Haven't played in 4 months.

Bhoy

Chieftain
Joined
Jun 26, 2003
Messages
81
Location
Belfast, Ireland
Spending a Friday night home alone, with a decent bottle of Vino.

Is it worth trying Civ5 again, has it improved a lot with patching since I last played about November last year?

Thinking about not risking it and just going with a game of BTS.
 
A lot has been improved with patching since November.
 
Home alone and drinking. Score.

The game is getting better, try and ee since some like it and some don't. See for yourself, we can't really help you there.
 
Not only have patches improved it, there are new and better mods. But if you're choosing something to drink, I reccomend doing a shot every time Napoleon insults you :)

Or play the "See-How-Arrogant-Alexander-Can-Be" Drinking Game.
 
A lot has been improved with patching since November.



A few balance tweaks (not all of them good) here and there. The essence of the game is unchanged.

PS, alcohol is not what you want when playing Civ. A stimulant of some kind is far more productive.
 
A few balance tweaks...

lolwut? Have you even looked at the patch notes, let alone played the game since release? Given you've been here since release, I assume you have. So I don't know how you make such silly statements like that.
 
December Patch

pdates to Sid Meier's Civilization® V have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:
Spoiler :

[AI]

[TACTICAL AI]
- Proper evaluation of which enemy units can reach my units next turn.
- Sorting enemy targets (within a class) by damage.
- Combine bombardment fire from cities with other ranged fire where possible.
- Never target a city for a ranged attack when they are already at (or going to be at) 1 health.
- Have the tactical AI be more aggressive about fortifying units that aren't moving anyways.
- Make all forms of guarding improvements the lowest priority tactical AI moves.
- Don't mark tiles adjacent to enemy at sea as good for flank attacks -- there is no flanking at sea.
- Update to tactical AI pillaging code - now prioritize enemy land resources and trade routes (never regular mines or farms). Always uses the check to make sure AI is not trying to pillage in an enemy dominance zone. Barbarians will still target everything.
- Never use ranged units to provide flank bonuses.
- Reduce chance of AI civs making "suicide" attacks.
- Changes to better protect the capital or any city with an enemy within 5 tiles.

[VICTORY]
- AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory (bribing City States) if they are wealthy.
- AI will be more aggressive about building Spaceship parts when going for Science victory.

[CIVS]
- Tweak a few leader settings to be more likely to use their traits.
- Adjust Napoleon to make more likely to go for culture.

[COMBAT/UNITS]
- AI will not use Horse as defenders on hills as much.
- AI will often build more defensive troops.
- AI will more aggressively hunt barbs in the early game.
- Slightly more naval units.
- AI will now build ranged and mobile units more in line with the flavor settings for the team - in general, this means more mobile units.
- AI now builds, deploys, and uses air units more effectively.
- Allow AI to build more units if above Prince.
- AI will be more likely to build and bring siege units in a city attack.
- Better nuke targeting by AI.
- Won't build AA if no air threat.
- Allow AI or automated human explorers to move to edge of sight range and then explore again.

[EXPLORATION/EXPANSION]
- AI will emphasize getting an Ocean going explorer unit when the time comes.
- AI slightly more likely to settle off home continent.
- AI should colonize other continents regularly.
- AI second wave expansion more aggressive.
- Improve the AI's chances of setting up protected bombard attacks.
- Settlers: should handle watery maps better.
- AI will grab goody huts on other land masses.
- AI will grab empty barb camps more often.

[WORKERS/CITY AI]
- Large Cities should be more willing to build happiness and gold buildings.
- Workers prioritize repair builds higher than other builds.
- AI will be more likely to build a wall on any city that was an original capital.
- Builder tasking now calculates yields appropriately during golden ages and weighs tiles according to how much stuff they provide overall as well as their maximum yield of a certain type.
- More likely to build up economy early.
- Multiple worker AI improvements.

[MISC]
- Factor GS into flavors more.
- Disband obsolete units even if not losing money.
- Upgrade units a bit more.
- Tweak flavors of policies a bit.
- Have AI factor Grand Strategy into picking policies.
- AI will factor grand strategy into tech choices a bit more.
- AI don't send a barb expedition if defenses are critical.
- AI less likely to pick a city on an inland sea for serious naval production.
- Additional pathfinder optimization.

[GAMEPLAY]

[CITY/BUILDINGS]
- Added "National Treasury" national wonder, which requires Markets in all cities. Provides +8 Gold per turn to the city in which it's built.
- Added "Circus Maximus" national wonder, which requires Colosseums in all cities.. Provides 5 Happiness.
- Library now has no specialist slots.
- Wat now has two specialist slots.
- Public school now has 1 Science per pop, +1 free Great Scientist point, +1 Culture for 3 gold maintenance.
- Observatory now has 1 specialist slot.
- Research Lab has two specialist slots.
- Public school now provides 1 beaker per pop for 3 gold maintenance.
- Watermill now provides +2 good and +1 production for 2 gold maintenance.
- Paper Maker now has no specialist slots.
- Circus now has +2 happiness and no maintenance.
- Theatre now has +5 happiness.
- Stadium now has +5 happiness.
- Reduced production cost and maintenance for the Courthouse.
- Courthouse can now be purchased in a city (although it is expensive).
- Removed maintenance from city defense buildings (Walls, Castle, Military Base).
- City defense buildings now help cities heal.
- Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology.
- Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city).
- Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes.
- Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this).
- Ironworks now gives 10 hammers instead of a % bonus.
- National College now gives +5 science in addition to the % bonus.
- Hermitage gives 5 culture in addition to its previous bonus.
- Raze/Unraze exploit fixed.
- Cities being razed are unhappy about it (only during the razing process).
- Cities heal more quickly.

