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

[anastazjasz]

Hej Deliade what settings are you using (how many civs and what is the map script?), generated map looks dope, also seems like civs have nice space to expand, looks very balanced.

 

[Deljade]

Hej Deliade what settings are you using (how many civs and what is the map script?), generated map looks dope, also seems like civs have nice space to expand, looks very balanced.

It's tectonic map script my friend, I got it from steam workshop, huge size 14 civs some have similar colours so you may not notice on map. No coastal start location, which means it's random if you start on coast or not and more plates, which usually results in more complex landmasses, the rest of the settings were default for this game.
I wouldn't say there was much space at my continent though, only for 6 initial cities (not too many for a huge map) and I had to fight Korea for it.
If you haven't tried this map script I can strongly recommend it, it's a bit random and works best on larger sizes but never gets boring. You can just try it on the map editor and stare at all the maps it comes up with for hours : )

 

[XplosiveLun]

So after a few games on Emperor, and have 2 games passed 300 turns, I would like to share some of my thoughts. It seems common that happiness level seems to float around 40-50%. The majority of cities have the similar happiness to unhappiness ratio (around 1:1) with happiness seldom surpass unhappiness. In an Communitas Egyptian Authority game, I did exceptionally well with chariot rush/god of war. Having a continent and bordering only the Celts, I inhibited their expansion and gained a lot of yields early on. At early Industrial Era, I almost conquered half of the world, and have twice the score of the second best opponent, I have around 250 unhappiness with 212 being distress unhappiness and only a fraction being poverty, illiteracy, and boredom. Though small cities suffer more.

 

[CrazyG]

I played 4 games to turn 100 to test out the settler thing, as Spain, Brazil, America, and Zulu.

My first reaction is that tradition struggles, it just immediately falls behind in culture and science. It doesn't have much to make up for this setback, you need to steadily grow to get more culture and losing settlers hurts a lot. Maybe the best call is actually to wait a long time for settlers? Stonehenge + Pyramids could be a thing.

Progress is fine. You get slowed down but it seems a lot more fair. Authority is great, if you can tribute city states you'll get way ahead. After two settlers with imperium you will have caught up to progress in science. I've also noticed that the faith/getting a religion situation is very different due to slower settlers and shrines.

 

[ridjack]

I seem to be in the minority on this, but I'm frankly not having any fun with this patch at all. This is compared to the previous patch, where my only problem was that happiness was clearly way too easy, but otherwise I was having an absolute blast in every game I played.

I don't have one thing to point to for the reason I'm not enjoying myself, so I'll list out some things I'm seeing as 'potential issues' and see what, if anything, y'all think about it.

• The new settler system feels too harsh; I would nearly go so far as to say I hate it. Txurce commented above that I may have had a "subpar settler-building system in the first place"; I don't know whether he's right or not, but he did get me paying attention to it, and what I came away with is this: I don't want a good settler-building strategy, or at least I don't want to need it so much. It feels like I need to micromanage my population to an extreme degree just to get settlers out the way I want to, and I don't enjoy it.
• The happiness, again. Maybe I'm just an idiot, but I don't understand what's happening with it now. It's swinging wildly from turn to turn in the early game, and even adding just one new city has regularly sent me to "open rebellion" within a few turns.
• To add to the above, my go-to strategy of "eliminate and assimilate my closest neighbor ASAP" feels completely, impossibly un-viable right now. I've attempted it in several games in a row, and at best I get a useless, puppeted capital, a good standing military and forward settled by every nearby AI. In the past, I could absorb the happiness hit from annexing the capital and use it to push myself forward. With things the way they are now, taking a 3 or 4 pop capital and trying to annex it puts me somewhere around 20-30% happiness, which leaves me completely unable to do anything. Settlers go from 7-8 turns up to 18-20, and now I'm not growing so once I hit 3 pop I'm basically stuck.

Like I said, I'm ultimately just not having any fun. Maybe I just need to adapt, I dunno, but I was definitely enjoying the previous version a ton more than this one.

 

[amateurgamer88]

I played 4 games to turn 100 to test out the settler thing, as Spain, Brazil, America, and Zulu.

My first reaction is that tradition struggles, it just immediately falls behind in culture and science. It doesn't have much to make up for this setback, you need to steadily grow to get more culture and losing settlers hurts a lot. Maybe the best call is actually to wait a long time for settlers? Stonehenge + Pyramids could be a thing.

