June 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[Socrates-]

If the devs said "this month we will be looking at religious beliefs" with the implicit understanding that they might tweak a few other things here and there, you wouldn't have this level heat. They tend to pretty tight lipped on communication, for better or worse.

Maybe this could be a step in the right direction to calm down 'team-indignance'.

 

[Leucarum]

Yup. Disappointing patch. Hopefully Firaxis will pick up that Red Death is not a selling point.

Looking at steamstats am I right in saying that the amount of players with any achievements on red death is < 0.05%? Admittedly that's the same as the maya/GC achievements but this is a free game mode...

 

[KayAU]

I think people are complaining about the smallness of the patch mostly because they find there are many aspects of the game which could do with some improvement. I mean, we're almost 4 years in, and I'm still waiting for a rebalancing to make big cities worthwhile.

That said, I don't mind this patch at all, even though there isn't that much for me in it. The changes that have been made are mostly welcome, with the exception of Tithe, which has gone from rewarding population to rewarding city count. I also do think that in spite of the mild buff the Cliffs of Dover still sucks in most cases, and natural wonders shouldn't suck.

 

[Sostratus]

I'm starting to think I should learn modding and make the changes I'd like to see myself.

If you know anything about programming, or at least can follow instructions, learning to mod the xml of civ6 takes a weekend of playing around with it and reading LeeS’ modding guide.
Its more work for me to work out what to change than it is to change it.

 

[blackcatatonic]

To be fair, you are correct. But if there was no NFP, there would not have been any free patches. Since NFP sponsors these patches I still feel that me buying the pass would support this.

I kind of see it the other way around. If they hadn't been planning and working on NFP, you're right, we wouldn't have these small interim patches, but who knows what we would have got instead? It seems possible, even likely that any other patches they would have done instead would have been a bit more substantial than this.

 

[darkace77450]

Work Ethic – Follower: Holy Site district’s Faith adjacency bonus provides production as well. (Before just +1% Production for each follower up to 15%)

Work Ethic used to be a solid choice when dipping into religion without pursuing a Religious Victory (i.e. a limited number of Holy Sites). This change makes it quite good for with lots of Holy Sites in the early and mid-game, but RIP +15% Production for all my late-game cities without Holy Sites.

Everything else looks pretty solid except for Religious Communities, which is objectively terrible.

 

[bbbt]

Yup. Disappointing patch. Hopefully Firaxis will pick up that Red Death is not a selling point.

Looking at steamstats am I right in saying that the amount of players with any achievements on red death is < 0.05%? Admittedly that's the same as the maya/GC achievements but this is a free game mode...

I see the biggest red death achievement (supply drop) at 2.2% and won a game as Red Death at 1.6%. Higher than a lot of dlc/expansion achievements in general.

That gives me the impression it is actually a selling point. Especially as they've tried (and failed) to come up with 'short' multiplayer scenarios since launch (see Ancient Rivals, etc.), they clearly want that sort of engagement in Civ.

It's a clearly not popular on these forums (I've never played it myself), but I wouldn't take that (or anything on these forums) as indicative of the whole picture.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Screenshot (47)

• Kmart_Elvis
• Jun 25, 2020

Ahem...

So Holy Waters does work on enemy holy sites! I've converted the Aztec city to Orthodoxism, and I can confirm I can heal my apostle on and around the Holy Site.

 

[Ziad]

It's quite apparent this patch was dedicated to shaking up the impact of religious gameplay in the early and mid-game. It's deceptively substantial.

Just look at all of the people salivating over Work Ethic.

Religious Community is rather weak but considering it provided 2 Housing before it's not really a downgrade in theory unless you really grew those cities. You just won't pick it up unless you have no other options. That's fine. I wish they made it +1 to every Holy Site building (for a max of +3).

 

[Sostratus]

Religious Community is rather weak but considering it provided 2 Housing before it's not really a downgrade in theory unless you really grew those cities. You just won't pick it up unless you have no other options. That's fine. I wish they made it +1 to every Holy Site building (for a max of +3).

Someone suggested they let it stack if you send the route to another city of the same religion, which would make it a very cool little mechanic (even at only 1 gold per building, thats 4 gold for having converted a trading partner.) As it is now it’s trash.

