New Beta Patch - 1/15

[Stalker0]

Standard Deity Communitas_79 with Portugal. SV on Turn 383!

Spoiler :

Two deity wins under my belt, starting to get used to it A pretty fun game overall. Morocco was my science and culture battery for a long time, as I sucked up as much up through trade as I could. Then he started getting aggressive, and I had several defensive wars with him. Meanwhile the Celts and I became best of friends, sharing defensive pacts and resources. Late game we joined up with Germany for a tech triad, each of us selling techs to each other to keep up with the science boys.

Meanwhile Ethiopia did what Ethiopia does, and starting racing up the tech tree. But I wasn't having it. I set up a massive navy for an invasion of his eastern coast.

Spoiler :

After a long and arduous war, La Libela fell, and it was all gravy from there. With the power of Autocracy's Air Superiority Tenant (god I love that tenant), I immediately reinforced with mech inf and tanks, and flew in new stealth bombers. Now having a land footprint, the small nation was no match for infinite troops I could bring into the city, and so I pushed in, nuked him a bit, and then called it feeling satisfied I had neutralized the threat.

Meanwhile the Mayans had not been slouching and were now the tech leaders. I pushed my own advantage, and it turned into a full space race. The Mayans were 1 part away when I flew in the last part from one of my island cities and snagged the win.

1) There was a lot of fun diplomacy this game. Fun alliances, lots of willingness to share resources and techs, really felt like we had a little cooperatives against the "evil" countries of the world.

2) I've said it in the balance thread but just for the main list.... AA guns and Mobile Sams are really broken at the moment. They 1 shot all fighters (even jet fighters), they are exceedingly hard to kill by any force, and you cannot air sweep them (because they kill the fighter). Once the guns are in place, air is shut down until Stealth Bombers. Then it comes back with a vengeance as Stealth Bombers can take the pain well enough that I just brute force my way through the interceptions and kill what I want.

In fact, I'm wondering if something is up with the Stealth Bomber's evasion bonus (which is 25%). Considering that the AI is normally good about putting full interception promotions on their mobile sams, I should be getting intercepted 75% of the time until I get air penetration upgrades, but it feels a lot closer to 35-40%. So it might we worth a look (or perhaps I still don't understand all of the complexities of interception math).

3) I wish there was an upgrade to the guided missile, I found that by the time information era comes around and I can finally put them to real use, the 150 damage is no longer that big a deal. They don't even hurt a mech inf in a city all that much.

4) Culture is always important, but man it is REALLY important on deity. There are a lot of rubber bands for science, but precious few for culture. Once you fall behind good luck catching back up.

 

[azum4roll]

3) I wish there was an upgrade to the guided missile, I found that by the time information era comes around and I can finally put them to real use, the 150 damage is no longer that big a deal. They don't even hurt a mech inf in a city all that much.

I wish there were more upgrades to ranged ships too. That's why I'm using ENW (modded).

 

[youngsteve]

Another issue I have found in my current game, though not sure if it is supposed to be like that or not, is regarding building any more ranged ships. I have reached Dynamite so can now build Cruisers, so upgraded my Frigates. What I hadn't realised Cruisers unlike Frigates use Iron, which wasn't a problem as I had a bit. This would be okay if I could build more Frigates, but can no longer do so as discovered Cruisers. Seems a bit silly to me if someone hadn't built any frigates or only a few, but couldn't build cruisers either as had no iron or was used for other units. Is this supposed to be so, as normally you just have the ability to build the older unit if you haven't the resources to build the newer one.

 

[2506]

Standard Deity Communitas_79 with Portugal. SV on Turn 383!

Two deity wins under my belt, starting to get used to it A pretty fun game overall. Morocco was my science and culture battery for a long time, as I sucked up as much up through trade as I could. Then he started getting aggressive, and I had several defensive wars with him. Meanwhile the Celts and I became best of friends, sharing defensive pacts and resources. Late game we joined up with Germany for a tech triad, each of us selling techs to each other to keep up with the science boys.

Culture is always important, but man it is REALLY important on deity. There are a lot of rubber bands for science, but precious few for culture. Once you fall behind good luck catching back up.

Congratulations! Some questions:

What's toughest for you on Deity?

How do you hang in there for culture?

Autocracy with Portugal for an SV? Wow! What's the back story?

And why did you start enabling tech trading?

 

[Stalker0]

Congratulations! Some questions:

What's toughest for you on Deity?

How do you hang in there for culture?

Autocracy with Portugal for an SV? Wow! What's the back story?

And why did you start enabling tech trading?

