New Beta Version - October 10th (10/10)

[LukaSlovenia29]

The AI seems to be quite slow at building walls, I've captured 4 unwalled cities despite starting my wars around turn 60 and not sooner.

 

[Gazebo]

AI seems to really hate God-King now, I picked a pantheon last and nobody took it. Probably the lack of growth bonuses discourages them, but at least the likes of Spain/Ethiopia should feel free to take it. There's no risk, only gain.

I also saw that Theodora just founded with God of War after making no wars with her neighbour, Egypt (warring against War Chariots would be suicide probably, considering the terrain), but then she decided to make it even worse and picked Goddess of Expanse as her additional belief. All of that while going Progress. I have seen her do bad choices, but this time she has exceeded all of my expectations. If her plan was to deny me Basilicas by dying to Egypt, she has succeeded.

God-King sometimes goes first, other times not. Just depends on how the AI is feeling. All of the pantheons should get some more play now, even if sometimes the AI makes a bad guess as to what the best one will end up being. Having the AI pick the same 8 pantheons over and over is boring.

G

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Tweaked values slightly to increase 'curve' and potency of unhappiness late-game

Does this mean, gaining happiness is even more difficult in lategame?
Cause I had to abandon a game due to massiv happiness drop, not this version but the previous one, and if it gets now even more difficult, I dont hink I want to play any lategame game.
My cities are well developed, improved infrastructure everywhere, over 200 population in 6 cities.
And not only me, half the AIs have massiv happiness problems in the last turns, starting from mid modern era.

 

[Gazebo]

How's the new 'staggered' happiness on city growth treating everyone? The AI seems to like it. Is the UI element I added useful enough?

G

 

[Bromar1]

Looks pretty darn solid, very interested to try. My only complaint is this:

• Science: 1:2, cap 15
• Production: 1:2, cap 15
• Faith: 1:3, cap 10

Production is flat out better than science, its cap should be lower. Faith also looks pretty darn weak at those numbers, by the time you are actually generating any faith, your already past the point were you really need the faith.

With veneration being constantly nerfed into the ground, should the belief just be removed? 1:3 faith is not great, I'd rather get buildings because the extra pressure is pretty much "free" faith (not to mention other yields, happiness, etc)

 

[Edaka]

There is not an IsDummy column.

Sorry for the late and unhelpful reply, but I've just checked and it's there. The Community Events modmod uses it quite a bit.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Veneration is garbage and was so for a few versions. I wasn't even really taking it often when it was 1F for 1 pop unless I was Spain for really drastic Mission procs, and then the cap got weaker, and then it turned into 1 per 2, and it got 2-3 nerfs afterwards. If it creates so many problems for the AI which cannot keep up with AI who take it when it's reasonable, just make the belief something else. Like I dunno, have Veneration be +XX Faith every time a building or an unit is built, scaling with era. Or make Veneration be a discount on all Faith purchases, or have it be flat. Like, +3 Faith per city and +5 Faith to Grand Temple. Faith loses power too fast, if you get it in small bunches costs will double before you get anything significant. This way it's hard-hitting now, but trash later as opposed to always being bad.

I don't understand the concept of making something underpowered for humans just because AI is doing better with it than the alternatives. It just creates a "noob trap" of sorts, because it makes a belief that is only meant to be used by the AI which experienced players will not take unless fooling around, but those who don't understand how bad it is or are new will just weaken themselves with it. If Faith per pop doesn't work, then maybe Veneration can be more unique (meaning not 1 per X, spend Faith get building), like cooperation? I gave some suggestions above.

 

[Stalker0]

How's the new 'staggered' happiness on city growth treating everyone? The AI seems to like it. Is the UI element I added useful enough?

