New Beta Version - 1-11 (1/11)

[Gazebo]

Hey all!

New version inbound. Lots of behind the scenes changes, with a smaller amount of direct balance tweaks than usual:

Tons of bugfixes and AI tweaks
Major performance improvements for a few key routines
Diplo AI improvements from Recursive
Tactical improvements from ilteroi
UI improvements from UndeadDevel
Overhauled the 'guts' of the warmonger model - curve should be less steep, rationalized some big-number vanilla code and made it a smaller scale
    In short, warmonger is a bit less punitive, especially for mediocre city captures, and burns off a bit more quickly - you're unlikely to feel warmonger from a singular event for an entire game, even if hits a bit more quickly during a war
    Resistance CS bonus is smaller, caps a bit earlier, and burns off a bit more quickly (cap controlled by handicap XML now)
Revisions to AI tourism theming and GW trading logic - AI more likely to make good themes and proper trades
  
Balance
    Cities
        Cities now use their real CS when resolving ranged strike damage
            Exception: Defense process bonus CS is not included in RCS calculation (to prevent exploit)
            Significant adjustments to City CS from buildings and policies included in this.
                Generally: a major reduction in the CS curve for cities from buildings, with a bump in city HP from buildings to compensate.
            Cities hit harder, but are also more vulnerable to direct assault. They're got a little more HP, so sieges will last about the same amount of time, however individual attack damage will feel better in both directions.
            They behave identically to real units, where their strength is equal to their defense and their damage output
            Reduced City health recovery to +8 per turn (was +10)
    Tourism
        Fixed a bug in trade route tourism causing some issues with reversed domain values
        Reduced 50% tourism via TR to 33%, changed mechanic to be a bonus with all civs known by the other player (not the sender)
        Adjusted balance of instant yield power that generally lowers the potency of instant yield tourism from 'rapid' events (GPs, Wonders) a bit
        Increased base tourism of GWs to 4 (was 3), reduced base culture to +2 (was +3)
    Units
        CS/RCS values of Skirmisher Doctrine reduced to 40/20 (was 50/25)
        Naga - dropped RCS by 1
        Bumped Gunship move by 1, RCS by 5
    Buildings
        Hydroelectric Power - swapped gold for food, bumped to +3 on river/lake tiles (+2 on sea tiles)
        Zoo - bumped instant tourism to 1000 (was 400), now +2 tourism +1 culture per forest/jungle tile (was +1 tourism)
        Museum - grants great works in city +1 tourism
        Broadcast Tower - grants great works in city +2 tourism
    Policies
        Statecraft
            Swapped spy from Shadow Networks with Science from Allies on Foreign Service
            Trade Confederacy - removed 'science/culture if behind' bonus. Tweaked influence per turn to generate +x influence to city states, where x is the total number of city-state trade routes you have at that time (so 5 routes = +5 influence on each CS TR route)
            Increased efficacy of TR to CSs event tourism

Online as of 11:45am EST. Not savegame compatible.

https://mega.nz/#F!2Jdw3aQT!Z49gV7KAyMq6YiG5BD9jaA

Cheers,
G

 

[Kim Dong Un]

 

[Stalker0]

In general, looks like some good changes. Only two things stood out for me:

1) Reduce GW culture +1.

Not sure why the need for that is. We don't want GW to be just about tourism, but still useful for people getting culture but not going CV.

2) Gunship +1 move, +5 RCS.

A step in the right direction but not close to enough. The gunship will still be weaker than the light tank it replaces on open ground....which any good player will always keep their skirmishers in the open terrain.

 

[hokath]

New version !!11/1!!

Cities now use their real CS when resolving ranged strike damag

Thank you for this, I never felt like I knew how strong a city was in a given version until I attacked it!

 

[Dolen2]

That's a rather big change in how siege works, right?
Looking forward to feedback

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I'm hyped to try playing against AIs not getting +49% on every single unit after i take a single city of theirs.
The reduced culture from great works is not expected to be honest and it feels like a big hit for France.

 

[pineappledan]

Tweaked influence per turn to generate +x influence to city states, where x is the total number of city-state trade routes you have at that time (so 5 routes = +5 influence on each CS TR route)

... That's easily stronger than Freedom's +4 flat on Treaty Organization, a lvl 3 ideology. Venice is gonna break this so hard, lol

 

[azum4roll]

... That's easily stronger than Freedom's +4 flat on Treaty Organization, a lvl 3 ideology. Venice is gonna break this so hard, lol

Yeah there should be a cap on this, AND a buff on Treaty Organization.

