New Official Version - June 19th (6-19)

[Recursive]

Do you mean....are AIs spamming wonders less often....or more on how neighbors treat AIs that spam wonders?

They sure hate you for it. Only 1 AI did not regularly denounce me in my last Egypt game.

On Netherlands going Order in Stalker0's game:
I get the feeling that the AI will go out of their way to avoid a CV focused Player's Ideology.

I mean how AIs treat players who are spamming Wonders. Previously there were a lot of complaints that it was too harsh, but there haven't been any complaints that I've seen recently - so were my tweaks satisfactory is my question.

Egypt's entire schtick is building Wonders, so that might be an outlier.

 

[Teholb]

I mean how AIs treat players who are spamming Wonders. Previously there were a lot of complaints that it was too harsh, but there haven't been any complaints that I've seen recently - so were my tweaks satisfactory is my question.

Egypt's entire schtick is building Wonders, so that might be an outlier.

As an aside, I previously played at Emp, however I've had to adjust my difficulty down to King after the last few releases. That said, I've found that the AI appears to be far too forgiving of wonder spam. I can build as many as I can/care to, and I don't feel like the AI is responsive to it.

 

[Stalker0]

Just checking, didn't guided missiles use to have super evasion against interception?

 

[JamesNinelives]

From my experiences the wonder spammer penalty seems to be in a good place at the moment? They certainly respond to it, but still consider other factors as well. Haven't played a lot of games on this patch all the way through though; I'm being stubborn and trying to play on the settings I used to be able to win on instead of going down one XD.

Or maybe I just have to be dominant in the WC to not get the travel ban hammer (I had the most votes and put everything I could against travel ban, but the world kept uniting against me on that one).

I tend to see that as something that is inevitable, same with space-flight regulations. As you say though, peaceful science victories seem easier to win than peaceful cultural victories (even as Arabia).

2) I chose Freedom as this tall style expects, and the Netherlands followed with Order. I cannot recall ever seeing one of the leading civs follow another leader's ideology, its simply not done.

Interestingly in the game I just played the two leaders (Brazil and Siam) both went Freedom, if I remember correctly. I did too. Usually it's me vs. the leader or me as the leader vs. other close rivals though, similar to how your describe.

In my games, Autocracy seems the least popular pick which is interesting. Communism is often first (as suits a Huge map).

 

[Stalker0]

So I decided to start another CV game, this time with my old trusty Arabia. While Arabia doesn't have as direct tourism focus as say Brazil, its pretty much my gold standard for Peaceful CV play.

Funny enough, the Netherlands is once again my cultural rival, however, are relationship is not going as smoothly. I thought it worth mentioning a few points to contrast my last play from this one. Because the Netherlands is this time on a far separate continents, things are a bit trickier.

Spoiler :

View attachment 562353

1) I wasn't able to convert him to my religion. Its very hard to convert another continent in general, and this game all the religions were based founded in the east. This actually made converting the western lands very easy (surprisingly so) but as consequence, the civs I actually care about about are very hard to affect religiously. The religious difference both hurt my Tourism mod, but also gives us a strong diplomatic penalty.

2) I chose Freedom as this tall style expects, and the Netherlands followed with Order. I cannot recall ever seeing one of the leading civs follow another leader's ideology, its simply not done. And even if I wanted to I have no means to convert my ideology unless my people are discontent. If I were to pick one lever to pull, it would be this one. If a player wants to change their ideology (and suffer the big penalties associated with that switch), I think that should be an option. Otherwise, I now suffer a further tourism and diplomatic penalty, with no control from my side to address it.

3) Because of this the Netherlands has been steadily souring on me (he just denounced me in fact). Though I have given him fair trades, voting with him in WC blocks, and tried not to ally with any important CS (I've been focusing almost entirely on friendships and avoiding allies)... ultimately I can't get enough positive mods for him to like me. I am about to see an archeologist to give him a landmark, and hopefully he will denounce someone that I can jump on. Otherwise, I feel confident I will soon lose my open doors with him (another tourism bonus gone). I would also expect war in the future (he has declared once already), to take out the TRs I have made with him.

