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

[Heinz_Guderian]

I can tell you that it certainly isn't "cultural" in the same way as Italy, France etc. But of course every country has a culture. But yeah, samba, football, partying/festivals, going to the beach, and recently MMA

 

[JamesNinelives]

I can tell you that it certainly isn't "cultural" in the same way as Italy, France etc.

Lol. And what way is that? Are you referring to the renaissance?

Don't forget that English-language media tends to be pretty Euro-centric (or USA-centric these days), so the international community isn't neccesarily exposed to things that are made in South America much. Particularly if it's in Portugese. I would argue that Christo Redentor is a pretty significant cultural monument, just off the top of my head.

 

[Stalker0]

No, no, no. I have never too much trouble with roleplaying on deity till now, balance was pretty okay, and I don't think we should change that. Increase difficulty generally yes, but not to lock players to certain civs.

This is a debate point that the diety players should hammer out, and better to do it in its own thread. At the end of the day, it comes down to how challenging diety should be. The higher the difficulty, the more optimization will be required, and optimization removes choice. At a certain level of play...there is only one way to play....the best way. That best way may change map to map, but it exists nonetheless.

 

[looorg]

Before you assume it is the handicap causing the spike in potency, please check the handicap logs for evidence.

That is part of the issue tho, I don't know exactly what is happening and I can't really figure it out either. But they are getting some massive yields from something and considering the gap they manage to create one of the few explanations that I can have is that the bonus feeds itself somehow. That could be wrong, I don't know. So this was more of a question and description of the test games I ran and it seems to be happening over and over again so if someone could actually explain it.

I can't find any handicap log, where would that be located then? And how is it enabled? I can't seem to find one that is being auto-generated right now or by default. I assume from the code snips in the AI and difficulty explanation, in/on the wiki, that it's supposed to be in "DifficultyHandicapLog.csv" or? I would be quite interested in seeing what the actual calculated yields they actually get are in total per turn.

The information in the wiki is not really explaining the actual scope or yield of it as far as I can understand and read the code. So I would really need to see some actual numbers to be able to grasp what is going on I think.

But from the described experience I had, and some other to, I can't really think of any smart play from you the player that can really counter it. I don't see now how there would be any "right decisions" or micromanagement that will fix it or allow you to catch up with such amount of free yields, whatever they might be but just from a file to file comparison over time they are creating new techs at breakneck speeds while also getting policies, production, food and gold and whatnot at a pace that should be beyond any kind of player play or interaction.

If they are to be called bonuses or whatnot might not matter all that much but lets call them that since they are for lack of something better clearly getting very large yields from something somehow that you as the player can't get. It's possible to read what they are in theory but I can't seem to find it in practice and what they are actually getting.

But in essence the game has now changed somehow. Instead of building a solid foundation and take it from there you now have to cripple the AI early, or even very early, and brutally or they will snowball you and the game is over.

So you now sort of need a strong civ, with strong early bonuses with the right geography and all your worst enemies close by so you can **** them before they **** you. Which may or may not be a game some people will like. But sure that might just be my experience at the moment. Perhaps I'll overcome and figure it out somehow.

 

[Gazebo]

So the difference between the "fix" version and regular 3.1 is diplo changes, right?

No, all of my changes to religionAI, builderAI, performance improvements, bugfixes, etc. All that's missing is ilteroi's tactical AI changes and his homelandAI changes.

 

[JamesNinelives]

At a certain level of play...there is only one way to play....the best way.

I have trouble imagining how that would interest anyone. But then I'm not a Deity player so I guess it's not my call to make. I guess different people might have different views on what is that 'best way' is, which could make for interesting discussion.

So you now sort of need a strong civ, with strong early bonuses

Do you feel these civs are generally stronger, or that it's more the neccessity of the specific circumstances? Would buffing/nerfing certain civs help with balance, or is it more about early warfare/momentum being so powerful? And is it something the inherently favours the human or would and AI be able to potentially use it against you as well?

