June/July Patch Notes

[Mark the Bold]

Play Mongolia, go warmonger with a band of Keshiks, upgrade to cavalry and from there to tanks (if you haven't already won a domination win before hitting the modern era).

Mongol tanks with some +10 promotions are going to eat those panzers...

But yeah, I'm happy that Germany got beefed up a bit although I'm not sure how effective the upgrade will be. Time will tell. The US got screwed again this time...

Well Mongolia is always a warmongering civ. But remember you still have to get to chivalry to get keshiks. Germany's UA is full game. A smart civ player (with barbarians turned on game settings mind you) could easily take Mongolia out early game. Or at the very least keep all your pastures pillaged and your economy crappy.

I know, I know, there's a lot of what if's here, but remember that one the GREATEST single social policies in the game to date (Order's -33% unit cost) is now Germany's UA for the ENTIRE game. That's a LOT of gold over the entire game.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Oh yeah? Brb rolling out the antitank crews to face ur puny metal beasts that you call tanks! xD

 

[thadian]

come to think of it, because the AI already gets big bonuses in higher difficulties, i don't like happiness nerf.

Wonders are time consuming to build and as is on emperor im lucky to build a third city before im forced to build an army to defend myself, and at that point i have to stay in total war or be out-teched by the other ai. once this happens, i have no more time to build wonders because of how the AI quickly gets to cannons and artillery and if im not caught up in parity by then im dead.

Remember the vassals of Civ 4? I wish i could liberate cities i don't want to into city states and that i could choose weather military, cultural, or maritime. I hope this isn't just wistful thinking.

 

[bryanw1995]

The CS influence gotten from bribes slowly decreases as the game plays on. At some point (long past 2050), CS bribes give zero or negative influence

Wow, I'll have to go for a time victory one of these days... I don't think I've ever played past about turn 425 or so.

UNACCEPTABLE.

I play my games beyond 2050 because its far more satisfying to do that.

There's just some civs that deserve some payback that thinks 2050 will save them from their um rude moves.

Learn to use the modding tools then and mod out the changes that you don't like.

Well Mongolia is always a warmongering civ. But remember you still have to get to chivalry to get keshiks. Germany's UA is full game. A smart civ player (with barbarians turned on game settings mind you) could easily take Mongolia out early game. Or at the very least keep all your pastures pillaged and your economy crappy.

I know, I know, there's a lot of what if's here, but remember that one the GREATEST single social policies in the game to date (Order's -33% unit cost) is now Germany's UA for the ENTIRE game. That's a LOT of gold over the entire game.

Not sure why that is the greatest single policy, especially now that is so much harder to get. And I think that you meant autocracy, which in the past conflicted with both an un-nerfed freedom and very powerful liberty policy. So, all-in-all, autocracy was very very far from being the "greatest single policy" in the past. It didn't even crack my top 10 in late-game warmonger situations because by that time I was swimming in so much gold that 50-75 gpt was less valuable than 2 free techs, -25% , bonus research from CS's, anything from order, freedom's main policy, meritocracy, etc etc etc.

The german policy is MUCH more powerful because it starts on turn 1, plus you don't have to give up liberty, freedom, or order to get it. IMHO they now have one of the best UA's.

 

[aatami]

Does anyone know if they actually did take the extra luxuries from the bazaar away or is the +2 just an extra?
If they did take the extra luxuries away I will seriously make a complaint.

 

[Agent Cooper]

Well Mongolia is always a warmongering civ. But remember you still have to get to chivalry to get keshiks. Germany's UA is full game. A smart civ player (with barbarians turned on game settings mind you) could easily take Mongolia out early game. Or at the very least keep all your pastures pillaged and your economy crappy.

I'll just remind you which civ has the...


Khan!!

Better hurry Fritz's and Karl's... if you run now you might save that puny antitank gun...

 

[MadDjinn]

Big patch notes, lots of potential changes. So it'll take more than a forum post to cover most of this. It'll take time to understand the new 'expected' strategy, given that most of the prior ones have been tossed aside - except for the AI.

So here's the first two posts of my thoughts on the patch changes:
Cultural changes (general)
Policy Changes

There'll be more as I look into the other areas, but this seems like a good starting point.

 

[Keejus]

"Hanging Gardens now give 10 Food instead of 1 population per city and Happiness."

To me that sounds it gives 10 food for every city, one time. That would be close to what it is now. 10 food for every turn (for one city?) sounds vastly overpowered and would completely change the nature of the wonder.

I'm pretty sure they mean it's like a double-power Hospital. It doesn't seem that insane to me

 

[MkLh]

That would make no sense whatsoever, since the human player will usually only have the capitol when HG is built. If you wait until more cities are up, the AI will snatch it asap.

But you are completely right with the 10food per turn in the city where it's built being way overpowered.

If it's 10 food in one city once, it's a pretty useless wonder just like it was before...

Yeah, I'm confused...

Well, they are now nerfing even those wonders that were useless already, like the Pyramids. While it would be quite harsh and totally needless nerf, it would at least be in line with other reforms in this patch, which making one early wonder super powerful is not. There is really no reason to assume it will be 10 food per turn whatsoever.

