New Beta Version - March 1st (3-1)

[CrazyG]

Thus we extremely limit replayability, realism, fun, player choice, at the same time.

You have given yourself a limit that you must play and win Deity. Every other limit is an extension of that. 8 difficulties exist for a reason, I still play on immortal sometimes when I want the game to be more relaxed and less cutthroat.

Some things won't work on Deity. That's part of the challenge. This patch is 4 days old, so it isn't odd in any way that only one guy has managed to beat Deity so far. Also, I didn't actually play till the formal victory, and its possible I'd lose, but I wanted to play another game so I did.

 

[Recursive]

impact on contemporary mass culture is nearly non-existent compared to US

Woah, woah, woah. WOAH. Back up here.

The US has culture? Since when? This is news to me!

 

[JamesNinelives]

I'm brazilian, I can tell which elements tend to be most admired or referred in the country.

Common persistent themes in brazilian identity revolves around nature, native tribes, entrepreneurship, miscegenation, territory/climate (Amazon, tropical, continental dimensions), Christianity and the historical ties with Portugal. The Bandeirantes is a good historic symbol for pretty much all of these factors, and one that had great importance in brazilian history. You can find many routine references to them to this day.

More modern themes include soccer due to how widespread it is even among the poorest people, with many cases of players rising from their modest background and becoming worldwide champions, and due to winning five world cups as a nation. Carnival is a major attraction and there's some pride in it, but not much of an identity aspect. Maybe if you consider it to be reflective of how much brazilians love parties. It is still early to say if either will still be relevant one or two centuries later.

Among martial artists, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu became a mandatory art in order to stand a chance in any MMA fight. It set the standard for what makes a martial art functional and is studied by MMA fighters of all nations. Certainly less known than soccer, but arguably more relevant and impactful.



For older musicians, I see mainly Heitor Villa-Lobos (video, classical composer, brazilians immediately sense a feel of their culture in classical form when exposed to his songs) and Elis Regina (video - one of the most known names of Bossa Nova in the country, many of her songs feel personal or deeply touching for many brazilians). They aren't the only ones, but are the first to come to mind and are revered among those that care about fine arts.

For more contemporary musicians, the first ones to come to mind are Gabriel Pensador (video) and Raul Seixas (video). The lyrics of some of their songs became iconic and can be used to understand society as a whole. Brazilians tend to give them a lot of praise regardless of generation.

Curiously, Brazil doesn't win a CV by producing more great cultural people than other civs, it actually does from having a mix of terrain, cultural and economic boosts that later translate into lots of tourism. Korea and Austria easily produce more cultural people, but Brazil has a stronger cultural/tourism game than both.

Thanks for sharing your insights with us! I will bookmark those musicians for reference .

 

[randomnub]

Some things won't work on Deity. That's part of the challenge.

I don't like this sort of challenge though.

It feels like we're gone back to vanilla deity or earlier VP with deity AIs starting with a second settler: I see AIs planting their 2nd city at around t22-28, no ruins/cs/quests involved, net effect is the same. I don't mind wonderwhoreing AIs too much tbh, I feel that with a very good start I can challenge the AIs for Stonehenge or Pyramids, but I can't do anything in order to settle before anybody else.Same with all pantheons being picked before the player had a chance.

Overall the AI build order and stretegic decisions looks vastly improved, at a first glance Authority AIs settle quicker and are more aggressive than in past so they aren't lagging behind peaceful AIs much. I don't think there's need for a frontloaded bonus against which the player has no countermeasure, hence I'd like to try play a modified version that gets rid of the yields on capital founding (looks like / are invested into early shrine, and makes AI capitals able to churn out settlers 10-20 turns before any player could), maybe raise the late game handicap values if the feedback dictated the game became too easy. Actually making the capital yields configurable in the .sql would be nice.