All that's missing is ilteroi's tactical AI changes and his homelandAI changes.

What does homelandAI mean?

In any case, for people using the CTD-fix, progress is being made. If you head over to Github (specifically https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/6313) you can find a file version that incorporates some of Ilteroi's changes already. Use the version with release in the name. It goes in the (1) Community Patch folder under MODS, and just replaces the existing file with the same name.

 

[Gazebo]

I have trouble imagining how that would interest anyone. But then I'm not a Deity player so I guess it's not my call to make. I guess different people might have different views on what is that 'best way' is, which could make for interesting discussion.

Do you feel these civs are generally stronger, or that it's more the neccessity of the specific circumstances? Would buffing/nerfing certain civs help with balance, or is it more about early warfare/momentum being so powerful? And is it something the inherently favours the human or would and AI be able to potentially use it against you as well?


What does homelandAI mean?

In any case, for people using the CTD-fix, progress is being made. If you head over to Github (specifically https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/6313) you can find a file version that incorporates some of Ilteroi's changes already. Use the version with release in the name. It goes in the (1) Community Patch folder under MODS, and just replaces the existing file with the same name.

Homeland AI = any peacetime shuffling of military units, mainly.

 

[CrazyG]

I have trouble imagining how that would interest anyone. But then I'm not a Deity player so I guess it's not my call to make. I guess different people might have different views on what is that 'best way' is, which could make for interesting discussion.

The "best way" is different every game and it's hidden. Finding it is a fun and rewarding puzzle.

I've played this mod for years, starting at prince difficulty, and slowly working my way up. Several times, a new patch (often improved AI logic) has knocked me down a difficulty, and that's good. I lose a game and I learn from it. Gosh its so much fun to analyze what went wrong, make a theory, then test it out and overcome a challenge.

 

[looorg]

Do you feel these civs are generally stronger, or that it's more the neccessity of the specific circumstances? Would buffing/nerfing certain civs help with balance, or is it more about early warfare/momentum being so powerful? And is it something the inherently favours the human or would and AI be able to potentially use it against you as well?

I actually don't really know. In my case it does seem that Morroco very often end up in the top of the list, but I can't say that is due to them being them and their bonuses or if it's a combination of things that always seem to come together for them. If I evaluate their starting position once I find their capital it doesn't seem particularly strong in most cases. But if it's not that civ, it's some other civ and so I don't think it really comes down to civ specifics. That said some civs do have a buff that feeds into one of the trigger mechanisms. In the case of Morroco then they do have some trade route buffs and shenanigans that can screw other civs trade routes.

Since this issue didn't happen before, or very often before, with the new bonus system I'm inclined to believe it's a result from the bonus system then anything else. Is that somehow far fetched or unreasonable? That said certain civs might benefit more from it then others due to various buildings or civ bonuses that feed better into the trigger mechanisms. But I have not really gone that far into my thinking about it just yet.

Since we don't get the bonuses for completing said triggers I don't think this is something we can really use against the AI. We could in theory do things to slightly mess with them but not much more, we could if we see trade-routes declare wars and destroy them so they don't complete, we could try and make sure that they don't have a warscore over 25 when they peace out etc. But beyond that we can't really stop the bonus:es from coming in.

Without knowing the yields exactly it's hard to say but I imagine this adds up quite quickly considering they could be, in theory, triggering multiples of some of these on the same or consecutive turns, it's not an odd thing to see that they create multiple wonders or great people in multiple cities in quick order feeding a rapid golden age that in turn will create more wonders and great people so that they, probably, eventually enter a state of eternal golden age -- so when it ends a new one just begins once again granting them large yields of everything everywhere. Which feeds the era which feeds the other things. They have so far not been seen having an massive excesses of gold as far as I can tell so I do assume that they spend it all in buying units and hurrying production which once again then feeds the beast. But sure it's just speculation on my part.

