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

[Omen of Peace]

Yes, Chanceries used to give +2 prod. I noticed that too.
It's probably more balanced this way.

Now that Cultures from CS has been lowered, perhaps we should lower Faith from CS a bit in the early game? Keep it in the same as now in later eras, since the value of Faith diminishes.

And by the way I'm still seeing most AI pick Statecraft. Some pick Fealty and very few Artistry, which admittedly may now the most lackluster.

 

[Stalker0]

Ok third times the charm. This time by Turn 270 I'm top place in my latest Byantium game. My happiness isn't stellar but I'm generally staying above 50% now. I feel that the main difference was a prepared my expansions a bit better, made sure workers were sent right away, roads were built ahead of time, ITRs were ready to get the new city up and running. I did have 2 CS this time instead of 1 but that's not a crazy difference.

The AI has now gone total war, and everyone has declared on me (besides winning, my complete conversion of 3 other civs to the true light of Judaism is giving me like ~-340-400 rating with them....damn they really don't like losing their religion). They've already scopped up a few islands, so its getting dicey.

Collusion?

Spoiler :

Here is some good AI play. While I have been at war with the world, Netherlands has steadily been taking territory on this island. He is finally making a combined arms push of naval and land units (something I'm seeing better use from the AI on). With so many battles for me to fight, I don't have the units to commit to this city, so it looks like the AI is going to take it.

Spoiler :

 

[andersw]

Something weird is going on with city names on capture, maybe just on my side or anyone else experienced this?
Cities that dont get a name (prev game), in this one I captured Soul and it got renamed. ...

Spoiler :

 

[Stalker0]

Just to show a quick example of the current state of city defense.

This city has an arsenal and a good garrison. It has a 47 CS, vs a normal ironclad at this level which has ~107 CS against cities (BPIII + +33% vs cities, give or take some other attack bonuses). So an ironclad does ~70 damage a pop to that city. That's still a lot of damage.

To show it graphically, these two cities were fully fresh two turns ago, with arsenals and garrisons. One has lost the garrison and is about to fall, the other will fall in 2 more turns.

Spoiler :

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Sea Beggars start with Naval Siege. Not standard fare by any means, quite scary actually.


Related to Cities have unusual names above.

Spoiler :

 

[andersw]

I have a feeling after a couple of games on the recent versions that AI authority is mostly scary/annoying because they risk slowing me down taking out the tech/policy monsters.
At the same time authority AI havent yet had much, if any, success vs other AI.
Is the situation similar on Diety with Tradition AI civs dominance or does authority AI perform better there?
Any civs or time periods where Auth AI is very dangerous?

 

[tothePAIN]

City defense against naval is terrible. If naval units get to cities, even cities that can only be attacked from one tile, they go down.

I think naval units need a cs nerf.

 

[AnemoneMeer]

Seeing some replicatable bugs regarding dialogue repeating/being spammed at an abnormal rate. Vassal dialogue related to taxes is firing every turn.

 

[Stalker0]

I would really like to see the AI early game bonuses toned down a bit in favor of a surge maybe 100ish turns in. I'm getting very tired of the AI just surrounding me with cities before I can really get going.

 

[Recursive]

Seeing some replicatable bugs regarding dialogue repeating/being spammed at an abnormal rate. Vassal dialogue related to taxes is firing every turn.

Post a bug report on Github, please.

https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues

 

[tothePAIN]

Just to confirm how inquisitors are supposed to work:

When I use an inquisitor, its supposed to get rid of all of the other religion in other cities, right? B/c it seems bugged right now and I wanted to confirm.

Edit: inquisitors are only working for me if the city has a religion. If the city doesn't have a religion, the inquisitor isn't working.

 

[Recursive]

Just to confirm how inquisitors are supposed to work:

When I use an inquisitor, its supposed to get rid of all of the other religion in other cities, right? B/c it seems bugged right now and I wanted to confirm.

Edit: inquisitors are only working for me if the city has a religion. If the city doesn't have a religion, the inquisitor isn't working.

They are supposed to remove all accumulated religious pressure except that of the inquisitor's religion from your city. If it is not working that way, please post a bug report.

 

[James Ryle]

Standard / Large Map / Emperor / Ethiopia / Map Communita_79a v1.15
Progress - Statecraft
No tech trading or bartering. No ruins. No events.

Gem luxury - coastal start

Maya(Progress) are very close to my west but across a two coastal tiles canal. Spain(Tradition) to the North. Austria(Tradition) to the North East. Ocean to South and East. Island to the east but not worth settling with Jerusalem in central position.

The Ethiopian UB, the stele got me an early pantheon. I got it 3rd and took Mother Earth. Nice little faith bonus from gems.

