New Beta Version - January 3rd (1/3)

[Deadstarre]

Removed 1 Scientist from Monastery

I completely agree with this, however it is an extra cause to now more than ever re-evaluate finding a way of getting that faith discount in the tree back to a spot that more people were happy with.


overwhelming amount of the changelog looks great

 

[pineappledan]

While I think the specialist slot on monastery wasn't the best thing, isn't the Monastery kinda sh!t now? Was there no compensatory buff?

On another note. how is the 1/2 XP on units calculated exactly? I want to make a UC which re-adds the XP lost on purchased units, but I need to know how XP deducted is calculated:

• Does the XP lost only deduct the XP from buildings? Is XP from policies (Elite Forces) and wonders (Brandenberg) untouched?
• In your example of the Barracks now giving 7 XP, the actual XP given should be 7.5, but I guess it rounds down. Does that imply that the total amount of XP is summed up from all sources and then halved, or has each building's produced/purchased unit XP been set individually? ie:
  • Barracks(15XP)+Armory(20XP)+Mil.Aca.(25XP)=60, 60/2=30
  • 1/2Barracks(7xp)+1/2Armory(10xp)+1/2Mil.Aca(13xp)=30

Naval Ranged units are now all a base 1 range

This hurts. I love naval bombardments. Not even Battleship was spared?

 

[Stalker0]

Tradition now has +3 faith for it building.

That actually may be an overbuff. I know faith yields early game are very sensitive. Tradition is already pretty good at founding religions, this may make it too strong.

 

[Gazebo]

While I think the specialist slot on monastery wasn't the best thing, isn't the Monastery kinda sh!t now? Was there no compensatory buff?

On another note. how is the 1/2 XP on units calculated exactly? I want to make a UC which re-adds the XP lost on purchased units, but I need to know how XP deducted is calculated:

• Does the XP lost only deduct the XP from buildings? Is XP from policies (Elite Forces) and wonders (Brandenberg) untouched?
• In your example of the Barracks now giving 7 XP, the actual XP given should be 7.5, but I guess it rounds down. Does that imply that the total amount of XP is summed up from all sources and then halved, or has each building's produced/purchased unit XP been set individually? ie:
  • Barracks(15XP)+Armory(20XP)+Mil.Aca.(25XP)=60, 60/2=30
  • 1/2Barracks(7xp)+1/2Armory(10xp)+1/2Mil.Aca(13xp)=30

Whatever the unit would get, halve it.

G

 

[pineappledan]

Naval bombardment of cities got nerfed crazy hard this patch; not even battleship was spared.

Will there be no changes to the penalties vs domain to accompany this? It seems navies are going to get their asses handed to them by ranged land unit now, and you can't do much to soften up a city with 1 range. The broadside promotion is chopped liver now, since it's so much riskier to use it

 

[Siege Tower]

Hi everyone, I've been playing Vox Populi for a while but otherwise just lurking around here (outside of the occasional bug report on github). Just wanted to make an account so I could express my appreciation for the hard work and dedication of Gazebo, ilteroi, and everyone on the forums for building and supporting this wonderful project. I left town and my gaming PC for an extended holiday on 12/15 and enjoyed learning about the new version vicariously through the discussion here without having the opportunity to play myself. Then I arrive home today and, lo and behold, there's a major new build ready to test!

Gazebo, I don't know much about you, but from your post on the previous thread, it sounds like you have a full schedule, which makes the time and effort you put into this project even more valuable. I've put so many more hours into Civ 5 than I would have without this mod, and the community involvement has taught me a lot about game design as well. My only complaint is that VP has ruined for me inferior strategy games with moronic AI.

All this to say, Merry Buildsmas to all, and to all a good night!

 

[Txurce]

Naval Ranged units are now all a base 1 range

• Much like the artillery conundrum on land, the shift to 2 range dramatically changes the naval landscape, too much so.

One side-effect of this is that I would now ignore city barrage on my ranged ships, since going for the two-shot bonus is the best way to approximate what you (sigh) removed. It may be a good idea to buff the kick of city-fire promotions.

Using the changes above, I've ran about 10 AI games. Continents, Pangaea, King-Deity difficulties, standard speed, etc. In all games, three or four AIs vied for the top-tier in terms of power and score. Rarely was the tech or policy divide wider than 8 techs or 3 policies. Very diverse and interesting armies, hitting much harder much more often. Late-game yield bloat (esp. gold bloat) is significantly reduced, which is good!

For me the key here is the tightening of the policy lead. Do you attribute it to the changes in the Difficulty Model? It wouldn't be the University/Public School nerfs.

Tradition now has +3 faith for it building.

That actually may be an overbuff. I know faith yields early game are very sensitive. Tradition is already pretty good at founding religions, this may make it too strong.

Out of context you're right, but it gives you a different reason to pick Tradition than "I'm playing with Arabia." I pretty much ignored that tree lately. A stronger likelihood of getting a religion becomes one of its pluses. That wouldn't be reason enough to pick it over the old Progress. The real question to me is, hw does it match up to the new Progress? Overall, my hope is that the overall balance is now closer to "it's crowded, so go with Tradition," or it's open, so I'll go with Progress.

 

[IcyAngel]

Heavens, Progress got bodied!

Thank you G & Ilteroi & Infixo. Will test and report back!

