New Version - May 2nd (5/2)

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

New version inbound, with a little bit of everything included. Here's the changelog:

Balance:

• Tradition Reworked, focus on 'Palace Extensions' as a form of Tradition. Bonuses a bit more capital-centric, but also a bit stronger and more flavored overall.

• Authority: +1 Culture in every City. Royal Guardhouse constructed in Capital.
• Royal Guard: Grants an Engineer specialist in your Capital, and boosts Defense and Hit Points in the City. Can only be constructed via the Authority Policy.
• Sovereignty: +1 Gold in every City. Royal Treasury constructed in Capital.
• Royal Treasury: +2 Gold. Allows for a Merchant specialist in your Capital. Reduces the amount of Culture and Gold needed to acquire Tiles by 15%. Can only be constructed via the Sovereignty Policy.
• Majesty: Golden Ages last 25% longer. Throne Room constructed in Capital.
• Throne Room: +2 Culture. Grants a free Writer Specialist in your Capital. Has a slot for a Great Work of Writing, and boosts Culture in your Capital by 15%. Can only be constructed via the Majesty Policy.
• Splendor: +2 Food in every City. Palace Garden constructed in Capital.
• Palace Garden. +2 Food. Grants an Artist specialist in your Capital. Boosts the Culture output of Gardens by +2 and Monuments by +1 in all Cities. Can only be constructed via the Splendor Policy.
• Devotion: +25% Great People Rate in all Cities. Court Chapel constructed in Capital.
• Court Chapel: +2 Faith. Allows for a Musician specialist in your Capital. Has a slot for a Great Work of Music. Can only be constructed via the Devotion Policy.

• Norwegian Ski Infantry now uses Infantry model, is called Guerilla Fighter, and gains promotions that give it a bonus when flanking, when fighting wounded units, allows it to ignore terrain and zoc, and a boost to healing speed in friendly territory. A good unit, though slightly weaker innately than infantry.
  
• Washington (America) UB now Museum of Modern Art (instead of Resort) - replaces Hermitage, available at Archaeology.

• Unique American replacement for the Hermitage. A city must have a Museum before it can construct the Museum of Modern Art. Requires a national population of at least 65 before it can be constructed. +25% Culture in the City, and 50% of the Culture from Great Works, World Wonders, Natural Wonders, and Improvements (Landmarks, Moai, Chateau) is added to the Tourism output of the city. Boosts Culture output of Museums in all Cities by +5. Contains 3 Slots for Great Works of Art or Artifacts.

• Odeon (Greek UB) Grants +5 Culture to the City when you destroy an enemy unit.
• Floating Garden (Aztec UB) Now also grants +1 Food on all River tiles.
• War Elephant now requires a Barracks instead of a Stable.
• Naga-Malla buffed a bit, given 'feared elephant' promotion.
• Ottoman, Dutch, and Moroccan UAs now scale with Era.
• Note: New artwork for buildings/units above borrowed from JanBoruta's and Kwadjh's excellent collections.
  
• Great Leap Forward (Order) now grants 2 Free Techs (was 1).
• New World Order (Autocracy) - Yields from Police Station/Constabulary bumped to +3 Culture/+5 Production
• Military-Industrial Complex (Autocracy) - +1 Science now +3 Science
• Third Alternative (Autocracy)- now grants +15 to all yields in capital (instead of just food and science)
• Untied Front (Autocracy) - 200% military unit gifting from CSs (was 100%)
• Entrepreneurship (Industry) - Lumbermills also gain +1 Gold/Production.
• Exploitation (Imperialism) - Farms/Plantations gain +1 Food instead of +1 Gold.
• Village moved to Currency, +1 Gold from Fresh Water from Villages moved to Printing Press
• Lumbermill and Brazilwood Camp moved to Machinery (Forests given +1 innate production buff to compensate early on)
• Lumbermills can now be built on Jungles as well as Forests.
• Features rebalanced slightly to give them more variety in yields, and to further differentiate them from each other.

