New Beta Version - August 5th (8-5)

[ridjack]

Even on King (where I don't believe the AI gets a free worker?), I'm having serious trouble competing with the AI for settling spots. Even if I do manage to successfully lock down a key spot, they inevitably forward settle me on one or two more before my next settler can show up.

 

[Txurce]

Even on King (where I don't believe the AI gets a free worker?), I'm having serious trouble competing with the AI for settling spots. Even if I do manage to successfully lock down a key spot, they inevitably forward settle me on one or two more before my next settler can show up.

Can't blame that on the patch on King. It's on your playstyle or your settings.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Can't blame that on the patch on King. It's on your playstyle or your settings.

Well, some of us are still learning how best to play with the changes - which do affect settlers. Not to mention we all have different levels of experience with VP in general.

We could probably give more meaningful feedback if we knew the specifics of ridjack's situation. E.g. have you found forward settling to be an issue on previous patches?

 

[JamesNinelives]

I also would like to be at a point where we're using smaller changes then we have been to balance things.

If we want more moderate changes we could start by giving moderate feedback. Changes in this patch may be a bit overkill, but I think what we got is actually pretty close to what we asked for.

 

[Deljade]

I had not seen a lot of stupid runaways lately but thankfully the game reminded me that it's still civ 5. At least there's two of them this time, Tradition Poland with 14 policies and 31 techs and Progress Carthage with 11 policies and 34 techs as well as a bunch of wonders, Russia honorable mention with 34 techs and my Parthenon... Some observations on how the game feels;

-Tradition vs Progress for the AI seems relatively even.
-The happiness feels good. It allowed long war with Harald, suffering 17 war weariness right now. It's just taking too long to take more than a city of his with the great wall and fealty. Might need Gunpowder to make more of a dent. A couple cities are suffering from local unhappiness at this point. I'll see how I'll deal with this...
-Kinda strugging with food at this point. I'm definitely missing the food from going fealty or a personalised religion or even the authority border food. Still 5th with pop though so... China is first by far on pop, even though she is not necessarily doing too well otherwise, I like that let's try to maintain this China flavour.
-The settler situation hasn't been a problem really. My capital handled it but I've got a few maritime allies. Therefore, I don't necessarily have a strong opinion on it, if people like it I'm okay with it. @ridjack you might want to describe your game more specifically so that we can deduce what happened : )
-Unit cap feels a bit low for the amount of units I need.

This game doesn't feel as engaging as the few I've played before. Might be that I didn't get the two wonders I actually wanted but a couple other ones instead. I'm also struggling to keep up with culture even with constant warfare and culture from Acropolis buildings. Might be that the runaways are too strong in that regard. The fact that I didn't get a religion makes Diplomatic Victory considerably harder too. I see some outs from this situation that entails some further expansion to secure trade routes to the runaways, it will definitely put me on many people's crosshairs, if taking out Sejong won't do it already. I could probably take him out earlier but the warmonger penalty was rather heavy and I wanted him to set more Great Person Improvements aaand people paid hefty sums for me to leave him in peace.

 

[zeofig]

Seem to be getting some strange behaviour with happiness... Barbarians are spawning and the tooltip says I'm below 20%, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Or am I misunderstanding something?

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Seem to be getting some strange behaviour with happiness... Barbarians are spawning and the tooltip says I'm below 20%, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Or am I misunderstanding something?

You're under 35% which means Barbs will spawn and your cities can secede (if you're under 20% this speeds up). The tooltips for these thresholds are accidentally switched in this beta version but will be fixed pretty soon.

 

[ridjack]

Can't blame that on the patch on King. It's on your playstyle or your settings.

I mean, this is a problem I didn't have in previous patches that I'm consistently having now, and none of the other variables have changed on my end. It's certainly possible that it's my strategy that's lacking, but I don't think it's fair to say that's necessarily the case.

 

[pineappledan]

I am definitely getting the feel that every AI is leagues ahead of me in settling every game, regardless of starting positions or policies(well, more so than usual). By the time I get my first settler(let alone second), the AIs have two extra cities AND a bigger capital, somehow. Dunno if it's just been the games I've so far started, but it's pretty discouraging. (Playing on Emperor.)

I think the cause is that Worker the AI starts with. The ability to get farms from the very start and get it faster means they have a huge advantage in the early game regarding settling cities. Now imagine the AI with floodplains start and get those farms so they have 5 Food tiles.

I complained about this over the recent months, but ever since I started editing starting conditions (no starting worker and each civ starts with warrior/pathfinder) using "Really Advanced Setup", things have been solid. I might even try stepping up to immortal soon.

This is pretty encouraging. If more people report this then maybe that means another bonus can be taken from the AI, or at least moved back to higher difficulties

 

[Txurce]

I mean, this is a problem I didn't have in previous patches that I'm consistently having now, and none of the other variables have changed on my end. It's certainly possible that it's my strategy that's lacking, but I don't think it's fair to say that's necessarily the case.

What I should have taken the time to say is that on King the AI advantage in the Big Bang period wouldn't explain being unable to nail even one key spot, or nailing it but being forward-settled in general. They basically have the same set of circumstances that you do, but it sounded to me like you were blaming your situation on the patch.

Given that you say your strategy hasn't changed, and it's happened consistently enough to rule out bad geography, I'd guess that the problem is having had a subpar settler-building system in the first place, which is proving to be fatal in a tougher environment. For comparison, I play on Immortal, with the AI having no starting worker. So far I've consistently built four cities keeping pace with the AI, and one time managed to build Halicarnassus in the process.

