New Patch - First Impressions?

[Ekmek]

ok, my impressions from my first competed game on my usual difficulty level: King (I could have sworn I chose King for my 1st game, but it somehow ended up being chieftain >.> had to wait for my second game to see how it looked at the usual level).

Aztecs, king, standard continents, low sea level, 3 extra AIs, culture win.

Spoiler :

I built 1 city and puppeted everything else, going for my typical wide puppet empire. I usually build more than 1 city, but I was right in the middle with everyone expanding toward me, and I was going for culture anyway, so I decided what the hell.

by the end I had grabbed 4 French cities (removing them from the game), 3 Russian cities, 3 American cities at first, then finally the 4th (taking them out), 3 greek cities, and 2 Chinese cities. Total:17 cities, all but 1 puppets.

--Happiness is definitely harder to manage. I would not want to play this strategy on a larger map. I managed to keep it under -10 most of the time, and it tended to fluctuate around the -7-2 mark. I think most of my ability to manage it came from TP'ing everything I puppeted and building no farms except in my capitol. I think with the new patch you can have a a fair number of cities (17 in my case, don't think I could have had more than 20 if I tried) or well developed cities, but you can't have both anymore. I had to TP so those cities would stay small.

That 1 happiness for every 10 citizens in a city policy? Maaaaan, that sucks for wide puppet empires. I took it because I needed to fill out tradition. This was in the late game, and I watched it add 5 happiness to my empire >.>

I build Notre Dame which was a nice help, but I hate the idea of a wonder being necessary. And speaking of wonders....

--hanging gardens. So good. Soooooo good. So good. For the first time ever in a civ game I actually care about that wonder now. I managed to build it, i think just by luck, and holy crap. I switched to production focus and watched my city pound out buildings, units, and wonders like crazy, all while still growing with no problem. Notre Dame, Porcelain Tower, Pyramids, Christ statue, Hagia sophia, great library, the crappy gate just because I could.... I don't even remember all of what I built. I only GE rushed two wonders. And any units or buildings I didn't want to build, I bought. Because money...

--money was ridiculous. I suppose that's from TP'ing everything that wasn't my capitol. I was getting 600+ gpt without golden ages. The huge downside of my game was that my 1 city wasn't coastal, so the only way I could find CS's not on my continent was to put a scout in the water to autoexplore. Not very effective. I could have won so much sooner if I had more culture CS's to buy off. It would have been no problem, because I was loaded. Anytime I needed to I could buy an army that didn't fear God. That was nice because...

--Dogpiiiiilllllleeeeeee. Holy crap, dogpile. I only saw this once before, back when I first bought the game and massive chain-denouncing was a thing. even my longtime friendly trading partner Hiawatha joined in (he actually tried to hit me harder than anyone). After that I removed Washington from the game, since everyone hated me anyway. The only person who stayed friendly, and I am still shocked, was Elizabeth. She's usually always guarded just by default, but she just loved me this time for some reason. The dogpile was no problem to fend off, but I have never seen them do this to someone trying to win via culture before. I hope it's a fluke and it's still possible to go for a VC without that happening in every game, although in this game it actually gave me something to do while waiting (too bad the culture gains for kills was negligible at this point). And speaking of AI behavior...

--Now there are more positive modifiers, but somehow it's even harder to be friends with the AI now. I guess I actually have to try if I want to play diplomacy, and being on another continent isn't enough to make someone a BFF now. Also, why is the "we traded recently" modifier so rare? I never saw it when I did all that trading with Hiawatha and Liz. I only see it /sometimes/ when I sue for peace.

--As I said, King is my usual and I did not have any more trouble than usual winning the game. Didn't have to drop a difficulty level, but I suspect that warning was more for people who tend to play on deity.

--Last thoughts: I hate the fact that puppets don't prioritize monuments. A resource is just out of reach? Suckeeeeerrrrrrrr, have fun waiting 100 turns before the city is making any culture.

Puppet empires are still doable, but you can't encourage them to grow with farms and I'm not sure how many more I could have puppeted had there been more cities on my land to puppet. I think the original intention of the game was "puppet at first and then annex when you're ready," and the devs once again are saying "people are playing the game differently than the one way we want them to? Can't have that!!!!" Obviously annexing would have given me a big happiness boost even without Police State, but I was trying to win via culture so that was a no for me.

