[GS] June 2019 Patch Details

[Smity2k1]

What are the chances for a thursday release (this week)?

I'd say 90%+

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Have the previews ever been on a Monday? Could it release tomorrow? But yeah, my guess is thursday as well.

 

[acluewithout]

I'm intrigued by "more work and surprises to come".

Me too. Here's hoping.

The only word That comes to mind I can use here is wow.

Yes and England getting a production buff with factories sounds a bit more like it even if it is not earlier. Still confused over why they would get extra resources and free units because they are not ‘fun and different’ just feel wrong. WOTW may be of more use though.
Let’s just hope they do something about coastal cities as all these other tile buff just debuff coastal cities more and disaster repair is a mess.

Apprenticeship is needed for stirrups!

I'm very happy with the changes to WotW, but even happier that the underlying mechanics to WotW have been buffed. The bonuses to Tier 3 Buildings look very good indeed. That, plus increased tech costs, Knights getting harder to rush... it may be the game lasts long enough to actually use these mechanics. That's good for everyone.

I'm hopeful Coastal Cities will get a buff and / or they'll look at repair costs. I'm also hopeful there might be a bit of unit rebalancing and military engineers might be made more useful, and some resource requirements got looked at. That said, they didn't mention those, and there's already a lot of stuff in the game, so it might be those things didn't get love this time.

I'm also quietly hopeful the RND bug has got fixed, given they've tweaked the whole displaying Giants Causeway thingy. You'd hope if they were mucking around with that sort of code they'd fix the RND. The description of the RND hasn't changed though - it's still just units built in the RND not also units upgraded.

Still, I do think this is all very, very positive.

One thing. England does really feel like a long list of like a billion different abilities now. I'm not saying they don't work together or synergise or lack flavour. Just saying it is a really long list.

"Well, England. Let's see. They have a special harbour that does this and this and this. And then Vicky has this ability which gives you boats, but also sometimes melee units and also a trade route. And the WotW does this, and this, and this. And also this. And a discount for this and extra charges for that and then this other thing and here's some coal, and did I mention free units, oh that was the other ability, but you know they also have a little pirate ship that captures even more boats. Do they have bowmen, no that was Civ 5, … although maybe that is a good idea... let's see, now, if you build your RND next to crabs, Pax B now also gives you..."

Heh. Sorry. Look, I think this laundry list is just a product of trying to balance a Civ amongst like a billion other mechanics. There's a few other Civs in the same place - just It's a lot to juggle. Not complaining - it's fine - just an observation is all.

I also like the buffs to Canada. Yah - lumber mills. I still think Canada fill a bit silly in places - tundra farms and mounties are just silly, and I'm really not a fan of Civs not being able to declare surprise war on them (feels like an ability that should be tied to a wonder or a dedication or something, not a specific Civ. Seriously, why cant Persia declare surprise was on Canada??). But, you know, they look playable.

You know, if they just gave Canada another UU (like, in addition to the Mountie) and got rid of the tundra farm thing, they'd probably be alright overall.

Here's my notes on what they talked about:
-- Production Tweaks: Quarries, Pasture and Lumbermills increased. LUmbermills on Jungle tiles after Mercantilism. Late game buildings about 20% cheaper in terms of production. Specialist increase over time with new buildings?
-- Power Lens
-- England buff - WOTW now gives powered buildings boosted yields; more resources; 20% bonus towards Industrial zone buildings
-- Canada buff - lumbermills and camps produce more yield
-- Medieval+ techs increased in cost
-- More source of victory points, but more required for victory; now whenever you vote for a winning resolution (A/B and target) you get a victory point. Aid requests/competitions also grant victory points.
-- New Aid request - military aid, for when someone's being bullied
-- 3 New Congress Resolutions: Espionage Pact, Military Advisory, Public Relations (grievances)
-- Dedications: GDR based one in the late game
-- 4 New Dark Age Policies: Flower Power (Rock Bands), Cyber Warfare (CS bonus but no grievance decay), Automated Workforce (Production towards projects, but -amenity and loyalty), Disinformation Campaign (Broadcast centers produce diplomatic favor, but malus to science and culture)
-- Unit abilties tooltip
-- 2 New Map scripts: 7 Seas and Small Continents
-- Worldbuilder: Basic mode available - no longer needs to be activated

View attachment 525975

Really nice changes for T3 buildings here: building cost reduced, they increase specialist yield, and the Food Market got a buff! 6 food is nothing to scoff at now. The rest of the T3 buildings had their cost reduced as well, and probably similar buffs.

