New Beta Version - January 26th (1-26)

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

New beta inbound. This one is primarily bug-fixes and recent change cleanup/codification. I know I'd said that the last one would become the new version, but I want to get a few days of this under our belt to see if we can iron out that rare freezing bug and/or a few policy AI quirks (as well as Infixo's UI tweaks).

• Bugfixes
  • Github issues addressed
  • Big tactical AI bugfixes (AI unleashed bro)
  • Diplo AI and production AI bugfixes
  • Tons more UI work by the esteemed Infixo
  • More work on policy AI and other selection criteria models
  • AI armies should be more diverse
• Warmonger Revamp
  • Fixed some (okay, a bunch of) bugs, sanitized a ton of values and logic, and changed some modifiers
  • Most important changes
    • Your relative military power is a primary method of scaling the potency of your warmonger instead of approach/opinion
      • If your civ is much more powerful than another civ, that makes them more sensitive to your warmongering activities.
      • If you are much weaker than another civ, that makes them less sensitive to your warmongering
    • The warmonger value of a city scales based on the city's economic power, not it's size or the number of cities in the world.
    • Because it should be this way, duh.
    • Removed all opinion/approach elements in warmonger so that AI plays fair with humans, and so that warmonger doesn't become a vicious feedback loop.
  • Warmonger Resistance
    • Now halved in neutral territory (instead of being zero)
    • Caps based on handicap level (AIBase value squared, so Deity is 7x7=49)
    • Scales based on the maximum possible value needed for the highest warmonger ranking, so should be more gradual - starts to cap around the 3rd tier (of 4).
• Balance
  • General
    • Bonuses related to Ally/Friend status (i.e. Chancery, Wire Service, Germany UA), now exclusive to Friend/Ally status
    • Either/or, not both - this was always the intention, technically a bugfix.
    • Dropped Jungle/Forest city plot production from 125% of chop to 50% of chop value (now ~10p)
    • Reduced CS meeting bonuses, esp. influence
    • Difficulty handicap modifiers tweaked a bit to help early/mid-game slump
    • Scoring tweaked a bit to emphasize techs/military power/policies over land/pop
  • Civs
    • Byzantine - now UA modifier for faith is 15% (was 25%)
    • Carthage - founding gold now 125 (Was 175)
    • Siam - bumped CS influence to 40 at start (was 35) to compensate for lost bonuses above
  • Beliefs
    • Zealotry - dropped SR modifier to 1% (was 3%)
  • Buildings
    • Workshop - bumped production to +5
    • Factory - bumped base production to +5
    • Circus Maximus- now grants Arenas +2g (instead of +1 happiness), regains it's +2 happiness
  • Happiness
    • Increased pop scaling % by 10%
    • Increased tech scaling for happiness by .05 (1.5, was 1.45)
    • Bumped starting % for yield thresholds up by 5%
  • Resolutions
    • Reworked Arts/Science resolutions to scale off of policy/tech count

Online as of 12:15am EST. Not savegame compatible.

Link: https://mega.nz/#!XdVE2a5C!FF-e8aJxv9UrR4zzNvAyd09o-3Q4dNeoAvPTCKJy6ls

 

[Kim Dong Un]

You Da Man Zebo!

 

[ridjack]

• • Removed all opinion/approach elements in warmonger so that AI plays fair with humans, and so that warmonger doesn't become a vicious feedback loo

Some clarification here: is this saying there's no more diplomatic penalty to warmongering, or just no more opinion elements in the new mechanic?

 

[Stalker0]

So Happiness. Changing the circus
Animus back already dropped like 10 happy for wide. No reason to increase the penalty more.

 

[Wexmajor]

Looks good! Was the Great Prophet spawn bug fixed?

 

[kevytmaito11]

Modpack: https://mega.nz/#!VHpUTDbD!lyXLsjqPfkd0SP1zw-sQV5TkjdWnj5UkkUg9gAIKVRA (EUI-version)

 

[tu_79]

It looks like we're always thanking new releases, but you really do a hard work.

Chanceries were giving both bonuses? I knew they were good, but not that much.

