New Beta Version - April 14th (4/14)

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Gazebo

Lord of the Community Patch
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Hey all,

New beta version inbound. Extensive stuff this time, minor balance tweaks here and there, and polishing down a few of the rougher ends on the project. Some things, like the espionage rework, will need human playtesting to get 100% correct, but generally the cleanup exposed some major problems with the core mechanics that have been addressed across the board.

Code:
Fixes/Tweaks
    General
        Fixed memory CTD with game turns past 'standard' turn amount
        Fixed Random victory not respecting disabled options
        fix lots of crashes
        fix 'cannot end turn' issue
        fix map trading
        owned ice is passable for everybody
    AI
        improved city specialization logic for AI
        improved city governor tile selection
        fix city yield calculation
        improved AI explorer handling
        puppets can only build defensive buildings up to the previous era (run processes otherwise)
        improve AI economic decisions, consider instant yields in addition to gold per turn
        tweak AI city production choices, should not go broke so easily
        does not create so many citadels, keeps more generals
        improve some AI tactical combat behavior corner cases
    WC Proposal Logic:
        No randomness in voting or proposal choices
        Updated estimates of what proposals will help/hurt a Civ in general
        Earlier recognition of Tourism and Diplomatic victory progress and which proposals can help
        Civs will estimate which proposals other Civs like/dislike and then either help/hinder them depending on relationship and victory competitiveness. They may even help you win if they like you enough!
        Vassals use same logic but are likely to help their master if they like them.
        Special Sessions (Host and Diplomatic Victory Votes):

        AI Voting for another player is dictated by high congress 'alignment'. Alignment is mostly dictated by congress voting history, shared religion/ideology and war history. Vassals/Liberated Civs will have high alignment if they like their master.
        Vote numbers are also important (the more votes you have compared to them the more likely they are to vote for you)
        Receiving extra votes for Diplomatic Victory is less likely than for host
    Bugfixes
         Fixed militaristic CityStates not spawning units
         Another major revision of warmongering calculation, fixed excessive penalties and several bugs, dropped flavor elements
         AI less likely to denounce friends
         Fixed some issues with difficulty-related code
         Fixed missing distance check from third party war bribes      
       
    Deal AI:
        Deal valuation for trading votes updated

    CS AI:
        Adjustment to military might score for PtP
       
    Diplo AI
        Voluntary Vassalage
         Fixed excessive AI desire for voluntary vassalage
         Masters who accept a voluntary vassal now go to war with anyone the vassal is currently at war with, preventing troops from being kicked out + AI trained to handle this
         Added option to disable voluntary vassalage (DiploAIOptions.sql)
         Fixed being able to have a Defensive Pact and Voluntary Vassalage in the same trade deal

    Opinion Score
         Fixed recent trade, common foe, vassal protection opinion bonuses not being applied
         Vassal protection bonus now nullified if you attack your vassal
         Adjusted penalties for competition with the AI
         Reduced "denounced by our friend" penalty, also applies less often
         Reworked common foe bonus to account for power difference between AI and damaged player; now can go up to +100
         The effect of an AI's opinion score on approach selection is now less extreme; increased consideration of leader personality + prioritization if the AI hates or likes a lot of people

    Approach
     Improvements to AI approach selection towards both civs and CityStates
     Reduced tendency to gravitate towards neutral
     Fixed erratic shifts in approach while AI is planning war
     Fixed a major bug with AI approach prioritization

    General
     Penalty for breaking PTP now scales with era
     Fixed excessive antiwarmonger fervor
     Reduced supply per pop by 5% at all levels for all (AI and human)

    Other
     Improvements to DP + coop war logic
     Adjustments to AI strength perception of humans
     Diplo Flavors Rework now fully integrated + VictoryCompetitiveness now a 110 scale
     AI no longer considers Grand Strategy before the medieval era (for domination) and renaissance era (otherwise); prior to this it uses its "diplo personality" which is based on flavors
     Added text to show when a Peace Treaty with a player's DP ally is blocking the ability to declare war
     Tweaked war information display
     Significant code cleanup and enum sanitization (still ongoing)
       