 

[Legen]

I think that he might have in mind crime in Brazil. It is easily one of the most violent countries on Earth. If you are familiar with some shock or crime or extreme content websites, half of the corpses every week are Brazilian. Also, saddly violence against transsexual persons which Brazil have lots of, is also commonly. Brazil experiences nearly 63,000 homicides a year, while much-publicized with its mass shooting US, only 13,000. Consider that population of US (330 milion) is 66% higher than Brazil (200 milion). In France there was 900 homicides a year and its 60 milion people.

Anyway, I initiated something I didn't want to. My point was: why are players forced to play Brazil to get cultural victory when basically Brazil impact on contemporary mass culture is nearly non-existent compared to US, Britain, even Sweden (Avicii, Nobles, Abba before), and of course Korea (thought not all of you may be enlighten yet) and its historical siginifigance in culture is miniscule compared to most other civilizations, especially Rome, China, Italy (sadly not represented in the game IDK why, it's amajor oversight) France, England, Germany, Jewish diaspora in many countries (saddly not represented). Similar situation with Korea in science. Or Denmark in warfare.

About crime, older generations report that it was very different 30 or 40 years ago. Nowadays, there's a trend among brazilians to see current crime rate as a result of the policies adopted by socialism-oriented political parties, as the country has elected them almost exclusively since then; conservatives and liberals/libertarians were unstructured as political parties after the military regime/dictatorship ended (for more details of whether to classify as regime or dictatorship, there's an act enacted, known as AI5 among brazilians, that is when individual liberties were most curtailed; some argue that it was a dictatorship while it was active, and a regime before and after it). The latter two have emerged as more cohesive parties more recently and is why Brazil had a major political change lately. Time will tell if the trend is correct, if that perception actually translates into anything in the first place.

About CVs, mass culture is not much that the culture/tourism system is about. Even historic significance isn't much about it, which has historicism connotations that is repudiated by some (especially those on the Freedom spectrum). Apparently, Firaxis just conceptualized CV as just being able to attract such a massive public worldwide; they actually made Civ VI cultural victory to be about being the most visited civilization. Lots of holy sites that people want to visit, pharaonic projects, fantastic natural wonders, unique art and history, and so on, seem to be the bulk of what Firaxis envisioned under the new tourism system.

About a civilization choice, Firaxis mostly picks based on what was happening at the time of that leader. And Firaxis tend to pick a leader that represents a good, famous or notable moment for that civilization, so that you play with the civilization at one of its highest potentials. It isn't necessarily the most representative of the civ's history, or is modern standing, just a cool or iconic period. That's why Korea gets a scientific theme under Sejong and why Brazil gets a cultural theme under Pedro II. They probably don't see much fun in adding whatever emperor/king/president/minister got assassinated/deposed/puppeted/whatever when Rome fractured, when China got conquered by the Mongols, when Russia suffered a major naval defeat at Tsushima and lost its prestige among the western powers, when England got expelled from continental Europe in the Hundred Years War, when France got conquered by Nazi Germany in just a month, or when Germany lost the WWI and had to sign a humiliating peace treaty.

This point become more evident when you see different leaders for the same civ, both from mods and on other civilization games. Japan is one of the most popular among them, having Meiji, Tojo, Himiko, Hojo Tokimune and many daimyo from the Sengoku Jidai period, I think someone even made a mod with a mangaka leader for cultural victory. And each leader choice sends Japan into different strengths and directions; you could argue that Japan's military was mainly a land army for most of its history, but some leaders will give Japan a strong naval theme simply due to that time period being when Japan modernized (VP Meiji with the Mikasa), during the World Wars (34UC Japan having the Yamato, VP Tojo having Yamato and the Kagero destroyer), or fending off the Mongols (Hojo Tokimune giving bonus when fighting near the coast and immunity from hurricanes).

Ultimately, Brazil gets to be a cultural civ in the game simply because that's the main theme with Pedro II. If they had picked whatever president was responsible for starting a naval arms race in South America with the Minas Gerais (brazilian UU on Civ VI, good explanation here, with an hilarious moment at 6:22), Brazil may have been a militaristic naval civ instead. Very different from whatever you probably imagine from the country, but feasible.

