New Beta Version - April 20th (4-20)

[Stalker0]

Standard Emperor on Continents Plus as Arabia.

Cultural Victory on Turn 376. So as opposed to Spain, this game I went for pure Tall CV as Arabia (I know so cliché). And by Tall I mean tall, just 4 cities and a puppet.

Its amazing how different this game was from last. Last game I talked about how unbeatable the AI was militarily. But in this case the AI was up against its worse nightmare. I was in the north section of the map so all I had has water on the bottom and a narrow stretch of land on the west side....which with 2 citadels and 2 forts was just an unbreakable wall. The AI certainly did try, Morocco (west) and Japan (south) both took turns trying to take me down, but my defense was ironclad (literally late game I had ironclads. Then the AI passed a travel ban, Morocco kept trying to pillage my TRs...they certainly gave it the old college try. But the raw power of Arabic tourism could not be denied.

A few notes:

Happiness: I had 100% Global Happiness the entire game, I think I was 97 happy / 50 Happy something late game. So....very happy. Tall I think should have a big advantage in happiness, but this was a bit much. Keep in mind, that is with lots of specialists as well.

New Tourism TR Mechanic: This was a great game to show off the new TR mechanic (TR to any civ gives tourism to all civs), and I put it to good news. My enemies worked very hard at pillaging my TRs, so I had to be sneaky, and put them in off the way areas that my small navy could support. It worked well, even though I didn't finish every TR I finished a good number, and it kept me competitive in the game.

Diplomats and Influence Levels: I feel that diplomats (the spy not the CS unit) should get the same reduction as spies for influence. Diplomats are mainly used in CV anyway, and honestly the reduction would actually be more useful to them, as it gives me the ability to shift diplomats across several civs and make political deals.

Cruisers: Still 2 range, is that a bug or was that just not in the version...I could have sworn it was.

 

[Dolen]

needs should be just detached from yields, since yields are meaningless compared to all these percentage increasers/decreasers.

Just to indicate that it may not be "some" who think this way, I'd like to express my support for change

 

[Jarru]

That was fast

Spoiler :

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Emperor, Communitas, Japan, 20 cities in late renaissance

Most of my cities have 4-5 Distress, and I have Synagogues and Orders with -1 Distress each constructed everywhere as that's what my religion does. I will be raising Constabularies soon, but this really is starting to look like it'll not do as much as I hope. I even took two Mercantile City States that had another CS put bounty on them, both with Glass, to get access to their Monopoly but that's not doing much at all. I have around 60% happiness with nearly everything built everywhere. I've stopped growth in almost every city out of wisdom - they're pretty big anyway, 13-19 range, with the happy capital having 21 I think. Salt Monopoly + Artemis does that I suppose. Without Synagogue + Order choice I'd be having a very bad time right now indeed.

Public Works seem pretty bad. I don't understand why they cost that much production and have to cost money too. I know they'll get buffs (which makes me hope the system's not going to be dependent on them), but I think they should actually be increasing the Gold, not costing maintenance. This way, there would be some sort of a benefit to them just like every other unhappiness-dealing thing provides some.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I really like the 1 range change for Cruisers. They are still quite powerful but, when it comes to taking coastal cities from AIs, it becomes tougher since you can't clear out all the enemy units two tiles from the Coast. It feels nice when you have to work harder with amphibious assaults during the Industrial Era. Meanwhile, Cruisers are still quite powerful so they don't seemed nerfed that badly. For extra movement, there are Lighthouses, Imperialism policy and Coal Strategic Monopoly so Cruisers don't suffer that much from the loss of a range.

On the topic of ranged naval units, I had to use Battleships and I must admit that they are weaker than Cruiser relative to other units unlocked at this point. Why? Not only do they face enemy Artillery and/or aircraft that can attack them with almost impunity but they also need deal with Mine Field. I like the idea of Mine Field but I feel it's a bit too broken and makes Battleships less relevant. Why are we making a naval version of Ostrog available to all civs? Movement is so much more important for naval units and, with my 8 movement Battleships, that means I only get 4 moves if I don't want to get any attacks off. Fighting AI that already outnumber me in units is a grind. Throw in the Mine Field and I feel like this is torture. Can we have a look at the Mine Field?

