June/July Patch Notes

[Txurce]

The late NC build will probably help us catch up, but we will be catching up. And it's significantly later, Philosophy is nearly twice as expensive (47 vs. 89) as Writing. We'll have more research points by then, but the extra turns are going to sting.

Mods that disallow RA abuse are already about catch-up at the higher levels. Like everything else, you get used to it. Again... it just won't be as easy.

 

[Randall Turner]

Mods that disallow RA abuse are already about catch-up at the higher levels. Like everything else, you get used to it. Again... it just won't be as easy.

Well, it's not just RA abuse, is it? I wouldn't even classify RA nerf as the big deal - it's the NC pushback that's putting us behind the power curve. (And everything else, Meritocracy GP loss, LE scale-up nerf, early iron rush nerf, all of it.) Seriously, the more I look at this the more problematic it seems. Flattening out the opportunity curve means some AI civ is going to randomly get it right, there are fewer "good" choices but also fewer "bad" ones. Gonna come down to either luck or picking a particular civ & setup, I think.

 

[Txurce]

Well, it's not just RA abuse, is it? I wouldn't even classify RA nerf as the big deal - it's the NC pushback that's putting us behind the power curve. (And everything else, Meritocracy GP loss, LE scale-up nerf, early iron rush nerf, all of it.) Seriously, the more I look at this the more problematic it seems. Flattening out the opportunity curve means some AI civ is going to randomly get it right, there are fewer "good" choices but also fewer "bad" ones. Gonna come down to either luck or picking a particular civ & setup, I think.

I mentioned earlier that the mod also pushed the NC back to Philosophy. I should have mentioned it again. Catching up via a late NC with no RA abuse is pretty easy on Immortal. Now what I can't say is how the upcoming changes in science will affect our progress once we build the NC.

 

[vexing]

Edit: already missing my Meritocracy engineer.

the question is how fast will france be able to complete the liberty tree via massive rex

 

[Martin Alvito]

Scholatism isn't that good on Deity? Seriously?

In context, I mean that Scholasticism isn't going to enable you to power through the middle of the tech tree while ignoring the top and bottom. You're still going to get buried in tech by a player that grabs Education quickly and pushes HS/Rationalism. The result is a simple up-or-down choice: either you rush and tech appropriately, or you play the only efficient long-run strategy.

Granted, that's what we have now, but the change as proposed only exacerbates the long-run player's advantage. That in turn puts more pressure on the player to take that path. A richer strategic environment would have credible intermediate choices between Education-first and pure rush. This change moves in the opposite direction by weakening the only credible alternative to Education-first.

The basic problem is that Education is such a huge chokepoint. The Scientist slots both dramatically improve the rate at which raw can be gained and also yield the first point at which the player can begin rapidly producing a GS.

One strictly better solution would be to give the NC a Scientist slot and strip it of the +5 to . Even better would be to return a slot to Libraries, tone down the maximum amount of that can be given by a GS by number of turns elapsed, strip Universities of a slot and tone down Circuses so that players can't easily end-run the constraint early on. That should make alternative tech paths far more viable than they are at present.

I say: Hagia Sophia converts to Porcelain Tower perfectly.

It's certainly the most obvious and potentially reliable way. Babylon has by far the best path: Pottery -> Writing -> Academy -> Philo -> Theo (possibly bulb this instead); NC -> Hagia, and with some chopping your capital queue should be clear by the time you need to start slapping up Universities. Meanwhile, you run down to Scholasticism and take Rationalism as the first Renaissance policy.

Depending on how fast you can hammer out early policies, France may be able to fill out Liberty and solve the problem that way. France will want Collective Rule and Meritocracy anyway, and I doubt that taking even two extra policies for the GE is going to be a big deal if early policy costs decreased.

On your blog comments about Research Agreements: deep slingshots are still pretty feasible due to the way the Compass path works. Once you reduce choice to one off-path "blocked" tech, Compass and techs on the path, you can work your way up to your late Medieval tech of choice via RAs.

 

[KevinMiles90000]

I don't even use a single RA a lot of diety games. Scholasticism is more than enough.

 

[Randall Turner]

I do not appreciate being forced to pick a specific civ in order to compete. (Though we can probably depend on an upcoming nerf to any civ that can work around what you're referring to as the Education "bottleneck", or any civ that can exploit a dependable way to get the Porcelain Tower.)

Shoot, maybe we shouldn't be talking about this stuff. I'm getting paranoid.

@Txurce - nothing I see in the patch notes makes me feel comfortable about being able to "catch up" easily playing as America on Immortal, for instance. Maybe it'll be do-able, but I predict it's not going to be easy.

 

[MadDjinn]

Read your blog, I think you're more copacetic about the player's ability to keep up in technology than I am, MadDjinn.

My experience is that you must do everything you can to stay close in technology. This might mean a "forced" early war, and even if you can match the AI's bulk it's got direct research bonuses. Sorta pessimistic here. <grumble>

ps - I don't get the "Hagia Sophia converts to Porcelain Tower" thing. (And I'm not being argumentative, like with Martin, I just don't understand what you're saying.)

