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

[Txurce]

Makes sense thematically and in gameplay to me that if you have a large population you need to invest in security to keep them under control.

Yes. But I think the question is, how much of the investment should be centered on one building.

 

[Gazebo]

Yes. But I think the question is, how much of the investment should be centered on one building.

Constabs are essentially useless without it.

G

 

[Txurce]

Constabs are essentially useless without it.

G

Agreed. I'm basically echoing Stalker0's point about not putting quite so many eggs in one basket.

 

[Stalker0]

Agreed. I'm basically echoing Stalker0's point about not putting quite so many eggs in one basket.

And note, my suggestion was not a massive nerf to the constab. I was talking about moving 10% just to round out the rough edges. 40% crime reduction is still a hell of a thing.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

This 50% reduction makes this building a key building pushing you to research it as early as possible. I also see now, I need circus in every city to fight boredom even I rarely build them. Before the last 2 patches it was fine but now iam forced to build every building that gives treshold reduction.
The lovely freedom to build what you want and priorize what you want is gone.
Now you stack buildings you need to stay alive, not buildings you really want.

And dont tell me, I have to go down a difficulty. This have nothing to do with skill or difficulty. The AI build every building and then go science/culture, increase the pressure to your happiness. Thats all.

How do you check, if your numbers are in the right place? How do you control, if they are not too high?

 

[tu_79]

I have to say that I'm delaying constabularies and having no worries. Oh, but this is playing tall Austria, with lots of marriages and alliances, my cities are not too big for being working on specialists, so I have more than enough happiness. I only build a couple of them later because a city state quest. And for some thieveries.

Maybe you are playing too wide, or your population is too high, and you cannot manage that without cops?

 

[Gazebo]

This 50% reduction makes this building a key building pushing you to research it as early as possible. I also see now, I need circus in every city to fight boredom even I rarely build them. Before the last 2 patches it was fine but now iam forced to build every building that gives treshold reduction.
The lovely freedom to build what you want and priorize what you want is gone.
Now you stack buildings you need to stay alive, not buildings you really want.

And dont tell me, I have to go down a difficulty. This have nothing to do with skill or difficulty. The AI build every building and then go science/culture, increase the pressure to your happiness. Thats all.

How do you check, if your numbers are in the right place? How do you control, if they are not too high?

Let me get this straight: you want the ability to not build a building designed to deal with the source of unhappiness you’re fighting? K.

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Let me get this straight: you want the ability to not build a building designed to deal with the source of unhappiness you’re fighting? K.

G

An artificial unhappiness you created by the last 2 patches. Playing vs AI, that is able to build everything faster than me, creating big, efficient cities is the only option I have to counter the many advantages AI has. (Going to war is not an option)
The happiness system was fine as it was. If you have cities below the average, you get struck with unhappiness. Thats fine.
But it sucks, if you have build everything up to arsenal, barracks, armory, constabulary, Red Fort world wonder...... and still suffer unhappiness in a city, while this city is superior in this value to all other cities.
This have nothing to do with median of cities. This is only an artifical punishmend for playing with growth, even its now much harder to support growth, with all the food nerfs....
And it sucks, if you simply cant stay in happines vs boredom or illiteracy, cause the AI build everything much faster than me and then goes culture and science, artificially raising the median values.

 

[Workerspam]

My current game is an Emperor/Standard/Standard as the Inca. I went wide and thick: 14 cities with Zulu and Mongols my closest competitors with 12 and 11. I have the largest capital and half my cities are larger than half the world capitals. So I am ripe for happiness problems.

I got away with not building Constabularies until early Industrial (likely because I opted for Fealty) when my 40ish happiness began a rapid descent. When it hit 20 and I identified defense as the primary cause I began building Constabularies in every city. I bottomed out at 2 happiness before crawling back to 20-25. Yes, I still have unhappiness from defense. I also have unhappiness from culture but have yet to build a Circus in any city. I will have to at some point but for now I can concentrate on more important infrastructure.

I plan on playing this game out so I'll see if unhappiness eventually becomes uncontrollable or if the current tools are enough to manage. Given that unhappiness is one of the primary threats to my empire (the world being the other) I'm working through the tech tree with happiness solutions in mind.

