July Patch - Upcoming Changelog Discussion Thread

[Kim Dong Un]

Me reading this debate...

To solve this issue, I'm still in favour of just flat out removing China and all other Oriental civs, as they are inconsequential. They will be represented by the newly added Kim dynasty; groundwork has already been laid in another thread.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

To dissuade any concerns that I've overnerfed...

View attachment 529800

The scoreboard seems to disagree (I've been running permutations with changed civs to see if they underperform, so far they've done just as well as always).

G

You only prove the concerns, really....
17-21 City size in 1945, even with a civ that gets heavy food bonus.
I have have no clue how you come to the conclusion, that rising growth cost increases the value of food. It only makes growth even less relevant cause you have to pay even more food to get a benefit. For me, it really seems you didn't have understood the general problem.

 

[CrazyG]

G, from that picture it looks like the game is changing drastically. 1945, turn 365, and only to Gatling guns? Statue of liberty still unbuilt? The game's default settings will cause it to end in score victory on turn 400. With only 35 turns left, will anyone be able to build a spaceship, get t3 tenets, or pass the UN?

I invented Gatling guns around turn 250 in my most recent game as Polynesia, a civ with no bonus science, and I didn't beeline to the tech either. Granted, part of the difference is difficulty level, but it shouldn't be a 100+ turn gap. My guess is that the increase in food costs has dramatically lowered science output, including bonus yields from councils/universities, the public school, and just having fewer science tiles or specialists. Please don't read this as a suggestion to tweak science buildings or tech costs, just leave food costs as they were.

If growth is too expensive, food will remain weak. Cities shouldn't take 365 turns to reach 20 population, that means it took on average 18 turns for each population! I would really like to at least test a game as progress or authority with their new food systems before changing the mod is such a fundamental way.

 

[Asterix Rage]

just leave food costs as they were.

+1

Flattening the gameplay is an easy way to achieve balance. But Civilization® is attractive when things happen every time. City grow, constructions, promotions, policies breakthrough and so.
This is the root of the "one more turn" syndrom at 4.00 AM

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

To dissuade any concerns that I've overnerfed...

View attachment 529800

The scoreboard seems to disagree (I've been running permutations with changed civs to see if they underperform, so far they've done just as well as always).

G

19 pop so late in the game in Shanghai on China? That doesn't seem right. The borders also seem tiny, so I don't feel my concerns are dissuaded, I'm being shown they were right. Hangzhou shares most of its with Xian, and it's barely having any on the third ring.

Tech rate also seems slow. Gatling guns, no machine guns? I play at a slowed down tech rate on Epic (150 tech cost to 175-200, depending on mood), and it's going faster. Lack of Food must've affected it.

I agree with your alt account CrazyGazebo and BiteInTheMark here.

 

[azum4roll]

    Difficulty:
        All difficulties now gain +2 happiness base, removed +2 happiness from tradition palace bonus

Cool.

    Happiness
        Removed specialist unhappy prevention cap
        Need divisors now /50 across the board (were /25)
        Tech modifier now 100 (was 75)

Much needed.

    Growth:
        Function (existing values included in /* brackets */):
            int iBaseThreshold = /*15*/ GC.getBASE_CITY_GROWTH_THRESHOLD();
            int iExtraPopThreshold = int((iPopulation-1) * /*12*/ GC.getCITY_GROWTH_MULTIPLIER());
            iBaseThreshold += iExtraPopThreshold;
            iExtraPopThreshold = (int) pow(double(iPopulation-1), (double) /*2.22*/ GC.getCITY_GROWTH_EXPONENT());
        New values:
            20/13/2.3
        Plot culture cost up as well (uses same formula)
            was 16 multiplier/1.35 exponent, now 20 multiplier/1.40 exponent
    iThreshold = iBaseThreshold + iExtraPopThreshold;

Disagree. Growing looks very hard already with the removal of food in Progress and Authority. No need to make it even more difficult.

    Buildings:
        Nerfed/Removed base yields from Hospital, Workshop, Grocer
        Workshop now +1 production per 10 citizens
        Grocer now +1 food per 5 citizens
        Hospital now +1 food per 10 citizens

Scalers should all be per 5 citizens to be significant enough.

