New Beta Version - Feb. 9th (2-9)

[CrazyG]

View attachment 546322
Would it even be possible to complete this quest? I mean wouldn't going to war with them nullify all their quests before fulfilling the quest has a chance to trigger?

You can only complete the quest if another civ takes allied status.

 

[Gazebo]

People complaining deity beeing too easy may be wrong and correct at same time.
The fact the most high tier players are playing epic speed is a bit like cheating, cause you improve the time you are able to conquer your enemies by 50%, while for every other win condition, nothing changes. If you really want bigger challenges, try to get a Domination victory on a standard or large map with standard speed (on deity), maybe your game experience will change a bit.
The other part (too easy) may not have to do with the decreased bonuses for the AI, but simply with worse playing AI since some months.

Spoiler 1.) Improvements :

Ive watching the AI getting worse and worse in building improvements. They build now more forts on the borders but at the same time, they neglect everything else. Since over 6 months, the AI refuses to improve some plantation luxuries behind forests, and I cant explain why this is already known for so long but at the same time ignored. The AI civs in my game have all only as much or even less worker than cities. In some of the AI cities, only two third or sometimes only half the amount of citizens are able to work improvements, cause the rest of the territory is barren lands. Some of the cities are working unimproved hills or jungle tiles, and this after 250 turns. Often farms are performing under their ability, cause neighboring tiles are not improved with other farms, using the adjactancy bonuses. Constructing and using the adjactancy bonuses for lumbermills is the same. It seems the AI only build improvements, if they are directly necessary in the moment, but didnt plan into the future. Its unknown to me, if the AI uses city focuses, but this doesnt may change anything, cause it has constructed only enough mines and farms for the standard setting, but not for a hammer or food focus.

Spoiler 2.) AI growth :

Ive noticed now for long, that from around mid renaissance, but not later than mid industrial age, most of the AI cities are running many specialits and/or food low tiles, which lead to an extreme slow growth. The standard governor setting seems to target very often a food surplus of only 30 food. Together with the direct AI yield bonuses a suprlus of food by that amount may be enough in pre-renaissance, but definitly not enough from industrial age on / cities with a size bigger than 20. By entering the industrial age, most of my cities are often 5+ citizens bigger than the average AI cities (even with progress). My capital sometimes 10 citizens bigger than other capitals. The fact a lot of people feel the mid to late game is too easy may be a result of the AI kinda completly neglecting growth already from the mid of the game. Using IGE in several games reveal AI cities which need 20-30 turns till the next citizen is born (some growth civs excluded, but Ive seen India cities with only average city sizes too). Having nearly all time 20-50% more citizens per city than the AI is something that I wouldnt really expect, buts every game like this. (I agree I love growth, but AI has other bonuses which should be able to compensate this, but it doesnt happen)

Spoiler 3.) AI religious mess :

The AI is picking more and more strange religious beliefs, it was already mentioned several times and someone has opened a direct thread for it. India picking a missionary spread founding belief, celts or spain picking inquisition or syncretism, peaceful tradition civs pick orders.
Another part I am watching for a long time is the completly irrational and passiv behavior of non-founder civs. Often enough Ive spread my religion to non-founders till the "they have happily adopted...." message comes and think, they will finish the job, but nothing happens. I remember a game 2 cities of a converted civ stayed without religion (only pantheon) for atleast 80-100 turns, even those cities were founed already by the conversion of the civ. Even founder civs seem to be completly unable to protect their own religion in their own territory, Inquisitors doesnt cost the world, the passiv spread needs forever to completly turn a city, what the hell are the AIs doing with their faith?

Spoiler 4.) Happiness... :

Its too easy. Far too easy. Iam really wondering not every emperor+ gamer is moaning about how easy it is to maintain 100% happiness. (I already hear people complaining I have to up my difficulty... )
I only had one time some happiness problems after I conquered and settled half the world in only 150 turns in standard speed but I still were around 50 +/-10% in happiness. War weariness and puppet unhappiness and empire modifier by overextension should be able to easily stop me from expanding so fast but I rarely feeled forced to slow down. Checking the happiness values from all AIs in my current games reveals..... they are all at 100% or close to it.
I really dont know why a "local" happiness system was introduced, if still the majority of my happiness comes from global luxuries and other global stuff.
Why was the happiness from digging sites introduced? Who wanted this and who really needs this? Its only another unnecessary happiness source which makes the happiness system more complex.
Why does vasalls give happiness? Make no sense. The system tries to slow down warmongers with unhappiness by war weariness and overextension from the empire modificator, at the same time you get happiness for beeing a warmonger and make someone to a vasall.
War weariness reduction in the Authority tree. Its simply silly to create an anti-warmonger mechanic but add a partly removal of this mechanic available already at the start of the game. Making the happiness game even easier for warmongers.

