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

[pineappledan]

Standard Speed, Continents, King difficulty.

How am I supposed to compete with civs that can pump 91 religious pressure on turn 119 when my holy city (which is closer) is only pushing 6 pressure? Was the problem with really low pressure only solved for AI players? It feels like we're playing two separate games here.

Also, Siam had a 9 capital at turn 27. He went tradition, but that is still completely insane. That's 1 every 3 turns. I know there was talk about how early CS rewards are too high, but I never realized it had gotten this bad.

 

[Delvemor]

I just ended (abandoned) my second Immortal game on this version. IMHO the increase in difficulty is fine, I really like it. My only problem in the 2 games was the presence of a runaway AI which was building most of the Wonders and reached the modern era while most of the players were still in the renaissance era. In both games I didn't see a way to catch up. The games were still enjoyable nonetheless. I think I will just go back to Emperor for a while, at least until I'm in the mood of playing an early warmonger such as Askia or Monty.

In short: I think difficulty is fine, but the ability of a single AI (Tradition start building most or all the Wonders in both cases) to run away with the game is ruining it after a certain point.

 

[CrazyG]

How am I supposed to compete with civs that can pump 91 religious pressure on turn 119 when my holy city (which is closer) is only pushing 6 pressure? Was the problem with really low pressure only solved for AI players? It feels like we're playing two separate games here.

He must have a ton of faith in his capital or an enhancer belief. Maybe a scrivener's office plus many allies?

 

[pineappledan]

He must have a ton of faith in his capital or an enhancer belief. Maybe a scrivener's office plus many allies?

Does raw faith output affect pressure?

He has 1 ally (pictured). He has not enhanced. This is only turn 119. If anything I should be beating him for faith. Since he founded, I flipped a religious CS to me, and am now getting 10 faith per turn that he was getting previously

 

[Delvemor]

Other than the single AI running away with the game, another thing very noticeable is how valuable are strategic resources for the AIs. Other players have mentioned this before. You can sell iron or horses for over 200 gold the unit. While it's not necessarily a bad thing, I've never seen that before and it's highly profitable. It's a lot of extra gold before turn 100 on Standard speed. I guess it compensates for the higher difficulty.

 

[tu_79]

Does raw faith output affect pressure?

He has 1 ally (pictured). He has not enhanced. This is only turn 119. If anything I should be beating him for faith. Since he founded, I flipped a religious CS to me, and am now getting 10 faith per turn that he was getting previously

Yes, pressure is based on raw faith in the city, plus some modifiers. Probably faith from city states should not account for pressure.

 

[Recursive]

Other than the single AI running away with the game, another thing very noticeable is how valuable are strategic resources for the AIs. Other players have mentioned this before. You can sell iron or horses for over 200 gold the unit. While it's not necessarily a bad thing, I've never seen that before and it's highly profitable. It's a lot of extra gold before turn 100 on Standard speed. I guess it compensates for the higher difficulty.

This is unintended behavior.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Currently there's simply such a big difference between various types of city states you ally/become friends with in the ancient era and that can make my games considerably harder or easier.

I kind of like a degree of unpredictability. It means you can't predict how the game will play out ahead of time, so you have to reassess your strategy depending on how things go. Granted in my games I'm not relying on it per se so the stakes are lower.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

I kind of like a degree of unpredictability. It means you can't predict how the game will play out ahead of time, so you have to reassess your strategy depending on how things go. Granted in my games I'm not relying on it per se so the stakes are lower.

I understand your position and I too like some degree of unpredictability and randomness, it's one of the things separating Civ 5 from playing chess against the computer

But at least on Deity I wish there was less randomness in certain key aspects of the game and periods of the game. I'm not just talking about early city states, it's also (like I mentioned above) spy promotions, hidden artifacts etc. Or I wish there was an option in game settings to enable "less randomness" that would trigger some changes which would reduce some randomness. I don't know if that's feasible, but I'd like it if I could choose whether I want to play with more randomness from the game or not. Or perhaps that's more suitable for a modmod, I don't know.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Forgot to add to my first post in this thread - I wish "strategic balance" game setting also extended to other strategic resources, not just horses and iron.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I understand your position and I too like some degree of unpredictability and randomness, it's one of the things separating Civ 5 from playing chess against the computer

But at least on Deity I wish there was less randomness in certain key aspects of the game and periods of the game. I'm not just talking about early city states, it's also (like I mentioned above) spy promotions, hidden artifacts etc. Or I wish there was an option in game settings to enable "less randomness" that would trigger some changes which would reduce some randomness. I don't know if that's feasible, but I'd like it if I could choose whether I want to play with more randomness from the game or not. Or perhaps that's more suitable for a modmod, I don't know.