 

[Cokolwiek]

You have given yourself a limit that you must play and win Deity. Every other limit is an extension of that. 8 difficulties exist for a reason, I still play on immortal sometimes when I want the game to be more relaxed and less cutthroat.

Still, that's not some limit I imposed on myself as a rule, but it arose from each of my VP games, that immortal is too easy and deity is normal difficulty (still was too easy many times two betas ago). And consider: if old deity is immortal now, and deity is now what it is, we don't have good difficulty still, because for you, I guess, and me, I know, and still some other players that presented their opinion recently, deity (now immortal) was too easy most of time, while deity is unfunny cutthroat. And it's not from ai good decisions, it's not because they ract to players weaknesses, but because it was given brutal amounts of yields. So for those players we achieved nothing, because they already had old deity which is too easy, and have new diety which is too vanilla-reminiscent.
And I am not even saying that deity is completely ruined, many of changes that increased the difficulty are great and need to stay and I was increasing the abc bonuses before to achieve the same. Our developers may just have given too much bonuses on the beginning, which scale too far as the game progresses. If we spread them out, we might achieve still hard, but doable deity.

Some things won't work on Deity. That's part of the challenge. This patch is 4 days old, so it isn't odd in any way that only one guy has managed to beat Deity so far.

The boundary is when 80% don't work on deity as a principle. Tradition into rationalism anyone? Seems familiar?

I don't like this sort of challenge though.

It feels like we're gone back to vanilla deity or earlier VP with deity AIs starting with a second settler: I see AIs planting their 2nd city at around t22-28, no ruins/cs/quests involved, net effect is the same. I don't mind wonderwhoreing AIs too much tbh, I feel that with a very good start I can challenge the AIs for Stonehenge or Pyramids, but I can't do anything in order to settle before anybody else. Same with all pantheons being picked before the player had a chance.

Exactly. I agree with everything you said. Furthermore, there is no point in building stonhenge now, when it's not reliably give you an earliest or second, or even third pantheon.

Overall the AI build order and stretegic decisions looks vastly improved, at a first glance Authority AIs settle quicker and are more aggressive than in past so they aren't lagging behind peaceful AIs much. I don't think there's need for a frontloaded bonus against which the player has no countermeasure, hence I'd like to try play a modified version that gets rid of the yields on capital founding (looks like / are invested into early shrine, and makes AI capitals able to churn out settlers 10-20 turns before any player could), maybe raise the late game handicap values if the feedback dictated the game became too easy. Actually making the capital yields configurable in the .sql would be nice.

Insightful. Would be great to check out no capital bonus. We had the same discussion last time, now it looks like it's deity specific.

About crime, older generations report that it was very different 30 or 40 years ago. Nowadays, there's a trend among brazilians to see current crime rate as a result of the policies adopted by socialism-oriented political parties, as the country has elected them almost exclusively since then

Care to elaborate? How can policies directly convert to higher crime or deaths (apart form Mexico and Columbia funded themselves by going war on drugs heavy)? It is always what people choose to do. If you mean slower growth, poverty, underprivelage, they not necessarily involve ultra high crime and intolerance in many countries. India or Egypt are far more less developed than Brazil and poverty is more widespread, while crime rates, esp. violent crime rates are several orders of magnitude lower than in Brazil, even if you account for underreporting, which you can count will be much higher in India than in Brazil.

Ultimately, Brazil gets to be a cultural civ in the game simply because that's the main theme with Pedro II.

And I think it's pretty fitting. Maybe a straight economic bonus would be better and wide progress, because Brazil is mostly wieved as an economic powerhouse, and mantains good prospects and high population unrivalled in its continent. But it is rather good choice than it is not represented by military or science.

 

[CrazyG]

The boundary is when 80% don't work on deity as a principle. Tradition into rationalism anyone? Seems familiar?

I'm not convinced that tradition or rationalism are irrelevant. You can't play the old tradition where you could build like half the world's wonders consistently. Which means no more building Stonehenge, Mausoleum, and Hanging Gardens every game. You do need to adjust though

"Just build all the wonders" is not and should not be a viable strategy on the highest difficulty. In this aspect, the old beta was the problem, not this one.