    Espionage
        Clean up of espionage code, especially extreme cost scaling late-game
        Rewrite of rolling/defending model
        AI spy targeting improved
       
    AssignStartingPlots:

        Natural Wonder locations require higher fertility, to properly prevent being put in the middle of nowhere. Side effects might include Krakatoa never being placed, please observe.
        Make sure Natural Wonders can never be 3 tiles around City States (up from 1).

    Communitu_79a v2.3.0:

        Tweak shortest path algorithm edge weights so it actually works (no more straight unnatural canals)
        Make sure polar sea connections never dig through land in Terra mode

       
Balance
    Buildings
        Solar Plant  now 25% to processes (was 20)
        Police Station  happiness removed; added unhappiness reductions for 4 main sources of local unhappiness
       
    Civs
        America
            UA: now 25% plot cost mod (was 50); UA now resets plot cost mod cost scaler every time you settle a city
           
        Brazil
            Fixed Bandeirantes not having correct sight range
        Maya
            Atlatl Strike now carries over
       
        Fixed TT for Royal Library
        Text fixes for Venetian Merchant and Brazilian UA
    Buildings
        Colosseum/Arena  removed flat tourism; now scales per pop (1 per 3 for arena; 1 per 2 for colosseum)
        Museum  increased tourism from GW to 2 (was 1)
        Broadcast Tower  increased tourism from GW to 3 (was 2)
        Garden  now gives Artist/Musician/Writer specialists in city +1 tourism
        Opera House  removed 5% culture; added +1 tourism for all local GW
        Stadium  now grants 2500 tourism when finished; removed GAP; increased GAP per pop to 1 per 2
        Circus  now grants 500 tourism  when finished; removed 150 culture
            Ceilidh Hall remains unchanged
        Stock Exchange
            Grants +2 Gold to Towns worked by City
        Minefield
            Doubled defense/HP bonuses; now damages units (10 damage) that end turn on a worked city water tile (a la citadel)
        University/Seowon +1 science on Snow tiles

    Espionage
        Spies now scale in potency with game era (should keep spies relevant late game)
        City Espionage rank (the stars in the espionage menu) more accurate to real potential for cities
        Spy level potency increased slightly
       
    City States
        Defense for CS cities scales (slightly) with size
       
    Policies
        Scientific Revolution +2 science on Snow Tiles
       
    Tourism
        base tourism per GW now 5 (Was 4)
        Increased theming bonuses for all buildings by ~20%
        Removed city based tourism scaler for empire size; now scales per civ based on difference in empire size
        Unhappiness from ideological pressure reverted to vanilla values (slightly more aggressive)
       
    Units
        Light Tank  now 5 movement
        Pioneer cost reduced
        Altered the flag for the Tercio
    GPs
        Musician  removed tourism blast; replaced with 10(+x) turns of 100% tourism output with target civ; 50% with all other civs. Scales based on # of owned GW of music
            Grants +2 happiness in capital
        Merchant - gold scaler per era increased to 150 (was 110)
    Promotions
        Air Targeting 3 now 25% bonus (was 10%)
    Terrain/Improvements
        Deserts now 'open' terrain
        Increased Town tech yield scaling by 1; increased base Gold to +6 (was +4)
    Beliefs
        Orthodoxy
            Removed spread speed bonus
        Global Commandments
            Added 15/30 spread speed modifier;
            added +1 flat supply to Runestones (same as base lighthouse)
        God of the Stars & Sky yields now given to resources on Snow tiles as well

Online as of 9:30pm CST. Not savegame compatible.

Link: https://mega.nz/folder/2Jdw3aQT#Z49gV7KAyMq6YiG5BD9jaA

Cheers,
Gazebo
 
Spoiler :

tenor.gif

 
Congrats and Cheers!