Its really hard to belief that all this is unknown to the developers now for months. I know the test runs are done with AIs only, so point 2 may be harder to detect, cause all the AIs are doing the same is hiding the issue, cause there is no human empire to comparison the growth with. Fixing performance issues, AI diplomacy logic, military logic, all fine. The work is done in the background and too complex to be adusted in only 2 or 3 versions. Some changes lead to unexpected results, can happen, nothing wrong with that.

Spoiler No Plan :

But then we should atleast have a plan to fix and balance all the other stuff which can be seen by everyone. But is there a plan? I think we run in circles with an endless fix here an there with no concept, no objective data collection no set goal.
Fixes were done to keep the game running, no definitions were set to achieve a set goal.
Take the luxuries for example. Some give in total +4 and others give +4. So, which one would you prefer? Of course the one with hammers, cause 4 is worth double as much as 4. Some luxuries need many more techs to be improved but they are sometimes even worse than those which can be improved by easy improvements like camps or mines. Gold gets improved by the bank, 3 eras later than quarry luxuries, what does gold get in exchange for its late bloom? 1 more yield, to be exactly 1 gold. After your gold income has increased by 10 times, you only get 50% more yields for gold, not even counting, that the quarry luxury has now already generated yields for atleast 2 full eras.
There seems to be no evaluation how much each yield is worth in comparison with each other, making the luxuries balanced. Monopolies could be changed to give a small flat yield AND a small modifier, so each one is better comparable (flat early culture but only food or gold as modifier versus flat food but culture modifier). This may be less unique or radnom, but I prefer winning by skill and not winning cause I started with the better luxuries/monopolies/corporation.

Spoiler overreaction/underreaction and number explosions :

After Denmark lost its exponential yield power, cause it was seen too powerful, a discussion about corporations was started. People were calling Giorgio too powerful and TwoKay + Hexxon useless. What was done? Giorgio was acceptable nerfed, while TwoKay got..... what?..... some flat extra food and Hexxon.... some flat extra hammers..... Nearly everyone was saying that food in that late stage of the game was useless and to solve this issue, the corporation got..... a small amount of extra food? (same with hexxon, some little extra hammers didnt change anything with this corporations issues).
And then.... something absolutly NOBODY was calling, not even expecting, we got an exponential system for the corporations, able to generate more science/culture/gold by corporations than the whole rest of the city.
Later on, the factory was called as too weak. What was done? We got an exponential system, more factories means even more yields in more cities. (same thing as with Denmarks UB)
Later on, the people were complaining about too much influence in city states, what do we get? Spies which are able to generate more and more influence over the time of the game, making the whole thing even worse.
A buff for the influence by trade routes was wanted, and we got an exponential influence system, able to generate between 1 influence per turn (1 trade routes) to 225 per turn (15 trade routes). (later capped but this aspect is still buffed by +400%)
A discussion about the worth of food was done, mainly based around the agriculture business. The result was really disappointing cause nothing has changed about food. The Agribusiness simply pumped steroids into farms, making them able to outclass villages on railways, jungles with logging camps and even half the UI from civilization abilities. Its like you were able to build now lumbermilss on flat grasslands and plains. Such yield explosions simply feels like spitting on all the focus and effort you have to do to get a bit more yields out of improvements by spending tons of culture or faith or thinking time.

Sorry for the long text, but there was a lot to say, I love this mod and I am thankful for the amount of effort which is used to hold it online, but it makes me so sad and also a bit angry to see no real progress in the development.

Sorry I haven’t given up my full time job to fulfill your impossible expectations.

Also saying ‘no real progress’ is absurd. Just because it isn’t the progress you want doesn’t mean we’re not making improvements with each version. Please step off a bit with the expectations.

G

 

[Gizmoman]

By the way, I'm curious as if it is a bug or intended that when you conquer a holy city (and you haven't founded your own religion) your total faith is set to 0.

EDIT: Nevermind I just found the message saying the faith was converted to GAP, still feels rather harsh.

