New Beta Version - December 20th (12/20)

[pineappledan]

Oh boy, here I go killing again.

I just had some really mean AI in my last game, playing 12-20-1 up to Atomic I was playing a custom civ (Tlingit), who probably need to be nerfed, based on how I broke off from the pack so early.

I liberated a city for a civ and they immediately backstabbed me. I recall Recursive put some hard limits on that behaviour, which is why I wanted to try it out, but maybe it was one of the things that was left out?

Went Freedom, and with Urbanization up at 4, everything looks so good, I didn't know what to pick. I think Freedom really is in a good place now. I had a joint war declared on me right as I was opening up the ideology tree, so I picked Draft Registration first. Good lord, this thing should be tier 2. If I were Assyria I don't think I would choose any other tree for this tenet alone. being able to buy full XP units is insanely good.

Is it just me, or are other people avoiding Engineer slots these days? The yields on Engineer specialists lag behind other slots, and don't really get much better. I was choosing between 7 merchant slots or 4Engineer slots, and that didn't seem right to me.

 

[Recursive]

Oh boy, here I go killing again.

I just had some really mean AI in my last game, playing 12-20-1 up to Atomic I was playing a custom civ (Tlingit), who probably need to be nerfed, based on how I broke off from the pack so early.

I liberated a city for a civ and they immediately backstabbed me. I recall Recursive put some hard limits on that behaviour, which is why I wanted to try it out, but maybe it was one of the things that was left out?

Went Freedom, and with Urbanization up at 4, everything looks so good, I didn't know what to pick. I think Freedom really is in a good place now. I had a joint war declared on me right as I was opening up the ideology tree, so I picked Draft Registration first. Good lord, this thing should be tier 2. If I were Assyria I don't think I would choose any other tree for this tenet alone. being able to buy full XP units is insanely good.

What kind of backstabbing? Denouncement or declaration of war?

 

[pineappledan]

declaration of war from a DoF within 4 turns of me liberating a city for them. I think the AI assessed that they were in a much stronger position with their 4-core cities returned to them. Made Austria feel better about her chances.

 

[Yaviel]

12-20-3 uploaded. Savegame compatible. Fixes merge issue from @Recursive's missing SQL update modinfo code.

G

Thank you.
Merry Christmas to the Vox Populi team and community!

 

[Teholb]

12-20-3 MP, just VP+EUI.

 

[ASCII Guy]

12-20-3 MP, just VP+EUI.

Damn, that was fast.

 

[Teholb]

Damn, that was fast.

I'm super stoked about the diplo changes, hats off to @Recursive .

 

[Earf]

Looks great! Thank you to all that contributed. There's a lot of late game changes in this patch. Does that mean CPP is close to complete?

 

[Recursive]

declaration of war from a DoF within 4 turns of me liberating a city for them. I think the AI assessed that they were in a much stronger position with their 4-core cities returned to them. Made Austria feel better about her chances.

Possibly a merge error; AI currently is set to never backstab players they have a DoF with via a DoW. If you observe this again with 12-20-3 please open a bug report on Github.

Also, happy holidays everyone!

 

[Coffee Monopoly]

There's a lot of late game changes in this patch. Does that mean CPP is close to complete?

I think it just means that lategame is still very raw and will need heavy testing before it's in a reasonable state of balance. CPP will never be complete btw.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not but I skipped a couple of previous builds and in my 2 matches on this release i noticed that for some reason the game is actually much easier on emperor than i recall when i last played; i was really struggling to survive in emperor before while getting overrun by the other civs .... i don't see any relevant changes to AI bonuses or behavior, is it just a feeling or did the AI bonuses get hammered ? could someone point the patch AI got nerfed if that's the case ?

 

[Earf]

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not but I skipped a couple of previous builds and in my 2 matches on this release i noticed that for some reason the game is actually much easier on emperor than i recall when i last played; i was really struggling to survive in emperor before while getting overrun by the other civs .... i don't see any relevant changes to AI bonuses or behavior, is it just a feeling or did the AI bonuses get hammered ? could someone point the patch AI got nerfed if that's the case ?

I also noticed this. I noticed AI has smaller armies, and I think that is making the game easier. I think something with the AI was fixed and that resulted in the AI not building as large of armies as they used to (just a guess). Maybe move up to Immortal and see how it goes.

 

[Gazebo]

I'm not sure if this is off topic or not but I skipped a couple of previous builds and in my 2 matches on this release i noticed that for some reason the game is actually much easier on emperor than i recall when i last played; i was really struggling to survive in emperor before while getting overrun by the other civs .... i don't see any relevant changes to AI bonuses or behavior, is it just a feeling or did the AI bonuses get hammered ? could someone point the patch AI got nerfed if that's the case ?

We've been slowly scaling back AI handicaps over time as the AI gets better.

G

 

[Omen of Peace]

Great changes all around!

I had a weird thing happen with this beta (hotfix #1): I had 10 tech, Korea had 11 and Netherlands 6... And for some reason, many turns later, I have 23 while they still have 11 and 6.
I'll probably try re-installing/re-making my modpack with the latest hotfix.

Something else I keep forgetting to mention: when I use Improved City View (such a great UI mod!), I don't have a line for Unhappiness in the City view. Is that only me?

Finally, overall, there hasn't been much feedback on the city strength decrease in the previous version. Do people think it's OK? Are warmongers still in check?

 

[Stalker0]

Finally, overall, there hasn't been much feedback on the city strength decrease in the previous version. Do people think it's OK? Are warmongers still in check?

I’m a big fan of the CS change, I think the gameplay is overall better for it

 

[pineappledan]

I like the lower CS, but I wish the base damage on city ranged attacks was higher.

it would be nice if the base damage was enough that we didn’t have to have +100% damage modifiers on castles and military bases. I wish those were more modest +50% boosts.

 

[TranceBlossom]

I like the lower CS, but I wish the base damage on city ranged attacks was higher.

it would be nice if the base damage was enough that we didn’t have to have +100% damage modifiers on castles and military bases. I wish those were more modest +50% boosts.

I feel like that’d make them OP in early eras

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I feel like that’d make them OP in early eras

It doesn't have to be 50 or 100%. But the damage from early city attack is far far too low. Attacking a barbarian unit with my capital and only doing 10 damage is annoying.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I'd prefer if the damage from city bombardment had a minimum of damage set higher than 10.

 

[civplayer33]

Does anyone know what determines City Health after capture? I have cases where the City has half HP right after being captured but also other cases where it has almost zero HP...feels pretty random as I can't distinguish a pattern here; is it a bug?