I was excited to read "stability fixes" for the new patch, but after playing egypt several times now, it seems the egypt issue remains unfixed. The new patch has made things even worse. Economy drops to one star really soon, even with cottages everywhere, a lot of food (well "a lot" in terms of egypt) and production, 5 cities and tech lead. I was happy to discover the new gold resource, but even that doesn't help with eco stability at all. In viceroy I was unstable even before the arabs spawned, although I was really lucky with the goody huts. In monarch or emperor it seems impossible to get past 0AD without being unstable (or close to unstable). I guess it would be useful to remove that "counterbalance the flood plains" block from stability.py, cause egypt and ethiopia are already quite difficult if you don't head for the (in case of egypt somewhat too easy and boring) UHVs.
New Patch Feedback Thread
- Thread starter kravixon
- Start date
This one is from my last viceroy game, which I just won by accident. Now look at that barbarian mess! While it may help to speed up the game with only a few ancient cities left, it's certainly not really fun to play anymore. And while rome was doing well with it's expansion so far in this game, I bet most of their cities will also be razed soon looking at the first barbarian hordes passing the roman borders.
Also quite strange: Why do all horse/camel archers in africa head to egypt instead of attacking catharge?
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Positronic
Chieftain
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2008
- Messages
- 56
Overall I like most of the changes in the patch.
What I didn't like:
I didn't get much time to play more than a few games, but overall I liked what I saw. Keep up the good work!
What I didn't like:
- Jerusalem is more often than not sacked by the AI, which doesn't really make much sense to me, historically speaking. Sur (Tyrus) is often sacked as well, either by Babylonia or Egypt.
- Mediolanum only appears if you don't visit its tile; I liked it better how it was.
- Barbarians that affect Rome are great, but they are a constant stream, and without the Great Wall, it is almost impossible for the AI to survive until 450AD much less 1600AD. Also, as another poster pointed out, there are a ton more camels/horse archers in Sahara that seem to only attack Egypt and not Carthage.
- New research rate makes it impossible to play as Babylon on highest difficulty level
- In almost every game I've played, India eventually succumbs to civil war (sometimes Persia/Babylon too, but more often India), leaving the majority of Asia Independent. This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but each play through should be at least a little bit different
I didn't get much time to play more than a few games, but overall I liked what I saw. Keep up the good work!
kravixon
Warlord
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2008
- Messages
- 214
I'm going to try Egypt and start by founding in a different spot, but in my game on Monarch I was stable up until I started starving my capital to work in the mines before enslaving a significant portion of my people to finish the great library in time. Granted, my economy was slowly going down the drain, but it was a lot better than before, and I was ignoring my economy to try to build my wonders.
As I stated, the Natives no longer bother Egypt at all, and I didn't start seeing CA's until after the UHV was already out of time, and even then it was only a few. I didn't really know what was going on past Jerusalem, but it survived in my game up until turn 150.
In my Greek game, I haven't had any problems with barbs yet. An axeman and chariot went to the site of future Byzantium, but they turned around. Rome spawned, built Pompeii and a city a little west of where Budapest would be. I've met all my UHV goals except discovering philosophy (~50% done), so I've been building phalanxes and fortifying my borders with Rome, which is still stable. No problems for Greece
On monday I'll try out Babylon or Persia and see if I experience the raging barbarians from Arabia. In my Egypt and Greek games though, Carthage, Rome, Greece, and Egypt hadn't fallen to barbs yet, though I don't know what date it is for my Greek game. Perhaps it's not as bad in western Europe, as everyone's screenshots are showing the Near East filled with ruins.
blizzrd
Micromanager
After reading about some issues that others were having with the new patch, I put off finishing my Japanese game for now to experiment some more with another civ. I chose Greece, possibly my favourite civ.
Greece has been given steroids under the new patch. At the spawn time, I got an extra archer in the galley and I also flipped 3 barbarian warriors in Asia Minor. Relative to the previous patch, Babylon and Egypt were significantly less advanced - neither having built any wonders when I spawned, whereas it was previously common for one if not both of these civs to have built a wonder. So my starting units were able to mow them all down with ease, I certainly didn't need an extra archer for that.