EDIT²: There isn't any way to just dumpster the conquered religion, right? I've removed it from all my cities, but I'm still stuck with the 'religious differences' diplomatic message from the guy founding the religion I'm using.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Sorry I haven’t given up my full time job to fulfill your impossible expectations

Impossible? Not really. Call me a stenotype German, but I would set goals for each aspect of the game, figure out a system to give parts of it values and then try to bring it into balance first theoretically and then practically. I know you also have a demanding real life and you are an intelligent man, sometimes harsh and irrational, but intelligent. Cause of that, I wonder why your work or decision making looks often so weird.
Like, 20 core/annexed cities on a standard map should be the maximum you could reach without investments into happiness and then take players save games and try different number settings (empire/technology/population) to achieve this goal.
Use us as your data base and I am sure you would find much faster the numbers you/we seek, if you take real games and dont run artificial AI games (yeah I know...). Iam sure everyone would be proud and enthusiastic to deliver you a lot of material to be part of the game/mod.

Also saying ‘no real progress’ is absurd. Just because it isn’t the progress you want doesn’t mean we’re not making improvements with each version. Please step off a bit with the expectations.

G

As I have written, this statement isnt targeting all the AI background changes.
But look how long those "gold" threads are now open. Or how long the religious enhancers are in the game and now we had/have a big discussion about changing it (and simply throwing parts from one enhancer to an other isnt a solution). I also never noticed AI doing only few improvements but now they are terrible in it. Every single game I overwhelm them in growth without too much sacrifice in tech or policy while they should be able to easily overcome me in that aspect by shifting some of their hammer advantages to food. Yield inflation feels also getting out of hand, cause very often the only solution is to rise values, making it even more worse (4k influence CS is such an example). In conjunction the the "objective" way how I would change things, it atleast "feels" we are making no process and only running in circles. If this is more understandable for you. I dont know if others "feel" the same.

 

[Recursive]

View attachment 546322
Would it even be possible to complete this quest? I mean wouldn't going to war with them nullify all their quests before fulfilling the quest has a chance to trigger?

Unless there's two Moroccos in the game, looks like a bug that should be reported.

 

[Gazebo]

Impossible? Not really. Call me a stenotype German, but I would set goals for each aspect of the game, figure out a system to give parts of it values and then try to bring it into balance first theoretically and then practically. I know you also have a demanding real life and you are an intelligent man, sometimes harsh and irrational, but intelligent. Cause of that, I wonder why your work or decision making looks often so weird.
Like, 20 core/annexed cities on a standard map should be the maximum you could reach without investments into happiness and then take players save games and try different number settings (empire/technology/population) to achieve this goal.
Use us as your data base and I am sure you would find much faster the numbers you/we seek, if you take real games and dont run artificial AI games (yeah I know...). Iam sure everyone would be proud and enthusiastic to deliver you a lot of material to be part of the game/mod.

As I have written, this statement isnt targeting all the AI background changes.
But look how long those "gold" threads are now open. Or how long the religious enhancers are in the game and now we had/have a big discussion about changing it (and simply throwing parts from one enhancer to an other isnt a solution). I also never noticed AI doing only few improvements but now they are terrible in it. Every single game I overwhelm them in growth without too much sacrifice in tech or policy while they should be able to easily overcome me in that aspect by shifting some of their hammer advantages to food. Yield inflation feels also getting out of hand, cause very often the only solution is to rise values, making it even more worse (4k influence CS is such an example). In conjunction the the "objective" way how I would change things, it atleast "feels" we are making no process and only running in circles. If this is more understandable for you. I dont know if others "feel" the same.

Common thread is that you don't notice the change, therefore there is no change. This is not objective analysis.

The weekly or bi-weekly patches aren't enough for you? Changes to civs, policies, beliefs, etc. even in this very thread just not doing it for you?

G

 

[Kim Dong Un]

I just don't see the evidence that AI's get picked on when they're on a roll.

My current game on Immortal has me in 2nd behind a rolling Germany who has a 7 tech and 2 policy lead in Medieval; both the Huns and Aztecs have joint wars against him. It's too early to tell if he's getting "picked on", but the AI is at least trying to do something about the potential runaway.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

it makes me so sad and also a bit angry to see no real progress in the development.

While I agree with a lot of what you presented and even liked your post, this statement of no progress in development is unnecessary and just flat out insulting to Gazebo, Iteroi and Co.

 

[amateurgamer88]

Guess I'll put my thoughts about this mod as well.

First, I want to say I really enjoyed VP as it added so much. I'm still learning since I'm still struggle with Immortal on Standard Speed. There's so much thoughts and ideas put into the mod that just makes it an incredible experience. However...