Progress is fine. You get slowed down but it seems a lot more fair. Authority is great, if you can tribute city states you'll get way ahead. After two settlers with imperium you will have caught up to progress in science. I've also noticed that the faith/getting a religion situation is very different due to slower settlers and shrines.

I do agree that Tradition struggles more when it comes to expansion. Stonehenge + Pyramids is certainly more important if you go Goddess of Beauty and want to expand. However, this does lead to situations when your enemy can forward settle you and capital generally aren't in great defensive position. In addition, fewer pop and slower growth means that you can work fewer specialists for quite awhile but that might be a good thing?

Regarding Authority, are you sure you aren't just benefiting from the Zulu the UA that gives you more yields and requires less to demand tributes? I'm curious if you tried any other Authority civs to see if you still get the same results.

 

[Rafs]

I've been playing a marathon game on emperor to test the new patch (as I hadn't played the last 3 versions or so), my impressions:
-Science slowed down a lot (I'm 2 techs into Modern era in 1886, usually I'd be in information era/late atomic by this point, depending on the policies, though to be fair I didn't focus on science).
-Growth slowed down (not that I mind, you can focus on food for some time if you really want to reach 20++ pop), this ties into science slowdown but from what I've been reading this was already present in the 2-3 previous versions.
-On huge map scripts you'll see a lot of land that isn't claimed.
-Not a fan of the settler change (either the cost increase or the pop can stay imho, but having both is very hurtful for peaceful play). Also upgrading a settler to Pioneer is crazy expensive.
-Not a fan of the tile expansion change, I've always felt this already took a lot of time, now with the settler change it feels even worse.
-I really like the change to burghers, fealty feels nice now. Progress on the other hand feels so so.
-Really appreciate the public works change, I have been able to manage my happiness very well.
-AI is very competitive, you have to stay on your toes. Very nice imo.
-I liked the fusilier line buff, and the RCS reduction, it's quite noticeable. Although ranged units seem to suffer quite harshly from city bombardment.
-It's only one game so I can't say anything that isn't annecdotical, but I'm getting spied on and having money and science stolen every 3 turns (despite having all my spies at rank 3 in my home cities), once I get the police station I supose it'll get better, but right now I just wish my spies were more capable.

Not related to this patch but I wanted to talk about it anyways:
-I tried Industry (since I hadn't played with it since a long time ago), and I was pleasantly surprised, kind of wish one of the policies helped you convert some more to other kind of yields at more than 25% effectiveness, as you do end up spending a lot ot time converting production (as you build much faster and can purchase much cheaper). This helps you be a bit more flexible with what you get as long as you invest into it.

 

[randomnub]

I like you implemented the civ6 settler-takes-a-pop rule, but with that in place you might want to let the city grow while producing settlers.

The 4 citizens limit also feels a bit arbitrary, 2 was all we needed (assuming 1 citizen is lost when a settler spawns, we must leave at least one pop behind): it enables different strategies, should we spawn near a NW or a good chokepoint, while with a 4 pop limit I feel all my starts look the same.

 

[pineappledan]

I seem to be in the minority on this, but I'm frankly not having any fun with this patch at all. This is compared to the previous patch, where my only problem was that happiness was clearly way too easy, but otherwise I was having an absolute blast in every game I played.

I don't have one thing to point to for the reason I'm not enjoying myself, so I'll list out some things I'm seeing as 'potential issues' and see what, if anything, y'all think about it.

• The new settler system feels too harsh; I would nearly go so far as to say I hate it. Txurce commented above that I may have had a "subpar settler-building system in the first place"; I don't know whether he's right or not, but he did get me paying attention to it, and what I came away with is this: I don't want a good settler-building strategy, or at least I don't want to need it so much. It feels like I need to micromanage my population to an extreme degree just to get settlers out the way I want to, and I don't enjoy it.
• The happiness, again. Maybe I'm just an idiot, but I don't understand what's happening with it now. It's swinging wildly from turn to turn in the early game, and even adding just one new city has regularly sent me to "open rebellion" within a few turns.
• To add to the above, my go-to strategy of "eliminate and assimilate my closest neighbor ASAP" feels completely, impossibly un-viable right now. I've attempted it in several games in a row, and at best I get a useless, puppeted capital, a good standing military and forward settled by every nearby AI. In the past, I could absorb the happiness hit from annexing the capital and use it to push myself forward. With things the way they are now, taking a 3 or 4 pop capital and trying to annex it puts me somewhere around 20-30% happiness, which leaves me completely unable to do anything. Settlers go from 7-8 turns up to 18-20, and now I'm not growing so once I hit 3 pop I'm basically stuck.