Still, that's not some limit I imposed on myself as a rule, but it arose from each of my VP games, that immortal is too easy and deity is normal difficulty (still was too easy many times two betas ago).

So immortal on a previous beta was too easy, but Deity on this beta was too hard. What exactly is stopping you from playing immortal on this beta?

 

[Cokolwiek]

What exactly is stopping you from playing immortal on this beta?

Nothing. I just wanted to provide feedback for deity because that is what I am most familiar with. There are many players that report on emperor, I just report on deity first. If we have some real difficulty issues, you don't tell them try king, but respond by tweaking difficulty to be reasonable, this is what @Gazebo did last time with providing version for less settle bonuses, and it was right.

I'm not convinced that tradition or rationalism are irrelevant.

I was referring to the playstyle that dominated vanilla deity to showcase that current deity is heading that way (not with tradition itself, more warmongering in fact) to limit players exclusively to one playstyle that is most of the time right answer. It's no fun, and deity like evry difficulty should be designed to give players the most challenging experience in every way they choose, be it warmongering, going tall, or peaceful wide. Not to restrict they playstyle to let's say early warmongering or perish.
Also I would like to see deity as more of "if you don't manage, make any major mistake or few smaller ones, or don't come up with idea how to counter ai you will loose". It should be also true to force you into something to catch up or due to terrain, available space, enemies etc. (when you realize you will not win unless choosing imperialism and conquering or containing a runaway before its too late). But it's not should be "select faction with early faith, or they will literally be no chance that you will get a religion and even then you have a slim chance". It should be tough, but doable if you commit to it.
Maybe I'm in minority. Whatever.

"Just build all the wonders" is not and should not be a viable strategy on the highest difficulty. In this aspect, the old beta was the problem, not this one.

I agree wholeheartedly about wonders. I even proposed tweak to that (one additional policy to every three wonders you have) that would affect both player and AIs that are running away with the game.
And you must now by now that I agree about previous low difficulty, I was quite vocal about that. But maybe we went a little too far with ai bonuses at the beggining. That's all I'm saying.

 

[youngsteve]

If deity so hard why some people play at that level and complain? I play now at immortal, I will think later after some games how and at which difficulty level I am going to play. I play large map at epic, so I just got to classical, can't play more than 2-3 hours per day, so far I like the game. Truly seems harder than before (I played on Deity since vanilla - like from 2010, skipped playing for 2 or 3 years, before finding VP) but it's OK.
If I will find out that Immortal to difficult, I will drop to Emperor

This is what always gets me about these so called elite players. They insist on playing on the highest level, then complain it is too hard, & the developers feel obliged to dumb it down, usually to the detriment of the normal levels. Happens all the time, to all strategy games. Why cannot these people do what yourself & others suggest in playing at a lower level. Really annoys me.

 

[tu_79]

There's no point, really.

The developers have already declared that their intention for deity is that it must be hard enough to make the best players around win only half of their games. In that regard, deity is going to be always a challenge, even for Minh Le and CrazyG.
That excludes deity for me, and I am OK with it. I don't want to beat the game, there's no point in it. I want to have fun, and be challenged to the point I'm confortable with, sometimes I feel like I want it harder, sometimes easier. So I move from 5 to 6 depending on my mood.
For me, the ideal AI handicaps are those that make me feel like playing against humans of my own level (sometimes I wish that the AI was smart enough to adapt the difficulty to my skills on the go). The same for the other players.

If you make the game easier so that you can brag about beating deity consistently, then you aren't giving anything to me, but you are depriving deity players their expected challenge.

 

[Cokolwiek]

This is what always gets me about these so called elite players. They insist on playing on the highest level, then complain it is too hard, & the developers feel obliged to dumb it down, usually to the detriment of the normal levels. Happens all the time, to all strategy games. Why cannot these people do what yourself & others suggest in playing at a lower level. Really annoys me.

