New Beta Version - March 2nd (3-2)

[Stalker0]

Wow you didn't even build a Lighthouse in Athens.

yep, I’ve been trying to be tighter with my build orders, and since I didn’t use the sea and was going ETRs just never got around to it

 

[Stalker0]

Here's another pledge datapoint.

Spoiler :

This is on Deity.

I just upgraded to Tercio's, which are the most powerful unit in the world currently. Now I can snag a few more supply, but I'm near max. And...I'm at 12%. Even with an extra +5 supply I don't think I could crack 60%.

 

[Stalker0]

As a Neophyte Deity player, I've been bouncing back and forth between the two difficulties. I'm in that unfortunate place where Immortal has started to become too easy, but I still get wrecked most of the time on Deity.

Something I've begun to notice is happiness is a much bigger deal on Deity when I'm doing my progress expand builds. At the core, Immortal and Deity have the same happiness base. However, there are subtle differences between the two:

1) Deity has a faster tech rate overall. I find that with Deity it takes me longer to "catch up on buildings" because my science is pushing quicker than my hammers in comparison to Immortal.
2) Deity AIs get buildings and techs quicker, so there overall yield base is higher as compared to Immortal. Therefore, I lose out on the comparative yields.
3) Deity tends to be more aggressive, and so I need to secure more units early on, at the expense of infrastructure.

Now these differences are subtle, but what I'm finding is that with Immortal I can do aggressive expansion and stay right around the 50% marker if I buy luxs from the AI. With deity I tend to drop into the mid 40s unless I aggressively control my population (which also means I have more local unhappiness in cities as well). That may not sound like much, but it makes a big difference at this point in the game. As a result, my deity cities grow slower, and settlers/units are a bit more expense to build.

What makes it interesting is that we normally thinking of difficulty being only an AI change for the most part, but I'm finding more and more that happiness is a much more controlling factor on me with Deity than on Immortal, at least for progress plays. Whether that's "good" or not is debatable but its interesting.

The other interesting take is it increases the important of religion. I've mentioned that on Immortal I have won many a game without ever securing my own holy city. However, on Deity I find I need those yields to stay more yield competitive and help my happiness, so religion is a bigger deal.

 

[Jiggly]

Anyone encountering an issue where you cant upgrade your Tercios to Fusilier? The button image for upgrading is showing the text for alert instead...

 

[Emperorman1]

Its a bug, for me it only shows if I dont have enough money. Try hitting U on keyboard?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Brazil's UA is supposed to grant and equal to 40% of the point when a player enters one however in the attached screen shot when a that required roughl 10K points began is around 60% instead of 40% while is much less than that (even if the number of non puppet cities is taken into account -8 in my case- i should be getting around 3K tourism instead of 1.7K

Spoiler :

 

[tothePAIN]

As a Neophyte Deity player, I've been bouncing back and forth between the two difficulties. I'm in that unfortunate place where Immortal has started to become too easy, but I still get wrecked most of the time on Deity.

Something I've begun to notice is happiness is a much bigger deal on Deity when I'm doing my progress expand builds. At the core, Immortal and Deity have the same happiness base. However, there are subtle differences between the two:

1) Deity has a faster tech rate overall. I find that with Deity it takes me longer to "catch up on buildings" because my science is pushing quicker than my hammers in comparison to Immortal.
2) Deity AIs get buildings and techs quicker, so there overall yield base is higher as compared to Immortal. Therefore, I lose out on the comparative yields.
3) Deity tends to be more aggressive, and so I need to secure more units early on, at the expense of infrastructure.

Now these differences are subtle, but what I'm finding is that with Immortal I can do aggressive expansion and stay right around the 50% marker if I buy luxs from the AI. With deity I tend to drop into the mid 40s unless I aggressively control my population (which also means I have more local unhappiness in cities as well). That may not sound like much, but it makes a big difference at this point in the game. As a result, my deity cities grow slower, and settlers/units are a bit more expense to build.

What makes it interesting is that we normally thinking of difficulty being only an AI change for the most part, but I'm finding more and more that happiness is a much more controlling factor on me with Deity than on Immortal, at least for progress plays. Whether that's "good" or not is debatable but its interesting.

The other interesting take is it increases the important of religion. I've mentioned that on Immortal I have won many a game without ever securing my own holy city. However, on Deity I find I need those yields to stay more yield competitive and help my happiness, so religion is a bigger deal.

The deity advantages snowball.

Personally, I find the early mid game - the transition from classical to medieval - to be the most challenging because the AI can spam medieval units while I'm trying to defend with classical units. Warring with superior military tech is the strongest combat advantage in the game.

 

[saamohod]

Anyone encountering an issue where you cant upgrade your Tercios to Fusilier? The button image for upgrading is showing the text for alert instead...

I reported something similar https://github.com/LoneGazebo/Community-Patch-DLL/issues/7610

It's broken only if you have insufficient funds for upgrade.

