New Version - November 17th (11/17)

[Gazebo]

Hey all,

New version inbound. Lengthy list of balance changes, and there are some good bugfixes and AI tweaks in here as well. Thanks to Stalker0 et. al. for leading the insightful discussions - I hope that the changes below reflect the outcomes/themes of those threads appropriately.

==CP==

• Adjusted AI peace proclivity a bit
• Fixed religion adoption bonus on certain city-flipping scenarios
• Adjustments to vassal VC voting logic
• Assorted bugfixes and improvements (github issues)

==CBO==

General:

• Increased base culture on GWs by 1

Pantheons:

• Festivals: now 2/2/2 (was 1/2/2)
• Springtime: now +1g/+1c from Plantations, +2f from Markets

CS Bullying:

• Increased bully area metric for calculating unit proximity by 1, and increased bonus for army ranking in world by 10
• Bullied very recently/recently now on a sliding scale based on time.

Units:

• Reduced unit faith costs across the board
• All siege units (except Hwach'a) start with promotion: -33% RCS v. Land units (gives ranged units a stronger role)
• Reduced War Elephant CS by 1
• Trireme CS now 12 (was 11)
• Increased production cost of knights and knight UUs
• Fusilier and Mehal gain anti mounted promotion (bayonets and rifles!)

Buildings:

• Removed maintenance on Council
• Bumped Watermill to 1f/p per 5 (was 1 per 4)
• Aqueduct base food now 3 (was 1), Harappan now 4 ( was 3) - gains ability '25% of production added to city's current production every time a citizen is born'
• (CSD) Chancery/Scrivener's Office/Wire Service: removed 'instant production' element - now grant flat yields based on the number of CS friends and allies you have.
  • Scrivener's Office: +1 Food per Friend, +2 Faith per Ally
  • Chancery: +1 Gold per Friend, +2 Culture per Ally
  • Wire Service: +1 Production per Friend, +2 Science per Ally
• Circus: removed 1 Happiness, but added 10 turns of WLTKD when completed (Ceilidh Hall retains +1 Happiness element) - buffed culture instant boost by 50
• Observatory: dropped mountain requirement, but added 'Scientific Revolution' policy requirement (this is a buff to Rationalism). Dropped base science to +2, but increased Mountain science to 2 per mountain.
• Zoo: removed Scientist slot and science. Now grants large sum of Tourism when completed, and forests/jungles provide +1 Tourism (was +1 Gold).
• Seaport: now 15% production boost (was 25%)
• Museum: now +5 if themed, 1c per 4 (was per 5)
• Opera House - gains +3 culture
• Broadcast Tower: now 1c per 5 (was per 4), but also increases Tourism by 1 per 5.

Wonders:

• Oracle: removed culture per turn from building
• Summer Palace - bonus promotion now grants +15 influence (was +5)
• Himeji: added free Great Scientist when built
• Hubble: lowered policy cost to 26 (Was 28)
• CERN: now two free techs (was 10k science)
• Great Firewall: All Research Labs gain +10 science

National Wonders:

• Visitor Center: now 25% Tourism boost for GW and WW/Tiles/etc. in all cities - reduced to additional 25% for city in which it is built (so 50% in city, 25% in all other cities)
• National Intelligence Agency: Foreign spies cannot cause unrest/rebellion in the city - owned spies much more likely to assassinate foreign GPs
• (CSD) Hall of Honor: now 25% production (was 15 faith), now 2 votes per capital (was 1)
• (CSD) International Finance Center: now 1 vote per 2 DOF
• Oxford: now 75 per tech (was 50)
• Hermitage: +10% Culture in City added

== No-EUI Compatibility Files ==

• Iamblichos's fixed cityview UI included

Not savegame compatible with saves from previous versions.

Link to installer: https://mega.nz/#!zNVxlYpY!v684tlvXstZysJbJs6vNjkvAx59AIJsEXV8yD9cwmIU

Online as of 10:25pm EST.

