New Beta Version - October 8th (10-8)

[Dolen2]

I disabled ban luxury because it is all the AI ever picks, feels like cheating and on top of all makes no sense.

I also disabled it but now they started proposing the reset city state influence proposal so I ended up bringing it back lol

 

[pineappledan]

To clarify, I don’t necessarily have a problem with any single one of the dreadnought city siege promotions, but I’m pretty deflated by how they compose 3/5 leaf promotions on that side. There’s 3 dreadnought perks that basically do the same thing.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I find the AIs in my games often propose world religions if they own one, or sphere of influence or open doors.

It is odd that they don't like to propose world projects more often though, given pretty everyone seems to like them being proposed.

Edit: on the subject of promotions, I would absolutely love more variety in the Recon unit tree. I'm routinely disheartened when the only promo I can pick at level 11 is 'Medic' which actually reduces my combat defense (not what I want when scouting, pillaging, or providing flanking before retreating again). I know it's a nice promo in it's own right, but it bothers me that I don't have a choice.

I don't even need anything especially good, just something that feels like keeping my pathfinder -> scout -> explorer alive that long is rewarding. My veteran recon units still get killed dissapointingly easy by barbarians when they are embarked for example, would love if they had option to take Amphibious. Cover or something like Infiltrators seems like it would also match their theme.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

5) Happiness: After several tradition games I'm seeing a common trend in my games. My overall happiness is solid, but what I find is my Capital is carrying my satellite cities. I am seeing a real stutter step approach to growth. I will grow my city a little, and then I have to put it on production focus (and shut off growth) for a long time to build build build. Then I have to check if my city can take the 10 or so unhappiness the 1 unit of growth will give me (not an exaggeration in the slightest), and then if I can, I'll let it grow....and then immediately turn off growth again. All of my satellites in this game were Pop: 27, 20, 19, 18, 16, 14....so in general pretty slow growth throughout the game.

I cant remember having happiness issues beyond renaissance. Maybe cause Iam mostly a peaceful player not generating that much unhappiness by war weariness or unhappiness by puppets, but in my opinion, the tech modifier could definitly rise.
I remember one game a month ago I was able to have zero unhappiness in a 10 city empire (if I had disabled all specialists) while generating around 100 happiness.

I think tradition has a happiness DISTRIBUTION problem. It's the same reason why I think a 6 city empire benefits already more by progress happiness than by tradition happiness. You will construct in most cases the most of the national wonders in your capital, which earns all the happiness but your other cities will suffer from unhappiness and grow slower. Your empire happiness may look good, but the way the happiness is distributed is bad. That's the reason why I think, the happiness from national wonders should give global happiness and not local happiness (if this is possible).

@Agribusiness: yeah its bad, unless you are such growth fanatic like me, you will mostly don't work that much farms in the late game, making the impact of the building pretty small.
Iam really in favor of some much more generic effects like +1 to all land tiles and +10% , and maybe also lower the maintenance or do some transformation things like already suggested.

 

[arthurF]

James ninelives, how do you deal with huge maps in late game? I have a pretty good computer but the 32 bit restrictions on this game make huge basically unplayable after a certain point, and turns start to take about 5 minutes for the AI to complete, and visual tokens begin to disappear.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Played several games over the last couple versions, and I'm curious where anybody's happiness issues are coming from because it's felt really good to me. Ever since Zebo's food tweaks after my Attila rant months ago, I think it's been in a much better spot.

 

[ryanmusante]

James ninelives, how do you deal with huge maps in late game? I have a pretty good computer but the 32 bit restrictions on this game make huge basically unplayable after a certain point, and turns start to take about 5 minutes for the AI to complete, and visual tokens begin to disappear.

Agreed on the long turn delay on huge. With tectonic maps, it's even longer because the map size is increased slightly per setting. I'm wondering if the next generation of CPUs with increased single core performance will make a difference.

 

[JamesNinelives]

James ninelives, how do you deal with huge maps in late game? I have a pretty good computer but the 32 bit restrictions on this game make huge basically unplayable after a certain point, and turns start to take about 5 minutes for the AI to complete, and visual tokens begin to disappear.

To be honest I often don't play all the way through. This is mostly because of the long turns though - I play a lot of the later eras through strategic view rather than standard view which I think reduces the visual processing demands.

 

[Obezag]

Hello i can't seem to run the installer for this version (Vox Populi (10-8-1).exe), it just freezes everytime i tried to open it. Possibly related to the latest windows update/ windows defender.
Anyone experiencing the same issue?

