New Beta Version - June 14th (6/14)

[Snipergw]

Hmm, notice in my first game of the version a bugged notification showing the Hagia Sophia with blackness where you normally see the Civ icon. Isn't hoverable, but says "Babylon can no longer work on Petra" etc for a short time. Can't remove them and they stack up. It might just be a glitchy install, will reinstall and clear caches later, just wanted to make a note of it in case anyone else experienced it.

Also, vassalization is still incredibly obnoxious and borderline broken. If an AI is in a war with two different opponents, and the AI is losing badly, it should not be able to become the vassal of the opponent that did least in the war. Taking 3 AI cities, one being their capital, and then they become the vassal of another AI they are fighting, pushing me out of the territory as I'm capturing their last city in my area (they only have 1 tiny token city elsewhere, where they are fighting the other AI), is not very fair.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Ranged's a pain to deal with now. Regular melee seems to fall off and is much worse than it ever was, Spearmen have problems handling Archers. They hit hard and they can survive two hits, takes three to kill them. I feel like I'm hurting myself by making more Jaguars than Archers (Horsies too hard to get) so at least I can say for certain the Aztec UU is not OP. Anyway, I think ranged CS could stay as it is if RCS was lowered back to where it was. This way they'd still tank stuff, but the exchanges of damage between them and melee wouldn't be as bad. Increasing both CS and RCS was too much. I guess my findings could be skewed by the fact I only got to first Horses by early mid classical this game and was too lazy to build them as a result, but ranged seem too good.

Being first in tech is pretty harsh on your needs by the way. I got Great Library because everyone else apparently ignored Writing and got a sudden drop.

 

[Mauro Mezzina]

Ranged's a pain to deal with now. Regular melee seems to fall off and is much worse than it ever was, Spearmen have problems handling Archers. They hit hard and they can survive two hits, takes three to kill them. I feel like I'm hurting myself by making more Jaguars than Archers (Horsies too hard to get) so at least I can say for certain the Aztec UU is not OP. Anyway, I think ranged CS could stay as it is if RCS was lowered back to where it was. This way they'd still tank stuff, but the exchanges of damage between them and melee wouldn't be as bad. Increasing both CS and RCS was too much. I guess my findings could be skewed by the fact I only got to first Horses by early mid classical this game and was too lazy to build them as a result, but ranged seem too good.

Being first in tech is pretty harsh on your needs by the way. I got Great Library because everyone else apparently ignored Writing and

I also have the feeling that being in the tech lead, generates tons of unhappiness, much more then before.

 

[CppMaster]

Well, that was intended.

 

[Mauro Mezzina]

Well, that was intended.

I know and I completely understand the reasons behind, but it feels "wrong". It should be rewarding to be in the tech lead, now it feels more like a punishment.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I think ranged is seriously overpowered, I just use composite bows now to crush my enemy. Why bother with anything else? Jaguars nor spears can do much. Horsemen don't really counter them, they do ok vs Pikes and though they'd lose 1v1 you are using a carpet of them so who cares, they eat spears and swordsmen for breakfast and put a dent into Longswords, the real counter is Knights and they're 3 techs later and cost like two times more production. No point using melee UUs like Jaguar too much, just go Archers > Composites. If a city isn't unnaturally defensive I don't think catapults will be needed. They kill walled ones, but I bet one with Orders/Acropolis/etc would be too much.

Tech lead unhappiness is probably a bad idea. If you're playing a civ like Poland, China, Denmark or Aztecs like me and get into tech lead because you are great in other areas (production, culture, whatever), it's going to be fine, but I don't think I'd want to play Assyria or Korea in this environment.

 

[Gokudo01]

I know and I completely understand the reasons behind, but it feels "wrong". It should be rewarding to be in the tech lead, now it feels more like a punishment.

it's rewarding enough, you've got better units, better buildings, more choices, better yields from improvements and specialists.

moreover it creates an interesting mechanic : Tech leader tries to beeline production instead of science or culture

 

[Moi Magnus]

The other question is, how does happiness feel when you're not tech lead? Maybe the problem is the formula should not be symmetric between below and above the median.

 

[Gazebo]

I think ranged is seriously overpowered, I just use composite bows now to crush my enemy. Why bother with anything else? Jaguars nor spears can do much. Horsemen don't really counter them, they do ok vs Pikes and though they'd lose 1v1 you are using a carpet of them so who cares, they eat spears and swordsmen for breakfast and put a dent into Longswords, the real counter is Knights and they're 3 techs later and cost like two times more production. No point using melee UUs like Jaguar too much, just go Archers > Composites. If a city isn't unnaturally defensive I don't think catapults will be needed. They kill walled ones, but I bet one with Orders/Acropolis/etc would be too much.

