New Beta Version - August 21st (8-21b)

[Stalker0]

I agree with @Stalker0, and my own assessment that any warmonger can get enough GGenerals already. My experience doesn’t support heroic epic getting a free GG, or some bonus towards getting more GGs

What if, instead, the heroic epic boosted GGs, boosted Citadels, or gave instant yields on GG births? Having the epic come so early makes this really awkward though. I wonder if you wouldn’t have to nerf GGs first to make room for a heroic epic bonus? I also don’t think G wants to add more yields to the building; that’s why he took the scaler in the first place.

Maybe GGeneral/Admiral CS boost could have a 1-tile radius to start, and Heroic Epic could increase it back up to 2?

I don't mind moving the Heroic Epic around if we feel we want to change up the tech tree a bit, but why change any of the bonuses? I thought it was a very solid bonus before, why not move it, but keep the bonuses the old tried and true? What was so bad about the combat bonus and a little production?

 

[tu_79]

I agree with @Stalker0, and my own assessment that any warmonger can get enough GGenerals already. My experience doesn’t support heroic epic getting a free GG, or some bonus towards getting more GGs

What if, instead, the heroic epic boosted GGs, boosted Citadels, or gave instant yields on GG births? Having the epic come so early makes this really awkward though. I wonder if you wouldn’t have to nerf GGs first to make room for a heroic epic bonus? I also don’t think G wants to add more yields to the building; that’s why he took the scaler in the first place.

Maybe GGeneral/Admiral CS boost could have a 1-tile radius to start, and Heroic Epic could increase it back up to 2?

Hmm. What about GAP on every unit built in the city, scaling with unit strength?

 

[Stalker0]

I forget the Forge does not have a base Yield of , only 1 . Ottomans Siege Foundry comes with 3 .

Arenas give them a +2 prod, so its like they do

 

[pineappledan]

I don't mind moving the Heroic Epic around if we feel we want to change up the tech tree a bit, but why change any of the bonuses? I thought it was a very solid bonus before, why not move it, but keep the bonuses the old tried and true? What was so bad about the combat bonus and a little production?

I didn’t see anything wrong with it either, but G wanted to drop the production scaler. Either he is trying to address some yield bloat, or he is trying to move the heroic epic away from iron works. Nothing has happened to the combat boost that I am aware of.

G wants the heroic epic in ancient and has doubled down on that. If that’s where it’s going to be, an ancient national wonder should give something fundamental. City strike ranges were reduced to 1 in VP and increased back to 2 by walls. Similarly, reducing the general’s aura to 1 and increasing it back to 2 via heroic epic fits the bill. I’m just trying to make this work. I don’t think it should have been changed to begin with.

 

[bigcat88]

If AI and balance need a wonder in ancient then just introduce a new wonder(from any mod) and place it in iron working. #ReturnHeroicEpicBack

 

[CrazyG]

I think a one time burst of GG points would be better than a free GG. Like 50 points upon completion. Depending on the tech and pop requirements, you could add some culture as well.

These are my thoughts on the balance between bronze/iron working and the higher techs:

• The forge is the best thing in the bronze/iron techs.
• Mines with a forge are usually better than all other resource-less tiles for most of the game.
  
• Mines with a forge are better than some resource tiles, notably sheep.
  
• Chopping forests takes 5 turns standard, making it not that useful as a way to rush production.
  
• Military theory would be a very important tech to research, even if it did nothing, because of its position in the center.
• Zeus is a lot weaker than Terracotta Army and Great Wall, neither of which require bronze working to research.
• Zeus is a lot weaker at iron working than bronze working, and this move really hurts swordsmen rushes.

I'm playing tradition now and struggling to improve tiles fast enough with 10 workers and 6 cities partially because I have a lot of chopping to do. On social policy balance, my last progress game I got 7 cities fully going with only 6 workers, that means tradition spent 800 hammers on workers, while progress spent only 300. Part of that is that the tradition is growing faster though.

 

[Stalker0]

What the barracks was moved to Bronze Working. That gives you a more straight path of Barracks -> than build Heroic Epic. It also encourages more of the bottom of the tree, as now the horse path doesn't get you barracks, which are a very solid building at that point in the game.