Bugfixes:

• AI now very unlikely to send settlers out unescorted (AI cheats a bit here - it can see enemy units/camps in the search area even if not revealed to evaluate whether or not it needs an escort).
• Fixed UI-related bug regarding erroneous diplo modifiers.
• Religion UI popup now shows full description of religious beliefs (instead of ellipses cutting off 50% of belief descriptions)
• Fixed AI not healing properly when fortified (rare bug)
• Reversed debug edits in City happiness file that kept buildings from granting Global Average reduction bonuses! Whoops.
• Fixed some bugs related to barbarian hunting for the AI.
• Fixed happiness values being able to go negative for minority pops, starvation, pillaging, and disconnection
• Fixed bug that duplicated the effect of buildings granted via policies if the building existed in the city before getting the free one
• Porcelain Tower now grants Korean UA bonus.
• Miscellaneous text and SQL/XML fixes.

Changes:

• Improved settlement logic regarding empty continents and islands.
• Civilian units no longer count towards your supply cap (as they aren't 'supplied' like your military anyways).
• Blockaded Cities (naval blockades) are now given the same penalty as 'sapped' cities (with Sapper units). This makes naval blockades useful and, critically, makes melee naval units even stronger when taking cities if they control the coastline.
• Non-NW tile Features (forests, jungles, etc.) no longer replace yields on a tile - are now always additive.
• Trade Deals now last for 40/60/80/120 turns (Quick/Standard/Epic/Marathon)- this makes trading away strategic and luxury resources a bit more of a gamble.
• AI will no longer sue for peace, or even consider peace, if they've just lost a city to the player they are warring against, or conquered a city owned by the player they are warring against. This cooldown period lasts for 4 turns + their Boldness value, so it is variable.
• Military Training now called 'Military Theory' (tech tree) - makes more sense as a tie-in to being a requirement for Writing.
• No longer required to select production for razing cities (needs testing).
• Improved AI army size and economy-management logic with regards to over-production of units and improper unit varieties, especially at sea.
• Adjusted Defensive Pact values a bit to make the AI a little more rational and shrewd.
• Unemployed citizens now generate 1/4 of the unhappiness of standard specialists (was 1/2).
• Resistance/Razing cities produce 50% citizen unhappiness (was 25%).
• Adjustments to CSD Diplomacy flavors and barbarian quest spawn randomness (former increased, latter decreased).
• AI will no longer desire a co-op war with a player against a 3rd party if the player cannot declare war on the third party.
• AI will no longer accept third-party war deals if they are marching a sneak attack army onto your cities - this means you can't 'bribe' the AI off of you if they want to destroy you.
• AI Military logic regarding naval attacks and proper combat behavior/formation optimized further.
• Made some adjustments to AI specialist logic (should avoid default specialists a bit more)
• Optimization of AI flavors regarding naval units, war states and war generally - AI less likely to build fluff/infrastructure when at war.
• Improved trade logic for AI regarding trade diversity and/or targeting of CSs (i.e. Moroccan and German UAs)

New version online as of 1:30am, EST on May 2nd. Have fun!
G

 

[Damirith]

Nice job on the patch Cant wait to try out the new Tradition

So how well does the Ottoman, Dutch, and Moroccan UAs scale as you change eras?

 

[Natura]

Unique American replacement for the Hermitage. A city must have a Museum before it can construct the Museum of Modern Art. Requires a national population of at least 65 before it can be constructed. +25% Culture in the City, and 50% of the Culture from Great Works, World Wonders, Natural Wonders, and Improvements (Landmarks, Moai, Chateau) is added to the Tourism output of the city. Boosts Culture output of Museums in all Cities by +5. Contains 3 Slots for Great Works of Art or Artifacts.

