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

[Deljade]

I always thought it represented a military monument more than anything.

Spoiler From Civilopedia :

From ancient times, a "heroic epic" is a poem that defines a people or an era, and is usually centered upon the heroic actions of one or more people. The Greek Odyssey is such a work, as are the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf.

It's just that there were no "great works" in vanilla... I wonder if we should think about changing the heroic epic a little... Maybe some extra bonuses if the great work slot is filled?

 

[Ziad]

I know what an epic means. I'm talking about what it represents. It's like how every civ can build its own Oxford University representing a place of celebrated higher learning.

 

[Deljade]

Again, I think it was supposed to represent a work of literature or act of bravery (such as the American soldiers raising their flag in the picture) that inspires the populace of your nation. It's just that there were no great work in vanilla so the civ5 guys just added it as a building and kept it afterwards with a great work slot.

Sooo I don't really imagine it as anything physical really.

 

[pineappledan]

Not a fan of it, but mostly because of how it interacts with existing UAs. Sweden won’t build the epic until he has invested in a larger army and is in the middle of fighting his first big war. You can queue the epic up and have it 1 turn to completion, then keep it there until a war gets dicey for an instant global heal and hundreds of free XP. Before this, Sweden had to wait until industry to have faith purchases on GGs, but now Gustavus will have this 1 global fleet repair action in his back pocket from ancient.

It’s not a huge deal for Japan except that it’s just 1 more guaranteed GG they have locked down, which means more GWAMs. They will also likely delay this NW so that they don’t get free GWAMs before they even have their first guild.

My current game with Sweden, I have spawned 6 GGs, I went hero worship, and I managed to build Himeji. I have now reached industrial, so I’ve got enough faith for another 3 GGs any time I want. Im just saving all my GGs for Lebensraum at this point, cause I’ve placed the 2-3 citadels I wanted to steal all my vassals’ good tiles. I honestly don’t know what I would even do with a 7th GG at this point.

 

[Stalker0]

I’m not fundamentally opposed to the GG but I do question what the point of it is?

1) the heroic epic was not weak by any stretch.

2) I never had trouble getting a GG if I did a little warring.

3) I’ve never felt there were too few GGs in the game...if anything it can be the opposite.


So while I’m not doom and gloom on this change, I’m also not sure why it needed to be changed

 

[ridjack]

I’m not fundamentally opposed to the GG but I do question what the point of it is?

1) the heroic epic was not weak by any stretch.

2) I never had trouble getting a GG if I did a little warring.

3) I’ve never felt there were too few GGs in the game...if anything it can be the opposite.


So while I’m not doom and gloom on this change, I’m also not sure why it needed to be changed

This pretty much exactly sums up my point of view. Feels like a relatively large change where I wasn't aware any change at all was needed.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I’m not fundamentally opposed to the GG but I do question what the point of it is?

1) the heroic epic was not weak by any stretch.
2) I never had trouble getting a GG if I did a little warring.
3) I’ve never felt there were too few GGs in the game...if anything it can be the opposite.

So while I’m not doom and gloom on this change, I’m also not sure why it needed to be changed

I mean, thematically a GG does make at least as much as a production bonus. Based on what people have said, I'm imagining that the Heroic Epic represents a work of writing that is commemorated in a statue or monument. And I like the idea of an epic poem inspiring people to bravery. That is captured pretty well in the promotion it gives, for example.

I agree that there isn't really a shortage of GGs to go around though. I tend to be a peaceful player and I still end up with a fair number over the course of a game.

I think the idea behind the change might have been to make the lower part of the tech tree more appealing - which is something I can understand.

 

[Txurce]

I think the idea behind the change might have been to make the lower part of the tech tree more appealing - which is something I can understand.

I think this is it, too. And there's no obvious downside to this balancing of the tree.

 

[Stalker0]

So I've been running a series of Japan games. What I've been playing around with is an early mining tech (to get wells), and then after pottery making an aggressive push towards iron working. The basic idea was to grab Zeus for the barracks, then heroic epic, and then have swordsman to go kick butt with.

After 4 attempts I'm not finding much luck. Iron Working takes a LOOOOOONG time to get. Instead, I can go to horses, get barracks, and mathematics gives me catapults....which is huge. Catapults serve double duty, they can be the ranged unit I really need, as well as the city taker.

