New Patch First Impressions

[Onylra]

I can see oceanic satellites being a complete pain to deal with but in a normal land based game it's simply a matter of shooting it down with a rocket artillery in your own territory.

Getting a fragile rocket artillery into enemy territory to shoot down their satellites is not happening IMO. You have to have a huge military advantage to pull off something like that. Especially if the satellite in question is a laser that can kill the artillery itself.

The difficulty of maneuvering an artillery into position to take down an offensive sat goes both ways... surely as an attacker you're not just putting up an OL without defending it? You still need a normal army. And like I said, just shooting it down isn't enough, you need to replace it, and then the attacker must take the initiative and try to shoot the defensive sat down in order to regain the advantage - this is good, enjoyable counterplay that enriches the tactical meta.

And having an OL above your invading army does confer a 'huge military advantage' (since it will crush any early/mid game units with ease), that's the point - it's certainly not faceroll material like rolling over someone with aff 4 units (in 1.0) when they are lacking the same, but why should it be? It kind of sounds like you're complaining about having to use tactics in your PvP wars?

I wish playing the AI was half as interesting.

 

[TLHeart]

As the new city grows, the trade route changes, so it is not like it is a permanent +5 food/+10 hammer boost to an established city. And if you purposely don't grow the new city, then it is a drain on health, and it increases tech and virtue costs as well.

It takes 20 turns to get a new city to start developing... those 20 turns you will get that 5food/10hammers, or more as your established cities continue to develop.

The changes to health, tech and virtue cost are negligible, and are easily overcome by the virtue choices, and buildings in your established cities.

Don't like the idea due to the small costs, then don't use it. I finish my games in the same time frame as before the patch doing this. So it overcomes the nerf to the trade routes, and has not cost my anything in science progression.

 

[CraigMak]

The difficulty of maneuvering an artillery into position to take down an offensive sat goes both ways... surely as an attacker you're not just putting up an OL without defending it? You still need a normal army. And like I said, just shooting it down isn't enough, you need to replace it, and then the attacker must take the initiative and try to shoot the defensive sat down in order to regain the advantage - this is good, enjoyable counterplay that enriches the tactical meta.

And having an OL above your invading army does confer a 'huge military advantage' (since it will crush any early/mid game units with ease), that's the point - it's certainly not faceroll material like rolling over someone with aff 4 units (in 1.0) when they are lacking the same, but why should it be? It kind of sounds like you're complaining about having to use tactics in your PvP wars?

I wish playing the AI was half as interesting.

My complaint absolutely is not about having to use tactics. It is about the extreme difficulty in attacking compared to defending. It is currently completely lopsided in that cities are far too strong in comparison to the units offered. It is also far easier to defend an orbital satellite in your own territory than it is to destroy one in enemy territory.

My point about OL's is that their counters are very early. There should be an advantage to being ahead in tech but there is none when the counters to your tech were available an hour ago.

Basically, the game is currently so lopsided that the aggressor has to be leaps and bounds ahead of the the defender in skill, military, tech etc.. in order to win. Attacking is not feasible against a competent human player. If you are beating people, they are far less skilled or have a massive disadvantage of some sort.

I never thought that the 4 affinity units were balanced and was an advocate of them being toned down. This however is beyond anything that I had imagined would occur.

 

[Onylra]

My complaint absolutely is not about having to use tactics. It is about the extreme difficulty in attacking compared to defending. It is currently completely lopsided in that cities are far too strong in comparison to the units offered. It is also far easier to defend an orbital satellite in your own territory than it is to destroy one in enemy territory.

My point about OL's is that their counters are very early. There should be an advantage to being ahead in tech but there is none when the counters to your tech were available an hour ago.

Basically, the game is currently so lopsided that the aggressor has to be leaps and bounds ahead of the the defender in skill, military, tech etc.. in order to win. Attacking is not feasible against a competent human player. If you are beating people, they are far less skilled or have a massive disadvantage of some sort.

I never thought that the 4 affinity units were balanced and was an advocate of them being toned down. This however is beyond anything that I had imagined would occur.

Ok yeah, it's true that the defender has a substantial innate advantage over his attacker, in many ways. But I don't really think it should be easy to conquer people, that's war - if unrestricted military conflict between two evenly matched opponents seems a bit like futile carnage sometimes outside of the occasional flash of inspiration or blunder, then perhaps Firaxis has gotten this just about right?