I love diplo being pushed back. Now every game need not be a diplo victory because "it's there."

I don't think puppets prioritize walls quite like they used to either. I waited until late in the game to take that last honor policy that gives happiness for defensive buildings. I thought I'd see a big spike in happiness, but instead I only got an extra 7. Not horrible, but not what I was expecting.

why did you go wide and tradition? Isnt tradition for TALL empires and liberty for wide?

In my game (it was prince tough) I was more of a builder and had all of the civs friendly except I got backstabbed once.

 

[cccv]

why did you go wide and tradition? Isnt tradition for TALL empires and liberty for wide?

In my game (it was prince tough) I was more of a builder and had all of the civs friendly except I got backstabbed once.

The best culture policy in the liberty tree is the deduction on the SP cost increase for founding future cities. I wasn't planning on-- and didn't-- found any cities after my 1st anyway. The happiness boost from meritocracy didn't look too compelling either, but I didn't really crunch the numbers on it. Anyway, my capitol was supposed to be tall, and a lot of tradition's benefit is specifically for the capitol, so that looked like the better choice to me. Too much of liberty would have been wasted on me (the settler policy, the worker policy since I built the pyramids anyway, the reduced SP cost increase for new cities, and even the GP by that point in the game wouldn't have been that big of a deal). I could be wrong, I'm not the "playing civ with spreadsheets" type, but I think tradition was my better option.

 

[zac007]

The best culture policy in the liberty tree is the deduction on the SP cost increase for founding future cities. I wasn't planning on-- and didn't-- found any cities after my 1st anyway. .

I wonder about the wording for that policy in Liberty. On my last game I tried that policy without founding any new cities and I still got the reduction in culture needed ie before the policy it was 34 turns (Marathon) till next policy, then post policy it dropped to 31 turns. Seems it gives you the 33% reduction ex post facto! Anyone else notice this?

 

[vonbach]

I love this new patch. The hardest part is figuring out what tree to fill out first.
The AI seems a lot smarter than normal or at least a lot more aggressive.

 

[Apina]

Are there mods in hotseat?

I would really appreciate it if someone could answer this one. I need the info and I don't have the game right now so I can't find out by myself.
Can we use mods in hotseat yes or no?

 

[wcbarney]

Just finished my first post-patch game: Aztecs, Emperor, standard continents map, standard speed. Ran Honor, then Patronage, then Rationalism SP trees, and I think I had just opened Autocracy. I was #2 in tech for most of the game, I think principally because one of my opponents was Babylon who was always #1. Did several RAs, but had at least two DoW from the AIs while an RA was still in effect.

My pre-patch experience was that I could fairly easily win a domination victory by about turn 370 on Emperor/standard/standard. (By domination, I mean "Total World Conquest," (TWC) not just defeat of the AI capitals). But this post-patch game was much more difficult to win a TWC; it may even be impossible to win such a victory on a standard map at the Emperor level. The big problem, of course, is happiness. I used to be able to have only 3-4 core cities and a puppet empire of dozens of conquered cities. Can't do that any more. So, instead, as soon as the resistance died away I ended up annexing each newly-conquered city & buying a courthouse. This slowed empire expansion way down, and I ended up with 3 core cities and 12 cities that I had conquered, with a substantial time lag between each conquest.

Bottom line: Science win at turn 400. No chance for a cultural win -- too many cities. Someone else built the United Nations; I was one vote short of a diplo win at the first U.N. vote (someone had bribed one of my CS allies the turn before the vote), and had won the space race before the next vote would happen.

 

[JJOne]

First impressions great - had to reload once because I lost my capital to a jaguar rush from Montezuma. He came with 6 jaguars and 3 archers, I had to buy a third warrior to end his siege. Couldn't pull the same trick on him though - had to wait till iron.

 

[Drawmeus]

Montezuma's a beast early right now.

England is mind-bogglingly powerful in the medieval era, militarily, due to crossbow relative buff (via longsword nerf).

 

[ratatosk]

But this post-patch game was much more difficult to win a TWC; it may even be impossible to win such a victory on a standard map at the Emperor level. The big problem, of course, is happiness. I used to be able to have only 3-4 core cities and a puppet empire of dozens of conquered cities. .

