New Beta Version - August 16th (8/16)

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Playing the 8-23-3 hotfix, wrt wars the situation is not much better than the 8-23 version. There are too many wars, friendly AI DoW me from time to time without a valid reason. They should value peace if they can't attack me. Also CV seems impossible in this version as your diplomats get kicked and trade units plundered because of random DoWs. Can't establish franchises either.
I think the balance is broken in this version in favor of warmongering - it seems there is only one way to have long lasting peace - to vassalise everybody.
I wholeheartedly disagree, the AI being opportunistic and playung to win by hindering the human player is the reason why i personally like playing VP over vanilla civ.
Why would the AI want longlasting peace if it does not help their own agenda? Would not the human player have done the same in similar circumstances? Is not it a bit irrational to expect the other players to be nice to you just because you are a pacifist?
AI getting bribed to DOW another player is actually a cool feature -might need some tweaking but still a cool feature-.
I think it's crucial balance wise to force all the players to raise a reasonable army -even a small defensive one- no matter what Victory condition they are after and i don't think a player that cannot defend himself should be able to win at all looking at you tradition players with tercios and muskets in info era.
 
I wholeheartedly disagree, the AI being opportunistic and playung to win by hindering the human player is the reason why i personally like playing VP over vanilla civ.
There is a value for peace - otherwise why have difference between peace and war ? The AI who is declaring is friendly to me and has many trade deals with me so he doesn't gain anything from this, only losing trade and annoying. If you think the only purpose of wars is to be an annoyance then I don't know what to say. They should play as if they are trying to win, instead of trying to hurt the player even if they lose in the process.

I think it's crucial balance wise to force all the players to raise a reasonable army -even a small defensive one- no matter what Victory condition they are after and i don't think a player that cannot defend himself should be able to win at all looking at you tradition players with tercios and muskets in info era.
My army is enough to defend. Sorry I'm not going to create a huge army to make my enemies afraid (if I do I might as well conquer them all). It's just a stupid numbers game. It's not about defense, it's about useless wars that have zero military encounters.
 
There is a value for peace - otherwise why have difference between peace and war ? The AI who is declaring is friendly to me and has many trade deals with me so he doesn't gain anything from this, only losing trade and annoying. If you think the only purpose of wars is to be an annoyance then I don't know what to say. They should play as if they are trying to win, instead of trying to hurt the player even if they lose in the process.
Not all the DOWs have to be for capturing cities or creating a vassal; pillage war is a thing, Diplo war is a thing, DOWing someone to earn a favor with a potentially better ally is worth it even if it is a phony war and most importantly hindering wars both very early and later in the game.
If another player is getting closer to a CV one of the most effective ways to slow them down is DOWing even if you are on another continent ... Just denting them the tourism modifiers, trade routes, diplomats, etc is totally worth it.
Early wars to steal a worker, pillage some tiles or slow the opponent for a couple of turns is totally worth it.
My army is enough to defend. Sorry I'm not going to create a huge army to make my enemies afraid (if I do I might as well conquer them all). It's just a stupid numbers game. It's not about defense, it's about useless wars that have zero military encounters.
If you have an army capable of defending your cities and your interest so what's your exact problem with wars? They are integral part of the game ..... If you dislike them you can try disabling AI competition modifer or try RAS permanent peace option.
 
Not all the DOWs have to be for capturing cities or creating a vassal; pillage war is a thing, Diplo war is a thing, DOWing someone to earn a favor with a potentially better ally is worth it even if it is a phony war and most importantly hindering wars both very early and later in the game.
If another player is getting closer to a CV one of the most effective ways to slow them down is DOWing even if you are on another continent ... Just denting them the tourism modifiers, trade routes, diplomats, etc is totally worth it.
Early wars to steal a worker, pillage some tiles or slow the opponent for a couple of turns is totally worth it.
If the AI wanted to prevent my victory it would behave totally different. For example, to prevent CV there's no need to make peace at all - a human player would keep the war going as far as war weariness allows. But no, they sue for peace as soon as the timer is up. So I don't buy this argument that AI does it on purpose to stop the player from winning.
It would be that way if it's done on purpose and by a human player. Currently in the hands of AI it's just total chaos - a permanent World War. Opportunistic AI ? Yes, if you mean opportunity to shoot himself in the foot. For every real war there are 5 or more annoying fake wars.

If you have an army capable of defending your cities and your interest so what's your exact problem with wars? They are integral part of the game ..... If you dislike them you can try disabling AI competition modifer or try RAS permanent peace option.
I don't have a problem with actual wars that involve military encounters..everything else is just too annoying, breaking the balance of the game. The game has many mechanics that don't work if the whole world is in permanent war.
 
After last changes to happiness system there was a table added called UnhappinessNeedsFlatReduction. Is there its global counterpart? I understand that columns UnculturedHappinessChangeGlobal or IlliteracyHappinessChange etc. in Buildings are not working anymore?
Bump!
 
