New Beta Version (3-20b)

[ElliotS]

So, no cheats, as expected. Still, would it be posible to put a stronger emphasis on distance for weaker settler units? Or it is a bad idea?

Probably a bad idea. I think the AI's settling is great right now.

 

[DiBurkle]

Hi guys im new here, i already have The Patch but an older version, how do i update for this beta? Just run the installer normaly? Will there be any problem for overwriting or changing the current folder?

Tks in advance...

 

[Noob Fanboy]

No, you can just run the installer normally, if you're insecure, delete the MODS folder, and then run the installer.

 

[ElliotS]

Hi guys im new here, i already have The Patch but an older version, how do i update for this beta? Just run the installer normaly? Will there be any problem for overwriting or changing the current folder?

Tks in advance...

Yeah just run it normally. It will overwrite the old stuff.

 

[Stalker0]

One oddity I've noted in several games now. The AI seems very adverse to building the Terracotta army. Like I have often picked it up an entire era later than normal having suddenly realized no one has chosen it yet.

 

[tripleducky]

So did the AI always slip a calvary unit behind your lines to destroy roads? Or is that new? Pretty smart but pretty infuriating a well.

@Stalker0 No one picked terra cotta in the game I've been playing either.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

One oddity I've noted in several games now. The AI seems very adverse to building the Terracotta army. Like I have often picked it up an entire era later than normal having suddenly realized no one has chosen it yet.

I have two kinds of games - ones where no one bother with Terracotta and sometimes even Statue of Zeus, and those where they're built super fast. In TA case it's usually the former, but for SoZ the latter.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

I don't build terracotta anymore because of that, i don't know if the ai is prioritizing it or not, and sometimes i get really unlucky with the wonder. Best to play safe, and rush swordsmen for defense.

 

[Stalker0]

This is an unfinished game, but its such a great example that I thought it important to discuss.

Standard Perfect World 3 (Terra Start). Playing Spain on Emperor (Standard Speed).

I may talk about the full game at some point. But I'm experiencing the happiness toilet right now, and I want to walk through step by step how a civilization that once had 20 happiness is now hovering around -30, and has started losing cities due to cultural revolutions.

Everything was great until the new world expansion. Before the expansion I was hovering around 20ish happiness. I started an aggressive expansion campaign with Spain using Conquistadors (aka stereotypical Spain).

1) I expand to take 4 cities in pretty rapid session.
2) I get DOWed twice. During the process I puppet 3 cities, and annex 1. So I've acquired 5 "real" cities over the course of 20 turns or so.
3) My new world cities grow very rapidly, and I manage to steal a tech. And in short order, my happiness has dropped to -5.
4) At this point I recognize that happiness needs to be addressed, so I start building happiness buildings in the new world cities. This takes a lot of gold to speed them along. My main cities continue to build the units I need for the warring I'm engaged with.
5) I got DOWed by another civ. Poverty is exploding across my empire. My gold reserves have been exhausted buying new buildings, so I can now only rush build here and there. The enemy armies continue to push, so I try to find a balance between creating units and happiness buildings. My happiness has now dropped to -20.
6) I realize how critical the situation is, and I turn off growth on all of my cities to try and curb the issue.
7) Suddenly....I start losing units left and right!!! What is happening? So...when you have -20% combat strength against civs with no happiness problems....it creates a huge gap in power. My conquistadors that once could crush tercios, cannons, and enemy knights are now getting slaughtered by them.

They can no longer hold key lines. Further, my offense crumbles. Before I could kill crossbows with a single unit. Now, they can hold the attack. And any time I push forward even a little with a unit, it is killed the next turn. My army supply drops quickly as does my war weariness.

8) With my army weakened, I am forced to pull back to defensive positions. The enemies begin to pillage....adding more unhappiness.
9) My happiness slips to -25. Because of the -25% penalty to gold, as well as many pillaged trade routes, I now have a negative GPT. I can no longer afford to rush buildings at all.
10) My island cities continue to build happiness buildings, but its slow going without rush buying. Their happiness continues to drop, they just can't build fast enough.
11) I do start making some gains in my main cities. However, the recoveries I make are then negated by new war weariness.
12) Barbarians start appearing in my main cities. My units are spread thin. I can't replenish them without losing the happiness race, so I have a skeleton crew in my interior. The barbarians take full advantage, and further pillage my interior cities, creating both pillage and isolation issues. My happiness has now dropped to -32.
13) I continue to fight wars on multiple fronts while so slowly catching up on happiness. I make some small gains, getting it back to -26. But its not fast enough, and my first city revolts.

So this is where I stand right now. I do believe that eventually I can climb out of the hole. But...this particular game has lost all of its enjoyment for me. I am huddled in my defensive areas against enemies I cannot fight. My buildings are catching up painfully slow, and meanwhile my enemies pass me in culture and tech as the -30% does its work. I think I will also lose at least one more city to revolt unless I can get someone to make peace with me.