 

[andersw]

In general, looks like some good changes. Only two things stood out for me:

1) Reduce GW culture +1.

Not sure why the need for that is. We don't want GW to be just about culture, but still useful for people getting culture but not going CV.

Its a nerf to wide/warmonger egypt, france and japan who all can spawn a rediculous amount of great works.
Playing a game with japan on prev version and I'm 10 policys ahead (1718AD) of number 2.
With Egypt you can garantuee yourself one artifact/city + the ones you gain from wonders and more, france spawns a lot as well (unless you use them) but a bit later.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Awesome!

 

[civplayer33]

UI improvements from UndeadLevel

Ahem...it's UndeadDevel...like UndeadDeveloper because I'm a night owl

This was mostly just fixing some bugs and adding the war info to the war icon tool tip in EUI; hope everyone enjoys.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Revisions to AI tourism theming and GW trading logic - AI more likely to make good themes and proper trades

Don't know how this will affect trading with the AI. Interested to see how it plays out.

CS/RCS values of Skirmisher Doctrine reduced to 40/20 (was 50/25)

Happy to see this!

Zoo - bumped instant tourism to 1000 (was 400), now +2 tourism +1 culture per forest/jungle tile (was +1 tourism)

This is good IMO. With skirmisher doctrine there's more reason than ever to chop forests and jungles in your territory, from my point of view. Hopefully this will reward conservation efforts .

Its a nerf to wide/warmonger egypt, france and japan who all can spawn a rediculous amount of great works.

It is a nerf (and I prefer +3/+3 myself), but I think it is worth noting that influencing other civs does give you benefits even if you're not going for a cultural victory. Granted, they are mostly diplomatic benefits so I guess Japan will find them less useful than Egypt.

A step in the right direction but not close to enough. The gunship will still be weaker than the light tank it replaces on open ground....which any good player will always keep their skirmishers in the open terrain.

I agree. Particularly as the helicopter gunship comes late enough in the game that it can afford to be a significant upgrade from the light tank, I think.

Edit: 2/2 to 3/3.

 

[pineappledan]

Well. With 4 tourism increasing to 5 at museums and 7 at broadcast towers, I think the pendulum has swung pretty far. I think that’s the point, but I think the museum and broadcast boosts could have stood on their own. I think that boost would more than satisfy me if GWs stayed at 33 ; I have also thought museums were weak for a while now

 

[pineappledan]

Is this a stable enough version for us to release Israel yet?

 

[anl93]

Another start with India.

 

[Snipergw]

Is this a stable enough version for us to release Israel yet?

Israel is going to be the new base civ? I guess that's interesting, wouldn't have been my first choice though. Timurids, Khmer, Philippines and Canada all have more exciting, VP-like "game-changing" abilities, but maybe that's exactly the point. Less moving parts that can break. Uighur_Caesar's Judea > Israel though.

Back on topic, it's disappointing the city ranged attack removal didn't go through, but this cleanup is a much appreciated alternative. Less esoteric game mechanics is always welcome. I do feel like a slight buff to keep their power at the old level was unnecessary though, as cities are already often far too difficult to take. Miserable sieges after beating the enemy armies aren't very fun.

Worried about tourism buff based on my own game experiences, but I know your sample size is significantly larger so it was perhaps needed. Zoo really needed some love, it was miserable to build, so that's a good change. Will come back with more observations after giving the version a spin (with the shiny new Philippines mod, oh yeah!).

 

[Recursive]

Israel is going to be the new base civ? I guess that's interesting, wouldn't have been my first choice though. Timurids, Khmer, Philippines and Canada all have more exciting, VP-like "game-changing" abilities, but maybe that's exactly the point. Less moving parts that can break. Uighur_Caesar's Judea > Israel though.

In my completely unbiased opinion, Canada would be a great base civ to add.

 

[ASCII Guy]

I'm personally against adding more civs. Personal preference. I like the polished nature of the official civs. Their voices, animations, ect.

 

[Recursive]

I'm personally against adding more civs. Personal preference. I like the polished nature of the official civs. Their voices, animations, ect.

Any added civs would be modular in the same way as the promotion tree mod, I would think. So you could simply turn them off.

 

[ASCII Guy]

Any added civs would be modular in the same way as the promotion tree mod, I would think. So you could simply turn them off.

That's a good point, forgot about that.