June/July Patch Notes

[elprofesor]

when I said good I should have meant applicable

Obviously we now know that Pyramids weren't giant granaries. But a wonder giving free granaries (even civ5's granaries, which are somehow weaker than previous ones) in all your cities would be an impressive wonder, if you know how to manage happiness. I remember that in Civ2, the only three wonders that I would prioritize above everything else where the Pyramids for fast and cheap expansion, Leonardo's workshop for an upgrading army (it automatically upgraded all your units as soon as you got the tech; back then it was the only way to upgrade units), and Adam Smith's wonder for massive gold savings (all buildings which cost 1 gold maintenance became free). All wonders were impressive back then, but these 3 were simply on top.

 

[Sullla]

You know what's equally annoying? Dismissing all criticism, no matter how potentially valid, with the excuse of "you haven't played it yet." While I agree that people shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, there are some very intelligent points being raised in this thread, and Firaxis' past track record doesn't exactly fill everyone with confidence on a lot of this stuff. Perhaps you could give the community here a little more credit instead of dismissing all of their points out of hand...

 

[Valkrionn]

You know what's equally annoying? Dismissing all criticism, no matter how potentially valid, with the excuse of "you haven't played it yet." While I agree that people shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, there are some very intelligent points being raised in this thread, and Firaxis' past track record doesn't exactly fill everyone with confidence on a lot of this stuff. Perhaps you could give the community here a little more credit instead of dismissing all of their points out of hand...

Absolutely; But if you want to post concerns, do so in a way that is not ridiculous. As he was doing, for the majority of his posts.

You'll notice there are few others that I responded to in that way.



Ultimately: The game is changing, and IMO at least, for the better. Many people have concerns at the moment, primarily related to the happiness changes, but leaping from concern to "So are you listening to what I am trying to say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!l Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" is hugely premature at this point.

 

[He-Who-Hunts]

You know what's equally annoying? Dismissing all criticism

I personally have no problem discussing criticism, but it seems to me that people who criticize bring up 1 or 2 little things from the patch notes and then apply it to the game as it stands now. They ignore the patch notes as a whole which is as far as I can tell is extremely important to understanding the logic behind the changes.

 

[Nuukov]

• Order
  
• Order Opener now provides +1 Happiness per City.
• Socialism and Planned Economy swapped places.
• Socialism buff to 15% reduction in building maintenance from 10%.
• Planned Economy now increases Science yield by 25% in cities with a Factory.
• Communism now provides 2 Production and 10% Production towards buildings in each city.
• Order Finisher: +1 Food/Production/Science/Gold/Culture per city.

I bet Lenin is spinning in his grave

But yeah I kinda hate this lol - yes Communism was OP, but now I don't feel like using it at all

I would not mind it as much if Socialism and Planned Economy kept their original places, and Planned Economy would be useful ( cos that 25% is not much, and what if your empire does not have coal ). And if it was 3 production with Communism, not 2 (plus the 10% to buildings), then I wold be ok with it, but this seems a little too much.

But this nerf I guess will make me change my allegiance in Civ...
Ohwell, off to Fascism...

 

[JamesCivFan]

You know what's equally annoying? Dismissing all criticism, no matter how potentially valid, with the excuse of "you haven't played it yet." While I agree that people shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, there are some very intelligent points being raised in this thread, and Firaxis' past track record doesn't exactly fill everyone with confidence on a lot of this stuff. Perhaps you could give the community here a little more credit instead of dismissing all of their points out of hand...

I have to agree on that one. When there are massive changes in happiness , it might unbalance some aspects of the game. Some ranting opinions of certain community members are absolutely correct.

I wonder though, since you clearly said that you're done with Civilization V, will you give it a chance after the patch? I have started playing IV for the first time in my life and it really rules. So a "post-patch" article would be welcome Sullla. (to see if I will go back to V or not)

 

[Valkrionn]

I have to agree on that one. When there are massive changes in happiness , it might unbalance some aspects of the game. Some ranting opinions of certain community members are absolutely correct.

I wonder though, since you clearly said that you're done with Civilization V, will you give it a chance after the patch? I have started playing IV for the first time in my life and it really rules. So a "post-patch" article would be welcome Sullla. (to see if I will go back to V or not)

Why in heaven's name should you rely on the opinion of others to tell you if a game is worth playing? You apparently own the game if you can go back to it in the first place, so give it a whirl yourself.

 

[MkLh]

If you look at current play, the majority follow just one of two main strategies, every single game. Is it any wonder these have been nerfed? The goal is to increase variety of gameplay, not to reduce it; By making these starts simply viable, rather than no-brainers, they have done this.

The reason the majority of games followed just couple of strategies wasn't necessary that those strategies were OP, but that there just wasn't any other valid strategies in this game. If you look at Civ4, there are much bigger number of strong opening strategies on higher levels than Civ5 ever had. NC wasn't stronger than Civ4 Academy, the early wonders (SH, Pyramids) were already weaker than Civ4s early wonders (that are buildable in right circumstances even on Deity) even before they got nerfed, in Civ4 you can use specialists and create a GP in the very early stages etc.

