March Patch Notes (formerly february)

[bryanw1995]

I wonder what's gonna happen to your Balance(s) MODs now that they have enforced some complex "Streamlining" and global value edits in multiple areas?
Cuz, 80+% of their stuff is directly pulled off your work.
You should be smiling in pride.

or getting royalties...

 

[Blue Oyster]

Considering that China has over 4 times the population, that's a distinct possibility.

China is a ticking time bomb however. Wait and see.

I'd hoped that came through as a bit of joke, should have used a smiley. But if you're right, I hope I'm not there when the bomb goes off.

 

[bryanw1995]

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.

I've never seen the ai build a fort or a citadel. I can only remember 2 games where I used a citadel at all in fact, typically I find better uses for GG's. I think I would fall out of my chair if I saw the ai make proper tactical use of a citadel like that!

 

[bryanw1995]

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

seriously? I personally don't like to ics, but up until now it is still the unquestioned #1 strategy for the highest level players. Seriously, when was the last time martin alvito or alpaca came on here and said "man, I wanted to ics but building a tall empire was just the right play in this deity game"? Additionally, many of the changes introduced in the coming patch are specifically designed to equalize tall vs wide empires. 3 tile distance for city spacing? that is a HUGE change, I don't remember EVER seeing that in a civ game before. I'm very interested to see how it turns out in fact.

 

[bryanw1995]

To say they based it on Thal's mod is exaggerating. However, they made many changes already in his mod. And there are plenty more that are useful enough to come in later patches. Try Thal's Balance - Combined mod... as well as some other mods that he recommends alongside, like Sneaks' What Would Gandhi Do?

Balance combined cannot garner enough praise. I played more games with it than without it (including all other mods and the "core" game) until the dec patch came out. They were smart to include many elements from it in the upcoming patch. If they were really smart they'd hire Thal "part-time" for some consulting work...

 

[joncnunn]

Civ 4 also didn't allow 2 tile city spacing.

But this is the first post release change in minimum city tile spacing. Most of the changes described in this patch, including this one really should have been implemented prior to game release.

3 tile distance for city spacing? that is a HUGE change, I don't remember EVER seeing that in a civ game before. I'm very interested to see how it turns out in fact.

 

[bhavv]

3 tile city spacing is a great addition. It minimises the chances of getting a city state right next to my initial cities border, which tends to happen a lot on custom maps.

I absolutely cant wait for this patch, I want in asap!

 

[Zyxpsilon]

When some freaky members drilled me down to the floor while slamming on my skull with barbaric sledgehammers for approving of *THE* 3/MCD or even implying it could be the only rational solution to ICS, i'll be sure to come right back here on Page #28 to be reminded that some players are smart enough to realize how much of a pivotal decision it truly is.

 

[bryanw1995]

Declarations of friendships/denunciations lasting just 50 turns is a great addition. It makes little sense for a denunciation in 2000 BC to last the entire game. Talk about non-fun.

Chinese got rightfully nerfed.

Russia got boosted big-time due to Krepost and minimum 2 (4 for Russia) uranium.

Tradition looks like it got boosted. Did it really need to be more powerful?

Liberty finally seems like it could be an option in non-ReX strats. The free worker policy could be a game changer. Boosting meritocracy, seems -- extreme? I think it was just right at .5 happiness a connection.

I'm disappointed that military caste didn't get a bump. Who has enough units to take advantage of that policy? Furthermore, if you have that many units to take advantage of that policy, you should be out busting skulls (RE - not parked behind city-walls).

Autocracy not getting a complete overhaul sucks but at least it's on the radar. Who really chooses Autocracy over Order anyways? Yeah your military will be better, but you'll be crushed by the weight of your own military success. Also, most of the policies are slightly better than terrible anyways. Although the initial -33% upkeep and -33% purchasing military is really nice. Fascism shouldn't be needed because you should be able to just capture additional resources. Populism is only cool if you are Japan. And Total War, while cancelling out the -33% combat strength due to a lot of unhappiness, is the only social policy that is 100% temporary.

I've also noticed a lot of these changes come directly or were heavily inspired by the many balance mods out there.

That's my 2cs

military tradition got a huge boost via a policy synergy with landed elite. a very large standing army is completely viable now for anybody with enough cities.

 

[Tatran]

3 tile distance for city spacing? that is a HUGE change, I don't remember EVER seeing that in a civ game before. I'm very interested to see how it turns out in fact.

I've been playing for months with a minimum city distance of 3.
Nothing really to be excited about.

The most interesting game was a minimum city distance of 4.

 

[JohnnyW]

a few keshiks ....

he wasn't talking to you, everyone knows that you're civ5's biggest fan!

or getting royalties...

I've never seen ....

seriously? I ....

Balance combined ....

There's this feature called "multi-quote" you should check out.

 

[Blue Oyster]

I've been playing for months with a minimum city distance of 3.
Nothing really to be excited about.

The most interesting game was a minimum city distance of 4.

Tatran, what made it interesting?

 

[Thalassicus]

For me personally, I like 3-4 tiles to be the ideal distance without it being forced. There should be good, genuine underlying reasons to spread cities out, not just a temporary band-aid. It's like how early-game specialists were removed instead of fixing scientists and lightbulbing directly.