So...instant CTD when hit next turn but im to tired for github now, tomorrow post logs and stuff there.

Thank u all.
 
Congratulations on another quality release.

When it says owned ice is passable for everybody, does that include other civs, who might have access or are at war with you. Or is that just for your own units.
 
So just an incredibly amount of fixes and changes. Holy crap!!! Good job team!

There is so much to dissect here, but I will focus on a few keys things.

  • Espionage: I really look forward to seeing what this is like. Could be amazing!
  • 5% supply from pop reduced: So this is actually a lot more than it might seem on paper. You actually do get a fair amount of supply from pop, its just that the tech scaling reduces a lot of it. So if this bonus is applied before the tech removal, it could be something like 5 to 10 supply for big civs. So that's not nothing.
  • AI Global Hegemony voting: Personally I would be fine if the AI never votes for me for hegemony unless I've bought their votes. I think that's reasonable, anything else might feel a little arbitrary and random.
  • America: Very big changes, will definitely want to see how this actually plays.
  • Light Tank: My first reaction was (it still needs an actual defense buff!), but considering that desert is now open terrain (woo hoo!), I think its worth seeing how the new skirmisher dynamics play out before any changes there.
  • Pioneer Cost Reduction: How much?
  • Musician Bomb: If I have a concert running in two civs, do I just get 100% from both, or 150%? (aka 100% for the base, +50% for the "other civ" bonus). Aka if I was running a concert in like 6 civs, would I be gaining incredible tourism bonuses across the board? Lastly, is it possible to make some of these happiness bonuses work like luxs or landmarks (aka they diffuse amongst the cities instead of hoarding in the capital). It would be nice if the local happiness in satellites got some help, the capitals do not need any.
  • Orthodoxy: If I had to pick a belief to send the spread bonuses too, Global Commandments seems reasonable. That said, I'm not sure those bonuses even need to exist, they are just so dang powerful.
  • Towns: Good to see the town getting some love (its +6:c5gold:, +1:c5food: all told), hehe though I just put up my own proposal to try and match them against Academies, and honestly I didn't realize how far back the Town was imo, so I think another buff may still be warranted. But this is a solid start.
  • CS Size scaling: Can't wait to see this one.
  • Opera House: The tourism bonus is fine, but why why why remove the +5% culture? That's what actually makes the building useful, the base yield is not all that great at this point in the game. Its not like its the wordiest building and we ran out of building text:) We have to remember that tourism remains a vestigial yield, while this patch may have changed how to get tourism, there is still no more benefit to its acquisition than before. So for most playthroughs, this is simply a big nerf, and an unneeded one.
  • Circus: Same as opera house, I don't think the culture removal was needed. That said, its still a building I have to build for the +1 happy, I just have to have that. But it definitely takes some of the joy out of building it.
  • Police Stations: My gut reaction is "I didn't build them before, and I won't build them now" BUT the new spy changes maaaaaybe will make them useful again, so we will see.
  • Stadium: Frankly you could just remove the GAP per pop if you really wanted to, its so low compared to other GAP sources its not worth the electrons its printed on. You could make it 1 to 1 and I still wouldn't care.
Ok now some of the big ones:

Minefields:
So depending on how this works, this could either be a massive change...or almost nothing. I would love to hear some clarification on what a "worked city water tile is". I have to assume that is just any water tile in your borders, because by default you can't work tiles that the enemy is on (and in naval cases, the tiles around them as well). Also, is the speed drop still there or did this replace it? So with that in mind....HOOOOOOLLLLLY COOOOOW!!! We may have just seen the end of naval invasions.