After 4 games on the new beta version 8/16 and with this discussion going between SuperNoobCamper and a3kov I want to put in some personal notes.

First game Rome/King/Epic/Pangea. Trade deals were bugged with tons of gold but just ended with an easy Domination victory (Authority/Fealty/Statecraft/Imperialism). Second and third Korea on Emperor/Standard/Continents with Progress/Statecraft destroyed by Zulu invasion. Current game Rome/Emperor/Standard/Continents and losing as well with Zulu and Greece coming from a side and Maya/Shoshone from the other.

Events: I gave the feature another chance and totally regret it. In the first game I got a streak of good event from start to end when I do not really need them. All other games bad events annoyed me and in the last one totally crippled my early game with an Ice age. Maybe is just bad luck but I have suspect that events are tied with your happiness. If you are going well all is warm and fuzzy, market event, free harbor, good harvest, if not here your corruption/flood/temple destroyed every ten turns when i'm already struggling. Shutting them all down again.

Ancient ruins: puzzled on this one. It's a roulette but again it seems AIs units beeline them with sharp precision. Getting a boon early game is nice but in the end it's more beneficial to AIs than human. I think will option out them if i'm not playing certain Civs (Shoshone I think it's the only one).

Other options i kept were raging barbarians/GG-GA points on them and transparent diplomacy. These ease difficulty for the player.

Diplo/trading AI: totally with a3kov. Same conclusions. Either you snowball from start as Authority or you are in for a struggle. Keep in mind that my playing level is (was since last patch) King 90 % wins, Emperor 60 % wins, Immortal 10 %.

I tried Progress with Korea, being nice with my neighbours and then, probably due to relative small army but comparable with theirs, from Medieval era and on there were DOWs out the blue from all side. Trade routes crippled, economy stalled and spiralling down. Recent game with Rome both Greece and Egypt went from first meeting/friendly/open borders request (granted) to DoW the turn after. WTH ?

My early game was crippled by an Ice age and lagged behind in tech (8 to 10 tech behind, now 4 to 6 due to a very good golden age). So I'm actually second to last with Israel last. Korea enslaved by Zulus on the other continent. Egypt (tradition) sorrounded by Greece. Maya and Shoshone in the middle spot.

In this scenario that the player is not leading why Zulus and Greece managed a def pact ? They should be rivals. Top two and going for win. So can we ease the poor player life trying to give a fair game. The answer is simple: Shoshone got def pacts with Zulu and Maya, Maya def pacts with Greece and Shoshone and the whole world declared on Rome and Israel because why not.

My standing army is the size of the Zulu one just a bit outdated: Impi/Yellow brow vs Roman Tercios. All on crossbowmen. Caravels/Penteconters vs Caravels/Galleass. I went Authority/Fealty so my cities are not really easy to siege. Last two wars Maya and Shoshone tried but lost some 30 units vs none me feeding science/faith/culture. I'm updating to Cannons and more Tercios but my economy is strangled being the target of 6 DoWs. I can trade with the closest city states (2) but that's all.

The game is just binary for me at the moment: either you are the almighty warlord and no one even try to DoW you, they denounce, they insult but finally no matter they all fall, if you are not you are the target for anything despite being last in score/tech whatever.

I'll play next on King (every now and then want a win, you know, morale).

I think there should be the same penalty for running away AIs as for player so it's possible to stabilize and come back.

Def pacts are a plague: they does not matter if you have 120 units army vs 20+20 from other 2 AIs. Beside human player get the Impossible answer on everything. DoF, joint Wars, Def Pacts, trading votes on Council.

The trade dealing screen is just there to sell luxuries, strategic resources and the capitulation AIs on the total Domination.

In this last game Israel is cornered with 4 cities with Maya from North, Shoshone from East and Greece from West. Israel AI should be very friendly to me about trading and pact and everything else, we have no constested borders. Pop up says: GUARDED. Why ? Religious difference -40, you are competing for the same wonders - 30 (yeah, I have 2, Zulu 8, Greece 6), -30 for competing for the same city states.

How about +9999 or you'll be enslaved and destroyed in 10 turns by your not so friendly neighbours ?
 
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I think this might be a little to much! (Playing with the latest hotfix)
 
Just noting some actual in game numbers with the new Sub Dynamics.

My Wolf Pack 3 Subs are nigh one shoting Cruisers, my Targeting III Battleships are doing ~41,

Versus Destroyers, the Sub is doing 33, versus 24 for the Battleship.

Versus Strength 100 city, Sub - 34, Battleship - 28

I will say that so far, I'm not noticing any benefit from my new invisibility against Destroyers. Even kiting them, the Destroyer fleet seems to have no trouble moving in and killing subs if they are left unprotected. That said, the removal of the Destroyers Anti-Sub bonuses is making a difference, as noted above I am doing more damage to them now than a Battleship, and they can now take a hit instead of crumbling like paper.
 