Finished an immortal aztec TWC yesterday, ending up with ~40 happiness and a reserve of probably around 100-120 (in the form of unannexed cities and happiness buildings not yet built). Honor, Organized religion and the autocracy courthouse policy are very powerful happiness tools.

 

[prodigitize]

Apologies if I'm repeating a question, but how exactly do the new research agreements work? After the initial 45 turns (epic speed), the boost doesn't show in any of the research breakdowns but I do seem to notice that when I go to pick a new tech to research, instead of having 0 of 4000, ill have 100 of 4000 or whatever, i.e. my techs seem to have advanced a slight amount.

Could someone explain what the actual mechanism is? Thanks.

 

[Civsassin]

Apologies if I'm repeating a question, but how exactly do the new research agreements work? After the initial 45 turns (epic speed), the boost doesn't show in any of the research breakdowns but I do seem to notice that when I go to pick a new tech to research, instead of having 0 of 4000, ill have 100 of 4000 or whatever, i.e. my techs seem to have advanced a slight amount.

Could someone explain what the actual mechanism is? Thanks.

I believe what is happening is when the RA comes to fruition, you get the boost to the current research. Any left over beakers are applied to your next tech.

 

[Civsassin]

I dropped down a level for my first complete game. I am playing as Catherine on Emperor, Standard speed and map. It was a random start, which provided a continents map. I own my continent, but Alexander owns the other one and has a good tech advantage over me. Most likely due to his use of CSs and Scholasticism. I managed to keep pace with other SPs. I built a huge army and sailed across the ocean. I nuked his largest three cities and took one, which he promptly nuked. Everyone else declared war on me.

Anyway, I should be able to pull this one off with a space race, which I am preparing, but I am passed turn 400. I will probably win between 425 and 450, but that is the farthest I've ever gotten in any game to date. I am assuming it is due to the mechanics of the new patch and not my poor play.

Has anyone else noticed their games being won much later? If so, it would seem that even a time victory would be possible post patch.

 

[BobDole]

Has anyone else noticed their games being won much later? If so, it would seem that even a time victory would be possible post patch.

My only victory so far in the new patch was a cultural one, and it definitely took a lot longer, which isn't surprising with the number of changes to culture in the latest patch. Of course, it didn't help that Egypt dragged me into a war that lasted about half the game...

 

[apocalypse105]

My only victory so far in the new patch was a cultural one, and it definitely took a lot longer, which isn't surprising with the number of changes to culture in the latest patch. Of course, it didn't help that Egypt dragged me into a war that lasted about half the game...

With the nerv of research agreements the game has become slower and that is a good thing

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

As someone who normally tries to avoid wars, I'm finding myself really enjoying my current war with Genghis Khan. I think my only disappointment was that he DoW'd me even though we're separated by about 3 other Civilizations. Of course he was DoW'ing the Arabs & the Songhai too-so maybe he's just trying to be consistent. After dealing with nothing but ignorant barbs for most of my games, its incredibly refreshing to deal with opponent where I have to think about the placement of my units. I've lost several units already due to stupid mistakes on my part!

Aussie.

 

[HalloweenWeed]

I think the new changes are terrible. I studied the changelog for my needed strategy changes. Reduced my difficulty level one. Fortunately I had just finished a game when the new update was applied, and trying to start another good one. Usually I like mostly terra firma maps, I do better without having to work with ships.

This time I was looking for a sea assault game, I went with Japan, tiny, Prince, Archipelago, sea level low, abundant resources; and I almost always limit victory to conquering and std 500 turn limit, defer promotions and policies, start bias disable, 5B year old, and reseed random. I don't enjoy games that have to be played perfectly to win, I like conquering and re-shaping the empire, that's the fun for me. Early game was not that much different, except I chose to build things in different orders bc of the new changes. I quickly took two nearby French cities. But that's where it fizzled. I had loads of trouble W/keeping up the happiness, no way could I take any more cities until well after turn 400! And I was doing everything I could to get more happiness - the build order, the research order, the wonders built, the policies, and explored as far as I could as soon as possible to find natural wonders. As soon as I got oil tech, I didn't have any, so I had to settle a not-so-far off Island to get oil and took a happiness hit on that. I never was able to conquer after that. Boring. I could have tried at turn 460 or so, but what's the point that late in the game? I might have conquered one city, but not two. Boring.