I might be at that But it's only really Deity that you have to seriously focus for it. For most of my games, it takes until renaissance to catch up, then a lag until GSs or RAs/etc start appearing. The key is being specific to what you want first. Sure, the AI might have all techs below, say, Scientific Theory filled in, but if I GS pop'd my way to Dynamite first, I win.

I think the HG bit has been covered in others posts.

It's certainly the most obvious and potentially reliable way. Babylon has by far the best path: Pottery -> Writing -> Academy -> Philo -> Theo (possibly bulb this instead); NC -> Hagia, and with some chopping your capital queue should be clear by the time you need to start slapping up Universities. Meanwhile, you run down to Scholasticism and take Rationalism as the first Renaissance policy.

Depending on how fast you can hammer out early policies, France may be able to fill out Liberty and solve the problem that way. France will want Collective Rule and Meritocracy anyway, and I doubt that taking even two extra policies for the GE is going to be a big deal if early policy costs decreased.

On your blog comments about Research Agreements: deep slingshots are still pretty feasible due to the way the Compass path works. Once you reduce choice to one off-path "blocked" tech, Compass and techs on the path, you can work your way up to your late Medieval tech of choice via RAs.

France, as vexing noted, or maybe anyone who farms barbs (one pick in honour) could plausible fill the Liberty tree to speed it along as well as gain decent influence from close CSs. Definitely Babylon has an advantage due to the GS. Going to Scholasticism along the way will definitely help boost the outcomes of the RAs.

as per the blog - I was meaning that you couldn't take the top techs as you would now. Given that it's the median, you'd get less than the top.

Definitely, if we can focus the beakers from the RA, you could use a few of them to 'pop' a top tech. It's just a little more cumbersome.

Obviously we'll have to wait til the patch drops to see how it works out. I'm betting though, with a mix of GSs and using RAs to 'median shift' over a few turns, you can still wipe out a tech per RA and get a decent time to modern. (where the remaining GSs/etc would go towards the key techs in the usual manner)

 

[Kevin J]

I can't wait to try out India + hanging gardens rush. Go a little into tradition for the +1 G / +1 happiness per 2 citizens policy, then have a madly growing city with almost no negative impact on happiness and a great income. Maybe rush buy settlers and get a few large cities to go with the super-capital. This could be a fun game!

Really looking forward to playing... anyone know what to change in the XML if I just wanted to try +10 food Hanging Gardens now (none of the other patch changes).

 

[Martin Alvito]

as per the blog - I was meaning that you couldn't take the top techs as you would now. Given that it's the median, you'd get less than the top.

Right, but if you make a "top" tech off the beeline available for research early, you can then use it to scale the median value to keep pace with your beeline. Compass is ideal for this, because it can be opened early by researching a single cheap tech and is necessary to the beeline anyway. The only substantive changes to current standard procedure are that you finish Sailing/Optics rather than block them, and you finish out the off-beeline Classical techs. That does slow things down, but only by a few turns.

 

[spfun]

I can't wait to try out India + hanging gardens rush. Go a little into tradition for the +1 G / +1 happiness per 2 citizens policy, then have a madly growing city with almost no negative impact on happiness and a great income. Maybe rush buy settlers and get a few large cities to go with the super-capital. This could be a fun game!

Really looking forward to playing... anyone know what to change in the XML if I just wanted to try +10 food Hanging Gardens now (none of the other patch changes).

Just to let you know, India only get about half as much happiness from monarchy as any other civ. I know I've played India the most. Also it will be hard for India at the earlier stages of the game to stay happy while rush buying some settlers like you said as India will now have 7 unhappy per size 1 city. Quickly build 2 cities = 14 unhappy. GL with that...

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Yeah I wonder if they fixed that about India... many of the usual happiness policies and wonders were giving them half happiness. For now it was okay so I guess you could just skip them but if happiness is more of an issue. The new LE should work okay I would imagine but meritocracy? the 5% is likely to be 5% of their 50% so 2.5% in other words... pretty marginal. Honor may be India's best option for happiness if Monarchy is still messed up.

 

[Gali]

Per building is not affected by UA so this is a buff to India happy. They get the most out of landed elite, can afford big pop cities, barbs + mughal fort makes honor a decent culture and happy source and they can go piety or rationalism for more happiness. Meritocracy would still be useful for 1 per city to offset their extra cost and freedom is more powerful due to extra population again.

 

[Kevin J]

Martin, one thing I've been wondering:

Will it be better, as a rule of thumb, to clear out cheap techs or to push the top tier techs in order to keep the median as high as possible.

While I don't think quite so sweeping a generalization can be made, I do wonder if some general guidelines can be thought up, even without access to the rebalanced tech costs.

