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

[tu_79]

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!)

Did you try controlling your pop growth? It's just logical that if both growth and tech progress contribute to unhappiness, you should not be doing both. So either be a top tech civ with low population or have lots of uneducated people if you want to remain happy. The former has more potential, but the latter may have more military power.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I'll be honest, the unhappiness is not good. I don't even understand the point of it all. To nerf runaways, sure, but why? It's not Mario Kart where you play on a track for 2-3 minutes, it can be hours of playing that ensure you get to the top. If your decisions led you there, why should the game punish you for being better? There's already tons of systems or things mostly focused on nerfing runaways and/or warmongerers, like war weariness, puppet unhappiness, AI hate, wonder cost increase for each owned of up to two eras back, science/culture cost increase for each owned city, up to 25% CS bonus against warmongerers, tourism penalty for each owned city, huge upgrade costs for units, increased maintenance per unit based on the number of owned units, population-based unhappiness, Blue Shells, low luxury happiness and now tech-happiness connection is more annoying than ever.

The problem is it's all pursuing "balance" via AI simulated games. It is definitely a ton of work that is very astonishing and praiseworthy, but I still fail to see the point. I'll be honest here, the games very long time ago when I ran away and found another continent in renaissance only to realise it's either containing a guy with all the wonders or a guy who ate everyone else while having wonders were most fun. I had to work against him. For many versions, even if I see I'm the strongest on my continent, I fail to see a champion emerge on the other one which sucks. I don't care for balance of the strong or removing runaways anymore, in fact I'd prefer if balling was easy for both you and AI because that makes for good games. If everyone is at the same level or punished when they get stronger, there's no satisfaction. I want at least one strong opponent to emerge so there's a point in playing.


The current system's flaw is not only that it's restrictive but the worst issue is that it's just not fun. If you're in the middle, you can't get unhappy, but why should being average be encouraged in a 4X game? I don't like the idea of having more Science being such a hugely bad thing when population already does that. The new system doesn't make you want to be strong and prosper, it wants you to be mediocre and it punishes you for any display of superiority. You don't get hurt by having more Social Policies, or Gold, or Spies, Production, Faith, etc.

 

[CppMaster]

So happiness fluctuate too much now. @Gazebo how about gradual change, like with median of cities. Like the real new value = new value * 0.1 + old value * 0.9 or sth like that.

 

[John.B.C]

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!)

What I sometimes do, is to slow my own research. That is, I research something until it's 1 turn left and then swap to researching another technology. I usually do this due to having good science through traderoutes. But ofc if I'm a head in tech, and low in infrastructure, it also makes sense; just to catch up.

I would say that the most annoying part of having alot of unhappiness is that it, doesn't just affect your "tech lead" (if there is one), it affects policies, faith, gold, growth etc. So overall it's really crippling to your whole empire. I do find the happiness system quite fun though, since it's so challanging. One really has to "think" through every little decision; micromanage, and learn how to "adapt" to every circumstance. I'm not sure if I find it good or bad. It can be quite stressful, since a game often isn't decided until late game in the very last few turns! So my old style of playing isn't working anymore, when I often started a game to quit it due to seeing myself or another a run away civ as a winner early on - or - just due to irrational lazyness & boredom. Now days I finish pretty much about 90-95% of all of my games, compared to 5%-10% in my earlier civilization days. I'm quite grateful for this, since the game as it is, has really challanged my own lazy character to "follow through".

 

[BiteInTheMark]

@Enrico Swagolo
You nearly said everything.what is to say.
The game feels more and more restrictive, more and more forced to be played in a precise way. More rubberbanding than ever and in most parts you done best, if you play average. But this isnt the sense of a 4X game.

Did you try controlling your pop growth? It's just logical that if both growth and tech progress contribute to unhappiness, you should not be doing both. So either be a top tech civ with low population or have lots of uneducated people if you want to remain happy. The former has more potential, but the latter may have more military power.

