March Patch Notes (formerly february)

[Nares]

The devs announce a huge patch dealing with many of the game's biggest issues and your first reaction is to just complain some more?

"Huge patch" dealing with the "biggest issues?" Hardly. The bulk of the gameplay changes are XML tweaks any player with Notepad and 1hr of time could implement. That many of them are ripped practically directly from already established mods shows just how little creative thought went into this patch.

Good for them for taking ideas from the community as the basis for their first content patch since the departure of Shafer.

As I said, the real challenge is moving on from here. Do they continue to poach from the community, or do they actually have the combination of vision and leadership that allow for a strong game to be developed? Because if it's apparent they don't, then there's no sense waiting expectantly for some cure-all expansion, which would be what actually addresses the game's "biggest issues."

 

[Tabarnak]

Eh, are they really better than average, or is one of them really good? Babylon is great, but are the Mongols better than average? They seem pretty bottom-tier to me.

Mongols is a free DLC. I said i need to buy DLCs to stay competitive. And Mongols shine at war. Multiplayer is almost always war oriented.

 

[seasnake]

... they are typically exactly the same people who are complaining about the multiple options of Civ4.
Because they are praising a system which only lives due to the inability of the AI.
Because 98% of them would cry and whine if they were confronted with a real opponent, being able to defend against their "big army" of six units.
And once again, unwillingly you are admitting this by yourself. You are referring to defensive structures and chokepoints, two things which the AI not only doesn't use properly but even doesn't grasp in the slightest way.
Yes, for you as the human player it may be fun to have the AI bleed to death in front of your forts. What about the same thing happening to you? What about the AI making use of its superior production and unit numbers in a cleverly placed system of defense positions?

Whatever we have been promised pre-release in terms of warfare wasn't fulfilled: the combat is still completely about seizing cities, fronts are non-existant and for sure are not at the borders (well, of course you can define three units accidentally being placed next to each other "a front", but that's it).
You adress this by the frustrated demand "they should fix this ASAP", but it isn't anything else than wishful thinking.
1upt may work (and does work) for limited regions, limited timeframes, limited set of units (in terms of unit types, weapon's technology included and whatnotmore), but it doesn't work for a Civilization game.
And any claim "but it COULD!!!oneeleven!!!!" doesn't disprove that statement.
Show me a 4xTBS game covering 6000 years (or any other timeframe from stoneage to nuclear time weapons) in which a 1upt system works, and I will admit that it works.
Unfortunately, I don't know any such game and for the moment being I'm assuming you don't know either.

Hmm, a few interesting points here.

First and foremost I have had to maneuver units around mountain ranges and, low and behold, there was an enemy citadel at the end, and my assault was pushed back. I had to eventually sail around to assault the city, which took a lot of time because first I needed some support units. I enjoyed every minute, I loved that AI was able to prevent me from just marching overland.

This was on Prince Difficulty.

Say it was a fluke perhaps. But don't say that it isn't fun when it happens. An AI that behaves in a clever fashion always makes the game better, even if you "lose" you had a better time.

Second, by your logic if it hasn't been done = it can't be done. There's a first for everything, and yes 1UPT is a first given the scope of the game, 6000 years of history. It's ambitious and I like what I've seen so far, and I believe the final product will be excellent. Patches like this and the last reassure me that they understand that the game needs work and they're listening to their fan base.

 

[CyberChrist]

This patch may appease some of the fans (and grats to them if so), but if this is the extent of Firaxis' willingness to modify the game then nothing short of Firaxis (finally) making the promissed DLL code available for modding will have even the slightest chance of making me want to bother with Civ5 again.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

As long as there's no maintenance cost incurred, founding cities in ICS style will always be the best strategy for high-level play. At some point, I hope Firaxis will realize that their global happiness system doesn't work, and revert back to the one system that does. I see little in these patch notes to change that (especially with a new policy that gives +2 food in all cities, holy cow!)

Overall, good news for those who like Civ5; personally, still not interested.

Is that why you keep posting your jaundiced opinions about it?

 

[PieceOfMind]

He probably meant to say he's still interested in it, but not interested in playing it. That's how I am at the moment anyway.

 

[Bibor]

As long as there's no maintenance cost incurred, founding cities in ICS style will always be the best strategy for high-level play. At some point, I hope Firaxis will realize that their global happiness system doesn't work, and revert back to the one system that does. I see little in these patch notes to change that (especially with a new policy that gives +2 food in all cities, holy cow!)

Overall, good news for those who like Civ5; personally, still not interested.

