June/July Patch Notes

[bhavv]

How many times do the social policies need to be completely reworked in Civ V?

Just goes to show how broken the game is. Everyone was excited for the policies we already had, but now they are changing them all over again, and TBH I dont really like the planned changes as much as the ones we already have.

 

[Horizons]

Because some things need fixing. I'd rather they fix stuff and make a new game than leave it in sub-optimal state.

I also hope that we get a few extra patch notes.

If Firaxis need to change the same policies in every single patch, does that suggest that they are actually 'fixing' the balance issues? And if so, why do they need to change it every single time a new patch is released?

 

[MadDjinn]

Moving on to units and combat.

 

[Txurce]

If Firaxis need to change the same policies in every single patch, does that suggest that they are actually 'fixing' the balance issues? And if so, why do they need to change it every single time a new patch is released?

There is no single correct way to address balance issues, and obviously the entire game is linked. It sounds as if you would prefer that they build from the SP's on out - but there's no more reason to set them in stone than any other part of the game.

 

[GenjiKhan]

Moving on to units and combat.

That analysis of the changes in units and combats was pretty good. I'd like to add a observation here. Citadels become even more important now to defend a city with these changes,because it's easier to conquer a city now(at least in multiplayer,they'll be more used and perhaps in higher levels,due to the fact that ai will finally use great general when attacking).

 

[MkLh]

That analysis of the changes in units and combats was pretty good. I'd like to add a observation here. Citadels become even more important now to defend a city with these changes,because it's easier to conquer a city now(at least in multiplayer,they'll be more used and perhaps in higher levels,due to the fact that ai will finally use great general when attacking).

That's the theory. In reality, it will be even easier to kill their GGs now.

 

[elprofesor]

Since tanks now have the "low city attack penalty", I hope that the "high city attack penalty" will be lost with upgrade, or else upgraded cavalry will be kinda useless...

Just a random musing.

 

[Muaziz]

I've seen a lot of crying in this thread about the "Happiness nerf", and I've also seen many posts about doing nothing to lower the 300g for selling Luxuries.

Am I the only one that thinks that the Happiness nerf (the fact that Luxuries only give 4 instead of 5, and less Happiness from some buildings) will mean that you can't sell as many Luxuries, and hence cannot "abuse" the selling for 300g per?

As for the new Research Agreements, I still think that folks are making a lot of assumptions as to how it will work. Here is how it reads in the patch notes:
"Research agreements now give a tech boost instead of a free tech. Tech boosts start at 50% of the median value of all techs you can research."

For some reason, I assumed that the tech boost would be an ongoing (pro-rated) effect; not a flat number of beakers at the end of 30 turns. Maybe I'm just nuts. That would accomplish two things: a) not make you want to jump off a cliff when the AI breaks the RA on turn 29, b) prevent a lot of possible abuse because it's an ongoing effect whose bonus is being re-calculated every turn.

Edit: It's been mentioned that the Landmark is the only "Great Tile" to not get buffed as the game progresses. However, if you build a Landmark, it means that you are going the Culture VC route which in turn means that you are going to pursue the Freedom SP tree at some point, and the "finisher" for that tree is: "+100% yield from Great Tile Improvements and increase length of Golden Ages by 50%.". I would say that the first part of that is a big buff to Landmarks.

 

[MkLh]

I've seen a lot of crying in this thread about the "Happiness nerf", and I've also seen many posts about doing nothing to lower the 300g for selling Luxuries.

Am I the only one that thinks that the Happiness nerf (the fact that Luxuries only give 4 instead of 5, and less Happiness from some buildings) will mean that you can't sell as many Luxuries, and hence cannot "abuse" the selling for 300g per?

At least in theory, it may be even more profitable... Before, you sold 5 happiness for 300g. Now you're selling 4 happiness for 300g.

 

[elprofesor]

He means that since happiness will be more tight, we will have to exchange our luxuries for different luxuries to try to stay positive.
The problem is that AIs take a while to improve the extra copies of their lux, so we might as well sell ours...

 

[eric_]

Is the tendency of the AI to not hook up extra copies of resources a higher level issue? At least up through king, I find it's pretty common for AIs to have more than one copy of resources.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Certain AIs (like Egypt) have at least a decent tendancy to hook up extra resources but unfortunately most of them do not until you are in the game for quite a while. Unless this has changed lux for gold will trump lux for lux for quite some time in the game.

Honestly though I'm not entirely certain that's a terrible thing. Because if they took away your ability to get gold from the AIs... and made the AIs only want luxuries when they needed happiness (read as never on hard difficulties)... wow... it might really make the hard difficulties almost impossible.