(founding a city after the capital gives culture and science)

Enters a new era (3x normal bonus; Food, Production, Gold, Golden Age Points, Science, Culture)
Starts a Golden Age (Food, Production, Gold, Golden Age Points, Science, Culture)

Constructs a World Wonder (Gold, Golden Age Points)
Generates a Great Person (Gold, Golden Age Points)

Wins a war (warscore above 25) (Food, Production, Gold, Golden Age Points, Science, Culture)

Completes a trade route to another civilization or City-State (Gold)

Completes an antiquity site dig by building a Landmark or extracting an artifact (Gold)

 

[Legen]

I know they are mad about football and like to dance and listen to music a lot. Hmm. I know the character Lucio from overwatch. I know the Amazon Rainforest and the Amazon River has lots of cool plants and animals like, and also some uncontacted tribes. Culture/tourism seems appropriate. But then, it would be best to ask a Brazilian what they think is notable about their country if we really wanted to know.

Unfortunately we don't have a broad enough culture/tourism mechanism in-game to cover everything, but I think the jungle start bias (which grants tourism in the late-game) and the Carnavale UA are a decent way of representing these aspects of their uniqueness with what we have available.

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.

I agree absolutely on higher initial city strength, scaling less by population. I don't want to be forced to be choose concrete civ to concrete playstyle. I like to roleplay, sometimes historically, like warmongering, wide Germany, or neutral, tall Japan or Sweden, which is not always optimal under current uniques. It is dull to play peaceful, cultural tradition as Brasil (does anyone knows even one painter or musician from there?), not as Rome, England, France, or America, which were cultural superpowers.
I think good decision making should always be most impactful and civ choice more a flavour.

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.

 

[tu_79]

"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."

 

[andersw]

So it seems inquisitors only work every second era.
Did not work in medival, worked in renaissance and again stopped working in industrial.

Nm, pay attention to enhancers, which btw doesnt show on the overlay, (the era thing was just a coincidence) Prophecy Enhancer prevents BOTH inquisitors and great prophets they do literally nothing, guess it was awhile since an AI had this as enhancer or its even stronger than it used to be.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I tried Byzantium tradition with deity with Marocco, Arabia, Dido, all the usual suspects for comparison
Conclusion: deity is nearly unplayable now, without expolits like early war, parthenon on 87, two turns after roman forum, hmm
By renaissance I was basically one and half era behind most ais, and about full policy tree in culture, without nearly any military
Deity has now very vanilla flavour, which I don't like at all. It is not engagingly challenging, it just horsehockeys all over you from the beggining. I think 2-9-4 deity was far better and only needed stronger bonuses during mid-game and late-game, and a little more power at the begining. Just a little. Otherwise, we make early wonders ai-only, and make early war, expoloits and authority a must on deity, which I believe was a case once in community patch already. I read a whole topic on that.

Also:

Spoiler :

Is everything all right, Harun? You NEED those HoRsEs. One turn he didn't want them for free, the next he gave 800 for 4 horses. He must have changed his preferences.
Come - let us do horses business!

 

[looorg]

There are some interesting aspect when you watch and compare the AI civs turn to turn. There are these bursts of activity when they hit one of their "historic events".

When they enter a new era you know they'll, if any are available, "instabuild" a wonder or two the following turn/turns.

Been doing a lot of spying and viewing cities, a lot of the AI non-core cities are very under-developed when it comes to buildings but still everything in fine. It's a bit odd finding size 7-8 cities that doesn't really have any or very few buildings -- except walls that they seem to have almost priority one on.

My current rando-testgame as Monty started out good, for me, bad for Rome. All my Jaguarwarriors ate his capital for breakfast. So this is what it has come to really. It's early wars, abusing the AI before they get rolling or go home really. Then some general settler stealing and such vs Russia and Indo. Then as soon as my unique units are out of flavor really it all slows down a bit. Now everyone has some kind of circle-jerk defensive pacts with each other. So unless I wanna take on the entire world at once and die horribly due to unhappiness if nothing else I have to play nice and just sit around and take it. All the time watching my initial leader position drop by every passing turn.

