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

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

New beta inbound. I'm declaring this version 'feature-complete' for our next stable release; we'll sit on the beta for a few days in case any bugs pop up, but otherwise this will become the next stable release version.

Changelog

General
    Reworked AI religious selection parameters for many cases
        Improved AI selection of beliefs, specifically belief synergies
    AI tactical and homeland AI bugfixes and improvements
    Stability and performance improvements
    General bugfixes and cleanup
    Diplo AI logic reworked (HCW), especially expansion penalties
Balance
    Difficulty
        Handicap bonuses adjusted to more fairly spread out bonuses and prevent piling-on bonuses to runaways.
    Religion
        Pantheons 
            Goddess of Fertility now the Goddess of the Home - +1 food/faith from shrines; +10 food/faith when you construct a building, scaling; +25% growth
            God of Commerce - +2 faith/gold in connected cities; Capital/Holy city gains +2 great merchant points, +2 gold/faith per active trade route
            Goddess of Wisdom - +1 science, faith in every city; +1 great scientist points in capital/holy city; +1 faith and science in a city with a specialist
            Craftsmen - removed monument bonus; +1 culture/science and +2 faith from palace
            Goddess of Love now Tutleary Gods - +2 production, +1 faith in cities with 3+ citizens; +1 production and faith from Engineer specialists
            Earth Mother - removed Iron bonus, scaling production; added +1 faith and production from Monuments
        Reformation
            Defender of the Faith - culture and faith dropped to +1/+2 (Was +2/+3)
        Enhancer
            Inqusition - bonus from remove heresy now scales on # of purged believers, not conversion status
            Mendicancy - dropped ITR stuff, added +1 faith per 10GPT, capped at half followers
            Syncretism - dropped yield per birth; added +1 faith per 15 science in city, capped at half followers
        Founders
            Dropped max city caps by 5, max follower caps by 50 (flattens bonus curve for larger maps/bigger religions)
    Units
        Dropped great artist/scientist instant yields by about 15-20%
        Increased scaling on WLTKD for towns for great merchants to 20% (Was 10%)
        Fixed missing promotion elements for fighter air units re: helicopters
    Cities
        Starting defense is 5 (was 4)
        Starting HP is 300 (was 200), scales by 10 per pop (Was 5 per pop)
        Happiness modifier for pop size now -1% per 2 citizens (was -1% per 1)
        Boredom scaler increased a bit (harder to become bored)
        Illiteracy scaler decreased a bit (easier to become illiterate)
    Espionage
        Reduced influence rigging gain to +15

Online as of 2:15pm CST. Not savegame compatible.

Link: https://mega.nz/#F!2Jdw3aQT!Z49gV7KAyMq6YiG5BD9jaA

Cheers,
G

 

[CyberPhy]

@Gazebo Thanks for your hard work on this amazing mod

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

• Defender of the Faith was too good, however losing one faith, not just one culture feels like an over nerf.
• Boredom scaler increased a bit (harder to become bored) : Not gonna lie, i hated the no matter what you do, your cities will always get unhappiness from boredom .... not sure how much it's getting reduced but anything is better than none
• Inquisition - bonus from remove heresy now scales on # of purged believers, not conversion status : Does this mean i can get the inquisition bonus multiple times from the exact same city if some citizens convert ?
• Starting defense is 5 (was 4)
  Starting HP is 300 (was 200), scales by 10 per pop (Was 5 per pop) : Pretty positive change, early game warriors with drill soloing cities was hilarious tho
• Goddess of Fertility now the Goddess of the Home - +1 food/faith from shrines; +10 food/faith when you construct a building, scaling; +25% growth : Progress' best buddy but not a guaranteed religion anymore.
• Earth Mother - removed Iron bonus, scaling production; added +1 faith and production from Monuments : Feels like a nerf for an already weak pantheon for founding, not sure why tho but Ethiopia is going to love that.
  
