March Patch Notes (formerly february)

[KrikkitTwo]

And yet, using modern-day examples: Is Hawaii less happy than Virginia? Canada is a huge country which seems fairly happy. The least happy part of Canada seems to be Quebec, which is not all that far from the capital. Belgium is a tiny little country that is close to falling apart due to unhappiness.

Granted, some of the dynamics are different in a modern world than an ancient world.

Yes Hawaii is less happy than Virginia, but for non distance reasons.

Both Hawaii and Quebec have varying degrees of "foreign culture".. causing more unhappiness.

But the "distance component" is probably much smaller than the "#of cities component" in a world with telecommunication.

Instead of increasing technology/policies providing extra money/happiness to pay for a larger empire(Civ 4+5 model) I would see the Primary effect of technology/policies to reduce the amount of unhappiness... possibly allowing gold to be paid to do so (like Courthouses and State Property)

 

[Kevin Nash]

but I'm worried about one thing that sticks out in particular.

People have complained that science victories are much more difficult than cultural or domination or diplomatic. This patch, by increasing the tech costs only seems to compound that problem. Do you guys agree with this?

Are science victories still too difficult and does this just make it worse?

 

[Sneaks]

but I'm worried about one thing that sticks out in particular.

People have complained that science victories are much more difficult than cultural or domination or diplomatic. This patch, by increasing the tech costs only seems to compound that problem. Do you guys agree with this?

Are science victories still too difficult and does this just make it worse?

Science victories are not very difficult. I would rank difficulty right now as:

Easiest - Conquest (amass army, win)
Easy - Diplo (amass gold, win)
Pretty Easy - Science (RA, great scientist, win)
Mostly Easy - Culture (Puppet everything, win)

The fact is, science is way too simple and easy to get as it stands, and this seems to rectify this slightly.

 

[noncognosco]

but I'm worried about one thing that sticks out in particular.

People have complained that science victories are much more difficult than cultural or domination or diplomatic. This patch, by increasing the tech costs only seems to compound that problem. Do you guys agree with this?

Are science victories still too difficult and does this just make it worse?

It is not that science is difficult, it is just that it takes a while from the time that the Apollo project is completed. By the time you build and assemble the spaceship pieces, you could have much more quickly built the UN and won a diplomatic victory.

 

[Kevin Nash]

Science victories are not very difficult. I would rank difficulty right now as:

Easiest - Conquest (amass army, win)
Easy - Diplo (amass gold, win)
Pretty Easy - Science (RA, great scientist, win)
Mostly Easy - Culture (Puppet everything, win)

The fact is, science is way too simple and easy to get as it stands, and this seems to rectify this slightly.

Gotcha. I didn't really have a problem with it to be honest but I read on this very forum that people thought it was too hard and therefore not really a worthwhile victory path compared to diplo or culture. It looks like diplo and conquest maybe got some indirect nerfs in this patch? Gold generation seems harder now as does managing large sprawling empires. Maybe everything is balanced now in terms of victory conditions.

 

[AndrewDJ]

And yet, using modern-day examples: Is Hawaii less happy than Virginia? Canada is a huge country which seems fairly happy. The least happy part of Canada seems to be Quebec, which is not all that far from the capital. Belgium is a tiny little country that is close to falling apart due to unhappiness.

Granted, some of the dynamics are different in a modern world than an ancient world.

You're quite right. The dynamic I describe is indeed more applicable to the ancient world than the modern, because we have things like telephones, the Internet, railroads, cars, and airplanes, all of which help tie the fringes to the center. And, both the USA and Canada use federalism to help deal with the problem. Rather than force everything to be dealt with in Washington or Ottowa, the state and provincial capitals deal with a lot.

Edited to add: Belgium's unhappiness is more from factors 2 & 3 than 1. They've done such a good job of eradicating nationalism that there's nothing left holding the country together besides inertia.

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Whatever winning conditions are easier or tougher to reach is directly related to how Science is being managed.
At the core of such issues lies a greater aspect; control.

If it were just me, i'd slap a Financial win immediately and be done with the whole framework at once (cuz, it WOULD solve everything) while using Gazebo's Diplo principles for CS and providing features for a much better (as intuitively wise parametric values & voting) UN to tilt Diplomatic win back where it should.