We will see if a CV is still in the cards as I move forward with this play, I still have hope to make it work. I think its ultimately going to come down to a hoard of musicians to seal the deal if I can muster it.


Ultimately I wish I had a few more diplomatic options to maintain good relations, even if its as drastic as converting ideology.

And now...the conclusion.

Defeat on Turn 378

Spoiler :

So this game in many ways went just like last game. For a long while, I really felt in the drivers seat tourism wise. You want to talk about a weird game, I converted the entire west continent to Judaism because all of the religions were founded on the other side. And another civ proposed my religion as world religion, and we actually managed to pass it!!! It lasted only 2 WC sessions but still, most I have seen in a long time!

The Netherlands was suffering from massive boredom (108% tourism at one point due to it), and for a time my gleaming Arabian capital seemed all but unstoppable.

And then as we slip into the endgame, and my science is flying high....but I just can't get the last CV I need. Once the inevitable travel ban and sanctions started rolling in (either I would get sanctioned, or if I managed to weasel out of it they would sanction a key civ I needed to keep TRs with), I just couldn't push tourism fast enough. Not just with the netherlands (the boredom bonuses had gone up in smoke at this point), even Venice still outwited me culture wise.

Once again, I had to turn to SV. However, this game my strategic supplies were abysmal. I was low on everything except funny enough oil and uranium. Small iron, small coal, and small aluminum. I built every refinery and recycling center I could to try and make it work, though far slower than I should have. Ultimately I didn't have the alumnium to build all of the spaceship factories, so I had to rely on my capitals production. I started building parts but not quickly enough, and Venice said enough was enough. I've mentioned before that Tall often has to choose between a strong navy or strong land. I choose navy, so when an actual honest to god land invasion occurred (xcoms and mech infantry)...they just rolled me.

Venice! I wasn't sure whether to rage or to be impressed, lately Venice has been on a tare in my games, it has gone from a joke civ to a major contender in several of my recent games. My only consolation at the end was I actually got a robot battle of GDR vs GDR. I had to pay for it though with a nuking of my capital I will say though, that if I had had a good aluminum supply, I would have won by SV long before Venice attacked me.


Ultimately this game suggests to me that something is a bit off on peaceful CV. Arabia is my jam on CV, and this was a pretty darn solid CV overall. I had TRs running with netherlands nearly all game, I had tons of great works, got all the CV wonders (I was rolling in wonders), was stealing every enemy great work in sight (I've only recently learned just how insanely good late game thieves are). lots of great musicians giving me 50k tourism at the end, my biggest culture rival had tons of boredom for a while....there really wasn't much more to be done in terms of actual tourism play. The fact that I couldn't make it work, and against Netherlands who I don't consider a powerhouse cultural civ....suggests to me that there is a tweak needed somewhere.

 

[CppMaster]

On another thread there is an opinion that AI on high difficulties gets too much culture from bonus yields. Maybe it should be reduced a bit. Or culture from bonus yields shouldn't count as a defence against tourism.

 

[Soupy Delicious]

Anyone know why my bomber planes are just disappearing? I've seen it happen twice now. I'll send it to attack, it'll take the regular 2 damage or whatever and land back at my city.

There's no 'unit lost' notification, no anti-aircraft (fighting a ww1 tech-level Rome right now) and these bombers keep bloody disappearing. They're always at full health, and the only thing that can intercept it are his cruisers (naval extended mod) which have 10% interception chance, I believe. But there's no sign they're being shot down.

(Also Engineering Corps allows my workers to both jesus-walk and jesus-build-roads over Lake Victoria [WW] )

Anyway, I think I already made a praise post but I'll do it again. I last played this mod 4 years ago, and it has improved so vastly since then I have no reason to play Civ any other way. What y'all have done with the building, unit & tech tree overhauls... incredible.

(also hate to sound like such a condescending fudge, but jeeesus how can yall play on standard speed? To see people at turn 300 in the endgame is so depressing. Like there's no time to have any interesting wars or progression at all)

edit: Are we meant to be able to build roads on Peaks? Like, all my units can use these roads, even non Engineering Corps.

 

[Rekk]

Anyone know why my bomber planes are just disappearing? I've seen it happen twice now. I'll send it to attack, it'll take the regular 2 damage or whatever and land back at my city.

