Gothic_Empire
AKA, Ramen Empire
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2008
- Messages
- 1,502
I like the idea of cities being able to "produce" martial law.
New Beta Version (3-20b)
- Thread starter Gazebo
- Start date
-
- Tags
- 3-20b vox populi
- Status
Noob Fanboy
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2017
- Messages
- 285
You know, late-game the ai is using the research process a lot
Yes, stationing GG or Admiral in a city provides bonus defense, but only if you have melee unit in a garrison. And it works for both of them independently, i.e. GG+GA = even more defense, but they both depend on land unit in a garrison (so GA provides bonus with land unit only).
But i'm pretty sure that unit promotions used only in unit vs unit fights and do not affect defense of a city
tu_79
Deity
Then why does it take so many players off ward?
When I wage war I'm on positive happiness for long and then it goes downwards more and more and more. I know that I need to stop from the first moment things go wrong, others may not be as aware. Or they get greedy and ignore signals. What I tried to say is that signals that things are going to be awry could be more evident.
Also, there's plenty of times when players want to stop fighting but AI refuses to even talk and they don't know why. I don't think every war should be allowed to stop at the human players wishes, but they need to know how this comes to happen and how to prevent it. The effects of razing cities are not evident either. Most players may think that getting a higher warscore is enough and they might try to conquer more cities, thinking that that would help.
vyyt
Deity
I can't think of any other game mechanics which could be causing it. Can you reproduce it consistently? Or can @Gazebo comment on this?No, i'm not that dumb lol. I'm pretty sure i've seen Crime increase without garrisons leaving cities. Garrisons give ~+10%, it is not something that can lead to -20 happiness in a 7-city empire
Moi Magnus
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2015
- Messages
- 1,868
Multiple AIs unlocking the next crime reducing tech at the same time, and finishing the building in all the cities approximatively at the same time?
vyyt
Deity
Yes, this would make sense. But there shouldn't be any game mechanics increasing crime just because you got into war, right?
Mad Madigan
Prince
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2016
- Messages
- 403
Playing a game in 3-20b as Portugal and just wanted to give some impressions of balance changes from the last couple of patches.
Playing Communitas/Large(12 Civs; 24 CSs)/Epic/Emperor/Research Agreements (ON)/Tech Trading/Brokering (OFF)/ Events (OFF)
First off, my game as Portugal has been very unlike most of my experiences with VP games over the last year. For starters, I am about half-way through the game (Renaissance era) and I have been in ZERO wars despite being on Emperor difficulty and being neighbors with England, Japan, Spain, and Rome. England has been warring with and bullying all of the other Civs on our continent, but for some reason has maintained friendly relations with me all game, even though my military strength has been average at best. England ended up conquering all of Arabia and parts of Japan and Spain, but they've been put in check by Morocco (yes, almost all of Portugal's historical allies/enemies ended up in this game via chance) who has been the world leader in military might and overall score save for me and England. On the other continent I discovered Venice, Songhai, the Netherlands, Sweden, and India, and shockingly INDIA of all Civs was kicking all of its neighbors asses, having conquered half of Sweden.
Yes, a very strange game.
Also, I ran into my first instance of Unhappiness uprisings leading to cities swapping allegiance. Spain was suffering from major unhappiness for most of the game, and during the medieval era they started getting revolts. Eventually one of their cities closest to me completely revolted and offered to join my empire, which was a hilarious and timely event. As I mentioned, I had been in zero wars up to this point, so seeing the "You captured a city, what do you want to do with it?" screen pop up all of the sudden was confusing at first. I naturally annexed it and fixed up its infrastructure, so the citizen there are now quite happy to be part of the growing but peaceful Portuguese Merchant Empire. Looking back at it, I wonder if some of the cities India was able to take from Sweden were actually due to revolts rather than war.
I'm just counting down the turns til England finally tries to backstab me, but so far they've been happy to trade with me, especially as I was able to convert them to my religion. So far only Arabia (RIP), Japan, and Sweden have been doing very poorly (well, and I guess technically Spain due to their unhappiness) with all of the other Civs remaining pretty neck and neck (even Venice!), so I am excited to see where this game goes in the later half. I predict England will continue to fight and bully its neighbors until a massive war breaks out between her, Morocco, and me, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Netherlands and India ally together to crush Songhai and Sweden, especially once William gets his Sea Beggars online. Given Portugal, Netherlands, and England are all in the game I'd love to see some epic naval battles erupt, even if my UU would be the weakest in that face off.
EDIT:
Oh, right! Additional comments on recent balance changes:
On Trade Routes - The changes to trade route distance/turns/yields/rules (one TR per city) has made this part of the game SO MUCH MORE IMMERSIVE AND ENJOYABLE. I used to pretty much ignore trade route planning. If I wanted gold I would just start all of my routes in my capital and sort the route selection menu by Highest Gold and just keep picking whatever option was at the top of the list. Now that the UI explains the "why" of route yields clearer and resource diversity and route distance matters more, I have been spreading my routes out to other cities more often to maximize the yields I want to focus on. This has been further improved by Infixo's amazing trade route filter UI modmod, which I'd argue should be incorporated into the standard VP package. So dang useful!
