New Version - December 18th (12-18)

[BiteInTheMark]

How about you join in the discussions with players, rather than making this thread about yourself every time? This isn't G, its basically everyone else who felt this way. If you want to disagree, take it to a different thread

And I thought it would be nice to make funny reference to South Park to say that I disagree with the changes. Isn't it allowed?
And its one point to agree a tree needs a buff, but an other thing to double the effects half of its policies. Why not meet in the mid in first place and evaluate more changes after we have seen the results of smaller changes? For me, such change creates the risk we are overdoing it and then blame the other trees to be too weak and call for another buffs.
I dunno why we need such strange change to Denmark. I agree, in good hands they can be extreme strong. But removing the culture from the unique building and/or decrease the value from 5 to 4 or 3 would have done the job. Meanwhile you can still abuse the UA promotion and raid 100 gold by one Spearman attack to a non walled city or melk CS with permanent melee attacks getting 50+ gold per attack. Denying this is much more important than the change, especially cause it's a strategy the AI isn't able to.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Thanks for the patch.

What instantly strikes my eyes is that Denmark seems to be hit very hard. Also Fealty at 2 Happiness 6 Food on second policy seems super strong, especially in comparison to a mere 1 happiness on guilds or trade routes in other trees. I will try some Fealty for sure.

*Denmark:
"OK, let's invest all your strength and power into Chinese share holdings, sell them to Indonesian banks to deal with them in Mongolian sheep's aaaaaaaand.... It's gone...."

*Fealty:
"hey, look, AI is already picking this tree in 75% of cases, Iam sure it's too weak, let's invest in it. Oh, here's all the money from the Indonesian banks....."

AI doesn't care what a policy contains. It works on flavours as far as I know. If a policy tree is set to have high religion flavour and a civ is religious, it'll go there even if the policy is completely empty and actually provides nothing - the content doesn't matter, only what the AI thinks of a choice based on their flavours. Same with production/etc. Also in my case AI was mostly going Artistry, with usually only one-two Fealties per game.

 

[Gazebo]

Thanks for the patch.

What instantly strikes my eyes is that Denmark seems to be hit very hard. Also Fealty at 2 Happiness 6 Food on second policy seems super strong, especially in comparison to a mere 1 happiness on guilds or trade routes in other trees. I will try some Fealty for sure.



AI doesn't care what a policy contains. It works on flavours as far as I know. If a policy tree is set to have high religion flavour and a civ is religious, it'll go there even if the policy is completely empty and actually provides nothing - the content doesn't matter, only what the AI thinks of a choice based on their flavours. Same with production/etc. Also in my case AI was mostly going Artistry, with usually only one-two Fealties per game.

Finding the Runestone’s floor is key. It was overperforming quite a bit. We can go up from here.

AI is not flavor based for policies. I wrote an algorithm for it.

G

 

[tu_79]

May I ask how happiness works now, in detail? I'll have to update my guide, you know.

 

[Gazebo]

May I ask how happiness works now, in detail? I'll have to update my guide, you know.

Mechanically it is identical. The only difference is the value set that increase needs. I explained it in the post.

 

[Txurce]

May I ask how happiness works now, in detail? I'll have to update my guide, you know.

What your guide probably needs most is advice as the game progresses.

 

[Mad Madigan]

The power of Fealty has always gone hand in hand with the Happiness and Religion systems. When Religions (that is, controlling your own religion) were OP Fealty acted as a steroid for that mechanic. When Happiness is too simple and you're drowning in 100s of in the mid to late game then Divine Right is a strong boost, but when Happiness is too difficult and you're constantly dipping into negative then Nobility can be a life-saver. Religion is overall less powerful now and Happiness is getting to be much more under control save for massive globe-spanning empires, so it makes sense that Fealty is getting boosts in its "base city infrastructure" benefits.

Frankly, I was one of those that asked for a boost to Fealty because I could never see the utility of the tree outside of playing as a warmonger. If I'm going to be conquering the world and constantly at war, then Fealty seemed worthwhile, but Artistry and Statecraft are just too good if I want to go for any of the other victory conditions. Statecraft supports Diplomacy (directly), Science (indirectly), and international trade. Artistry supports Culture (directly), Science (indirectly), and golden ages.

Fealty supports Domination (through self-sufficiency) and religious power and that's it. It's great for those purposes, but even after the buffs I still would have a hard time picking it if I was planning to go for a Diplomatic, Cultural, or Science victory.

Maybe this is too far out there of a thought, but maybe it's time to adjust what Great People unlock from which Policy tree? Currently Fealty gives Great Artists and Artistry gives Great Musicians. This feels like a holdover from when Fealty was the Religion/Golden Age tree and Artistry was the Tourism/Great People tree, but now it feels wrong. Artistry is currently the Golden Age, Great Person, and Great Works tree and thus is makes much more sense if the tree unlocked Great Artists in the Industrial Era. Likewise, Fealty is currently the Religion/Happiness/City Infrastructure tree, and it would make more sense for it to unlock Great Musicians as they are just as important for generating bursts of late-game as they are for . This would also move Artistry away from being the "must have" tree for Cultural victories, and let it stand out more for its support of Golden Ages and Great People.