 

[Stalker0]

Continuing my attempts at making spearmen rush to swordsman push work (or lack thereof). Another big obstacle here is happiness. This maybe a scenario where I have to expand less in order to conquer. I got up my base 5 cities using imperium, and then started an aggressive spearman push on my enemy. So far so good, but quickly my happiness begins to plummet, and I don't have the tools (like barracks) to counter it. So I get a -20% combat penalty, and suddenly my spears are getting slaughtered. Its possible that this build requires 1 less city to be able to afford the happiness to accomplish it.

Should be noted that I had goddess of protection with Japan, so had walls in most cities, so culture wasn't the issue. It was distress and poverty mixed in with my first city conquest that drove me down.

 

[chicorbeef]

Have not tried new changes yet so I'm just speculating.

Heroic Epic looks like it has a decent niche for Japan/Sweden/Mongolia for early warfare, but I'm not sure how expensive it is and if the cost is worth it.

Barracks should be moved to Bronze Working if Heroic Epic is going to be down there. The initial issue was going Military Theory --> Mathematics was too convenient anyway, this should provide good incentive to go for Bronze Working.

Statue of Zeus comes at the same time Swordsmen are available. I think it could provide a free Forge or something, because having to wait to build SoZ and then build Swordsmen would feel slow, in the past even building Swords straight after reaching Iron Working felt slow.

 

[tu_79]

What the barracks was moved to Bronze Working. That gives you a more straight path of Barracks -> than build Heroic Epic. It also encourages more of the bottom of the tree, as now the horse path doesn't get you barracks, which are a very solid building at that point in the game.

I was going to say that there are already plenty of reasons for going bronze working, but I realized that this move is for Iron working. This way we could rush swordsmen with barracks and heroic epic to make up for the lack of gold.
It's not as if the other paths would suffer.

I only wish that rushing sailing was as determinant. The upper path lacks production, but has gold. The only thing it lacks is a credible military advantage.

 

[DeAnno]

I only wish that rushing sailing was as determinant. The upper path lacks production, but has gold. The only thing it lacks is a credible military advantage.

We could always make Triremes stronger. Carthage is super threatening to just eat cities on the coast with those Squints it has, so it's a viable model.

 

[JamesNinelives]

So this has been on my mind for a while, and this feels like as apt a time as any to bring it up:

What, exactly, are Swordsdmen meant to do? Spearmen's anti-cavalry nature is pretty obvious, though I would argue not generally all that relevant. With Swordsman, all I see them as is a bigger number. I simply never find myself going down the Shock line on foot soldiers; even with Swordsmen getting Shock I for free, I still wind up ignoring it and going for Drill so I can get to Stalwart and possibly Blitz. March is the only exciting thing on Shock's side of the promotion tree, and March simply isn't good for the units whose main role in life is to tank damage and hold ground. (Shock also opens up Medic, but that's generally better on the ranged units your melee are protecting.)

EDIT: Just realized I'm also forgetting about the recent changes to Overrun; I haven't had an opportunity to play with that yet, so maybe that changes things some.

Shock isn't super-exiting IMO, but I like it as a way to the Amphibious promotion. Rivers are a significant obstacle to my other troops, but not to my foot-soldiers. Similarly I actually like Mobility on my infantary to help them get to where they need to be (like acting as a screen for mounted units or ranged units), although I don't always get that far. Finally City Assault is pretty decent. It might seem a bit odd to take that instead of just going down the other promo tree, but I like the versatility of units I can throw at other units or cities.

Edit: I am a fan of stalwart as well. Sometimes I take Forester although I'm not entirely sure if it's worth doing so.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I'm not against a Settler taking a population, but it doesn't seem to have majorly slowed NPC city spam. Does it even apply to them?

To me, though, the problem arguably is less how fast the AI can found cities and more that it places them way too close together and will place them way too close to player borders. If nothing else, civs with "less aggressive" personalities should be far less prone to that playstyle (though I wish they all were to some extent). Maybe if the map scripting could be changed to more evenly spread out starting locations instead of tending to cluster them?

My experience has been that it slowed the AI down significantly playing on King difficulty, but that the change was less noticeable on Emperor. So I guess that is consistent with what amateurgamer88 said.

 

[JamesNinelives]

an ancient national wonder should give something fundamental

I don't quite agree. That doesn't seem in line with the other national wonders - which tend to enhance what you already have rather being a 'requirement' per se for certain things to be useful. I'd hate to have my GGs nerfed if the city I built the heroic epic in got captured.

I was going to say that there are already plenty of reasons for going bronze working, but I realized that this move is for Iron working. This way we could rush swordsmen with barracks and heroic epic to make up for the lack of gold.
It's not as if the other paths would suffer.