It seems to me like we have no real direction or plan when it comes to this mod. This new version introduced so many changes by itself. While some versions introduced various things that are quite welcomed, it feels like a big rollercoaster ride at times when you don't know what's coming up. Do I want to see VP constantly improved? That's a given. Yet, we are getting to a stage where introducing one thing or another affects balances of other aspects. I agree with @BiteInTheMark that we are going in circles. Let's use the 2-9 changes to see what sort of impact of balancing we can get.

Spoiler 1) Lighthouse and Harbor Supply :

For those of us playing on higher difficulties, we generally don't think the AI lack enough supply since they outnumber our armies and navies. This will give the AI more units on water heavy maps while the overall advantage should be going to the human players. We can already use a small number of forces to defeat the enemy. More supply will put the human in a better position than before. I wonder why people say warmongering is too easy. If we can achieve a lot with a smaller army and navy, what can we accomplish with a larger army and navy? Even a map like Pangaea can see the human player get plenty of coastal cities to get more supply to build up a larger army to bulldoze through all the AIs.

Spoiler 2) Archer Range and Melee Unit Combat Strength :

Archers getting 1 range is pretty significant and this was brought up due to the early archer rushes to take cities. Stronger Warriors, weaker Archers, reduced RCS of all non-mounted and non-siege ranged units and stronger Swordsmen line change the early game war drastically. With all of these changes, how do we know if the units are balanced or not? I know from experience that, if you change many variables, you are going to have a tough time pining down problem. Did we make the Swords line too strong? Were Archers too weak? Should we have instead given the city 2 range from the very start? VP is complicated so any small changes can affect so many other factors. Many changes do happen from complaints and, while some has basis, other might just be people who need more time to learn the complexity of VP.

Spoiler 3) Pantheon Changes :

I think this is a perfect example of what's happening with all of our changes. Changes to technology, when you can improve resources and several other factors make balancing Pantheons quite difficult to balance. At one point, it was very easy to spam cities and certain Pantheons like Goddess of Fertility was more reliable in finding religions. After the changes where it's harder to spam cities like 4 pop needed and losing one pop per settler, we need to give Fertility more yields to make it viable. What's stopping some change in the future from reverting this change or buffing it more?

I understand all the devs are investing their own time and I greatly appreciate it. However, I also prefer to see some direction or plan. At least before, we had the gold version to look forward to so there was some restraint to how big of a change we would introduce. The last couple of changes were filled with major changes and they will cause issues that nobody foresee. Many of these issues will be discovered by people testing it out and sharing it here on the forum. We all know that it's impossible to make everyone happy so there will always be something people complain about.

If it's not too much trouble, can we get the devs to share what they want for the mod? At the moment, it's players sharing their thoughts and discuss among themselves with some changes implemented by the devs. It would nice to see a more detailed plan as to what the gold version is like. If we can get something down, then we as the players can give feedback as to whether or not we are moving closer or further from the goal instead of everyone being subjective and argue what they want to see. If the goals are more or less set in stone, we as the players can better understand why changes are made and give better feedback that way.

For example, we can discuss diplomacy as follows (just making random points to make a point):

Spoiler Diplomacy :

We want to see AIs:
1. Target the civ (human or AI) that's closest to winning
2. Not have defensive pacts with all AIs and hates the human player
3. Willing to make long lasting friends and back them through all situations
4. ...

If we can get a framework for diplomacy from @HeathcliffWarriors regarding what we are trying to achieve, then we can give better feedback like:

We are getting better at 1 and 3. but, for 2, we still have some ways to go as you can see this in my game. I'm sure that's more useful than "the AI hates me and dogpiles on me every game. Please fix!"

Why do I mention a gold version? We need something to aim for. It's difficult balancing things when we don't know what balanced is. All of these changes are fun and exciting but I'm sure there are people who want a stable version to just have fun and not worry about a change that might make their old strategies obsolete. A gold version, as someone mentioned on the forum, isn't the end of VP. It's just something for those who loves VP but not always in the mood of being beta testers. A gold version is also nice in that you have a solid foundation to work with. You can add new changes, improve things or even add drastically new elements. If those don't work out, then you have something to fall back on. Honestly, there has been so many beta versions that I don't even remember what change was introduced when. If people like playing modmods, then it's possible that some modmods just becomes obsolete over time as new betas are introduced. Can we please aim for a gold version of some sort? It doesn't have to be absolute perfect. It just have to be mostly balanced, stable and a good foundation we can use to implement more changes in the future.