 

[Misaka]

Hello the last version of vp can play with barb in multyplayer its. 7-20-17. I teste de the mod pack of this version and don't work. How can i help to fix this? if need something from me only ask it

 

[Misaka]

For the unhappiness, i don't see any problem. Now the unhappiness its more strong than before i know it, but if focus in a lot of city erly and growth you need it take every luxyuru can you get, if you need to pay exesive. I like it the new system because you need build circus, before for me circus its a very uselles building. And If you start with Tradiction,Progres,Autority. Now you must and need to play accordly the disaventage of they. If don't understand what i say sorry xD i know my english its fudge xD

 

[Gazebo]

An artificial unhappiness you created by the last 2 patches. Playing vs AI, that is able to build everything faster than me, creating big, efficient cities is the only option I have to counter the many advantages AI has. (Going to war is not an option)
The happiness system was fine as it was. If you have cities below the average, you get struck with unhappiness. Thats fine.
But it sucks, if you have build everything up to arsenal, barracks, armory, constabulary, Red Fort world wonder...... and still suffer unhappiness in a city, while this city is superior in this value to all other cities.
This have nothing to do with median of cities. This is only an artifical punishmend for playing with growth, even its now much harder to support growth, with all the food nerfs....
And it sucks, if you simply cant stay in happines vs boredom or illiteracy, cause the AI build everything much faster than me and then goes culture and science, artificially raising the median values.

The median varies very little across difficulties. Previous patches saw players with 100+ happiness in modern. Even on this version a bonus-less AI can stay in positive happiness the whole game.

G

 

[Gazebo]

Hello the last version of vp can play with barb in multyplayer its. 7-20-17. I teste de the mod pack of this version and don't work. How can i help to fix this? if need something from me only ask it

Barbarians don’t work in MP and there’s no solution immediate or forthcoming.

G

 

[Moi Magnus]

Barbarians don’t work in MP and there’s no solution immediate or forthcoming.
G

I am currently playing with one of the January version in MP with barbarians and we don't have any problems other than the crappy connection of one of us.
(So we have regular desync, but not outside of the moments where our friend temporarily lose its Internet connection)

 

[BiteInTheMark]

The median varies very little across difficulties. Previous patches saw players with 100+ happiness in modern. Even on this version a bonus-less AI can stay in positive happiness the whole game.

G

100+ happiness looks for me like, there are too much positive modifiers rather than too few unhappiness.
How do you test your changes in numbers? And how do you know a bonus-less AI can stay happy? I really want to know your methods to replicate it for me.

 

[Misaka]

When i say and i understand Gazebo too, Barbarian don't work well, in mp you get every 3-5 turn a desync periodically, for my this its not work. If you get every 50 or 100 turn well in that case for my its working. but not every 3-5 turn desync. Moi Magnus, when you say regular desync its 3-5 turn? i don't get any disconection normaly when i play mp.

For the case of 100+ happines in a lot of game i gave it. In parches before

 

[Moi Magnus]

When i say and i understand Gazebo too, Barbarian don't work well, in mp you get every 3-5 turn a desync periodically, for my this its not work. If you get every 50 or 100 turn well in that case for my its working. but not every 3-5 turn desync. Moi Magnus, when you say regular desync its 3-5 turn? i don't get any disconection normaly when i play mp.

For the case of 100+ happines in a lot of game i gave it. In parches before

With our friend with a crappy connection, it is a desynchronization every 3-5 turns. Without him, we have a desync every ~30 turns.

(And we know it is a problem on its side because sometimes he just failed to resync and had to quit and relaunch the game)

Note that we play with the Pitboss option so that if one of us deco, the AI does not take its place.

Important point: we are playing in the same team, so it may also reduce desync a lot.

 

[Misaka]

The New Beta Version - 1-26th the links its down. Can someone upload and share the link please. Its for play Sp with other mods.
We are 2 with pitboss, we play in lan. But we don't play in team.
In some case we are 3, we don't test it, i think with 3 nothing change if have desync with 2 xD

If you wan't to play without desync try this
https://mega.nz/#!dMUTyRCa!Lxsp5bRyrtQEQ1Q53ZKgrZZ3wdqBybJ_1igEBQtUBh8
its no my modpack i think its erlyer elliot modpack if my memori don't fail xD.
But with test it with 3, and with standar barb (no raggin) this work.
I remember in this version A lot of people work it to barb work and i know need 2 or 3 patch to fix it. xD

 

[Gazebo]

100+ happiness looks for me like, there are too much positive modifiers rather than too few unhappiness.
How do you test your changes in numbers? And how do you know a bonus-less AI can stay happy? I really want to know your methods to replicate it for me.

