New Beta Version - August 31st (8/31)

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

New beta version inbound. Should shake up some people's experiences, especially early game.

General
- Substantial improvements to AI city production logic, including bugfixes for AI skipping airplanes and many buildings in certain conditions
- Improvements to tactical AI, specifically siege and naval AI
- Pantsloads of minor bug fixes and text improvements

Balance

AI
- Slightly increased handicap bonuses for Deity for AI
- New: Immortal and Deity AI get a bit more sight naturally on all units (+1 emperor, +2 deity). They'll use this to be a little better at war

Buildings
- Reverted Heroic Epic/SoZ location swap (but keeping GG on HE)
- Stonehenge moved to Wheel
- Temple of Artemis moved to Calendar
- Pyramids moved to Mining

Units
- Catapult moves to Iron Working
- Comp. Bowman moves to Mathematics, RCS down to 12
- Swordsman/Longswordsman lose Shock I, gain Cover I (Legion gets Cover II)
- Bumped naval RCS/CS up quite a bit for late-game naval units, a little bit for mid-game units (compensate for SRs as well as to make naval-only sieges/captures more viable)
    - All naval melee units post-ironclad get city attack bonus +33%

Techs
- Construction and Military Theory will swap spots
- Refactored tech costs down a bit (necessary after recent yield deflation); halved reduced 'known tech' bonus (causing issues with small games)
- Currency and Engineering swap spots
- Stone resource moved to Wheel
- Bananas moved to Pottery

Other
- City strength and HP scaling from tech and pop reduced slightly
- Adjusted happiness model down again slightly (slightly easier to expand)
- Trade Route base gold now scales with Era
- Trade Route resource diversity model no longer punitive - gold on a route now increases by 10% for every resource unique to either the destination or the origin city (double bonus if its a monopoly resource)
    i.e.if origin city has 3 unique resources, one of which is a monopoly, and the destination city has 5 unique resources, that would be 4(3+1) + 5 * 10 = 90%. However, if both cities have pefume, the bonus would go down by 20% 3 (2+1) + 4 * 10 = 70%

Not savegame compatible.

Link: https://mega.nz/#F!2Jdw3aQT!Z49gV7KAyMq6YiG5BD9jaA

Cheers,
G

 

[Ziad]

Curious to see how the Carthage bonus is affected.

 

[chicorbeef]

This looks fun! Thanks for the patch, G!

 

[JamesNinelives]

Should shake up some people's experiences, especially early game.

You don't say haha. No chance of be doing Emperor on this one, but it may make King a good challenge for me once again. I look forward to testing this all out.

- Pyramids moved to Mining

Now *this* is an incentive. I think Pyramids could afford to be nerfed a bit if it's going to stay here (I can imagine rushing pyramids now being a go-to strategy), but I kind of like the idea of having two early wonder-based paths to follow. I do feel that Masoleum of Halicarnassus now seems a bit poor compared to others in the Classical Era. If there's anyone here who builds it, when is it most useful/appropriate to go for?

- Stone resource moved to Wheel

I guess this does help with the tech switch and location of quarries. Intuitively stone on mining still makes a lot more sense to me, but I'll see how things go.

- Adjusted happiness model down again slightly (slightly easier to expand)

I've had relatively few problems with happiness in the recent patches, although I have noticed the AI building public works more than once (due to having spies in their capitals). The AI does seem to have any problems expanding in my games though. Maybe instead of building public works after over-expanding the AI can choose not to expand in the first place if they know it's going to make them unhappy?

I don't really know what's going on on their end though, I'm just guessing from what I observe. It just surprised me to see a civ who is leading in score and tech and building lots of wonders also build Public Works. Makes me wonder if I should be incorporating it into my strategy.

 

[DeAnno]

I love the changes to the balance of the first five techs here, Pottery needed the nerf and Wheel/Mining needed buffs.

 

[Ziad]

If it helps, early stone wasnt mined as much as it was extracted and shaped from externally facing protruding rock formations (later developing into actual quarries).

The Wheel makes a lot of sense as typically the transfer of stone involved ingenious tricks using wheels and gravity.

This is how they built Stonehenge in fact. Stone had to be hauled across long distances as there are no rock formations anywhere near the site.

 

[DeAnno]

The Pyramids currently requires 2 Policies, but maybe that should be Zero like Stonehenge?

EDIT: SoZ also still requires 4 policies.

EDIT2: It's possible for people to easily change this in BalanceChanges->Wonders->WondersCultureCosts

 

[CrazyG]

I do feel that Masoleum of Halicarnassus now seems a bit poor compared to others in the Classical Era. If there's anyone here who builds it, when is it most useful/appropriate to go for?

It is very strong long term, the % modifiers in a capital (especially a tradition capital) really add up over the course of the game, and it is very cheap with the free stoneworks.

