, then went silent. I agree that this appears to be the leader build. They typically update it 3 days per week. If we get through Wednesday without an update to 2kqa_d, it might be time to get cautiously optimistic about the short term chances.

 

[Foulweather]

Add the ability at Cartography; it would still preserve early game exploring.

Yes. I love exploring when it’s my own continent and I’m looking for potential settle areas and where to expand. But then there’s exploring of other continents in the late game that is just tedious. And even in the modern area there are blank areas. Let me just trade for it at some point.

Perhaps being able to sell my map for gold or diplo favor could incentivize more early exploring. As it is, there’s little incentive for me to cross the ocean at some point. But if there’s a reward for being the first to bring news of your continent to the other one...

 

[Zaarin]

I'd maybe instead make it a very very easy spy mission. It wouldn't take a super agent to go into a map store and buy one.

That would work, but I hate the game's espionage system. I just keep spies parked on all of my IZ's (and Spaceports, if I have them).

 

[Gedemon]

The problem with that was that it made much of exploring pointless.

I'd like map trading with multiple layers:
cities
land/sea shape
territories
relief
features
resources
infrastructures (roads, improvements, ...)

And spying mission to get some would be nice too, yes.

 

[MrRadar]

I’d love it if I could trade maps with other civs again.

Uncovering unexplored areas now include getting era points for discovering new natural wonders, circumnavigation or even new continents with respective dedication. That also gives knowledge about whereabouts of different city states which could significantly change your approach. Exploration is in the agenda of certain leaders and influences diplo relations with them. There are so many new elements in comparison with earlier installments that the exploration or lack thereof influences directly, so simple swapping of the maps would spoil things in one way or another.
Already when you join in a military emergency with other civs that gives similar effect - if the setting 'teams share visibility' is selected, members immediately get to see each other's maps. Bam a heap of unsolicited era score points for you, bam you suddenly know everything and all the joys of exploration are gone...
Open borders barely cost anything, just buy them with all civs and send some fast units to take a look.

 

[Alexander's Hetaroi]

Yes. I hate having an incomplete map of the world.

Maybe you should launch a satellite?

I'd maybe instead make it a very very easy spy mission. It wouldn't take a super agent to go into a map store and buy one.

Or just by sneaking into a harbor and steal a map from one of the docked ships.

 

[bene_legionary]

Uncovering unexplored areas now include getting era points for discovering new natural wonders, circumnavigation or even new continents with respective dedication. That also gives knowledge about whereabouts of different city states which could significantly change your approach. Exploration is in the agenda of certain leaders and influences diplo relations with them. There are so many new elements in comparison with earlier installments that the exploration or lack thereof influences directly, so simple swapping of the maps would spoil things in one way or another.
Already when you join in a military emergency with other civs that gives similar effect - if the setting 'teams share visibility' is selected, members immediately get to see each other's maps. Bam a heap of unsolicited era score points for you, bam you suddenly know everything and all the joys of exploration are gone...
Open borders barely cost anything, just buy them with all civs and send some fast units to take a look.

Same thing happens with city states. I specifically ally with city states just so they give their explored area to me and explore for me. It's not hard to get suzerian status and learn of half the map just through one city state on another continent, and gain points (which is probably why I like to play archipelago, it's a lot harder to explore as borders can go across islands and city state explorers can either end up only on one small barren island with a million barbarians [and can't devote time to building ships] or they have to split their production with boats to explore.) City states are the best allies in more ways than one. (Just make sure you levy their troops first.)

 

[Zaarin]

Maybe you should launch a satellite?

Waste of time and production if I'm going for CV.

 

[bene_legionary]

Waste of time and production if I'm going for CV.

Yeah, but the moon landing gives you a big boost in culture, don't you need the satellite first? (Obviously you don't actually need too much culture to win a culture victory, only as a safeguard)

 

[Zaarin]

Yeah, but the moon landing gives you a big boost in culture, don't you need the satellite first? (Obviously you don't actually need too much culture to win a culture victory, only as a safeguard)

I'm swimming in culture from my Theatre Squares, Great Works, and wonders. The culture boost from the moon landing is to give science players a boost.

 

[tekjunkie28]

@Eagle Pursuit Hey man long time no chat, good to see you still here. I have been vaguely keeping up with the steamdb changes. I have seen some odd things. IDK what the smoke builds are. I agree there is a lot going on there. Also there has been a 2k public released comp which does seem to get updated shortly before a actual patch drop. This might be a final patch. I have seen this almost every game since civ3 but I have no way to verify if this is the last patch.

 

[acluewithout]

snip

Is there a working consensus or theory what the various files are likely to be?

I assume the Runner, Plaid etc files are the expected DLC or whatever, and the QC files are versions of the game being tested (with all the various tweaks etc consolidated into one file). If that’s right, what are the smoke files likely to be? Where do the Mac and Linux test versions go.

In other news, another social media post today, so I guess no news this week. But probably was never going to be news the week after XCOM 2.5.

snip

I’d really like to see some consolidation between envoys, delegations / embassies, and Diplo Favour.

I’d particularly like to see envoys being something you could allocate to other Civs and the World Congress, not just City States, and those envoys replace Delegations / Embassies and also effect Spy Chances, Diplo Visibility, Alliance Points etc.

