Is affinity 4 still possible pre-t100?

[sprang]

The couple of Apollo games I have played post-patch are similar to RedRover's. Hutama expands non-stop and always has alot of affinity points.

Ditto. Turn 50, I've got maybe 1 affinity point and all the AIs have at least three - one in each - and the leaders have five, 2-2-1 or 3-1-1. I mean, even when I get my quest points in, there's no way I'm gonna catch up to that.

Soyuz is way too easy - I keep quitting games after 100 turns or so, having run away with everything.

 

[Light Cleric]

Ditto. Turn 50, I've got maybe 1 affinity point and all the AIs have at least three - one in each - and the leaders have five, 2-2-1 or 3-1-1. I mean, even when I get my quest points in, there's no way I'm gonna catch up to that.

Soyuz is way too easy - I keep quitting games after 100 turns or so, having run away with everything.

Same as the above. In my couple post-patchgames I've been double-DoWed(funnily enough by Kozlov+Hutama both times) by like turn 60-70 by units several Affinity levels higher. I can survive because the combat AI is still the same as Civ 5 but it's also going to cripple you very hard and in the meantime the other AIs are going to gobble up the remaining land and make the rest of the game a pain in the butt.

I'm really disappointed that they decided to add the extra Colonist ala Civ 5 Deity. I liked the fact that there was actually room to expand in the earlier game in BE and on Apollo it's almost non-existent now especially because Colonists are harder to hard-build in BE than Settlers in Civ 5. I hope it's not a step towards driving us into the same boring tall games that Civ 5 basically mandated mechanically.

 

[Karmah]

Same as the above. In my couple post-patchgames I've been double-DoWed(funnily enough by Kozlov+Hutama both times) by like turn 60-70 by units several Affinity levels higher. I can survive because the combat AI is still the same as Civ 5 but it's also going to cripple you very hard and in the meantime the other AIs are going to gobble up the remaining land and make the rest of the game a pain in the butt.

I'm really disappointed that they decided to add the extra Colonist ala Civ 5 Deity. I liked the fact that there was actually room to expand in the earlier game in BE and on Apollo it's almost non-existent now especially because Colonists are harder to hard-build in BE than Settlers in Civ 5. I hope it's not a step towards driving us into the same boring tall games that Civ 5 basically mandated mechanically.

It really is an 'I told you so ' moment. When you read all the 'fix' propored by forumers about trade routes , about appolo difficulty etc.. all I could read was ' Give me back my reasonnable tall games I m accustomed to instead of this folly of expansion' .

They did what is the worst thing a game designer team can do , they implemented fan suggestion !

Im not saying one should not listen to the fans , especially when you are lucky enough to have a community like civfanatics..but you read about problems , get a feel of the suggestion to get your mind rolling and then you design your solution yourself , something deep with vision.

(And you don't up the game for those who have perfectly working 2 y old graphic cards when u are a strategy game forcing them to play with a friend laptop, but that s jut my rant)

I could only play with the patch since yesterday , but from my games it is indeed pretty hard to expand , force back the invasion and build infrastructure. It s ok that is hard , it should be. Then after the frist assault waves , I start focusing on my empire , and ....Oh look I m playing tall again ! only getting full conquest late mid game. I sincerely hope I missed something !

 

[Light Cleric]

It really is an 'I told you so ' moment. When you read all the 'fix' propored by forumers about trade routes , about appolo difficulty etc.. all I could read was ' Give me back my reasonnable tall games I m accustomed to instead of this folly of expansion' .

They did what is the worst thing a game designer team can do , they implemented fan suggestion !

Im not saying one should not listen to the fans , especially when you are lucky enough to have a community like civfanatics..but you read about problems , get a feel of the suggestion to get your mind rolling and then you design your solution yourself , something deep with vision.

(And you don't up the game for those who have perfectly working 2 y old graphic cards when u are a strategy game forcing them to play with a friend laptop, but that s jut my rant)

I could only play with the patch since yesterday , but from my games it is indeed pretty hard to expand , force back the invasion and build infrastructure. It s ok that is hard , it should be. Then after the frist assault waves , I start focusing on my empire , and ....Oh look I m playing tall again ! only getting full conquest late mid game. I sincerely hope I missed something !

I actually did think there were serious problems with Trade Routes but simply screwed up trying to fix it. As many people have said, it feels like it was fixed by taking a sledgehammer to the problem(including making Trade Depots un-purchasable which just feels like a duct-tape style attempt at a fix). There is a middle ground and it feels like it was launched right over to another extreme.

And yes, it should be hard, I agree. Problem is this patch has really made it feel even more like a Civ5 reskin than before. At least in Civ5 you could still get away with some expansion(although it wasn't a great idea, you can do just fine with it as a change of pace as long as you don't try to really ICS) with Collective Rule's 50% Settler bonus. BE doesn't have that and on top of that it makes Colonists cost waaaay more hammers(186 vs 106) and doesn't have luxuries to mitigate the early unhappiness problems. It's not so much hard as "do I want to grate my teeth and play this" like the 50 TR notices ever turn would. If you try to expand you are going to get trucked by someone, usually multiple people, by higher-affinity units. Like it doesn't even feel like a challenge, you just can't do anything about it. It's like starting the AI out with Composite Bows and 3 free Horsemen in CivV. It would be ridiculous.

