New patch 20 December

[snoochems]

My apostles don't heal. No matter the territory .

 

[LDiCesare]

If there's no challenge in their flagship product they will lose a large chunk of their customer base. That isn't what any company wants. Which leads me to the logical conclusion that the fixes needed to AI isn't as straight forward as many would like. Which makes sense given that districts (like 1UPT before it) are harder to get the AI to understand as a human does.

I disagree.
I don't think they will lose a large chunk. Most games have an average playtime of what? 100 hours is a lot for most games. If you play 100 hours of most games, it usually means you're happy with it. For civ, you have barely scratched the surface. But most casual players will be more than happy to play 100 hours, buy a new DLC and do something else. The time of fun per buck is good.
However, Civ has the potential to hook you for thousands of hours. Civ IV certainly did for me. Civ V and VI definitely not. But why would Firaxis cater to someone who wants to play 1000 hours of a ame they buy once when they can have a game that is played by 9 other persons for 100 hours only, for the same resource cost?
They simply don't have any incentive to make a challenging game. OVer 100 hours, players explore and discover, they are not in challenge mode. The first time you meet an opponent, you're afraid and happy you managed to push back his army. Then you move on to something different, and you don't realise that you were not actually ever in danger. Unless you play a lot. And players who play a lot don't bring money, so the company will not lose a large chunk. They will lose a small, vocal minority, and even then this minority can still realise that the game isn't as good as the previous versions, but it's still a decent use of their money.

Firaxis has never been able to provide a good AI. I'd love to be proven wrong, but considering that a simple "if you're 6 to 1, go and suicide some units against the city" would make the AI way mroe challenging, I don't think it's technical limitations that stop them. Tactical AI is low on their priority because the AI appears to be threatening when it has a lot of units, and that's enough for most players. It doesn't have to actually be a chalenge for them to sell the game.

 

[Magil]

I disagree.
I don't think they will lose a large chunk. Most games have an average playtime of what? 100 hours is a lot for most games. If you play 100 hours of most games, it usually means you're happy with it. For civ, you have barely scratched the surface. But most casual players will be more than happy to play 100 hours, buy a new DLC and do something else. The time of fun per buck is good.
However, Civ has the potential to hook you for thousands of hours. Civ IV certainly did for me. Civ V and VI definitely not. But why would Firaxis cater to someone who wants to play 1000 hours of a ame they buy once when they can have a game that is played by 9 other persons for 100 hours only, for the same resource cost?
They simply don't have any incentive to make a challenging game. OVer 100 hours, players explore and discover, they are not in challenge mode. The first time you meet an opponent, you're afraid and happy you managed to push back his army. Then you move on to something different, and you don't realise that you were not actually ever in danger. Unless you play a lot. And players who play a lot don't bring money, so the company will not lose a large chunk. They will lose a small, vocal minority, and even then this minority can still realise that the game isn't as good as the previous versions, but it's still a decent use of their money.

Firaxis has never been able to provide a good AI. I'd love to be proven wrong, but considering that a simple "if you're 6 to 1, go and suicide some units against the city" would make the AI way mroe challenging, I don't think it's technical limitations that stop them. Tactical AI is low on their priority because the AI appears to be threatening when it has a lot of units, and that's enough for most players. It doesn't have to actually be a chalenge for them to sell the game.

There is going to be a threshold however where even the "casual" player as you describe will realize they were never in any danger. The more incompetent the AI--the more obviously stupid mistakes it makes--the lower the threshold.

I do agree with you that being an "easy game" isn't likely to end up making Firaxis less money, unless the game gets a lot of bad press as a result. Seems unlikely at this time. It pains me to see the AI get progressively worse with each passing game, but I doubt Firaxis will do much to change it. I just have to hope they release the full modding tools soon so the more willing (more able?) will change that part of the game.

 

[oedali]

What frustrates me most is that the AI was made very competent at combat in Civ 5, especially with the VP mod. All the devs had to do was copy/adapt that into Civ 6. The underlying game files are supposedly virtually identical. Instead they ignored all that progress and totally went back to square 1...

 

[PurplyIcy]

We’ve released a new update to Sid Meier’s Civilization VI today. The “Winter 2016 Update” will automatically install when starting the Steam client; if it doesn’t install automatically, please restart Steam.

[BALANCE CHANGES]

• Cities can no longer receive yields from more than one regional building per type; they take the highest (ex. production from multiple Factories)
• Cities can no longer receive amenities from more than one regional building per type; they take the highest (ex. amenities from multiple Stadiums)
• Decreased production costs of Wonders progressively
  • From the Industrial era (about -10%) to the Atomic era (about -40%).
• Decreased production costs of all Space Race Projects by 40%.
• Increased research costs of Technologies and Civics progressively
  • From the Industrial era (about +5%) to the Information era (about +20%).
• Increased Faith from Mission
• Increased Culture from Chateau
• Lowered the minimum unit upgrade cost
• Improved clarity on Warmongering penalties associated with taking a civ’s final city
• Most Civilization unique districts now require population to construct (like normal districts)
• Spaceport district no longer requires population to construct

That's so BS, as if getting good production wasn't hard enough before. I thought one of the reasons districts were made was to encourage players to strategically place their cities together in certain ways for the most efficient output? Now there is no point in settling cities closer together since the benefit of gaining better land and resources from settling afar far outweighs the bonuses you get from just having one regional building nearby.

 

[bladex]

they nerfed cutting too...