I find it deliciously amusing that this will encourage America to choose Order for the free museums

Looks like some great changes in there. I'll have to actually check out Tradition more now; my default tree is Might, but Tradition looks a little friendlier towards Wide play than it was before. The +1 culture for Monuments especially has me interested. The Court Chapel though seems weaker than the others since it only affects the Capital, and it's only +2 faith even then. Still, I guess it's the only way to get a Great Work of Music prior to Acoustics (except for playing Maya).

Also thanks for changing Ski Infantry! The replacement looks like a lot of fun to try out, and much for flavourful for order. The Revolution comes!

 

[Finarvi]

Great! Especially unhappiness and fake diplo modifiers fixes. It feels like it's finally a stable and well-polished version!

And thanks for changes to war AI, it should make war with AI harder and more realistic (now I will start to look for another exploit I can use... )

I also like trade changes. It should make trading slightly more considered and significant (and save some time spent on trades). Lumbermill changes are welcome too

 

[alper123]

Thank you very much

 

[joosegoose25]

Wow, a lot more changes than I was expecting to see. Fantastic work.

Not sure how I feel about the new Tradition, but I'll have to withhold actual feedback until I play a game. I don't like the idea of additional GWAM specialists from a starter tree, but I can't definitively say more without having played.

I really like the changes to war exploits, with one caveat.

AI will no longer sue for peace, or even consider peace, if they've just lost a city to the player they are warring against, or conquered a city owned by the player they are warring against. This cooldown period lasts for 4 turns + their Boldness value, so it is variable.

I get this, it prevents the player from taking a city and getting a peace deal before the AI has a chance to retake it. Inversely, it also prevents the player from negotiating peace when the AI is steamrolling. I can't help but feel like this is a poor way to do this, though.

The cooldown period feels a little arbitrary, for starters (for example, does it scale with game speed?). Also, if a civ is willing to pay for (or accept payment for) peace, why should the events of the past couple terms automatically lock them out of doing so? I would much rather see the elimination of white peace. For example, if an AI wants me to give up a city in exchange for peace, I have to meet their demands and can't just agree to an empty peace treaty. This would prevent the player from getting peace when the AI clearly still wants to attack with the upper hand.

Now, if this is not possible to do with the hand the code has dealt you, then disregard. If it could be implemented though, I think it would feel much more organic than a cooldown period.

Regardless, I'm really looking forward to getting some time to play with this version.

 

[Finarvi]

Now I see... why is AI unlikely to sign peace after it conquered city? The only way I see is to prevent human players from AI exploits Really, I was suggesting opposite thing: that AI is MORE likely to sign peace after conquer. AI should still wage war if it has strong millitary but if everything says that AI should sign peace then the best moment is after conquer.

Although it's not that bad as long as attacking AI is very strong.

 

[Funak]

Wow, a lot more changes than I was expecting to see. Fantastic work.

Not sure how I feel about the new Tradition, but I'll have to withhold actual feedback until I play a game. I don't like the idea of additional GWAM specialists from a starter tree, but I can't definitively say more without having played.

I really like the changes to war exploits, with one caveat.



I get this, it prevents the player from taking a city and getting a peace deal before the AI has a chance to retake it. Inversely, it also prevents the player from negotiating peace when the AI is steamrolling. I can't help but feel like this is a poor way to do this, though.

The cooldown period feels a little arbitrary, for starters (for example, does it scale with game speed?). Also, if a civ is willing to pay for (or accept payment for) peace, why should the events of the past couple terms automatically lock them out of doing so? I would much rather see the elimination of white peace. For example, if an AI wants me to give up a city in exchange for peace, I have to meet their demands and can't just agree to an empty peace treaty. This would prevent the player from getting peace when the AI clearly still wants to attack with the upper hand.

Now, if this is not possible to do with the hand the code has dealt you, then disregard. If it could be implemented though, I think it would feel much more organic than a cooldown period.

Regardless, I'm really looking forward to getting some time to play with this version.