Big LOL. We just had several weeks of request to INCREASE difficulty and do it severly. But not to unplayable levels. It exactly the opposite, because mine and others like @SuperNoobCamper, @CrazyG comments about immortal and deity being too easy gave us a response from @Gazebo in increased difficulty for all levels, especially for immortal plus. And that is welcomed and needed, but need some tweaking around the edges.
And you wasn't able to bet immortal or deity before this last two betas, I don't think you are in position to accuse others of dumbing down.

The developers have already declared that their intention for deity is that it must be hard enough to make the best players around win only half of their games.

I think it is a very good intention. But I think it may be unachievable right now. I would like the game that I had to be careful about every decision, every movement, every turn form turn 0 to 100 to have a chance to win. Old deity was assured victory 90% for me. But now I believe it is more of assured defeat 90%. Not 50%. That is why I gave feedback and suggested cutting ai bonuses a little at the begining and leaving all the rest untouched, because we want it to be hard.

I am going to try Venice deity and Venice immortal, if you think it is the hardest and report how it played out.

If we get more feeedback from other deity players and they will say deity is now ok, I will stop on the issue. But I doubt we will, it is too brutal to be won by anyone 50% of time, without exploits.

 

[Stalker0]

I made this thread for you all to debate diety difficulty to your heart's content: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/diety-difficulty.655807/

 

[crdvis16]

@Cokolwiek The latest beta is 4 days old and you're convinced deity is impossible. Maybe you should play on immortal for a while and attune your skills and then attempt deity? Have you considered that you just need to improve? Especially given how incredibly easy deity was for you recently- maybe you've fallen into lazy/bad habits? Is anyone else amused at how quickly the tone went from "omg deity is so easy, it's such a joke" to "omg deity is impossible". Seriously, swallow your pride and play Immortal.

Also, some of your comments about various civs come across as pretty ignorant. Maybe your intention isn't to be disparaging but it's hard not to read it that way.

This is what always gets me about these so called elite players. They insist on playing on the highest level, then complain it is too hard, & the developers feel obliged to dumb it down, usually to the detriment of the normal levels. Happens all the time, to all strategy games. Why cannot these people do what yourself & others suggest in playing at a lower level. Really annoys me.

100% agree. I've been playing deity for months now but I've dropped to Immortal lately to get my bearings back. I have no problem with deity being too hard for me and I'm happy if it gives the best players a challenge. From what I can tell CrazyG is the best player that actively posts so his opinion on deity difficulty should be the standard. He seems to think it's really hard but isn't ready to give up and cry about it after just 4 days...

 

[General_Drax]

About 200 turns in as Morocco on a Standard Frontier map, Emperor, Epic. (3/4 UC, no events, no tech trading and brokering) I went for Tutelary Gods and a Pyramid rush (Silver monopoly) on Progress tree. Ais: Polynesia (Prog), Poland (Trad), Inca (Progress oO ... Monty ... not Authority), Rome (Auth), Brazil (Progress), Netherland (Prog), Ethiopia (Prog). Up to late Classical we are all happy and fuzzy and friends (well there are some Morocco cavalry on sniping duty), Netherland got Great Lighthouse 2 turns before me and 4 turns after he managed to build Petra.

Anyway so far it seems a balanced gameplay with no runaway. AIs are aggressively expanding but so do I. Founded my religion as third without sweating. God of Commerce is better for Morocco but I wanted a quick boost in production (and it paid off with Pyramids, Temple of Artemis and Terracotta Army) and the faith on this pantheon seems just right.

Wonders are spread out and competition is fierce.

A nice release ! I'm eager to continue playing.

So it comes Medieval Era and as expected we started the wars.

I was too fast declaring the building of Terracotta Army: Caesar won it by 2 turns. Cities are really tough to conquer. Netherland is sieging a CS with all his Navy but to no avail. William just upgraded some Penteconters to Galleass.