I forward settled into the Mayan zone as the tiles were excellent around one city. 2 sugar luxurious and with 2 stone, marble, 2 fish & horse tiles and I was still across a coastal canal so thought I could defend it well enough.

I did not get a penalty for settling too close. Must be because of the coastal space but I was only 6 tiles from the Mayan capital.

My 3rd city was strategically placed in the north in some hills and forests to defend against what I was sure was going to be a Spanish attack. I felt pretty confident to found more cities South of it a be strategically city to be safe.

Maya and Austria became my friends.
Spain was neutral.
Later Maya asked me twice to join their attack on Spain (Which never happened)
Spain began to denounce me pretty early on.


-
Barbarians were rough. Not having the CS destroy their base was a great idea. I enjoyed having to be on guard. At one stage I had 3 coming at my capital from 3 direction. I held them back with only minimum pillaging.

-
Focused on mathematics Tech to go for H gardens or/& R forum - After discovering the 5 base ones techs
I only managed to build the Roman Forum
Maya had build the H Garden before I even had enough policies to begin building it.

CS Monaco was lodged between myself, Spain and Austria... I used my GD to become Monaco's ally but was a little disappointed / dismayed to only get +3 culture after the effort of building the wonder and probably pissing off Austria by taking their CS. 2 other CS were closer to me but I wanted the culture bonus.

City expansion seemed pretty fair. We all had space. The other 3 civs stopped building at 5 so when I hit 6 all of others said I was expanding too aggressively. I was at 7 cities while Austria was still on 5

In the world I 2nd getting a religion. Maya was 3rd.
Took...
I took council of elders to help with building infrastructure & wonders in my holy city.
Took scholarship.

Interestingly Spain did not get it's religion until last so I spread my religion into half of Austria before I stopped that to focus on G Prophet to get gain an bonus tech from expanding my religion.

All was pretty even. I was one tech ahead of Maya but they were a policy ahead.
Spain was a tech and policy behind. Austria 2 techs and a policy.

—
Next thing that happened could have been the game changer for me. On researching writing I noticed the Great Library had not been taken. So I went full on to get it. Got it! The free tech bonus got me Theology and I built the oracle so had a nice culture and science bump. This put me on course to get beeline to get civil service first and build the forbidden palace. My missionaries helped me a lot with production bonus to build the wonders when converting a city.

-
About turn 115 Spain attacked Austria but neither got close to taking a city. Austria had build a catapult but used it stupidly in the front rank and Spain's horsemen annihilated it. Maybe Austria had more catapults near the Spanish boarder and spooked Spain into an attack.

-
About 30 turns later there is peace. Austria denounces Spain.

-
I somehow forgot about Ethiopia's UA ability to gain another free tech with reformation! So when I remembered I went for the Council of st basil and this was a mistake because I could have spread my religion over time I think and the wonder made the others civs say I was building wonders too aggressively. Maya had 2. Spain and Austria had 1.
(I’m a wonder hoarder after building chichzen itza)

Straight away Maya starting piling ships into the 2 tile canal between us. Austria planted a city on the edge of an island 4 tiles from my capitol. Spain had troops milling about my boarders. They also hated me for something or other... (This was getting interesting)

Surprisingly Spain attacks Maya. I move more ships in to defend against the possible Mayan to the West and Austria to now the east. Maya denounces me.

At this stage I'm up to 9 cities. I have a steady flow on diplomats rolling out. I'm careful not to antagonize the the Mayan more by staying away from their City States.

--
--
Take away so far


Wonders
Does it seemed over tuned now? No. As the games is going on I'm really having to decide which wonders to build. Before if I were ahead in techs I would have built away. It’s makes it more interesting to have pick and choose. Leaving some for other civs as I hope the Ai would now do if ahead in Techs for others to build.

Happiness
Great place right now. In the last 50 turns (now on 200) it was constantly hovering between 45-55. Normally I would focus on happiness earlier and keep it in 80 at least. This time I did not really think about it and it went to 45%. I never relished the negative modifiers I would get would be so damaging. Especially when trying to build my troops VS 3 Civs. So I just started to focus on happiness and stop growing citizens and this got me to 51% (I didn’t build public works) After I met the other Civs I traded enough luxury goods to trade to get to 68%. After a while when I stopped taking notice of happiness it was dropping to mid 55% again but sorted it out again to where it’s at 65%
This is great for me as I can still play without worrying about it a lot but I always have the means to fix it if I focus on happiness. It's an extra interesting layer.

I thought I made a mistake in taking statecraft over fealty. BUT I got the shadows network policy 3rd and it gave a massive bonus from CS allies and my science went from about 155 to 200! That's momentous. By this stage I'd allied 3 CS from diplomat and 3 others from quests. (I have 7 allies now).