New warmonger penalty sounds like it's going to work better, though still a bit weird that there's a sudden penalty by crossing the borders. Let's see what warmongers have to say.

So, now cs quest give less influence or is it only on meeting? Affects only Siam or also Austria?

What are new handicaps values? I feel like early one needed to be smaller and middle one higher. Still no opinion on late one.

 

[bigcat88]

the best building was wire service - now it will be hard to decide what you want(2 science or 2 culture for CS). That's very interesting

Looks like AI now don't like to build shrines(or maybe only some of them). They just expand(progress AI that I see) instead of shrines In my current game Bismarck with 5 cities still has no pantheon(117 turn on epic).
Will look who will found a religion on map - very very interesting.

P.S.: hanging on barbarians are gone - thanks!
Added:
No there are still hangs on autosaving ((

 

[RAuer2]

A thank you to everyone involved with the work on this patch!

Regarding Zealotry: Does the 1% bonus accrue from owned cities of your religion or does it accrue from any city of your religion. The former essentially chops the SR bonus by two-thirds while the latter encourages spreading to neighbors.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Nice patch, I agree with all changes, only complaining I havent finished my previos game yet.
Could you explain the happiness changes, Iam no english foreigner and its a bit hard to understand.

 

[Gazebo]

• • Removed all opinion/approach elements in warmonger so that AI plays fair with humans, and so that warmonger doesn't become a vicious feedback loo

Some clarification here: is this saying there's no more diplomatic penalty to warmongering, or just no more opinion elements in the new mechanic?

Latter.

So Happiness. Changing the circus
Animus back already dropped like 10 happy for wide. No reason to increase the penalty more.

Zoo happiness and other changes led to these changes. AI can keep happiness (with occasional dips) for the whole game with this, so I'm happy with the balance.

It looks like we're always thanking new releases, but you really do a hard work.

Chanceries were giving both bonuses? I knew they were good, but not that much.

New warmonger penalty sounds like it's going to work better, though still a bit weird that there's a sudden penalty by crossing the borders. Let's see what warmongers have to say.

So, now cs quest give less influence or is it only on meeting? Affects only Siam or also Austria?

What are new handicaps values? I feel like early one needed to be smaller and middle one higher. Still no opinion on late one.

CS Ally/Friend bonus fix was a bugfix that resulted in a nerf. Works as intended now, brought those buildings down a bit too.

Crossing borders for war is a pretty big deal IRL too...something something invasion of Belgium.

Values are in the difficultymod.xml file.

G

 

[Stalker0]

Alright, I was a bit knee jerk in my comment before. I apologize, it’s just that the those unhappiness spirals are literally the most unfun thing I experience in the mod. It’s the one that makes me rage quit and want to not play anyMore, so I’m very sensitive to it’s changes.

In terms of the circus Maximus, I think the gold is unnecessary. No one had complaints about either the circus m or the arena before, and since the happiness change you thought too much, I would just return it back to it’s old values. As you said, we want to reduce that yield inflation.

I appreciate The factory and workshop boosts, will see if it’s overtuned or in a good spot.

For the wire service etc change...as i said before they needed a nerf, but i think this is the wrong approach. I know you said it’s a bug fix but this mechanic has been around for a while now, so I just consider it core balance.

I think it’s weird to get less when getting an alliance. No other mechanic does that. An alliance should never ever be something I don’t want. That’s not strategic play, that’s just a weird penalty.

As I said I’m all for a nerf here, but I would rather it be more direct, and not in this roundabout way.

The warmonger penalty concept makes a lot of sense to me....we will see how it goes!

 

[Gokudo01]

About workshop and factory, I think you gave them the same buff but it doesn't have the same result.
Workshop with + 2 production get more useful because you can make it pay for itself really faster and enjoy the extra gold. it costs 350 hammers and with 5 base hammer, you can expect to get extra hammers under 50 turns. it's a building that you unlock around turn 150 to 200 in standard speed. so you can benefit from extra hammer from 200-250 to the end of the game.

Furthermore you get extra gold from it which can help sometimes to reach the poverty threshold.

