I think Goddess of home is too strong. In my games that I've played the longest/to the end and in the games where I quit early, the AI usually selected it with the first pantheon and usually had the biggest cities out of all civs and usually enhanced first. Might be my confirmation bias, though, so this is just a point of observation.
Tried a game with England, I think the early spy was nerfed a bit too much, I'm only stealing one tech per around 30 turns and with CS rigging giving only 30 influence every 14 turns, I can't really bring myself to use for that purpose (with the exception of using it first on a religious CS to become friends and bring my pantheon online 15-20 turns sooner).
Playing another peaceful Byzantium game, this time I got a tobacco start enabling me to start pumping out missionaries much faster, plus there was no crazy runaway as in my previous attempt.
Turn 232, Egypt as the game leader just adopted an ideology and entered the Modern era. I'm around 9-10 techs behind and I'm one social policy away from being able to select an ideology. I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to compete for a science victory via.
The AI is woeful in (not) using inquisitors, even though the inquisitors work from the start of the Renaissance era. Basically all the AI's cities I've used my missionaries on have remained unpurged, even with Siam who took the inquisition enhancer.
Playing another peaceful Byzantium game, this time I got a tobacco start enabling me to start pumping out missionaries much faster, plus there was no crazy runaway as in my previous attempt.
Turn 232, Egypt as the game leader just adopted an ideology and entered the Modern era. I'm around 9-10 techs behind and I'm one social policy away from being able to select an ideology. I'm cautiously optimistic about being able to compete for a science victory via.
The AI is woeful in (not) using inquisitors, even though the inquisitors work from the start of the Renaissance era. Basically all the AI's cities I've used my missionaries on have remained unpurged, even with Siam who took the inquisition enhancer.
Nope, Deity, standard speed and everything. It's quick, but still it's much better compared to my previous attempt where Russia entered the Industrial age on T158.
As for the bug, I have the same bugs as reported on GitHub, the main one bugging me is that my inquisitors don't purge my cities before I enter the Renaissance era.
@Gazebo identified source of CTDs wihtin @ilteroi changes for 3-1. This version two posts up fixed this up for me and have every feature of 3-1 like balance changes, It shares a problem with inquisitors and strategics price.
After a few games on this version: I can say, that taken with the previous couple of betas, they change the gameplay like I haven't seen in quite a while, at least for my playstyle.
To describe it: I tend to go quite greedy in the beginning, skipping whatever I can (units, ...) to get good infra and/or good cities. Except when I go Authority, of course.
- I like the Barb changes but they've hit my style hard, since Barb camps especially seem much harder to clear. Perhaps Barb Brutes are a bit tougher as well?
So I definitely need to build more units in the beginning, in the future.
- The AI definitely still starts out stronger than before February. The new bonus amounts/triggers feel a bit better than in the previous beta, but I think some more fine-tuning could be helpful. The AI starts are perhaps a tiny bit too good.
With that said, I won't be surprised if it's hard for everybody to agree exactly how fast the AI should develop in the beginning.
After playing this new version, I'm starting to agree with the crowd that wants more frequent but small bonuses. But perhaps it's too late in the dev cycle for such a change.
- I used to play Immortal: I've attempted Immortal on this version, but ended up going down a notch to Emperor.
Overall, I want to like this version but there were few games where I had fun: they were too easy or too hard.
Game descriptions (you can skip if you want!)
Spoiler:
- Continents, Iroquois, Immortal: I had a pretty good start, I thought, though a bit isolated: I had Whales as my monopoly and a lot of Fish, and settled my second city near Old Faithful (+6 science !!). I managed to get God of the Sea I think.
But with only 4 cities with peaceful Progress, my empire was already unhappy! I honestly don't know what I did wrong... so I'm blaming the AI and their bonuses. ;-)
And despite Old Faitfhul and Progress, several AI were already ahead in tech in Classical. That didn't "feel" very good to me.
IIRC I got an early Barb uprising due to unhappiness; partly my fault because I had sold all I did it because it used to be fine in the past (did I mention I played greedy?).
I dropped out not long after.
- Continents, Spain, Immortal: I went Authority. I attempted to attack The Mongols who had forward-settled me, after settling a city nearby. I had Spearmen - not enough, I played badly - and at some point I damaged the city significantly but soon they had like 10 Warriors.
I had some early unhappiness and not much going for me - drop out.
I have to re-think early aggression too! Without a UU it seems harder to me, but I should gather more data.
I tried another start with Spain, with Tutelary Gods which ought to be perfect for them but ran into unhappiness issues.
Then I dropped to Emperor and switched to the Communitu_79a map, to test it out since it garnered praises here.
I didn't expect it to be this big/to have so much land. It definitely favours wide more.
- Communitu, Austria, Emperor: Tradition, nabbed some Wonders, converted super-wide Rome my neighbour, snowballed pretty good.
I easily conquered a couple of nearby Spanish cities in Medieval.
Overall it felt a bit too easy.
- Communitu, Byzantium, Emperor: Just gave up on this game in early Atomic, with China 7 techs ahead of everybody and having just finished Apollo. My first Emperor loss since forever!!
I founded 13 cities (super-wide for Standard), conquered 3, razed 2. The game was a long, long slog due to unhappiness - so not much fun either. For most of Medieval/Renaissance/Industrial, Distress and Poverty were the highlights, then unhappiness diversified to all sources.
I had a bunch of Barbarian uprising in my realm, and a few spy-induced Barb apparitions as well.
Even at the end with Order and its good wide happiness tenets + Giorgio + Factories + 5 or 6 Landmarks, all cities but 2 were unhappy.