The patch simply introduces a new curve to deal with in Research. The SS-Launch will always be there for both the AIs and us.

 

[nokmirt]

There is not much left of Feb. when is this patch coming out???

 

[Trias]

Edited to add: Belgium's unhappiness is more from factors 2 & 3 than 1. They've done such a good job of eradicating nationalism that there's nothing left holding the country together besides inertia.

[off-topic]
No nationalism in Belgium? Nationalism seems to be at the core of Belgium's problems. The Flemish nationalists wining the previous elections are part of the reason of the impasse in forming a new government.

Basically the problem is that nationalism is rampant, but the nationalistic feelings are directed at the Flemish and Walloon nations rather than at the Belgian federation.
[/off-topic]

 

[Tatran]

Granary gives bonus 1 food for Wheat/Banana Deer;
Stable gives bonus 1 production for Sheep/Cattle/Horse and can be built with Sheep or Cattle;
Lighthouse gives bonus 1 food for Fish;

From memory, when cities share resources, due to overlapping,
not every city will be able to construct the same related resource building.

 

[Valkrionn]

It doesn't say they require the resource, but that they give bonuses to them. Very different thing.

Only the stable requires resources, and the types it requires have been expanded.

 

[_hero_]

From memory, when cities share resources, due to overlapping,
not every city will be able to construct the same related resource building.

I believe you are thinking of Circuses. In that case, it makes sense to not allow the building in all the cities if it's shared because the building provides a bonus whether the tile is worked or not.

With these new changes, there is no reason to not allow each city that has the tile to build it, since the benefit is only to the tile itself. Ultimately, you're hurting yourself if you build it in cities and don't have them work the tile, so it's not exploitative like it would be with a circus.

 

[_hero_]

If it were just me, i'd slap a Financial win immediately and be done with the whole framework at once (cuz, it WOULD solve everything) while using Gazebo's Diplo principles for CS and providing features for a much better (as intuitively wise parametric values & voting) UN to tilt Diplomatic win back where it should.

Financial victory. That reminds me of when I used to play SMAC (Alpha Centauri).

As for Diplomatic victory, I've never been a huge fan of the whole "become president of UN and win" thing. That's no victory in real life. The UN really doesn't even have that much power in the real world. I liked having the UN to enact certain things upon the world like banning nukes or forcing an end to slavery, but I don't feel like it truly demonstrates a diplomatic victory.

To me, a diplomatic victory would be forming a very large alliance with multiple civs so as to essentially eliminate any chance of being taken over by other nations. Of course that would require fixing Civ Vs diplomacy and putting in permanent alliances or something to that effect.

The victory would look something like "form a permanent alliance with X number of civs" (scaling with the # of civs in the game. It would have to be over 50% IMO.)

 

[spfun]

I'd just simply remove diplo victory from the game, its bad in every civ.

 

[nokmirt]

Does anyone know in the whole wide godforsaken CiV world when the release date is??? Thanks

One more small question. Does anyone think the patch will be a drastic big step into making this a game, we all can be proud of???

Moderator Action: Threads merged.

 

[Jaybe]

They said in February, so you can expect it by next Monday night. For you to get more solid than that you will have to ... WAIT until it is released!

 

[Roto-Router]

I'm trying to keep my expectations low, especially about the promised turn time improvements. Last big patch they promised to fix diplomacy, and we got denunciation chains.

 

[MAntoninus]

Diplomatic Victory is Financial Victory

 

[Horizons]

Rumour has it that the forthcoming patch will cause spontaneous orgasms in 33% of all Civ5 players.

 

[Grimberht]

And yet, using modern-day examples: Is Hawaii less happy than Virginia? Canada is a huge country which seems fairly happy. The least happy part of Canada seems to be Quebec, which is not all that far from the capital. Belgium is a tiny little country that is close to falling apart due to unhappiness.

Granted, some of the dynamics are different in a modern world than an ancient world.

The only ones thinking that we're unhappy (Quebecers) are those outside of the province! The fact that we ask for more "autonomy" in our own province is reminiscent of the extreme centralization of the "old" colonial constitution. No american would accept to live in it either

But that doesnt mean we're unhappy... !! Just come visit us (may I suggest in the summer tho) to realize how we are everything BUT unhappy