Now, Factories :

Let's take a city with 24 citizens and 2 manufactories. ( the almost ideal setup ), you get 5 + 24/4 + 2*2 = 15 production.
Let's say you work the extra engineer slot ( which you shouldn't unless it's your tradition capital or you are deep in freedom ), it's a 15 + 5 = 20 production.

1250 /20 = 62.5 turns. you should have this building available between turn 240 ( but who dives into industrial through steam power + railroad) and turn 300.

let's say your game finish at turn 400. you will get 200 extra hammer from the factory, it's not an industrial building cost, it's not even a industrial unit cost, it's a classical building cost.

Now take my numbers, double everything and the building is still bad.

moreover, you have to take in consideration that you want to optimize your coal use ( unless playing on communitas ). you need it for melee boat, seaport and train station.

Conclusion : I didn't test the new version but I can't see how an extra + 2 production changed anything to factory situation but I can always be wrong

 

[pineappledan]

Factory was always desirable. people weren't complaining about the Factory, they were complaining that they had to build a low-value, situational workshop in order to get to it.

Should Ironworks wonder be bumped to 12, so it still feels "wonderful", in light of this buff to workshop?

 

[Gokudo01]

Factory was always desirable. people weren't complaining about the Factory, they were complaining that they had to build a low-value, situational workshop in order to get to it.

Should Ironworks wonder be bumped to 12, so it still feels "wonderful", in light of this buff to workshop?

I don't talk about desires or feelings. I'm talking about maths. you can attack my maths, saying I didn't count this or that and you will surely be right. I am human, I make mistakes and learn from them

 

[MorphBer]

I defenitly had the feeling factory and workshop became super unexiting after the latest changes. IMO these buildings should mark a significant jump in your production. Workshoops sounds decent now, factory feels a little unexiting still but I will test it. (prenerf it bumbed engineers and merchants, which you had in every city if you wanted, now its manufactorys, which you have like 1-4? of, that is such a significant difference)

 

[ryanmusante]

What is "unexiting"? You mentioned it twice. I couldn't find it on the terms list for Civ5.

 

[Gazebo]

About workshop and factory, I think you gave them the same buff but it doesn't have the same result.
Workshop with + 2 production get more useful because you can make it pay for itself really faster and enjoy the extra gold. it costs 350 hammers and with 5 base hammer, you can expect to get extra hammers under 50 turns. it's a building that you unlock around turn 150 to 200 in standard speed. so you can benefit from extra hammer from 200-250 to the end of the game.

Furthermore you get extra gold from it which can help sometimes to reach the poverty threshold.

Now, Factories :

Let's take a city with 24 citizens and 2 manufactories. ( the almost ideal setup ), you get 5 + 24/4 + 2*2 = 15 production.
Let's say you work the extra engineer slot ( which you shouldn't unless it's your tradition capital or you are deep in freedom ), it's a 15 + 5 = 20 production.

1250 /20 = 62.5 turns. you should have this building available between turn 240 ( but who dives into industrial through steam power + railroad) and turn 300.

let's say your game finish at turn 400. you will get 200 extra hammer from the factory, it's not an industrial building cost, it's not even a industrial unit cost, it's a classical building cost.

Now take my numbers, double everything and the building is still bad.

moreover, you have to take in consideration that you want to optimize your coal use ( unless playing on communitas ). you need it for melee boat, seaport and train station.

Conclusion : I didn't test the new version but I can't see how an extra + 2 production changed anything to factory situation but I can always be wrong

Your forgetting about production modifiers, investment benefits, policy and tenet modifiers, etc.

G

 

[tu_79]

What is "unexiting"? You mentioned it twice. I couldn't find it on the terms list for Civ5.

The opposite of exciting?

 

[pineappledan]

I don't talk about desires or feelings. I'm talking about maths.

Cool, have fun with your maths you scientist man.

you can attack my maths, saying I didn't count this or that and you will surely be right.

The easiest explanation is that workshop needed a boost, and it would have looked weird if factory's base stats were lower than a previous building, but because of their other abilities didn't necessarily need a stat boost, so their buff was kept to a minimum that kept pace with the workshop's