Txurce
Deity
FWIW, I did about as well with Carthage as I have in the past. Their hidden advanatge now is that CS also grow more slowly, so you can extract tribute from them longer with your navy.
New Beta Version - August 5th (8-5)
- Thread starter Gazebo
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FWIW, I did about as well with Carthage as I have in the past. Their hidden advanatge now is that CS also grow more slowly, so you can extract tribute from them longer with your navy.
This can't be emphasized enough. My key take-away is this version has only exposed the fact that 95% of previous games start out opening with pottery, and it's lame...
I'm in favour of keeping it from regressing back into that state. Of course there still needs to be adjustments, but I generally like the new pacing and believe Zebo is on the right track.
Noob Fanboy
Warlord
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2017
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- 285
I still keep opening with pottery though, a early granary after monument isn't a bad strategy when you're playing Ethiopia
pineappledan
Deity
For my part, i think reducing the min pop required to 3 and dropping StopGrowth would be ideal.
I like the lose 1 pop mechanic, makes it really like an investment, but reducing the min pop to 2 would potentially mean a city had HALF its population up and leave. That seems silly.
I like the lose 1 pop mechanic, makes it really like an investment, but reducing the min pop to 2 would potentially mean a city had HALF its population up and leave. That seems silly.
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Pottery 2nd absolutely, but pottery 1st? Unless I'm going a Stonehenge rush I would never get that tech first, your still working on your monument, shrine, warrior after you finish your first tech, there's no time for the settler yet.
Patch is interesting, further expansion eventually feels very difficult. Authority is very strong now.
Allowing cities to grow while producing settlers could be interesting (while keeping the population loss of course). The way food converts to some production while building settlers is awkward, and makes building settlers quite hard on food-heavy starts. Plus the AI/tile-chooser often chooses the wrong tiles when producing settlers! Not a big deal, but annoying. Letting cities grow would remove these issues, and could make food competitive with production in the early game.
Allowing cities to grow while producing settlers could be interesting (while keeping the population loss of course). The way food converts to some production while building settlers is awkward, and makes building settlers quite hard on food-heavy starts. Plus the AI/tile-chooser often chooses the wrong tiles when producing settlers! Not a big deal, but annoying. Letting cities grow would remove these issues, and could make food competitive with production in the early game.
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On the minimum pop for a settler, the best strategy will usually be to build him at the minimum pop (so 4 right now), otherwise you just pay more food to recover the lost citizen. If the minimum is 2 I think we return to a settler spam meta, because you want to build them while they are "cheaper" in terms of food.
Last patch, absolutely pottery first (unless you had a really weird start). It has always been a good idea just in case you reveal a natural wonder when scouting. Authority was the only path where I would pursue something else, and even with authority rushing out a second city for a second monument could really pay off.
This is driving me crazy. It will run away from food once a settler is in the queue, including working a 1 food 1 hammer tile instead of a 3 food 1 hammer tile, losing 1 production by doing so. It isn't that hard to just personally lock the tiles, but gosh it make my brain hurt to watch the city manager do this.
JamesNinelives
Emperor
I haven't played enough to give feedback on everything yet, but I can dispute this quite to some degree. Playing Shoshone things seem well balanced to me. I'm still able to grab an early lead (or at least set myself up for a lead). Settlers requiring population to produce gives food a great deal of value, which makes the food from my encampments real choice. As someone mentioned earlier, being able to get +pop from early ruins is worth a lot more now too.
I find the happiness well balanced too. Maybe that's because I don't expand as rapidly as other people, but I still end up with a lot of cities over time. For people who are struggling with happiness on this patch, I would suggest looking for new sources of happiness or prioritizing things that give you happiness higher. Working luxuries is one of the things I focus on, but meeting other civs so that I can trade for more is also important. Meeting city-states early so that you can benefit from city-state quests is quite valuable too. The yields from city-states aren't huge, but in the early game even one friendship can make a significant difference relative to what you are producing yourself.
I'm aware my advice probably isn't relevant to those playing on quite different settings. For example, on higher difficulties it may be neccesary to conquer your neighbours early on in order to stay competitive? I sympathise if those strategies aren't as viable on this patch. That said, it has always annoyed me a little that it seems easier to take other people's cities in the early-game than it is to build your own. I don't regret that early-game threats are real, as it forces me to build a defense force to protect what I've claimed, which keeps things interesting.
So far though, at least in terms of my experience, I'm enjoying this patch more that I expected I would. I'm not sure if I like or dislike settlers requiring population - it has both good and bad points. The negative is mostly that I'm sad to loose population from my capital early-game. The positive is that I'm not worrying as much about forward-settling from the AI (although that may also be due to the other limitions on settlers in this patch.
