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

[kenneth1221]

What pantheon did the Celts take?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Bran that gives +25% ranged strength, without Bran it should be around 48 which is still extremely high for a medieval city.
No it did not adopt fealty, nor had any wonder that boosts city strength.

 

[andersw]

Started very close to Shaka (I was america) and decided to try a bit early agression.
Hrm yeah, spear rushed shaka on emperor (epic speed), razed two cities and captured the two other and eliminated him, barely able to keep my nose above rebellion (had one batch of barb spawns).
When Shaka is a pushover, something is wrong.
On the other hand ... he did try to expand and if I hadn't attacked I would have had a Shaka as very close neighbour with 4-5 early cities.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Bran that gives +25% ranged strength, without Bran it should be around 48 which is still extremely high for a medieval city.
No it did not adopt fealty, nor had any wonder that boosts city strength.

Bran - reduced to 25% RCS (was 50%)

Is it possible something went wrong with the update and it's still giving +50%?

 

[pineappledan]

God of war still says it gives 50%. I would be very surprised if the Celt pantheon was nerfed, but the base pantheon wasn't.

 

[ASCII Guy]

Found an ancient ruin with Shoshone on an island and now I have a zeppelin in early renaissance.

Spoiler :

 

[Cokolwiek]

I agree with you that it should be fun, and it looks like you stop having fun mid game. You think you have won, and it might not be truth (you win when the victory message appears, not before then). But it doesn't matter if you still can lose

I do not agree with victory conditions part. Games are for fun, I achieve fun through challenge. This is my game, I decide when I win, not some ridiculous rules from Firaxis that were build around vanilla 4-city tradition, which does not apply correctly to what amazing changes and experience Vox Populi has provided.
But I wholeheartedly agree that we have not too much of a challenge as a wide or warmongering nation.

Not really sure who the elitist here is. You might want to look up the definition of that word.

Yeah, he used a wrong word with "elitist". But he is correct about word "elite". I do not want to pretend or claim any superiority here, it is just a stupig game after all, but not all play on deity. It is just a fact. We don't ask to be any elite, we ask for more punishing (and thus realistic) game.

Ok... If you are a player that has truly annexed or puppeted half of the World by the time you have fusilier... then yes you are a pro begging for more challenge. And I'm willing to make the argument for you that Diety should be made insane for you. I'm willing to see all difficulties raised. New people to this mod should start at settler! However I'm also Going to make this point. This is not a pure War simulation. And while you may have taken over half the world. Can you actually maintain the happiness the rest of the game? Maybe the World Congress make some changes that threw some wrenches in your streamlined approach?

I can provide a save from last games or detail. There is nothing AI can do. I can mantain hapiness and this is a problem. Me and my vassals have majority in World Congress.

That should actually be a role playing theme of an Authority game is to quickly take over a large area then deal with the trouble of actually maintaining it. Now, I don't know whether or not this theme/challenge is being presented to you... Maybe it's not hard enough. But this should be the theme of it in my opinion. Not just pure conquest and no chance of an unruly populace.

Exactly, I agree with you, I propose my ideas later on.

It's a valid point that he has not won until proven, but it is also a fact that he was getting bored. Several anti warmonger mechanics were introduced to try to prevent the player from being in such situations too early, but if the rein is too tight people complain about the artificial limitations.

Let me be clear. I ask for more warmonger penalties, but not is the form of stupid bonus for enemies. I ask for real pain in managing hated, cruel empire. Mass unhapiness, mass revolts, forcing to puppet, not anexing. Currently VP is a heaven for dictators and conquerors. Why is this city giving me everything after some brief resistance and a courthouse? I ordered their soverenigty taken away, my soldiers murdered their men, raped they women, and taken their property. I occupy foreign nation by force and they love me and work as efficiently as my native citizens? And it should only get worse in later eras when nation states exists. How many Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutch etc, not to mentions Jews, loved German occupation, especially in Eastern Europe when they were murdered, enslaved and starved?
Maybe the same mechanic as city states bullied could be utilize to force occupying nation to mantain large military presence in taken cities for many turns to supress resistance. And of course you shouldn't get 100% yields and no unhapiness from taken cities unless you have assimilated them for two eras at least.

I will also say if Diety players want a greater challenge, the easiest way to do that....remove the range and logistics promotions as options in your games. Those are the main force multipliers in the game, take those out and your going to have a much harder time just steamrolling the world.