This is why I like flexible resource bonuses on buildings and I'm glad to see they added this mechanic for Granaries, Stables, etc. It naturally rewards placing cities in ideal spots, because a single city can efficiently boost many resources with one building. One city with a granary can boost X resource tiles at half the production and maintenance cost of two granaries in two cities. It rewards strategic city placement instead of placing roadblocks in the player's path.

 

[Valkrionn]

For me personally, I want 3-4 tiles to be the ideal distance without it being forced on the player. There should be good, genuine underlying reasons to spread cities out, not a restriction that reduces options.

This is why I like flexible resource bonuses on buildings and I'm glad to see they added this mechanic. It naturally rewards placing cities in ideal spots, because a single city can efficiently boost many resources with one building. One city with a granary can boost X resource tiles at half the production and maintenance cost of two cities with two granaries. It rewards strategic city placement instead of placing roadblocks in the player's path.

With 3-tile city spacing the advantage of having lots of tiny, undeveloped cities isn't inherently changed, the player can still ICS but simply over more land area.

Two very fundamental differences between 2-tile and 3-tile spacing exist:

1. At 2-tile, cities can be placed within the workable radius of existing cities. With 3-tile, they cannot.
2. City ranged attacks stack far more easily with 2-tile vs 3-tile. Meaning, not only are you rewarded via science, gold, resources, it is easier to defend an ICS empire than a Tall empire, under the 2-tile spacing.

Those two items are both caused by features introduced in Civilization 5 (increased workable radius for cities, and City Strikes), and as a result I believe this change should have been in from release.

 

[Thalassicus]

You're making a good point that shorter city spacing is naturally better, but I agree with that entirely and it's actually part of the point I was trying to make... so I think I didn't word things well, sorry about that!

What I'm saying is there's a difference between:

• 3-tile spacing as naturally the ideal distance
• 3-tile spacing forced by a rule

Even if cities are required to be three tiles apart, the underlying reasons for the problem are still there. These reasons are the ones you described and others. It's important to tackle these root causes of the problem and fix them directly. It takes less time and effort to hide the problems with a restriction on the player, but in the long run it's counterproductive because it gradually reduces decision-making.

This is why I made the analogy to scientists. Removing scientists from the early game didn't make lightbulbing any less overpowered, it just reduced decision-making opportunities in the early game. It's goes in the opposite direction of the saying "a game is a series of interesting decisions," because no choice at all is the least interesting decision.

 

[Valkrionn]

That's not what I'm trying to say, though... what I'm saying is there's a difference between:

• 3 tiles is naturally the ideal distance
• 3 tiles is restricted by a rule

Even if cities are forced to be three tiles apart, the underlying reasons why 2-tile is better are the same. These reasons are the ones you described and others. It's important to address these root causes of the problem directly.

This is why I made the analogy to scientists. Removing scientists from the early game didn't make lightbulbing any less overpowered, it just reduced decision-making opportunities in the early game. It's goes in the opposite direction of Sid Meier's saying that "a game is a series of interesting decisions," because no choice at all is the least interesting decision.

Oh, I absolutely agree that in most cases, it should be better to leave things open to the player to decide (and I said as much, with the restriction to saving policies... If it was unbalancing, the issue was the relative strengths of early and late policies, not storing them in and of itself). My point is simply that in this case, a hard rule is best.

Primarily because of the "settling inside workable radius", which has AFAIK never been allowed (aside from on different landmasses, which is still the exception here).

The ranged attacks could be balanced (buildings and population increasing it's strength, such that one Tall city could output the damage of three clustered Wide cities), but the other cannot.

And honestly, Sid makes games of only middling complexity, with very few "interesting choices". Reynolds and Johnson are the ones who introduced that to the Civ series.

 

[Thalassicus]

That's true, CivII and SMAC I thoroughly enjoyed for years on end. Reynolds was a good designer.

 

[joncnunn]

The AI for both of those was really bad though. Those are the two games in this series that I totally beat the game before I got bored with them. (e.g. could routinely win at Diety / Transcendi.) As I recall I had gone so far as to write out on sheets of paper what order to always research techs in both of those games.

Civ III's AI was a step forward, and so was Civ IV's. Better AI was a major improvement over that (which then got incorporated into base BTS). That the AI in Civ V turns out to be worse than Civ IV BTS is a step backwards.

That's true, CivII and SMAC I thoroughly enjoyed for years on end. Reynolds was a good designer.

 

[PaperBeetle]

Primarily because of the "settling inside workable radius", which has AFAIK never been allowed (aside from on different landmasses, which is still the exception here).

In Civs 1-3 it was certainly possible, SMAC I can't remember. In Civ1 you could build cities immediately adjacent to one another. And frankly, why not? By all means provide incentives for players to build empires that look the way the devs imagined they should, but I never approved of Firaxis' long-standing policy of firmly blocking strategies that they didn't anticipate themselves. I'm sure most game designers are overjoyed, not horrified, when their games produce emergent strategies, and when their fanbase is dedicated enough to develop new strategies.

 

[Sneaks]

The issue with the workable radius thing, which I really don't like as a forced option, is this: The AI does not plan ahead. It doesn't think "I should leave more spacing for this city, as I want it to grow large and be a wonder spamming powerhouse down the road". This is an honest concern of mine, given how wise the current AI is.