Spoiler Game 1 :
Spoiler Game 2 - had a very lucky start :
Spoiler So close and yet so far :
Tell that to the AIs who consistently found their second city 30-35 turns into every King+ game regardless of opening policy, since always. Of course there are exceptions, but AI build orders (through prior versions) most likely show they are taking pottery either first or second in almost every instance I'd imagine, and for good reason. I noticed the first glaring difference while moving up over time from Prince/King/Emperor is that unless I opened with pottery and got a settler out asap, I'd be forward settled and lose out on key spots 9/10 times.
The warmongers out there probably do this all the time, but I've never had such a start so I wanted to share. I was authority japan with 6 CS in my backpocket, completely away from other civs. I had a field day. Got 5 horses early and just tribute tribute tribute. I could tribute 3 of the CS all at once with my horses in one key spot. Hehe and just got a quest to take one out as an icing on the cake. Now this is fun! The tribute party is starting to end, so its time to claim my new empire one city at a time
I'll note on happiness. 5 cities, couldn't stay happy. The crux was funny enough....religious division. I had spread to all of my cities, but it wasn't enough, and so I was getting 1 or 2 unhappiness from it. It actually really mattered at this stage in the game.
I'll note on happiness. 5 cities, couldn't stay happy. The crux was funny enough....religious division. I had spread to all of my cities, but it wasn't enough, and so I was getting 1 or 2 unhappiness from it. It actually really mattered at this stage in the game.
XplosiveLun
A humble village
Spoiler :
In my main cities, most unhappiness come from distress while poverty, illiteracy, and boredom contributes no unhappiness in practice. Even if I managed to lower distress, other factors will lead to unhappiness, which is the case of my capital. The bright side is that unhappiness cannot exceed population. And my happiness bonus from policies, buildings, and luxurious resources balance out the unhappiness, resulting in 40-50% stability.
In other words, unhappiness reduction building or policy seems ineffective while raw happiness is more effective.
Puppet cities are bad choice for mid or long-term. It is better to annex conquered cities, since puppet cities can't produce happiness but generate unhappiness. While puppets only generate 0.5 unhappiness per citizen, no happiness bonus can be applied. While annexed or founded cities normally generate 1 unhappiness per citizen and 1 happiness in balance.
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IMO Shoshone are one of the most powerful civs right now if you play with huts. AI has less starting units so they will last a lot longer these days even on high difficulty. Pop your first hut into a Scout for increased vision+toughness and then pop techs and faith and when you can't get either xp/hammers/gold. Faith is almost a free Stonehenge and much of the time you will be able to get it with a highly promoted scout running around into the badlands. Even in the worst case you will always get a super scout to play with in the early game, plus a tech and a bit more.
Add to that they have the land grabbing and a pretty good UI (it's kind of funny how the Shoshone are good with Expanse/Tradition because of that), it's a very powerful civ.
JamesNinelives
Emperor
I mean, if you don't play with huts that nerfs them pretty hard
.I agree with the rest though. It is a bit luck of the draw - sometimes you will get exceptional luck and be miles ahead - other times you'll start next to the AI and arrive just in time to see them grab the hut you were going for. It's exiting though! Feels like your choices really matter - whether to scout the other side of that hill, or try your luck through thick jungle.
I don't know how to judge most 'powerful' civ, but in my games China, America, Russia, and Ethiopia all tend to give me pretty strong competition. Austria's diplomatic marriage can be a pain to play against. Japan's UB and UU combine into a force to be reckoned with. And I've always been jealous of the Celt's unique pantheons, they seem really good.
My too. Last 2 games with authority play i found it hard to stay at 50%, even only getting 5 cities.
pineappledan
Deity
my current game had me starting with a quarry and a forest plantation resource, so I pretty much had to research the entire ancient tree before I could connect my luxuries. I ended up settling my 4th city on a forest lux just so I could make it through the short term.
XplosiveLun
A humble village
Starting with "Production" resources like tea really jump start things IMO. "Gold" Resources like perfume, tobacco need some time to get their shining monopoly bonus to kick in.
Pop requirement and pop decrease are enough to limit early expansion. I think we can drop the scaling cost.
Pop decrease makes it always better to build settlers at pop 4 than higher population. What if we make settlers cost a fixed/scaling amount of food instead?
Pop decrease makes it always better to build settlers at pop 4 than higher population. What if we make settlers cost a fixed/scaling amount of food instead?
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