Ibn Battuta Beta, last sneak peek

The_J

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@Catoninetales_Amplitude has posted an overview over the next beta over at Games2gether. They are working on the balancing, and various civs will get a re-work.

All details at Games2gether, or below:
Spoiler :

The Ibn Battuta Update will arrive soon, but we have one last sneak peek for you. Today we want to take a look at cultures and balancing.



While we made some general balance changes in this update, like making vassalization easier for famed empires and making most influence-based actions cheaper in the mid and late game, our focus was on the cultures. We wanted to give a boost to some of the weaker or less interesting cultures to offer more compelling choices, though we also changed some of the cultures that were just too powerful.

About two dozen cultures have been tweaked in some way, and there’s not enough room in this blog to cover all of them, so the best way to learn what has changed is to give it a spin yourself in the Ibn Battuta beta available for Windows on Steam now! Just opt into the ibnbattuta_beta branch in the game’s properties.

If you’re unsure about trying the beta, or just want to know a little more before jumping in, you can read about four of the cultures that have received major changes below, or check out a more complete list of changes on the forum.





Phoenicians

The Phoenicians were a naval power who founded cities along the coasts of the Mediterranean and were influential traders. Unfortunately, many of you found that this legacy was not represented well in Humankind. The Bireme may have let you explore the waters more freely than other cultures, but your outposts and thus your empire were still landlocked. While your boats zipped off to far away lands, your scouts would trudge across difficult terrain...

Not anymore, though! We’ve told your land-lubbing soldiers to get on the boat and get out there to claim some land: Biremes are now transport ships that unlock with the Fishing technology, allowing you to easily expand along coastlines and maybe even snatch a few inviting islands. If you need better protection for your explorers, you can now also build the Pentekonter like other cultures, but your Legacy Trait will give you a slight edge.









Goths

What if you get sea-sick, or are just not a good negotiator? Don’t worry, you can still benefit from the riches and knowledge of your neighbors. You just have to take a slightly more... direct approach to it, and the Goths got your back.

The Goths haven’t exactly been a popular pick so far. While the Gothic Cavalry is decently powerful, especially on the charge, neither their Legacy Trait nor their Emblematic Quarter seemed particularly appealing to players, especially compared to the economic bonuses of other cultures. We knew we had to offer the Goths some economic benefits, but we wanted to stick with the ransacking theme of their Legacy Trait, so instead of ransacking faster you will now gain some Science from ransacking. The Tumulus will further boost this less-than-friendly knowledge sharing, and benefit from some tweaks made to the religious tenets (more info on that below), while no longer reducing your stability.









Mounted Nomads: Huns and Mongols

Speaking of powerful mounted forces, both the Huns and the Mongols have gotten some changes and small buffs.

On their own, their emblematic units were in a good spot in combat; difficult to catch but not overly powerful in a fight. Their tendency to multiply and raise new troops after killing yours caused some problems, though. You might enjoy fending off a couple of horse archers the first time around, but weathering an endless horde of them in a large battle or prolonged war could be tedious, if not frustrating. So, we've reined in these seemingly necromantic practices: Mounted Nomads will no longer grow from defeating enemy units. Instead, you can find special "Pasture" curiosities that will provide some growth to your army, and you can still grow by pillaging enemy districts.

Since many players also felt that these two cultures were too similar, we’ve added some additional bonuses to their legacy traits: The Huns will now gain a small amount of science for each of their units in hostile territory, encouraging you to be aggressive even when you are not out to conquer. The Mongols, on the other hand, can make some extra money from tributaries, as vassalizing other empires will be easier for them.









Americans

Let’s skip ahead a couple of centuries to the Contemporary Era and take a look at the Americans. The Defense Agency has frequently been criticized as one of the weakest Emblematic Quarters in the Contemporary Era, if not the game. Between its synergy to garrisons and its very localized effect on combat, many players felt it offered very little benefit, with its cost only growing as you tried to maximize its effects.

Thanks to some internal restructuring, the Defense Agency is ready to be a boon to your economy, and a boom to your military. Not only does it no longer reduce your stability and gain bigger synergies with garrisons, it now also counts as a Market and Commons Quarter to benefit from additional synergies. More importantly, it now supplies your troops with shiny new high-tech weapons. Explosive ones, mostly: Every Defense Agency in your empire will increase the strength of your bombardment abilities, whether it's your army, navy, or air force.