Like I said, I'm ultimately just not having any fun. Maybe I just need to adapt, I dunno, but I was definitely enjoying the previous version a ton more than this one.

This mirrors my own experience. I have only played 1 and a bit games so far, but I had to completely reroll by turn 80 because i went from 60% to 17% in about 10 turns after I settled a 4th city and started a war with my neighbor. The swing for 1 additional city combined with war weariness put me into open rebellion, then a city seceded and I quit. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm having a miserable time, but the new system makes settling new cities so costly, that this hyper-sensitive early happiness feels even more harsh.

 

[Chandler]

I personally don't like the "settler-takes-a-pop" system. I didn't like it in Civ VI, and I dislike it here even more, if the growth stagnates. Not sure why, it just feels "punishing" to train a settler, as if your efforts for growing don't mean anything: you manage to grow just to see your city lose another pop again.

Maybe it doesn't make that much sense, but I'm just talking about how it makes me feel, not about how well balanced it might be. If this change stays, I'd really like for an option to disable it.

 

[Revolutionist_8]

Either -1 Pop and let the City grow, or City stops growing but no Pop loss. I think the two at the same time a bit too much.

 

[XplosiveLun]

I tend to agree expansion is rather unrewarding and harsh in generally. 4-pop requirement is okay I guess. It makes the pacing in the early game feel nice. It forces you to make something this or that instead of "early settlers". It kinda encourages you to build some infrastructures and units before you start expanding. Besides, it makes Pottery not my "first to go" tech anymore since I can't build them in pop 2 or 3. It is a positive change in a way that it diversify decisions. The stagnant growth and consume population when finishing a settler is nice. In practice, it may alleviates unhappiness for overpopulated city, by eliminating 1 pop. And as a bonus, also increase your "potential" by founding a new city. It also resembles settlers in real life; to escape the harsh condition and search for opportunities. Neat. I think we can expand this theme further.

As for the cost of expanding, in my experience a small empire (i.e. ~4 cities) feels very stable in general. However, new cities beyond that tend to punish too hard. While I think it is acceptable to have cities producing 50:50 happiness to unhappiness (50% approval rate), it does not feel "human mouthful".

Don't get me wrong, I think it is the right direction to have punishment for empire mismanagement but man, it is very frustrating indeed. After all these time spent keeping your empire running smooth, bad things just pop up left and right nonstop. Unlike vanilla system, things could get much worse in CBP.

Besides, while the current happiness system that emphasizes on "fulfilling citizen need" is promising and is sometimes interesting in other iterations, the current iteration just seem... off. I think it just seem to roll back to the vanilla mechanic where distress become the sole factor of unhappiness. Sufficient to say in my games, around 50 to 90% of unhappiness can come from distress, much like 1 pop = 1 distress. Just like 1 pop = 1 unhappiness in vanilla. And the only way to reduce distress is... working on farms or mines do not work. Let's build a barrack or constabulary, just like building a Colosseum or circus. It is all about raw happiness in the end.

My final though is that while large empire stability in CBP is higher than vanilla throughout different iterations, and "fulfilling citizen needs" is decent, in the end, it is still the same happiness system with extra steps.

 

[Stalker0]

So I think the consensus is “right direction, but too much”.

So probably roll back the needs increases a bit, not as easy as the last version bit easier than now. Keep the -1 pop but let cities grow, or don’t enforce a 4 pop limit, etc. aka some adjustment to reduce the punishment for settlers, but still more punishing than the previous version.

 

[ridjack]

So I think the consensus is “right direction, but too much”.

So probably roll back the needs increases a bit, not as easy as the last version bit easier than now. Keep the -1 pop but let cities grow, or don’t enforce a 4 pop limit, etc. aka some adjustment to reduce the punishment for settlers, but still more punishing than the previous version.

I'd like to add, with all due respect (which is a lot):

Please, for the love of all things holy, tweak it before changing how it works again. Pretty please?