G

I like the city UI parts. The global bar with the unhappiness and happiness numbers there don't add anything to me and just take up space.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

Religion was constantly nerfed in the last patches, caps for some beliefs, reduced yields, additional religion. The AI isnt bad in countering the one with veneration, its simply bad in countering any guy which get an early lead of spreading. In most of my games the AI isnt even able to use inquisitors to clean their own cities, nor are they able to push back an early dominant religion.
Most AI cities will never reach 30 pop (especially not after the change in growth bonus for AI), nor will they get 30 follower (isolated islands may be the exception). Reaching 20 follower in your cities is already a difficult task, if your neighboring any other religion, and you will hit the maximum relative late, when the run for the dominant religion is already over.
Staying with the maximum of 10 and 1 faith for every pop is already fine.

 

[ChickenFighter]

How's the new 'staggered' happiness on city growth treating everyone? The AI seems to like it. Is the UI element I added useful enough?

G

To me as a new player it feels quite intuitive. By moving my mouse over a city I can clearly see what the city is lacking and have the ability to react and counter the negative effects ahead of time. That lets me plan and time my expanse pretty accurately without getting suddenly overwhelmed by unhappiness. Didn't notice any spikes in late game either, everything has been quite predictable so far.

I like the city UI parts. The global bar with the unhappiness and happiness numbers there don't add anything to me and just take up space.

I personally like seeing the total amount of unhappy citizens at a quick glance. That way I can instantly see if something is seriously wrong. However, It would be cool if we could get a separate popup window when you move your mouse over the unhappiness indicator that lists all the individual cities in which citizens are unhappy together with the associated reasons. That way I wouldn't have to look through all my cities by hand and could just skip to the ones that actually cause the issues.

All in all I'm quite happy with the changes!

 

[Gazebo]

To me as a new player it feels quite intuitive. By moving my mouse over a city I can clearly see what the city is lacking and have the ability to react and counter the negative effects ahead of time. That lets me plan and time my expanse pretty accurately without getting suddenly overwhelmed by unhappiness. Didn't notice any spikes in late game either, everything has been quite predictable so far.



I personally like seeing the total amount of unhappy citizens at a quick glance. That way I can instantly see if something is seriously wrong. However, It would be cool if we could get a separate popup window when you move your mouse over the unhappiness indicator that lists all the individual cities in which citizens are unhappy together with the associated reasons. That way I wouldn't have to look through all my cities by hand and could just skip to the ones that actually cause the issues.

All in all I'm quite happy with the changes!

If you click the happiness icon it takes you to the happiness overview for your empire. You can sort by most unhappy and then go from there.

G

 

[ChickenFighter]

If you click the happiness icon it takes you to the happiness overview for your empire. You can sort by most unhappy and then go from there.

G

Quite embarrassing that I never actually tried clicking on it, haha. That's pretty much what I wanted. Cheers!

 

[Gazebo]

Veneration is garbage and was so for a few versions. I wasn't even really taking it often when it was 1F for 1 pop unless I was Spain for really drastic Mission procs, and then the cap got weaker, and then it turned into 1 per 2, and it got 2-3 nerfs afterwards. If it creates so many problems for the AI which cannot keep up with AI who take it when it's reasonable, just make the belief something else. Like I dunno, have Veneration be +XX Faith every time a building or an unit is built, scaling with era. Or make Veneration be a discount on all Faith purchases, or have it be flat. Like, +3 Faith per city and +5 Faith to Grand Temple. Faith loses power too fast, if you get it in small bunches costs will double before you get anything significant. This way it's hard-hitting now, but trash later as opposed to always being bad.

I don't understand the concept of making something underpowered for humans just because AI is doing better with it than the alternatives. It just creates a "noob trap" of sorts, because it makes a belief that is only meant to be used by the AI which experienced players will not take unless fooling around, but those who don't understand how bad it is or are new will just weaken themselves with it. If Faith per pop doesn't work, then maybe Veneration can be more unique (meaning not 1 per X, spend Faith get building), like cooperation? I gave some suggestions above.

I’m not intentionally driving per pop follower beliefs into the ground. There’s a profoundly delicate balance here because the gameplay investments in follower selection are tricky to get right for the AI. If the AI is overzealous with faith buildings, or neglects to build them, it will get its religion crushed. Even this build saw some core changes to AI belief selection and faith purchase weighting. So, before you assume I’m doing anything related to concrete balance, keep in mind the religion AI was refreshed this version. I don’t think there’s a version I’ve put out that doesn’t have AI religion improvements. The balance will shape around that, it has to.