 

[Funak]

I mean I know that progress was overperforming but really? That's nerfs all across the board and some of them being pretty massive.

 

[Deadstarre]

I dont have an issue with the Progress nerfs, my only concern is that Authority may be returned to the default wide pick (sans warmongering even). Since Authority first picked up scaling hammers it became seriously good for wide, and at a time in the past was just flatly better than Progress for what Progress niche was supposed to be. Then Progress got buffed, and they remained tight but the order was restored. Now with the nerfs, it will definitely be something to keep a close eye on.

It's those early hammers per city that wide needs the most and what makes all the difference, if Authority is looking too appealing again I would consider adding production bonuses to Progress for specific buildings that are not war-aligned (the way fealty boosts castle/armory production, Progress could boost Library production in all cities for just an example)

 

[Blue Ghost]

Yay! I can play with randomized victories now!

This is a pretty big shakeup to VP. Excited to see how it turns out.

 

[tu_79]

Nothing is final, but I do appreciate testing before resisting.

You should put this line in every release!

I really appreciate the effort. This one is like a three wise men gift for me.

Regarding handicap values, I think that every new release meddles with balance across eras, specially when AI logic is improved. So, instead of asking what values a,b,c should be, it would be best to spot what handicap values are desirable in Ancient, Renaissance and Atomic. This is because it's easier to agree on a value for ancient than a value for c, since the former depends on a and b too.
In my last game, 3.5 felt good in Ancient, but this was before ilteroi fix, so it doesn't count.

 

[psparky]

Regarding handicap values, I think that every new release meddles with balance across eras, specially when AI logic is improved. So, instead of asking what values a,b,c should be, it would be best to spot what handicap values are desirable in Ancient, Renaissance and Atomic. This is because it's easier to agree on a value for ancient than a value for c, since the former depends on a and b too.
In my last game, 3.5 felt good in Ancient, but this was before ilteroi fix, so it doesn't count.

I think a table of eight values indexed by era makes more sense as it would be much easier to tune without affecting other eras. Initial values could be worked out from current values of A,B and C. Using a formula would make more sense if it was based around a variable with more values that increased slower such as number of techs (not suggesting that BTW), but with only eight values (or seven if 1&2 are the same), a table would be easier to manage. For example, if I want to boost mid game and so increase B, how should I change A (and C, although that's easier) to compensate?

Have the values been changed in this release? I saw a few posts suggesting A should be lower, between 0.4 and 0.7.

 

[tu_79]

I think a table of eight values indexed by era makes more sense as it would be much easier to tune without affecting other eras. Initial values could be worked out from current values of A,B and C. Using a formula would make more sense if it was based around a variable with more values that increased slower such as number of techs (not suggesting that BTW), but with only eight values (or seven if 1&2 are the same), a table would be easier to manage. For example, if I want to boost mid game and so increase B, how should I change A (and C, although that's easier) to compensate?

Have the values been changed in this release? I saw a few posts suggesting A should be lower, between 0.4 and 0.7.

I find it much easier to watch how I am performing compared to the AI in three selected moments. If we ask too much of players, we risk them not doing the work. The curve is there to fill the rest.
Only that I think it would be more useful to agree on specific handicap values than it would be to agree on the parameters. For example, it's not very useful to say that a should be 0.5 if we don't know what b and c are going best to be (even if I agree that a should be lesser than 1, but right now it's only a feeling). It's more useful if we say that 48 is too high in Atomic. Even then, we must agree on values for the earlier eras before we can say anything about the latter confidently.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Iam a bit sad about the oracle change, bye bye free social policy.
But everythig else..... GREAT. GREAT. GREAT. A lot of deserved nerfs.
This patch is awesome. Thank you guys fo all your efforts.
But one question, is the AI building logic change from Infixio already in this patch?

The raised food cost for specialists will be hard for early specialist play. Have you considered, decreasing flat food yields from buildings instead of raising the food cost for specialists? For me, this would be a more elegant solution. I am able to feed a 28 citizen city with only working 8 tiles.

 

[Ziad]

Can't wait to test this on Deity/Marathon.

 

[Ziad]

Removed 1 Scientist from Monastery

I completely agree with this, however it is an extra cause to now more than ever re-evaluate finding a way of getting that faith discount in the tree back to a spot that more people were happy with.

Agreed. I find the faith purchase comes a lot later than it should, and now it's more justified to return it to the opener. If buffing Monasteries is undesirable, then it can be a secondary effect of the opener.

 

[Magean]

Progress got nerfed pretty hard. It was unquestionably the strongest opening AND the strongest late-game option, largely because of specialists.

I understand the nerf on Progress long-term scaling bonuses (like building speed) but I'm puzzled by the nerf to the opener. From my experience, Progress is already a bit weaker than Authority and Tradition in the (very) early game, and that opener bonuses lose relevance quite fast anyway...

 

[Ziad]

Oh and now that East India provides +1 TR, isn't this an indirect relative nerf to Carthage's UB? I think the massive nerf to Progress should be enough of a hit.

 

[Gothic_Empire]

Yay! I can play with randomized victories now!

This is a pretty big shakeup to VP. Excited to see how it turns out.

May I ask what the problem with it was before? I never really messed with it, so I don't fully understand the fix.