Since the core element of settler-building now — having a size-four city — is obvious, I wonder how quickly you build a worker; whether you take advantage of tribute to raise your pop; and if you sometimes wait a couple of turns to hit size 5 before switching back to settler-building. More rarely, and dependent on resources, you could counter-intuitively take the time to build a stone works during the pop-raising turn, or even a Wonder like Halicarnassus first, then spit out your settlers afterward.

EDIT: Not everyone likes doing this, but I also use my pathfinder/scout to cripple my nearest neighbor whenever possible by stealing a worker or (more of a gamble) lurking to snag a settler.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

EDIT: Not everyone likes doing this, but I also use my pathfinder/scout to cripple my nearest neighbor whenever possible by stealing a worker or (more of a gamble) lurking to snag a settler.

It have happened 1 time in the last 12 months, that the AI attacked me and captured one of my undefended settlers out of the blue, but sometimes they declared war on me but didt steal the worker they were able to.
So yes, stealing worker and pillaging their lands feels like cheating, cause I know, the AI simply cant do the same. Maybe such things are necessary in deity games to stay competitive with the AI bonuses, but in the end, its a flavor thing if you do it or not.

And yes, I think the major difference from king to emperor comes from the free worker for the AI. Before you are able to finish one, the AI may be able to create a farm triangle on a river and already get 5 yield tiles. This early yield burst cant be compensated by good play of the human. On the other site, AI starting in jungle or woods without improvable tiles, have a useless worker and their bonus to compete better against human is useless and cost only gold.

 

[DeAnno]

It have happened 1 time in the last 12 months, that the AI attacked me and captured one of my undefended settlers out of the blue

The closest thing to this that's happened to me lately is when I was scouting near an AI, and they demanded tribute of three luxuries. I refused and they killed my high promoted pathfinder, was pretty amusing.

 

[Deljade]

Something I am perplexed about is the pioneer cost in the mid game;

Spoiler Pioneer cost :

Why should settling a city be so expensive later on in the game? It can make sense flavour wise if you try hard enough (less space in the world so its more costly to create colonies, overextension etc) but makes no sense as a game mechanic. Settling mid game cities, even with pioneers, is already of dubious usefulness. Without certain religions/planning you can basically forget about cultural victory if you settle a lot of newer cities, the science and culture payoff may come too late, especially without Progress. It will get you into conflict with the AI a lot. In addition it doesn't feel good, at least to me, to see the AI freely creating sprawling global empires while I just sit about, I feel the need to colonise myself, even if it will mess up my chances at cultural victory.
And now you need to halt growth in your cities for 15 turns AND lose a pop to do that! I think we should be more incentivised to settle good islands and vacant continents, not less.

Though, I have to repeat, I do not necessarily disagree with the settler change, I just feel that if we are going through with it, this particular aspect of the game (mid game expansion and colonisation) should be tweaked ever so slightly, so that this sort of expansion is more lucrative. I'll show some examples of spots we should be incentivised to colonise, in addition to filling empty space around our continent. I've got my sights in a few of these places and I'll try to settle them. Will see how that affects my game but I already know from previous experience that my tourism will take a massive hit, while science and culture will take a lot of time to recover, not to mention happiness!

Spoiler Large, empty continents that can support multiple cities :

Spoiler Small continents with resources and Natural Wonders that can support 2-3 cities :

Spoiler Large Islands with luxuries/strategics and sea resources that can support 1 city :

Spoiler Small and medium sized Islands with sea resources and strategic location :

 

[saamohod]

Seem to be getting some strange behaviour with happiness... Barbarians are spawning and the tooltip says I'm below 20%, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Or am I misunderstanding something?

Nice long rivers. What map generator are you using?

 

[JamesNinelives]

I do not necessarily disagree with the settler change, I just feel that if we are going through with it, this particular aspect of the game (mid game expansion and colonisation) should be tweaked ever so slightly, so that this sort of expansion is more lucrative.

Well said. You've provided some good examples there!

 

[CrazyG]

On the note of pioneers and settlers, conquistadors are really, really good.

Just curious, what has changed in your setup between the last working version and now? Did your system update? / Did you touch the user rights? Changed your antivirus (/settings)?

Have you tried searching for the UI_bc1 folder? Did it land somewhere else?

I had the Magnus modpack in to play multiplayer, but I removed it. So it looks like the current installer just won't add the UI_bc1 folder, and it will crash if you use an old UI_bc1 and all 7 components. I'm running a game with just the first two, so far as good.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

On the note of pioneers and settlers, conquistadors are really, really good.
I had the Magnus modpack in to play multiplayer, but I removed it. So it looks like the current installer just won't add the UI_bc1 folder, and it will crash if you use an old UI_bc1 and all 7 components. I'm running a game with just the first two, so far as good.

Are you having any problems in multiplayer with non-host players losing yields and bonuses from their culture picks / buildings?

 

[zeofig]

Nice long rivers. What map generator are you using?

Good old Oval

 

[DarkZero]

I think @iDeljade is correct here, not only the settler cost increase should be removed from colonists and pioneers, but these units should even be buffed!https://forums.civfanatics.com/members/deljade.319851/

 

[CrazyG]

I'm 100 turns into a game and the settler situation looks fine.

A tip for people wanting to use pioneers, build a settler and upgrade it with gold to a pioneer, the upgrade cost probably won't scale with city number.

Are you having any problems in multiplayer with non-host players losing yields and bonuses from their culture picks / buildings?

I did not notice this in multiplayer, but the only bonus yields we had were progress.