On Happiness - Overall I think that total happiness yields seem to be a pretty good place. In the games I've been playing the spread on overall happiness for AI Civs seems to run from about -10 to +20 for the average Civ with occasional bouts of > -20 for Civs that have been ransacked by war or overexpanded too quickly. Top Civs seem to be able to maintain > +20 happiness most of the game, though. As for myself, happiness seems manageable without being something I have to devote all of my planning towards. As long as I keep a reasonable eye on per-city happiness and don't grow pop, tech up, or settle too quickly I don't have any problem staying in the +/- 10 range until the mid game where I can start ramping up into the > +20 range as long as I'm doing well against the AI and trading for plenty of luxuries. I find that it's just about impossible to remove all sources of unhappiness on a per-city level. There will almost always be something that is causing unhappiness, depending on what Civ I'm playing as and what my policy choices have been. Crime is always the most common source of unhappiness, followed by poverty or boredom depending on what sort of local luxuries I have around my cities to work and what my policy choices are. Religious divisions also tend to lead to unhappiness around the Renaissance/Industrial Eras once religions have spread world-wide and pressure is coming in from all sorts of different places (especially trade routes).
On Warfare - Massive, massive improvements here from the perspective of the AI. I'm seeing very meaningful army composition, proper army selection and maneuvering for war prep and sneak attacks, proper protection and use of Great Generals/Admirals, proper escorting of Settlers/Workers as needed, and decent naval combat. The AI also seems to "read" my actions better as well. For example, if my forces are strongly deployed in one area and weak in another the AI will move it's forces to my least defended borders to initiate a war. Unit to unit balance seems better as well since the adjustment to Spearmen/Pikemen/etc combat strength. Horsemen and Knights are no longer the obvious rush choice since spearmen and pikemen can properly defend against them, and swordsmen/longswordsmen/landsnecht still have their roles to play in city siege. Post-Renaissance combat becomes less about the rock/paper/scissors of pikemen/knights/ranged units and more about supportive combined arms between land and naval power, and then once Flight/Combustion is researched combat changes again to include air units and proper air defense as well as armor versus anti-armor. If anything, I feel that tanks/modern armor are a little too weak compared to Infantry/Mechanized Infantry and ranged units, but I suppose that is not too far off from how combat works in modern times (infantry and air power are king). I really have nothing left to wish for or suggest here.
Playing Communitas/Large(12 Civs; 24 CSs)/Epic/Emperor/Research Agreements (ON)/Tech Trading/Brokering (OFF)/ Events (OFF)
First off, my game as Portugal has been very unlike most of my experiences with VP games over the last year. For starters, I am about half-way through the game (Renaissance era) and I have been in ZERO wars despite being on Emperor difficulty and being neighbors with England, Japan, Spain, and Rome. England has been warring with and bullying all of the other Civs on our continent, but for some reason has maintained friendly relations with me all game, even though my military strength has been average at best. England ended up conquering all of Arabia and parts of Japan and Spain, but they've been put in check by Morocco (yes, almost all of Portugal's historical allies/enemies ended up in this game via chance) who has been the world leader in military might and overall score save for me and England. On the other continent I discovered Venice, Songhai, the Netherlands, Sweden, and India, and shockingly INDIA of all Civs was kicking all of its neighbors asses, having conquered half of Sweden.
Yes, a very strange game.
Also, I ran into my first instance of Unhappiness uprisings leading to cities swapping allegiance. Spain was suffering from major unhappiness for most of the game, and during the medieval era they started getting revolts. Eventually one of their cities closest to me completely revolted and offered to join my empire, which was a hilarious and timely event. As I mentioned, I had been in zero wars up to this point, so seeing the "You captured a city, what do you want to do with it?" screen pop up all of the sudden was confusing at first. I naturally annexed it and fixed up its infrastructure, so the citizen there are now quite happy to be part of the growing but peaceful Portuguese Merchant Empire. Looking back at it, I wonder if some of the cities India was able to take from Sweden were actually due to revolts rather than war.
I'm just counting down the turns til England finally tries to backstab me, but so far they've been happy to trade with me, especially as I was able to convert them to my religion. So far only Arabia (RIP), Japan, and Sweden have been doing very poorly (well, and I guess technically Spain due to their unhappiness) with all of the other Civs remaining pretty neck and neck (even Venice!), so I am excited to see where this game goes in the later half. I predict England will continue to fight and bully its neighbors until a massive war breaks out between her, Morocco, and me, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Netherlands and India ally together to crush Songhai and Sweden, especially once William gets his Sea Beggars online. Given Portugal, Netherlands, and England are all in the game I'd love to see some epic naval battles erupt, even if my UU would be the weakest in that face off.