 

[stii]

As a Neophyte Deity player, I've been bouncing back and forth between the two difficulties. I'm in that unfortunate place where Immortal has started to become too easy, but I still get wrecked most of the time on Deity.

Something I've begun to notice is happiness is a much bigger deal on Deity when I'm doing my progress expand builds. At the core, Immortal and Deity have the same happiness base. However, there are subtle differences between the two:

1) Deity has a faster tech rate overall. I find that with Deity it takes me longer to "catch up on buildings" because my science is pushing quicker than my hammers in comparison to Immortal.
2) Deity AIs get buildings and techs quicker, so there overall yield base is higher as compared to Immortal. Therefore, I lose out on the comparative yields.
3) Deity tends to be more aggressive, and so I need to secure more units early on, at the expense of infrastructure.

Now these differences are subtle, but what I'm finding is that with Immortal I can do aggressive expansion and stay right around the 50% marker if I buy luxs from the AI. With deity I tend to drop into the mid 40s unless I aggressively control my population (which also means I have more local unhappiness in cities as well). That may not sound like much, but it makes a big difference at this point in the game. As a result, my deity cities grow slower, and settlers/units are a bit more expense to build.

What makes it interesting is that we normally thinking of difficulty being only an AI change for the most part, but I'm finding more and more that happiness is a much more controlling factor on me with Deity than on Immortal, at least for progress plays. Whether that's "good" or not is debatable but its interesting.

The other interesting take is it increases the important of religion. I've mentioned that on Immortal I have won many a game without ever securing my own holy city. However, on Deity I find I need those yields to stay more yield competitive and help my happiness, so religion is a bigger deal.

I would suggest the best way to bridge the gap is to play more powerful civs and better starts. They make the game quite a bit easier and rerolling your start a few times is perfectly fine. The early game certainly is the hardest bit so having some bonuses there will help a lot

You could also do the reverse and play weaker civs and starts on immortal.

 

[Stalker0]

So I've got a scenario where I'm using mostly AA guns to defend, because I don't yet have flight (and my oil reserves are low). I'm seeing the interceptions do 35-45ish damage. I do think we can bump their CS back up a bit, maybe to 45. I'm doing 35-40 damage to a bomber on my 60% interception chance, which I think is a bit too weak. My personal sweet spot is right around 60-70 ish damage for the interception. That allows fresh planes to risk interception if they need to, ensures your not getting one shoted, but also ensures the AA gun serves as a deterrent for attack.

And of course, that the gun doesn't auto kill air sweeping triplanes

EDIT: On the other hand, I am noticing the AI being a bit stupid with their planes. They are sending wounded planes against my AA guns and getting them killed.

 

[Stalker0]

Another thing I noticed with Order is that I have huge trouble with budget deficits.

Spoiler :

Even with all trade routes a humming, I generally have to take Communism or use wealth in several cities to make ends meat. Is that something others notice as well?

 

[Stalker0]

So I've got a scenario where I'm using mostly AA guns to defend, because I don't yet have flight (and my oil reserves are low). I'm seeing the interceptions do 35-45ish damage. I do think we can bump their CS back up a bit, maybe to 45. I'm doing 35-40 damage to a bomber on my 60% interception chance, which I think is a bit too weak. My personal sweet spot is right around 60-70 ish damage for the interception. That allows fresh planes to risk interception if they need to, ensures your not getting one shoted, but also ensures the AA gun serves as a deterrent for attack.

And of course, that the gun doesn't auto kill air sweeping triplanes

EDIT: On the other hand, I am noticing the AI being a bit stupid with their planes. They are sending wounded planes against my AA guns and getting them killed.

Ok now I'm a bit confused, as I just saw a bomber take 63 damage from a AA gun. So I'm seeing 35-60ish damage numbers, that's a REALLY wide variance. Does the bomber upgrades and/or wounded status really matter that much?

 

[Stalker0]

Standard Deity on Communitas_79. Defeat (Surrender) on Turn 388.

Spoiler :

The game started out alright. Got a strong start, kicked off with the Pyramids and securing Roman Forum for a good CS start, even managed to do a hopelite rush and puppet an Ethopian city when he forward settled me a bit.

Then....things declined. Ethiopia (who was in a MUCH weaker state than this map shows) vassaled to Carthage, and she and Russia began to balloon. Meanwhile I was plagued by unhappiness, which stalled my expansion, allowing both Carthage and Ethiopia to wrap around me. I was dead last in policies, tech, and score, which is normal for me on deity but normally I can start to climb out of the hole. But this game I couldn't manage it. I pretty much assumed this was an unwinnable game, but I decided to try some dark horse tactics to see how well I could come back.

So first...was able to get World Science and Scholars in Residence Past, which total gave me a massive science bonus (like near 35%). Even that and a full compliment of science sucking TRs was not enough to let me catch up, which just shows the mountain I had to climb.

