New Version - August 23rd (8-23)

[Gazebo]

Are there any bugs in calculation of relative military strength? I'm seeing cases where I'm three times larger than certain civs with a tech lead and have built almost up to my supply limit, even after decimating them in a war the advisor says 'they have an army that could wipe you off the planet.' Likely the reverse is true. They'll usually then declare war on me and not the 'last resort' "I know you're stronger but this needs to happen" war the AI tries at the end.

Protip: never open the advisor panel. It is beyond useless. A broken geiger counter is more useful.

G

 

[Aldebaran1997]

Protip: never open the advisor panel. It is beyond useless. A broken geiger counter is more useful.

G

Firaxis PLZ

 

[Txurce]

To me, the big advantage of Statecraft in going for a DV is the chance to build the Palace of Westminster, with its 6 votes. Playing a 5-city Tradition Korea, I dominate the WC (21 votes, followed by 14 and 10), despite failing to found, and having just 3 allies at this point. I'm going after a SV, but the advantages of Statecraft should have been critical in this game.

Indonesia is the clear leader, although not quite in the runaway category (2d in GNP and Mfg Gds). I'm 4 techs behind, despite having 1) sanctioned them; 2) banned all 3 of their unique luxuries; 3) decolonized them; and 4) passed the Global Peace Accords. I've also helped stir the pot against them (not that much was needed) so that they are constantyl at war against civs that aren't pushovers. Although I'm too small and share a border with them to DoW and have a chance of winning, I've fought them to a defensive standstill twice. And yet...

They just keep chugging along. Their army is just big enough so that the AI cannot swamp it, and their empire big enough that they pump out gold like crazy. In the meantime, my gold is limited due to my size, and I don't see how I'm going to catch them. (They're also way ahead of me in culture.)

Two points here: things have to go just right for a tall civ to win an SV (as I did recently), as it's very hard to stop an AI that gets big enough to roll downhill. (In this case, it's not even a monster, ahead of the Netherlands in pop by less than 3:2.) I don't really think it's a big problem, since Civ is made for war and large empires; the space created by VP for tall civs is pretty impressive, all things considered.

 

[Cerest]

Protip: never open the advisor panel. It is beyond useless. A broken geiger counter is more useful.

G

Thanks Obama.

 

[intelli]

To me, the big advantage of Statecraft in going for a DV is the chance to build the Palace of Westminster, with its 6 votes. Playing a 5-city Tradition Korea, I dominate the WC (21 votes, followed by 14 and 10), despite failing to found, and having just 3 allies at this point. I'm going after a SV, but the advantages of Statecraft should have been critical in this game.

Indonesia is the clear leader, although not quite in the runaway category (2d in GNP and Mfg Gds). I'm 4 techs behind, despite having 1) sanctioned them; 2) banned all 3 of their unique luxuries; 3) decolonized them; and 4) passed the Global Peace Accords. I've also helped stir the pot against them (not that much was needed) so that they are constantyl at war against civs that aren't pushovers. Although I'm too small and share a border with them to DoW and have a chance of winning, I've fought them to a defensive standstill twice. And yet...

They just keep chugging along. Their army is just big enough so that the AI cannot swamp it, and their empire big enough that they pump out gold like crazy. In the meantime, my gold is limited due to my size, and I don't see how I'm going to catch them. (They're also way ahead of me in culture.)

Two points here: things have to go just right for a tall civ to win an SV (as I did recently), as it's very hard to stop an AI that gets big enough to roll downhill. (In this case, it's not even a monster, ahead of the Netherlands in pop by less than 3:2.) I don't really think it's a big problem, since Civ is made for war and large empires; the space created by VP for tall civs is pretty impressive, all things considered.

Vox definitely made things more about wide civs, tall was so optimal in vanilla it became utterly repetitive.

 

[vuko]

Do OpenBorders lead somehow to War? I had it in 100% of my games. Somebody asks open borders, i say yes. After several/many turns i get DoW. That happens even when the other nation is thousand of miles away and they didn't use the open borders to just check my army strength. I tried the same save without giving open borders and i wasn't DoW.

Any explanation?

 

[dontbeshellfish]

Starting games in the Classical Era with this patch seems to crash the game. Has anyone else been encountering this? I started an Ancient Era game just fine, only setting I changed was the starting era.

I'm having the same issue. Fresh install with the autoinstaller, no other mods installed. Selecting any starting era other than ancient instantly crashes the game to desktop when clicking "start game".

 

[Txurce]

I tried Fealty with a 10-city Progress empire despite having no religion of my own. It was a notable improvement in my overall output. I kept thinking "what did I do differently?" And then I remembered. I agree that toning it down instead of buffing the other trees makes more sense.