Now I see... why is AI unlikely to sign peace after it conquered city? The only way I see is to prevent human players from AI exploits Really, I was suggesting opposite thing: that AI is MORE likely to sign peace after conquer. AI should still wage war if it has strong millitary but if everything says that AI should sign peace then the best moment is after conquer.

Although it's not that bad as long as attacking AI is very strong.

I really don't understand that part either, historically you're way more likely to ask for peace after you just lost a huge battle, and losing a city is pretty much a huge battle.

 

[WileyNg]

Odeon (Greek UB) Grants +5 Culture to the City when you destroy an enemy unit.

Which city? the closest city? All cities?

 

[Natura]

I really don't understand that part either, historically you're way more likely to ask for peace after you just lost a huge battle, and losing a city is pretty much a huge battle.

While absolutely true, historically most leaders wouldn't consider suing for peace when they have a huge army parked next door to said city. And that's where the change comes in I believe; you could take a major city over and immediately sign a peace treaty even when the AI had large numbers of troops in the area that could take the city back as soon as you hit End Turn. The AI would sign it because (well, I'm assuming here, I'm no coder) their score had just dropped significantly, indicating to their algorithm that the war was going badly, so they should accept peace.

 

[Gazebo]

While absolutely true, historically most leaders wouldn't consider suing for peace when they have a huge army parked next door to said city. And that's where the change comes in I believe; you could take a major city over and immediately sign a peace treaty even when the AI had large numbers of troops in the area that could take the city back as soon as you hit End Turn. The AI would sign it because (well, I'm assuming here, I'm no coder) their score had just dropped significantly, indicating to their algorithm that the war was going badly, so they should accept peace.

Right. This is an AI exploit fix, not a realism change.

G

 

[Damirith]

Trade Deals now last for 40/60/80/120 turns (Quick/Standard/Epic/Marathon)- this makes trading away strategic and luxury resources a bit more of a gamble.

I am not sure I like this. A lot can happen in 60 turns let alone 30 on Standard. No one can see 30 turns into the future of a game to know exactly if the trade they are making is going to screw them over in the end or not unless they are sitting on a lot of happiness.

On a standard game, you can now only ever trade an item away about 8 times (500/60=8.3) and 8 trades per item over 6050 years doesn't make sense (not that only 16 did either ). And this limit of 8 times only happens if you are starting to make your trades with all of the items you could ever trade away within the first hand full of turns in the game. So its really more like 7-5 trades per item for a whole game. You get uranium and trade it away, you might as well plan on never getting it back. So now no one will trade uranium.

This change also can screw over the Dutch's UA and it works against the focus of CSD by making it harder to complete the CS quests for luxury items.

 

[Gazebo]

I am not sure I like this. A lot can happen in 60 turns let alone 30 on Standard. No one can see 30 turns into the future of a game to know exactly if the trade they are making is going to screw them over in the end or not unless they are sitting on a lot of happiness.

On a standard game, you can now only ever trade an item away about 8 times (500/60=8.3) and 8 trades per item over 6050 years doesn't make sense (not that only 16 did either ). And this limit of 8 times only happens if you are starting to make your trades with all of the items you could ever trade away within the first hand full of turns in the game. So its really more like 7-5 trades per item for a whole game. You get uranium and trade it away, you might as well plan on never getting it back. So now no one will trade uranium.

This change also can screw over the Dutch's UA and it works against the focus of CSD by making it harder to complete the CS quests for luxury items.

It should be a big consideration. If trade in civ is an abstraction of interaction with another civ, then it should be potentially game-altering.

 

[Damirith]

Trades are always game-altering and should be handled with much consideration.

Happiness drives the game and your luxury trades makes the difference whether you get out of your rut of unhappiness, which means more gold/culture/science per turn, which means you were able to get a tech in time, which means you have a good shot at grabbing a wonder. Still unhappy? Well then now you cant afford more units to defend yourself so now the Civs start focusing on killing you, you dont get that social policy in time to get a foothold in the game, you fall behind on science so your military isnt as strong (again, the Civs want to kill you for being weak), and you also just lost that wonder you wanted to another Civ so the victory type you are aiming for is now harder to achieve.