I'm personally not going to be doing any more testing on this version; I'm rolling back to the previous patch until the next one drops.

 

[Stalker0]

I'd like to add, with all due respect (which is a lot):

Please, for the love of all things holy, tweak it before changing how it works again. Pretty please?

I'm personally not going to be doing any more testing on this version; I'm rolling back to the previous patch until the next one drops.

As G has noted before, beta patches like this are by design experimental. Aka try at your own risk.

 

[ridjack]

As G has noted before, beta patches like this are by design experimental. Aka try at your own risk.

Mais oui. I'd just like to be able to try some patches that make finer usage of the levers G has been adding all this time. I'd make and try some of the changes myself, but frankly the math is all over my head even if the code itself weren't.

 

[Txurce]

This mirrors my own experience. I have only played 1 and a bit games so far, but I had to completely reroll by turn 80 because I went from 60% to 17% in about 10 turns after I settled a 4th city and started a war with my neighbor. The swing for 1 additional city combined with war weariness put me into open rebellion, then a city seceded and I quit. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm having a miserable time, but the new system makes settling new cities so costly, that this hyper-sensitive early happiness feels even more harsh.

I had a similar experience my first game: built 4 cities and puppeted two more in my first 75 turns. Someone else attacks me, my production is kaput, and all of a sudden I realize that my happiness is under 35%. I wasn't paying attention because — no need to in the first 75 turns, right?

So I started another game, decided that maybe I should monitor the situation this time, and after an oddly similar start — 4 cities, 2 puppets — my happiness hovered around 50%. Now I'm on t250, and my happiness has ranged between 41% and 56% all that time, with me keeping a loose eye on my individual cities. (Definitely not micro-managing.) To me this translates to the happiness difficulty being in basically the right place, because with more of an effort I'd be safely over 50% all the time.

But back to the early game: I really enjoy the way it slows everything down. I described the traditional VP opening round as the Big Bang, and that's what we all do: manically send out settlers to insta-claim as much desirable land as possible. Having now seen an alternative, going back to that feels one-dimensional and not nearly as interesting. I enjoy everything taking longer, from religion to Wonders to building an army, because it enriches the initial-expansion phase.

So I think the consensus is “right direction, but too much”.

So probably roll back the needs increases a bit, not as easy as the last version bit easier than now. Keep the -1 pop but let cities grow, or don’t enforce a 4 pop limit, etc. aka some adjustment to reduce the punishment for settlers, but still more punishing than the previous version.

I'll vote with the current consensus, but just barely. In my opinion, Tradition needs a slight boost to settle a bit faster. Progress is great for me, and Authority is apparently doing better. If I had to roll back something, it would be growth while building a settler. Cities needing to be size 4 and losing a pop with each settler is the key to a much more interesting game. In fact, I'd say Gazebo has come close to nailing it in terms of variety and engagement.

 

[ridjack]

So I'll vote with the current consensus, but just barely. In my opinion, Tradition needs a slight boost to settle a bit faster. Progress is great for me, and Authority is apparently doing better. If I had to roll back something, it would be growth while building a settler. Cities needing to be size 4 and losing a pop with each settler is the key to a much more interesting game. In fact, I'd say Gazebo has come close to nailing it in terms of variety and engagement.

I think with the happiness better under control and a bit more room in general to expand early on, I'd be 90% in agreement with you. I did notice immediately that it felt 'deeper' with things slowed down, and I liked that; it just got overshadowed by all the problems I had afterwards.

The only thing I'm a bit iffy on is whether they need to be losing a pop.

 

[Legen]

I think with the happiness better under control and a bit more room in general to expand early on, I'd be 90% in agreement with you. I did notice immediately that it felt 'deeper' with things slowed down, and I liked that; it just got overshadowed by all the problems I had afterwards.

As I played more, it's starting to feel in this direction as well. The main note, though, is that civs based on a strong earlygame are heavily affected, as they can't capitalize as well from their early advantages. Carthage isn't the only one, I had the same with the Celts; other civs are catching up with them much earlier than usual.

Playing with Byzantium didn't felt hard with the changes. This patch has reduced a lot the gap between civs with and without major earlygame benefits, to the point that we may need to buff the former in some way, if we keep this direction.

 

[Gazebo]

As noted elsewhere, these are beta releases intended to push extremes of change. If you're looking for a 'balanced normal game' plan the current stable release.

G