        Workshop loses 1 free urbanization unhappiness
        Library gains 1 free urbanization unhappiness
        Factory urbanization bonus reduced to 1 (was 2)
        Internal TR bonuses on Market/Workshop/Stockyard/Factory changed:
            Now grant a flat bonus to each route yield type:
                Market: ITR gain +2 food
                Workshop: ITR gain +2 production
                Agribusiness: ITR gain +4 food
                Factory: ITR gain +4 production
        Grocer provides +1 happiness

Ok for me.

    Civs
        Venice
            UU: can now found Colonia cities instead of special Colonia towns (Colonia town removed)
                Colonia start with 3 pop and 3 extra tiles, as well as a market and a monument
                Venice can have max 3 colonia at one time
            Piazza: gains +5 flat supply
            Arsenale: gains +5 flat supply
        Ethiopia:
            UA: removed +1 faith on SR
            UB: culture mod now 25% (was 33%), faith yield now +2 (was +3)
        Celts:
            Epona pantheon: now +10 science/culture/gold (was science/culture/food)
        Arabia:
            UB: now +3 gold (was +4)
        Germany:
            UB: now +4%p per CS TR (was +3%)
            UA: now +2c from CS ally (was +2s/+2c/+2GAP), +2s from CS friend (was +1s/+1GAP/+1c)

Let's see how these will go.

        China
            UA - now +1 gold and +1 food for UA (was culture and food), reduces by 50% at era change

If the +1 culture at the beginning is too hard to balance, maybe consider removing just that? Change it so that founding Beijing doesn't give the bonus yields. 50% depreciation is fine, not too high to make humans perform better than AI by timing era advances.

        India:
            UB: base yields now +3p/+3f (was +2/+4)
                Oasis yield now +2p (was +2f)
                Lake yield now +2p (was +2f)
                Farm Yield now +1f/+1p (was +2f)

Weird changes to Aqueduct terrain yields. Otherwise seems fine.

    Policies
        Artistry
            Refinement: Removed +2 specialist no unhappy

Is +1 specialist still too op?

        Authority
            Tribute: Food on border expand now Production

Authority new city growth could be a problem without any food bonus.

        Progress
            Expertise: removed food on building construction, bumped culture to +15 (was +10)
            Finisher: now +25g from citizen birth (was +15)
        Statecraft
            Trade Confederacy: added 'Trade Routes to Civilizations with more Techs and/or Policies than you generate an additional +3 Science and/or Culture'
        Fealty
            Nobility: food from Castle now Gold
            Burghers: removed TR to other civs' bonus; added '1 specialist in each city no longer produces unhappiness

Fine, but Fealty already has an incentive for non-specialists.

    Specialists:
        Merchants now +4g base (was +3)
 
    Trade
        Divisor for Culture/Science delta for trade routes now 125 (Was 120) - less c/s from international routes
 
    Units:
        Adjusted CS for infantry line (old/new)
            Fusilier (35/38)
            Mehal Sefari (40/42)
            Foreign Legion (52/55)
            Rifleman (45/48)
            Paratrooper (40/42)
            Infantry (55/60)
            Guerilla (57/62)
            Mercenaries (60/62)
            Marine (60/65)
            Mech Infantry (70/75)
            XCOM (70/75)

Agreed, but will Fusiliers be too good compared to Tercio?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

19 pop so late in the game in Shanghai on China? That doesn't seem right. The borders also seem tiny, so I don't feel my concerns are dissuaded, I'm being shown they were right. Hangzhou shares most of its with Xian, and it's barely having any on the third ring.
Tech rate also seems slow. Gatling guns, no machine guns? I play at a slowed down tech rate on Epic (150 tech cost to 175-200, depending on mood), and it's going faster. Lack of Food must've affected it.

I agree with your alt account CrazyGazebo and BiteInTheMark here.

Food directly influences the whole game speed. If food gets sparse, less people get born, less tiles worked, less specialist feeded, constructing and researching slowed.

Ive forgot when it happened, but we had already a wave of a "make working tiles great again" version change, a lot of flat yields from buildings were removed and specialists greatly nerfed. The result was overall less population in each city and the game slowed down.

I think the core problem is the bloated yields from instant actions/GP usage. In my recent game, modern age, using a Great Writer gives me 18.000 culture, while a simple writer specialist gives me only 5 per turn. All 6 writer would need to work 600 turns to generate that amount of culture. No wonder investing food into citizen isn't worth the effort, if I can earn such amounts of culture or science simply by GP.

I will check some numbers and post tonight a conclusion how inferior citizens are in comparison to other factors.