Just like the real world a military stalemate can be broken by bringing superior economic/industrial (important, it's not always easy finding the right balance of research/production/military/income relative to another player) or diplomatic might into play, or employing a different strategy - for instance, in my MP games our wars are very often limited wars over TRs or proxy wars involving our AI trading partners, if we manage to strangle the other player's economy by annihilating his friends or pillaging his international trade a military breakdown is usually not far behind (since going into deficit will start disbanding one's units, it's a good idea to save-up a rainy-day fund, just in case). It's a long game and you need to play it as such sometimes.

And decisive tactical advantage is not all that difficult to achieve, there's a number of important milestones in unit upgrades that one affinity level can make all the difference in the world, hovertanks, 3-range ships etc, even Marines > Soldiers or Armour > Rovers is a hard hill to climb. It's actually one of my biggest complaints about the current PvP metagame, the extreme tactical advantage gained so suddenly through upgrade power/perks combined. Tech advantage is not needed for military advantage, thanks to Might you can be lagging in tech, but still higher in affinity.

 

[Callonia]

I gave the patch a fair shot.

I just can't do it anymore.

I keep on falling asleep by turn 100-200 mark although on the plus side, if I ever have insomnia problems I can just fire up CivBE and play it and fall asleep quick.

I'm literally dying from boredom by playing civbe. There's always no bugs around me. I cannot help but be amazed that people turn off barbarians in civ 5 and 4, those little pests do alot to live up the game.

No events, no pests aka barbarians, no bugs running around and hassling me, zero worries from AI, I am basically watching paint dry as I expand unimpended.

Occasionally the AI will come around and ask for a favor or to condemn me for attempting to keep myself entertained by being mean to the AI.

 

[FaceUnderMask]

I don't know whether I should laugh or cry about Far Base One being better than any city, science-wise. TR science is 33% of your total at most.

 

[bladex]

I gave the patch a fair shot.

I just can't do it anymore.

I keep on falling asleep by turn 100-200 mark although on the plus side, if I ever have insomnia problems I can just fire up CivBE and play it and fall asleep quick.

I'm literally dying from boredom by playing civbe. There's always no bugs around me. I cannot help but be amazed that people turn off barbarians in civ 5 and 4, those little pests do alot to live up the game.

No events, no pests aka barbarians, no bugs running around and hassling me, zero worries from AI, I am basically watching paint dry as I expand unimpended.

Occasionally the AI will come around and ask for a favor or to condemn me for attempting to keep myself entertained by being mean to the AI.

try this mod it makes it a little better

 

[pwoz]

I find that my tech path is still fundamentally uninteresting. I tech the early science buildings and then spam techs of the appropriate color to keep up in affinity points on Apollo. Choose Red/Yellow/Blue is not an interesting tech choice.

There's not even a point to going for the Affinity 4 unit techs until you have enough affinity points for their upgrade. They're simply interchangeable with soldiers before that.

 

[Lucius_]

I find that my tech path is still fundamentally uninteresting. I tech the early science buildings and then spam techs of the appropriate color to keep up in affinity points on Apollo. Choose Red/Yellow/Blue is not an interesting tech choice.

There's not even a point to going for the Affinity 4 unit techs until you have enough affinity points for their upgrade. They're simply interchangeable with soldiers before that.

The affinity 4 units really highly depend on how quick you can get them and your tech rate. If you can go from aff 4 - 6 quickly, than they are crap. If you can get them early and your tech is slow, they are worth it as they are still a big upgrade from marines. So yeah, very situational units now with a short lifespan.

 

[CraigMak]

The affinity 4 units really highly depend on how quick you can get them and your tech rate. If you can go from aff 4 - 6 quickly, than they are crap. If you can get them early and your tech is slow, they are worth it as they are still a big upgrade from marines. So yeah, very situational units now with a short lifespan.

Yeah, if you rush them super hard then they are strong for when they come out. However I don't know if they offer a big enough advantage to justify rushing them. Mainly because cities are so strong now in comparison to units attacking. Fielding the 4 affinity units early will not be likely to result in cities taken.

 

[Callonia]

Eight tiles you say? Please direct your attention to this particular thread.. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=540275

And then there was a thread showing Russia settling right next to the capital as well.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Pyre's experience with CivBE merged into the main first impressions thread.

 

[JokerJace]

Can't TR function in a simple, understandable manner???