I have the same problem as he have, and I cant imagine the amount of happiness drops, if you have a bigger empire (10+ cities).
And sorry for this statement, but this is bullfeathers. The game went from "do what you want, create an empire that stands the test of game" to "do whatever you want, but always control your happiness, dont grow too fast, dont research too fast, dont conquer too much, always build need buildigns first (.....) or your civilization will fall apart"..... Gazebo changed the algorithm to compete with the happiness issues in last patch. I would have handled the issue different, but wasnt able to explain exactly, which problem I see. Ok, we try now the new system. Fine.
But your answer to his issue, which is exactly I have too, is only "you have done wrong". With this answer I have definitly a problem, cause in my opinion its ignorant. Instead of responding to his fear this system (or numbers of it) is broken, you only pray the same crap like last patches. Cut your grow and research less. There are already a lot of rubberbanding mechanics in this game and you demand from the people to do something absolutly counterintuive (I dont know any other 4x game, where growing and researching is doing something wrong.). No new player will understand or accept this system.

What I sometimes do, is to slow my own research. That is, I research something until it's 1 turn left and then swap to researching another technology. I usually do this due to having good science through traderoutes. But ofc if I'm a head in tech, and low in infrastructure, it also makes sense; just to catch up.

I would say that the most annoying part of having alot of unhappiness is that it, doesn't just affect your "tech lead" (if there is one), it affects policies, faith, gold, growth etc. So overall it's really crippling to your whole empire. I do find the happiness system quite fun though, since it's so challanging. One really has to "think" through every little decision; micromanage, and learn how to "adapt" to every circumstance. I'm not sure if I find it good or bad. It can be quite stressful, since a game often isn't decided until late game in the very last few turns! So my old style of playing isn't working anymore, when I often started a game to quit it due to seeing myself or another a run away civ as a winner early on - or - just due to irrational lazyness & boredom. Now days I finish pretty much about 90-95% of all of my games, compared to 5%-10% in my earlier civilization days. I'm quite grateful for this, since the game as it is, has really challanged my own lazy character to "follow through".

If you think, the happiness system have to be hard, cause the game feels to easy for you.... go a difficulty level upwards, but this is no explaination, why the happiness system should have the same complexity than the rest of the game.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

No new player will understand or accept this system.

This is actually a great point. If this version was my first experience, I'd be extremely confused by not understanding what's going on with happiness. Most of this system is not really explained anywhere in the game, mind you. Tech scroll doesn't say "every tech above the median tech level of all civs on the map increases all your needs by 5%" and neither does the happy face. I understand hindering expansion a bit even though not every city is beneficial, but everything is hindered nowadays unless you're in the middle.

Imagine a immortal/deity player of civ 5 comes here. Let's be generous and say he tries out Warlord or something because he wants to check the mod out. He's overtaking the AI with ease as it has little bonuses and, suddenly, unhappiness. He doesn't know where it comes from because it's not properly explained in-game (science icon in the UI doesn't really explain it). He changes his tech route to buildings that focus on some need because that part is not hard to figure out. Except to get the tech with that building, his needs increase yet again because, well, he got more techs. He builds the X -need/+yield building, and now he has more unhappiness of other types, so he goes to building Y tech to reduce Crime. After he gets there all the needs increase yet again by 5% each tech, he now has problems with most of the possible needs in every city and his empire is extremely unhappy. Do you think he'll stick around or just grab a bunch of smaller mods with anime girls?

 

[ryanmusante]

I don't look at it cup half empty. I look at it cup half full. It's a work in progress with small steps along the way to make it to gold release. It's getting better, many bugfixes, enhancements and features that require play testing.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I don't look at it cup half empty. I look at it cup half full. It's a work in progress with small steps along the way to make it to gold release. It's getting better, many bugfixes, enhancements and features that require play testing.

I also know the system will get better and I know Gazebo can do it, but in it's current form it's just not good. That I feel it was absolutely not necessary makes it worse. There's already a ton of anti-runaway stuff, I feel like we should be removing some rather than adding more.

 

[arthurF]

I'm having problems with Crime rate that i find difficult to explain. I'm near the top in research, i have the highest streangth melee unit in town, i have walls and castle, i have armory, to my knowledge no one has researched past me. ....and yet, the crime for my city is leading to -6 unhappiness?? how?

Oh, and wild happiness swings are back. I think the idea of puppeted cities not contributing unhappiness at all was better.

 

[John.B.C]

If you think, the happiness system have to be hard, cause the game feels to easy for you.... go a difficulty level upwards, but this is no explaination, why the happiness system should have the same complexity than the rest of the game.