Now you can argue that I should have known better. I should have expanded slower for example. That is likely true. The point was to showcase how someone can fall into this hole....and how incredibly unfun it is. We have talked recently about newer players, and this is a trap I can easily see many of them falling into. If my first few games of VP I dealt with issues like this...I might never have come back.


I have made this pitch before, and I think its worth repeating. I really think that unhappiness should not affect gold, just as it does not affect production. Because....gold is production. Without the ability to rush, many buildings simply take too long to build in satellite cities. And without them, you can slip into the spiral. At least with gold I feel like I can fight the problem. Without it, I just have to push end turn until I can climb out....and its a pretty boring spectacle to be a part of.

 

[LukaSlovenia29]

Stalker, in the last 5 or so games on the 3-11 patch (immortal, deity) I haven't had such problems with unhappiness. From what I've read of your particular game, I agree with you, you should have known better and expanded more slowly (perhaps limiting growth on newly founded cities, puppeting all cities instead of annexing them, focusing more on building infrastructure in core cities while limiting pop growth there to make a "reserve" of happiness before allowing growth again). I also think this problem is exaggerated with the Terra map where it's inherent that you'll be building new cities later in the game.

I agree it can be a painful experience for new players, but they'll eventually (have to) to learn. I think it's not a wise move to significantly change the game on the account of newer players, but instead we should invest more effort into writing VP tutorials for new players etc.

As for unhappiness not affecting gold -> I'm okay with the current system, but I'd also be ok with this change.

 

[Noob Fanboy]

I don't like the idea, the ai normally have more gold, i can use the unhappiness to fight a agressive ai, preventing upgrades in military units at least. Without happiness affecting gold... well.

About new cities late-game, well, just try to make a list of key buildings per population (not allowing to past 8 population without a university and castle in a 1-tile island city for example, or something like that)

 

[Owlbebach]

@Stalker0 Doesn't it looks exactly like real-world Spain history? You are completely right, your story is all about sawing off the branch you’re sitting on. Really.

Though, this reminds me one thing that i wanted to discuss for some time and it is a Crime Unhappiness increase when someone declares war on you.

There is "War Weariness" unhappiness during war and it is okay, but sometimes when someone declares war on me my happiness drops from 10 to -10 or even more in two turns due to Crime, not War Weariness. Then, 2 turns after the war is over, it recovers back.
I sort of understand some reasoning behind this, but i really dislike it, cause it does not depend on who declares war on you and is there any threat and so on. Really why does crime in my city with a garrison increase from -1 to -3 when some idiot on the other side of the world declares war on me without any chance of getting his units to my borders? Also this is really punishing when in war, War Weariness is barely noticeable, but this crime unhappiness may decrease you science, culture, gold, and faith output by 30% in two turns and it is absolutely unpredictable.

@Gazebo is this intended? If so, is it working exactly how it is intended? Maybe we can get rid of this mechanics and simply increase War Weariness speed?

 

[Noob Fanboy]

Well, about Spain, they have a lot of unhappiness problems with those 3 population new cities if you don't focus in production and keep letting them grow in early game, or keep founding mid-game cities without proper growth management. Spain UA is like a double-edged sword.

 

[vyyt]

@Owlbebach, what do you mean? I have not noticed anything like this (I am several versions behind though, so it could be something new?). Or do you mean the crime increase when your garrisons leave cities and go to the battlefront? This one makes sense, no? I sometimes produce some cheap units to fight crime until the veterans return from the battlefront if I have problems with happiness.

 

[Owlbebach]

@Owlbebach, what do you mean? I have not noticed anything like this (I am several versions behind though, so it could be something new?). Or do you mean the crime increase when your garrisons leave cities and go to the battlefront? This one makes sense, no? I sometimes produce some cheap units to fight crime until the veterans return from the battlefront if I have problems with happiness.

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

 

[tu_79]

Let's talk about what made the game unfunny in the scenario Stalker0 described.

1. There's little warning about what is going to happen. A player may think that it is OK to keep fighting when he's two turns away from the abyss.

2. Once in the downward spiral, there's little a player can do to avoid it. This may force rage quitting.

An experienced player plays safe and avoids long wars from previous mistakes. But even for us, those moments are frustrating.
Are there any good ideas other than not losing gold?

 

[Owlbebach]

Let's talk about what made the game unfunny in the scenario Stalker0 described.

1. There's little warning about what is going to happen. A player may think that it is OK to keep fighting when he's two turns away from the abyss.

2. Once in the downward spiral, there's little a player can do to avoid it. This may force rage quitting.

An experienced player plays safe and avoids long wars from previous mistakes. But even for us, those moments are frustrating.
Are there any good ideas other than not losing gold?

Dunno, in his case it really looks like an okay scenario. The only thing here is that "i didn't know that it works that way" but well, now you do know, it is always like this in strategy games, no? Sometimes people have to loose their games, otherwise whats the point?