 

[Seek]

My impressions are that the devs wanted to truly make happiness the limiting factor of expansion. They've reintroduced a lot ICS friendly mechanisms while nerfing almost every source of happiness. See the culture (less available but much reduced cost/city), production (much less available but more ways to get small boosts) and, to a lesser extent, gold changes specifically. I think the player's average empire size will increase significantly but the rate of new cities will be slower, which strikes me as more realistic and fun. I'm not entirely sure that it will work correctly, but it will be interesting to play - it's going to feel like a pretty different game.

High points for me are:

• Policy tree finishers - This should make for more interesting decision-making wrt to SP picks and should help the AI which typically fills trees out more than the player.
• New RA mechanic - though I'd prefer it if it was half of the combined median for both civs involved, thus more beneficial to civs that are backward than those that are ahead in tech.
• More positive diplo modifiers!
• Most of the World Wonder changes - I think the Great Library and the Pyramids were nerfed far too much however.

The building rebalance is interesting, we'll have to see if it works out as intended. See comment above wrt culture and production buildings. Defensive structures may paradoxically be *more* valuable because of their reduced effectiveness.

The rest will take some thought and/or play to determine quality I think, so I won't comment right now. It's a little frustrating to read the notes because it isn't clear whether some changes are in place of or in addition to the previous effects (be it buildings, SPs, etc.).

 

[MkLh]

I'm pretty sure they mean it's like a double-power Hospital. It doesn't seem that insane to me

Hospital comes pretty late on the game. This would be like 3-5 maritime city allies for free.

 

[Agent Cooper]

I'm pretty sure they mean it's like a double-power Hospital. It doesn't seem that insane to me

Not so much in the late game where the Hospital arrives, but in the early game, 10fpt is huge for a city.

edit: MkLh beat me to it.

 

[lordsurya08]

Landed Elite now provides 1 Happiness at every 10 Citizens in each City - completely terrible - this probably won't affect the game at all, maybe 2 extra happiness.

What? Late game I usually have 100+ population...that's 10 free happpiness. Landed Elite is very useful.

 

[bryanw1995]

If landed elite is actually implemented as -10% then it can be combined with meritocracy to get -15% total plus one per city, so not too bad overall. If you get normal in a city with 9 pop, then just keep the same level of at 10 pop then the policy won't be as useful.

 

[Ianwill93]

I just realized that India recieves a humongous boost from all the happiness nerfs. I cant wait to play this patch cause its gonna change everything.

 

[MadDjinn]

If landed elite is actually implemented as -10% then it can be combined with meritocracy to get -15% total plus one per city, so not too bad overall. If you get normal in a city with 9 pop, then just keep the same level of at 10 pop then the policy won't be as useful.

yeah...

9 pop = 9 unhappy
10 pop = 10 unhappy + 1 happy = 9 unhappy.

What to do with one more citizen?

but yeah, it's a serious nerf to the LE policy. I'm now expecting to see more Monarchy openings, or less tradition openings in general, unless it's a rush to finish the entire tree for the former LE bonus. France could do it.

 

[civnoob13]

What? Late game I usually have 100+ population...that's 10 free happpiness. Landed Elite is very useful.

Late game you don't need the extra happiness. Early game this is now useless. And still, in late game, I usually don't have many cities above 10 population (today I did a cultural one so it was a different matter), so it is usually all but useless.

 

[Putmalk]

How exactly does Landed Elite work? Is it 1 Happiness for every 10 citizens in ONE city, or the entire empire population combined? Landed Elite seems like the most worthless policy ever if its the former (and if it's the latter, it's still not much better).

 

[Txurce]

UNACCEPTABLE.

I play my games beyond 2050 because its far more satisfying to do that.

Then like bryanw1995 wrote, you better learn how to mod the game to your specifications.

That doesn't change that from being bad game design. They should just have a minimum value that once reached cannot go down any further.

In my opinion, something outside the game's design (anything post-2050) can't be bad design. Your suggestion is a good one that would be easy to implement, should the devs ever get around to addressing issues outside the game's designated parameters.

 

[Valkrionn]

My impressions are that the devs wanted to truly make happiness the limiting factor of expansion. They've reintroduced a lot ICS friendly mechanisms while nerfing almost every source of happiness. See the culture (less available but much reduced cost/city), production (much less available but more ways to get small boosts) and, to a lesser extent, gold changes specifically. I think the player's average empire size will increase significantly but the rate of new cities will be slower, which strikes me as more realistic and fun. I'm not entirely sure that it will work correctly, but it will be interesting to play - it's going to feel like a pretty different game.

High points for me are:

• Policy tree finishers - This should make for more interesting decision-making wrt to SP picks and should help the AI which typically fills trees out more than the player.
• New RA mechanic - though I'd prefer it if it was half of the combined median for both civs involved, thus more beneficial to civs that are backward than those that are ahead in tech.
• More positive diplo modifiers!
• Most of the World Wonder changes - I think the Great Library and the Pyramids were nerfed far too much however.

The building rebalance is interesting, we'll have to see if it works out as intended. See comment above wrt culture and production buildings. Defensive structures may paradoxically be *more* valuable because of their reduced effectiveness.

The rest will take some thought and/or play to determine quality I think, so I won't comment right now. It's a little frustrating to read the notes because it isn't clear whether some changes are in place of or in addition to the previous effects (be it buildings, SPs, etc.).

This. Exactly this.