That is not the case in my opinion. I do not want to claim that this is the case for other Deity players, but I manage to dominate the map without or before my units get these promotions. I can provide a recent save to demonstarate. Also my army is mostly melee and cavalry, some siege. I consider mass ranged and skirmishers as cheating right now. They are also profoundly ahistorical.
Many times I use two separte army groups on the other sides of the world, so I conquer faster, can respond to multiple threats, and don't have to sluggishly move them over. But this also means no super experienced units.
I frequently lose units also, so I don't really exploit higher promotions but this also strengthens Deity easiness (you shouldn't be allowed to do that frequently and thrive on Deity).

Also, don't play epic/marathon where warfare is more of a crutch. Can also play peaceful games that are sometimes harder and break up the grindiness of heavy warmongering.

I enjoy tradition games very much. I will try larger map on standard next time as warmonger to see if it changes much.

I don't care if I'm playing at deity or immortal or whatever- I'll play at whatever level gives me a consistent challenge.

Amen to that.

I plan on making major improvements to diplomacy, deals, etc. AI throughout this year.

Your changes are top-notch as of the last version. I was able to mantain an excellent diplomatic standing, along with meaningful alliance (DoF, military maps) despite being warmonering world leader in every category with multiple vassals hated by most countries. Because it was benefitting this civilization - it recognized its national interest and that is awesome (I was basically its only trade partner and for large sums of strategics and luxuries, was selling and giving them technology, I was warring and denoucing civilizations thay hate, war and fear).

 

[Cokolwiek]

It's like complaining about the fact that the Aztecs completely dominate the early game, while Austria is crap. If you keep playing Austria until industrial age and manage to survive, you will win more often with Austria than the Aztecs. That's the thing with late bloomers, they are better suited to win if left alone, so playing an early bloomer you must be sure that you hindered those as much as possible. It comes to no surprise that many games are lost because a runaway civ out of reach. You dominate your early game, your continent, make everyone nearby a vassal, and then some civ in another continent suddenly skyrockets its techs, you try to stop it but can't send enough units in time since they are well protected in the other side of the world.

I disagree completely that it is complaining. Tradition needs a buff to adress lack of happiness, gold, and production (or rather other policies e.g. authority deserves a nerf to production and science). UI can't compensate for anything when you don't need UI to win a game with authority. For example my last game with Babylon I didn't even have an UI and UB and UU. I didn't use science specialist at all (beside two in capital, locked in renaissance) until Industrial and only because of illiteracy, not to gain gs. I was able to get all my science through kills and taking cities. I got like two scientist, one from Writing and went for an academy with him, which I didn't lock for half of the game because it was garbage tile compared to 7 food or 7 production or writers or much needed civil servants.
I didn't invest in buildings because I was spending all my money on units (I bought 80% percent of them, that is a way to go it with authority) and upgrades.
I nearly haven't used Bowmen at all because, mostly they were sitting in cities, ranged units are too powerful on the defense, that is correct but not of much value at the offensive (as they should be), against cities and melee units. I needed siege to achieve my goals.
Walls of Babylon, yeah my cities very never really sieged and because I didn't use scientist they were just normal walls for me.
Of course I do not deny that Progress, then Rationalism or Industry Babylon would be a beast. Possibly even game-breaking beast.
Authority, even when at peace, by giving you a strong early game development is giving you everything. Because of how this game scales it is just a fact. Early hammers gets you every yield faster. Hammers are the most important yield until at least Industrial and they can be easily transferred into every yield the way gold or science or culture can't.
The fact that as Progress or Authority you can govern tiles and specialists of your cities and add internal trade routes into equation to grow your core cities to sizes nearly as good as tradition AIs without putting much effort to it is a little balance-breaking don't you think?

By the way thanks to Gazebo and HeathcliffWarriors diplomacy is clarifing and begins to be really excellent. Conciously choosing sides and denouncements, avoiding competing with city states with your friends, and denying or feeding possible enemies your spare luxuries is now very rewarding. I feel I can literally create a situation when my obvious enemy cannot afford to go to war with me.
When your competitors that cannot reach you bribe some nearby warmonger to DoW you is also very thoughtful and welcomed.

Is anyone against "get x each great people points in all your cities" city-state quest reward? It is atrocious to managment and clarity when you get all great persons in city screen while working only one. And it requires you to scroll a lot. I am a player that manages every citizen manually and really wish that was changed. I DoW any city state even if it is my ally, if I am going to win this.

