[GS] June 2019 Patch notes discussion

Yeah, I definitely noticed that. Much faster turn times, and loading a saved game is a whole lot faster than before. Me happy!!

 

It seems like a good change. Rams have been nerfed hard, and in a way which makes them really interesting.

I was still hoping there would be a more general rebalancing of units though. At a minimum, nerfing Light Cav v Cities and Buffing Seige v Ranged Attacks. I think that’s a really big missed opportunity.

England are really quite good now. The additional resources combined with additional resource capacity is a strong combo, although you have to line up quite a few things. Reduced Niter for Red Coats is also strong. I think FXS could maybe drop the free Melee unit from Pax B at this stage, just keep the trade route and free ships.

It really is a pity for England, and everyone else frankly, that there weren’t some tweaks that improved colonial cities and coastal cities (although ME speeding Sea Walls is nice, particularly for England). Harbours seem to have gone backwards with the Specialist changes. Again, feels like a missed opportunity. All it required was maybe a few mid game cards or something.

I have very mixed feelings about this patch. It’s an A+ for just size and reach. Lots of great UI changes and stuff under the hood. The production, world congress and Civ rebalancing are a B+ - mostly good, but I think some changes to Production are just a bit blunt and boring. The Pantheon changes specifically are A+++. They needed a rework post GS, and these changes seem really good.

But overall, I feel the Patch is kinda B. Sorry. There’s just too much stuff that still needs some balancing. Colonial Cities, Coastal Cities and Unit balance.

I think the pace of Science also still needs work. Increasing tech costs is good - but it doesn’t really address the core problem that (1) Campuses come way, way early, (2) they are easy to get high adjacencies for now they also get +2 from thermals, (3) you can buff these bad boys to crazy levels with cards and City States, and (4) there’s really no break in spamming campuses, particularly given you can just chop chop and chop.

Big patch. Well done FXS. Lots of good stuff. But still probably not quite big enough.

I’m really not sure I’m going to rush to play Civ after this. I’m interested in playing with the Rams / Seige Towers / Seige, Pantheons, Tier 3 buildings and IZ buildings. But it the changes to IZ and Lumbermills feels like there is actually less of the fun “puzzle map” stuff. And I’m not sure how invested I can get when Coastal and Colonial stuff is so lame (and Naval stuff).

(You know. This is probably the first patch where I wish FXS would revert some of the changes. They shouldn’t have removed science and culture yields from Harbour and and Encampment Specialists. They shouldn’t have removed River Adjacencies for Lumber Mills. Not a big deal, I know. But Civ is about the numbers and sometimes messing with small numbers does just make the game less interesting and fun.)

 

Anyone else unable to access Cloud games since the patch? The option is greyed out and says "Not logged into Civilization servers". Tried restarting Civ and Steam, but it didn't help.

 

Conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe this is an indication of a Colonialism/Corporation/Trade themed expansion.

 

I had the exact same issue for the last couple of hours. It seems to have resolved itself as I just saved the game and now suddenly cloud saves are available.

 

On the other hand, you'll need more population to actually work the tile improvements. Plus, population growth is probably overall stronger than border growth. Better to match the free Settler with the border growth, then.

 

I just checked it again and it is indeed back up and working now. Must have been something on 2k's side.

 

No changes to the Maori to keep up with production improvement buffs...

 

I'm getting crazy amounts of gold from send aid projects in my game. Easily over 1000 gpt in the renaissance/industrial from 7 other civs.

Also combat seems off. My musketman corp took more damage than a normal musketman. Either that or I'm imagining things.

 

Yeah. I almost said a similar thing.

I could see a third expansion which introduced something like Social Policies and Ideologies similar to Civ V, but instead of providing flat bonus instead provided unique Policy Cards and Governors (so, replacing Legacy Cards and giving us more variety with Governors, amongst other things).

If they did that, it would be pretty easy to have an early or mid-game Naval and or Colonialism Social Policies that improved Coastal Cities and Colonial Cities.

 

Something tells me this isn't supposed to be this way

 

Thinking about it some more, I think FXS did get it the right way around.

Religious Settlement lets you grab more land faster. Well, a second settler will definitely help you do that, so that does synergise well (plus, easier for the player if the one with Settler in the name gives you a Settler).

Religious Rites improves City growth. What do you need for growth? Food and Housing. What gives you those? Farms. Who gives you Farms? Yeah, builders. So a free Builder makes sense. Plus high pop means you work more tiles so you need to improve more tiles, yeah free builder still makes sense.

On a different note. I know I’ve posted - and may keep posting - on the shortcomings of this patch. But can I just point out three kinda small but just awesome changes?

First. Yay! Château got better. That’s so awesome.

Second. The whole faith from GPP really is cool. Much better than Great Theologians or Great Prophets all game, and opens up really interesting strategies and synergies. A really smart change.

Third. I’m loving the work done on AA and aircraft. Needed to be fixed. And they fixed it. Awesome.

 

I had wondered if they tamed the barbs more than intended in an earlier patch. Had real trouble with them tonight for the first time in a long time. Will have to pay closer attention to nearby barb camps again.

 

Well there was a bug that prevented barbs from doing their thing which was fixed.

had this happen tonight.









on a side note, the only change i am worried about so far, about 1/3 through the game the above game so far, is Dip victory coming too early.

 

yeah I'm not sure what the best solution is. I know they want to make things !like aqueducts more useful, but it's strange to give major adjacency to canals and aqueducts but minor to mines.

can't wait to try 7 seas tomorrow with Victoria. I'll have more to say on the patch when I can actually play it.

 

The new logic involved with Diplomatic points really is crazily fun to tackle from what i could try estimating in my first game with Kupe... i dunno who's the Firaxis genius that stirred us up such a boiling soup of complex edge-of-your-seat suspense .. but, it surely looks like that Victory earlier flaws are now pretty much solved, IMHO.

Good job!

 

It’s a bit of a mess really.

I think it would be cleaner if they got rid of the Mines adjacency entirely.

Maybe Industrial Zones get:

• +0.5 from Quarries and Lumbermills
• +1 from Strategic Resources or any Resource improved by a Mine or Quarry
• +2 from Aqueducts, Dams, Canals and (after Mass Production) Harbours.

I posted a list of suggested balance changes pre-June patch (see signature). I might post a revised list once I’ve had some time to think about it.

Sigh. It’s a pity we have to wait so long between balance adjustments. I get UI changes and under the hood stuff takes ages and needs to be checked, but you’d think just flat balance changes wouldn’t be so hard (although maybe I’m underestimating how hard it is and QC / play testing time).

For some changes, I wish FXS would also maybe ask the community what we think about particular changes before making them. It’s a tricky thing I know - asking the internet anything can go south very, very quickly. So yeah, maybe they can’t.

 

It might be specific to the seven seas map, but yesterday in my game I noticed all lakes were one tile. Can anybody confirm that they're still seeing multiple-tiles lakes?

 

No it's not solved. The mechanic doesn't even work in multiplayer (because the game can't tell you what the other human players are likely to vote for, so it becomes a pure chance game).