 

[randomnub]

Ho ho ho!

What's this? A new version? Before Christmas? My, you must all be good children!

And here I thought I could complete a game in time!

Or perhaps you are extremely naughty.

 

[kkkitten]

I know this is silly but: title says 12-19 however the installer filename says 12-18

Also where did those tags come from G?

 

[bigcat88]

No comment...

 

[BiteInTheMark]

@Mad Madigan:
Some of the linked GP are thematically really questionable. Gameplay wise it make sense to give the tradition branch the engineer to increase the chance to get wonders, but else it would make more sense to give it to progress or industry. While it make absolutly no sense to give writers to progress.
Often I would like to focus on GPTI, but the medieval branches lack a GP with such an option or I want the progress branch and not tradition.

I know it's not the right place to discuss, but we could open a new thread with enough response. What do you think of making all GP accessible in the industrial age, increase greatly their cost but give a great discount by finishing a tree?
Base cost are increased by 50%, but tradition give a 20% discount on engineer and writers, artistry reduce all cultural GP purchase cost by 15%, fealty reduce the cost of prophets by 30% and generals 10%.....
It would reduce the punishment for not finishing a tree but could be balanced to end with similar results for typical playstyles.

 

[4CV]

... What instantly strikes my eyes is that Denmark seems to be hit very hard. ....

Atm I'm still playing Denmark on last version and there they hit very hard... (Happy and rich and cultured and still berserkers)...

 

[tu_79]

Clearly, he

I know this is silly but: title says 12-19 however the installer filename says 12-18

Also where did those tags come from G?

Clearly,
he has little culture in his cities and is suffering from boredom!

 

[phantomaxl1207]

Fealty now has a stronger Internal TR bonus than Industry. I would have said that only 2 or 3 of those buffs were needed, but we shall see.

The change to Global Needs Modifiers should be highlighted more. I see Brandenburg was changed already from 30% to 10% recently. Maybe in the grand scheme of things it comes out the same.

 

[pineappledan]

It does seem strange that the Internal TR boost in fealty is stronger than the one found in Industry. I would have guessed that 25% would have been a better place to start, rather than go all the way up to 50%. The International TR boost in Statecraft is only 25% after all.

Now that Denmark is a bit more under control, maybe we can take another look at Mongolia. I have disabled BullyAnnex in my local install and would recommend others do the same, for now.

 

[toxyy]

What do you mean? All the land has been taken by what time? What game speed, era, difficulty, map size, map type, AI opponents?

Epic, emperor, 11 civs, standard, communitas.

Nowhere to make a city on the bottom part of my continent for many eras now, before midieval.

 

[Gazebo]

It does seem strange that the Internal TR boost in fealty is stronger than the one found in Industry. I would have guessed that 25% would have been a better place to start, rather than go all the way up to 50%. The International TR boost in Statecraft is only 25% after all.

Now that Denmark is a bit more under control, maybe we can take another look at Mongolia. I have disabled BullyAnnex in my local install and would recommend others do the same, for now.

Don’t spread doom and gloom, theres nothing wrong with Mongolia.

G

 

[Owlbebach]

Fealty now has a stronger Internal TR bonus than Industry. I would have said that only 2 or 3 of those buffs were needed, but we shall see.

It does seem strange that the Internal TR boost in fealty is stronger than the one found in Industry. I would have guessed that 25% would have been a better place to start, rather than go all the way up to 50%. The International TR boost in Statecraft is only 25% after all.

But you kinda forget that international TR give you culture and science. Thing is that even with this buff i would never have more than 1 internal TR in my game. They are just useless, the trade off is 5-10 gold+culture+science vs 15 food or production.

For me that bonus seems almost useless. If you want me to start using internal TR give them 2 production or 3 food for each culture or science point that i get from international.

 

[andersw]

But you kinda forget that international TR give you culture and science. Thing is that even with this buff i would never have more than 1 internal TR in my game. They are just useless, the trade off is 5-10 gold+culture+science vs 15 food or production.

For me that bonus seems almost useless. If you want me to start using internal TR give them 2 production or 3 food for each culture or science point that i get from international.

That depends where in tech you are and what difficulty and if its pangea or a more watery map.
If I had 5-10 gold AND culture, sure gimme those externals, if you are ahead of your neighbours or at war with them then there is probably not many options.

 

[Grabbl]

I like the internal TR boost. With those modifiers, they become a very good option, I believe, not only when missing trade partners, but also to get the infrastructure going in secondary cities.