...sigh. It’ll be interesting to see if whatever is coming (third expansion etc) will not just fill in gaps but also pull various mechanics together and iterate on various mechanics. The past tweaks to Greviences suggest it might, but who knows?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

@Eagle Pursuit Hey man long time no chat, good to see you still here. I have been vaguely keeping up with the steamdb changes. I have seen some odd things. IDK what the smoke builds are. I agree there is a lot going on there. Also there has been a 2k public released comp which does seem to get updated shortly before a actual patch drop. This might be a final patch. I have seen this almost every game since civ3 but I have no way to verify if this is the last patch.

The smoke builds are ostensibly for "smoke testing" your software, but I think they are being used as regular qa builds considering how frequently they are updated.

The 2K comp package was updated for XCOM:CS. It just registered on the Civ app page because Civ is in the same package.

Interestingly, there were two unmarked DLCs added to the 2K comp package at the same time. They are neither on the XCOM:CS DLC list nor the Civ DLC list.

 

[bene_legionary]

Actually, delegations have always been annoying to me. Why can you refuse a delegation and not get retribution? You should have a negative relations modifier if you refuse. Genghis Khan used the execution of delegations as a casus belli, why shouldn't AI, or us? Imagine if you refused a Mongolian delegation (because of their combat bonuses with visibility and that receiving delegations doesn't really help you unless you have no money) and then the Mongols came down in a turn later with the intention of sacking your cities.

Also, the idea of having to balance your diplomatic relations sounds quite nice, but I can't think of much else what you could really do with it in regards to civilizations...

Maybe you need envoys as delegates for trade with civs? If you haven't sent this amount of envoys, you don't get bonuses to trade, have deals, or alliances with that civ?

 

[Ferocitus]

Maybe Firaxis et al saw The Internet Historian's "The Engoodening of No Man's Sky"and decided to give quality control a try (instead of bloviating about how "cool" every new Civ feature is).

 

[Gyrofalcon]

Is there a working consensus or theory what the various files are likely to be?

I assume the Runner, Plaid etc files are the expected DLC or whatever, and the QC files are versions of the game being tested (with all the various tweaks etc consolidated into one file). If that’s right, what are the smoke files likely to be? Where do the Mac and Linux test versions go.

*snip*

The thing is that the DLC depots (Runner, Plaid, etc) are empty. I believe the smoke branches are the game with the DLC's / Exp hidden inside the DLC package. And since there so fare has been activity on DLC 01, 05 and 02, I guess 3 "new things" so far has been tested. The forth DLC-depot could be in the works, or it could already been tested within GS/RnF depots.
As we saw with 2Kqa_a and 2Kqa_b, short time after last update there, "something" was uploaded to two Aspyr branches (ASPYR REQUIRED: Linux/Mac Test Branch for Internal Testing), and short time after that two new once was created (ASPYR REQUIRED: Linux/Mac Test Branch to send builds to 2KQA). Then 2Kqa_a and _b went silent.
So my guesses is that we will see an update to "ASPYR REQUIRED: Linux/Mac Test Branch for Internal Testing" when Firaxis are done testing with 2Kqa, and are ready for announcement.

 

[CPWimmer]

A thing that intrigues me is that 2kqa_d updated 5 times in two days last week, plus once on the preceding Saturday, then went silent. I agree that this appears to be the leader build. They typically update it 3 days per week. If we get through Wednesday without an update to 2kqa_d, it might be time to get cautiously optimistic about the short term chances.

While I agree that would be a very telling sign. I expect to see 2kqa_d get updated sometime today, and if not, one of the non "E" Smoke branches.

 

[Gyrofalcon]

While I agree that would be a very telling sign. I expect to see 2kqa_d get updated sometime today, and if not, one of the non "E" Smoke branches.

I call, and raise you with a new DLC depot (no name so far)

Edit:

The total list of DLC, 19 of them:
1308090 SteamDB Unknown App 1308090 7 minutes ago
1284470 SteamDB Unknown App 1284470 (SoonTM) 26 days ago
1281820 SteamDB Unknown App 1281820 (Zoomzoom) 29 days ago
1270540 SteamDB Unknown App 1270540 (Plaid) about a month ago
1253990 SteamDB Unknown App 1253990 (Runner) 21 days ago
947510 Sid Meier's Civilization VI: Gathering Storm 3 days ago
645402 Sid Meier’s Civilization VI: Rise and Fall about a month ago
645401 Civilization VI - Khmer and Indonesia Civilization & Scenario Pack 4 months ago
645400 Civilization VI - Nubia Civilization & Scenario Pack 9 days ago
597260 Sid Meier's Civilization VI Development Assets 5 months ago
537570 Sid Meier's Civilization VI Demo (Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI) about 2 hours ago
521770 Civilization VI - Digital Deluxe Extras 7 months ago
512035 Civilization VI - Persia and Macedon Civilization & Scenario Pack 6 days ago
512034 Civilization VI - Australia Civilization & Scenario Pack 4 months ago
512033 Civilization VI - Poland Civilization & Scenario Pack 6 days ago
512032 Civilization VI - Vikings Scenario Pack 9 days ago
512031 Civilization VI - 25th Anniversary Soundtrack 2 months ago
512030 Civilization VI - Aztec Civilization Pack 5 months ago
404350 Sid Meier's Civilization VI Development Tools 13 days ago

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

It's an app rather than a depot. Perhaps they are waiting for us to make another snappy name suggestion before they put the depot up.

 

[tedhebert]

It's an app rather than a depot. Perhaps they are waiting for us to make another snappy name suggestion before they put the depot up.

how about "Make an annoucement already' ??? Not gonna cut it ???