But I did end up needing that archer soon enough. Turn 60 and there were barbarian horse archers right next to Babili! This is crazy. Chariots I could perhaps understand, I think the Assyrians had these - but this is represented by Gordion spawning with a barb chariot I believed. And Gordion doesn't spawn anywhere near Turn 60 in any case. If I hadn't grabbed Machinery from the Oracle and upgraded my initial archer to a Crossbow I wouldn't have held Babili.
I walked some of my initial warriors all over the Afro-Eurasian land mass and got just about every goody hut. No free techs
but lots of gold, maps and experience. I had 4 warriors with woodsman III in no time, mostly due to barb activity in the forests of Siberia and Scandinavia where I have never before (even on Emperor) seen such a high number of barbarian bears/wolves and barb warriors.
The lack of tech brokering meant that most civs were really backwards. India was pretty hopeless and vassalised to me voluntarily before Persia spawned - I assume due to barb pressure. I certainly didn't need to raze Delhi as I used to have to as Pericles in order to prevent an Indian Oracle. Rome was also much weaker in tech pace than usual, ditto Carthage. Rome doesn't start with Agriculture or any of the Religious techs and without brokering can't trade these from any other AI civ (such as Egypt).
I was so far ahead of all of the AI civs by the time I had researched Drama (just Philosophy to go for 2/3 UHV) that I stopped playing. The AI weren't going to provide any challenge to my situation as I would be able to research Optics and circumnavigate well before Arabia had spawned.
My current thought on how to sort out the issues: turn tech brokering back on for the AI only.
Greece has been given steroids under the new patch. At the spawn time, I got an extra archer in the galley and I also flipped 3 barbarian warriors in Asia Minor. Relative to the previous patch, Babylon and Egypt were significantly less advanced - neither having built any wonders when I spawned, whereas it was previously common for one if not both of these civs to have built a wonder. So my starting units were able to mow them all down with ease, I certainly didn't need an extra archer for that.
But I did end up needing that archer soon enough. Turn 60 and there were barbarian horse archers right next to Babili! This is crazy. Chariots I could perhaps understand, I think the Assyrians had these - but this is represented by Gordion spawning with a barb chariot I believed. And Gordion doesn't spawn anywhere near Turn 60 in any case. If I hadn't grabbed Machinery from the Oracle and upgraded my initial archer to a Crossbow I wouldn't have held Babili.
I walked some of my initial warriors all over the Afro-Eurasian land mass and got just about every goody hut. No free techs
but lots of gold, maps and experience. I had 4 warriors with woodsman III in no time, mostly due to barb activity in the forests of Siberia and Scandinavia where I have never before (even on Emperor) seen such a high number of barbarian bears/wolves and barb warriors.The lack of tech brokering meant that most civs were really backwards. India was pretty hopeless and vassalised to me voluntarily before Persia spawned - I assume due to barb pressure. I certainly didn't need to raze Delhi as I used to have to as Pericles in order to prevent an Indian Oracle. Rome was also much weaker in tech pace than usual, ditto Carthage. Rome doesn't start with Agriculture or any of the Religious techs and without brokering can't trade these from any other AI civ (such as Egypt).
I was so far ahead of all of the AI civs by the time I had researched Drama (just Philosophy to go for 2/3 UHV) that I stopped playing. The AI weren't going to provide any challenge to my situation as I would be able to research Optics and circumnavigate well before Arabia had spawned.
My current thought on how to sort out the issues: turn tech brokering back on for the AI only.
blizzrd
Micromanager
I finished my Greek game after all.
This patch is slower overall than the old one, but I was still faster than the Arabia's spawn date, with circumnavigation in 500AD (well actually I got the circumnavigation bonus the turn before, but the victory condition doesn't check until the next turn for some reason). My best time under the old patch was 385AD.
This patch is slower overall than the old one, but I was still faster than the Arabia's spawn date, with circumnavigation in 500AD (well actually I got the circumnavigation bonus the turn before, but the victory condition doesn't check until the next turn for some reason). My best time under the old patch was 385AD.
wr4th
Warlord
India reviewed
Actually it is not impossible but you have to destroy china in order to win the uhv. The key is to skip judaism and go for the two chinese religions instead.
