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

[SuperNoobCamper]

let's bring back vanilla gateling guns with one range since we have gone a full circle

I must disagree with people who want Archers with range 2. If you make archers with arrows range 2 then you must make the Light Tank, the Cosack, and the Hussar range 2 as well. Since when arrows have higher range than light tanks on the battlefield ? How come arrow units from the Ancient era have higher range than Light Tanks and rifle horsemen in much later eras ?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Except that fairly recently we shook up the Ancient tech tree to make all starts more viable and enjoyable (a highly popular decision), which had knock-on effects on pantheon choices and early build priorities.

>but couldnt the status gold not be already achieved a long time ago, if you would focus on it?
I don't know exactly what you're trying to say here, but - if I am correct - you think that 'focusing' on something means it'll become balanced? Unfortunately civ is not a game in which this is possible, as all of the systems are far too interconnected. Change one thing, another thing needs to be addressed. Etc. etc.

G

Focusing on something means, putting more effort into it to achieve a specific goal. If this goal is a better balance, then yes, with more focus we could have reached a better balance.
As long as not everything is changed at the same time, you can follow and atleast predict to a degree how the outcome possibly will be.
If the pantheons were "balanced" before the ancient times changes, then you should be able to relativly easy adjust to it. For example, plantations are now a bit worse to achieve, cause the settler is now out of the direct tech line to calender. The only pantheons which are directly hit by that change, is Renewal and Springtime. So, in the end you only have to buff those two and be very like have again the balance.

Your arguement is also no explanation, why stone works improve salt by +2 , when you are generating not more than 10-20 , while the bank, 3 eras later, improve gold by +3 , when you generate 100-200 . Where is there the objective balance? Iam not calling that banks give gold +15, but why cant we set a focus on one part (luxuries) create some system to compare the yields from luxuries better and then make every aspect of them balanced?

 

[Recursive]

I must disagree with people who want Archers with range 2. If you make archers with arrows range 2 then you must make the Light Tank, the Cosack, and the Hussar range 2 as well. Since when arrows have higher range than light tanks on the battlefield ? How come arrow units from the Ancient era have higher range than Light Tanks and rifle horsemen in much later eras ?

Because it's a video game. There will be breaks from reality

 

[Crag Hack]

let's bring back vanilla gateling guns with one range since we have gone a full circle

I don't remember now the gatling guns range but just checked in VOX these 3 units are also archery units but with only 1 range and nobody finds that strange. So let's change all archery units from each era to range 2 to be fair.

How about we leave Ancient era archers at range 1 but give them one extra movement. So that they can be mobile, shoot from range 1 and then retreat away ?

Yet even better, don't give archers extra movement point, but only extra action point. So that if archer stays in one place then can shot 2 range. But if the archer makes a move then can shoot only 1 range and cannot retreat.

 

[Asterix Rage]

I don't think 1range attack to the two first stages of range units is a real disaster.
I'm much more perplexed about Range Naval Units that start with 2 ranges Attack and become 1 range attack !

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

AFAIK or at least that was the case when i started play VP unit classes have standardized ranges & movement points with the exception of few UUs; Archery units from ancient era till information era have 2 movement points and range, mounted ranged units and mechanized ranged units have one range and 4/5 movements respectively , Melee units have 2 movements, Mounted melee have 4.
giving

I don't remember now the gatling guns range but just checked in VOX these 3 units are also archery units but with only 1 range and nobody finds that strange. So let's change all archery units from each era to range 2 to be fair.

How about we leave Ancient era archers at range 1 but give them one extra movement. So that they can be mobile, shoot from range 1 and then retreat away ?

If you like one range archer, I'm gonna propose my change yet again

Give them +1 too and rename to man-pulled chariot.

 

[Gazebo]

I must disagree with people who want Archers with range 2. If you make archers with arrows range 2 then you must make the Light Tank, the Cosack, and the Hussar range 2 as well. Since when arrows have higher range than light tanks on the battlefield ? How come arrow units from the Ancient era have higher range than Light Tanks and rifle horsemen in much later eras ?

a.) realism < gameplay
b.) If you want to rationalize this, think of it this way: sure a light tank could shoot two tiles away, like an archer, but that wasn't the battlefield role - it was intended to skirmish. So 'skirmish' in civ 5 terms means shoot and scoot from one tile away. That's just the abstracted role.

G

 

[Misanthrop]

I must disagree with people who want Archers with range 2. If you make archers with arrows range 2 then you must make the Light Tank, the Cosack, and the Hussar range 2 as well. Since when arrows have higher range than light tanks on the battlefield ? How come arrow units from the Ancient era have higher range than Light Tanks and rifle horsemen in much later eras ?

That's a pretty flawed argument in many different ways. Like others pointed out, this is a video game, and hardly an exact representation of actual warfare on a scaled map - but even if you disregard that, and insist on keeping it as realistic as possible, there is still a pretty convincing argument to be made against your point, which is to represent the roles of different unit types in their respective eras.

