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

[tu_79]

I’m actually okay with siege units not having a great anti-naval capacity out of the box, as they do now. I think there’s a great opportunity for a field/siege 1 leaf promotion which does give siege units that anti-naval role though:

Siege units retain their -25% anti-naval penalty

heated shot
Requires siege 1 or field 1
+33% vs naval units

Not by promotions. That would make the promotion tree that focus on anti-naval useless in many situations.

I was thinking more of siege units not having penalties against naval, and field promotions are just good against units, so a field promoted cannon should handle caravels better than ranged units. And it makes sense. If you want to sink a ship, you throw big cannonballs, not light ammunition. Remember those fortified castles in the caribbean? They were equipped with cannons for dealing with invading navies.

 

[Bromar1]

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 tried spreading with prophets to non-founder civs, about 90% of the time they use inquisitors too

 

[Gizmoman]

Ehm, I'm running into a rather weird problem that I've never seen before.
Using an inquisitor doesn't affect one particular AI religion at all, and it doesn't seem to have any tenets related to inquisitor resistance (and even if he did, the inquisitor seriously is having 0 effect on the followers)
The religion in question is running the following beliefs:

Ancestor Worship
Divine Inheritance
Stupas
Scholarship
Orthodoxy
Faith of the Masses

The religion is also world religion.


EDIT:

Okay, so after spending half a million missionaries to flip the city to my religion using an inquisitor removed his followers as expected. So this is something related to not removing religions with a majority?

 

[Stalker0]

Ehm, I'm running into a rather weird problem that I've never seen before.
Using an inquisitor doesn't affect one particular AI religion at all, and it doesn't seem to have any tenets related to inquisitor resistance (and even if he did, the inquisitor seriously is having 0 effect on the followers)
The religion in question is running the following beliefs:

Ancestor Worship
Divine Inheritance
Stupas
Scholarship
Orthodoxy
Faith of the Masses

The religion is also world religion.

I believe its been reported on Githhub, there is definitely something up with inquisitors.

 

[Stalker0]

Not by promotions. That would make the promotion tree that focus on anti-naval useless in many situations.

I was thinking more of siege units not having penalties against naval, and field promotions are just good against units, so a field promoted cannon should handle caravels better than ranged units. And it makes sense. If you want to sink a ship, you throw big cannonballs, not light ammunition. Remember those fortified castles in the caribbean? They were equipped with cannons for dealing with invading navies.

Personally this is my tiered approach to handle it.

1) Finish updating city defense. Its still in flux, and I still think arsenal and beyond need a much bigger CS buff than what they got in this version. I also think part of the problem is that cities received a lot of HP but their healing rate means that the city is constantly hurt, and AIs can regenerate their forces too quickly. In that example game, Persia was literally able to field a modern navy in the span it took me to heal 300 health on a city.

2) Ironclad and Destroyers could drop their 33% bonus vs cities if there is still an issue after 1 is complete.

3) If we still have problems I think we can talk about land units doing more damage.

 

[JamesNinelives]

The other thing to remember is...I am not facing 1 navy....I am commonly facing 5.

Why are all the AIs declaring on you?

1) I was at the top score.
2) I was converting certain civs (they really really hate that).
3) I was building wonders (they really really really hate that!).

Honestly it seems like the real problem here is that you were vastly outnumbered. If you are at war with 5 civs then of course you should be at risk of taking some losses.

Hmm, it does seem overtuned. Good thing we have beta testing!

EDIT: Adjustments have been made for the next version.

And it seems like this should be less of an issue in future .

Specifically (see the Diplo AI Dev thread - https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/diplomacy-ai-development.655040/):

The penalty was excessive, but with these adjustments it should be functioning more as designed; i.e. curbing excessive Wonder building, but allowing a reasonable amount of Wonder building.

The AI will also be a bit less aggressive about it.

 

[Stalker0]

One shoutout to the tactical AI. When its doing its naval pushes, its not just bringing ships, but also landing forces to interrupt and take out my ranged units. While I normally can adjust and take them out, every round I spend taking out land is a round his navy has free reign on my city.

Spoiler :

 

[Stalker0]

Another naval example (its on the coast only because I took Venice's capital, otherwise I am now only settling off coast): Poland brought in Corsairs and Frigates + some field guns and winged hussars. I held but as you can see the city is pretty damaged. I can only pray I heal enough before I get another navy my way.

Spoiler :

Round 2. I've got all the weapons I can muster against ironclad cruiser. I've got bombers, mine field up, gatling guns and field guns. Even got a landship garrison and fealty for maximum City CS. Lets find out how I do.