It was just way too hard to keep up the happiness between about turn 250 and 400. That was the prime time to conquer in the previous build. Now I just had to batton down the hatches and work on my buildings instead, boring. Well I guess I have to go back to just using Egypt exclusively now - for the burial tomb happiness boost. Sad. I will try another now...

 

[cccv]

I think the new changes are terrible. I studied the changelog for my needed strategy changes. Reduced my difficulty level one. Fortunately I had just finished a game when the new update was applied, and trying to start another good one. Usually I like mostly terra firma maps, I do better without having to work with ships.

This time I was looking for a sea assault game, I went with Japan, tiny, Prince, Archipelago, sea level low, abundant resources; and I almost always limit victory to conquering and std 500 turn limit, defer promotions and policies, start bias disable, 5B year old, and reseed random. I don't enjoy games that have to be played perfectly to win, I like conquering and re-shaping the empire, that's the fun for me. Early game was not that much different, except I chose to build things in different orders bc of the new changes. I quickly took two nearby French cities. But that's where it fizzled. I had loads of trouble W/keeping up the happiness, no way could I take any more cities until well after turn 400! And I was doing everything I could to get more happiness - the build order, the research order, the wonders built, the policies, and explored as far as I could as soon as possible to find natural wonders. As soon as I got oil tech, I didn't have any, so I had to settle a not-so-far off Island to get oil and took a happiness hit on that. I never was able to conquer after that. Boring. I could have tried at turn 460 or so, but what's the point that late in the game? I might have conquered one city, but not two. Boring.

It was just way too hard to keep up the happiness between about turn 250 and 400. That was the prime time to conquer in the previous build. Now I just had to batton down the hatches and work on my buildings instead, boring. Well I guess I have to go back to just using Egypt exclusively now - for the burial tomb happiness boost. Sad. I will try another now...

What difficulty are you playing on? Check out my wall-of-text post a page back or so-- I was on King and was able to keep a total of 17 cities, being just barely in the positive happiness at the end. I could have gone for at least two more without being too far in the red. And I wasn't even optimizing the game for happiness. If I hadn't been going for a culture win (and taking freedom to help me with that) I could have gone autocracy, annexed cities so I could build courthouses that come with big happy bonuses (even w/o autocracy that's a boatload of happiness), and that would also let me force cities to build culture buildings (boost from organized religion), defense buildings (boost from a policy in honor), and normal happy buildings. Oh, and I hadn't built any stadiums either (not that they'd have helped anywhere but my capitol.

Anyway, that's on King. I'm guessing you were at a higher level? Oh wait-- just reread your post and saw you were on Prince. lol, yeah, then obviously you were doing something wrong. I don't know how many cities you built before taking the two French cities, but on tiny Archipelago I doubt you had more cities than I did. You may think you were doing everything you needed to do, but you must not have been.

 

[MkLh]

Anyway, that's on King. I'm guessing you were at a higher level? Oh wait-- just reread your post and saw you were on Prince. lol, yeah, then obviously you were doing something wrong. I don't know how many cities you built before taking the two French cities, but on tiny Archipelago I doubt you had more cities than I did. You may think you were doing everything you needed to do, but you must not have been.

The happiness system is exactly the same on King as it is on Prince (for a human, the AI may get some bonuses).

 

[Johan de Witt]

Got my first culture win on Deity post-patch.

Egypt, oval, small, marathon, two extra AIs, raging barbarians.

Built the Hanging Gardens in Thebe... Damn, that's a good wonder! By the time I had my victory, Thebe was size 41 with 13 wonders! I took that freedom policy which makes great person buildings work at double the effect. In the end, I had three cities and one puppet with a total of 17 wonders, 11 landmarks, 2 manufacturies and 2 citadels. Going at 900 culture per turn and +50 happiness at the end. My other two cities were both size 30+.

Placing manufacturies in desert tiles when your city has no more tiles to work is great! Turning a useless tile into a 9 hammers tile is pure win.

 

[Roghar]

why did you go wide and tradition? Isnt tradition for TALL empires and liberty for wide?

Liberty is definitely for Wide, but tradition works as well for wide as for tall. A couple of the policies will only benefit your capital for very large cities, but some are partcularly good for wide empires - specifically the garrison one and most importantly the tree completion policy.