I admit when I was reading your original comments I couldn't help but wonder if there was a way to decrease the randomness on the higher difficulty settings while retaining in on lower ones. I guess it would have to be an option like raging barbarians or playing without ancient ruins, where you could check or uncheck a box during game setup.

 

[MIS]

See save game below. I'm Songhai, conquering Spain. 3 tiles west of Seville is a Spanish Warrior on Alert doing nothing, while I've taken 3 cities and am taking the forth. He had the opportunity to capture my worker last turn, and did not.

Thanks team for all the great work you do to improve BNW, and keep it fresh.

 

[anastazjasz]

Few thoughts from me then, not sure if it belongs here or in playthrough section.

Fresh to deity, started to play 2 betas ago. I don't like how Authority plays (its so slow in the beginning and very boring, only war) so I'm always going Progress or if no space for expansion Tradition. After few lost games I've started to actually winning...

Yesterday I've decided to check out new beta, and since forum is full of info about difficulty spike I went empy with cheese choice of civ (Carthage
I'm playing with heavily modified VP, including new luxuries, civ&reforms, EE for VP, expanded world congress, extended naval warfare, events&decisions, bunch of extra civs, 3rd/4rth extra components and I guess very important: more wonders mod (version where up till Renaissance every wonder has extra condition before it can be build, amazing, prevents spam wonders by one runner).

My settings (empy diff, large, epic, Communitu 1.15, 14civ, 20 CS)
-in my game runner is Netherlands (tradition), he was making 600+ gpc, had 17 iron, yet I've sold him mine 11 for 88 per turn...sold also horses to Montezuma, 6 for 42 gold per turn...I was making 300 atm so it gave me huge boost to my economy, feels like cheating, sth is definitely wrong here guys.
-in terms of tech I was constantly behind till Industrial (I was settling fast to block Shaka), thats the plus++ but warfare on empy is way too ez (understandable), my closest civ was Shaka (as mentioned), smashed him just before his impi's poped now he is my vasal, and Venice, my next close civ is my vasal also, his fleet was pathetic, didn't plan the war but he put 2 citadels and stole my iron and broke my monopoly on lapis, so...
-religion, the AI is doing really amazing job now, had to go shrines first everywhere and still got only the last spot with some crap leftover beliefs (granted, didn't have stonehenge cos of my capital being on the hill)
-cities are still paper wall for mid game+ naval units, even with all the hp buildings and 15+ pop, 3 turns and it falls to corvettes...
-boredom is not an issue anymore, but boi poverty keeps me under 50% all the time even though I went full loco with making as much gold as I can, also went industry to get that 15% less mod, and will have to go Order if I play a little more, at one point my capital pop17 had 9 unhappines, 2 from war, 7 from poverty lol, never seen it before at this scale, I've prolly overexpanded a little too much
-AI expansion is very decent, saved 3 settlers to imp them to pioneer but I doubt there will be decent spot to settle since even all the small islands are taken.

Those are few things that stands out for me atm, cheers.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Also wanted to add that Siam seems to be consistently (even in previous versions) to both sell and buy luxuries for less than other AIs, regardless if I'm their ally or not, and in this version Carthage offers quite a bit more gold for luxuries than most civs.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Standard Speed, Continents, King difficulty.

How am I supposed to compete with civs that can pump 91 religious pressure on turn 119 when my holy city (which is closer) is only pushing 6 pressure? Was the problem with really low pressure only solved for AI players? It feels like we're playing two separate games here.

Also, Siam had a 9 capital at turn 27. He went tradition, but that is still completely insane. That's 1 every 3 turns. I know there was talk about how early CS rewards are too high, but I never realized it had gotten this bad.
View attachment 548433

Did you forgot that Siam starts at 40 influence with every CS they have met? Probably, they have met 2 or 3 maritime CS, which pumps a lot of food into the capital, maybe they have reached 7 pop and then picked tradition opener to get to 9 population?
Getting an additional warrior in these versions is definitly in favor of siam, cause they can meet CS now even faster. It would be still a very fast growth, but it could explain a part of it.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

And again I have to say, this war weariness mechanic is so stupid....
Did I miss something, or is the AI not only receiving discounts on units, but also getting less war weariness?
The Polinesian attacked me and I take one of their cities, I have a kill rate of around 8:1 or higher, have taken 2 of their trade units while I didnt lost one.... but still, I have with 33% war weariness 2% more than the polinesian.... (and no, they have taken tradition, not authority)

 

[Balint2]

And again I have to say, this war weariness mechanic is so stupid....
Did I miss something, or is the AI not only receiving discounts on units, but also getting less war weariness?
The Polinesian attacked me and I take one of their cities, I have a kill rate of around 8:1 or higher, have taken 2 of their trade units while I didnt lost one.... but still, I have with 33% war weariness 2% more than the polinesian.... (and no, they have taken tradition, not authority)

Thats interesting, I didnt know that either.
And I wanted to talk about war weariness anyways.