It would make my usual rush for military tactics for the Temple of Artemis and the Shoshone's encampments synergize slightly less well with Goddess of Protection (which gives faith on barracks). It's not a terrible idea though (I always pick up Bronze Working relatively early anyway).

G's idea of having the heroic epic (something everyone can build) on Bronze Working to make that research path more appealing is kind of elegant. One downside is Alenander's UU doesn't unlock at the same time as Statue of Zeus anymore, which is very thematic for him.

What if the promotion the Heroic Epic gave was a bit more interesting? Like earning xp faster, or generating great generals more quickly? Unfortunatley I can see that might not interact well with existing UUs.

On the other hand, if it's Iron Working that really needs to be more appealing, I agree with the comments that the Statue of Zeus could get a buff. Maybe it could give more faith or culture?

Arenas give them a +2 prod, so its like they do

That is a thing though - I never build a forge before an arena - it seems much better value after you've built the arena. Whereas the arena is worth building on it's own as long as you already have a barracks (which comes earlier). Granted the bonus it gives to mines seems to be it's biggest strength, so maybe I'm discounting that because it's not as obvious.

 

[Ziad]

I build Barracks and Forge before Library in most of my games. The benefits in addition to the science are worth it.

 

[saamohod]

Has anyone noticed that city attack strength increased a lot?
I keep losing my knights to one-shot enemy city attacks. He's behind me in techs and his religion doesn't affect his cities' strength.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Has anyone noticed that city attack strength increased a lot?
I keep losing my knights to one-shot enemy city attacks. He's behind me in techs and his religion doesn't affect his cities' strength.

My Hun horse archers were getting one-hit by enemy city states a few versions back, but this was due to the castle damage boost against a unit from an earlier era. It was a Greek ally, don't quite know if that matters.

Do CS allied with Siam end up having higher city attack strength?

 

[Rafs]

I've been progressing with an India game with the new patch (although I use the 4UC mod, so milleage may vary) and I have to say the happiness was much easier to manage, I had to build less PW than usual. It's only a bit rought at the start but I expanded kind of slowly so it worked out for me.
Aside from that the cs changes on units, the change to mounted unit movement was interesting, it makes attacking certain terrains a real slog though (I had to "breach" a hilly/forest tundra from Catherine while she had her 4UC Ub, between bombardement, slow movement, cossacks and the Licornes it was the roughest assault I remember, lost like 5 landships, 5 or 6 cavalries and some more units too slow to escape).
Overall I prefer this patch to the last one, but I still think the settling cost is too high. I've also observed some (IMHO) stupid behaviour when it comes to settling from the AI. Most AIs took tradition (but its only 1 game so can't really say anything, minuscule sample), and while some quickly expanded and afterwards grew the capital quite a lot and the did a second wave of expansion, some AIs managed to keep very low pop tradition capitals until medieval (I'm talking 6-7 pop when they are in late classical).
Personally, I only built settlers in the capital for my initial expansion of 4 cities, and afterwards I let the new cities build every other settler/pioneer, seems to take way too long and the opportunity cost is pretty high (wonders, army).
Pioneers cost felt prohibitive, playing on marathon fastest I could build one was 26 turns (my indian capital, was huge as I had temple of artemis, hanging gardens and some rivers), I think building himeji castle / pise tower was quicker with a investment, left me wondering if I should ever bother building new settling units in my capital.
Also, I don't know if this is the adequate thread, but I still feel Broadway as a wonder for finishing industry is super weird and isn't as fitting as the other finishing wonders for other social policies. Maybe if the bonus was extended to other cities it would feel a bit less odd (albeit with tuned numbers as the culture gain per building would be way too high on other cities).
In any case, thanks for the hard work, it's impressive to see how much the project has evolved and progressed over time.

 

[zeofig]

I see a couple of problems with wonder changes...
1) Pop requirement on heroic epic means you won't be able to build it very fast in a lot of games, so early bronze working is quite underwhelming. Bronze working later is underwhelming too, since there's not much point to spearmen if you don't rush them.
2) Barracks on Statue of Zeus makes it very underwhelming.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Policy wise in my Sweden game, 3 AI took Tradition, 3 took Progress, 1 +Me took Authority. I haven't been able to bully as many CS's as I would like; they have been giving me good Quests, leading me to Ally them. One in particular gave me ~400 for finding America. A previous Austria game gave me ~400 for getting a GEngineer.