 

[Athmos]

My apostles don't heal. No matter the territory .

Since release, apostles and other religious unit heal only on holy sites or tiles adjacent to holy sites.

 

[bitula]

Hello there!!!

I stopped playing a month ago because of the last build bug. Anything else I can probably tolerate and patiently wait (I even got used to 1UPT), but this one is game braking. I was completely perplexed: since Civ 1 there has been never such a brutal bug, you always saw what you just built and based on that could make a decision what to build next, this is essential part of any civ game. So long story short: could someone confirm for sure, that this bug is fixed. Because related reports here in this thread are a bit ambivalent…

 

[RealAntithesis]

Hello there!!!
... So long story short: could someone confirm for sure, that this bug is fixed. Because related reports here in this thread are a bit ambivalent…

It wasn't fixed in my game, which I continued from before the patch. I still mostly had the second to last thing that was built being displayed as last built.

 

[bitula]

It wasn't fixed in my game, which I continued from before the patch. I still mostly had the second to last thing that was built being displayed as last built.

Thanks for the info. Well it’s possible that the bug is connected to saved games. So can someone confirm that this bug is fixed for newly started (and with saves and reloads made in newly started) games. I would gladly start a new game if this bug is fixed.

 

[2evster48]

It wasn't fixed in my game, which I continued from before the patch. I still mostly had the second to last thing that was built being displayed as last built.

I started a couple of new games specifically to check this and it's definitely not working. Completion announcement still shows the second to last thing and the game, for me, remains unplayable with this bug - it becomes impossible to properly manage your cities if you have more than a couple. Come on Firaxis this must be an easy fix!

 

[Cymsdale]

. Come on Firaxis this must be an easy fix!

Spaghetti code possibly. That's an explanation, not an excuse.

 

[bitula]

I started a couple of new games specifically to check this and it's definitely not working. Completion announcement still shows the second to last thing and the game, for me, remains unplayable with this bug - it becomes impossible to properly manage your cities if you have more than a couple. Come on Firaxis this must be an easy fix!

Amazing! I don’t understand how could Firaxis do this. Don’t testers have eyes on their faces? Oh well then no CiV6 fun for Christmas. I hope it is not an indicator of a bad omen for the complete game though…

 

[Stringer1313]

1UPT is still a disaster after all these years and while the fact that the AI can't handle combat with it is serious, it has other wide reaching effects that Sullla addressed a long time ago and are still valid today. Hopefully they'll ditch 1UPT in the next iteration.

Anyway, the patch looks good. Slowly but surely.

I still like 1UPT. Makes me actually have to think about how to attack cities rather than just moving a blob of units towards the city. They shouldn't throw out 1UPT just b/c the AI can't handle it. They should just make other adjustments, like reducing the effectiveness of ranged --- I'm still enamored with the idea of making ranged all but useless if a unit has less than 75% health, or giving AI an even higher combat bonus and maybe even more HP on higher difficulties. Not hard.

 

[Baba Yetu VI]

I did some testing on the culture bomb. Looks like it can't extend beyond 3 tiles from the city center. So the ability is pretty good, but not nearly as crazy as it was in previous Civ games. Notice how in the screenshot below the encampment only grabs tiles to the left and right, not the 3 tiles that are 4 tiles from the city center.

View attachment 461616

On the data side, screenshot below of the sql shows where they appear to have inserted the values. Took me a little while to find by tracing back through the chain of traits/modifiers/arguments.

Based on this it appears when a person gets Culture Bombed you get a -10 penalty to relations. Pretty expected I suppose.

What is kind of cool about this is the way they constructed it with arguments means we might be able to mod in culture bombs to some of the extremely lackluster unique improvements. If nothing else looks easily fixable if fort-bombs are overpowered. I have yet to try a fort, just the encampment.

Spoiler :

View attachment 461614

So, the new patch gives us culture bomb? Is that so? Too good to be true, I love culture bomb!!!

 

[V. Soma]

So, the new patch gives us culture bomb? Is that so? Too good to be true, I love culture bomb!!!

Only when playing Poland, I guess...

 

[Gbest]

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems now the AI settles more cities, at least early in the game. Turn 100, standard speed, Emperor difficulty, Rome has 6 cities, China 5 and India 5.

 

[Gumbolt]

I think some of the critism here of Firaxis is a bit unfair. You would expect them to fix the big issues first. One of these was the games constantly crashing due to certain bugs. Some are now reporting this is fixed. This is no way the final patch here. I expect other patches to follow in next few months.

Makes sense to clear up the issues that are causing their 2k support staff most work.

 

[Soduka]

I think some of the critism here of Firaxis is a bit unfair. You would expect them to fix the big issues first. One of these was the games constantly crashing due to certain bugs. Some are now reporting this is fixed. This is no way the final patch here. I expect other patches to follow in next few months.

Makes sense to clear up the issues that are causing their 2k support staff most work.

Of course there will be more patches, how else will they ready the game for more DLC? Civ 5 was their testing ground for piecemealing out what used to come in reasonably priced expansion packs and it was successful. Really I'm morbidly curious how far they'll go this time now that they know people will buy anything. Will they go full Paradox Interactive? We'll find out.

 

[V. Soma]

Surely a patch will come out with the other 2 DLCs, most probably at the 90 day mark (January 21st),
when the Aztecs go freely into the base game...

We'll see what that brings...

And maybe then SDK will be rleased for the modders to get to the AI...