[UNITS/PROMOTIONS]
- Cavalry can now go obsolete with Combustion.
- Stealth bombers cannot use carriers.
- Only allow one upgrade per unit from a goody hut.
- Add second embarkation promotion ("Defensive Embarkation").
- Amount of damage done during naval combat increased.
- All melee horse units get penalty attacking cities.
- Increased city attack penalty for mounted and armor units to 50% (from 40%).
- Lancers (and Lancer UUs) upgrade to helicopter.
- Lowered combat value of Horseman and Companion Cavalry.
- Promotions must be picked the turn they're earned.
- Can no longer promote a unit that has fought during the turn (instead, the promotion comes up the beginning of the following turn).
- Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities.
- Reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities.
- Reduced some combat bonuses: flanking (15 to 10), Great Generals (25 to 20), Discipline (15 to 10), Military Tradition (2x to 1.5x).
- Remove requirement for aluminum on Mobile SAM.
- Lower open terrain penalty to 10% .
- Marsh is now 3 moves to enter (Chariots do not move quickly through it anymore).
- Cavalry now upgrade to tanks.

[CITY STATES]
- Reduced bonuses from Maritime city-states - Friends: +2 food in capital, +0 food in other cities - Allies: +3 food in capital, +1 food in other cities
- Only the first 3 units gifted to a city-state will earn Influence now.
- Killing a barb inside a city-state's territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty.

[HAPPINESS]
- If an empire reaches -20 Happiness, it goes into revolt, and rebels start appearing throughout the empire, based on the number of cities.
- Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age reduced.
- Amount of Happiness needed to trigger a Golden Age now increases as the number of cities in the empire goes up.

[POLICIES]
- Landed Elite (Tradition Branch) now reduces culture cost of border growth by 2/3.
- Monarchy (Tradition Branch) now provides +1 Gold per 2 pop in the Capital..
- Liberty now provides a Settler training bonus to only the capital, and not every city.
- Tradition now provides +50% growth in the capital.
- Theocracy now reduces Unhappiness by 25% .
- Reformation now gives a 10-turn GA.
- Adopting Rationalism now gives a 4-turn GA.

[TECH TREE]
- Add link between Military Science and Dynamite.
- Add link between Civil Service and Education.
- Add link between Economics and Scientific Theory.
- Add link between Chivalry and Acoustics.
- Research overflow now works correctly (extra beakers after completing a tech will rollover to the next tech).

[GENERAL]
- Fixed bug where clicking on a city plot wouldn't select the garrison.
- Natural wonders now award culture (if worked) and happiness (if in border) if that trait is assigned to a wonder in XML.
- Players must now always adopt Policies immediately, and cannot defer picking until later.
- Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). Razing cities will not raise your policy cost ceiling.
- Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition from 20 to 15.
- 3 new Natural Wonders and rarity code for both base game and New World scenario.
- Reduced points from Wonders (40 to 25) & Cities (10 to 8), increased points for pop by 1 (3 to 4).

[DIPLOMACY]
- AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
- Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
- New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
- New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request, etc.).
- Not agreeing to a friend's request now results in a relations hit.
- Third party AIs can now respond when a player makes a DoF or denounces someone. What they say is based on the situation - e.g. if you make friends with someone they don't like, they'll scold you.
- AI leaders will now sometimes ask their friends to denounce one of their enemies as a show of support, and refusing to denounce someone when an AI asks can now make them very upset.
- AI is now capable of denouncing friends (aka, backstabbing) and added backstabbing info to diplo overview screen.

[UI]
- Add XP bar for air units, do not allow XP for air units attacking a city that is already down to its last hit-point.
- Change ActivePlayer's name to "You" in single player in score list.
- Added game option to disable automated workers from removing features.
- Fixed bug where Happiness from garrisoned units wasn't being listed in Happiness info tooltip.
- Load Map function will now display correct size and type of saved map.
- New "Angry Genghis" loading screen (replaces the "fluffy-bunny Genghis" loading screen).
- Added setup options to allow players to defer choosing Policies and Promotions right away.
- Show the river penalty when attacking city across river (the penalty was there but was not being shown in the preview).
- Global politics screen updated to reflect new diplo system.
- Can no longer Force End Turn (shift-enter) through blocking notifications. CAN now use it to skip over units which need orders.
- Multiple tweaks and bug fixes.

[MISC]
- Fix small bugs with adding long roads around existing features.
- Fixed bombard arrow across world wrap.