​

I thought it looked like Tier 3 buildings will actually give you a base yield per Population. So, a research lab will give you +1 Science per citizen. If that's right, then that's a buff to "Tall" Cities, albeit one that comes very late in the game. But looking again, maybe it is just a buff to specialists. Neither option is really how I'd like to have seen Tier 3 buildings buffed … but either way, what they've done looks like it could be pretty cool.

Very happy about the new map scripts and new lens.

Happy to see how the Diplo stuff plays out. Could be cool.

I'm a little worried some changes are just fan service, and aren't really thought through. Jungles getting lumbermills is wrong. Jungle is meant to be chopped! That's the whole point of how they work!

But most of it feels pretty good.

You know, my list of stuff that cheeses me off about Civ Vi is getting shorter, and shorter and shorter... It's taken a while to get this far, but FXS (and a few very talented modders) are doing a pretty good job overall.

In the part where they show the unit buffs, the Pike and Shot (unpromoted) has +14 against cavalry.

As I said above, hopefully units have had a rebalance... Cross fingers.​

 

[Lord Lakely]

What is this? Firaxis has disturbed me from my Civ Slumber after not playing it for 2-3 months and it's for a much needed production boost, small continents, more tooltips and england buffs? Is this the real life or am I still dreaming???

Excellent changes, though their implementation should've happened much sooner.

I'm intrigued by "more work and surprises to come".

The next expansion pack should be in full development at this rate, ready for its announcement next autumn. Firaxis still owe us at least four more staple civs (Mayans, Portuguese, Assyrians/Babylonians and Ethiopians)

 

[Kibikus]

Big fan of all the changes, can't wait to play with the new patch, hopefully it drops this week.

I'm mostly intrigued by the Diplo Victory changes, they were sorely needed. Looks like it will require 20 Diplo VPs to win, instead of 10, but there will be more ways to earn them, including through voting on winning resolution combos in the World Congress. Hopefully it's not too random trying to figure out what the AI will vote for, they said they put some UI elements to help with that.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I also like the buffs to Canada. Yah - lumber mills. I still think Canada fill a bit silly in places - tundra farms and mounties are just silly, and I'm really not a fan of Civs not being able to declare surprise war on them (feels like an ability that should be tied to a wonder or a dedication or something, not a specific Civ. Seriously, why cant Persia declare surprise was on Canada??). But, you know, they look playable.

Well I mean, why does any ability? Why is everyone cool with it if Cyrus specifically suprise wars someone?

 

[criZp]

In the part where they show the unit buffs, the Pike and Shot (unpromoted) has +14 against cavalry.

they will still get torn apart by musketmen.

 

[acluewithout]

Well I mean, why does any ability? Why is everyone cool with it if Cyrus specifically suprise wars someone?

Sorry, I didn't really explain myself well. What I mean is, I don't think Canada being immune to Surprise Wars is strategically very interesting. It's up there with Teddy's flat +5 bonus. Basically, removing surprise wars v Canada means you're robbing them of a big source of tension. I mentioned Persia because, if you're Canada, you just flat out counter their bonus. That's... dull.

 

[MrRadar]

Ah, finally some real news!
And Anton used codewords "very soon", with a stress on "very" - I do hope this means Thursday

 

[criZp]

I thought it looked like Tier 3 buildings will actually give you a base yield per Population. So, a research lab will give you +1 Science per citizen. If that's right, then that's a buff to "Tall" Cities, albeit one that comes very late in the game. But looking again, maybe it is just a buff to specialists.

citizen yields are a property of districts

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Sorry, I didn't really explain myself well. What I mean is, I don't think Canada being immune to Surprise Wars is strategically very interesting. It's up there with Teddy's flat +5 bonus. Basically, removing surprise wars v Canada means you're robbing them of a big source of tension. I mentioned Persia because, if you're Canada, you just flat out counter their bonus. That's... dull.

I haven't really played Canada, but it seems like it'll help you use a little bit of a different opening plan. Less stressful, maybe, but could be some original play.

 

[S1AL]

so late game buildings increase citizen yields in the district

does that mean we have a way to modify the yields in our mods now? that is pretty interesting.

Almost certainly. The XML files already had some sections for them but it wasn't functioning properly.