Not a surprising comment, considering your long history of inaccurate statements about CIV5. If you want to be a respected critic, you might want to get your facts together. This is not a personal attack -- your opinion carries a lot of weight to a lot of people. That makes you a public figure.

Happiness is maintenance#1 in CIV5. Happiness is both global and local. Luxury resources, policies and wonders are global, buildings are local. Happiness policies indirectly affect other things (choosing a happiness policy equals not choosing a non-happiness policy etc.).

Building upkeep costs is maintenance #2 in CIV5. More powerful cities require more maintenance.

This is the exact inverse of CIV4 where all larger cities outproduced their maintenance. Which is, as a mechanic, laughable: with large enough cities your economy could never go broke, no matter what you did.

I simply cannot see you being a valid critic as long as you cannot see any other angles but the ones that seemingly confirm your criticism. Especially since in this particular case of city maintenance, it's the CIV4 mechanics that are actually more "broken" than CIV5 ones.

Actually, since you produced no actual games that prove your points (except for the bad combat AI, a problem that stems from multiple reasons other than programmer incompetence), I choose to simply ignore your "expertise". Granted, your first comments at release were true, but this game changed a lot since then and is still changing. For the better.

 

[ruskyandrei]

Why should we stop posting here?

There are some who have been expressing since release that Civ5 was a "perfect" game, "exactly what they were looking for" and now are frenetically cheering over each patch, especially the ones which completely change the course of the previously so "perfect" game.
Obviously, with such people you don't have problems? Very convincing.

I'd just like to point out how wrong you are here.

This is a forum meant for people to discuss this game. Usually that means people that play or want to play the game, not people that have little else to do but bash it.

It's like going to a "Hunting" forum and posting stuff like "Hunting is bad" , "Don't hurt the animals", "Hunting is so boring" etc...
Of course people are going to not like you very much. I do hope you see the point.
You mention you like CiV4 a lot more ? There are special CiV4 boards, please go and talk to the people there.

 

[MkLh]

Not a surprising comment, considering your long history of inaccurate statements about CIV5. If you want to be a respected critic, you might want to get your facts together. This is not a personal attack -- your opinion carries a lot of weight to a lot of people. That makes you a public figure.

Happiness is maintenance#1 in CIV5. Happiness is both global and local. Luxury resources, policies and wonders are global, buildings are local. Happiness policies indirectly affect other things (choosing a happiness policy equals not choosing a non-happiness policy etc.).

Building upkeep costs is maintenance #2 in CIV5. More powerful cities require more maintenance.

This is the exact inverse of CIV4 where all larger cities outproduced their maintenance. Which is, as a mechanic, laughable: with large enough cities your economy could never go broke, no matter what you did.

This is exactly the case. Civ4 encouraged to build big cities with lots of improvements. Civ5 more like punishes for it and encourages lots of small cities with a very few basic buildings. That is the problem.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: Overall this thread has been very civil, keep that up, @ those who need reminding: any attacks on other users will stop right now.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Kiwi_Mark_LFC]

Pointless...whilst they still have the stupid 1upt limitation...

Only the incredibly stupid fail to see how that has completely rooted Civ.

1upt DOES NOT make the game more strategic...it makes it MUCH MUCH LESS strategic...it attempts to turn the game into Panzer General (the actual stated goal of the fool who designed this game)...a second rate game that is TACTICAL in nature and requires far larger maps (more land per unit) than is possible in Civ.

Civ V is a failure of EPIC proportions...only those who are too stupid to be able to play a proper strategic game requiring intelligence and thought think it is good.

And only the brainless struggle with the so called stack of doom...1upt is the weakest of any possible solution to this...there a about 1.49 billion other possbile solutions that could have been implemented before the idiotic idea of 1upt.

And before any pillock try's to defend the fool responsible for this...he is TOTALLY and COMPLETELY responsible...he was the LEAD designer...not the tea lady!

If 2K wanted a game that was more accessable (easy for stupid fat lazy americans to play) - again there was about 1.789 billion ways of solving that without dumbing the game down to stupid fat lazy american level.

Again - a LEAD designer with a brain could have solved that. The lead designer of Civ V FAILED with every single task appointed to him. He is a total embarassment to game developers everywhere.

Sid Meier took his eyes off the ball (by allowing someone so untalented to be in charge) and we have all suffered (except for the stupid fat lazy americans who like clicking end turn without having to think about anything).

Sid Meier and Fireaxis have ensured I will NEVER EVER buy another Fireaxis game again.

This sought of betrayal of a loyal and hard core fan base is unacceptable.