• Goddess of Love now Tutleary Gods - +2 production, +1 faith in cities with 3+ citizens; +1 production and faith from Engineer specialists : It feels even weaker than goddess of love and it does not actually scale.
• God of Commerce - +2 faith/gold in connected cities; Capital/Holy city gains +2 great merchant points, +2 gold/faith per active trade route : Pretty good change IMO, it was pretty much the only guaranteed religion pantheon that scaled very well.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Thank you for buffing GM and WLTKD, while simultaneously nerfing GS/GA - 'twas a much needed adjustment.

I notice no stated changes regarding difficulty/handicaps/runaways; for clarification, what values are used in this beta (considering there were a few different test settings displayed last version)?

In terms of the espionage, +15 seems trivial as the game progresses - does this scale in any way?

 

[Gazebo]

Thank you for buffing GM and WLTKD, while simultaneously nerfing GS/GA - 'twas a much needed adjustment.

I notice no stated changes regarding difficulty/handicaps/runaways; for clarification, what values are used in this beta (considering there were a few different test settings displayed last version)?

In terms of the espionage, +15 seems trivial as the game progresses - does this scale in any way?

New system is in place, not noted in changelog as I considered it a bugfix.

 

[JohnnyNT]

Is the modpack fix included or manual file swap is still required?

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Pantheons Goddess of Fertility now the Goddess of the Home - +1 food/faith from shrines; +10 food/faith when you construct a building, scaling; +25% growth God of Commerce - +2 faith/gold in connected cities; Capital/Holy city gains +2 great merchant points, +2 gold/faith per active trade route Goddess of Wisdom - +1 science, faith in every city; +1 great scientist points in capital/holy city; +1 faith and science in a city with a specialist Craftsmen - removed monument bonus; +1 culture/science and +2 faith from palace Goddess of Love now Tutleary Gods - +2 production, +1 faith in cities with 3+ citizens; +1 production and faith from Engineer specialists Earth Mother - removed Iron bonus, scaling production; added +1 faith and production from Monuments

Interesting changes to Fertility, Commerce and Craftsman, I like it. The bonus to trade routes may be a bit too low, in comparison how slow you can get new trade routes, but good choice.
Goddess of Love and Wisdom..... Dead patheons now....

Defender of the Faith - culture and faith dropped to +1/+2 (Was +2/+3)

Absolutly necessary.

Mendicancy - dropped ITR stuff, added +1 faith per 10GPT, capped at half followers

HOW DARE YOU! Removing the faith and culture would be understandable, those were very strong, but the trade route effect? HOW DARE YOU!

Units Dropped great artist/scientist instant yields by about 15-20% Increased scaling on WLTKD for towns for great merchants to 20% (Was 10%) Fixed missing promotion elements for fighter air units re: helicopters Cities Starting defense is 5 (was 4) Starting HP is 300 (was 200), scales by 10 per pop (Was 5 per pop) Happiness modifier for pop size now -1% per 2 citizens (was -1% per 1) Boredom scaler increased a bit (harder to become bored) Illiteracy scaler decreased a bit (easier to become illiterate) Espionage Reduced influence rigging gain to +15

Agree to everything. Cities were too vulnerable and scientists + CS rigging too powerful.
Personally, I dont think the modified values for needs will do anything about the fact, that late game happiness is a walk in the park, but Iam open to test it.

 

[tu_79]

Small changes, good for stability. I'm eager to see the next stable release!

I suppose that diplomacy changes will need a little more time, but I hope it does not count as feature changes.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

2 times CDT already in early game. One in turn 60, another in turn 64 on a normal pangäa map.
No other mods than VP and IGE.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Tried Goddess of the Home in a standard pangea map, it's actually very reliable to found with with 4 cities if you go shrine first and playing progress, the food bonus is not outstanding but i really like it.

 

[Recursive]

AI and Difficulty page on the wiki has been updated with the difficulty changes from this version.

Small changes, good for stability. I'm eager to see the next stable release!