 

[criZp]

Almost certainly. The XML files already had some sections for them but it wasn't functioning properly.

that's the great people points from specialists you are thinking of. that stuff wasn't working.

 

[Leucarum]

First thoughts:

I can't wait for the theorycrafters to get their hands on this! Are these changes enough to fix England? It sounds like chopping was their underlying target but it will presumably still be king even with the production buffs. At least now you'll maybe have more of a choice about less critical infrastructure maybe?

Early game food for Canada, whew. Also nice that their buffs don't just affect tundra from looking at the tooltips, that'll make them marginally less vanilla if they start off tundra-less.

I like the diplo victory changes. Presumably though getting the info on who is voting for what will be really important. That's via diplomatic visibility, right? Makes Catherine a nice diplo victory leader which I like... Though presumably also Genghis(?!?)

 

[679x]

YEESSS the Notification Banners of Doom are fixed!
But...
do you guys think the production changes will apply for non-GS games? Those changes don't seem to involve Gathering Storm mechanics, unlike most of the other changes, so I hope we non-GSers will be able to benefit from at least that production update.

 

[leandrombraz]

Oh boy, I need to go back to Civ VI and finish the only game I started after the last patch. I get anxious about going back to Civ VI every time I stop playing in the middle of a match but it's time to face it heads on.

 

[iammaxhailme]

Some random comments

- Production boosts in general are great. Civ 6 has needed this for ages.
- I've had a mod enabling lumber mills on rainforest for so long I forgot it wasn't part of the unmodded game!
- England boost seems pretty substantial. I think this could make them a good contender for scientific victory (which they should be since they were rethemed to be more modern)
- Canada buff is also good... but probably still not quite sufficient to make them a good choice. Frankly, I think they should have something similar to what russia has; a flat mod on tundra tiles. A canadian tundra farm is still equal to an plain, unimproved plains tile. Perhaps tundra farms should get +1 food as well? Or an earlier adjacency bonus?
- Not quite sure how I feel about midgame and later techs being more expensive... frankly, I have often felt like the game is determined by the medieval or renaissance era and then I just click "next turn" until I win. Does that need to be stretched out even more, when the AI isn't really capable of comebacks?
- Very glad to see they're rebalancing diplo victory's pacing, but until I know the exact changes, no specific comment
- I don't think I'll ever take those giant death robot perks
- Unit abilties tooltip, GREAT. This has been needed for a long time
- Always glad to see new official map scripts

 

[SammyKhalifa]

- Canada buff is also good... but probably still not quite sufficient to make them a good choice. Frankly, I think they should have something similar to what russia has; a flat mod on tundra tiles. A canadian tundra farm is still equal to an plain, unimproved plains tile. Perhaps tundra farms should get +1 food as well? Or an earlier adjacency bonus?

I don't know, buffed camps/lumbermills not only sounds decent but also very much in flavor with a Canadian civ (probably moreso then many of the original abilities.

I know where you're coming from saying the tundra ability should be more, but this way they don't really need tundra.

 

[Gedemon]

Oh boy UI people are going to have some work. The placement of the notifications will conflict with most Diplomatic Ribbons (the leader icons in Top Right) mods xD

If only you could have seen my face when they've showed the new WorldBuilder UI, I mean just 2 days ago I posted this update for YnAMP:

- fix WorlBuilder panels

But those are "good" problems, it's perfectly normal during the game's life cycle to have to work on merging the new additions to your mods.

I'm more concerned by the deeper and less visible mod-breaking bugs that we don't have the tools to fix... I mean, if I didn't had to try to fix the later, I'd surely have released the aforementioned UI update of my mod much sooner.

 

[Victoria]

Knights getting harder to rush...

Also it sort of forces apprenticeship with the extra production.

One thing. England does really feel like a long list of like a billion different abilities now. I'm not saying they don't work together or synergise or lack flavour. Just saying it is a really long list.

Well WOTW has value at +4 and 20% cheaper IZ does feel a lot better, they can just dump the free units. I do not want pointless things.
+2 iron and coal is nice but it is not helping a redcoat UU get built in quantity but the production is.
The harbour resource addition also just feels out of place

This fixes it enough but the way my cities have been wasted by hurricanes was what stopped me playing. You have to understand I litter the coastline with cities.

I never wanted a strong Victoria, just not a wrong one. Free units are like.... WTH