 

[Obezag]

Yep it was definitely the recent windows update which broke the installer, after disabling "smart screen" i can run the installer again.

 

[RedHotTomato]

I still feel authority policy tree is too powerful. Especially on Epic Speed Deity Difficulty. Haven't lost any game for a long time.
Maybe the final policy to have a free unit every 12 pop instead of 10? Or reduce the healing from unit kill.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

RedHotTomato, I recommend you try out Standard speed or perhaps a non-Authority civ on Epic speed? Epic speed games are notoriously biased towards successful warmongers, so it's hard to balance around them.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I don't find the AI particularly good at warmongering on epic speed, but of combat tends to favour the player. I'm a little surprised that it's so easy on Deity but I guess I've never really gone full warmonger.

 

[azum4roll]

Settler and Deity AI have the same combat AI afaik. The only difference is the number of units, so if you're used to grinding through endless walls of enemy units you'll always be "good at warmongering" in Deity.

 

[ridjack]

Settler and Deity AI have the same combat AI afaik. The only difference is the number of units, so if you're used to grinding through endless walls of enemy units you'll always be "good at warmongering" in Deity.

I feel like I've seen @Gazebo or someone say something that would explicitly contradict this, but I can't remember where or what it was.

 

[pineappledan]

They use the same AI, but lower difficulties will store "sub-optimal" decisions and randomly choose between the most optimal choice and a 2nd or 3rd best choice. Deity only ever plays optimally.

At least that's my understanding of how it works. I'm invoking Cunningham's law here.

 

[Recursive]

There are some small changes made to the AI's decision-making based on difficulty level, but it is largely the same. For instance, on higher difficulties the AI's desire to upgrade units is increased, as they tend to have more Gold.

The programmed sub-optimal plays occur with city production, technology and social policies: on difficulties below Immortal, they will choose between the top 2 (or 3, if below Prince) options randomly.

 

[JamesNinelives]

I think it's also important to note that fighting battles where you are outnumbered requires slightly different approaches than when you can afford to loose a couple of units in skirmishes or sieges. I like when battles are a little forgiving of mistakes.

Edit: on a different subject, the entering a new era bonus from Way of Transcendence is working perfectly on my current playthrough (I had issues with it previously). Not sure what changed, but I'm rather happy about that!

 

[Yaviel]

In my current game (standard speed, prince difficulty, large continents plus, sparse resources) as Sweden with 9 cities, I have major gold difficulties and wondering why. My start was a jungle rich area so I set out to try something new and leave jungles in tact to build logging camps on them and get tourism with zoos later. Currently I am in the late renaissance era and my 20 logging camps provide 5 to 7 gold each, all markets and banks are built, I am at peace with everyone and my empire is in a golden age yet I am just short of +0 gold and fluctuating heavily.

I find it strange the one game I focus on making bank I have money problems...
Also, why is the AI doing so well? China is leading with +300 gold per turn, without jungles but the largest military force on the planet. I find that highly questionable.

Feedback:
The Industry social policy branch is a serious handicap for everyone picking it compared to Imperialism and Rationalism!

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I can confirm @Stalker0 view, that boredome seems to be a misstuned.
I havnt build all boredom buildings yet, but having only 5 unhappiness from none boredom and 28 from boredom seems to confirm that the modifier for boredom is a bit wrong adjusted.

Also, why is the AI doing so well? China is leading with +300 gold per turn, without jungles but the largest military force on the planet. I find that highly questionable.

Chinas unique ability adds gold and food to each city for gaining cities or GW, so they are naturally good in food and gold, nothing wrong with that.

The Industry social policy branch is a serious handicap for everyone picking it compared to Imperialism and Rationalism!

I disagree. Industry have gained some buffs and is now relative on par with the other trees.
The major difference is Imperialism and Rationalism add pure yields, while Industry add percentual values. As long as your cities are not already strong, the pure yields are stronger than the percentual increase.
I agree that +2 science for jungles and +2 science for ocean tiles are extremly overtuned. But finishing industry branch with protectionism gives such an incredible boost, much greater than any other tree.
2 additional trade routes have more impact than you might think, any trader nation (germany, morocco, ottoman,...) benefit from them greatly, increase the corporation limit and tourism output.
Doubling happiness by luxuries is able to solve every happiness problems you might ever get and buffing your specialist with 4 yields is a great, kinda solving any production and money problems.