Religious Districts and Tenets

So, what about those tenet tweaks we mentioned?

When reading the feedback, we noticed that many cultures with a religious Emblematic Quarter tended to be among the less popular choices. Faith was just not considered a strong yield by many players, as they largely relied on Holy Sites and Cultural Wonders to spread their religion, and they preferred more direct economic benefits. To help these cultures be more appealing to players, we are adding some economic benefits to them through the tenets: Each non-militaristic tenet will now provide a small resource yield on Religious Districts (including Holy Sites). We've also fixed a problem where these Religious Districts where not properly marked in their tooltip, so they will be easier to identify now. They might not rival dedicated districts, but each religious district should now add to your economy based on your religion, and we hope a religious playthrough will now be more interesting.





We hope you’ll enjoy the new culture balancing and the opportunities it should open!

 
The American and Aztecs changes make me very nervous, but I'm also curious about how they will work in practice.

I'm hoping that the +CS bonus from Aztec's sacrifice doesn't go exponential.

The American's +CS bonus for bombardment per Defense Agency is much easier to understand, but it's also much easier to understand how that could get out of hand, similar to the Soviet's Weapons bonuses. Can't wait to see if I can make Lightnings that one-shot multiple units in a turn.
 
Aztecs changes? I saw no mention of Aztecs above....oh, wait - it's in the detailed breakdown at the referenced website (just in case anyone else gets as confused as me)
 
EDIT: Sorry, we had to roll back for now. We received a number of reports of crashes on launch. We will hotfix as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the patch is still available on the beta branch on Steam.
EDIT 2: Hotfix has been deployed. The Ibn Battuta Update should now be available on the main branch on Steam (minus the crashes on launch some players experienced.)


The patch is out now. :)

There have been a few extra changes since the beta, but let me give you the highlights
  • Harbors are now an anchor for district construction
  • Fixed Goths ransack to science conversion rate to 5% instead of 50%
  • Aztecs combat strength bonus for sacrificing now only applies to units with the Maimed status
  • Khmer Emblematic Unit lost indirect fire and Move and Fire
  • India: Well, a bunch of changes to their EQ and one to their LT
    • EQ: count as Common Quarter and Religious District
    • EQ: exploits industry and food of tiles (as Hamlets)
    • EQ: does not need to be placed next to another district
    • EQ: loses +2 Faith per population
    • EQ: provide +1 Science, +1 Influence on Religious District
    • LT: +5 influence (instead of +3), +2% money per territory under influence
  • Also, the Cuban EQ got some big changes:
    • EQ: count as Science Quarter
    • EQ: removed +1 Food per population per Pharmaceuticals on all Cities
    • Pharmaceuticals: +1 Food per Food Worker per Pharmaceuticals on Overpopulated cities
    • Pharmaceuticals: on Settled cities (>90% Stability)
    • +1 Industry per Pharmaceutical access per Industry worker
    • +1 Money per Pharmaceutical access per money worker
    • +1 Science per Pharmaceutical access per Science worker
 
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Woah...! How do we not have the full patch notes here :mischief:

"Battuta Patch" from July 27, G2G:

Hola!

Time for the full release of Battuta Patch. If you have been around for the beta you will be familiar with this post, BUT we have tweaked a couple of things (red coloured), this tweaks can be "real" changes or changes that weren't on the previous blog but that they were on the beta.

Influence Balancing
You probably know how many players bring up the rapidly growing influence costs for various actions in the game. To be honest, some of those costs did spiral a bit out of control in the mid to late game. So we are adjusting some factors to the following:
  • Civics: Reduced the cost impact of Number of Enacted Civics
  • Attaching Outposts: Reduced the impact of already attached territories by 40%
  • Merging Cities: Reduced the impact of Infrastructure Buyout Cost by over 50%
Vassalization
Forcefully Vassalizing an opponent after a war will now be cheaper if you have more Fame than them. Roughly every 200 Fame should provide a 10 point reduction in War Score Cost. We also fixed the bug where (re-)vassalizing an empire after they tried to break free wasn't free as intended.