 

[Stalker0]

Besides, there's still numerous reports of the AI not improving their tiles, which no one asked for, and if still the case hurts their competitiveness significantly.

This right here. Before we start adjusting difficulty this is the priority. If the AI isn't developing its terrain, than of course its not going to feel as competitive as before. So lets get this fixed first, and I'll beat you'll see a nice bump in difficulty.

If CrazyG is right that its not warfare that's the problem, its just that "diety is overall too easy"....than that makes things very simple. After the terrain issue is fixed, if its still too easy, just bump up the ABC values. Easy peesy. I feel like this whole "completely change the vassalization model" is overcomplicating things.

 

[Stalker0]

On Bite's comments, I often have 100% happiness by Renaissance and it never drops to an actually low point.

Its times like this I honestly feel I play a different game than other people. Unless I'm playing tall I rarely have 100% happiness. Sometimes I can eek it out later in the game, but certainly not by Renaissance. My guess is that you do some early game voodoo (aka super optimized play) that I don't....which gives you a permanent yield advantage, and therefore a permanent competitive bump in happiness. Which is a concern, because it means that my early game is punishing me for the entirety of my game, whereas you are free not to worry about happiness.

 

[Asterix Rage]

a gold version?

There is a rumor saying VP Gold (v 1) is planned in 2037. It will be much better than Civ11VR

 

[amateurgamer88]

Its times like this I honestly feel I play a different game than other people. Unless I'm playing tall I rarely have 100% happiness. Sometimes I can eek it out later in the game, but certainly not by Renaissance. My guess is that you do some early game voodoo (aka super optimized play) that I don't....which gives you a permanent yield advantage, and therefore a permanent competitive bump in happiness. Which is a concern, because it means that my early game is punishing me for the entirety of my game, whereas you are free not to worry about happiness.

I play the same game as you where, unless it's tall, I struggle more with happiness. It's not out of control unhappiness but I do have to worry about it fairly often. I'm curious about this voodoo magic he does as well.

 

[Hippie_Peace_man]

Its times like this I honestly feel I play a different game than other people. Unless I'm playing tall I rarely have 100% happiness. Sometimes I can eek it out later in the game, but certainly not by Renaissance. My guess is that you do some early game voodoo (aka super optimized play) that I don't....which gives you a permanent yield advantage, and therefore a permanent competitive bump in happiness. Which is a concern, because it means that my early game is punishing me for the entirety of my game, whereas you are free not to worry about happiness.

Maybe they play a slower game speed, I hear that helps wonders against AI, so obviously that means better happiness because of world-wide average... blah blah blah. I play on Standard speed and I often have issues with happiness.

 

[Gazebo]

This right here. Before we start adjusting difficulty this is the priority. If the AI isn't developing its terrain, than of course its not going to feel as competitive as before. So lets get this fixed first, and I'll beat you'll see a nice bump in difficulty.

If CrazyG is right that its not warfare that's the problem, its just that "diety is overall too easy"....than that makes things very simple. After the terrain issue is fixed, if its still too easy, just bump up the ABC values. Easy peesy. I feel like this whole "completely change the vassalization model" is overcomplicating things.

I already have this fixed. I'm always on the lookout for simpler things like this that creep in - it's useful feedback for simple AI goofs to be recorded for us. Hand-wavy 'AI git gud plz' statements don't help, but surgical fixes for inconsistencies in behavior are helpful.

To note, the 'bug' here isn't a bug, but rather AI caution - AI treats fog adjacent to a tile as danger. Civilians flee to safety if a tile has >0 danger. So I bumped that up to allow the AI to withstand a little bit of danger for workers.

G

 

[JamesNinelives]

View attachment 546322
Would it even be possible to complete this quest? I mean wouldn't going to war with them nullify all their quests before fulfilling the quest has a chance to trigger?

Unless there's two Moroccos in the game, looks like a bug that should be reported.

Something that might have happened is that the city-states alliegance changed after they put up the quest. By great diplomat for example. Not sure if that still counts as a bug?

The fact the most high tier players are playing epic speed is a bit like cheating

Not relevant to the point you are making, but I wanted to note that playing on Epic speed is still sufficiently difficult for me . Perhaps because I play more defensively or because I don't have lots of military smarts IDK.

 

[JamesNinelives]

In conjunction the the "objective" way how I would change things, it atleast "feels" we are making no process and only running in circles

Regardless of your feelings on the subject, please rein in your objections a little. You don't have all the relevant information that devs do, so you may not realise the complexity of the problem and why your solutions cannot be implemented so simply.