Cheers,
Gazebo

 

[Bromar1]

I really like maintenance free council. that should really help open up the early game.

But why drop happiness from circuses? That has literally saved the game for me on so many occasions.

 

[Bromar1]

Also, I'm not a big fan of the change to zoo either... Removing the science and gold makes it that much harder to deal with illiteracy and poverty on a building that is supposed to help with unhappiness. This patch is a severe nerf to a warmongers mid/late game

 

[8bitBob]

Man, that's a lot of building/wonder changes. Gonna take a while to parse exactly how impactful they are.

Excited to test the bullying changes! Hopefully I'll have a visual guide up in the strategy section soon. Thanks for another great looking patch.

 

[Zymos]

Why the nerf to Water Mills? Were rivers too strong?

Also how come Comp Bows come online through Engineering rather than something like Masonry? I find myself never using archer units at all simply by virtue of them coming online too late. By the time they come out people already have Horsemen out (15 CS) and after that the Knights (25 CS) will be around to almost 1-shot Comp Bows.

 

[Gazebo]

I really like maintenance free council. that should really help open up the early game.

But why drop happiness from circuses? That has literally saved the game for me on so many occasions.

Also, I'm not a big fan of the change to zoo either... Removing the science and gold makes it that much harder to deal with illiteracy and poverty on a building that is supposed to help with unhappiness. This patch is a severe nerf to a warmongers mid/late game

Zoo lacked focus - pushing it towards non-greatwork tourism helps players who want to work on tourism but haven't gotten a lot of great people up to this point.

Circus was overperforming in the mid-game. Policy, religion, and wonder happiness bonuses could be ignored in favor of that +1 happiness.

 

[Stalker0]

Lots of changes! These reflected a lot of the tuning threads which I'm really pleased to see. I just want to comment on a few of them.

1) Chancery/Wire Service/etc changes. While I don't yet know if the yields are balanced, I love this concept. I think it makes CS play better, especially in the early game.

2) Tourism: On the one hand, the strongest 1 city tourism plays have been nerfed (which in theory was the best way to generate tourism before, with the super tourism capital). In its place, we now get tourism a bit more steadily through the zoo and then the broadcast tower. This definitely provides more attempts at wide tourism play. Overall looks like a good change, though I think people's concerns about the loss of zoo happiness is worth looking at.

Its also possible to add some tourism to the scrivener office with your new mechanic. I love to help early tourism, and again it encourages CS play. Not saying the current yields are a bad plan, just a thought.

 

[CrazyG]

Pantheons:

• Springtime: now 2/2/2 (was 1/2/2)
• Renewal: now +1g/+1c from Plantations, +2f from Markets
  

Am I reading this correctly? I didn't a reason to totally rework renewal, it was a solid pantheon, and a saving grace for jungle starts. I've picked 2 games in a row, and both times it gave solid faith and culture generation with decent scaling. Especailly with that new Zoo mechanic Brazilian Goddess of Renewal seems like an awesome strategy

I can certainly agree with buffing springtime and I'm very happy to see some of those military changes

 

[Gazebo]

Pantheons:

• 
  
  
  • Springtime: now 2/2/2 (was 1/2/2)
  • Renewal: now +1g/+1c from Plantations, +2f from Markets

Am I reading this correctly? I didn't a reason to totally rework renewal, it was a solid pantheon, and a saving grace for jungle starts. I've picked 2 games in a row, and both times it gave solid faith and culture generation with decent scaling. Especailly with that new Zoo mechanic Brazilian Goddess of Renewal seems like an awesome strategy

I can certainly agree with buffing springtime and I'm very happy to see some of those military changes

Renewal's ability to generate a religion was one of the game's lowest (except for Indonesia). Flipping the faith to the Market allows players the ability to gain faith more reliably, and then shift over to the gold/culture bonus on plantations once they've unlocked techs to chop down forests/jungles.