Militarist Affinity
While the Iron Reserves ability is incredibly powerful when exploited by an experienced player, we found that most more casual players find it extremely weak and almost never use it. So, we are making some tweaks to it to make it feel better to use for casual players, while fixing some bugs and unintended uses:
  • Militia units in Eras 5 and 6 now cost 2 pop each to raise (sieges unaffected)
  • Militia units can be upgraded into professional units in the Anti Cavalry branch (starting from Spearmen up to Rifles in the 6th era)
  • Fixed Militia units being free to heal
  • Fixed an exploit that created population when upgrading and disbanding units
  • Adjusted Ability Cooldown to scale with gamespeed and army size
Harbor Construction
To give you additional options when building your cities, Harbors will now serve as a "construction anchor" the same way Hamlets do, letting you build new districts next to them. We think this will particularly benefit naval cultures with "counts as" effects on their Emblematic Harbors, or otherwise maritime cultures. (Looking at you, Dutch V.O.C. Warehouse...)

Spoiler :
DutchVOC.jpeg


Cultures
Now we're getting into the meat of the balancing


[ERA 1]


Phoenicians

  • Phoenician LT loses early naval tech cost reductions, gains +1 CS and +1 Movement Speed on naval units
  • EU becomes Naval Transport, unlocked with Fishing. 13CS, 2 Movement Speed (14CS and 3 Move Speed with LT)
  • Phoenicians gain access to Pentekonter
  • EQ gains a +1 Food worker slot

Hittites
  • LT: tech cost reduction to wheel replaced with "+20 to FIMS per Occupied City on each of their Own Cities" (Note: This effect ends with the war.)
  • Emblematic Quarter provides +3 Money and +20 Health Regen to friendly units in territory

Assyria
  • Dunnu counts as Commons Quarter
  • EQ gets Influence yield raised to +3 (was +2)

Myceneans
  • EQ loses additional industry bonus
  • EQ Stability bonus is now +5 (instead of +15)

Olmec
  • LT now gives +3 Influence per territory (was +1)

Egyptians
  • EU loses “Indirect Fire”

[ERA 2]


Romans

  • EQ now permanently gives +5 Influence, +5 Stability for each adjacent district
  • EQ now counts as Commons Quarter
  • EQ gives +50 Fame if completed while city is Victorious
  • LT –30% upkeep reduction replaced with +50% experience gain on unit
  • LT lost -30% Research Cost for Imperial Power
  • Praetorian Guard lose 1CS (now 29)

Goths
  • LT: Removed Ransack Combat Strength Bonus
  • LT: Added "+5% of Ransack Gains earned as Science per Army Unit (bonus scales with amount of units in ransacking army)
  • EQ Base Yields unchanged, but no Stability penalty
  • EQ also increases overall ransack bounty by +5%
  • EQ now counts as Commons Quarter


Era 2+ nomads (Huns, Mongols)
  • No longer gain food as combat spoils
  • Now can collect special “Pasture” curiosities that spawn on Prairie and Dry Grass which give food

Huns
  • LT: Added +5 science per Unit on hostile territory

Garamantes
  • EQ removed +1Food per adjacent Rocky Field and Stone Field
  • EQ gains +1 food on exploitation on territory (there is a bug on the UI that doesn't mention "on territory")
  • EQ now must be build next to Sterile, Stony Field, or Rocky Field
  • EU losses “Indirect Fire”

[ERA 3]


Aztecs

  • EQ now counts as Commons Quarter
  • EQ now gives +10 Stability (was +5)
  • Sacrifice Action now causes each EQ to get +100% to their stability output
  • Additional Sacrifice effect gives +1 CS to Heavily Damaged (<33%) Units per Sacrificing settlements

Mongols
  • LT: Added -25% Vassalization cost reduction

Khmer
  • EU loses “Move and Fire”
  • EU gain Elephant Platform (no penalty from melee attacks).
  • EU loses “Indirect Fire”

[ERA 4]


Ming

  • LT: Replaced "+1 Influence on Territory" with "+10 Influence per enacted Civic"
  • EQ: No longer provides Stability, but counts as Commons Quarter instead
  • EQ: +1 influence per district in same territory as emblematic quarter

Poles
  • EQ now counts as Commons Quarter

Venetians
  • LT: +1 influence per trade route, +1 money per trade route, +2 money per naval route
  • EQ: +2 Money base yield (was +1)
  • EQ: +2 Influence per adjacent District (was +1 per market before)

Spain
  • EQ now gives +5 stability (was -10)
  • EQ now counts as Commons Quarter