There's no 'unit lost' notification, no anti-aircraft (fighting a ww1 tech-level Rome right now) and these bombers keep bloody disappearing. They're always at full health, and the only thing that can intercept it are his cruisers (naval extended mod) which have 10% interception chance, I believe. But there's no sign they're being shot down.

It is a bug that has been fixed for next version.

 

[JamesNinelives]

Are we meant to be able to build roads on Peaks? Like, all my units can use these roads, even non Engineering Corps.

Depends. Are you playing The Inca? Generally speaking other civs can't, but it's part of the Incan Unique Ability .

I wasn't aware that Engineering Corps let civilian units move through mountains or natural wonders, if that's what is happening :|. Maybe I just never tried it?

 

[tranx]

Yeah I didn't want to report it because I am such a bad player to begin with but playing with Egypt, Prince difficulty, Huge map, I was going for CV but it was impossible to achieve. I built 19 wonders, had 64 great works, 12 trade routes to other civs, diplomats in all foreign capitals, but I still couldn't flip the other great cultural civs (I don't know if these numbers are relevant at all, tbh)

Maybe there should be a mechanism where at some point - when ideologies come in play, I think - the biggest cultural civ would just make the balance naturally tip in its favor, and other cultural civs output would actually start helping the cultural leader (just like how IRL China (or India, or France or Japan, Germany...) despite having multimillenial traditions only produce pop music and Hollywood-ian movies nowadays)

 

[Rekk]

I wasn't aware that Engineering Corps let civilian units move through mountains or natural wonders, if that's what is happening :|. Maybe I just never tried it?

Engineering Corps does indeed let civilians cross mountains, and where workers can go, roads will follow. Ice still counts as water though.

 

[Soupy Delicious]

Engineering Corps does indeed let civilians cross mountains, and where workers can go, roads will follow. Ice still counts as water though.

I think it's cool that you can build mountain passes in the latter parts of the game, but I think it runs the risk of making peaks lose value in their important role of making the terrain interesting and different.

An idea would be to make road & rails have a much higher maintenance cost on mountains, to prevent the player from simply converting all of their mountains into regular tiles. :0

 

[SpankmyMetroid]

Yeah I didn't want to report it because I am such a bad player to begin with but playing with Egypt, Prince difficulty, Huge map, I was going for CV but it was impossible to achieve. I built 19 wonders, had 64 great works, 12 trade routes to other civs, diplomats in all foreign capitals, but I still couldn't flip the other great cultural civs (I don't know if these numbers are relevant at all, tbh)

Maybe there should be a mechanism where at some point - when ideologies come in play, I think - the biggest cultural civ would just make the balance naturally tip in its favor, and other cultural civs output would actually start helping the cultural leader (just like how IRL China (or India, or France or Japan, Germany...) despite having multimillenial traditions only produce pop music and Hollywood-ian movies nowadays)

Maybe civs you are culturally dominant over should contribute a percentage of their culture to your tourism? If their culture is from yours (it dominates) it might as well be an advertisement for your civ.

 

[tothePAIN]

And now...the conclusion.

Defeat on Turn 378

Spoiler :

View attachment 562377

So this game in many ways went just like last game. For a long while, I really felt in the drivers seat tourism wise. You want to talk about a weird game, I converted the entire west continent to Judaism because all of the religions were founded on the other side. And another civ proposed my religion as world religion, and we actually managed to pass it!!! It lasted only 2 WC sessions but still, most I have seen in a long time!

The Netherlands was suffering from massive boredom (108% tourism at one point due to it), and for a time my gleaming Arabian capital seemed all but unstoppable.

And then as we slip into the endgame, and my science is flying high....but I just can't get the last CV I need. Once the inevitable travel ban and sanctions started rolling in (either I would get sanctioned, or if I managed to weasel out of it they would sanction a key civ I needed to keep TRs with), I just couldn't push tourism fast enough. Not just with the netherlands (the boredom bonuses had gone up in smoke at this point), even Venice still outwited me culture wise.