But there were some good wars:
a/ due to unhappiness, I wasn't producing many units, but focusing on buildings. Neighbouring Ottomans pounced on me, and actually took 2 coastal cities (one in 3 turns because it didn't have walls). I retook them but had to settle for peace due to war weariness.
Later I got them to declare on me via diplomatic insults (first time I try it in a long time!), then took 3 of their cities. I vassalized them after razing 2.
b/ a bit later, Venice declared on me. Then Germany. Then China. Then Songhai. I assume several of them were bribed (since the Peace menu was absent). Though now that I think about it perhaps some declared upon Siam and not me at first.
I had a Defensive Pact with Siam so they and their CS defended one my flanks. The best part however was that it was a 3-way war: at the same time some of my enemies were at war among themselves!! I had never seen it. A nearby CS, at war with me, had its ships attack China's ships which were besieging me - that was really cool.
Thoughts on balance Early Happiness
I had early Happiness issues in several but not all of my games, even when barely expanding.
I'll be watching out for it, but I'm not sure how to diagnose the issue in such a situation. It hadn't happened to me in a while, and I hope it's a fluke because it's not pretty.
Wide Happiness
I'm very keen to hear more evidence, but it seems to me that wide happiness is not in a good place. I totally get that we want to punish expansion to some extent, but I thought the idea is that it's possible to dig oneself out of this hole. In my very wide game, I never got out of it.
I would blame the Empire modifier for this. It was above +90% for me, so naturally it would be quite hard to get yields to match.
I don't think more fixed bonuses to Happiness will do the trick, since they will make Happiness trivial for not-so-Wide civ.
Let me reiterate a past proposal that Defense buildings, instead of reducing this modifier by a fixed amount, reduce the per-city increment.
Example:
assuming the per-city increment is 7% on Standard and that today a Defensive Building decreases the modifier by 5%
If you have 5 cities, you get an Empire modifier of 5 x 7 = 35% (no building) / 30% (1st building) / 25% (2nd) / 20% (3rd)
If you have 15 cities, you get an Empire modifier of 105% / 100% / 95% / 90%
The buildings make a dent in the modifier for Tall, but nor for Wide.
My proposal: Walls decrease the increment by e.g. 1, Castles by 2 and Arsenals by 2
If you have 5 cities, you get an Empire modifier of 35% / 5 x 6 = 30% (1st building) / 5 x 4 = 20 % (2nd) / 5 x 2 = 10% (3rd)
If you have 15 cities, you get an Empire modifier of 105% / 90% / 60% / 30%
So the modifier is still punishing without a Building or with just a Wall, but you can bring it down considerably with later buildings. Your expansion is restricted in early eras, much less in later eras (which is the design goal I would set for this subsystem).
It would need to be adapted to map size since the increment changes with map size, which I admit is a downside of this solution.
AI and Pantheons
The early Pantheons gained by most of the AI around turns 25 to 30 do not feel good for the player. I would tune down the capital founding bonus a bit more still.
City Strength
Definitely improved from the last beta!
But as others have reported, a Renaissance/Industrial boost to Defense (Arsenal perhaps) is warranted.
Also, I'm not sure anymore which bonus Ironclad get vs Cities these days, but if it's still 25 or 33% it should be lowered.
1) the AI is vicious with their GG citadel placement now. Seriously brutal XD. I had fun using them myself later on!
SpoilerSniper Citadel :
2) Authority for the AI seems to be strong even despite not being super-agressive early on. Not sure if this is consistent with other people's games, but they've taken the lead consistently in mine.
3) My experience of the inquisitor bug is a little different from what I can tell. They work but require you to have majority religion in the city first to be effective.
4) As a primarily defensive player I'm finding Archers in their current form worse value than warriors which feels odd. Thoughts?
5) Finally got to get some good use out of my UU and I love Cataphracts, they rock!
SpoilerCataphracts :
6) Lake tile seem to be treated as low priority by city border expansion despite generally being better than tiles without features (or resources). Which is wierd IMO.
I think I did pretty well in this game given the cramped start. Korea had an entire continent to themself lol. The Iroquouis were constantly spamming me with missionaries. Still made a few poor strategic choices in this game but I'm learning!
I think archers serve a support role, the best army would have archers and warriors. If playing defensively composite bowmen often have a better tech position than spearmen.
6) Lake tile seem to be treated as low priority by city border expansion despite generally being better than tiles without features (or resources). Which is wierd IMO.
It seems that the logic for border growth does not take inner city bonuses into account. Having a pantheon that boost lakes should increase the value for lakes, I should think, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
I think archers serve a support role, the best army would have archers and warriors. If playing defensively composite bowmen often have a better tech position than spearmen.
Broken, some report it's only broken in specific eras, some say it only works, if there is still your religion, but it's definitely bugged in this patch.
For me, I pay an Inquisitor, use it as usual and then remove the foreign follower per IGE. Not nice, but with India as neighbor, I don't want to throw away my religion cause of this bug.
Broken, some report it's only broken in specific eras, some say it only works, if there is still your religion, but it's definitely bugged in this patch.
For me, I pay an Inquisitor, use it as usual and then remove the foreign follower per IGE. Not nice, but with India as neighbor, I don't want to throw away my religion cause of this bug.
Playing a game on immortal, epic speed, large map. I am in the lead by 200 score or so by renaissance, and all the AIs are very evenly matched. AI is behaving pretty impressively (maybe a bit passive though, but not the ganging up that we saw before), and overall enjoyment of the game is very high. A shame about the inquisitor bug (I'm sure it will be fixed), but other than that this is the best version I have played of this (already great) mod!
I can't make the 2 Faith + Gold on Commerce Pantheon Trade Routes work. Does it only apply if you actually found and have a Holy City? The wording on that pantheon is a little bizarre.
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