Even if you think it's a harmless trade for Copper for Jade, sure you might be a bit happier and will get more money for your trades due to diversity, but then you just helped a Civ complete a CS quest, now they have a stronger hold over the CS and they get to keep that extra vote that allows them to fail your WC proposal. That is game-altering.

Same thing goes for non-luxury items. Lost your iron? Well then no more healing or building of artillery or ironclads for the next 30 turns, again game-altering.

I just thing that all trades are already game altering. In late game they kinda can become not as important if you have already knocked out another Civ and control half a continent or are sitting on 30+ happiness. However, I dont think that going from a 30 turn deal to a 60 turn deal is the answer and it makes all trades more difficult to manage properly.

 

[qqqbbb]

CP version on github is not latest?

 

[Anastase Alex]

I wrote about it in the bugs part of the forum but I might be very wrong:
are the yields correct right now? Grassland hills forest has a yield of 2 food 2 production!
Lakes have 3 food 1 gold 1 production!
Jungles have 2 food 1 gold!
Is that intended?

 

[joosegoose25]

While absolutely true, historically most leaders wouldn't consider suing for peace when they have a huge army parked next door to said city. And that's where the change comes in I believe; you could take a major city over and immediately sign a peace treaty even when the AI had large numbers of troops in the area that could take the city back as soon as you hit End Turn. The AI would sign it because (well, I'm assuming here, I'm no coder) their score had just dropped significantly, indicating to their algorithm that the war was going badly, so they should accept peace.

I get that this is why the implementation is the way it is. I know I would never accept peace when I'm about to retake my city back, so why would anybody else?

However, and someone please correct me if this is not what they've observed, from my experience in these situations where an AI with a large army loses a city, they are generally not willing to pay for peace at that time. Losing the city usually means they will now talk about peace (which in Civ 5 means you can always get white peace), but they usually still want the other civ to pay them until you conquer a bit more or manage to hold the city.

Also, when the AI has the upper hand on the offensive, it's also absolutely an exploit for the player to take a peace deal when the AI doesn't really want them. However, if white peace were not an option and the player had to give up the 3 cities that are being demanded, a peace deal could make sense for both parties and would not be an exploit.

I ask again, is the elimination of white peace not possible? It's something that's always bothered me in Civ 5, never having to actually pay for peace whereas you can make the AI do so.

 

[Gazebo]

The yields are correct Alex, yes. I shuffled around yields elsewhere to compensate for the changes. And joosegoose, the code is as it is now because of how peace deals are considered for the AI. White Peace has to exist as it is the Boolean value that makes peace possible at all. This exploit helps with that somewhat.

G

 

[joosegoose25]

The yields are correct Alex, yes. I shuffled around yields elsewhere to compensate for the changes. And joosegoose, the code is as it is now because of how peace deals are considered for the AI. White Peace has to exist as it is the Boolean value that makes peace possible at all. This exploit helps with that somewhat.

G

Ah, thanks for clearing it up. I feared that, but was going to hope until I knew for sure.

It's interesting the way Firaxis set up some of the mechanics for 5. I'm pretty sure there were times in the previous games where an AI would only accept peace if you paid them. It's frustrating they made it where there's no reason to ever pay for peace, the implementation arguably looks like a bug to the untrained eye.

 

[zer0lis]

Im not sure about the extra yields from tiles, it could lead to severe unbalances...
Personally I never found Tradition to be bad since the last buff (from 1g/culture/city from 6 pop to 4 pop), but the changes look interesting and fun!
However, in all my games, I never chose Liberty as i find it unfit for early game or simply a bad tree(maybe it does not fit with the settings im playing civ)
Anyway, needs testing Thanks for the update!