Tech lead unhappiness is probably a bad idea. If you're playing a civ like Poland, China, Denmark or Aztecs like me and get into tech lead because you are great in other areas (production, culture, whatever), it's going to be fine, but I don't think I'd want to play Assyria or Korea in this environment.

The penalty for tech leader is not actually very severe per tech, can’t recall my final variable off the top of my head but it’s less than 5% needs modifier per tech over the median.

Regarding ranged units they all have RCS similar to ranged mounted prior to this patch. Of the two values it’d be easier to reduce CS, but we need more testing. As I said I AI performance is greatly improved on this number set, but the flip side is that we want the human experience to be fun too.

G

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

The penalty for tech leader is not actually very severe per tech, can’t recall my final variable off the top of my head but it’s less than 5% needs modifier per tech over the median.

Regarding ranged units they all have RCS similar to ranged mounted prior to this patch. Of the two values it’d be easier to reduce CS, but we need more testing. As I said I AI performance is greatly improved on this number set, but the flip side is that we want the human experience to be fun too.

G

5% needs per tech over the median? So if there's guys falling deep behind, you might end up in very bad shape? Let's say there's 8 civs, I'm Aztecs and started with 3 civs on my continent, and I beat them all to farm Golden Ages. Due to constant wars, pillages, razes etc they cannot really tech, and fall behind. (Classical when I'm in renaissance). Mongolia on another continent left Germany with one bad city as a vassal and it's also severely behind. The median can easily get to up to 50%+ increases for me and Mongolia if not way more, so there's no reason not to annihilate weaklings in this version. If you let them live, you let your happiness fall. If they're doing bad, they're making you do worse as well, so just kill them.

At least give it a limit of some sort.

 

[Mauro Mezzina]

Despite my problems with happiness in a warmonger game where I got the tech lead in renaissance, I really love the new combat.
It takes away the big advantage of declaring war and killing of most ranged units near the borders. I really had to grind to get the advantage and I am enjoying it a lot.

 

[grmagne]

Has there been any change to the culture-kills in the Authority opener? I used to get 3 culture per Brute killed now I'm getting 10. I'm playing with Denmark in 3000BC with a warrior and a pathfinder racking up way more culture than I'm accustomed to receiving.

 

[Moi Magnus]

Has there been any change to the culture-kills in the Authority opener? I used to get 3 culture per Brute killed now I'm getting 10. I'm playing with Denmark in 3000BC with a warrior and a pathfinder racking up way more culture than I'm accustomed to receiving.

No. Look like a bug.

 

[wobuffet]

5% needs per tech over the median? So if there's guys falling deep behind, you might end up in very bad shape?

But the median is pretty robust to an outlier or two.

At least give it a limit of some sort.

Agree with this. Perhaps make it scale with sqrt(# of techs above median)? or perhaps sqrt(# of techs) / sqrt(median).

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Has there been any change to the culture-kills in the Authority opener? I used to get 3 culture per Brute killed now I'm getting 10. I'm playing with Denmark in 3000BC with a warrior and a pathfinder racking up way more culture than I'm accustomed to receiving.

Seems to be 100% x gamelength now (150% Epic, 300% Marathon, Heresy% on quick). Or so it appears to be.

 

[Gazebo]

5% needs per tech over the median? So if there's guys falling deep behind, you might end up in very bad shape? Let's say there's 8 civs, I'm Aztecs and started with 3 civs on my continent, and I beat them all to farm Golden Ages. Due to constant wars, pillages, razes etc they cannot really tech, and fall behind. (Classical when I'm in renaissance). Mongolia on another continent left Germany with one bad city as a vassal and it's also severely behind. The median can easily get to up to 50%+ increases for me and Mongolia if not way more, so there's no reason not to annihilate weaklings in this version. If you let them live, you let your happiness fall. If they're doing bad, they're making you do worse as well, so just kill them.

At least give it a limit of some sort.

But the median is pretty robust to an outlier or two.


Agree with this. Perhaps make it scale with sqrt(# of techs above median)? or perhaps sqrt(# of techs) / sqrt(median).

There is a limit. # of techs as difference x tech variable.