Send the initial warrior directly to china (through the hindu kush). You have to get to city raider II on the way (goody hut or barbarians) and also pray that china still has only one warrior in bejing when you arrive. Raze it then.
Found Dilli on the spot. Build Order: Worker, 2 Warrior, Settler, Worker.
Research Order: Agriculture, Meditation, Priesthood, Hunting, The Wheel, Writing. (Hunting and wheel are important to hook up the two Ivory resources).
My second city was Chennai (S of the cows in southern India).
Build the Oracle in Dilli without marble and make sure to research writing before finishing it -> Pop mathematics (third religion).
The second warrior goes to europe, gets the huts and then sits in southern italy to make contact with greece, carthage and rome. The third one pops the hut in southern india and moves back to Dilli.
Trade all important techs from the europeans and research calendar (fourth religion).
Trade again up to monotheism and use your Great Prophet from the oracle on Theology. Research it and found Christianity (was around 0AD in my game).
This one was super hard, requires enormous luck whith killing China and also with getting the right trades done (no tech brokering helps actually a lot in this case). The Last UHV was easy then, especially with China being dead.
Actually it is not impossible but you have to destroy china in order to win the uhv. The key is to skip judaism and go for the two chinese religions instead.
Send the initial warrior directly to china (through the hindu kush). You have to get to city raider II on the way (goody hut or barbarians) and also pray that china still has only one warrior in bejing when you arrive. Raze it then.
Found Dilli on the spot. Build Order: Worker, 2 Warrior, Settler, Worker.
Research Order: Agriculture, Meditation, Priesthood, Hunting, The Wheel, Writing. (Hunting and wheel are important to hook up the two Ivory resources).
My second city was Chennai (S of the cows in southern India).
Build the Oracle in Dilli without marble and make sure to research writing before finishing it -> Pop mathematics (third religion).
The second warrior goes to europe, gets the huts and then sits in southern italy to make contact with greece, carthage and rome. The third one pops the hut in southern india and moves back to Dilli.
Trade all important techs from the europeans and research calendar (fourth religion).
Trade again up to monotheism and use your Great Prophet from the oracle on Theology. Research it and found Christianity (was around 0AD in my game).
This one was super hard, requires enormous luck whith killing China and also with getting the right trades done (no tech brokering helps actually a lot in this case). The Last UHV was easy then, especially with China being dead.
blizzrd
Micromanager
Carthage wasn't immune to barbarian attacks in my recent Greek game, they collapsed after their capital was razed.
Rome lost everything north of the city of Rome to the barbs, including Lugdunum which they captured from the Gauls and a city two tiles to the E of Mediolanum. Mediolanum didn't flip to Rome, but Rome razed it eventually. It always used to flip to Rome.
Persia was destroyed by the barbarians. India would have been too, except that I gave them (my vassal) Construction and let them build their own War Elephants to defend themselves.
The world was a pretty empty place in 500AD when I won the UHV. I could easily have gone for a conquest victory, only would have had to destroy a remnant independent city from Carthage, two Roman cities at the south of Italy and China. Everything else was either mine or Indian or had been razed.
Rome lost everything north of the city of Rome to the barbs, including Lugdunum which they captured from the Gauls and a city two tiles to the E of Mediolanum. Mediolanum didn't flip to Rome, but Rome razed it eventually. It always used to flip to Rome.
Persia was destroyed by the barbarians. India would have been too, except that I gave them (my vassal) Construction and let them build their own War Elephants to defend themselves.
The world was a pretty empty place in 500AD when I won the UHV. I could easily have gone for a conquest victory, only would have had to destroy a remnant independent city from Carthage, two Roman cities at the south of Italy and China. Everything else was either mine or Indian or had been razed.
wr4th
Warlord
Babylon
I actually made this one as well. (shouldn't say its impossible to early).
I used the same "strategy" as in my indian game. First warrior goes to China, gets City Raider II on the way, razes Bejing. Second Warrior heads for Dilli and sits in the forest north of it. This will prevent india from sending out its worker. Dilli will be stuck at pop 4, and when he finally killed my warrior (around turn 60) he will spend the following turns with building a settler and another worker, so Dilli will not grow beyond 4.