That is dramatic, but we have to remember that for the majority of cases naval units don't heal, and often in late game don't have anywhere nearby to heal. So this mechanic now starts a ticking clock, its splash damage that could affect half the fleet every turn. After 5 turns, that is -50 hp....which means that ship is completely snipe able and cannot remain in city range, the ship is effectively "out of commission". So this puts a huge timer on how long your fleet can stay and attack a city....and it also means that effectively you get one naval incursion and then will need significant time to repair.....which removes the "quick multi-city invasions" that you can see in the late game. This also means the dauntless promotion could become even stronger (and its already very very good).

This change is bold and powerful....do I like it? I honestly don't know, it seems insanely powerful, but so are late game navies. So I will absolutely want to test this one.

It also might be worth moving the minefield a little earlier in the tech tree, it doesn't tend to come online until a late of naval invasions have already happened.

Tourism
So clearly lots of tourism changes. Most of it great work related to allow for a little more tourism scaling in the mid game. All reasonable, will it move the needle much, hard to say.

But I think the real hidden boost is this change, and it can be easy to miss: "Removed city based tourism scaler for empire size; now scales per civ based on difference in empire size"

So if I understand this correctly. Right now if I have 7 cities, I have a 35% penalty to tourism period. With this change, if I am facing another 7 city civ, I have 0% penalty (and I am assuming this is now a tourism % modifier, and not a base one?).

So first of all, its actually a wonderful UI improvement. Right now tourism is weird with % bonuses, it actually affects the base yields, instead of the "final numbers" like science and culture do. If I understand this correctly, all tourism will now be "equal", and then will get penalized per civ in the tourism UI. That is just so much easier to understand, so its already good.

But we need to respect that first of all, you can expect at least a +20% tourism boost across the board (your 5 city Talls will basically have no penalty at all anymore). This is also a huge change to wide tourism, wide gets a lot less penalties than it once did for going big, especially if your not "the biggest".

It could completely change the tourism game, I have no idea how it will shake out, so we will have to see!
 
I'm getting Hard Turn 1 CTDs, look like I'll have to wait for this one :( (and yes I posted to Github)
 
Also, can we clarification on this one:

"puppets can only build defensive buildings up to the previous era (run processes otherwise)"

So as far as I understand it, this is saying Puppets don't make infrastructure ever except for defensive buildings, and won't make walls until classical era, castles until renaissance, etc. That's a big change, how does that affect Venice?
 
I'm getting Hard Turn 1 CTDs, look like I'll have to wait for this one :( (and yes I posted to Github)
Hmm, you're not the first to report this.

haven't had time to try it myself, but man I look forward to playing with these changes!

Good job devs :thumbsup:

\Skodkim
 
It took hours to find it, but I've identified the bug with the "Quick, make a sacrifice!" event choice (Eclipse) that was preventing it from being selectable. Typo in the DLL. Should be fixed whenever a new hotfix comes out.
 
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Can anyone play it without turn 1 CTDs?
 
I've had no crashes. Debug config though.
 
desert counts as open even for movement purposes (I mean, it only takes 1 move even for infantry), intended? I was hoping it was changed only to allow skirmisher doctrine to provide a bonus there.
 
desert counts as open even for movement purposes (I mean, it only takes 1 move even for infantry), intended? I was hoping it was changed only to allow skirmisher doctrine to provide a bonus there.

According to G, this was not feasible for performance reasons, so he just removed the movement penalty.
 
Good work. Amazing, actually.
Minefield Doubled defense/HP bonuses; now damages units (10 damage) that end turn on a worked city water tile (a la citadel)
Workers can't work tiles occupied by enemy ships. This must be a typo.

Musician Bomb: If I have a concert running in two civs, do I just get 100% from both, or 150%? (aka 100% for the base, +50% for the "other civ" bonus). Aka if I was running a concert in like 6 civs, would I be gaining incredible tourism bonuses across the board? Lastly, is it possible to make some of these happiness bonuses work like luxs or landmarks (aka they diffuse amongst the cities instead of hoarding in the capital). It would be nice if the local happiness in satellites got some help, the capitals do not need any.
+1
 
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