 

[bitula]

+1

Flattening the gameplay is an easy way to achieve balance. But Civilization® is attractive when things happen every time. City grow, constructions, promotions, policies breakthrough and so.
This is the root of the "one more turn" syndrom at 4.00 AM

I hope it’s not that population growth is being slowed. I thought the whole point of the patch was to make growth (food investment/agriculture) viable. Now how is it viable? Now happiness penalty is lifted but growth is slowed? What was the point then?

 

[Txurce]

G, from that picture it looks like the game is changing drastically. 1945, turn 365, and only to Gatling guns? Statue of liberty still unbuilt? The game's default settings will cause it to end in score victory on turn 400. With only 35 turns left, will anyone be able to build a spaceship, get t3 tenets, or pass the UN?

Based on my own games over the last 2+ patches, you might be wrong on this. First, the game doesn't end on turn 400 — mine have been going over 400 turns for a long time now. But to the main point: I had noticed a similar disconnect in the late game between date/turn and the historical appearance of specific weapons. It went against my sense of verisimilitude, and almost posted about it. I recall Gazebo wanting to extend the game into the 400s — a good idea, in my opinion — but started to wonder if he had achieved this the obvious way: by slowing tech.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Based on my own games over the last 2+ patches, you might be wrong on this. First, the game doesn't end on turn 400 — mine have been going over 400 turns for a long time now.

Yes, Time victory is actually turn 500 in standard speed, not 400.

 

[Gazebo]

G, from that picture it looks like the game is changing drastically. 1945, turn 365, and only to Gatling guns? Statue of liberty still unbuilt? The game's default settings will cause it to end in score victory on turn 400. With only 35 turns left, will anyone be able to build a spaceship, get t3 tenets, or pass the UN?

I invented Gatling guns around turn 250 in my most recent game as Polynesia, a civ with no bonus science, and I didn't beeline to the tech either. Granted, part of the difference is difficulty level, but it shouldn't be a 100+ turn gap. My guess is that the increase in food costs has dramatically lowered science output, including bonus yields from councils/universities, the public school, and just having fewer science tiles or specialists. Please don't read this as a suggestion to tweak science buildings or tech costs, just leave food costs as they were.

If growth is too expensive, food will remain weak. Cities shouldn't take 365 turns to reach 20 population, that means it took on average 18 turns for each population! I would really like to at least test a game as progress or authority with their new food systems before changing the mod is such a fundamental way.

Settler difficulty, the AI is always very slow on Settler. I've been working my way down from Deity to see how the AI is doing.

Y'all consistently miss the point of my posts.

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

To dissuade any concerns that I've overnerfed...

View attachment 529800

The scoreboard seems to disagree (I've been running permutations with changed civs to see if they underperform, so far they've done just as well as always).

G

Also looking at the civs in the test, besides the tested ones I am only seeing Murica, England, Korea, Netherlands who typically are middle of the pack at best and usually punching bags, with many variables on how they perform - how are the start positions in the pictured scenario? Korea especially tends to do badly unless it goes Tradition and even then it can fail if it's a target, and Netherlands pretty much never do well - probably thanks to an UA the AI can't utilise properly and a pretty crappy, late UI. Even if the other civs were of the "always do well" type like Songhai, I still wouldn't really be convinced because I can't see the terrain. I can remember one game many versions ago where Venice somehow did pretty well because it built almost all the wonders and the AIs around it for some reason didn't conquer him (so I did it instead) so he got a pretty decent lead before his death.

The map you present also has a very low land percentage... Not much place to settle cities. Better than the one I remember you showing as testing on last time (each civ had place for 2-3 cities), but it's still small.

I know you do many more tests and probably some meet my suggestion where they probably do well anyway, but testing those changed civs in at least one game with better, more consistent AIs like Songhai, Russia, Celts, Carthage, Portugal, Maya would be better - if it didn't occur already.

 

[Gazebo]

Also looking at the civs in the test, besides the tested ones I am only seeing Murica, England, Korea, Netherlands who typically are middle of the pack at best and usually punching bags, with many variables on how they perform - how are the start positions in the pictured scenario? Korea especially tends to do badly unless it goes Tradition and even then it can fail if it's a target, and Netherlands pretty much never do well - probably thanks to an UA the AI can't utilise properly and a pretty crappy, late UI. Even if the other civs were of the "always do well" type like Songhai, I still wouldn't really be convinced because I can't see the terrain. I can remember one game many versions ago where Venice somehow did pretty well because it built almost all the wonders and the AIs around it for some reason didn't conquer him (so I did it instead) so he got a pretty decent lead before his death.