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Thanks General_Drax, your frustrating post makes me finally update to the latest beta (was playing March version, stable and with working planes, also with modified diplo files for more aggresive AI). Was waiting for fix to planes (I always finish the game in the last era, my wet dream is someone integrating future worlds in VP similiar to EE), but now I'm ready to switch.

Also if u wanna win the game in a cheesy way play Japan (preferably with 3/4 uniq), Authority - Fielty - Imperialism, grab Zeus (priority), and Terracota + God of Protection, Zealotry as an enchant + Crusader Spirit (important, don't spread ur religion, 20% more against different faith, pricless). Be in a constant war as soon as the WW let u. You will produce so many great writers u won't need World Fair to be 5+ social policies ahead starting from Industrial (depends how many land neighbors u have). Also having Infantry with 400+ ex is fun. In one of my games had 11 tenets , second Russia had 2...Take Autocracy, op with bonuses to generals and xp to land). Also constant golden age cos of all the Great Artists. Should help u with the mood if u win.
Done it on Immortal few times but it gets repetitive. Its even more ez then other cheesy way to win with Carthage progress.

P.S. I'm running heavily modded version so balance can be screwed.
 
@anastazjasz. Nah ... I'll finally play Zulus. Putting them as AI in my games to test the changes and now wanna try them first hand on King. Anyway great suggestions for my next play on Emperor. I'll try it with Japan: a Civ that I do not play much being kind a jack of all trades. Zeus and Terracotta are a godlike combo for Authority games !
 
@anastazjasz. Nah ... I'll finally play Zulus. Putting them as AI in my games to test the changes and now wanna try them first hand on King. Anyway great suggestions for my next play on Emperor. I'll try it with Japan: a Civ that I do not play much being kind a jack of all trades. Zeus and Terracotta are a godlike combo for Authority games !

Terracotta is godlike for any type of game.
 
Standard Immortal Portugal Communitas_79 (no rifts, so all landmasses connected by coast). DV on Turn 377.

This was a really good test for me of the new mechanics. I had some wonderfully intense late game wars (where you lose 8 units a turn and ask for more), and used every single unit in the book except for GDRs. I had an over 100 supply army, which I cannot remember the last time I got so high (I know to the warmongers thats probably piddly but for this peacenik it was a lot! ;) I did use the new hotfixes in the middle of this game.

Also one funny note, so with Spain and Inca as my neighbor, I knew that I was in for a lot of religious pressure. So I went Pagodas and Syncretism (aka if you can't beat em, join em). This turned out to be very useful, as I got 5 religions in all of my cities by the late game. However, because I wasn't paying attention, I actually went completely cosmopolitan, and lost religion in ALL of my cities! This meant I lost my religion bonuses, and lost the ability to buy GP in the late game (OOPS!!!). And because I had no cities to make missionaries with, I couldn't respread. I still won even with that, but that was a funny gotcha.

Spoiler :

upload_2020-8-27_15-24-58.png



My notes:

Difficulty
Ultimately I did not get to benefit from the expansion hotfixes until the mid game when most expansion was done. Ultimately this felt like an Emperor game from the economic side, I was in the driver seat so hard for most of the game it was one of those "yawn, hit next turn"... which never happens to me on Immortal. However, in Atomic Era Sweden came screaming from behind, managed to take over 20 cities, and suddenly had science parity with me. Whoa a challenge! Ethiopia also managed to come back from behind and hit parity with me a little later.

Ultimately while I had the war advantage I was never taken over Economically and secured the win. This behavior I've noticed a few times, and it might be time to increase the B value and lower the C one. The AI definitely can ramp it up in the very late game, but sometimes seems a bit too easy in the mid game....which could cause players to quit prematurely. So an adjustment to better match the player may be useful.

Policies
I will say the new Equality feels solid. You get it, and it just works. I'll admit I was expanding quickly and was even tempted to take it 5th to fix my happiness problem at that time. I didn't, but I was tempted, which never happened before:)
The statecraft nerfs I didn't really notice, but with such a conquest heavy game it may have been overwritten by that.

Deal AI
I will give specific examples in the thread. In general Dealmaking definitely felt more "dynamic". AIs were coming to me with interesting deals that I had never seen before. I also saw more defensive pact and vote offerings than I normally get. I do think the early values for lux and strategics are "mostly right", every so often I get a deal out of left field that is better than it should be, but the baseline seems good.

