New Beta Version - March 15th (3-15)

[XplosiveLun]

Emperor player here. War is expensive in recent versions, so you should avoid it unless it gives you unparalleled advantages. The same should go for AI. Frankly, going into war before Renaissance isn't going to give you much advantages. Unless you deliberately aimed to conquest (getting military religion, authority, civ ability, etc.). Unless your continent is really packed and every inch of land is invaluable, you can always opt to more peaceful expansion. Or if you are significantly stronger than someone else.

 

[andersw]

Second game on the patch, this time Immortal diff (epic, low sea, pangea) as Mongolia.
Brazil went on an early tech/wonder lead, lost temple of artemis and great wall to him (he also got Petra, Glib and Parthenon), his Greek neighbour is not happy with this situation.
I managed to get stonehenge (and open sky), hanging gardens and a bit surprisingly oracle since I was atleast 5 techs behind him.
Had a bad position from cs bully point (only one somewhat close CS), but I hope to grab some yields later.

A weak Polynesian neighbour fell to my skirmisher micromanagement.
I was just about to attack William (who was at war with Arabia and Greece) when the Aztecs declared, I took one city and about to upgrade to heavy skirmishers, bye bye Monty.
There have been LOTS of wars, lots of CS bullying (not from me) and some agressive settling from William and Arabia.
Biggest worry is long term Korea.

Polynesia and Aztecs doing poorly (even before they got into war with me).
Brazil and Korea doing great.
Arabia and Netherlands ok.

This was very different from my previous game where I calmly could grab a ton of wonders and just erase civ after civ and noone declared.

 

[Recursive]

Some of the feedback says the diplo AI is performing well and some of it says it's performing poorly, and it's difficult to tell why - hence why my next priority will be logging.

 

[randomnub]

In my games it sometimes performs well and sometimes it performs poorly. Glad to be helpful.

 

[tu_79]

Some of the feedback says the diplo AI is performing well and some of it says it's performing poorly, and it's difficult to tell why - hence why my next priority will be logging.

A broken clock is twice a day right.

 

[JamesNinelives]

A broken clock is twice a day right.

And a working clock is... sometimes read upside down lol?

 

[Recursive]

And a working clock is... sometimes read upside down lol?

And a sideways clock can make a 3 look like a W! Or an M...M for movement...A Unit Needs Orders? Workers are units? Workers' first improvement is a farm...Workers can make farm triangles - triangles are a pyramid shape!

Sideways clocks are Illuminati confirmed, Alex Jones's toothpaste can fight coronavirus, and if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!

 

[tu_79]

And a sideways clock can make a 3 look like a W! Or an M...M for movement...A Unit Needs Orders? Workers are units? Workers' first improvement is a farm...Workers can make farm triangles - triangles are a pyramid shape!

Sideways clocks are Illuminati confirmed, Alex Jones's toothpaste can fight coronavirus, and if Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit!

Wait. How long since you are quarantined?

 

[Recursive]

Wait. How long since you are quarantined?

Me? From the 13th till the 27th. Precautionary, not due to symptoms.

 

[tu_79]

Me? From the 13th till the 27th. Precautionary, not due to symptoms.

I thought so. That explains your line of thinking
It's one week here already, but I'm one of the "lucky" ones that must commute to work.

You should think that staying at home means doing a lot of delayed things. Not with kids.

 

[Stalker0]

Standard Emperor on Communitas_79 with Byzantium. Game Ends (Quit) on Turn 238.

This game was actually disturbingly similar to my last one. I actually felt I had a reasonable position for a time, was middle of the pack and making my way. But then happiness just crashed on me, I struggled to even maintain 35%, and I just started to slip further and further behind.

So far the three common variables that I see are:

1) Use of Fealty (its been a while since I've done fealty, and both games I used it).
2) Byzantium
3) One CS before compass.

One again I also noticed an incredible resistant to my conversions, Mayan had inquisitors in every city, and the others I tried just flipped them back instantly each time. I was actually going with a 4 Great Prophet assault on Polynesia (Byzantium can crank those guys out!), but he declared war and killed them (ouch!).

 

[Recursive]

I thought so. That explains your line of thinking
It's one week here already, but I'm one of the "lucky" ones that must commute to work.

You should think that staying at home means doing a lot of delayed things. Not with kids.

Haha. Yeah, I'm getting a bit stir-crazy around here.

Standard Emperor on Communitas_79 with Byzantium. Game Ends (Quit) on Turn 238.

This game was actually disturbingly similar to my last one. I actually felt I had a reasonable position for a time, was middle of the pack and making my way. But then happiness just crashed on me, I struggled to even maintain 35%, and I just started to slip further and further behind.

So far the three common variables that I see are:

1) Use of Fealty (its been a while since I've done fealty, and both games I used it).
2) Byzantium
3) One CS before compass.