It seems that Ethiopia is the tech runaway (29 tech vs 25 median). Netherland first, score wise. There is a lull in wonders building. Poland managed to get Macchu Picchu but with Morocco trade bonus the capital is going full speed (Angkor Wat, Oracle and now building Hagia Sophia).

Ais seem not worried about my religion spreading: Brazil full converted, Polynesia half done and two Rome cities just flipped due to border pressure and trade route.

Kasbahs are flourishing everywhere. Not much trouble from boredom unhappiness, distress though is a constant pain. Illiteracy and poverty manageable.

 

[Stalker0]

Playing an interesting game on Emperor that I wanted to highlight. For the first time in a long while, I am truly being contested by a warmongering player from another continent. While I have air superiority, the Zulus have recently come in with this crazy navy (shown below is 1 of the two big navies he has working right now), and the mass destroyers have shut down my ability to air bombard. The Zulus have an incredibly large force and he is managing to snipe coastal cities and CS around my area. I remain the tech and policy leader, and so far no critical damage is done. But he has been landing troops on the shore, and if he manages to push a large army force to go along with this navy (which strategically should be the plan, we will see what he does), I would be in serious trouble.

There is one current exploit right now. I can retake Fes and liberate it. It instant kills the ship inside, and pushes the enemy forces to the edge of the border. For the ships that's not a big deal, but it will often push the land forces into the water, which makes them vulnerable to my air bombardment.

Spoiler :

Update
I had to sue for peace due to war weariness, and so this is what the Zulus have now. Not as many land troops as I would like but he has put in solid air power in his coastal cities. Not too shabby Shaka, your actually looking scary

Spoiler :

Update
I managed to get in a three way coalition with the Iroquois and Incas, and figured it was the best chance to make a dent in the Zulus. And dent I did...at least I thought. I got 8 ships with a couple of A bombs, and took out 11 planes (one issue the AI still has is it will stuff a newly taked city with planes before the city is fortified or healed up, which makes it easy to keep killing planes on the retake).

But the Zulu warmachine maybe invincible. He kept pushing like the loses didn't even happen. He has swept north to take out the Iroquois, and with those cities falling now I face his troops into my vulnerable core cities. My production is just not keeping up with the attrition. I am now about to conduct a full retreat from my outer lines, my only chance now is to whole up in my core big cities and tried to ride my science glut to victory. Also Stealth and Robotics are on the way, and may give me the weapons of war I need to turn the tide.

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

I am notably impressed by the AI in this campaign in a number of ways:

1) Pushing out not in. He hasn't thrown too much into the meat grinder of my inner cities, instead moving outwards to vulnerable coastal cities that his invincible navy can control. He is surrounding me before pushing.

2) Good combined arms. Strong naval push followed by a good mix of fighters and bombers. My air force is completely locked down. And then now the land forces pushing into the core.

Update
Looks like old Shaka has had enough of the song and dance, and has gone nuclear. He has nuked 3 cities, and still has 3 A bombs ready to go. I have positioned the last of my very meager forces into the mountains leading to my core cities, accepting that the fringe cities are lost. Twilight has come for Babylon.

Spoiler :

Update
Shaka has taken my fringe cities, and given me peace. I was pretty surprised by this, and with such a high warscore (86) he should have asked me for some kind of tribute.

But still, my strong empire has now been pushed back to this...

Spoiler :

Final Update
So as Shaka and I have a tense peace, he is proceeds to send a citadel with Lebensaum that cuts off 2 of my cities from the rest (well played Shaka). Askia comes out me from the east. Its a small fleet, except for one carrier....with 3 ATOMIC BOMBS!!! I send my fleet to destroy that carrier. I lose several ships, but the carrier is taken out before it fires. Fortunately between a strong CS and some helicopters I hold off his navy. He takes one of my last CS to the east...but I hold for now.

I use the time to get the hubble and rocket ahead to the last key bits of science. My scientists agree that there is only one hope left for salvation, a program so terrifying that it makes atomic bombs look like push pops. The final weapon of war....The Jaegar!!! (aka GDR).