New Subs
In general, I like the new paradigm. Subs were pretty useful overall. I intentionally tried to build a large sub fleet and see if I could exploit the AI with kiting techniques.... and it never worked. The AI always seemed to be able to find my subs and eventually take them out if they were not escorted, even without the "see subs" promotion. However, the real change is that my subs can actually hurt destroyers now, and don't crumple when they were hit. As a result, I found subs were a solid addition to my navy, but not too dominant. Melee ships are still very important, and ranged naval still does decent damage to navy but importantly helps me control the land.

Logistic Change
I like it. It means now that normally I am not getting logistics until the Battleship era, which seems appropriate as the pinnacle of the ranged naval era. Indomitable I admit is a promotion I had not used too much beforehand, and now being "forced" to use it to get logistics, I find its a pretty solid promotion on its own. What this also meant is that I didn't bother to go for logistics with my later ranged units, as I knew I would never get to it. Instead the new units would go for splash damage or other promotions, while my old guard got to logistics.

Air Power
I got to see a lot of aircraft used in this game, both from myself and from Sweden. I also got to see a lot of fighters in action this game, so a few notes:

1) I got to use the Air Sweep splash damage a lot this game, and the numbers felt "right". It took a good number of sweeps before I was killing planes, but once I did I was wrecking them in short order. That said, I did find Ace Pilot III weak compared to Air Superiority II. For my sweepers, I would go Ace Pilot II -> AS II, and then pick up AP III as my 4th promotion. I would much rather do a lot more damage to enemy planes on my sweeps (and take less damage in return) than deal more splash damage. In general, the splash damage was enough once I had cleared the skies.

2) Fighters are killing full HP Heavy Bombers on Intercept...which I think is too high.

3) Mobile Sams can do ~80 damage to an AP III Jet Fighter doing a sweep.... which seems much too high considering I don't get to do any damage back.

4) I'll repeat some feedback I've noted before, Military Bases add way too much Air Defense. While I still like planes for killing units, bombing cities is worthless when your taking 40 damage every time you do it...and that is once you have dealt with all the interception.

5) I have seen concerns from people that Air power is too "weak". Just to highlight, here is a screenshot of my last great battle terrain. It was messy, even with hordes of Modern Armor, Mech Infantry, some Rocket Artillery, and lots of Xcoms as fillers, this was a messy bloody battleground. I found Aircraft useful to take out rocket artillery in the back as well as roaming helicopters gunships. I think it would have been worse without Aircraft.

In general I agree that I don't go planes first when I'm on offense, I need my army first as it is overall stronger. But once I have the army that is covering my main ground, aircraft is the best way to add in additional strength. No matter how many units you have, you can only put so many of them on a patch of ground, whereas Aircraft I can hit a square over and over until its dead. Further, once you control for interception, Planes are invincible, meanwhile I was losing 6 units a turn to the death fleet from Sweden...just because of the amount of units coming from both sides. So I do think airpower is useful, that said I do think some adjustments (which I noted above) are still warranted to make aircraft a bit more viable.

Spoiler :

upload_2020-8-27_15-21-16.png

 
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Few things I to update from the patch before the latest hotfix
  • Waking units up does not prompt "A Unit Needs Orders", so you will try to keep hitting "next turn", but nothing will happen. You have to go through each of your units to find the unit with moves left. Usually it is one that was set on alert, and got woken up by a nearby military unit, or something finished healing.
  • At some point, Military Industrial Complex was changed so Forts no longer get the +3:c5science: (only military training buildings, citadels, and UTIs now). This makes me sad, and I would have spoken out against this change if I had known it was there.
  • AI really likes swapping world map. I unlocked the tech, and every AI prompted me to trade for it on the same turn.
  • AI isn't doing great on upgrading its units. I tore Shaka's navy apart in Renaissance even though he had more ships than me, because he was using a mix of frigates/galleass/dromons
Spoiler In other news: :

AI let me rush Menin Gate with no competition, so I'm the only civ that got Silver (25% attack bonus). It's time to kill Shaka
upload_2020-8-27_18-10-25.png

 
If the AI wanted to prevent my victory it would behave totally different. For example, to prevent CV there's no need to make peace at all - a human player would keep the war going as far as war weariness allows. But no, they sue for peace as soon as the timer is up. So I don't buy this argument that AI does it on purpose to stop the player from winning.
It would be that way if it's done on purpose and by a human player. Currently in the hands of AI it's just total chaos - a permanent World War. Opportunistic AI ? Yes, if you mean opportunity to shoot himself in the foot. For every real war there are 5 or more annoying fake wars.


I don't have a problem with actual wars that involve military encounters..everything else is just too annoying, breaking the balance of the game. The game has many mechanics that don't work if the whole world is in permanent war.

i totally disagree with you on all you've said. ai does things to sabotage you from winning on any form of sorts. i dont want to play a game where i just click and click peacefully. that annoyance you are talking is what i longed for in this civ. micromanagement and utter chaos. if you want a more peaceful game, then play the vanilla. thats just my opinion.
 
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