 

[Gazebo]

The Pyramids currently requires 2 Policies, but maybe that should be Zero like Stonehenge?

EDIT: SoZ also still requires 4 policies.

EDIT2: It's possible for people to easily change this in BalanceChanges->Wonders->WondersCultureCosts

Ah that’s my bad. I had it changed Pyramids but forgot to push to master.

G

 

[Gazebo]

Ah that’s my bad. I had it changed but forgot to push to master.

G

Fixed.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Fixed.

Yay! Time to play!

 

[zeofig]

Big changes, very exciting!

 

[legoras]

Small question, this is normal that "(7a) Promotion Icons for VP" has another identical folder "(7a) Promotion Icons for VP" inside ? Clean install latest(today version with fix) VP + EUI.

 

[Asterix Rage]

this is normal that "(7a) Promotion Icons for VP" has another identical folder "(7a) Promotion Icons for VP" inside ?

It's not
But it doesn't pose any kind of threat for you and your family

 

[Jiggly]

Hmm, game started crashing 5-6 turns in after upgraded to the Beta just now. I did add Improved City view with the Gazebo hotpatch fix but that usually doesnt make the whole game insta crash and quit.

Running, Vox with 3rd 4th UC, Expanded Wonders, Unique City States
Cleared Cache, User Data etc.

Any ideas?

 

[JamesNinelives]

Hmm, game started crashing 5-6 turns in after upgraded to the Beta just now. I did add Improved City view with the Gazebo hotpatch fix but that usually doesnt make the whole game insta crash and quit.

Running, Vox with 3rd 4th UC, Expanded Wonders, Unique City States
Cleared Cache, User Data etc.

Any ideas?

I mean, first up does this beta work fine for you if you run it without Improved City View?

 

[Hosannah]

Small question, this is normal that "(7a) Promotion Icons for VP" has another identical folder "(7a) Promotion Icons for VP" inside ? Clean install latest(today version with fix) VP + EUI.

Don't think that is normal. I had to move the contents of that subfolder one level up, otherwise that mod is missing when creating a ModPack.

 

[4CV]

Hmm, game started crashing 5-6 turns in after upgraded to the Beta just now. I did add Improved City view with the Gazebo hotpatch fix but that usually doesnt make the whole game insta crash and quit.

Running, Vox with 3rd 4th UC, Expanded Wonders, Unique City States
Cleared Cache, User Data etc.

Any ideas?

Maybe you better run VPbetas without additional mods at first, because otherwise you may have strange results.

 

[randomnub]

- Pantsloads

TIL

- New: Emperor and Deity AI get a bit more sight naturally on all units (+1 emperor, +2 deity). They'll use this to be a little better at war

Immortal?

Not a fan of this flat bonus but we'll see if it's going to just mimic human strategic view (also, at war I move 1 tile at time and act accordingly should I spot new enemy units) or causes some weirdness, lil worried about indirect fire. Am I right into assuming the AI only ''sees'' at the start of its turn?

- Stonehenge moved to Wheel

- Pyramids moved to Mining

I don't want to sound like a broken record but this makes me like even less the 4 pop requirement for settlers, are you definitely sold on it, and on pop loss + grow stop as well? Now pottery is a terrible first or even second tech (ok, as much as the wheel was before) because there's nothing in it worth rushing (granary if I already see wheat maybe, but it would still be my 3rd building after monument/shrine, if not playing Gengis. Bananas on the same tech of granary is actually a sensible choice, I'd give the resource itself a +1 buff before improvements though, else the information provided by the tech is of little use for ~20 more turns. Another idea, clearing a marsh could be moved here: on some mapscripts you have to remove that feature on some plantation resources (sugar comes to my mind), and I'd like for that action to provide an instant boost similar to the from chopping.

Techs

Mathematics has 9 prerequisites now Bit too much? Pacal isn't happy, he also lost his Atlatist edge. We could skip Military Theory, or even Trade as well since Math lost catapults and skirmishers aren't that dominant anymore. I think it would be right now to have both the Hanging Gardens and the Roman Forum share the same (4, now the forum has 3) policies requirement as well.

- Trade Route base gold now scales with Era
- Trade Route resource diversity model no longer punitive - gold on a route now increases by 10% for every resource unique to either the destination or the origin city (double bonus if its a monopoly resource)
i.e.if origin city has 3 unique resources, one of which is a monopoly, and the destination city has 5 unique resources, that would be 4(3+1) + 5 * 10 = 90%. However, if both cities have pefume, the bonus would go down by 20% 3 (2+1) + 4 * 10 = 70%[/CODE]

Huzzah. A little nerf to ITR wouldn't hurt either though, it feels like early ones offer the best returns still.

 

[randomnub]

Fixed.

I just downloaded this beta and Pyramids display a 2 policy requirement, SoZ 4. Text only?