[ERA 5]


Austro-Hungaria

  • Stability per District now applies only on local territory

Ethiopia
  • LT effect boosted to +10 Science on Garrisons (was +5)
  • LT gains "CS of hostile units within borders gained as Science"
  • EQ now counts as Commons Quarter
  • EQ now properly counts as Garrison

Zulu
  • EQ now counts as Farmers Quarter
  • EQ now serves as construction anchor like Hamlet
  • EQ now gives +25XP on new units (was +10)

French
  • EQ loses "Collective Minds" effect
  • EQ gains +2 Science per trade route

Russians
  • LT loses old effects
  • LT gains "-25% outpost creation cost"
  • LT gains +10 Fortification on settlements

[ERA 6]


USSR

  • Resource now only applies CS bonus only if unit is Supplied

Americans
  • EQ loses "strength on adjacent units"
  • EQ no longer reduces Stability
  • EQ gains gold synergy with Garrisons
  • EQ counts as Market Quarter
  • EQ counts as Commons Quarter
  • EQ gives +3 Bombardment Strength (Yes, this is global)

Japan
  • EQ loses inherent synergy effect with Makers and Research quarters (infrastructures that give synergy to Makers and Research quarters still work)
  • EQ: Restricted +2 Science and +2 Industry effects to local territory

Turks
  • LT buffed to +3 Food per pop (was +1)

Brazil
  • EQ: gains "+3 Science per adjacent Farmers Quarter"
  • EQ: gains +1 Researcher slot
  • EQ now counts as research quarter

India
  • EQ: count as Common Quarter and Religious District
  • EQ: exploits industry and food of tiles (as Hamlets)
  • EQ: does not need to be placed next to another district
  • EQ: loses +2 Faith per population
  • EQ: provide +1 Science, +1 Influence on Religious District
  • LT: +5 influence (instead of +3), +2% money per territory under influence

Cuba
  • EQ: count as Science Quarter
  • EQ: removed +1 Food per population per Pharmaceuticals on all Cities
  • EQ: +1 Food per Food Worker per Pharmaceuticals on Overpopulated cities
  • EQ on Settled cities (>90% Stability)
    • +1 Industry per Pharmaceutical access per Industry worker
    • +1 Money per Pharmaceutical access per money worker
    • +1 Science per Pharmaceutical access per Science worker

Religious Districts and Tenets


We've added an explicit line in the "counts as" section for religious districts. Currently, the list of Religious Districts includes all Holy Sites ("normal" and cultural wonders, but this may not be displayed yet), and the the following Emblematic Quarters
  • Aztec
  • Maya
  • Edo Japanese
  • Spanish
  • Russian
  • Umayyads
  • Maurya
  • Celts
  • Goths
  • Aksumites
  • Teutons
  • Ottomans
  • Nazca
  • Mississippians

In addition to that, we have added an additional effect to the following Tenets
  • Tier 1
    • Respect the seas’ bounties : +2 Food on Religious District
    • Abstain from Intoxicants: +2 Industry on Religious District
    • Seek Wisdom: +2 Science on Religious District
    • Shelter the True Oracles: +2 Influence on Religious District
    • Be virtuous as Water: +2 Stability on Religious District
    • Reject Luxury: +2 Money on Religious District
  • Tier 2
    • Undertake Pilgrimage: +2 Influence on Religious District
    • Bear not False Witness: +2 Science on Religious District
    • Give Alms: +2 Money on Religious District
    • Observe Fasts : +2 Food on Religious District
    • Protect the Weak: +2 Stability on Religious District
  • Tier 3
    • Develop the Intellect: +2 Science on Religious District
    • Purge Idleness: +2 Industry on Religious District
    • Mandate Patronage: +2 Money on Religious District
    • Proselytize Daily: +2 Influence on Religious District
  • Tier 4
    • Raise Monuments: +2 Science on Religious District
    • Donate Generously: +2 Money on Religious District
    • Sustain the Faithful: +2 Stability on Religious District

We hope you like these changes and have fun with the patch ^-^
 
Off the top of my head, I think the following ought to be added to the religious district category, though I concede room for nuance:
  • Zhou
  • Franks
  • Mughals
  • Joseon
Also, and I don't know how I missed this, but what is this district??

Spoiler :
Mystery district.png


EDIT: "Mystery" solved!
 
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