EDIT:
Oh, right! Additional comments on recent balance changes:
On Trade Routes - The changes to trade route distance/turns/yields/rules (one TR per city) has made this part of the game SO MUCH MORE IMMERSIVE AND ENJOYABLE. I used to pretty much ignore trade route planning. If I wanted gold I would just start all of my routes in my capital and sort the route selection menu by Highest Gold and just keep picking whatever option was at the top of the list. Now that the UI explains the "why" of route yields clearer and resource diversity and route distance matters more, I have been spreading my routes out to other cities more often to maximize the yields I want to focus on. This has been further improved by Infixo's amazing trade route filter UI modmod, which I'd argue should be incorporated into the standard VP package. So dang useful!
On Happiness - Overall I think that total happiness yields seem to be a pretty good place. In the games I've been playing the spread on overall happiness for AI Civs seems to run from about -10 to +20 for the average Civ with occasional bouts of > -20 for Civs that have been ransacked by war or overexpanded too quickly. Top Civs seem to be able to maintain > +20 happiness most of the game, though. As for myself, happiness seems manageable without being something I have to devote all of my planning towards. As long as I keep a reasonable eye on per-city happiness and don't grow pop, tech up, or settle too quickly I don't have any problem staying in the +/- 10 range until the mid game where I can start ramping up into the > +20 range as long as I'm doing well against the AI and trading for plenty of luxuries. I find that it's just about impossible to remove all sources of unhappiness on a per-city level. There will almost always be something that is causing unhappiness, depending on what Civ I'm playing as and what my policy choices have been. Crime is always the most common source of unhappiness, followed by poverty or boredom depending on what sort of local luxuries I have around my cities to work and what my policy choices are. Religious divisions also tend to lead to unhappiness around the Renaissance/Industrial Eras once religions have spread world-wide and pressure is coming in from all sorts of different places (especially trade routes).
On Warfare - Massive, massive improvements here from the perspective of the AI. I'm seeing very meaningful army composition, proper army selection and maneuvering for war prep and sneak attacks, proper protection and use of Great Generals/Admirals, proper escorting of Settlers/Workers as needed, and decent naval combat. The AI also seems to "read" my actions better as well. For example, if my forces are strongly deployed in one area and weak in another the AI will move it's forces to my least defended borders to initiate a war. Unit to unit balance seems better as well since the adjustment to Spearmen/Pikemen/etc combat strength. Horsemen and Knights are no longer the obvious rush choice since spearmen and pikemen can properly defend against them, and swordsmen/longswordsmen/landsnecht still have their roles to play in city siege. Post-Renaissance combat becomes less about the rock/paper/scissors of pikemen/knights/ranged units and more about supportive combined arms between land and naval power, and then once Flight/Combustion is researched combat changes again to include air units and proper air defense as well as armor versus anti-armor. If anything, I feel that tanks/modern armor are a little too weak compared to Infantry/Mechanized Infantry and ranged units, but I suppose that is not too far off from how combat works in modern times (infantry and air power are king). I really have nothing left to wish for or suggest here.
Last edited:
I'll take a closer look and try to get screenshots
That's why I started this topic (sorry for the self-plug). I feel like often times the reason for what you mention is the mandatory no-peace period that could use some more transparency.
By the way, I feel like this thread is trying to go multiple directions at once. Does anybody feel like creating a separate thread for, say, the discussion of processes?
Enemies entering your city tile working radius?
vyyt
Deity
Enemies within the city tile working radius increase crime? Interesting, did not know that. When I make them go away, does the crime level drop immediately?
@Owlbebach, could it be this?
Yes, but it’s one of those experimental things I added in and never really went anywhere with.
Maybe, but i'm not sure.
On one of previous pages i was saying that i see very high and upredicatable crime increase during wars and in is frustrating. I can't understand how does it work, but it seems to me that it increases even if enemy is far away, though i'm already not sure. One thing that i can say for sure is that during one of my recent wars my happiness dropped from 10 to -15 in few turns while my enemy had zero chances of hurting me and war weariness was maybe -2 at maximum. Once war was over - my happiness returned to +20 again.
Randomsheep
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2017
- Messages
- 121
Really loving this version.
Having the best huge map game ever. Set to only space age victory.
Four civs in contention - three of which are nuclear powers. We have all used nukes and the map is a fallout delight.
Having the best huge map game ever. Set to only space age victory.
Four civs in contention - three of which are nuclear powers. We have all used nukes and the map is a fallout delight.
civplayer33
King
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2017
- Messages
- 965
Kind of a shame one can't nuke other civs back into the stone age, although I suppose glassing all but one of their cities would be close enough
Randomsheep
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2017
- Messages
- 121
We tried to nuke each other back to the stone age but ran out of nukes.
My capital is not a pretty site.
My capital is not a pretty site.
Randomsheep
Warlord
- Joined
- Oct 19, 2017
- Messages
- 121
Update:
I ended of throwing in the towel.
My allies were destroyed and everyone else was relentless in attacking me. It was a stalemate and going nowhere fast.
Besides, I want to try the new beta.
It was great fun and goes down as an honourable draw.
I ended of throwing in the towel.
My allies were destroyed and everyone else was relentless in attacking me. It was a stalemate and going nowhere fast.
Besides, I want to try the new beta.
It was great fun and goes down as an honourable draw.
- Status