So I proceed to put a GDR into every city I can. It gives a massive CS boost to my cities, they won't be so easy to take. I build units when I can. No one can trade with me, but I snag the order policy with 200% ITRs (Order is made for these no one likes me scenarios). My 5 cities send ITRS to each other, and my hammers start to skyrocket.

I build shelters in all of my bases, and now its just the waiting game. I await for the hammer to drop, while furiously teching and building space ship parts.

Shaka's tech starts to get near mine....and then matches! Then he builds the SS Engine! Shaka is also going for SV. But he is a fool if he thinks he can match the raw power of an Order capital with 5 200% ITRs running through it. I build the 6th part on Turn 443, just as he has built his 4th part.

Science Victory!!!!

Ultimately, I was actually disappointed that Shaka did not attack, I know my position was much better defended than before, but I am quite sure he could have sent in his ridiculous army and still built SS parts. It seemed quite strange that he wouldn't at least try to distract me with some war.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

even for Minh Le and CrazyG.

Didn't know we had an elite vietnamese guy in the community. Very cool history, warrior people for sure.

 

[Ragic]

Been lurking these forums for awhile. Excited about the looming update. Just felt the need to create an account to thank you all for digging into the weeds of this game and making it the one 4x in my library that doesn't disappoint. Thanks guys.

 

[youngsteve]

Big LOL. We just had several weeks of request to INCREASE difficulty and do it severly. But not to unplayable levels. It exactly the opposite, because mine and others like @SuperNoobCamper, @CrazyG comments about immortal and deity being too easy gave us a response from @Gazebo in increased difficulty for all levels, especially for immortal plus. And that is welcomed and needed, but need some tweaking around the edges.
And you wasn't able to bet immortal or deity before this last two betas, I don't think you are in position to accuse others of dumbing down..

I saw some post of yours in a recent thread where you were saying how easy it was to get World Wonder after WW, & you were paying 300% more due to the amount. This was on Deity. How is this even possible. I remember on vanilla when Deity players used to tell players to ignore WW as they weren't attainable, & concentrate building of your empire & military, unless you were concentrating heavily on one. If you are playing the top level it should be extremely difficult to obtain WW, unless specifically going after them, & even then only gaining 1 or 2. There is something wrong when playing on an elite level like this there is no problem obtaining a vast majority of them.

Now you are having a tantrum as you cannot do the same. Like when you said you raged quit as AI beat you to Stonehenge. Oh Dear. You do realise that Stonehenge is probably the first wonder that the AI beelines to on any level, so it is always a fight to get that. I just did a test game on Chieftain & the AI got Stonehenge on turn 31, so not surprisingly it got it a bit earlier on deity. Presuming you played a standard game, there would be 7 other AI going after that wonder. If it is a lot more difficult to obtain WW on deity then the game must be doing something right, as before it was idiotic. Also, you were complaining about struggling to get a Pantheon on that level. Surely it should be really difficult to do so on that level, & shouldn't haven an entitlement each turn.

I suggest you go down a level or two & you might find you can gobble up the wonders to your hearts content & gain your Pantheon.

 

[Legen]

Care to elaborate? How can policies directly convert to higher crime or deaths (apart form Mexico and Columbia funded themselves by going war on drugs heavy)? It is always what people choose to do. If you mean slower growth, poverty, underprivelage, they not necessarily involve ultra high crime and intolerance in many countries. India or Egypt are far more less developed than Brazil and poverty is more widespread, while crime rates, esp. violent crime rates are several orders of magnitude lower than in Brazil, even if you account for underreporting, which you can count will be much higher in India than in Brazil.