Egypt is only an issue for culture, cuz it usually builds an early stonehenge.
Build order: 2 Warrior, Worker, Grannary, Library, Monument, Pyramids, Oracle asap, finish Pyramids... wait for win.
Techs: Pottery, Writing, Mysticism, Masonry, Meditation, Priesthood, Code of Laws. (Pop Monarchy with the oracle. Pop CoL might seem better, but you will fail the monarchy first goal then...)
Worker builds cottage on the stone, cottage on a floodplains, cottage on the sheep, quarry on the marble, quarry on the stone, cottage on another floodplains.
Babilû grows to size 5 while building the Library, thats enough. Micromanage to more production with starving (without loosing population) in order to speed up the wonders. This is important to get more culture than egyt. I only overtook them in turn 94!!! and beat them by ~10 culture.
Move your people back to the cottages when done with the wonders to speed up CoL.
I actually made this one as well. (shouldn't say its impossible to early).
I used the same "strategy" as in my indian game. First warrior goes to China, gets City Raider II on the way, razes Bejing. Second Warrior heads for Dilli and sits in the forest north of it. This will prevent india from sending out its worker. Dilli will be stuck at pop 4, and when he finally killed my warrior (around turn 60) he will spend the following turns with building a settler and another worker, so Dilli will not grow beyond 4.
Egypt is only an issue for culture, cuz it usually builds an early stonehenge.
Build order: 2 Warrior, Worker, Grannary, Library, Monument, Pyramids, Oracle asap, finish Pyramids... wait for win.
Techs: Pottery, Writing, Mysticism, Masonry, Meditation, Priesthood, Code of Laws. (Pop Monarchy with the oracle. Pop CoL might seem better, but you will fail the monarchy first goal then...)
Worker builds cottage on the stone, cottage on a floodplains, cottage on the sheep, quarry on the marble, quarry on the stone, cottage on another floodplains.
Babilû grows to size 5 while building the Library, thats enough. Micromanage to more production with starving (without loosing population) in order to speed up the wonders. This is important to get more culture than egyt. I only overtook them in turn 94!!! and beat them by ~10 culture.
Move your people back to the cottages when done with the wonders to speed up CoL.
For me this patch both helps a lot and does some damage. I particularly like the early Carthaginian and Greek colony-building throughout the Mediterranean. Japan and Ethiopia seem to do better now also. However, Rome is almost always decimated early on in Europe. In one of my games, a massive Celtic empire emerged in Italy and France, which in turn was taken by the barbarians. However, starting as a Euro civ off a 3000 BC start, in every game I have played, Jerusalem was razed as well as the whole of the Middle East, resulting in a void of barbarian domination. This also led to the whole of Europe becoming Muslim by 1000 AD. In two of my games, the Vikings only built two cities and turtled in Scandinavia for 900 years. Lastly, Persia and Rome collapse much more often. Oh, and that gold on the upper Nile has helped Egypt-in one of my games they built the great wall and were tech leaders until they collapsed~500 AD
There seems to be a trend developing every time Rhye releases a new version and certain divergence between how Rhye wants the mod to develop and the "general" direction the community wants.
Rhye always seems keen on introducing concepts such as plague/barbarians to kill off civs and speed the game up. Where as the general community, to too a certain extent, is against these type of events and wants more not less complexity.
There is a good example above. The middle east should not be totally destroyed by barbarians, the two barbarians invasions really were the arabs and the mongols these are already represented. I think this is something Rhye is forgetting not only do the barbarian units represent Barbarians but so do new civ's such as Arabia,Mongolia,France,Spain,Viking,England,Germany.
Also I think ryhe has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the Romans as he is Italian. This is demonstrated with statements he's made to the effect the
"The romans and Italians are two different Civ's"
This blatantly untrue. The myriad of cultures in china/india are represented by by one civ and the Italians/Romans should be the same.
The Romans/Italians should have a some chance of dominating the Mediterranean and becoming the major western power in antiquity as this is what actually happened.