Moderator Action: Calling other forum members stupid is unacceptable. Please be more considerate of people with different tastes to your own.
Note: Backtrolling of this post can be infracted.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[Bibor]

This is exactly the case. Civ4 encouraged to build big cities with lots of improvements. Civ5 more like punishes for it and encourages lots of small cities with a very few basic buildings. That is the problem.

Can you produce some proof to this claim? Can you link to some actual games that prove this strategy is superior?

 

[SpearMan153]

looks to be an interesting patch, looking forward to trying out all the building and SP changes - should be a positive improvement to the game overall

well done modders for leading the way

hoping to see a noticeable difference in turn times... please please

looks like we are getting patches every 2nd month or so, to coincide with DLC releases = DLC funds patch = civ5 continues to improve

 

[Bibor]

"Huge patch" dealing with the "biggest issues?" Hardly. The bulk of the gameplay changes are XML tweaks any player with Notepad and 1hr of time could implement. That many of them are ripped practically directly from already established mods shows just how little creative thought went into this patch.

Good for them for taking ideas from the community as the basis for their first content patch since the departure of Shafer.

As I said, the real challenge is moving on from here. Do they continue to poach from the community, or do they actually have the combination of vision and leadership that allow for a strong game to be developed? Because if it's apparent they don't, then there's no sense waiting expectantly for some cure-all expansion, which would be what actually addresses the game's "biggest issues."

In your line of work, how much can be done by a small team of developers in one month? Because that's how often patches are showing up. I'm asking because in my line of work 8 to 16 is usually meetings and phone calls with maybe 3-4 hours of effective "sitting in front of the PC". Considering how many changes and upgrades they did to this game already, I'd say they are doing just fine (and under a lot of pressure, obviously).

 

[Clement]

Will the new patch address the issue of being hated when liberating a city? or being called a warmonger when defending yourself from someone elses war? will you still be called a warmonger by an ally when joining a war they themselves asked you to join? or have these things been fixed already?

 

[Michl2602]

And OH FIX THE DAMN CIVILOPEDIA ALREADY!! It is a joke. 'A railroad is a road on rails', 'bonus vs tank.'.

He's perfectly right. This civilopedia is nice to get the point about some historical motivations, but completely useless, when trying to improve your game.
The beautiful historical part should be left as is, but the rest should be rewritten by one (or some) of our veteran gamers.

 

[Orion66]

Well I think that patch changes are not worth of two month work. To few changes for two months since we had a last patch.

 

[Michl2602]

Pointless...whilst they still have the stupid 1upt limitation...

Only the incredibly stupid fail to see how that has completely rooted Civ.

1upt DOES NOT make the game more strategic...it makes it MUCH MUCH LESS strategic...it attempts to turn the game into Panzer General (the actual stated goal of the fool who designed this game)...a second rate game that is TACTICAL in nature and requires far larger maps (more land per unit) than is possible in Civ.

Civ V is a failure of EPIC proportions...only those who are too stupid to be able to play a proper strategic game requiring intelligence and thought think it is good.

And only the brainless struggle with the so called stack of doom...1upt is the weakest of any possible solution to this...there a about 1.49 billion other possbile solutions that could have been implemented before the idiotic idea of 1upt.

And before any pillock try's to defend the fool responsible for this...he is TOTALLY and COMPLETELY responsible...he was the LEAD designer...not the tea lady!

If 2K wanted a game that was more accessable (easy for stupid fat lazy americans to play) - again there was about 1.789 billion ways of solving that without dumbing the game down to stupid fat lazy american level.

Again - a LEAD designer with a brain could have solved that. The lead designer of Civ V FAILED with every single task appointed to him. He is a total embarassment to game developers everywhere.

Sid Meier took his eyes off the ball (by allowing someone so untalented to be in charge) and we have all suffered (except for the stupid fat lazy americans who like clicking end turn without having to think about anything).

Sid Meier and Fireaxis have ensured I will NEVER EVER buy another Fireaxis game again.

This sought of betrayal of a loyal and hard core fan base is unacceptable.

Sorry, but I'm confused.

It seems to be trolling to say that people should stop whining about the game, but it is not trolling to say that everyone, that likes the game is a "stupid fat lazy american" and that the chief developer of the game has got no talents or brains?

Sorry whether this posting is trolling or not: It offends me, even if I'm Austrian.
Moderator Action: If it offends you, then report it, and don't respond to it.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Moderator Action: Back on topic, thanks. Don't respond to a flaming/trolling post - just report it instead.

 

[Tsjernobyl]

How would these changes affect gameplay at the "epic" and "marathon" game speeds?