The map you present also has a very low land percentage... Not much place to settle cities. Better than the one I remember you showing as testing on last time (each civ had place for 2-3 cities), but it's still small.

I know you do many more tests and probably some meet my suggestion where they probably do well anyway, but testing those changed civs in at least one game with better, more consistent AIs like Songhai, Russia, Celts, Carthage, Portugal, Maya would be better - if it didn't occur already.

This is just one of many tests I've run, I just thought it was interesting because the top of the pack was filled with nerfy civs. I'm not just running one test and calling it a day.

Edit: also, please note that the changelog on the first page is not a final changelog, it's merely the set of changes I was testing with at the time. As I continue tests I am tweaking and modifying values, particularly the define constants, to achieve milestones that allow the AI at multiple difficulties to win in a constant, consistent manner.

G

 

[Guynemer]

I apologize if this has been addressed, but I didn't see it when I skimmed the thread. Regarding the colonia, two questions, one simply aesthetic, one more gameplay focused:

1. From whence will the default city names be derived?
2. Will the function as puppet cities, or can they be controlled directly (or at least work specialists/guilds)?

 

[Stalker0]

This is just one of many tests I've run, I just thought it was interesting because the top of the pack was filled with nerfy civs. I'm not just running one test and calling it a day.

G, I hear you on the test iterations. That said, you are showing us one example as a "see the nerfed civs are still performing as top dogs". But as you just noted, one test is useless for results, only consistent performance.

So even though you are using multiple tests, that example somewhat implies to people that you aren't, which is what caused the backlash.

 

[crdvis16]

I apologize if this has been addressed, but I didn't see it when I skimmed the thread. Regarding the colonia, two questions, one simply aesthetic, one more gameplay focused:

1. From whence will the default city names be derived?
2. Will the function as puppet cities, or can they be controlled directly (or at least work specialists/guilds)?

1. I believe the city names are being derived from towns or districts near Venice. At least the pic he showed of it in-game seemed to be that way when I looked it up.

2. I believe they are puppets and non controllable (other than allowing gold investment/purchasing following Venice's UA).

 

[Gazebo]

G, I hear you on the test iterations. That said, you are showing us one example as a "see the nerfed civs are still performing as top dogs". But as you just noted, one test is useless for results, only consistent performance.

So even though you are using multiple tests, that example somewhat implies to people that you aren't, which is what caused the backlash.

Y'all are taking this all way too seriously. I noted, clearly, that I'm running permutations (noticed the S) to see about under-performance, and this particular example popped up. After this many years of working on this, you think I'm just going to do one test and call it a day, especially when I've said multiple times I'm in the midst of testing?

Seriously, guys, chill out. Or, conversely, have a little faith. Or take a break. Whatever you need.

G

 

[Gazebo]

1. I believe the city names are being derived from towns or districts near Venice. At least the pic he showed of it in-game seemed to be that way when I looked it up.

2. I believe they are puppets and non controllable (other than allowing gold investment/purchasing following Venice's UA).

This is accurate.

 

[tothePAIN]

Y'all are taking this all way too seriously. I noted, clearly, that I'm running permutations (noticed the S) to see about under-performance, and this particular example popped up. After this many years of working on this, you think I'm just going to do one test and call it a day, especially when I've said multiple times I'm in the midst of testing?

Seriously, guys, chill out. Or, conversely, have a little faith. Or take a break. Whatever you need.

G

@Gazebo

I suspect that the reaction to China changes is both because no one suggested that particular nerf and your suggested change will substantially change the feel of the civilization. You said that the culture is hard to balance but I do not feel as though you've sufficiently explained why that is so. Why could the food / culture bonus not just go away 75% per era? Or even 100%?

 

[Gazebo]

@Gazebo

I suspect that the reaction to China changes is both because no one suggested that particular nerf and your suggested change will substantially change the feel of the civilization. You said that the culture is hard to balance but I do not feel as though you've sufficiently explained why that is so. Why could the food / culture bonus not just go away 75% per era? Or even 100%?

The problem with China isn't the value of the decrease at era change, it's the power of that extra culture in the ancient and classical eras. You can blunt it slightly, but even at 100% decrease China was eclipsing other civs handily.

G