I'd say the toughest thing getting used to on Deity is playing without the certainty of wonders. Even on Immortal, there were wonders I could always bag if I desired it. I might not get my 2nd or 3rd choices but I could always bag certain ones I really wanted. On Deity you have to be ruthless to get early wonders, sacrificing nigh everything else, and still may not get them. Just this last game I had a wonderful start as Arabia, had an amazing capital, and went for hanging gardens. But I had chosen to pick up mining as well because I had a copper start and several calendar luxs under forest. However, if you even want a shot at something like the HG you can not deviate in the slightest, and that tech deviation costs me the wonder. That is fine, but I have to get used to telling myself that if I have strayed in the slightest, I just have to let that wonder go and move on to something else, instead of going for on the chance I can snag it....its not worth the gamble.

For culture, lots of External Trade Routes (ETRs) for a baseline. Also the WC policy that gives you +33% Great writers, etc and more culture if you are under the average is a good one as well. But even with that I haven't managed culture parity with the leaders, I'm always a few policies behind. Perhaps there are Deity vets who can speak to this better.

On the SV, Portugal has a very solid science backbone with their UA, so SV is often a good pick for them. I want Autocracy both for the synergies with Lebansaum and Portugal (who gets a million great generals for super citadels), and because Order and Freedom already had 2 civs each, whereas I was first to Autocracy and could pick up the wonder for the policy to try and catch up a little bit in culture. I already had Imperalism (water heavy map with a strong navy, and I had a lot of % based monopolies including a science one so a really nice boost there), so of course Autocracy goes with that like peas and carrots. DV and CV were out of the question as I got into the late game (I thought that at the time, but considering my power I probably could have bagged a vassal or two easy enough and won that way), and it was clear that Ethiopia would be the absolute runaway if I didn't stop them. So....I did While doing that, I did aggressive tech trading with Germany and Celts (both selling and buying techs), which kept all of his in the tech competition. As Ethiopia died, the Mayans and I took their place at the top. Honestly I think the Mayans should have won it, as they had a chance to get Hubble and didn't (which I then picked up), and I was able to use aggressive ITRs to bump my key cities for the last few spaceship parts.

I use tech trading on and off in my games, and since I'm focused on Recursive's diplomacy changes I wanted to see how tech trading factors into that. I will try turning it off again at some point. That said, I know some people have concerns that Deity is night impossible to win without war....and tech trading is a way for peaceful diplomacy focused players to stay with the pack, so I may keep it as my default for Deity play in the future.

 

[Vaya]

As I am rebalancing my game and changing various things in files according to what I like or dont in my playthroughs I was thinking that I would like cities in general to be more dependent on location and particularly on availability of food. There is excess of food in cities starting somewhere in middle ages and as game progresses I start to feel like food does not matter much. Because of this I trimed most of resource balancing mechanisms that add bonus resources to less fertile regions (particularly a lot of sheep in hills and deer in tundra annoyed me most). But I still feel like cities surrounded by flood plains and farms should be able to develop (citizen-wise) much faster than anything in hills. Also I would say that cities equalize rather quickly as technology, civics, religion etc. progress and various bonuses and increased yields kick in. I was thinking that best way to counter this would be to simply increase food consumption per population from 2 to 3. That way cities in fertile regions would still develop quickly and amount of food surplus would matter more.

The problem is that in higher difficulties AI players get a lot of food for free from DifficultyBonuses and this might only slow me down and accentuate differences between my cities and theirs. I would struggle to fill my food basket in cities in less fertile regions and they will still get flat bonus everywhere. Btw this could also make sense to build farms on hills when tech allows it.

I saw a lot of times in the past that AI gets population in young cities high too quickly - before it can develop solid food production in that city and was thinking that It would be nice to nerf this somehow in higher difficulties. Or even better to be able to control this independently from other DifficultyBonuses.

 

[Ziad]

Hm thought the settler cost was fixed in the recent hotfix. Will you release another one soon?

 

[stii]

I'd say the toughest thing getting used to on Deity is playing without the certainty of wonders. Even on Immortal, there were wonders I could always bag if I desired it. I might not get my 2nd or 3rd choices but I could always bag certain ones I really wanted. On Deity you have to be ruthless to get early wonders, sacrificing nigh everything else, and still may not get them. Just this last game I had a wonderful start as Arabia, had an amazing capital, and went for hanging gardens. But I had chosen to pick up mining as well because I had a copper start and several calendar luxs under forest. However, if you even want a shot at something like the HG you can not deviate in the slightest, and that tech deviation costs me the wonder. That is fine, but I have to get used to telling myself that if I have strayed in the slightest, I just have to let that wonder go and move on to something else, instead of going for on the chance I can snag it....its not worth the gamble.

For culture, lots of External Trade Routes (ETRs) for a baseline. Also the WC policy that gives you +33% Great writers, etc and more culture if you are under the average is a good one as well. But even with that I haven't managed culture parity with the leaders, I'm always a few policies behind. Perhaps there are Deity vets who can speak to this better.

.

When it comes to wonders a lot of it is knowing which ones the AI likes and doesn't. HG is possible but like you said you need to go right for it. Terrcota army is a lot less popular so you can often pick it up without as much focus. In the same right at the start you can always get Pyramids, even building a shrine & well with high production. While stonehenge requires you to build it right away to be safe. You can't really afford to build a wonder early on and miss so you can only go for the safe ones. In medieval/early renaissance it is really hard to get to any first and the AI spikes a lot in aggression and powerful units so it is generally right to ignore all them.