Spoiler :

The answer? …. not well

Spoiler :

I made it 6 rounds, throwing everything I had at him, with my city at 3/4 health from the last engagement. The cruisers were doing 40 ish damage a shot...I can only take that for so long.

My final word on this subject, if I had had 2 free atomic bombs...I could not have held this...that's how weak city defense is against naval right now.

 

[XplosiveLun]

How are you expecting to win against a naval invasion without a proper navy.

Anyway, you could always take it back with your land army, while they struggle at maintain that city.

 

[JohnnyNT]

Did you focus cruisers down (even by sacrificing 1 gatling by moving all ranged units to the coast)? Only 1 Ironclad can attack per turn, so once the cruisers are down you should be able to hold for quite a while, unless he has vanguard/naval siege on several Ironclads.

 

[Gizmoman]

How are you expecting to win against a naval invasion without a proper navy.

Anyway, you could always take it back with your land army, while they struggle at maintain that city.

This, you can't expect to defeat a naval invasion without a navy just like you can't expect to defeat a land invasion without a land army.

 

[Stalker0]

This, you can't expect to defeat a naval invasion without a navy just like you can't expect to defeat a land invasion without a land army.

So this is an important point of debate. Historically in the mod, land forces could defend a naval assault. Now they cannot....but is that working as intended?

I can say that in this case, considering the open water terrain (aka no real choke points to magnify my advantage), I would have needed at least 10 ships minimum to hold off the forces coming my way in that last game...per ocean. I had two exposed oceans, so 20 ships to protect 2 cities that hug 1 piece of water coastline, which is about half my supply at this point. Its a pretty big investment. Also that force is not endlessly enduring like my land force, that fleet will take attrition as the AI replaces their ships and I attempt to heal...so I will have to replace ships.

Now the game before that when I had 4 or 5 AIs coming at me at once...honestly I probably would have need most of my supply or a key geographic chokepoint to hold them off. Now previously, I would often use my cities as a bunker when the enemy navies got too strong, to give a chance to whittle them down so my fleet could reengage. But as you see, with the current city defense, that's not a great option...by the time you kill enough ships the city may already be taken.

 

[Recursive]

This, you can't expect to defeat a naval invasion without a navy just like you can't expect to defeat a land invasion without a land army.

laughs in Stealth Bomber

 

[tothePAIN]

So this is an important point of debate. Historically in the mod, land forces could defend a naval assault. Now they cannot....but is that working as intended?

I can say that in this case, considering the open water terrain (aka no real choke points to magnify my advantage), I would have needed at least 10 ships minimum to hold off the forces coming my way in that last game...per ocean. I had two exposed oceans, so 20 ships to protect 2 cities that hug 1 piece of water coastline, which is about half my supply at this point. Its a pretty big investment. Also that force is not endlessly enduring like my land force, that fleet will take attrition as the AI replaces their ships and I attempt to heal...so I will have to replace ships.

Now the game before that when I had 4 or 5 AIs coming at me at once...honestly I probably would have need most of my supply or a key geographic chokepoint to hold them off. Now previously, I would often use my cities as a bunker when the enemy navies got too strong, to give a chance to whittle them down so my fleet could reengage. But as you see, with the current city defense, that's not a great option...by the time you kill enough ships the city may already be taken.

I guess the current state of affairs is that a naval city can be defended - just by letting the other side take the city and then taking it back over and over again? But otherwise, the other side is definitely going to wreck the city and take it a few times.

 

[crdvis16]

Are puppets supposed to generate unhappiness from using specialists? I assume they are supposed to generate 1/4 of their population as unhappiness from being a puppet but all of my puppets are also generating unhappiness from specialists (sometimes it exceeds the unhappiness from being a puppet...). It would seem odd that they are generating specialists unhappiness when puppets can't actually generate great people.

 

[James Ryle]

Update to a Vox populi current game ramble I had post #113. This is Naval & Congress based.

Emperor, standard, large map, Ethiopia

By turn 199 and I was ahead by 3 techs and behind china by 2 policies. I had one more wonder. 5 vs 4. No war against by turn 199.

By turn 201 I was fighting a naval war to my east(Maya) and west(Austria) coasts. Most of my troops were in the North waiting the Spanish land invasion.

I was ready to defend with enough ships so kept them at bay then went on the offensive. Puppeted one of Austria's cities that was on the island closet to me. It took about 3 turns to take the city. I did stupidly over exert another attack and lost my great admiral. I'll pay for that later I feel...

I landed cannons and troops close to Mayans capital but his troops rushed to the capitals defense so I retreated. I couldn't use too many troops as I was still expecting Spain to Attack from the North...

Around about turn 205 the two wonders I was just beginning to build, China finished in consecutive turns! They were now a wonder ahead and only 2 techs behind.