I’ve always said that human playtesting is important because I can’t really ask the AI how something ‘feels,’ even if it is balanced for AI play. So feedback is good. But it’s also important to remember that most of my independent balance decisions stem from AI observation.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I’m not intentionally driving per pop follower beliefs into the ground. There’s a profoundly delicate balance here because the gameplay investments in follower selection are tricky to get right for the AI. If the AI is overzealous with faith buildings, or neglects to build them, it will get its religion crushed. Even this build saw some core changes to AI belief selection and faith purchase weighting. So, before you assume I’m doing anything related to concrete balance, keep in mind the religion AI was refreshed this version. I don’t think there’s a version I’ve put out that doesn’t have AI religion improvements. The balance will shape around that, it has to.

I’ve always said that human playtesting is important because I can’t really ask the AI how something ‘feels,’ even if it is balanced for AI play. So feedback is good. But it’s also important to remember that most of my independent balance decisions stem from AI observation.

I know you're doing a great job with the constantly improving AI and the mod as a whole and that cannot be denied, but this is less about the AI and more about having the belief be balanced for humans. I'm fine with Veneration turning into a different beast altogether with altered effects for AI's sake, like the suggested ideas, but if that's impossible it is better for Veneration to be superior for AI than the alternatives if a human can make use of it too because that changes how the game can be played and adds possibilities. There's no point having a belief that is good for the AI and a trap for inexperienced humans. Veneration got nerfed a few times because it overperformed in AI's hands even when it wasn't really taken anymore, so maybe the problem lies in the belief itself and no changes to numbers can salvage it. That's why I suggest turning it into something different and maybe more unique, like Cooperation.

 

[Stalker0]

That's why I suggest turning it into something different and maybe more unique, like Cooperation.

Or simply dropping it. We don't necessarily need that many beliefs if faith is just too hard to balance in such a model.

 

[Enginseer]

Or we buff Faith/turn overall by making it factor more into Religious Strife? A lack of Faith makes create unhappiness now. However, a strong generation of Faith makes Religious Strife difficult to pop up allowing cities with multiple diversity of followers to exist in a City.

 

[Gokudo01]

how about making the "scaling per followers" beliefs into static values that could scale with era?
we got a better control over it and we can reduce the early impact without making it totally garbage.
Moreover we reduce the edge cases


Example

Food/Gold : 4/4/8/12/16 (industrial MAX )
Production/science : 3/3/6/9/12 (MAX)
Faith/Culture : 2/2/4/6/8(MAX)

 

[Questdog]

Tithe is not giving me any gold. I posted a bug report on GitHub about it. My Pantheon also seems to be malfunctioning, but I am not certain that I might not be misunderstanding how it works. I forget the name of it (dern), but it is the one that gives faith, food and gold from mountains and natural wonders get some culture and faith (I think). Anyways, both the Holy City and my Capital (different cities) are reporting that they are getting 3 gold and faith from my religion (I forgot to look at food). My capital has 6 mountains within 3 tiles of it and it is at 10 population. My Holy City has 7 mountains within 3 tiles and it is at 11 population. The first thing I thought was that maybe the mountains have to be in the borders, but that does not seem to be it, as the Capital has only 2 Mountains claimed and the Holy City only has 1.

P.S. Another city that has 1 mountain within a 3 tile radius is not getting anything from my religion. Its mountain is not within my borders.

 

[Grabbl]

The pantheon should give 1 yield (food, gold, faith) per 2 mountains, so it seems to work as intended. If the text says otherwise, that's the bug.

 

[Questdog]

The pantheon should give 1 yield (food, gold, faith) per 2 mountains, so it seems to work as intended. If the text says otherwise, that's the bug.

Thank you. That is probably it. I'll have to double check the text next time I am in game, but that seems like a very lame choice on my part, if the text is not messed up. If the text is messed up, then I have been hoodwinked....