 

[tu_79]

I disagree completely that it is complaining. Tradition needs a buff to adress lack of happiness, gold, and production (or rather other policies e.g. authority deserves a nerf to production and science). UI can't compensate for anything when you don't need UI to win a game with authority. For example my last game with Babylon I didn't even have an UI and UB and UU. I didn't use science specialist at all (beside two in capital, locked in renaissance) until Industrial and only because of illiteracy, not to gain gs. I was able to get all my science through kills and taking cities. I got like two scientist, one from Writing and went for an academy with him, which I didn't lock for half of the game because it was garbage tile compared to 7 food or 7 production or writers or much needed civil servants.
I didn't invest in buildings because I was spending all my money on units (I bought 80% percent of them, that is a way to go it with authority) and upgrades.
I nearly haven't used Bowmen at all because, mostly they were sitting in cities, ranged units are too powerful on the defense, that is correct but not of much value at the offensive (as they should be), against cities and melee units. I needed siege to achieve my goals.
Walls of Babylon, yeah my cities very never really sieged and because I didn't use scientist they were just normal walls for me.
Of course I do not deny that Progress, then Rationalism or Industry Babylon would be a beast. Possibly even game-breaking beast.
Authority, even when at peace, by giving you a strong early game development is giving you everything. Because of how this game scales it is just a fact. Early hammers gets you every yield faster. Hammers are the most important yield until at least Industrial and they can be easily transferred into every yield the way gold or science or culture can't.
The fact that as Progress or Authority you can govern tiles and specialists of your cities and add internal trade routes into equation to grow your core cities to sizes nearly as good as tradition AIs without putting much effort to it is a little balance-breaking don't you think?

By the way thanks to Gazebo and HeathcliffWarriors diplomacy is clarifing and begins to be really excellent. Conciously choosing sides and denouncements, avoiding competing with city states with your friends, and denying or feeding possible enemies your spare luxuries is now very rewarding. I feel I can literally create a situation when my obvious enemy cannot afford to go to war with me.
When your competitors that cannot reach you bribe some nearby warmonger to DoW you is also very thoughtful and welcomed.

Is anyone against "get x each great people points in all your cities" city-state quest reward? It is atrocious to managment and clarity when you get all great persons in city screen while working only one. And it requires you to scroll a lot. I am a player that manages every citizen manually and really wish that was changed. I DoW any city state even if it is my ally, if I am going to win this.

Authority strong start is well known to us. But Authority bonuses don't reach the late game, you have to make use of your early advantage so whatever you gained in the early game can push you later. If you don't play the late game you will not acknowledge this. In the late game you may face a backyard civ that suddenly has make a breakthrough in the world congress, and decision after decision is able to ruin your victory.

That said, you might be right that a conquering spree is too easy right now and cities are too willing to remain calm.

Right now cities can rebel when there's unrest in the empire. A revolting city spawns a few rebels and may secede in case the unrest is not restored during some turns.
Puppets are easy on the happiness level, but cost much gold in maintenance (less gold means fewer standing units) and do not provide supply. Annexed cities are hard to keep happy, but the game is the designed so player can control more cities as the game progresses.
So, what do you think is permitting you to expand too fast? Puppets or annexed cities?

 

[JamesNinelives]

Found an ancient ruin with Shoshone on an island and now I have a zeppelin in early renaissance.

Spoiler :

Yep . It's rare to get it that early, but I love upgrading to scouts to explorers for example so I can explore the seas before I get to Astronomy. And it's consistent IMO seeing as you are able to get upgrades to scouts when you are in the Ancient Era.

 

[Misanthrop]

Anyone else feel that hostile spy actions are a bit overtuned? Had them steal gold in expansion cities twice, and both time they stole a whopping 85% (1,700 / 2,000) of my gold on Deity difficulty. Quite devastating when you're saving some for upgrades and only have 1 spy to defend.

 

[civplayer33]

Another idea for curbing too easy warmonger wins: for those warmongers who are going for DiploVic., I feel it becomes too easy mostly due to all your Vassals voting for you as leader; what if this was restricted such that only those Vassals who are Content with your rule do so?
I think a lot of power for warmongering runaways comes from their Vassals (don't forget that they also give lots of Science and Culture and receive more Tourism as well as many other benefits) so curbing that a bit is probably a good idea. Maintaining a "Content" status is actually not that easy if you have different Religions, so I think that may be a good starting point. I also want to reiterate my previous suggestion of a new mechanic that allows other Civs to start a "liberation war" with you, such that your capitulated Vassal becomes their voluntary Vassal temporarily and a DoW is issued for some minimum amount of turns...and perhaps the Warscore upon making peace could determine the outcome of it all, such that you get your capitulated Vassal back if you have >25 Warscore at the end of that war.