 

[Gokudo01]

Remove the free production or food from the scaler

 

[doublex55]

Probably the production. Authority already hast that. If getting rid of 5 production per city is too much, (might be), just add 2 or 3 production to the WLTKD policy.

 

[CrazyG]

Assyria's Royal Library replaces the school of philosophy but doesn't give the 20% science during golden ages. Is this intentional?

On Fealty, I know many dislike the scaler but I also dislike the finisher. It almost includes Artistry's scaler, plus so many other yields. With Authority and Fealty every city has a base production of 15 which is rather silly

 

[Gokudo01]

Assyria's Royal Library replaces the school of philosophy but doesn't give the 20% science during golden ages. Is this intentional?

On Fealty, I know many dislike the scaler but I also dislike the finisher. It almost includes Artistry's scaler, plus so many other yields. With Authority and Fealty every city has a base production of 15 which is rather silly

Yes the finisher may need some changes too after the first nerf
On the other hand, statecraft should have some bonus oriented wide

 

[lunker]

I'd like to chime in that happiness per trade-route from statecraft is boring. Trade routes have 100% uptime and you'll usually have the same amount every time you get this policy, meaning the policy is basically +4-6 happiness unconditionally. I feel the happiness from chanceries had more flavour and was a nice incentive for wide players.

 

[tu_79]

Well, a player going for CS alliances doesn't need that much happiness anyways. The playstyle is already happy enough. Though I wouldn't mind it to increase up to 2 happiness per trade route, as CrazyG suggested. I think the extra trade routes should depend on map size too, so it can scale a bit on map size, the same extra votes do.

If we consider trade routes as a whole, they are improved this way:
Statecraft -> +1 trade route. +1 happiness each active trade route. Completed trade routes to city states gives tourism.
Industrialism -> +5 gold from international trade routes (it works for incoming trade routes too). +2 trade routes. +33% yields to internal trade routes.
Freedom (Economic Union) -> +2 trade routes. +6 gold from trade routes with Freedom civs. (Treaty Organization) -> +4 influence to CS with a trade route.

They are all in different ages. I wonder if civs with a focus on trade routes like Venice, Morocco and Portugal might always prefer those policies.

Trade routes to city states are naturally good for their high culture and science value, relatively safe. International trade routes are good for the extra gold, focused tourism and major civs relationship, but are risky. Internal trade routes are good for the growth control and the safe enhance for villages.

I see logical that Statecraft enhaces trade routes to city states, and even gives extra routes. It's also fine for industrialism to have a focus for internal trade routes (industrialism cares for self development), with some extra trade routes, too. Industrialism attracts international trade routes, because you offer more gold to those traders, so get extra relationship and tourism for trading.

 

[SLGray]

When I play a game, I finish one whole policy group then move on the another. Is it that most members just do one?

 

[intelli]

It's generally optimal because you lose out on the finisher policies otherwise, but there are some more complex approaches discussed in the strategy section.

 

[jaymrobinson]

Are the Iroquois perhaps overpowered? The game I'm playing right now, Iroquois were on another continent, when discovered they had over double score and 15 more techs than the 2nd place civ. They were also a full culture tree ahead of everyone else.

 

[Workerspam]

Are the Iroquois perhaps overpowered? The game I'm playing right now, Iroquois were on another continent, when discovered they had over double score and 15 more techs than the 2nd place civ. They were also a full culture tree ahead of everyone else.

I think they are just one of the civs that have strong runaway potential in the right circumstances. I had a recent game where I was cruising along until I checked out demographics and discovered I was at best second in most categories to an unmet player was just crushing it. When I finally managed to cross the sea found it was Songhai that was 10+ techs ahead of me with twice as many cities and 4x my population.

I've found the Iroquios, Inca, and Maya are also strong runaway risks. All have strong traits that kick in early and can get rolling if left unchecked. But most of the time they are in line with the other civs.

 

[Owlbebach]

Lots of civs snowball very strong from time to time. It happens randomly when they choose right techs and right beliefs. In my most recent games Iroquois were okay. I agree that they are usually top tier, but not ridiculous. However Songhai seems to be a bit too strong over the past months. he is just crushing every neighbour he has

 

[tu_79]

Lots of civs snowball very strong from time to time. It happens randomly when they choose right techs and right beliefs. In my most recent games Iroquois were okay. I agree that they are usually top tier, but not ridiculous. However Songhai seems to be a bit too strong over the past months. he is just crushing every neighbour he has

The current runaway in my game is Songhai too. Gobbled one civ, vassalized two, in a small map (6 civs) and still leading in everything but delegates (that's me).