 

[Karmah]

great[/i] idea, you can do just fine with it as a change of pace as long as you don't try to really ICS) with Collective Rule's 50% Settler bonus. BE doesn't have that and on top of that it makes Colonists cost waaaay more hammers(186 vs 106) and doesn't have luxuries to mitigate the early unhappiness problems. It's not so much hard as "do I want to grate my teeth and play this" like the 50 TR notices ever turn would. If you try to expand you are going to get trucked by someone, usually multiple people, by higher-affinity units. Like it doesn't even feel like a challenge, you just can't do anything about it. It's like starting the AI out with Composite Bows and 3 free Horsemen in CivV. It would be ridiculous.

Yep , we can still win on Appolo , but you need to turtle and grow tall early...one way to play only to deal with this huge early AI bonus + increased aggression. I feel like I m backed into a corner , and one that is too familiar for my taste.

If I want to play tall , I launch civ5. CivBE post patch at least gave this impression of a colony based game which was refreshing , yet too easy... middle ground please !

 

[DarkestOnion]

You can still rush Affinity-4 and win Domination by around T125 on Apollo. However this requires most of the following: 1-2 lucky Affinity Points from Expeditions, no AI (or worse multiple AI's!) dropping closer than 10 tiles from your capital, destroying AI Colonists and Explorers at every opportunity, no AI having a city strength above 30 when you are rushing them with Gunners/Armor/Marines. Those are tall orders however so I shoot for T150 at the earliest.

 

[RedRover57]

You can still rush Affinity-4 and win Domination by around T125 on Apollo. However this requires most of the following: 1-2 lucky Affinity Points from Expeditions, no AI (or worse multiple AI's!) dropping closer than 10 tiles from your capital, destroying AI Colonists and Explorers at every opportunity, no AI having a city strength above 30 when you are rushing them with Gunners/Armor/Marines. Those are tall orders however so I shoot for T150 at the earliest.

With this strategy do you also have to rush the free affinity virtue in Might? How many cities? How many units do you build/buy? No AI cities above 30 strength? How do you manage that other than for maybe the first capital? AI's love defensive buildings and they seem to rush buy them readily. In Apollo Challenge #1 my neighbor had a 50+ strength city by the time I got battlesuits (around turn 110) and it was difficult to take even before the battlesuit nerf (pre-patch) due to its defensive positioning.

Until I see someone post a successful Apollo difficulty Let's Play post-patch I remain skeptical about some of these strategies that are being suggested. That's not to say that people aren't winning some games due to luck in terms of RNG. I'm talking about solid strategies that win on Apollo on the majority of maps.

I am curious now about trying out a tall game. It just doesn't seem possible to catch up to runaway AI.

 

[joyodongo]

With this strategy do you also have to rush the free affinity virtue in Might? How many cities? How many units do you build/buy? No AI cities above 30 strength? How do you manage that other than for maybe the first capital? AI's love defensive buildings and they seem to rush buy them readily. In Apollo Challenge #1 my neighbor had a 50+ strength city by the time I got battlesuits (around turn 110) and it was difficult to take even before the battlesuit nerf (pre-patch) due to its defensive positioning.

Until I see someone post a successful Apollo difficulty Let's Play post-patch I remain skeptical about some of these strategies that are being suggested. That's not to say that people aren't winning some games due to luck in terms of RNG. I'm talking about solid strategies that win on Apollo on the majority of maps.

I am curious now about trying out a tall game. It just doesn't seem possible to catch up to runaway AI.

I agree. Before the patch I could consistently win on Apollo, and post patch, in one of my best games (I must say I'm a far-from-optimal player), a non-perfect but solid one, when the Slavs got a contact victory in T192 I was by far the last one in points (I know this is not so important but...) and I never had the chance of conquering any neighbour's capital. 8 cities, from 16 to 3 pop, 6 affinity (I didn't focus on that since AffUI are not so important now), while the AI were all 9-10. I just saw no way to win, not even to being close to win...
So, I also want to see someone posting a successfull game on apollo after patch and figure how can you win now. I'm sure anyway many people did though, so please illustrate us

Hahaha, it was funny to read someone showing off about his post-patch win on apollo
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=538589
Post-patch, yes, post-"turn185", LOL.

 

[RedRover57]

It probably would be a good idea for someone to just post a map to continue the Apollo Challenge series - could be any map really. That way people can see how their strategy stacks up to others. Acken has apparently stopped playing BE so someone else will need to take charge. I would do it, but in a few days I won't have access for 2 weeks to a computer that is capable of playing the game. But I could get something started when I return in January.