It is the nature of the mod having come along way that balance changes now are going to be more subtle and we have to be willing for things to maybe get worse in some areas temporarily in order to actually test what solutions will work and what will not. Remember always that these are betas and that changes made are not implicitly permanent. Just recently we have seen Carthage get food back on founding for example.

Be patient, and be willing to put up with minor annoyances. If it is too frustrating and a particular change is really annoying you, maybe take a break from playing the most recent beta and try a different game or go back to the last stable patch. I have done exactly that (playing Minecraft, Monster Prom, and Tangledeep among other things) and to be honest it has done a great deal of good for my mental health. Being in this space all the time, as we have seen, can mean that disagreements can become very heated and sometimes feel personal. There are times when it is good for all of us to take a step back to put things in perspective.

 

[SolutionIt]

Didn't read the whole thread, but before I was invested in some sense for the civfanatics forum I also heavily abused archers and pretty much ignored the bottom half of the tech tree for conquest. But now with the 1 range nerf to archers I don't see any logical reason to even invest in them anymore when I can just go straight to bronze working for spearmen after getting drill 1 from killing barbarian camps with a few warriors.

I'm gonna suggest a rather unorthodox nerf to archers instead, not sure if this was even mentioned or not. Instead of the range nerf, why not just nerf their movement down to 1, and maybe lower their strength by 1 point less?

With 1 movement they either have to choose to shoot a warrior, or move that turn and not have the option to actually shoot the warrior. The only situation where they would win 1 on 1 instead of it just being a draw would be in a patch of the map full of forests, and they just happen to get on a hill. It'll also make it take longer to actually mobilize those archers to where you want them (especially in open areas where their range won't be ****ed by hills or forests/jungles) So there is a better opportunity against other human players to prepare in advance if you're actually keeping an eye out in your general vicinity.

To add on further to the point, if lets say their combat strength was reduced enough to not let them outright beat pathfinders in a one on one, then it would give payers more of an incentive to actually invest into warriors to defend those archers as well. Anyway I'm not a fan of keeping it one range, but also understand where Gazebo is coming from.

Edit: Right so read the whole thread, don't have anything else to add. Also didn't realize "coocked" would be censored but ok lol. Also probably cause I have more mods that weren't adapted for the new version, but for some reason I can't purchase religious buildings, everything else that is weird has been hotfixed.

 

[pineappledan]

Didn't read the whole thread, but before I was invested in some sense for the civfanatics forum I also heavily abused archers and pretty much ignored the bottom half of the tech tree for conquest. But now with the 1 range nerf to archers I don't see any logical reason to even invest in them anymore when I can just go straight to bronze working for spearmen after getting drill 1 from killing barbarian camps with a few warriors.

I'm gonna suggest a rather unorthodox nerf to archers instead, not sure if this was even mentioned or not. Instead of the range nerf, why not just nerf their movement down to 1, and maybe lower their strength by 1 point less?

With 1 movement they either have to choose to shoot a warrior, or move that turn and not have the option to actually shoot the warrior. The only situation where they would win 1 on 1 instead of it just being a draw would be in a patch of the map full of forests, and they just happen to get on a hill. It'll also make it take longer to actually mobilize those archers to where you want them (especially in open areas where their range won't be ****ed by hills or forests/jungles) So there is a better opportunity against other human players to prepare in advance if you're actually keeping an eye out in your general vicinity.

To add on further to the point, if lets say their combat strength was reduced enough to not let them outright beat pathfinders in a one on one, then it would give payers more of an incentive to actually invest into warriors to defend those archers as well. Anyway I'm not a fan of keeping it one range, but also understand where Gazebo is coming from.

I would actually support 1 move archers over 1 range archers. At least archers don’t just feel like gimped chariots, and don’t function as pointless pallet swaps on barbarian axemen. They’re their own unit with that change.

 

[CrazyG]

Slower speeds are generally easier because you get more time to scout/win wars. Do a majority of high difficulty users play epic? I think we need a source here, I've always been under the impression that standard is well, standard.

If CrazyG is right that its not warfare that's the problem, its just that "diety is overall too easy"....than that makes things very simple. After the terrain issue is fixed, if its still too easy, just bump up the ABC values. Easy peesy. I feel like this whole "completely change the vassalization model" is overcomplicating things.

On my local copy I bumped the A,B,C to 500/300/200. I'm able to build wonders but barely, and I can't quite catch up in tech or culture. We'll see if I can pull ahead during medieval, I'll see if I can still keep up without war.