Sure swords are very strong now....but are swords better than horseman/catapult....that may also have barracks promotions? Generally I'm finding the answer is no. Its not that I can't do it, it just feels that I'm giving up a lot. Going mathematics I get my calendar, my barracks, my catapults, take a shot at the hanging gardens, and now have both horseman and skirmishers to use. The both part of the tree just doesn't offer that power and flexibility.

 

[ridjack]

and then have swordsman to go kick butt with.

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.

 

[CrazyG]

So I've been running a series of Japan games. What I've been playing around with is an early mining tech (to get wells), and then after pottery making an aggressive push towards iron working. The basic idea was to grab Zeus for the barracks, then heroic epic, and then have swordsman to go kick butt with.

After 4 attempts I'm not finding much luck. Iron Working takes a LOOOOOONG time to get. Instead, I can go to horses, get barracks, and mathematics gives me catapults....which is huge. Catapults serve double duty, they can be the ranged unit I really need, as well as the city taker.

Sure swords are very strong now....but are swords better than horseman/catapult....that may also have barracks promotions? Generally I'm finding the answer is no. Its not that I can't do it, it just feels that I'm giving up a lot. Going mathematics I get my calendar, my barracks, my catapults, take a shot at the hanging gardens, and now have both horseman and skirmishers to use. The both part of the tree just doesn't offer that power and flexibility.

The sword rush works best as Rome, both because of legions and because Rome can consistently capture things like libraries to catch up faster. This rush worked A LOT better when Zeus was on bronze working, because you could build the wonder while you waited for iron working, then immediately start on barracks-boosted swordsmen. Zeus on ironworking is really awkward, because if you stop to build it before producing swords you delay your rush by like 10 turns compared to before.

 

[John.B.C]

Pretty annoying download, some quota is reached and I have to wait 8 mins for it to start downloading. Transfer doesn't start; I try to restart the download and now I have to wait one hour to get a hold of this file!

I never had this message before trying to download these patches.

EDIT: pressed resume download for the third time - 1 hour more to go - before next try. Can I get this file in some other way, I can't wait another hour just to have this happen again.

Seemed to have something to do with the browser "Opera", maybe VPN, I used "chrome" and it downloaded immediately - case closed.

 

[Lee Saxon]

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?

 

[pineappledan]

This whole thing started because people were skipping iron working and rushing mathematics/education. The original impetus for this was oxford’s on tech unlock giving people an incentive to ignore techs that aren’t prereq a for education, then take them once oxford is up. So why not address this problem by giving the Forge a similar opportunity cost?

On researching a new technology, Forge could give 15 in the city. There, now everyone ignoring iron working is missing out in the exact same way that people who didn’t rush education were before. And forges already have a science flavor

I would just revert the heroic epic/SoZ changes, but if they are here to stay, why not give instant General/admiral points for something instead of giving a whole General from the start? Maybe they could give GGeneral points on unit kills like the Roman colosseums?

 

[amateurgamer88]

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?

It does apply to the AI but, since the AI on higher difficulties start with a Worker, they get more food and thus can spam Settlers faster. The AI also goes for Pottery first and will go for Settlers as soon as possible so I don't think they're as bothered with less citizens overall.

 

[Gazebo]

This whole thing started because people were skipping iron working and rushing mathematics/education. The original impetus for this was oxford’s on tech unlock giving people an incentive to ignore techs that aren’t prereq a for education, then take them once oxford is up. So why not address this problem by giving the Forge a similar opportunity cost?

On researching a new technology, Forge could give 15 in the city. There, now everyone ignoring iron working is missing out in the exact same way that people who didn’t rush education were before. And forges already have a science flavor

I would just revert the heroic epic/SoZ changes, but if they are here to stay, why not give instant General/admiral points for something instead of giving a whole General from the start? Maybe they could give GGeneral points on unit kills like the Roman colosseums?

I prefer SoZ in Classical and Heroic Epic in Ancient. The bonuses on them can be modified but I prefer the placement.

G

 

[phantomaxl1207]

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

 

[DeAnno]

Maybe the Barracks can be on Bronze Working and the Heroic Epic can be on Military Theory? It's strictly better for Bronze Working that way, which I think is a good intention.

 

[Bhawb]

Is there a way to adapt the military changes from this beta to an older one without destroying my puny brain? I'm hesitant to update due to some other mods I have that might not play well but I really want to try out the new military stuff while waiting on those updating.

 

[pineappledan]

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?