New BERT info coming July 22

[SupremacyKing2]

hope that franco iberia bonus gets changed soon lol

Me too. It needs a buff.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

 

[Karl0413]

Well, they are definitely listening to player feedback. A lot of people wanted a British / Scandinavian faction and they got one now. So, who is boarding the hype-train for BERT?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Here is the new unit upgrade screen:

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Well, they are definitely listening to player feedback. A lot of people wanted a British / Scandinavian faction and they got one now. So, who is boarding the hype-train for BERT?

But nobody wanted wonders nerfed.
I'm too cynical for the hype train, but this looks very promising and the balance screwups are easily fixable with mods. I've noticed that all wonders now also give 5 Diplomatic Capital, so some of the weaker (and cheaper) ones may now be worth building, just like Civ5 had wonders that you wanted primarily for the Great People points.
I am a bit disappointed in the tech web. After the E3 demo showed a stem tech with affinity points I hoped there would be a major overhaul, but it's mostly the same. There are still too many leaves that unlock nothing of worth and the affinity points from stem techs makes this actually worse. But this can be fixed with a mod. Just make leaf techs cheaper than stem techs.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I am a bit disappointed in the tech web. After the E3 demo showed a stem tech with affinity points I hoped there would be a major overhaul, but it's mostly the same. There are still too many leaves that unlock nothing of worth and the affinity points from stem techs makes this actually worse. But this can be fixed with a mod. Just make leaf techs cheaper than stem techs.

But many of the stem techs give affinity points to 2 affinities. So, stem techs will help you go a hybrid affinity approach. Leaf techs only give affinity points to 1 affinity so they will still be useful to go down a single affinity.

 

[winddysphere]

Which nations or continent is Duncan from? His face is like Scandinavia and somehow looks like a typical USA or England.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Which nations or continent is Duncan from? His face is like Scandinavia and somehow looks like a typical USA or England.

We don't know exactly which nation Duncan is from but the faction is a coalition of British and Scandinavian cultures. Duncan looks Scottish to me.

 

[winddysphere]

hope that franco iberia bonus gets changed soon lol

Yeah. It just "got 10 virtues? Get 1 new virtue for free" and just that. It should have some additional effect just like Slavic's free 5 resources. Maybe something like additional effects from those special trade deal like get extra 10 percent in espionage with ARC trade or sort?

 

[winddysphere]

We don't know exactly which nation Duncan is from but the faction is a coalition of British and Scandinavian cultures. Duncan looks Scottish to me.

Ah thank you. And since in-game story the world is so twist together. He maybe even some mix of Scotland, Denmark and Germany. Who knows.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Another tidbit of info I got from the BAStartgaming video: the fear and respect levels dictate what relationship you can offer. You need 4 fear or 4 respect to offer an alliance, 3 fear or 3 respect to offer cooperation.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Yeah. It just "got 10 virtues? Get 1 new virtue for free" and just that. It should have some additional effect just like Slavic's free 5 resources. Maybe something like additional effects from those special trade deal like get extra 10 percent in espionage with ARC trade or sort?

To be fair, you can get another one if you drag the game out after it's already decided. You might even get a third one if you focus on culture to the detriment of anything else.
I really liked their original UA when they got one free tech per 10 vitues and it wasn't limited to virtues earned through culture. It seemed arguably OP then, but now compared to the others even that looks a bit weak. Hutama practically has his new nerfed ability plus his old OP one.
Maybe one free tech per ten virtues and additionally -20% culture cost per virtue may do the trick.

 

[werothegreat]

What the heck are city processes, in reference to Al-Falah's ability?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

To be fair, you can get another one if you drag the game out after it's already decided. You might even get a third one if you focus on culture to the detriment of anything else.
I really liked their original UA when they got one free tech per 10 vitues and it wasn't limited to virtues earned through culture. It seemed arguably OP then, but now compared to the others even that looks a bit weak. Hutama practically has his new nerfed ability plus his old OP one.
Maybe one free tech per ten virtues and additionally -20% culture cost per virtue may do the trick.

I really think the game is more fun when everybody is a little OP.

 

[Doviello]

What the heck are city processes, in reference to Al-Falah's ability?

It's the city ability to produce culture, produce science etc. They convert hammers into culture at a better rate than others sponsors.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

What the heck are city processes, in reference to Al-Falah's ability?

It's setting your production to energy, science, culture or food.
Other civs can get yields equal to 25% of production, Al-Falah gets 62,5%. Seems pretty powerful.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

We don't know exactly which nation Duncan is from but the faction is a coalition of British and Scandinavian cultures. Duncan looks Scottish to me.

well it IS a pretty dang Scottish name, right?

 

[Barathor]

Wow, everything looks amazing!

UK and Scandinavia in one faction? Sold -- my new favorite, haha. The leader being a beefcake (love the futuristic "lifting belt" haha) also suits my style.

Seeing some of the diplomacy in action has already exceeded my expectations as well. It's so RPG'ish -- love it. The one guy in that GT Review (wasn't crazy about the criticism, to be honest; also the other guy should know everything the expansion is bringing to the table before contemplating whether or not it's worth a mere $30!!) video said that one possibly negative thing is that it's too much like the other systems of simply collecting and spending yields on perks -- personally, I think it's perfect that way and fits into this type of game well. Plus, for the multiplayers, this system may work out really well in their games and make the diplomacy part of the game with AI players relevant and even useful.

Here's a nice image of the Frigid biome from Polygon, it's beautiful:

Spoiler :

Also, here's a link to that Polygon article.

Here's an interesting bit about the Ultrasonic Fence, or rather the aliens:

Another interesting tweak is the Ultrasonic Fence. Previously, researching this wall was a no-brainer, as it kept aliens off settled lands. Now it's slightly less effective. Really, really angry aliens can now breach the Ultrasonic Fence, though not so often that it ceases to be a useful building. The change has been made to keep aliens relevant through the mid- and late-game stages.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Here's a nice image of the Frigid biome from Polygon, it's beautiful:

Yeah, the biomes and the new aliens look really beautiful!

Also, the GT review mentioned that the biomes will affect alien behavior. The frigid biome will slow down aliens but make them tougher.

Here's an interesting bit about the Ultrasonic Fence, or rather the aliens:

Excellent change! Making cities with a fence completely immune to alien attack made the fence too much of a no-brainer. I love this change because it makes the fence good without completely nerfing aliens.

 

[Westwall]

Well, they are definitely listening to player feedback. A lot of people wanted a British / Scandinavian faction and they got one now. So, who is boarding the hype-train for BERT?

I'm still not really feeling it. It's nice that they revamped the diplomacy system, but the design just looks so... mechanical. The dialogue hasn't really been changed or expanded at all from the looks of it. Now we can put traits into trade... that's nice and all but couldn't this have been worked into some a little more organic?

I mean they said they were going to give the factions more character and this doesn't seem like more character. These leaders still don't seem to have much personality, they're just defined by their bonuses. Nice attempt I guess but I think I'm going to withhold excitement until I start seeing something better than this. The dialogue seems almost non-existent now, it just serves as a short header for the agreements.

Here's an interesting bit about the Ultrasonic Fence, or rather the aliens:

Whether they're relevant mid-to-late game will still depend on how powerful they are at those stages.