And you can always move down a level.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

And you can always move down a level.

I don't think you understand how the new system works. If the AI's doing worse as it will on a lower difficulty, he will outtech them more and he'll have more unhappiness as a consequence.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I'm having problems with Crime rate that i find difficult to explain. I'm near the top in research, i have the highest streangth melee unit in town, i have walls and castle, i have armory, to my knowledge no one has researched past me. ....and yet, the crime for my city is leading to -6 unhappiness?? how?

Oh, and wild happiness swings are back. I think the idea of puppeted cities not contributing unhappiness at all was better.

First, the defence increase by population was removed, and I think it wasnt compensated. So the overall unhappiness by crime should be higher.
Second, the need system is now balanced around the concept: "you will always have unhappiness in bigger cities". So far this isnt a bad thing, cause you also get more happiness by policies/buildings/etc. You may have zero unhappiness in your capital through boredom, illiteracy or poverty, but crime is always a problem cause the ability to influence it are extremly limited.

And you can always move down a level.

Moving down in difficulty leads to a worse performance of AI, which leads to a greater difference in tech, which leads to more unhappiness to me. No solution.

BTW. I think here is a calculation issue in need modifiers. A wrong number.
After I increased my tech lead from 1 to 2, the need modifiers for my capitol increased from 95 to 130%. After I increased my tech lead from 2 to 3, it increased to 185%. 50% increase of needs ISNT 5%.

 

[Moi Magnus]

I've not yet made a game with this version, but here was the main critizes of the old system:
1) With all the catch-up mecanism, if there is a runaway, you will reasearch techs quicker than you can build infrastructure, and fall into unhappiness spiral.
2) No quick way to address unhappiness spiral.
3) High variability of happiness
4) Not beginner friendly (since with beginner gameplay, you can encounter unhappiness spiral even at very low difficulty)
5) I've probably forgotten some of them, feel free to complete the list

Then G suggested a change: getting rid of the absolute tech influence in favor of a relative tech influence. This was supposed to address point '1)' since now if everybody gain research boost, the needs are unchanged.
And we are testing it. Did it improve any of those points? (and from the post I see here, the answer seems negative)

 

[John.B.C]

I don't think you understand how the new system works. If the AI's doing worse as it will on a lower difficulty, he will outtech them more and he'll have more unhappiness as a consequence.

I kind of expected that reply. But it's not that I don't understand it. I'm just saying that there might be other untold issues involved here, besides problems with happiness. One might complain alot due to lack of understanding in other areas and then keep nagging about "oh this happiness is killing me". It's a common psychological phenomena and not very easy to prove until you guys start uploading your games onto youtube.

Or, you're 100 % correct about this whole issue... Well I experience it too, but always seem to get some control over it (I really strive for +10 happiness). Changes in my own style of playing: I delay techs; I buy resources (even if really expensive); I slow down on growth and expansion (sometimes just having settlers standing at ideal locations without building a city for many turns.) etc. etc. Happiness (even if sometimes fluctating alot) never goes out of hand for me. Except sometimes. I remember a game before this latest patch. I was down on -35 happiness, but with a lot of work I managed to save the situation and have it up to a positive value and later win the game. I like those kind of challanges.

 

[Kalesh-kun]

I guess my main gripe is the paradox that the hapiness system is creating. To win a science vic,for example, you should buff up your science, pop and prod to reach the spaceship techs first and build them. But the more you manage to get (and specially the faster you get), more unsustainable it gets, which in theory makes sense: more growth over time, more unhappiness over time. But here is the problem: if you are inching closer to your victory with every tech, policy and so on, you should also be able to counteract the consequences better, which is to say that the whole journey from ancient to information should be at least more manageable than it is because your people would constantly have better tools (techs,units,buildings, policies,etc) to deal with growing threats. The curve is not smooth right now, that's what I'm trying to say. If you have more techs than the rest of the AIs, you should have more problems coming your way, yes, because balance, but precisely by being ahead you should also be better equipped than they are to deal with your new conjuncture. Translating what I said in numerical terms, should be virtually impossible to have like a -10 happiness drop for researching one tech (or for being ahead a couple, or just for entering a new era,even) because it would make more sense that both problems and solutions evolved in a reasonably similar way. Of course, that also would mean that if you have 20 cities, those problems would be potentialized and the solutions may not be good enough, but that's not the point of the discussion.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I've not yet made a game with this version, but here was the main critizes of the old system:
1) With all the catch-up mecanism, if there is a runaway, you will reasearch techs quicker than you can build infrastructure, and fall into unhappiness spiral.
2) No quick way to address unhappiness spiral.
3) High variability of happiness
4) Not beginner friendly (since with beginner gameplay, you can encounter unhappiness spiral even at very low difficulty)
5) I've probably forgotten some of them, feel free to complete the list