The negative modifier for the production of wonders did not seem to slow China. Maybe she had G Engineers galore.

Between turn 201 - 235 everyone declared war on me expect Japan and China. Only one Civ attacked China even though they have the most wonders. They do have the largest army after the Spanish.

3 civs were directly at my boarder attacking but I'd spent time to set up defenses so was more than holding my own until Netherlands starting attacking one of my allied CS. Their sea beggars easily took my CS and I awaited there armada but it never came and they wanted peace.

Congress
Turn 236
I wanted to Sanction China and the Dutch wanted to Sanction me....
I had 8 votes... I gambled and committed 5 votes to sanction China and 3 for nay my sanction.

I was able to sanction China by one vote & their was a 3-3 tie to sanction me so i was saved!

The Dutch took control of congress with all their CS alliances. Does a CIV get the CS vote in congress if it's captured?? But I got a sphere of influence against one of his allied CS and built westminister so now have 3 more than the Dutch. I'm not sure whether to commit to sanctioning the Dutch(difficult as he has DOFs) or grabbing another of his CS with a sphere of influence (easy if I commit most of my votes). Oh the Dutch have gone into second place on score ahead of me in 3rd. They have one more policy but lag behind by 2 techs. China one tech behind me but 3 policies in front.

With the Dutch relaxing for a while... I think I might make a big naval push to take a very well defended Mayan capital. I can only attack it from one tile that can get pummeled from the land all around...

--
Notes
It is annoying that everyone decided to attack me in the space of 30 turns. If the logic is though that if I'm ahead in tech, near the top for wonders then I can't complain. (I was careful not to steal from most Civs and tried to interfere with their CS in the beginning but quests gave some big bonus and I stayed on it with rigging elections etc)
Austria, Spain and Maya are fighting among themselves at times also. Actually their had been constant warring going on since early times. The only Civs gaining opposition cities are the Russians and the Dutch taking 3 of Japans cities and MY CS.

I'm enjoying the Congress game. Feels intriguing & fair to put the time in but the CS defense has no chance against a concentrated naval assault from a Civ. The CS was far away so I could not defend it. I'm in the process of bringing my ships to bolster my closer CS allies. (Coups could well be the death of me).

Happiness. I was surprised after putting the effort to raise it from 45% to 60% it dropped again to 48%. All the loss of luxuries due to war affected me I suppose so I started to build City works and just went into a Golden age so that's helped. Again, I like the happiness setting at Emperor now. I need to stay on it with my infrastructure. It's easy to see what must be built. So big Kudos to Gazebo for all that hard work and iterations and for everyones feedback to get it where it now is.

 

[Zanteogo]

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.

Inquisitors do need some sort of drawback. Prophet religious spread is pretty much useless compared to how easy it is to reverse it.

Perhaps a -1 to happiness in the city per removal?

The passive religious block is also crazy powerful. The only reason it's not an issue is due to the AI not using them as they should.

 

[Zanteogo]

So we are headed in a direction where:

Ranged/Mounted Ranged units deal with land units
Siege units deal with cities and naval units
Siege promotions should be naval focused instead of just wounded units focused?

I almost always pick the city damage line on my Siege units due to the base power increase is greater than the increase the bonus vrs wounded line gives. The damage spread effect it leads to is ok.. but not that great.

 

[Zanteogo]

This, you can't expect to defeat a naval invasion without a navy just like you can't expect to defeat a land invasion without a land army.

As it should be.

Mid game naval units used to be used to be all you really needed to have map supremacy on maps with significant water. They are pretty well balanced now, they are needed to keep and take coastal cities mid game, but you can't lean on them alone. (mostly due to ranged attacks not reaching past one land tile)

 

[Kim Dong Un]

I'll point out something cool I've noticed with regards to city strength: diplo victories are now easier to shut down because the AI is able to conquer distant CS easier, but because I've experienced less lenient happiness overall in the last 2 versions, it has also allowed me to witness a few instances where I can utilize attrition through war and catalyze city flipping. Instead of focusing resources to revive the CS allies which were conquered by distant foes, I can ally the newly formed and much closer CS, allowing me to re-establish the vote(s) lost.

Although, there's probably a bug with city flipping, as I've noticed a few times it's happened where the new CS states it has flipped to "X", but it keeps the same name of the original city, e.g., Chicago is now Bratislava except it still says Chicago on the map until you actually click on the CS, where it will then list it as Bratislava in the CS screen. Just wondering if anyone else has viewed this; for all I know, it's unavoidable and is just a side-effect of the way it's implemented, but I figured I'd point it out considering it does bring some confusion.