-
After just meeting all the other Civs. I'm on top in techs by two. But I'm fully 3 policies behind China which had already finished the fealty branch. They are on top in score after building 5 wonders to my 6) I'm second in score. Maya 3rd (Two techs behind & same amount policies). Next Dutch then Japan.
Spain has the 2nd largest army.

It's feels like a really competitive game that I'm enjoying a lot. I’m just trying to get my extra troops in position and forts down for the inevitable attacks...

If I could do it again so far, I would have done more to Ally the Mayans.
So I'm asking, would it have been worth going on the joint attack with the Mayans early in the game? We already had a DOF without it? Is their a way to gift luxurious to other Civs? If so I've failed to find it. If I want to get Maya back on my side any advice?! I've stopped building cities at 10 and im picking my wonders carefully to hopefully drop back down to the median.

I've trying to enact a World Congress VOTE that they liked (I'm trying to ban China's main luxury). I've purposely not touched their allied CS. Even if they are only 3 tiles from one my cities...
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Other:

On a few occasions Austrian diplomats pause for about 5 turns and do nothing. It looked like they went Monaco(my ally) and seemed to would a waste of diplomat then took a while to figure what to do next.

Religion feels like its in a good place. As was said the Mayans are very aggressive and smart with their conversions.

Trading
Civs offering to only buy one resource. So I sell them one but then they will keep buying one more... I felt it was cheesy she stopped doing it. Took it as a sign that

Ai bonuses feel good. Maybe if the Ai had tried to forward settle me more I may I have an issue but I put a couple of my cities in places that made it difficult for them and then I had time to settle more comfortably in my starting zone.

Emperor difficulty is in a great place right now into renaissance era so far for me.


Map
Feels balanced. 2 large continents. Canals. Islands. Fair CS placement.
I would have no iron except for my founding close to Spain I’ve loads of horses but terrain makes them almost unless.
Plenty of space for expansion. Even if I did feel under pressure from the Maya I have space to maneuvers for strategic city placement & islands.

 

[SolutionIt]

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

Population loss would be overkill, maybe just a food loss. Inquisitors have always felt way too strong and lack any drawbacks compared to a missionary imo. Religious Warfare ought to be like a cold war, where the owner of a religion tries to spread their own doctrine but it never really feels much like it ever since you just have to pop an inquisitor every now and then to revert all the hard work you or the AI put in.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Population loss would be overkill, maybe just a food loss. Inquisitors have always felt way too strong and lack any drawbacks compared to a missionary imo. Religious Warfare ought to be like a cold war, where the owner of a religion tries to spread their own doctrine but it never really feels much like it ever since you just have to pop an inquisitor every now and then to revert all the hard work you or the AI put in.

Not how I feel then the AI is spamming missionaries tbh. If prophets are too strong, then I would just give them a limited power to remove other religions rather than it being absolute.

Is their a way to gift luxurious to other Civs?

Offer to sell them one of your luxuries without asking for anything in return.

 

[Stalker0]

Personally, I think the Inquisitor power is fine if you are using GPs properly. If you have reset a city's pressure with a GP....than you have a 1 shot Inquisitor vs a 2 shot missionary....eventually the missionary wins. I think the bigger problem is that an inquisitor next to a city makes it 100% invincible to spreading. The religion spread game is simply stopped, nothing you can do, just move on to someone else or pray the AI is dumb enough to move one of their inquisitors.

 

[Stalker0]

I wanted to say that I continue to enjoy the recent Formation change with the spear line, especially for pikemen. Its reinvigorated the unit for me. Previously I basically avoided the pikemen, knights, xbows, and longswords all the way. Now a formation II pikemen is a solid defensive unit for open terrain. He still doesn't have the defensive strength of a longsword, but he now brings good strength for his cost, so I will often use them to bulmark my stronger forces, which is exactly what I want to use them for.

 

[Stalker0]

Damn you Siam and your improved Citadel logic! Well played.

 

[Stalker0]

So I dropped back to Emperor, and after 6 times where I have been curbed stomped by the AI in Medieval....it might be time to go back to King. Happiness + 2-3 simultaneous AIs warring me is just kicking my teeth in.

 

[Stalker0]

I think this picture is a pretty good illustration of the current state of city defense. I have about 8 musketmen raining fire on this navy every round....and I still don't know if I can hold the city.

Part of the issue is the healing rate. Even if I hold off this wave, with so many AIs at war with me, I'll get a fresh wave of ships before my city really heals up much damage, so attrition will take it down eventually.

Spoiler :