 

[8bitBob]

I couldn't resist taking a quick peak at the bullying changes before going to bed, so I may as well pop back in to say that I'm very impressed. The massively increased threat range was a much more elegant solution than a clunky range indicator as it both makes it require less unit shuffling and eases the burden on new players. The exact scaling of reluctance reduction per turn seems very well thought out for the early game, allowing for 6 turn minor tributes against non militaristic/hostile CS. By my calculations, an Imperialism/Autocracy playthrough should allow for tributes every 2 turns, which seems very rewarding and still relevant in the late game. Will have to test it in a proper game though.

 

[pandasnail]

Pantheons:

• 
  
  
  • Springtime: now 2/2/2 (was 1/2/2)
  • Renewal: now +1g/+1c from Plantations, +2f from Markets

Am I reading this correctly? I didn't a reason to totally rework renewal, it was a solid pantheon, and a saving grace for jungle starts. I've picked 2 games in a row, and both times it gave solid faith and culture generation with decent scaling. Especailly with that new Zoo mechanic Brazilian Goddess of Renewal seems like an awesome strategy

I can certainly agree with buffing springtime and I'm very happy to see some of those military changes

Yeah, this is confusing. I think Gazebo really means Festivals when he says Springtime, and Springtime when he says Renewal. Otherwise its a complete rework of those pantheons.

Really intrigued by the bullying sliding scale bit.

 

[infidel88]

Pantheons:

• 
  
  
  • Springtime: now 2/2/2 (was 1/2/2)
  • Renewal: now +1g/+1c from Plantations, +2f from Markets

Also don't understand those changes. Springtime was 1f 1c plantations + 2g from markets. Now renewal (a weird swap) is 1g 1c +2f for markets, which makes founding religion with this nearly impossible, as it delays additional faith generation even more.

And now springtime is 2/2/2 of what? :/ Did someone install and can clarify?

 

[CrazyG]

Yeah, this is confusing. I think Gazebo really means Festivals when he says Springtime, and Springtime when he says Renewal. Otherwise its a complete rework of those pantheons.

Really intrigued by the bullying sliding scale bit.

This explains it, I think its just a typo in the headline.
Goddess of Renewal was +1 culture and +1 faith from every 2 forests or jungles, and science and faith from herbalists. Currently I would say its a perfect pantheon design wise.

 

[Gazebo]

Yeah, this is confusing. I think Gazebo really means Festivals when he says Springtime, and Springtime when he says Renewal. Otherwise its a complete rework of those pantheons.

Really intrigued by the bullying sliding scale bit.

Also don't understand those changes. Springtime was 1f 1c plantations + 2g from markets. Now renewal (a weird swap) is 1g 1c +2f for markets, which makes founding religion with this nearly impossible, as it delays additional faith generation even more.

And now springtime is 2/2/2 of what? :/ Did someone install and can clarify?

This explains it, I think its just a typo in the headline.
Goddess of Renewal was +1 culture and +1 faith from every 2 forests or jungles, and science and faith from herbalists. Currently I would say its a perfect pantheon design wise.

Typo in the changelog. Should be festivals and springtime.

 

[ElliotS]

I'm a fan of most of the changes, but I'm a bit confused by the watermill change.

Doesn't this basically mean the watermill is a later, more expensive well with like 1 extra base yield that also can't trigger the pantheon belief for wells?

Also with the circus change I'd like to see Zealotry give happiness based on captured cities somehow, i doubt making the units cheaper is going to be the fix needed. It's not like the AI can't already pump out a wall of units I need to butcher.

Also maybe change the +15 to city state resting point from the +1 happiness per 2 cities belief to something useful.

I'm totally in favor of making us utilize other and more tools to keep out happiness up, but some of the tools are pretty rusty from disuse.

 

[Morgawr]

Wow I'm impressed that new versions are still being released! What happened to retiring from making any more changes to this mod (which if I recall correctly was the message last month prior to Civ 6 release?)

I took a hiatus from Civ 5 & VP for the past month while playing Civ 6. I know people have discussed here at length the goods & bads in Civ 6. The biggest thing for me is that combat AI is pretty ******** in vanilla state so I am now coming back to Civ 5 VP mod until some good patches come to Civ 6.