 

[CrazyG]

Another idea for curbing too easy warmonger wins: for those warmongers who are going for DiploVic., I feel it becomes too easy mostly due to all your Vassals voting for you as leader; what if this was restricted such that only those Vassals who are Content with your rule do so?

I starting playing without vassals, just because they are so strong in many aspects (not just the votes).

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

I'm all in for anything that makes the game especially higher difficulties but seriously your just addressing a symptom rather than the cause; in my warmonger games it's just a matter of choice of a win condition and which one is available eralier ... in my last two games as Spain Immortal/Emperor and Emperor Assyria i went for a cultural victory just because i was influential on everyone.
If the UN was founded i would have got it too because i just had too much votes and if not i was pretty much done with the tech tree in Assyria game, with both CERN and Hubble.
When you go wide enough in a warmonger game the win condition is just a flavor and limiting access to one would do nothing.
I'm not even considering the flavor aspect of a vassal not votingfor their master.

Another idea for curbing too easy warmonger wins: for those warmongers who are going for DiploVic., I feel it becomes too easy mostly due to all your Vassals voting for you as leader; what if this was restricted such that only those Vassals who are Content with your rule do so?
I think a lot of power for warmongering runaways comes from their Vassals (don't forget that they also give lots of Science and Culture and receive more Tourism as well as many other benefits) so curbing that a bit is probably a good idea. Maintaining a "Content" status is actually not that easy if you have different Religions, so I think that may be a good starting point. I also want to reiterate my previous suggestion of a new mechanic that allows other Civs to start a "liberation war" with you, such that your capitulated Vassal becomes their voluntary Vassal temporarily and a DoW is issued for some minimum amount of turns...and perhaps the Warscore upon making peace could determine the outcome of it all, such that you get your capitulated Vassal back if you have >25 Warscore at the end of that war.

Another idea for curbing too easy warmonger wins: for those warmongers who are going for DiploVic., I feel it becomes too easy mostly due to all your Vassals voting for you as leader; what if this was restricted such that only those Vassals who are Content with your rule do so?
I think a lot of power for warmongering runaways comes from their Vassals (don't forget that they also give lots of Science and Culture and receive more Tourism as well as many other benefits) so curbing that a bit is probably a good idea. Maintaining a "Content" status is actually not that easy if you have different Religions, so I think that may be a good starting point. I also want to reiterate my previous suggestion of a new mechanic that allows other Civs to start a "liberation war" with you, such that your capitulated Vassal becomes their voluntary Vassal temporarily and a DoW is issued for some minimum amount of turns...and perhaps the Warscore upon making peace could determine the outcome of it all, such that you get your capitulated Vassal back if you have >25 Warscore at the end of that war.

 

[civplayer33]

To flesh the "liberation war" idea out a bit more: it should basically be a trade item that can be chosen when trading as a non-vassal Civ with a vassal-Civ (who is obv. not your own Vassal), which dissolves the status of capitulated vassalage of that Vassal and enters a status of temporary voluntary vassalage for that Vassal with the trade partner (as well as automatically initiating a DoW between the old and new Master for some minimum amount of turns). This trade option should be enabled after the minimum-vassalage-time of capitulated Vassals (I believe 50 turns on standard) has passed and the willingness of the Vassal to make that deal should obviously strongly correlate with their contentedness regarding their Master's rule over them; it should be even more likely for Vassals who could technically declare independence (because they are fulfilling all conditions) but do not do so because of the too-great military threat of their Master. Also, perhaps Iron Fist shouldn't prevent this sort of deal, but I'm not sure about that.
To make things more fair for the former Master, the resulting war should allow the Master to revert this arrangement if he wins the war with >25 Warscore, which would restart the timer of "minimum vassalage" with the Vassal, with the exception of the case where the Vassal had fulfilled "normal" liberation criteria beforehand, in which case a revassalization should only be possible through the normal mechanism of getting a high Warscore with him and making him capitulate.