So, war weariness increases unit costs but not building costs.

This leads to the strategy that the human player builds a ton of units, declares war, then never loses any unit because hes human, and just builds buildings with his now, due to war weariness, unhappy empire.

And ever refuses to make peace with the AI, why would you, it hurts the AI much much more than you, who dont have to build units, because you dont lose any.

This should be solved, its not AI friendly.
Either make buildings cost more too if war weary or unhappy, so you must make peace with the AI. Or make war weariness diminish even when in war, when not losing too much units, cities, so you cant abuse the AI by actually making peace with it but not "officially".

 

[tu_79]

Thats interesting, I didnt know that either.
And I wanted to talk about war weariness anyways.

So, war weariness increases unit costs but not building costs.

This leads to the strategy that the human player builds a ton of units, declares war, then never loses any unit because hes human, and just builds buildings with his now, due to war weariness, unhappy empire.

And ever refuses to make peace with the AI, why would you, it hurts the AI much much more than you, who dont have to build units, because you dont lose any.

This should be solved, its not AI friendly.
Either make buildings cost more too if war weary or unhappy, so you must make peace with the AI. Or make war weariness diminish even when in war, when not losing too much units, cities, so you cant abuse the AI by actually making peace with it but not "officially".

War weariness is intended for shorter wars. The idea is not to make AI harder, but to force AI and humans to surrender if they have received or committed tons of damage. That's why war weariness makes cities unhappy, and unhappy cities can't build units. Long wars prevent building more units as a way of bringing the war to an end. Even a human without unit loses will feel war weariness if fighting for too long. At least, that's the idea.

 

[Balint2]

War weariness is intended for shorter wars. The idea is not to make AI harder, but to force AI and humans to surrender if they have received or committed tons of damage. That's why war weariness makes cities unhappy, and unhappy cities can't build units. Long wars prevent building more units as a way of bringing the war to an end. Even a human without unit loses will feel war weariness if fighting for too long. At least, that's the idea.

"Long wars prevent building more units as a way of bringing the war to an end"

"Even a human without unit loses will feel war weariness if fighting for too long".

My point is that if you dont lose units you dont have to replace them. You dont have to build units. Thus "Long wars prevent building more units as a way of bringing the war to an end" does nothing to humans in contrary of
"Even a human without unit loses will feel war weariness if fighting for too long".

Yes your cities grow a little less, but having a wide empire that doesnt matter that much to u either, like the unit production handicap.

But it matters to the AI, so you never make peace.

(And I tested it too and easily beat deity with it(not in the recent 2patch tho, I didnt test it, but I think nothing in that regard changed))

 

[pineappledan]

Did you forgot that Siam starts at 40 influence with every CS they have met? Probably, they have met 2 or 3 maritime CS, which pumps a lot of food into the capital, maybe they have reached 7 pop and then picked tradition opener to get to 9 population?

I know how Siam works, and It's doubtless he got that head start that way. In comparison, Venice (tradition) was at 6 the same turn, and Attila was at 5. Whatever the case, being 3 over a comparable civ's start would be a UA unto itself, but Siam is also getting boosts to /// early by simply meeting civs. He sailed into a comfortable lead without really doing anything, and I don't think that's fair. I am not alone in noting Siam's recent winning streak; many of the recent game reports people have posted have also featured Siam runaways. A reduction to early friend/ally CS yields should help with Siam's newfound power surge.

My main qualm, however, is that he in't allied to a single religious CS. I am. My faith output should roughly match his, and I am generating literally all of my faith from a single Holy city. Why, then, am i putting out 6 pressure from my holy city and 1 pressure via trade routes, while his 3rd city is pushing 91 pressure? A TR from my holy city to a nearby Buddhism-converted CS is pulling 6 pressure in. I am literally at a -5 pressure per turn deficit against the AI's religion from my holy city. This is absurd, and I am convinced it is a bug.