I suppose that diplomacy changes will need a little more time, but I hope it does not count as feature changes.

Actually, I changed everything I planned to change in the diplo AI for this version (minus the "no tech competition" modifier, but I decided to rework that idea). Got ya covered.

As always, if anyone has any feedback on the diplomacy AI's performance, you can post in the dedicated thread: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/vox-populi-diplomacy-feedback.652134/

2 times CDT already in early game. One in turn 60, another in turn 64 on a normal pangäa map.
No other mods than VP and IGE.

Post crash reports on Github.

 

[Cokolwiek]

Was source of crashes from previous version identified? I see that reports of CTD on github are not marked as solved.

RIP Goddess of Wisdom, it is one of the worst pantheons now, and fertility becomes even more OP with nerfs to wisdom, commerce.

I think adding one more policy needed to build a wonder for every three wonders you built would help to curb snowballing and force players to think more fully about their choices, instead of going anyway for most of the wonders. On deity with ABC bonuses increased, I am still able to go Stonehenge, Mausoleum, Roman Forum, Hanging Gardens, Collosus, Sankore etc. sometimes one wonder after the other, without investing.

I also think disabling events and ancient ruins should be default options.

Are there any plans to bank receving the same treatment as grocer (moving its miniscule resource bonuses earlier, like forge)?

 

[andersw]

CTD turn 100'ish (epic).
Just after upgrading first warriors to spearmen.
Noted the AI bonuses was tuned down, grabbed Stonehenge+TOA on emperor.
AI settling speed seemed reasonable and a couple of pantheons were taken before mine.

 

[CrazyG]

The drop to scientists and artists is welcome, but you should hit writers as well.

I think that a few pantheons need a drop more of faith, but overall its fine.

 

[Gazebo]

CTD turn 100'ish (epic).
Just after upgrading first warriors to spearmen.
Noted the AI bonuses was tuned down, grabbed Stonehenge+TOA on emperor.
AI settling speed seemed reasonable and a couple of pantheons were taken before mine.

I'd need a savegame on github to diagnose. I've run dozens of sims, no crashes.

G

 

[azum4roll]

I'd need a savegame on github to diagnose. I've run dozens of sims, no crashes.

G

I wonder if it's due to confirmation bias (crashes are actually very rare) or the crash is related to the human player.

 

[Gazebo]

I wonder if it's due to confirmation bias (crashes are actually very rare) or the crash is related to the human player.

The troublesome thing is that all saves sent to me for CTD I've been able to run without issue.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I wonder if it's due to confirmation bias (crashes are actually very rare) or the crash is related to the human player.

The strange thing is that those who experience crashes experience them consistently (I wasn't able to complete any games on the previous patch), whereas those who don't simply don't.

I'm very happy to see the mod is progressing in other areas regardless though. I was looking forward to playing this patch, and maybe this version will help us identify the source .

 

[tu_79]

The troublesome thing is that all saves sent to me for CTD I've been able to run without issue.

It may be worth noting what operating system they are using. I remember one difficult bug years ago that only affected windows XP machines.

 

[JamesNinelives]

At least couple of us are on Win 7. Not sure what you are running Bite? I'm curious to know if the people who experienced crashes on the previous beta are the some ones crashing on this one or not.

CTD on game start for me! On the previous beta it was around turn 75 to turn 130. Can't even get to Turn 1 with this lol. I'm not using any other mods at the moment, for testing. I don't remember experiencing anything like this before.

Will submit a full bug report later. I think I'm going to try reinstalling previous betas to make sure they don't all do this, then maybe reinstall Civ 5 completely.

Edit: Nevermind, I got the game to start successfully on the third try. Lets see how far it goes XD.
...
Turn 42. Hmm. Notably earlier than on 2/18/3b. I wonder what could have changed, or if it's just chance. Will keep trying.

Turn 74! Have no idea what it means, but seem to be able to get further over time.