Then G suggested a change: getting rid of the absolute tech influence in favor of a relative tech influence. This was supposed to address point '1)' since now if everybody gain research boost, the needs are unchanged.
And we are testing it. Did it improve any of those points? (and from the post I see here, the answer seems negative)

1.) There is no need to be a runaway. I didnt see a real runaway for a long time, maybe I didnt see a real threat to this game by runaways. If a human player is dominating the game, hes the runaway, but he will never complain about it. He dont have any problem in being a runaway. But if an AI on the other side of the world is doing exactly the same thing as he do, maybe better, people are complaining about runaways. Why shouldnt be a good playing AI be rewarded to be strong? Isnt this more realistic and competitive than a forced slightly above average play (cause of the rubberbanding mechanics)
If an other nations have 2 more techs, those are not always the only one the player have not researched, effectivly often leads to 3 or 4 techs the player dont have researched, which often gives insane science to the player with the tech disadvantage. In a multiplayer game, my mate increased his science output by around 40-50% only by sending trade routes to me, cause I was leading in tech. And the only way to deal with it would declare war against him, something I didnt wanted.
2.) Nothing will adress this issue. The game goes over hours and hundreds of turns. Its ok if you need some time to counter some problems cause you lacked in vision for the future, but it shoudlnt lead to death spirals as it was in last patch.
3.) Thats part of a complex game we have to deal with, and I dont think this is a real problem.
4.) Its definitly not. Not with the previous version, not with the actual version. The complexity of the mod is, what makes this mod so great. The vanilla game even with addons feels now so easy, so uninspired, I dont want to go back. But the problem is, the mod forces you to play more and more in a special way, with only a small corridor of accepted style of play. And this corridor isnt influenced by difficulty.

@Kalesh-kun:
You take it to the point. Science victory is crippled as fudge.
Does anybody want to play now Assyria, Babylon or Korea and go fast for a science lead to achieve fast as possible a science victory? Picking rationalismn is now one of the worst decisions you can make. Research things fast and you lose your advantage given by the opener cause you get pushed into unhappiness.
And who wants to play now india? A lot of food by their UB and faster growth by their UA, but you have to cut the growth, cause else you have to fear exponentially growing unhappiness, unless you cut all your science generation to be a third world nation.

 

[Jakethedane]

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

Just played a game last night, immortal ottomans- was the tech leader for most of the game and by more than a couple. The whole time I had to pay attention to what I was doing- and never skyrocketed ahead of every other ai. Good changes

Also I find it more important now not to b-line straight to a later tech to rush a wonder or something.

 

[pernas]

Seems few people like the happiness changes.

In a positive note, I'd like to say that the combat changes feel good. Archers and comp bows used to be useless, I'd never build any ranged before x-bows aside from siege. Now they are a viable alternative, it used to feel really bad having to rush the top side of the tree and having to build warriors against horsemen and spearmen.

About the building changes. I like the ampitheater early theming bonus. I don't think adding culture to those unique buildings does much, I've always thought they were among the better ones.

I've tried a tradition game, and the extra hammer makes a huge difference. Planting new cities is now a lot less painful in the early game

 

[pza]

how is the median techlevel determined when theres an even number of players? i thought the median tech level is the tech level of the middle player? what if that middle player changes?
example:
8 players, 4 have 20 techs, 4 have 30 techs. whats the median here, and could it change?

 

[Grabbl]

how is the median techlevel determined when theres an even number of players? i thought the median tech level is the tech level of the middle player? what if that middle player changes?
example:
8 players, 4 have 20 techs, 4 have 30 techs. whats the median here, and could it change?

It's the average of the two middle players (25 in your case). And it stays always like that, no matter how the order of the players changes.