Battlefields as a whole have gotten bigger with technology. Guess what, hardly anyone is actually fighting melee combat these days. Even what the Civilization franchise classifies as modern 'melee' units (like tanks and infantry), in reality engage at and easily outrange ancient / classical / medieval... era ranged weaponry.
However, in their respective age, they still fulfill similar (not really, but simplified for gameplay mechanics) roles, so it makes sense to have that represented in the game.

 

[Crag Hack]

a.) realism < gameplay
b.) If you want to rationalize this, think of it this way: sure a light tank could shoot two tiles away, like an archer, but that wasn't the battlefield role - it was intended to skirmish. So 'skirmish' in civ 5 terms means shoot and scoot from one tile away. That's just the abstracted role.

G

In such a case at least we can give them third option to skirmish even better

c.) Let the Light Tank shoot range 1 but twice in a round

 

[tu_79]

I don't remember now the gatling guns range but just checked in VOX these 3 units are also archery units but with only 1 range and nobody finds that strange. So let's change all archery units from each era to range 2 to be fair.

How about we leave Ancient era archers at range 1 but give them one extra movement. So that they can be mobile, shoot from range 1 and then retreat away ?

That is a skirmisher.

Honestly, we were used to 2 range archers and it worked well for so many years. Archers were the best unit during 25-30 turns, then horseman came in and took the lead. Archers were not overpowered since their window was very small. There was just this 'exploit' that happened when city range was set to 1, giving the aggressive player a big advantage at taking cities that could not respond. Not that this was enough to win the game, but made it foolproof to conquer your first enemy.

So, let's remember, 1 range archers is just one way to deal with the exploit of cities not being able to counter.
The other way is to make archers weak against cities. Or giving back range 2 to cities.

I dislike range 1 archers for roleplaying, I think the role was much distinct at range 2, and archers had their strengths and their weaknesses. Also, I'm disliking how archers are now useless chasing barbs. I'm disliking how I can't support other beefy units from behind, that's important when the space is tight. All these thing come unnoticed when spending the early game peacefully, though.
I didn't test the option with a penalty vs cities so I can't say if I'd like it better, but if the penalty was not enough, the penalty can be made bigger. We could even have a -100% damage vs cities and the only thing an archer would gain for hitting a city would be some experience.

I don't want to sound grumpy, but that's how it felt to fight with the new archer to me.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

logistics is a promotion or try PAD unit tweaks if you like that>

In such a case at least we can give them third option to skirmish even better

c.) Let the Light Tank shoot range 1 but twice in a round

 

[Crag Hack]

That's a pretty flawed argument in many different ways. Like others pointed out, this is a video game, and hardly an exact representation of actual warfare on a scaled map - but even if you disregard that and insist to keep it as realistic as possible, there is still a pretty convincing argument to be made against your point, which is to represent the roles of different unit types in their respective eras.
Battlefields as a whole have gotten bigger with technology. Guess what, hardly anyone is actually engaging in melee combat these days, even what the Civilization franchise classifies as modern 'melee' units, like tanks and infantry, in reality engage at and easily outrange ancient era ranged weaponry. However, in their respective age, they fulfill similar (not really, but simplified for gameplay mechanics) roles, so it makes sense to have that represented in the game.

See the Ancient archers with range 2 are way too strong. You know you can even take whole cities with a bunch of them. Those were stone Castles you cannot take them with wooden arrows. All your arrows would get smashed at the Castle walls. But yet this huge range of theirs allows for such exploits.

On the other hand have you tried to take a modern city in Civ5 with Light Tanks ? Forget it, you need the heavy artillery for that.

So let's treat archers equally, if one can take whole castles, let the other take whole cities too.

 

[Gazebo]

That is a skirmisher.

Honestly, we were used to 2 range archers and it worked well for so many years. Archers were the best unit during 25-30 turns, then horseman came in and took the lead. Archers were not overpowered since their window was very small. There was just this 'exploit' that happened when city range was set to 1, giving the aggressive player a big advantage at taking cities that could not respond. Not that this was enough to win the game, but made it foolproof to conquer your first enemy.

So, let's remember, 1 range archers is just one way to deal with the exploit of cities not being able to counter.
The other way is to make archers weak against cities. Or giving back range 2 to cities.

I dislike range 1 archers for roleplaying, I think the role was much distinct at range 2, and archers had their strengths and their weaknesses. Also, I'm disliking how archers are now useless chasing barbs. I'm disliking how I can't support other beefy units from behind, that's important when the space is tight. All these thing come unnoticed when spending the early game peacefully, though.
I didn't test the option with a penalty vs cities so I can't say if I'd like it better, but if the penalty was not enough, the penalty can be made bigger. We could even have a -100% damage vs cities and the only thing an archer would gain for hitting a city would be some experience.