I was wondering if it's possible for there to be a gold sink late game. Basically, we can throw away a lot of our gold so it doesn't get stolen by our enemy who buys multiple units to make the grinding war even worse. I'm getting into a situation where my income is quite high and I get more gold from capturing cities due to Imperialism. Due to limited Paper resource, I cannot buy Diplomats fast enough to use up all of my gold. I also invested in every single building regardless if I build them or not but there's a limit. If I didn't pick Freedom or Authority, then it's not advisable to buy units due to half experience gained. I went Imperialism so upgrades are cheaper overall. I was hoping something can done so we can dump the gold we don't use and get nothing from it.

 

[Rekk]

I was wondering if it's possible for there to be a gold sink late game. Basically, we can throw away a lot of our gold so it doesn't get stolen by our enemy who buys multiple units to make the grinding war even worse. I'm getting into a situation where my income is quite high and I get more gold from capturing cities due to Imperialism. Due to limited Paper resource, I cannot buy Diplomats fast enough to use up all of my gold. I also invested in every single building regardless if I build them or not but there's a limit. If I didn't pick Freedom or Authority, then it's not advisable to buy units due to half experience gained. I went Imperialism so upgrades are cheaper overall. I was hoping something can done so we can dump the gold we don't use and get nothing from it.

You could buy units with the intent of gifting them to city states. If you walk them over to the city states, you don't need to worry about cooldowns.

 

[amateurgamer88]

You could buy units with the intent of gifting them to city states. If you walk them over to the city states, you don't need to worry about cooldowns.

What if all the CS are either puppets or at war with me? Do you have other suggestions as it's frustrating when I have over 40k gold and can't spend it.

 

[pineappledan]

was wondering if it's possible for there to be a gold sink late game. Basically, we can throw away a lot of our gold so it doesn't get stolen by our enemy who buys multiple units to make the grinding war even worse. I'm getting into a situation where my income is quite high and I get more gold from capturing cities due to Imperialism. Due to limited Paper resource, I cannot buy Diplomats fast enough to use up all of my gold. I also invested in every single building regardless if I build them or not but there's a limit. If I didn't pick Freedom or Authority, then it's not advisable to buy units due to half experience gained. I went Imperialism so upgrades are cheaper overall. I was hoping something can done so we can dump the gold we don't use and get nothing from it.

is the absurd amount of maintenance on late game buildings not enough of a gold sink?

 

[amateurgamer88]

is the absurd amount of maintenance on late game buildings not enough of a gold sink?

Well, I'm making around 1.5k GPT so it's not enough. It also takes an absurd amount of time for me to build all those buildings in my owned cities.

 

[Stalker0]

I really like the 1 range change for Cruisers.

So just confirming, Crusiers are ranged 1 in your games?

In my my last game I even did a fresh install download and install to make sure I have the latest hotfix. My cruisers are still ranged 2.

 

[amateurgamer88]

So just confirming, Crusiers are ranged 1 in your games?

In my my last game I even did a fresh install download and install to make sure I have the latest hotfix. My cruisers are still ranged 2.

Yes, they are 1 range in my game and I'm using the latest hotfix.

 

[Txurce]

Yes, they are 1 range in my game and I'm using the latest hotfix.

Me, too.

 

[Rafs]

Well, I'm making around 1.5k GPT so it's not enough. It also takes an absurd amount of time for me to build all those buildings in my owned cities.

I think this happens very often for imperialism games that are going well, you get lots of gold from city capture, can also get the extra gold monopolies (which will be double by colonialism policy). From my experience it has always been this way late game for games that are going well, and only thing I can do is invest everything and buy/upgrade units. If you get stuck on long war campaigns though it should be easy to spend that gold. Even at +4-5k gpt I personally always seemed to be able to spend it until the game was as good as won.
Imho having a gold sink in the late game could be useful but honestly it's definitely low on the priority list of issues for me personally

 

[Gazebo]

Progress continues on the next version. In addition to some changes discussed in the promotions and happiness threads, I'm also working a bit more on the UI. Namely:

Spoiler :

A simple tracker for 'free' unhappiness specialists. Shows you how many unhappiness-free specialists the city can support. If you fill it in...