One again I also noticed an incredible resistant to my conversions, Mayan had inquisitors in every city, and the others I tried just flipped them back instantly each time. I was actually going with a 4 Great Prophet assault on Polynesia (Byzantium can crank those guys out!), but he declared war and killed them (ouch!).

I should probably make the AI more likely to declare war if they see invading Prophets and Missionaries...

 

[Bromar1]

Standard Emperor on Communitas_79 with Byzantium. Game Ends (Quit) on Turn 238.

This game was actually disturbingly similar to my last one. I actually felt I had a reasonable position for a time, was middle of the pack and making my way. But then happiness just crashed on me, I struggled to even maintain 35%, and I just started to slip further and further behind.

So far the three common variables that I see are:

1) Use of Fealty (its been a while since I've done fealty, and both games I used it).
2) Byzantium
3) One CS before compass.

One again I also noticed an incredible resistant to my conversions, Mayan had inquisitors in every city, and the others I tried just flipped them back instantly each time. I was actually going with a 4 Great Prophet assault on Polynesia (Byzantium can crank those guys out!), but he declared war and killed them (ouch!).

I always felt like it was so much work to spread your religion compared to how easy it is to remove heresy. The only times I try to push my religion are when I can do it passively through trade route pressure with lots of isolated city states that can only get pressure from me.

Maybe the faith cost for inquisitors should scale up by 10-15 faith every time you purchase an inquisitor?

 

[JamesNinelives]

I always felt like it was so much work to spread your religion compared to how easy it is to remove heresy. The only times I try to push my religion are when I can do it passively through trade route pressure with lots of isolated city states that can only get pressure from me.

Maybe the faith cost for inquisitors should scale up by 10-15 faith every time you purchase an inquisitor?

Well, it's much much easier to spread your religion to a nation that doesn't have one yet. Whether or not there is one available often comes down to luck. Sometimes if you delay enhancing you can beat another civ to converting a mutual neighbour. But obviously there's a trade-off there. Otherwise, yes, I tend to just go for city-states. Island cities are also easier to convert because it takes longer to get an inquisitor there. Converting also becomes more difficult over time.

I think it makes sense that spreading religion is competitive though. It's high-stakes and everyone wants their religion to win. And keep in mind that while individual missionaries aren't very strong, they can spread multiple times and can attempt to spread religion anywhere - inquisitors have the same cost, are single-use, and can only be used in your own cities.

 

[Stalker0]

I always felt like it was so much work to spread your religion compared to how easy it is to remove heresy. The only times I try to push my religion are when I can do it passively through trade route pressure with lots of isolated city states that can only get pressure from me.

Maybe the faith cost for inquisitors should scale up by 10-15 faith every time you purchase an inquisitor?

I'm not quite ready to throw in the towel yet on my spreading. Ultimately if your going to push into an established religion, you need Great Prophets. The 25% erosion can help but its just not the same. When you use a GP, it resets the board, so if they use an inquisitor, its resets back to 0 instead of your at 0 and they have a massive ton of pressure. From there, stronger missionaries can keep things in line. So your ideal goal is to have 1 GP hit for every city you want to convert, and then add missionaries until they submit.

What I'm noticing that's a bit different than I'm used to is the raw speed that the AI reacts. Normally they tried to fight back but I get a little time to establish myself. Now they react instantly to convert things back, so its a bit harder to get a foothold.

 

[Recursive]

I always felt like it was so much work to spread your religion compared to how easy it is to remove heresy. The only times I try to push my religion are when I can do it passively through trade route pressure with lots of isolated city states that can only get pressure from me.

Maybe the faith cost for inquisitors should scale up by 10-15 faith every time you purchase an inquisitor?

ilteroi suggested having the city lose Population every time an inquisitor is used on it (since you're purging the heretics, after all)

 

[Stalker0]

ilteroi suggested having the city lose Population every time an inquisitor is used on it (since you're purging the heretics, after all)

Go to 14 seconds.

 

[Stalker0]

Haha. Yeah, I'm getting a bit stir-crazy around here.



I should probably make the AI more likely to declare war if they see invading Prophets and Missionaries...

Maybe, I mean the AI generally hates my gut when I try to convert, so forced conversions I find tend to lead to wars anyway.

 

[Stalker0]

Did Chanceries get a stealth nerf? Didn't they used to be +2 prod per CS ally?

EDIT: Yep, Wire Service also looks like it was nerfed. I don't disagree but its a meaty change. @Gazebo, can you add that to the patch notes?

 

[JamesNinelives]

ilteroi suggested having the city lose Population every time an inquisitor is used on it (since you're purging the heretics, after all)

Please no, I'm not going to have any people left if I start next to the Maya again XD.