Once again, I had to turn to SV. However, this game my strategic supplies were abysmal. I was low on everything except funny enough oil and uranium. Small iron, small coal, and small aluminum. I built every refinery and recycling center I could to try and make it work, though far slower than I should have. Ultimately I didn't have the alumnium to build all of the spaceship factories, so I had to rely on my capitals production. I started building parts but not quickly enough, and Venice said enough was enough. I've mentioned before that Tall often has to choose between a strong navy or strong land. I choose navy, so when an actual honest to god land invasion occurred (xcoms and mech infantry)...they just rolled me.

Venice! I wasn't sure whether to rage or to be impressed, lately Venice has been on a tare in my games, it has gone from a joke civ to a major contender in several of my recent games. My only consolation at the end was I actually got a robot battle of GDR vs GDR. I had to pay for it though with a nuking of my capital I will say though, that if I had had a good aluminum supply, I would have won by SV long before Venice attacked me.


Ultimately this game suggests to me that something is a bit off on peaceful CV. Arabia is my jam on CV, and this was a pretty darn solid CV overall. I had TRs running with netherlands nearly all game, I had tons of great works, got all the CV wonders (I was rolling in wonders), was stealing every enemy great work in sight (I've only recently learned just how insanely good late game thieves are). lots of great musicians giving me 50k tourism at the end, my biggest culture rival had tons of boredom for a while....there really wasn't much more to be done in terms of actual tourism play. The fact that I couldn't make it work, and against Netherlands who I don't consider a powerhouse cultural civ....suggests to me that there is a tweak needed somewhere.

So... both culture victory and diplomatic victory are highly science and tech dependent. Did you get the CNN tower? Tourism explodes in the late game after that one tech. Did you pass and time International games to take place at that point?

 

[Stalker0]

So... both culture victory and diplomatic victory are highly science and tech dependent. Did you get the CNN tower? Tourism explodes in the late game after that one tech. Did you pass and time International games to take place at that point?

Yes and Yes.

 

[tothePAIN]

Hmm. Maybe I'll try for a CV on emperor.

 

[Stalker0]

Hmm. Maybe I'll try for a CV on emperor.

Please do! One man's opinion shouldn't be enough to suggest balance changes, so I would love to hear more thoughts on peaceful CV and see if I'm just failing to play it right, or people are noticing some issues here.

 

[DeAnno]

I played a mostly peaceful CV as 5 city Tradition/Artistry/Industry/Freedom Egypt on Immortal recently where Authority Carthage had snowballed moderately. Luckily they were adjacent to me and I was able to war through three core cities ending with their taking capital during Industrial and a little after too (my main forcecomp at that point was massed and expendable drill 2 city attack rifles, some field gun backup) I also had a war to kill a settler from Inca moving to one of the spots I wanted in the early game, but aside from that I didn't do any fighting.

Both during and after the war I isolated Carthage diplomatically, resulting in sanctions and lots of random declares on them. I also stole tons of their Great Works, it was the primary job of my spies throughout Industrial onwards. Meanwhile, I did a lot of tech trading and made a lot of money. Even with all that, by the end Carthage still required more musician bombs than Brazil did (the other big culture civ.) Despite my popularity travel ban was passed against me too.

I filled out almost all the tech tree before I won on turn 351; I was in fact doing some space stuff by then as a just in case backup plan in a couple of my cities, since I had enough money to buy whatever units I would ever need, including 2 GDRs at the end which never had to fight. The world eventually started turning on me but was still occupied partially with Carthage and never had the bravery to declare. By the end I'd built Opera House, CN Tower, and Great Firewall to enhance and defend my tourism.

Cultural Victory does feel harder than Space in a lot of ways. Cultural you really have to work for, while Space can be a backup plan pretty easily if things go wrong. At the same time Cultural usually takes almost as long as Space to pull off even when it works.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Did you get the CNN tower?

Larry King up top overseeing the CV and finalizing blueprints for the CEP like

Spoiler :

 

[tranx]

What if for CV you wouldn't need to be influential over ALL other civilizations, but only say 80% of them. That would leave out other runners for the CV. If it made the CV attainable too early, devs could raise the threshold for becoming influential over another civ (or make it that your culture has to be dominant over 80% of other civs).