Isn't it similar to "i was first in science, everything was okay, but than someone started to pump Archaeologists and won Tourism victory!"? Stalker0 played very greedy without paying attention to what is going on and got punished for that

 

[burleigh]

A more graceful decline? The dips can sometimes be really fast- too fast? War weariness can kick in really quickly especially late game, which has a massive impact on supply. Similarly, happiness can dip 30 points in a couple of turns almost out of the blue.
This does take a bit of fun out of it (and requires heavy micromanagement), and I can understand rage quits.
A more graceful decline- perhaps with the same end point, but limits on the decline per turn might let you put into place some corrective policies that could make a difference.
I think this is also a problem for the AI, as their supply/production/happiness plummets and they can't do much about it, which can reduce the challenge slightly.
I say slightly- I can still win only about 70% of the time on Prince (and then usually by DV), and am really impressed by the way the challenge is there all the way through. Their sneaky approaches (such as completing 5 parts of a spaceship the turn before I was about to get a DV), and the way they try to thwart really makes you think!

 

[Edaka]

This is an unfinished game, but its such a great example that I thought it important to discuss.

Standard Perfect World 3 (Terra Start). Playing Spain on Emperor (Standard Speed).

I may talk about the full game at some point. But I'm experiencing the happiness toilet right now, and I want to walk through step by step how a civilization that once had 20 happiness is now hovering around -30, and has started losing cities due to cultural revolutions.

Everything was great until the new world expansion. Before the expansion I was hovering around 20ish happiness. I started an aggressive expansion campaign with Spain using Conquistadors (aka stereotypical Spain).

1) I expand to take 4 cities in pretty rapid session.
2) I get DOWed twice. During the process I puppet 3 cities, and annex 1. So I've acquired 5 "real" cities over the course of 20 turns or so.
3) My new world cities grow very rapidly, and I manage to steal a tech. And in short order, my happiness has dropped to -5.
4) At this point I recognize that happiness needs to be addressed, so I start building happiness buildings in the new world cities. This takes a lot of gold to speed them along. My main cities continue to build the units I need for the warring I'm engaged with.
5) I got DOWed by another civ. Poverty is exploding across my empire. My gold reserves have been exhausted buying new buildings, so I can now only rush build here and there. The enemy armies continue to push, so I try to find a balance between creating units and happiness buildings. My happiness has now dropped to -20.
6) I realize how critical the situation is, and I turn off growth on all of my cities to try and curb the issue.
7) Suddenly....I start losing units left and right!!! What is happening? So...when you have -20% combat strength against civs with no happiness problems....it creates a huge gap in power. My conquistadors that once could crush tercios, cannons, and enemy knights are now getting slaughtered by them.

They can no longer hold key lines. Further, my offense crumbles. Before I could kill crossbows with a single unit. Now, they can hold the attack. And any time I push forward even a little with a unit, it is killed the next turn. My army supply drops quickly as does my war weariness.

8) With my army weakened, I am forced to pull back to defensive positions. The enemies begin to pillage....adding more unhappiness.
9) My happiness slips to -25. Because of the -25% penalty to gold, as well as many pillaged trade routes, I now have a negative GPT. I can no longer afford to rush buildings at all.
10) My island cities continue to build happiness buildings, but its slow going without rush buying. Their happiness continues to drop, they just can't build fast enough.
11) I do start making some gains in my main cities. However, the recoveries I make are then negated by new war weariness.
12) Barbarians start appearing in my main cities. My units are spread thin. I can't replenish them without losing the happiness race, so I have a skeleton crew in my interior. The barbarians take full advantage, and further pillage my interior cities, creating both pillage and isolation issues. My happiness has now dropped to -32.
13) I continue to fight wars on multiple fronts while so slowly catching up on happiness. I make some small gains, getting it back to -26. But its not fast enough, and my first city revolts.

So this is where I stand right now. I do believe that eventually I can climb out of the hole. But...this particular game has lost all of its enjoyment for me. I am huddled in my defensive areas against enemies I cannot fight. My buildings are catching up painfully slow, and meanwhile my enemies pass me in culture and tech as the -30% does its work. I think I will also lose at least one more city to revolt unless I can get someone to make peace with me.

Now you can argue that I should have known better. I should have expanded slower for example. That is likely true. The point was to showcase how someone can fall into this hole....and how incredibly unfun it is. We have talked recently about newer players, and this is a trap I can easily see many of them falling into. If my first few games of VP I dealt with issues like this...I might never have come back.


I have made this pitch before, and I think its worth repeating. I really think that unhappiness should not affect gold, just as it does not affect production. Because....gold is production. Without the ability to rush, many buildings simply take too long to build in satellite cities. And without them, you can slip into the spiral. At least with gold I feel like I can fight the problem. Without it, I just have to push end turn until I can climb out....and its a pretty boring spectacle to be a part of.

Quick question: did you get a warning that your city was going to revolt beforehand? When it happened to me, there wasn't any. I thought there was supposed to be a notification of some sort.

I agree about the gold bit. Gold and production are pretty much the main means of getting out of an unhappiness pit, reducing these yields is double dipping into it.

Besides, more beginner friendly mechanics are also more benevolent to the AI.

 

[Gokudo01]

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

only base strength or with promotions ?