 

[Txurce]

It's been mentioned that the Landmark is the only "Great Tile" to not get buffed as the game progresses. However, if you build a Landmark, it means that you are going the Culture VC route which in turn means that you are going to pursue the Freedom SP tree at some point, and the "finisher" for that tree is: "+100% yield from Great Tile Improvements and increase length of Golden Ages by 50%.". I would say that the first part of that is a big buff to Landmarks.

This is a very good example of how the new patch will work in general. Looking at any part of it in isolation doesn't do the attempt to rebalance the game justice.

 

[joyous_gard]

I've seen a lot of crying in this thread about the "Happiness nerf", and I've also seen many posts about doing nothing to lower the 300g for selling Luxuries.

Am I the only one that thinks that the Happiness nerf (the fact that Luxuries only give 4 instead of 5, and less Happiness from some buildings) will mean that you can't sell as many Luxuries, and hence cannot "abuse" the selling for 300g per?[/i]

They nerfed happiness. They could have made a fix like "Reworked the value AI places on luxuries."

It should be a fluid number that the AI pays for luxuries based on necessity (am I frowning, proximity to golden age, necessity of golden age, benefits of surplus happiness, friendly status, etc). As it is, the AI simply pays 300 gold if friendly-friendly, 200 gold if friendly-fake friendly, 136 gold if hostile, etc...

Instead they chose the angle of "The single players are abusing the design of our play-to-win AI. Let's put more constraints on the single player because the AI is doing its best out there and it aint right."

I say they are putting constraints on the single player, because based on the Smile The Most charts, the AI is playing under a different ruleset than I am. They are in the stratosphere with their smiles during a majority of the game.

EDIT: Also, +5 happiness is a sensible number. Easy to add up, it makes it seem like the game is well designed and working normally. +4 happiness to me is off.

 

[MkLh]

He means that since happiness will be more tight, we will have to exchange our luxuries for different luxuries to try to stay positive.

I smell a fallacy here. If luxury exchanging was a bad strategy before, weakening luxuries doesn't automatically make it any stronger (you get a weaker luxury on an exchange too). It might be true that exchanging is now more profitable, but you need a better explanation than that.

There are still other ways to get happiness: bribing CSs (needs money), buildings (money helps here), SPs (money helps here indirectly). Money helps in all these cases, so selling luxuries for money may still be the best way to get happiness... Nothing has necessarily changed here even when happiness was nerfed.

 

[Txurce]

I smell a fallacy here. If luxury exchanging was a bad strategy before, weakening luxuries doesn't automatically make it any stronger (you get a weaker luxury on an exchange too). It might be true that exchanging is now more profitable, but you need a better explanation than that.

Never mind the values - if you trade a luxury instead of selling it, you gain happiness instead of gold. It was a bad strategy before because you were better off with the gold. Now, not so much.

 

[MadDjinn]

That analysis of the changes in units and combats was pretty good. I'd like to add a observation here. Citadels become even more important now to defend a city with these changes,because it's easier to conquer a city now(at least in multiplayer,they'll be more used and perhaps in higher levels,due to the fact that ai will finally use great general when attacking).

That's the theory. In reality, it will be even easier to kill their GGs now.

erm, what's a Citadel?

actually, Citadels got a round about buff since they are a 'Great Person Tile Improvement' and that means you can plant one on a strategic resource with no issues now.

Since tanks now have the "low city attack penalty", I hope that the "high city attack penalty" will be lost with upgrade, or else upgraded cavalry will be kinda useless...

Just a random musing.

yeah.. let's hope they remembered to drop it. Else tanks will be even worse than before

 

[MadDjinn]

EDIT: Also, +5 happiness is a sensible number. Easy to add up, it makes it seem like the game is well designed and working normally. +4 happiness to me is off.

+4 means that Cultural Diplomacy works as stated (+50% = 6 total) rather than actually fixing their code (7.5 did not add well in an integer world)

 

[Randall Turner]

yeah.. let's hope they remembered to drop it. Else tanks will be even worse than before

"Defense penalty and city assault bonus promotions are now lost with upgrade." - if a city attack penalty is considered a "negative" bonus, that follows.

 

[Txurce]

Moving on to units and combat.

You raise a lot of interesting points.

* Excess AI units in the late game may be avoided because there will be less fully developed AI cities at that point - even though new ones will have an easier time catching up.

* A "promotion gap" between AI and human units - and the city defense vs siege gap - may be lessened by the key bonuses that won't upgrade, but it's still an issue. (The TBC mod has a different approach, by the way. It gives the AI an increasing number of promotions in each succeeding level, based on difficulty.)

* Mandekalu cavalry may do better than you imagine - not to mention Conquistadors - if you upgrade them from Chariots. Chariots are definitely worth building in their own right, but one huge advantage is that they promote really quickly, because they can fire and stay safe just about every turn. A CS is the perfect training ground for this.

* One more TBC side note: all arrow units lost the siege promotion. Thatt went a long way toward balancing arms.