Something along the lines of some thought experiments, simplified case studies.

e.g.
Assume RA bonuses are calculated when the RA matures.
Assume you have 4 cheap techs, 2 medium techs, and 1 expensive tech open for research.
Assume for each tech completed, one tech of the next higher tier of research opens up.
Prior to your next RA completing, you have time to complete
a. 1 expensive tech.
b. 3 cheap techs
c. 2 cheap techs and 1 medium
c. 2 medium techs

Result (what will be "open for research" when RA completes:
Before: 4, 2, 1
Option A: 0, 0, -1, +1 4 cheap techs, 2 medium techs, 1 very expensive tech. Median: cheap
Option B: -3, +3, 0 1 cheap, 5 medium, 1 expensive tech. Median = medium
Option C: -2, +1, +1 2 cheap, 2 medium, 2 expensive tech. Median = medium
Option D:0, -2, +2 4 cheap, 0 medium, 3 expensive. Median = cheap.

In this particular imaginary case, clearing out the cheaper techs (B&C) is better than pursuing deeper techs (A&D).

I really don't want to go through the tedium of working this kind of thing out for each case when I'm playing a game, I want a simple rule of thumb - any suggestions?

 

[Gamemaster77]

If someone says nerfed one more time I am going to explode!

Now about the patch, I think it is very good overall. After I actually read the patch notes it seems that these balance things aren't as extremely unfair as people made it out to be. I am going to be annoyed though when my happiness goes down on one game of mine since stupid Steam auto updates.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

I think if you want to optimize RAs as you are suggesting a much simpler approach can be taken. The only thing to really keep track of is what your median tech is... the others around it don't matter one bit. Having a very expensive tech open doesn't help. Having a very poor tech available doesn't help. It's only the quantity of techs open above and below the median that matter (of course I'm assuming an odd number of techs as otherwise the median will presumably be the average of the middle 2 but that changes little to this analysis).

So what can we say about this? If you want your RA to be worth more you have to think of what can possibly shift this median about:

1) Researching a cheaper tech than the median that will open up 1 or more techs that are more expensive than the median will make it better.

2) Researching a more expensive tech than the median that will open up more than one tech will make it better (naturally assuming the opened techs are also more expensive... when are they not?)

3) Researching the median tech itself and having it open up more expensive techs will help.

Conclusions?

Option 1 is the easiest on the beakers to get a boost but won't always be available.

Option 2 is the most expensive but also has the potential of shifting the median up by the most, if it is available.

Option 3 is the middle of the road. It is the easiest to manipulate the median with and, although it will not necessarily result in as large of gains it will always be present.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Per building is not affected by UA so this is a buff to India happy. They get the most out of landed elite, can afford big pop cities, barbs + mughal fort makes honor a decent culture and happy source and they can go piety or rationalism for more happiness. Meritocracy would still be useful for 1 per city to offset their extra cost and freedom is more powerful due to extra population again.

Will they get the most out of LE? I thought about it and if as spfun mentioned Monarchy only gives them half happiness (i.e., 1 every 4 citizens) then it stands to reason that LE may only give them 1 for every 20?

 

[Gali]

I think not, Le is not 10% unhappy but a point of when you reach 10 citizens. This hurts every civ except India. I read it as point of gain for 10 citizens independent of population effects. I doubt it will give you positive , but it should not be affected by the Indian UA.

PS. Happiness effects determined by the number of unhappy citizens, old theocracy and monarchy, are hurt by Indian UA, since they don't stack. Happiness sources that just add happiness directly, such as buildings and if I'm reading it right LE are not affected. The only limit India puts on them is lowering the amount of happiness they can overcome, since happiness is now locally constrained.

 

[spfun]

Per building is not affected by UA so this is a buff to India happy. They get the most out of landed elite, can afford big pop cities, barbs + mughal fort makes honor a decent culture and happy source and they can go piety or rationalism for more happiness. Meritocracy would still be useful for 1 per city to offset their extra cost and freedom is more powerful due to extra population again.

This is correct, the amount of extra happiness from buildings will help them out a lot, but with 6 unhappiness per city they will have to be slower at conquering or expanding than they can with the current patch. No Ghandi blanket of doom covering the globe in a short time span anymore.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

But you see I just did a test game to confirm this. I played as india, grew capital to size 4, had no luxes or anything other source of happiness to mess stuff up. I had 2 unhappiness from citizens. That's all normal.

I then took monarchy and looked at my unhappiness from citizens. It was now just 1. But if monarchy really removes 1 unhappy per 2 citizens, it should've went to 0. It seems however that it removes half of whatever unhappiness 2 citizens would produce, which in india's case is 0.5. Hence why they only gain -1 unhappiness for 4 citizens.

Now I am aware that LE is not 10% but in fact +1 happiness per 10 citizens. However since monarchy gets multiplied by this unhappiness per citizen value for the civ so too might this and you might end up only getting 0.5. I'm not convinced either way as it will depend on the way it is implemented. If indeed it is implemented as -1 unhappines for every 10 citizens I imagine it'll turn out to be -0.5 for india.