I'm not sure you can ever keep up with the AI on culture but you also don't need to. You just need to have enough to be able to build wonders later on. Which does still require a much bigger culture focus. So many things like spys/tech trading/discount for discovered bring up the speed of tech but you don't get the same for culture.

 

[Basilius]

3) I wish there was an upgrade to the guided missile, I found that by the time information era comes around and I can finally put them to real use, the 150 damage is no longer that big a deal. They don't even hurt a mech inf in a city all that much.

Strongly second this: would be a great way to implement a realistic modern day military unit (god I hate the GDR and XCom). I suggest the upgrade unit be a 'Drone'.

 

[Recursive]

Hm thought the settler cost was fixed in the recent hotfix. Will you release another one soon?

Yeah.

 

[youngsteve]

I have just noticed a mistake regarding receiving a free factory. I also always try to build Slaters Mill, which I did this game to ensure some free coal & get a nice Factory which I did. Later I got to choose my idiology & chose order, with the first tenet being Worker Facilities & receiving 5 free factories. I then decided to build the missing factories in my other cities, & found I had still four to build despite having only 9 cities. Looking closely I realise that the policy has given free factories to my first five cities, inculding my capital which altready had one due to The Slaters Mill. Meaning I have been robbed of a factory. Small thing but obviously not correct.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Youngsteve, that's a good observation, I hope they fix this.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Recursive, I'm seeing quite a few cases where an aggressive civ (Sweden, Zulu,...) offers me a DoF very early in the game (perhaps around t50 or t60), I refuse and then a couple of turns later they become very hostile, sometimes even declaring war. Is this intended behaviour?

 

[Recursive]

Recursive, I'm seeing quite a few cases where an aggressive civ (Sweden, Zulu,...) offers me a DoF very early in the game (perhaps around t50 or t60), I refuse and then a couple of turns later they become very hostile, sometimes even declaring war. Is this intended behaviour?

I can't say without knowing the specifics. Are there disputes involved over territory and such? A surge in their military power that makes you easy and nearby prey?

 

[2506]

I have just noticed a mistake regarding receiving a free factory. I also always try to build Slaters Mill, which I did this game to ensure some free coal & get a nice Factory which I did. Later I got to choose my idiology & chose order, with the first tenet being Worker Facilities & receiving 5 free factories. I then decided to build the missing factories in my other cities, & found I had still four to build despite having only 9 cities. Looking closely I realise that the policy has given free factories to my first five cities, inculding my capital which altready had one due to The Slaters Mill. Meaning I have been robbed of a factory. Small thing but obviously not correct.

Agree. I believe the same thing happens with the 5 research labs tenet.

 

[dailyminerals]

Does anyone know the file(s) to edit to fix the settler cost bug while we wait for the hotfix?

 

[John.B.C]

It is much easier than it has been in the past yea.

Religion and AI settles are slower, though I think religion is a bit faster again with recent betas.

Wonders are a bit weird. Pyramids and Stonehenge are almost always getable but then after that in early game it's just whatever the AIs choose to build since they will be waay ahead on tech and policies. So you will never beat them if they want to build one but there are certain ones like you mention which they tend to ignore.

I don't know about religion being faster. It's turn 104 in my current game and only 3 founders so far.

Spoiler Slow religion :

And about expansion and citybuilding. They really take their time and some civs can stay as one city for ages before they choose to build their first settler. In my current game when I had 5 cities they all had 2 or 3.

In the old days this was never ever the case, one was always outperformed by aggressive AI-expansion.

I really really think something ought to be done about the game being a bit too easy atm.

 

[Stalker0]

The AI is mad I've been winning at deity....

Spoiler :

 

[Stalker0]

The AI is mad I've been winning at deity....

Spoiler :

View attachment 582365

Update: Polynesia sued for peace pretty quickly after taking Baghdad. Normally I am happy that the AI peaces quicker now, as I think in general it sticks it out too long. But in this case, I am at its mercy, Mongolia is still attacking me, my forces are under teched and diminished...and they are near the front door of my capital, I feel that the AI could have done much more damage if it had kept going.

Mongolia also attempts peace after sacking Najran. I take it back, and then get them to peace. Again too quick imo.

I am greatly hurt but I'm still in the fight, and now I boast a tech lead and with freedom's ability to buy units with full XP and the acquisition of the Brandenburg gate, its a new ballgame.

 

[Recursive]

Hotfix 3 posted.

Bugfixes
- Fixed Settler cost bug
- Fixed unhappiness penalty not applying to nuke production costs
- Fixed unresponsive AI air units
- Fixed a crash
- Fixed a few other things

Should be savegame compatible (not 100% sure about the air unit fixes, let me know if savegames break for you). Original post has been updated.