Now, how does deleting the last valid opening strategies increase the variety of the gameplay? I'm afraid it may do just the opposite and turn this solely to a tactical war game.

 

[JamesCivFan]

Why in heaven's name should you rely on the opinion of others to tell you if a game is worth playing? You apparently own the game if you can go back to it in the first place, so give it a whirl yourself.

For two simple reasons. Firstly, I don't have much time to play video games due to real life obligations. whatever time I devote to video games at the moment is on Civilization IV.

Secondly, by reading various articles on the patch I can at least see what's going on, and so far Sullla is one of the people with whom I pretty much agree on his Civilization V points. I will check out these forums too of course.

 

[wcbarney]

For two simple reasons. Firstly, I don't have much time to play video games due to real life obligations. whatever time I devote to video games at the moment is on Civilization IV.

Secondly, by reading various articles on the patch I can at least see what's going on, and so far Sullla is one of the people with whom I pretty much agree on his Civilization V points. I will check out these forums too of course.

Well, I guess I'm about 180 degrees opposite. I have lots of time to play computer games, but almost always I would rather read a book. I do read the strategy articles & forum posts before and while playing, but don't feel like I am obligated to slavishly follow any of them. For instance, it seems that over 50% of folks take the Piety policy tree as a mandatory route to happiness; I have never taken the Piety tree (except when going for the "Piety Tree Achievement) because in every game I've played the Rationalism tree has seemed more seductive.

I really can hardly wait for the new patch to be released. It will be like starting a brand new game, won't it??

 

[Bibor]

You know what's equally annoying? Dismissing all criticism, no matter how potentially valid, with the excuse of "you haven't played it yet." While I agree that people shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, there are some very intelligent points being raised in this thread, and Firaxis' past track record doesn't exactly fill everyone with confidence on a lot of this stuff. Perhaps you could give the community here a little more credit instead of dismissing all of their points out of hand...

Let us meditate on this by reflecting on some comments about the previous patch. I'm pretty sure there's a long list of let's play videos from prince to deity that prove most of these points (and other predicitons of doom from other people) to be dead wrong.

Yes, I do mind the Firaxis witch hunt that pops up every few months and stirs the "Civ5 forum cauldron" needlessly.

Civ5's design is all backwards. In order to improve your cities, you must pay additional maintenance costs. Lots of buildings are therefore a net drain on your economy. If you invest in lots of low-usefulness buildings (gardens, stables, etc.) they will literally hurt you more than they help you. One of the tricks of playing Civ5 at a high level is *NOT* building most of the city improvements in the game. (Note that this is also an extremely unfun "trap" for new players to fall into. Bad design.) More problematic is the fact that loading up well-developed cities with infrastructure is extremely expensive, makes them only marginally more cost-effective than brand new cities with nothing in them. Now, the designers are trying to fix this in the patches by nerfing the base city tile (weaker size 1 cities), nerfing trading posts, nerfing Golden Age tile values, changing minimum distance between cities (a total cop-out admitting they can't solve ICS!) and so on. I said these are poor solutions because they are ignoring the root cause, the fact that under a global happiness mechanic, more cities will always be better to have. They are poor solutions because they make the game EVEN SLOWER to play in the early stages, with less production and gold available to the player. Firaxis is not solving the root design issue, which is the global happiness mechanic. I have 20 years experience playing turn-based strategy games: if you don't make cities cost money to found, then spamming cities will always be the one right strategy. Always. I have never seen this not be true.

 

[GfxJG]

God, they're killing happiness completely -.-

 

[Agent Cooper]

The reason the majority of games followed just couple of strategies wasn't necessary that those strategies were OP, but that there just wasn't any other valid strategies in this game. If you look at Civ4, there are much bigger number of strong opening strategies on higher levels than Civ5 ever had. NC wasn't stronger than Civ4 Academy, the early wonders (SH, Pyramids) were already weaker than Civ4s early wonders (that are buildable in right circumstances even on Deity) even before they got nerfed, in Civ4 you can use specialists and create a GP in the very early stages etc.

Now, how does deleting the last valid opening strategies increase the variety of the gameplay? I'm afraid it may do just the opposite and turn this solely to a tactical war game.

This post exactly reflects the concern I tried to express in my post with the straight jacket metaphor.

If the developers really wanted to expand existing or perhaps even add new opening strategies, why didn't they choose a completely fresh approach instead of nerfing what exists? As an example, they could have completely revamped one of the SP Trees nobody uses anyway because, frankly they suck, make that Tree available earlier and design completely new SP abilities, advancing a fresh approach for the players to designing brand new opening strategies?