I actually worry Feed the World is too good. If you get Gurdwaras that’s 8 food and 5 housing from your holy site, on top of the faith!

 

[darkace77450]

I actually worry Feed the World is too good. If you get Gurdwaras that’s 8 food and 5 housing from your holy site, on top of the faith!

Shh! Let those of us who enjoy high population cities have our fun!

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Shh! Let those of us who enjoy high population cities have our fun!

I wouldn't be sad if they were all that good. Especially if you're not going for religion,but the "big" buildings always seem to be a lot of work for very little gain. I mean you have to build four different things to get them.

 

[Icicle]

Okay, what did the White Cliffs of Dover do to you Firaxis? How did they hurt you? Let's talk about this.

 

[Kwami]

Okay, what did the White Cliffs of Dover do to you Firaxis? How did they hurt you? Let's talk about this.

It's extra weird because they weren't even planning to buff Dover at all! More than once during the live stream, they mentioned buffing the other wonders and that they also buffed Dover due to hearing community feedback about it.

 

[Amrunril]

Are you sure. I re-read and that does not seem the case. ¿Some confirmation.

You're right. The way the patch notes used "just" was a bit confusing and led me to interpret "as well" as meaning "as well as the original bonus" when it actually means "as well as faith". The civilopedia makes it clear that it's only the new bonus now, though, so I fell better about that change.

 

[DWilson]

It's extra weird because they weren't even planning to buff Dover at all! More than once during the live stream, they mentioned buffing the other wonders and that they also buffed Dover due to hearing community feedback about it.

I think they said they were buffing it, but hadn't mentioned it because they weren't listing every detail, not because they were only changing it due to feedback.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, I think Cliffs of Dover would work better as two coast tiles instead of two grassland tiles. I wonder if that's possible, though. Can you attach cliffs to coast, or do they attach to the land tiles? They look like they're attached to the land tiles.

You can't (especially it should be like 3 coast tiles), but this is one of those wonders that would work great with a "affect surrounding tiles" effect.

To be fair, you are correct. But if there was no NFP, there would not have been any free patches. Since NFP sponsors these patches I still feel that me buying the pass would support this.

Yeah, there's no such thing as "free" patch. I mean, they might not charge you, but they are not free to make. So that money comes from the product support budget, which comes from game sales. Are they obliged to give support? No, they are not, they can keep all money from sales and don't give after release support, but they would be shooting themselves in the foot.

In this day and age, game updates are more of a marketing tool, and also a sales driver in platforms like Steam. The way the Steam algorithms works, the more people play a game, they more is recommended and sold, and updates are a great incentive to dive back into a game, especially a system driven one like Civ VI.

My point is that I don't consider that by the sake of not being charged to the player they are immune to criticism. It's not a "gift" from Firaxis that they are losing money when giving it to you and you shouldn't complain about it. It's part of the support of the product and their sales strategy. Of course, that doesn't warrant harsh criticism, but it's good feedback for the devs to see which things will engage a part the community to try the game again.

 

[Sostratus]

Shh! Let those of us who enjoy high population cities have our fun!

It’s not like I won’t be aiming for a Khmer/ river goddess/gurdwara/feed world game.
You gotta stack those bonuses to the moon.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Yeah, so Work Ethic. Got a little lucky on this one, but playing Russia with Dance of the Aurora, then plopped my lavra next to Torres to get +9 adjacency. Running Holy Orders (100% holy site adjacency) bringing it up to 18 faith and 18 production! With that, a trader, and a couple tiles, my brand new pop 2 city is putting out 27 hammers!

 

[acluewithout]

I was hoping for a bit more in this patch, but it’s fine.

Cliffs of Dover changes seem irrelevant. Still the weakest NW by far.

Religious Belief changes are mostly pretty good. But a few feel wrong headed. I particularly don’t like this new approach of always having food + housing. It really removes a lot of nuance - instead of having to balance food and or housing, now you just get both and so it’s not situational anymore.

Some beliefs also still feel weak - eg Cathedrals still suck.

I‘m also disappointed Monks themselves weren’t buffed and there still isn’t more diversity for Religious Units.

Red Death stuff looks mostly good. Glad that got some love.

Patch does feel underwhelming, although appreciate these are coming out monthly.

Oh well. Guess we’ll see what happens next month...