Edit:

Maths:

int CvPlayer::GetTechDeviation() const
{
    //Let's modify this based on the number of player techs - more techs means the threshold goes higher.
    int iOurTech = GET_TEAM(getTeam()).GetTeamTechs()->GetNumTechsKnown();
    int iAvgTech = GC.getGame().GetGlobalTechAvg();

    int iTechDeviation = iOurTech - iAvgTech;

    //Dividing it by the num of techs to get a % - num of techs artificially increased to slow rate of growth
    int iTech = (int)((iTechDeviation * iTechDeviation * iTechDeviation) * /*1*/ GC.getBALANCE_HAPPINESS_TECH_BASE_MODIFIER());

    if (iTech > 0 && iTech > (GC.getBALANCE_HAPPINESS_TECH_BASE_MODIFIER() * 100))
        iTech = ((int)GC.getBALANCE_HAPPINESS_TECH_BASE_MODIFIER() * 100);
    else if (iTech < 0 && iTech <= (GC.getBALANCE_HAPPINESS_TECH_BASE_MODIFIER() * -100))
        iTech = ((int)GC.getBALANCE_HAPPINESS_TECH_BASE_MODIFIER() * -100);

    return iTech;
}

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

This tech modifier is extreme....
First game with this patch, playing tall ottoman, 5 cities.
I had +10 happiness, picked the policy "refinement" which gave me +1 happiness from all guilds (+3 total) and got a science boost cause of religious belief "holy law".
I immidiatly researched the next tech and went down to -1 happiness.
This is a loss of 14 happiness cause I have now TWO more techs researched than the median. I really fear now my international trade routes......
Edit 1: The median tech raised now by one tech. I checked it. In my capital the needs modifier went down from 130% to 93%. 37% modifier difference cause of one more tech difference. But atleast the happiness raised back to 10.
Edit 2: Researched again a new tech. This time I went down from +10 happiness to -8 happiness. 18 happiness drop cause of tech lead. This is simply silly........
Edit 3: One more tech lead.... down to -24 happiness.... the need for culture in my capitol is now modified by +183%.

Edit 4: As you can see, ottoman, siam and ethiopia are fighting with heavy happiness bounces, those are the nations with tech leading (35-36), while the other 3 nations are on the same level of tech (30)

 

[black213]

Hmm, notice in my first game of the version a bugged notification showing the Hagia Sophia with blackness where you normally see the Civ icon. Isn't hoverable, but says "Babylon can no longer work on Petra" etc for a short time. Can't remove them and they stack up. It might just be a glitchy install, will reinstall and clear caches later, just wanted to make a note of it in case anyone else experienced it.

Also, vassalization is still incredibly obnoxious and borderline broken. If an AI is in a war with two different opponents, and the AI is losing badly, it should not be able to become the vassal of the opponent that did least in the war. Taking 3 AI cities, one being their capital, and then they become the vassal of another AI they are fighting, pushing me out of the territory as I'm capturing their last city in my area (they only have 1 tiny token city elsewhere, where they are fighting the other AI), is not very fair.

I fixed that issue by re-installing Civ and VP.

 

[pernas]

Played a france game, I was the runaway civ and would go from 15 happiness to -30 by researching a tech. I had to scrap that game because things were getting so silly. I was in early industrial, and had literally every crime reducing building built in every city, even constabularies, and I had still 60 crime unhappiness in my empire. The other needs were bad, but crime was literally impossible to deal with, since I went statecraft.

 

[Kalesh-kun]

Just quit one with India on Prince in Highlands, playing peaceful tall wonderbuilding, so by medieval era I'm usually three, four techs ahead. Had a solid eight happiness, and after researching Physics, insta-dropped to minus 9. Tried to mitigate the damage until the next tech building all "crime buildings" and buying luxuries, but minus 13 was the result when I finished the research. Wonderbuilders usually have large tech leads,which made me realize that this particular game was doomed from the start; tall cities and tech leads together would crush me in the long run. Honestly, my playing style is easily the one that suffered the most in the last like six months, because I'm actually being constantly punished for stacking large pools of science and food, and religions and policies aren't enough to deal with the large happiness drops anymore. It would be like we discovered through research that the United States is the most miserable country in the world, even though is has food for mostly anybody, the biggest economy, vast resources, the biggest army in the history of history, etc. Just doesn't make sense to me. The whole point of this style of play is to dominate most (or all) aspects of the game, but all of that starts with tall cities (at least the capital) and tech leads (to have access and build wonders before the AI does it), and I dont see it being in a good place now. Please, don't get me wrong: I can only imagine how hard it is to actually try to balance all these different systems for most players and playing styles, and I don't wish having cakewalks to succeed or anything like that. I just wish the game could give me (personally) a more fulfilling experience, cause I love it and I'm kinda exhausted of being constantly punished for actually doing really well.

Sorry for the long rant, had a stressful week that's all... Nothing but love and respect for everybody that works on Vox and all fellow players. Kisses to Lord Gazebo, and sorry if I offended anybody, not my intention at all. (PS: English is not my first language!)