 

[Boombar]

Gazebo, you make civ 6 look worse with every update I really like the changes

 

[tu_79]

I'm loving all the changes!!

Tribute certainly looks better, more noob friendly. The zoo line is more focused now, that was an old complain of mine I had lost hope to change. Policies requirement for scientific Wonders are lowered, while I was advocating for a complete removal, but this is in the right path. Springtime finally is useful. Siege units are more niche, thus leaving more room for archers (though I still think their promotions are weird), but you forgot to restore their base strenght. I love the change to chanceries, their bonus was always a 'meh' to me, and now it seems outstanding for a diplo player. More culture for GW hopefully leads to more GW created, and more chances to steal them. There are so many tweaks put together that it feels like a new game.

A note on Chanceries. The numbers looks like they're going to be massive. A 5 cities small empire with just 4 allies may yield extra 20 food and 40 faith per turn, provided it builds a chancery in each city. This is game changing, a strong reason to seek alliances early.

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

I like all the changes except for the two below.

If no ninja changes exist, I think Watermill is heavily overnerfed. It's just +1 base yields (nothing worthwhile by classical, which is where it comes), costs way, way more Production than the Well, is an era later and does not trigger a pantheon. Too harsh. It's actually way worse than the Well now if you think about it, and I doubt Aztecs needed to be even more top tier than they already are as Food/Production they get will be even more ridiculous in comparison to the thing it replaces (provided no ninja changes to that building). Watermill should go to the Wheel technology and get a reduced cost (about 5-10% more than Well) if it's to remain as it is, with Aztecs getting their UB tuned down.

I really though it was ok before, with one being clearly better but coming way later. Sure, Well is worse, but Mill IS an era later (so it helps you out later and its benefits are with you for a shorter time) and costs almost twice as much production, so where was the problem? It costs way more, so it should be better.

It gave a total of mighty +2F +2P (incl. base yields difference) compared to Well by 20 pop while costing nearly twice as much and coming much later, meaning it'd get to high pop slightly later (Well has been operating for an era), mitigating most of its advantage. It should go back to its old self.
By the time you're at 20 pop in any city, you're in medieval at least (unless Aztec/India), and likely renaissance if you went Authority without something food heavy in UB/UI, and an incredible difference of 2 yields just doesn't matter by then. I'm going to go into sql and remove this change because it makes no sense.


Circus/Zoo seem weird? I don't know if I will be building those, but I will try the new ones out. The previous ones seemed... unfocused. I doubt Circus will be strong though.

 

[tu_79]

I like all the changes except for the two below.

If no ninja changes exist, I think Watermill is heavily overnerfed. It's just +1 base yields (nothing worthwhile by classical, which is where it comes), costs way, way more Production than the Well, is an era later and does not trigger a pantheon. Too harsh. It's actually way worse than the Well now if you think about it, and I doubt Aztecs needed to be even more top tier than they already are as Food/Production they get will be even more ridiculous in comparison to the thing it replaces (provided no ninja changes to that building). Watermill should go to the Wheel technology and get a reduced cost (about 5-10% more than Well) if it's to remain as it is, with Aztecs getting their UB tuned down.
I really though it was ok before, with one being clearly better but coming way later. Sure, Well is worse, but Mill IS an era later and costs almost twice as much production, so where was the problem? It gave a total of +2F +2P (incl. base yields difference) compared to Well by 20 pop while costing nearly twice as much and coming much later, meaning it'd get to high pop slightly later (Well has been operating for an era), mitigating most of its advantage. It should go back to its old self. By the time you're at 20 pop, you're in medieval at least, and renaissance if you went Authority without something food heavy. I'm going to xml this change away because it makes no sense.


Circus/Zoo seem weird? I don't know if I will be building those, but I will try the new ones out. The previous ones seemed... unfocused. I doubt Circus will be strong though.

Settling on rivers also allows for gardens and, later, a hydroplant. Making wells better is a way to balance river vs. non-river locations.