Another thing - in the event that the Hanging Gardens really are overpowered as some suggest and as such are quite desirable to steal early from another civ, there might be a couple of problems. The map might not encourage early conquest, the civ that has it might be so far away that taking it is very impractical and if you don't steal it relatively early, it's effect diminishes over time and you might ask yourself if it's worth declaring war over.

Sure you can steal it - sometimes...

 

[Valkrionn]

The reason the majority of games followed just couple of strategies wasn't necessary that those strategies were OP, but that there just wasn't any other valid strategies in this game. If you look at Civ4, there are much bigger number of strong opening strategies on higher levels than Civ5 ever had. NC wasn't stronger than Civ4 Academy, the early wonders (SH, Pyramids) were already weaker than Civ4s early wonders (that are buildable in right circumstances even on Deity) even before they got nerfed, in Civ4 you can use specialists and create a GP in the very early stages etc.

Now, how does deleting the last valid opening strategies increase the variety of the gameplay? I'm afraid it may do just the opposite and turn this solely to a tactical war game.

How were they deleted, precisely? What part of the changes completely and totally removes the strategy, rather than just weakening it, exactly?

And how many new strategies have been created, between revamped policies, improved diplomacy enabling you to develop better in peace, more culture for wide empires, stone?

For two simple reasons. Firstly, I don't have much time to play video games due to real life obligations. whatever time I devote to video games at the moment is on Civilization IV.

Secondly, by reading various articles on the patch I can at least see what's going on, and so far Sullla is one of the people with whom I pretty much agree on his Civilization V points. I will check out these forums too of course.

Whether or not you enjoy a particular game is a very subjective thing; Relying on others to guide you won't work out well IMO. It's always better to try it for yourself.

Let us meditate on this by reflecting on some comments about the previous patch. I'm pretty sure there's a long list of let's play videos from prince to deity that prove most of these points (and other predicitons of doom from other people) to be dead wrong.

Yes, I do mind the Firaxis witch hunt that pops up every few months and stirs the "Civ5 forum cauldron" needlessly.

This post exactly reflects the concern I tried to express in my post with the straight jacket metaphor.

If the developers really wanted to expand existing or perhaps even add new opening strategies, why didn't they choose a completely fresh approach instead of nerfing what exists? As an example, they could have completely revamped one of the SP Trees nobody uses anyway because, frankly they suck, make that Tree available earlier and design completely new SP abilities, advancing a fresh approach for the players to designing brand new opening strategies?

Another thing - in the event that the Hanging Gardens really are overpowered as some suggest and as such are quite desirable to steal early from another civ, there might be a couple of problems. The map might not encourage early conquest, the civ that has it might be so far away that taking it is very impractical and if you don't steal it relatively early, it's effect diminishes over time and you might ask yourself if it's worth declaring war over.

Sure you can steal it - sometimes...

You mean, like they did with Honor?

 

[Agent Cooper]

You mean, like they did with Honor?

No.

Something new. Not just a combination of SP abilities from earlier iterations of single SPs.

Like, an early SP Tree that favors hardcore production? Bonus to mines etc?

What about a diplomatic oriented SP Tree? Diplo abilities directed towards other civs? Completely non-existent as it is now and post patch.

 

[Bibor]

What about a diplomatic oriented SP Tree? Diplo abilities directed towards other civs? Completely non-existent as it is now and post patch.

If you think about this throroughly you'll see this is not possible.

 

[Agent Cooper]

If you think about this throroughly you'll see this is not possible.

Because the developers wouldn't like to draw attention to an aspect of the game that is broken in implementation, or...?

 

[elprofesor]

I don't know if this is what you meant, but a SP tree giving bonuses to either the one that takes it for maintaining good relationships, or your trading partners to encourage good relationships, would be a nice idea. In civ 4, open borders enabled international trade routes, which helped both civs, for example. In civ5, we could have similar things, like cheaper SPs if taken by a befriended civ, bonus research, whatever, and it would be a fun addition, that wouldn't necessarily break the game.

If what you meant was pure diplo bonus with other civs, then it wouldn't work, since we would have the same "diplo is governed by religions" we had in civ4, which would probably break the game, and it wouldn't work for MP. My 2 cents.

 

[Valkrionn]

No.

Something new. Not just a combination of SP abilities from earlier iterations of single SPs.

Like, an early SP Tree that favors hardcore production? Bonus to mines etc?

What about a diplomatic oriented SP Tree? Diplo abilities directed towards other civs? Completely non-existent as it is now and post patch.

Unfortunately, I don't have time right now to debate this; I'm at work.

So rather than attempt to, I'm just going to direct you here.

He's reading the notes correctly.

 

[Valkrionn]

Because the developers wouldn't like to draw attention to an aspect of the game that is broken in implementation, or...?

Can you come up with enough ideas that are both compelling and do NOT break diplomacy? I'll be honest: I cannot. Not without introducing entirely new concepts that are well out of bounds of a patch, such as foreign colonies, vassals, royal marriages.