The barbarian invasions can be represented by the emergence of the English/French/Spanish/German + a few barbarian units there is always the chance this will collapse Rome.
I would agree with adding a few more barbarian units if there was someway of stopping the barbarians raising everything in sight. The picture above of the desolated middle east is just too much for me.
Rhye always seems keen on introducing concepts such as plague/barbarians to kill off civs and speed the game up. Where as the general community, to too a certain extent, is against these type of events and wants more not less complexity.
There is a good example above. The middle east should not be totally destroyed by barbarians, the two barbarians invasions really were the arabs and the mongols these are already represented. I think this is something Rhye is forgetting not only do the barbarian units represent Barbarians but so do new civ's such as Arabia,Mongolia,France,Spain,Viking,England,Germany.
Also I think ryhe has a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the Romans as he is Italian. This is demonstrated with statements he's made to the effect the
"The romans and Italians are two different Civ's"
This blatantly untrue. The myriad of cultures in china/india are represented by by one civ and the Italians/Romans should be the same.
The Romans/Italians should have a some chance of dominating the Mediterranean and becoming the major western power in antiquity as this is what actually happened.
The barbarian invasions can be represented by the emergence of the English/French/Spanish/German + a few barbarian units there is always the chance this will collapse Rome.
I would agree with adding a few more barbarian units if there was someway of stopping the barbarians raising everything in sight. The picture above of the desolated middle east is just too much for me.
Lone Wolf
Deity
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2006
- Messages
- 9,908
The barbs were relatively OK in the previous patch, but then Rhye gave the AI's a combat malus against barbs and increased their numbers.
The AI will not use them well. Barbs are much better suited for the goal of harassing ancient civs. There's just too much of them now.
They don't always raze...
I can make it all milder by modyfing code anyway, like I softened stability.
The AI will not use them well. Barbs are much better suited for the goal of harassing ancient civs. There's just too much of them now.
They don't always raze...
I can make it all milder by modyfing code anyway, like I softened stability.
scu98rkr hit some good points.
People in general need to adopt to radical changes, and see with favour additions of bonuses only (while other kind of changes are often needed).
In the case of barbarians, people just forgot how it used to be in vanilla.
I personally see Warlords and BTS "wrong" as they've been so far.
The problem is that in vanilla barbs had many cities and were stronger because of that.
In Warlords they were unable to ever collapse Rome; in BTS even worse, because the AI is much stronger.
So, if a massive amount of units is now enough to collapse classical civs 50% of the times (that's my target), but they're too much for a human player, I'll do the following:
less units, more bonus vs AI. Don't want everything razed, but still a 50% of the civs alive.
For your information, I'm doing these changes right now.
People in general need to adopt to radical changes, and see with favour additions of bonuses only (while other kind of changes are often needed).
In the case of barbarians, people just forgot how it used to be in vanilla.
I personally see Warlords and BTS "wrong" as they've been so far.
The problem is that in vanilla barbs had many cities and were stronger because of that.
In Warlords they were unable to ever collapse Rome; in BTS even worse, because the AI is much stronger.
So, if a massive amount of units is now enough to collapse classical civs 50% of the times (that's my target), but they're too much for a human player, I'll do the following:
less units, more bonus vs AI. Don't want everything razed, but still a 50% of the civs alive.
For your information, I'm doing these changes right now.
AnotherPacifist
Deity
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2007
- Messages
- 4,878
But having to use wr4th's super skills to win the UHV isn't natural...(I actually started some games like his as I realized that killing other civs is key with the current patch, but I never got the requisite city raider promotions)
Anyway, as Babylon, wr4th how did you weather the horse archers appearing north of Shushan?
Anyway, as Babylon, wr4th how did you weather the horse archers appearing north of Shushan?
JujuLautre
Deity
This may be a stupid suggestion, but what about allowing civ to respawn from time to time from barbarian/independent cities before nationalism ?
BurnEmDown
Emperor
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2008
- Messages
- 1,718
Actually to me it seems like a good suggestion, after all Rome was razed and sacked several times before the empire completely collapsed, and I think other nations shared the same fate. Maybe allow respawns until the medieval age? And then re-allow them with nationalism.