Then I decided to try a complete appeasement strategy, as I had never done it before. I basically became Carthage's defacto vassal. Whatever she liked, I liked. Whatever she hated, I hated. I voted for all of her resolutions. I went order because she Order. My goal was to see how well I could appease the queen and stay in her good graces, while milking the heck out of TRs to her and Ethiopia and try to find an opportunity back in the game.

So how well did it work? Not great unfortunately, she still declared on me 3 times and stayed relatively hostile to me for most of the end game, which crushed my trade.

I tried for a Dark Horse DV in the end game, and actually managed to secure 4 spheres. I thought with some crazy deal making maybe it would be possible. But two of my CS were killed in war (even with a lot of gifting they couldn't hold). I couldn't snag the Palace of Westminster....which is a HUGE wonder for DV (honestly maybe too good).

There was a glimmer of hope in the end game as Carthage declare on me, but Ethiopia declared Independence! Suddenly a had a war buddy and trading partner, and for a time there was hope. But Carthage slammed Corinth with bombers and artillery, and suddenly as she took it, I could literally feel the winds change. Carthage surged with troops (hehe if it was human I would swear it was getting cocky, you could just feel the confidence in how the army suddenly moved forward), and my war weariness was suddenly very felt. I had to peace out.

I needed 25 more votes for hegemony, and with 3 of the civs sanctioned, it just wasn't in the cards and I surrendered. It it fun to play dead last every so often, as the dynamic of the game changes a lot when you do.

My notes:

1) The AI is a bit too sanction heavy, and honestly to its detriment at times. For example, I feel like high score AIs shouldn't just sanction low score ones "because they don't like them", they are giving up valuable markets for their TRs and extra luxs.
2) As I mentioned in posts above, I thought I knew how interception worked until I saw this game. When I see the same AA gun do 35, 43, and then 63 to a bomber, I realize I don't know how damage is calculated.
3) You would think by now I had learned my lesson about trying to use diplo units in the late game on Deity. I actually managed to flip a 2500 influence civ with lots of diplomats and great diplomats....only for them to immediately add another 1000 to the pile. arg, what a waste of hammers!

 

[stii]

Another thing I noticed with Order is that I have huge trouble with budget deficits.

Spoiler :

View attachment 591337

Even with all trade routes a humming, I generally have to take Communism or use wealth in several cities to make ends meat. Is that something others notice as well?

Yeah if I am near the force limit and build all the reasonable buildings then I would be at a deficit if I wasn't getting so much off the AI. It does seem like the "proper" ways you are meant to make gold don't produce enough to pay for all the costs.

Authority/autocracy also seem to be better at making gold than other polices which is probably not intended. Autocracy in particular seems to be better at almost everything than freedom or order

 

[Robert E Me]

Stalker, have you considered disabling vassalage? Since the voluntary vassalage is a little screwy this version.

 

[Stalker0]

Stalker, have you considered disabling vassalage? Since the voluntary vassalage is a little screwy this version.

Nah, I just decided not to use it myself, and in this game I felt the vassalage was appropriate (as I said Ethiopia was nothing went it vassaled to carthage). I do think it needs to be changed, but it didn't really affect this game that much.

 

[Bromar1]

That's a funny little marble island next to Athens.

The little city state zeppelin protecting his city is hilarious to me

 

[Laz0r]

Just had a game where I was invading America and all of a sudden they get vassalized and I had all my troops kicked out when I was about 4-5 turns from taking their capital, and I had to manually make Polynesia declare war on me using IGE to prevent it. Not a fun mechanic at all really, and if it is too difficult to make the new vassal master join the war then the AI's should not be able to be vassalized by civs they aren't at war with, when they are in a war.

 

[2506]

Just had a game where I was invading America and all of a sudden they get vassalized and I had all my troops kicked out when I was about 4-5 turns from taking their capital, and I had to manually make Polynesia declare war on me using IGE to prevent it. Not a fun mechanic at all really, and if it is too difficult to make the new vassal master join the war then the AI's should not be able to be vassalized by civs they aren't at war with, when they are in a war.

Because only so many players speak up here, sometimes the "consensus" on changes is based on a very small number of opinions. The issue of excessive vassalization is definitely on the high end in how many people have spoken negatively about it. Some people have tried to compromise and ask for the option to play without it, but I don't see who they are compromising with. Has anyone spoken in favor of the present system?

Recursive, is this a difficult change to undo? Couldn't there be a hotfix that reverses those changes?

 

[pineappledan]

In a way, I’m actually happy about this bug. If players hate the AI doing this, then they should also recognize this was something a player could do all along. This mechanic was always available for abuse, and it only got noticed when the AI got clever enough to start doing it to people

i am hopeful that any fix will also break this ability for human players. voluntary vassalization should not end wars, and should necessarily require the master accepting to go to war with anyone the vassal is at war with as a condition of the vassalization, and have that weighted in the trade screen.

This is a big step forward for multiplayer games.