I don't want to sound grumpy, but that's how it felt to fight with the new archer to me.

After some changes to AI prioritization, and the melee changes pursued this beta, I don't think that archer rushes will be as viable as they once were. Thus, returning them to range 2 makes sense.

G

 

[tu_79]

See the Ancient archers with range 2 are way too strong. You know you can even take whole cities with a bunch of them. Those were stone Castles you cannot take them with wooden arrows. All your arrows would get smashed at the Castle walls. But yet this huge range of theirs allows for such exploits.

A city walls increase city range to 2, meaning that a city with walls can counterattack. The exploit is only valid before the city can build walls. You have like 25 turns to take cities uncontested, no more. You need some archers to approach the enemy city killing all oposition, and then some turns of harrasing the city before the enemy can produce decent units or build its walls.

 

[Crag Hack]

Also, I'm disliking how archers are now useless chasing barbs.

Lol you chase barbarians with archers ? What are horses for ?

Anyway I am fine with 2 range archers, whatever it is

 

[Misanthrop]

See the Ancient archers with range 2 are way too strong. You know you can even take whole cities with a bunch of them. Those were stone Castles you cannot take them with wooden arrows. All your arrows would get smashed at the Castle walls. But yet this huge range of theirs allows for such exploits.

On the other hand have you tried to take a modern city in Civ5 with Light Tanks ? Forget it, you need the heavy artillery for that.

So let's treat archers equally, if one can take whole castles, let the other take whole cities too.

I don't disagree with any of that, but you're moving the goal post. I was not commenting on the gameplay implications of ancient archers having a range of 2 (which I agree was exploitable, and therefore rightfully addressed - however, I personally would have preferred to give them a crippling city attack penalty, but let them keep their range, and thus their battlefield role), but your argument that it's justified for 'realism' reasons, which I don't agree with.

 

[Crag Hack]

Yes the system is the same with global medians and each city comparing to them in order to determine the city unhappiness.

But I notice something weird about empire happiness. So the empire happiness is the sum of the cities happiness. If 3 city in the empire each has 2 happiness, then empire is 2+2+2. Similarly for unhappiness; it is the sum of each city unhappiness.

But here is strange - each city has so called "luxury happiness". So when we add city happiness to arrive at the empire happiness, we basically are dual accounting the same luxuries for each city. This way if you spam many cities, you will be adding the same luxuries over and over for each city. Let's say I spam 15 cities and my empire has 5 luxuries, then my empire happiness will be the sum of 15*5=75 luxury happiness . Plus there will be some other non-luxury sources but the bulk comes from double counting, or 15-fold counting of each luxury.

So the game hugely rewards wide empires. In general wide empires will have many luxuries and on top of that will have many cities as well for some monster empire happiness. Tall empires are doomed.

A more better idea maybe should be to count luxuries only once. This can be achieved if we attribute each luxury to the city which territory to luxury is inside. Then you can add each city luxury without dual accounting.

Who is going to answer me this question ? Is it supposed to be so ?

Isn't this bias to wide empires ?

If I have wide empire with 15 cities with 5 luxuries my empire happiness will be 75 only from luxury. But if Gandi has tall empire of 5 cities and 5 luxuries his empire happiness will be 25. Big advantage to wide empires here.

Disregard other sources of happiness for sake of simplicity.

 

[ryanmusante]

After taking some time to think about this, I was going to write a much longer and unnecessary reply but that would be a waste of time as this is going to be my last post on this forum.

Stay bro, come on.

 

[Gizmoman]

Wow, to imagine the world would come crashing down over an archer with 1 tile range.
I'll just have to imagine complete outrage that happened when the city-attack prewalls dropped down to 1, cities being far more important than archers I'd imagine that must have triggered some sort of event on a global level.

Come on now people, archers are an active part of the game for like the first 5 minutes of play time, surely you can hold your rage for that part until you run into the blissful range of the composite bowman, and if not, I believe there's still an option to start the game in the classical era.

 

[CrazyG]

I think this is something worth testing in the AI vs AI games. Are there certain pantheons that seem to dominate founding over and over again? (probably remove civs like Ethopia, Spain, and India from these tests to rule out high early faith civs). If there are pantheons that just always win the faith race, I agree we should look at a faith tone down of those.

G would have more formal data than my anecdotal experience, but I really think the answer is yes. If my neighbor is France with like God of Craftsmen I just assume he won't get a religion, and I can't recall guessing this wrong a single time. Assuming civs with equal early game, I can group the pantheons into "probably", "maybe", and "probably not" for the AI getting religion, and its pretty consistent on deity. Love ALWAYS gets a religion, sometimes a civ gets a turn 50 pantheon but still second religion using love. That would be my single biggest gripe, that pantheon is so hard for humans to use but AI do very well with it on any difficulty with a decent amount of initial bonus growth.