 

[Cokolwiek]

You probably can't have both an extremely challenging difficulty while also making all playstyles/choices viable.

Well, I choose wrong word. Of course going for culture should entail tradition and more peacuful, not authority wide (well, unless you are going to vassalize everyone first)
I specifically wanted it to apply to civilizations. I dont want the players to be forced to play a civ they don't much about, aren't personally concected, and really achieved little in real life in comparison to others, to have a challenging gameplay, or chance at deity. Civ choice should in my opinion not limit anything but policies, victory condition, peace v. warmongering should. I think civs should be more of a flavour, not a mechanic in itself. And even VP design that all civs should have one unit and one building/improvement is good example of that philsoophy.

I agree with your principal, and I think there is a solution already. The high difficulties exist to challenge you, and the lower ones exist for historical roleplaying. Each person can choose their flavor.

That is not solution, because one thing does not touch the other. Why shouldn't you be challenged while playing anything you want.
The purpose of difficulty should not be limiting your civilization choice, but increasing challenge.
And I think recently betas were generally pretty good at this, I never felt I was forced to chose Japan (which have never conquered anything in all of their history beside first half of the twenty century and was isolated country btw) to have chance at deity domination.

The higher the difficulty, the more optimization will be required, and optimization removes choice. At a certain level of play...there is only one way to play....the best way. That best way may change map to map, but it exists nonetheless.

I agree, but I think it should be a domain of player which test diety: his strategic decision, build orders, policies taken, where to settle cities, what to invest gold in, when to go for war with who and what objectives to set.
Locking out civs is limiting that choice e.g. limiting fun.

TLDR: I don't want to be forced to play Zulus, which were a bunch of primitive people with sticks I feel nothing about, who happened to kill some British at one time in their history and achieved nothing else really. Especially since many other nations that are represented in civ have notable, honourable military traditions spanning thousands ages and represnted by many wars, conquests, dicipline, tactical skill, and sacrifices (Russia, Germany, France, Arabia, China to name a few) It also make game far more repeatable when only Sweden, Denmark, Zulus and several others are viable choices to domination on higher difficulties. Thus we extremely limit replayability, realism, fun, player choice, at the same time.

 

[Cokolwiek]

"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."

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.

Moderator Action: Please remember that we are an International forum and people from all over the world are reading your biases. As Civilization is a game played mostly in past history, current events are generally irrelevant and should not be discussed in game threads. leif

 

[AndreyK]

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

 

[Stalker0]

I agree, but I think it should be a domain of player which test diety: his strategic decision, build orders, policies taken, where to settle cities, what to invest gold in, when to go for war with who and what objectives to set.
Locking out civs is limiting that choice e.g. limiting fun.

You should probably try immortal right now with the current version. You may feel challenged but in the way you enjoy.

 

[Stalker0]

Finally got to try out the new Air Sweep system. I have a Triplane with Dog Fighting II and Air Superiority. My sweeps are doing 6 damage to the enemy bombers....barely enough to scratch the paint. Upgraded it to a fighter...9 damage

This thing needs to do like 20 damage if I'm going to make someone care enough to involve fighters.

 

[Cokolwiek]

I may, but it is not the point. Point is whether or not deity is humanly possible right now.

Sure @CrazyG beat it, but it is the only one confirmed now and:
1. he basically said himself that Songhai warmonger is the easiest way to play the game fivwe daays ago,
2. warmongering is the easiest strategy in vp, and eraly warmongering plus early uu is the easiest way to play, here
3. he helped himself by expoliting holes in ai thinking, that should be rectified (undefended cities doing war)

He's a very knowleagable player and I am sure better than me. If he or many other players can't win normal deity I think we just have an empty 8 difficulty level, and we should back a little. I don't think deity should give consistent wins, there should be a chance to loose, but it cannot gives consistent failures and ai snowballing into sky nearly everytime.
Such feedback is important to tweak ai bonuses to right values, it is not complaining.