I've posted my methods before. Test all difficulties, run through games, watch and check logs. PlayerHappinessStats.csv is your friend.

G

 

[Stalker0]

Just finished up a couple of games. Each one was Arabia going for a CV to see how those shake out. Its on Emperor, but I had to shift back down to Small maps due to game speed. I like standard, but my god I can finish a game in like half the time on small just because of turn speeds.

The first game I was top of the world on score for a long while until compass and got a look at the other continent. An Ottoman runaway! He had slapped Germany around and completely controlled his entire continent. I started picking out converting his religion, but he was destroying me on both culture and tech. It was not insurmountable, but it was a big uphill battle....so I took the quiters way out This is probably the most "runawayish" I have seen the AI since we put in some anti-runaway adjustments.

The next game also had a runaway....me! I went with a Terra start. And for the first time I can ever recall....I got one of those crazy "mountains everywhere" starts that people rave about with Goddess of Nature. So of course, I had to try goddess of nature It is the first time in all my playing VP that I have taken it....honestly I have never had any real mountain starts, even my inca starts did not have mountains like these. I changed the rift width in the map settings, does that affect mountains? Also my god the sheep. Sheep EVERYWHERE! More sheep than I have seen in 2 other games put together.

Anyway...so I see what all the fuss is about with Goddess of Nature. A very nice pantheon, honestly about as strong as Purity with a really good lake start, or Sun with a lot of wheat. It was very fun, but didn't feel OP compared to other pantheons in their "shining" conditions.

Religion Wise, I tried out Pilgrim this game. My response....meh. The culture was alright, its no council of elders with hammers but it was alright. The tourism was pretty laughable for me though. Further it was just so flaky. One conversion 150 culture and tourism. The next....15 culture and 0 tourism. Up and down, back and forth. I conceptually understand the belief, but in game it just made no damn sense to me and gave up try to understand it. Probably going to be the last time I take it for a while.

Policy wise I went a little crazy this game. Arabia normally screams for Tradition -> Artistry. But with my dry mountain start I had hammers for days but my people screamed for food. So....I went Artistry 1 and then shifted into fealty instead. I focused on conversion of other civs to get some tourism that way, and to get the extra bonus from fealty's finisher. Using writer buying from the grace of god and a free writer from National Treasure I manged to get all the way to Artistry Finisher just as my first Archeologist finished! (woot!). Then to pick my ideology. Again, a crazy game, normally I go freedom as Arabia. But then took a look at futurism....hmm, I am just about to have an army of new historical events with all of these digs....why the hell not. So Autocracy I went, and got some very nice tourism! Also tried out that iron fist everyone was talking about (I had vassaled Venice....hehe but not Venice's capital, one of his puppets ) And....holy crap that gives a lot of yields! I think I got +400 culture per turn from that thing!

I dominated the whole game and was never challenged. I won CV in turn 276. The game was actually so easy that I doubled checked to ensure I was on Emperor, as I have never won so easy on Emperor. Honestly I'm not sure what happened, my other emperor games have been quite difficult, even the CV ones I've tried. But after getting my butt kicked the last 3 games in a row it was nice to do the butt kicking for a change.

So a summary of a few notes:

1) Pilgrim may need a look at, or may just need a new mechanic. G I know what you are going for, but it is just so damn confusing to use.

2) Zoos. The zoo is actually a solid building for its happiness and boredom reduction. But its tourism is pretty garbage. I was getting a 400 tourism instant yield....but I was already making like 2000 tourism a turn through other means. Its not that the zoo needs a buff, but its just not really a "tourism building" right now.

3) Growth wise, I'm finding I'm shifting more to ITRs to maintain growth. Now I already said this game I was very dry, but even in general working specialists early is a challenge. I'm finding that an ITR allows me the food to shift people to specialists, whose yields actually out way the ETR (specially with the GP bonuses I get). I'll report more to see how that evolves with future games.

4) I meant to record the trade route turns, but forgot I don't know, I still don't think my trade routes are taking 50-78 turns like the tooltip is often suggesting (that's on a small map, normal speed, land routes). I will say if it is...then trade tourism is actually pretty garbage, at least on land. That is both disappointing on the one hand, but actually liberating in another. It means I can send my trade routes to the civs I've cultural dominated and enjoy the fruits of my labor instead of having to send my routes to my top target.