[MODDING]
- Parent category counts now include counts of child categories.
- Selecting/deselecting a category now automatically selects/deselects it's children and its parent.
- Tweaked category name truncation to better fit names.
- Hide categories w/ no children and a count of 0.
- Added support for fallback languages (if mod is not translated, fall-back to English so text keys are not showing).
- The pager for the installed mods tab of the mods browser is now displayed in the correct location.
- Long values for properties such as "Special Thanks" will no longer extend past the edge browser frame.
- Categories refresh much faster now in the mods browser.
- Multiple additional tweaks and fixes to the mod browser.
- Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units.
- Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality.
- Fixed "Reload Landmark System" mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in "ArtDefine_Landmarks".
- Multiple SDK updates (new version to go live shortly).

[SERIALIZATION/SAVES]
- Fixed save format which causes saves to increase the memory footprint of the game drastically when loading frequently over the course of the game. This heightened the risk of late-game out of memory crashes significantly.


March Patch

Spoiler :
1.0.1.217
Released 3/1/2011
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.
• Memory leak – UI – Change the way the UI Manager calculates the hash of a texture so that different ways of specifying the same texture will not load the same texture more than once.
• Memory leak – DLL – Fix memory leak in DLL Args system

CRASH/TURN SPIKE
• Correct coding error that could cause turn-time spikes, incorrect deployments for protected bombard attack, or incorrect deployments as armies marched across the map

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 Culture cost of Policies by 33% less than normal. 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.
 
The patches have helped...but the game is still pretty bad compared to IV.

Its still plagued by Bad tactical AI (that probably wont ever be fixed)
Extremely slow production times for units and buildings. (boring!!!!)
The worst multiplayer features I've ever seen in a game.

Many people fear some of the biggest problems in V can't be fixed by patches.
 
The patches have helped...but the game is still pretty bad compared to Civilization IV+Two expansion packs and several patches for each.

Its still plagued by Bad tactical AI (that probably wont ever be fixed)
Extremely slow production times for units and buildings. (boring!!!!)
The worst multiplayer features I've ever seen in a game.

Many people fear some of the biggest problems can't be fixed by patches.

Fixed for you.
 
Besides a couple of relatively minor new buildings/national wonders, can you show me any of the changes in the patches that changed the fundamental nature of the game rather than, as I said before, tweaking the gameplay balance is different ways (good as well as bad)?
 
Besides a couple of relatively minor new buildings/national wonders, can you show me any of the changes in the patches that changed the fundamental nature of the game rather than, as I said before, tweaking the gameplay balance is different ways (good as well as bad)?

Besides the giant change from the planned opaque diplomacy with no visible modifiers and AI to a more transparent form of diplomacy where the AIs aren't half as insane as they were before the patches? There doesn't need to be patches that change the fundamental nature of the game because the fundamental nature of the game is relatively sound, it's the implementation that had the problems. But of course you, like so many others, will look at TWO long list of patch notes, shrug it off, and say, "Well, they really didn't change THAT much. It's the same game!" Because it isn't. The game is VERY different and much better than it was at release.
 
There doesn't need to be patches that change the fundamental nature of the game because the fundamental nature of the game is relatively sound, it's the implementation that had the problems.

That's actually where you and many others differ.
 
Besides the giant change from the planned opaque diplomacy with no visible modifiers and AI to a more transparent form of diplomacy where the AIs aren't half as insane as they were before the patches? There doesn't need to be patches that change the fundamental nature of the game because the fundamental nature of the game is relatively sound, it's the implementation that had the problems. But of course you, like so many others, will look at TWO long list of patch notes, shrug it off, and say, "Well, they really didn't change THAT much. It's the same game!" Because it isn't. The game is VERY different and much better than it was at release.



I'm concluding from your somewhat-ranting word-soup that you consider the diplomacy to be significantly different than the pre-patched game. The fact is that it isn't.
 
... the fact is that it isn't.

Is that where we've got to now. come on, back it up at least. too many people (myself included) have provided enough anecdotal evidence and specific in-game examples to demonstrate that the changes implemented in the recent patch were significant enough for diplomacy to now be considered a functioning part of the game.

How is that so many players, all the way up to Deity, have been able to talk about diplo as an important part of their strategy for winning when before it was considered unreliable?

Anyone who still bashes diplo I can only assume has yet to figure out how to use it properly and its a shame because you are actually missing out on an important and interesting part of the game.
 
Spending a Friday night home alone, with a decent bottle of Vino.

Is it worth trying Civ5 again, has it improved a lot with patching since I last played about November last year?

Well, may be if you get really really really wasted...:lol:
 
Is that where we've got to now. come on, back it up at least. too many people (myself included) have provided enough anecdotal evidence and specific in-game examples to demonstrate that the changes implemented in the recent patch were significant enough for diplomacy to now be considered a functioning part of the game.

How is that so many players, all the way up to Deity, have been able to talk about diplo as an important part of their strategy for winning when before it was considered unreliable?

Anyone who still bashes diplo I can only assume has yet to figure out how to use it properly and its a shame because you are actually missing out on an important and interesting part of the game.

Diplomacy might be slightly improved, but it still has no real depth.. and doesn't change the fact that the current game basicly forces you to warmonger.
 
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