Many points under discussion in the country, but the main ones revolve around these:

• Fiscal (ir)responsibility: the federal government has often stimulated our states to increase their expenses, while doing their own creative accounting to justify otherwise illegal expenses. Most states have fell into debt and struggle to play even for basic services, including police. The states that didn't follow this increase in expenses and its implications tend to be among those that elected centrist or right-wing governors.
• Regional differences: crime rate isn't uniform in Brazil, with the state of São Paulo in particular having much lower rates than the rest of the country and more comparable to european countries. As a general rule, southern states have a lower crime rate and are historically more likely to support centrist and right-wing politicians. This correlation is often seen as centrist/conservatist/liberal/libertarian politicians handling crime better than leftist politicians.
• Corruption scandals among socialist parties: federal investigations have found major systemic corruption schemes headed by the Worker's Party, with complicity of many other socialist parties. Coupled with the issue of fiscal irresponsibility, this has been seen as a major factor why the police has been underfunded.
• Gun control: a topic that has gained traction in recent years, conservatives and liberals/libertarians have been laying arguments on the impact of gun control. This is a much larger topic to discuss, but is one that the population has been shifting its perceptions over the years. Especially when coupled with the following point...
• Venezuela as a reference (of what not to do): with our neighbor falling into a dictatorship and being ruled by a communist party for so long, what happens there is seen as a prelude of what may happen in Brazil. With Venezuela seeing extreme crime rates (and many other issues), the consequences of the policies adopted there, defended by the brazilian left-wing, are seen as lessons of what not to adopt here. This includes gun control and many socialist economic policies.
• Justice system: a much larger topic on its own, but the population has been associating the judges appointed by the latest (socialist) presidents as corrupt and supportive of positions that encourage impunity for corrupt politicians (which in turn means more taxes being diverted away from the police force).

There are more points, especially if you go in detail on the arguments from conservatives and liberals/libertarians about the impact of how socialist policies in the realm of culture, morality and economy lead into higher crime rates. But the above are seen as major points among moderates, who don't necessarily agree on the arguments of the right-wing.

And I think it's pretty fitting. Maybe a straight economic bonus would be better and wide progress, because Brazil is mostly wieved as an economic powerhouse, and mantains good prospects and high population unrivalled in its continent. But it is rather good choice than it is not represented by military or science.

Brazil already has a good economic game, starting in Ancien Era even. It is also a flexible civ due to that, as it has a considerable gold and happiness bonuses from its uniques. Wide Progress is perfectly fine for this civ, even with the tourism penalties.

 

[Cokolwiek]

Regional differences: crime rate isn't uniform in Brazil, with the state of São Paulo in particular having much lower rates than the rest of the country and more comparable to european countries. As a general rule, southern states have a lower crime rate and are historically more likely to support centrist and right-wing politicians. This correlation is often seen as centrist/conservatist/liberal/libertarian politicians handling crime better than leftist politicians.

Seems legit, as there is less incentive for crime when people are not desperate to make a living. Also, it is no surprise that underprivileged and underdeveloped parts of country with simplet folks, will feel betrayed by "the system" political end economical, and vote left. It is also left allure in many countries, progress, alleviation of poverty, more equal economic terms, redistribution. So Brazil follows that generalizations. Sao Paulo, rich and powerful want to increase
How it is socially? Are those right-wingers more socially conservative (Bolsonaro looks very bigoted with his comment about gay son) or totally indifferent to social matters?

I was in fact quite surprised to see Bolsonaro win.

Venezuela as a reference (of what not to do): with our neighbor falling into a dictatorship and being ruled by a communist party for so long, what happens there is seen as a prelude of what may happen in Brazil. With Venezuela seeing extreme crime rates (and many other issues), the consequences of the policies adopted there, defended by the brazilian left-wing, are seen as lessons of what not to adopt here. This includes gun control and many socialist economic policies.

That must be a big one.

How you would respond to argument I heard many times, that it is just a cultural thing in South America, that life is more expendable, crime more romanticized among population (kind of like mafia in southern Italy tended to be, or even in certain communities in New York), violence and intolerance more accepted, hence higher violent crime rates?
Because as I said, one cannot make a an argument just for poverty, because they are countries with extreme poverty and low crime, nor policy, because thriving corruption is allowed to be under already high crime, and underfunded police - there would be no need for it, if crime wasn't already high without it. Police is a response to acts, not to intentions or motivations.