New Patch - First Impressions?

Hanging Gardens + Notre Dame is amazing now!

 

this is what is happening with me, and this alone is causing this patch to be a game breaker!

 

Life imitates art eh? ;-)

 

We've identified the problem, and will be rolling out a fix shortly.

 

1st victory post-patch!

And my 1st Diplomatic Victory in Civ V!

 

It seeme that research agreements still give a free tech instead of the tech boost. Does anyone else experienced that problem?

 

No, but it can happen that the tech is completed by the boost.

 

Yes, that might be possible.

How does the boost exactly work? Is it a one time boost to the current project or a permanent modifier?

 

You get an amount of Science-points toward the current tech.
The amount of science depends on a couple of things: Porcelain tower increases it with 50%, en Social Policiy Rationalism also gives 50% (thus doubling the initial science if you have both). The initial amount is, iirc, 50% of the median tech cost currently researchable. So, if you have 1 tech available which costs 3 turns to complete, 2 techs of 5 turns and 1 tech of 6 turns, the median is the 5 turn tech, thus you get 50% of the total science needed for those 5 turn-techs. I hope it is still clear now.

 

Took the day off yesterday to try the new patch out... Did a couple of resets playing with the Social Policies until finally I was playing a small Deity game on a continents map with 7 enemies.

Damn, I love carpeting landknechts against the enemy. The lower maintenance is a real moneysaver. Olichargy and Military Caste work together very well... Right now, I'm in the late Renaissance, I almost conquered my own continent (just two French cities left), I took the Hanging Gardens from the Polynesians and I am running quite a nice economy and research while keeping my army large. I have 9 cities now (only three puppets), a cash surplus of 150 a turn, around 200 research (didn't even take the Patronage tree, so no research from City States) and I have a larger army than I ever had (4 trebuchets - all with logistics, range and indirect fire, 9 landsknechts - all with march and heal, 1 longswordsman, 4 musketmen, 4 cavalry and 2 frigates).

Upgrading Spearmen to Landsknechts for 10g... I like!

 

Don't know if this is a patch deal or not, but...

I was in a 3-way war with Monty and Napoleon. Both Monty and myself were invading France, and Nappy was doomed. I knew I could take Paris with my catapults and comp. cav, but was worried about the larger Aztec army taking Paris the next turn. I took Paris, and *blam* all the Aztecs moved outside my new border.

Now, I thought, well, I don't have a OB with Monty, so that makes sense. But, no, we were at war! He doesn't care about borders during war.

Anyway, I think it's just a "bug" or at least a un-thought-of circumstance that wasn't tested in beta (no judgement here, it's a strange one).

IMO, Monty's army should have not been affected by the new ownership of Paris, and they should have taken Paris the next turn.


FWIW, I did notice a much more aggressive AI with regards to expansion (America had 12+ cities fairly quickly) and war (an actual mini-carpet of doom wiped me out soon after I conquered France).

 

How do you upgrade units? I am just playing the demo, and I cannot seem to figure it out.

 

Just started a King game, and was surprised to see Napoleon declare war on me and rush me with 6 warriors on turn 55 (epic game length). Wow.

 

I see that the wars start early in this new patch and also the tecnology is more slow, but the game is very improved and it's more funny.
Good patch for me.

 

You need to either keep 2 warriors for defense or, preferably 1 warrior + an archer. If the rush is too rough you can rush-buy an archer for 200 gold on standard now (probably 280 or so on epic) as well. 6 warrior early rushes were introduced with the 275 patch, I got a 6 warrior + 3 archer rush last night on immortal at around turn 35 on standard speed. It took me 20 turns or so to build up enough of an army to retake that city...

 

Oligarchy and a couple of warriors - one garrisoned, and one in a forest or on a hill - will break the back of these attempts and get you a peace treaty pronto.

Engage with the city's ranged attack, and then use the garrisoned warrior to inflict damage on another fully charged foe. On the next turn, garrison the warrior to heal, and use the city's ranged attack until the warrior heals. Rinse and repeat. Don't permit your garrisoned warrior to win a battle, since he will then be in the open and vulnerable.

 

So far, I've felt not much difference. Feels overall better, but nothing particularly radical.

 

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.

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.

 

One of the icons you can select when you have a unit selected is a star. If it's grayed out you either don't have the funds or resources or the unit isn't in your territory. If you don't see the star at all, you don't have the proper tech to upgrade it yet.