Spoiler :

And go over the amount, it shows you the amount of unhappiness generated per new specialist. So it's a simple and handy little tracker. Easy enough.

Keep in mind this goes hand in hand with the change that urbanization unhappiness is going to proc 'below' all other unhappiness sources, and that you won't be able to run a specialist if would put your city in the negative. This gets us a little closer, in some ways, to how specialists worked in civ 4 viz. happiness, which is nice (and not actually intended, until I realized what I'd done). If it ain't broke...

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Will some new buildings/wonders get the urbanization unhappiness removal? I think one more could exist somewhere. Maybe Caravansary?

By the way, the new UI addition is looking really good. You are a real magician.

 

[tu_79]

Progress continues on the next version. In addition to some changes discussed in the promotions and happiness threads, I'm also working a bit more on the UI. Namely:

Spoiler :

View attachment 524739

A simple tracker for 'free' unhappiness specialists. Shows you how many unhappiness-free specialists the city can support. If you fill it in...

Spoiler :

View attachment 524740

And go over the amount, it shows you the amount of unhappiness generated per new specialist. So it's a simple and handy little tracker. Easy enough.

Keep in mind this goes hand in hand with the change that urbanization unhappiness is going to proc 'below' all other unhappiness sources, and that you won't be able to run a specialist if would put your city in the negative. This gets us a little closer, in some ways, to how specialists worked in civ 4 viz. happiness, which is nice (and not actually intended, until I realized what I'd done). If it ain't broke...

G

I hate to ask you. Will it need to update improved city view mod too?

 

[randomnub]

Progress continues on the next version.

Are you sold on the new tribute mechanic or is there some chance to revert it, or make it more player friendly? I'm finding myself examining the CS ''nearby military'' score every turn, every move for every soldier to not waste moves but beside being an hassle it's a bit inaccurate when it comes to water tiles (see page 3 screenshots).

If it ain't broke...

I miss the old radar

 

[Gazebo]

Will some new buildings/wonders get the urbanization unhappiness removal? I think one more could exist somewhere. Maybe Caravansary?

By the way, the new UI addition is looking really good. You are a real magician.

Some could. Up to y’all. Weakest wonder could get a global one.



G

 

[Stalker0]

Progress continues on the next version. In addition to some changes discussed in the promotions and happiness threads, I'm also working a bit more on the UI. Namely:

Spoiler :

View attachment 524739

A simple tracker for 'free' unhappiness specialists. Shows you how many unhappiness-free specialists the city can support. If you fill it in...

Spoiler :

View attachment 524740

And go over the amount, it shows you the amount of unhappiness generated per new specialist. So it's a simple and handy little tracker. Easy enough.

Keep in mind this goes hand in hand with the change that urbanization unhappiness is going to proc 'below' all other unhappiness sources, and that you won't be able to run a specialist if would put your city in the negative. This gets us a little closer, in some ways, to how specialists worked in civ 4 viz. happiness, which is nice (and not actually intended, until I realized what I'd done). If it ain't broke...

G

I like the position and size of the text, seems a nice little nook to put in.

I think the language can be changed. My initial reaction was the two messages appeared very similar to me, and at a glance it could be confusing when I was seeing a "everything is good with specialists" vs "specialists are making unhappy". I'll think about this some more to determine some suggestions.

 

[tothePAIN]

Are you sold on the new tribute mechanic or is there some chance to revert it, or make it more player friendly? I'm finding myself examining the CS ''nearby military'' score every turn, every move for every soldier to not waste moves but beside being an hassle it's a bit inaccurate when it comes to water tiles (see page 3 screenshots).



I miss the old radar

I'll chime in to agree that the new tribute mechanic is challenging.