 

[civplayer33]

I'm all in for anything that makes the game especially higher difficulties but seriously your just addressing a symptom rather than the cause; in my warmonger games it's just a matter of choice of a win condition and which one is available eralier ... in my last two games as Spain Immortal/Emperor and Emperor Assyria i went for a cultural victory just because i was influential on everyone.
If the UN was founded i would have got it too because i just had too much votes and if not i was pretty much done with the tech tree in Assyria game, with both CERN and Hubble.
When you go wide enough in a warmonger game the win condition is just a flavor and limiting access to one would do nothing.
I'm not even considering the flavor aspect of a vassal not votingfor their master.

I disagree. The cause in the case you describe is you being a runaway...of course you can choose your victory condition when you have a gigantic Tech lead after vassalizing and conquering half the world; this is not the problem that the "liberation war" mechanic is supposed to address and I have made other posts which were addressing it in this thread, like the "anti-runaway-alliance" idea.

I'm trying to address the problem of Vassals being too much of a boost currently, as CrazyG points out as well. I also disagree that's it gives a bad flavor if your Vassals don't (necessarily) vote for you as long as they are not Content with your rule over them...in that situation it makes sense that they don't want to see you becoming stronger and stronger such that future liberation becomes completely impossible.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I think vassalage is a great area to look at and make some balance adjustments!

I'm a little confused about how it works at the moment though tbh. What are the penalties or consequences of having an unhappy vassal currently? (I checked the wiki but couldn't find anthing on that.)

I'm thinking of things like cities protesting (and not sending you their tithes), spawning barbarians near your cities (i.e. rebels), or affecting the happiness of the people in your empire.

 

[civplayer33]

I'm a little confused about how it works at the moment though tbh. What are the penalties or consequences of having an unhappy vassal currently?

Well the contentedness value is an opinion modifier, so a low (negative) value will worsen your relationship overall and affect their approach toward you, which has many negative consequences and also increases (I think) their willingness to rebel once they fulfill all conditions; it also leaves you less "buffer" for raising their taxes (as that will reduce their contentedness), which means you'll lose GPT as Vassals have a "maintenance cost"; the main problem with this, however, as I see it, is that it's too easy to not care about this and just jack up the taxes to maximum anyway, because there isn't much danger currently from non-content vassals; I think the two suggestions I made would address this somewhat (as non-Content Vassals won't necessarily vote you in as leader and are much more likely to accept liberation war offers).

I'm thinking that a more general Vassal-nerf would probably also make sense, like reducing the Culture, Science, Faith percentages down to 15% or maybe even 10% (from 20% right now) and Tourism down to 20% (from 33%) as well as capping the maximum tax rate at 20% instead of 25% and perhaps removing the "military levy on Era advance" mechanic.
Edit: and the Iron Fist Vassal yield increase should be reduced to 15%, as well.
Edit2: maybe Iron Fist should also be moved up to Tier 2 or 3, since I think it's far too powerful for Tier 1.

I'm thinking of things like cities protesting (and not sending you their tithes), spawning barbarians near your cities (i.e. rebels), or affecting the happiness of the people in your empire.

Well this is something the happiness system is supposed to do; I think increasing Unhappiness from Puppets to 1 per 4 or even 1 per 3 Citizens (instead of 1 per 5 as it is now) would make sense and perhaps conquered and annexed Cities should have some extra Unhappiness even after the Courthouse has been built (could just be a City-wide Needs modifier for all Needs).

 

[Hippie_Peace_man]

I'm thinking of things like cities protesting (and not sending you their tithes), spawning barbarians near your cities (i.e. rebels), or affecting the happiness of the people in your empire.

I’m not a big fan of these suggestions. The point of vassals (at least for me) is that I don’t have to micromanage their empire and deal with their (un)happiness. Your first suggestion seems okay, but in all likelihood, it will just be a pointless annoyance that can be ignored. Along with this, some vassals (at least in the current state of diplomacy) aren’t content no matter what. We should focus on that before we deal with other aspects of vassal happiness.

 

[Hippie_Peace_man]

as non-Content Vassals won't necessarily vote you in as leader and are much more likely to accept liberation war offers

I'm thinking that a more general Vassal-nerf would probably also make sense, like reducing the Culture, Science, Faith percentages down to 15% or maybe even 10% (from 20% right now) and Tourism down to 20% (from 33%) as well as capping the maximum tax rate at 20% instead of 25% and perhaps removing the "military levy on Era advance" mechanic.

If vassals are to be nerfed, then I am content (heh) with these suggestions.