THIS. Go back to CiV TR or at least make that incomprehensible calculation transparent. They just seem terribly counterintuitiv now. If at least people would like it, I could somewhat understand it. But there's really NO advantage in this inconvenient / awkward design.

 

[Bezurn]

Overall I am enjoying the patch.

The changes to health are a step in the right direction. I've played one game without going prosperity (science and industry) and was still able to maintain a nice gradual city sprawl with the additional benefit of the increased culture, science and production bonuses. Taking purity 2 mid game helps a lot to put up some Gene gardens to maintain an empire (usually taking Alien Genetics and Vertical Farming) gives a nice well rounded bonus to your empire. Getting level 2 in any of the affinities mid game is quite beneficial depending on the strategic resources available so you can unlock the bonus buildings.

Explorer adjustment is very nice. You can still get "invulnerable" explorers, but it requires more effort now, instead of rushing for the Gene Vault. Turning the aliens blue and then taking harmony 1 gives your explorers their typical immunity, with the added benefit of not being damaged in miasma.

Trade routes are a mixed bag. The changes to the insane yields is welcome, but the system is still broken. I do understand and agree that trade depots should not be buyable, as this makes new cities a more long term investment rather than a instant return on investment in allowing you to buy the trade depots and transfer the depots over for insta-crazy returns on external or internal trade. I do understand that they want to limit the amount of inflation in the game by making new cities needing to become developed before they become profitable. Also the larger a city gets the harder it is for it to grow.

In my opinion internal trade routes should allow the transfer of material at a cost, be it either food or production from one city to the other. If a city is sending food, it should actually deduct that food from the city and send it to the other. Certain buildings could add a bonus to this yield, but this would help eliminate "magical" food/production from internal trade routes. In addition, the amount of yield a city can recieve should be based on its total population, so you couldn't send 10 hammers per turn from a productive city to a city of size 1. The size 1 city would only get 2-3 hammers per turn instead, as their population can't assimilate all of the yield efficiently.

Tier 4 UU's were overly nerfed. I think bumping up their combat values by 2-4 points would be nice. Also they should get unique upgrade choices from the start to give them a definitive role in your army. My ideas for their abilities would be as such.

Battlesuits: +1 Movement or Combat bonus vs Melee
CNDR: 30% strength when in friendly territory or Orbital strike ability (as in Artillery)
Xenoswarm: 5 Damage per turn to each adjacent enemy unit or Heals for 5 points for ending turn in miasma. (even without healing/fortifying).

Taking enemy cities against the AI requires a concentrated effort and will result in losses of units on tech parity. Using 3-4 rocket artillery now actually serves a purpose to hammer down the defenses quickly in order to avoid a surge in reinforcements. If the AI has placed the city in a defensible position then taking the city with low tech units is highly infeasible.

 

[PyreStarite]

Polyboy 2 o'clock. Floatstone everywhere else.

Spoiler :

Moderator Action: Spoiler tags added to image. Please use these when linking to wide images.
EDIT: Yes, thank you for the spoiler

 

[Breezin]

I am not impressed with the new patch. I don't mean that the Devs didn't work hard on it and make a lot of changes but rather that the game still doesn't work for me.

I find I have to force myself to play it. I don't really enjoy the game. Hence, I'm uninstalling it. I enjoy Civ V much more.

I know there are a lot of people who love the game and I'm glad for them. For me, I'm moving on.

 

[EnderCN]

To give a counterpoint to Breezin I just couldn't get into Civ V, just played too much of Civ 1-3 and it just feels too much like the same game. Something about BE just has me completely addicted and I find myself skipping workouts and scrambling to get my daily chores done because I have a case of one more turns. Unfortunately I find the mid to end game very bland so I generally play until I feel like I'm going to win and then start over, which isn't really a new thing for me for Civ games. They all have kind of been like that.

 

[Nikolai II]

Game is definitely better. That's the main thing in my book.

 

[manu-fan]

Game is better, sure. It's still pretty boring once you get past early expansion though.

 

[Stringer1313]

I'm enjoying the patch so far as well, but the AI still seems to be pretty bad. I'm playing on Soyuz difficulty and winning --- just to show you how n00bish I am, I have never won a Civ game on the second-hardest ranking before (Emperor or Deity), and yet I am doing so quite easily in this game. The AI just sent about 8 ships to attack my coastal city without a single land unit to actually take it over after it easily reduced my city to 0.