New Version - October 9th (10/9)

[Owlbebach]

Depend on map script. On usual continents - there are too little mountains. On Planet Simulator - that's a problem, yeah. Don't know how on other maps.

Not really. In fact if you do not have mountains - you don't take it. If you do have mountains - its OP

 

[Moi Magnus]

Not really. In fact if you do not have mountains - you don't take it. If you do have mountains - its OP

True. This pantheon is OP on some map script, and in standard map script, you only take it if you have 2 natural wonders.
Maybe changing it to a yield bonus to tiles adjacent to mountain would help ? (Don't know if it is possible). Or maybe just a flat bonus if you have a mountain in 3 cases, not scaling with the number of mountains ?

 

[Ziad]

Eat your heart out, Elizabeth

Hahaha

 

[Aldebaran1997]

Coool.

 

[tu_79]

Not really. In fact if you do not have mountains - you don't take it. If you do have mountains - its OP

But unless you are Inca, you cannot work on those mountain tiles. This might not be a problem in 1300, but it is in 1850.

 

[CrazyG]

But unless you are Inca, you cannot work on those mountain tiles. This might not be a problem in 1300, but it is in 1850.

I don't think it really matters though. A pantheon that can pull like 4 / per city early on gives you such an advantage early on. Only a handful of civs grow enough to need every single tile, and mountains can earn science without being worked via the observatory

 

[tu_79]

I don't think it really matters though. A pantheon that can pull like 4 / per city early on gives you such an advantage early on. Only a handful of civs grow enough to need every single tile, and mountains can earn science without being worked via the observatory

That's why it was limited by population, to avoid those yields to come too early. It can be increased the number of required pop, like +1 c/f every mountain in range and 3 pops. That way you need pop size 12 to get to 4 c/f.

 

[ElliotS]

Per city culture + science increase is definitely too high. Annexing over puppeting is very rarely a good idea. I'll only annex 1 in 10 or so cities for supply cap, sometimes less. Whenever I experiment and just annex everything that's in a good position (something I could see myself settling) the game falls apart as I can't produce nearly enough culture/science to make up for the massively increased costs.

If the AI is/was snowballing too hard with lower science/culture penalties per city then maybe a different solution is needed, but it makes the annex vs puppet decision and settling choices stupidly easy as a player and leads to more boring games. It never seems to make sense to settle with Pioneers for example, or even Conquistadors.

EDIT:
Also have you considered adding +1 per city to authority when Barbarians are disabled?

 

[CrazyG]

That's why it was limited by population, to avoid those yields to come too early. It can be increased the number of required pop, like +1 c/f every mountain in range and 3 pops. That way you need pop size 12 to get to 4 c/f.

The current pop limit just doesn't do much though. Maybe at 1 per 3 it would function alright

 

[black213]

Also have you considered adding +1 per city to authority when Barbarians are disabled?

I like this idea, however if Authority was to receive such an exception, shouldn't Statecraft and whatever else that becomes null with certain features missing have similar compensatory conditions?

 

[Mad Madigan]

Oof! What an update!

It's funny, because my past 9-27 version game (as Japan) had Ethiopia, Spain, Songhai, and Russia in it and their places on the overall in-game leaderboard almost directly matches with the degree of their buffs/nerfs in this patch. That is, Songhai was on another continent from me, and by the time I discovered them post-Caravels they were their continental culture leader and had bypassed neighboring Ethiopia (who had held onto their Founded religion, but were in the process of having their Holy City sieged by Askia). Spain was doing pretty decently, but as my closest neighbor and one of the Civs to Found a religion (I missed Founding by 3-4 turns ) I had to DoW to take their Holy City (which ended up NOT being their capital). Russia was my next closest neighbor and their old UA was just doing them no favors as they tried to forward-settle me for horse and iron resources. By the end of the Medieval Era warmonger Songhai was managing to produce enough culture to keep pace with me (Japan) and Brazil just through river-tile culture, so it will be interesting to see how a similar map setup would have changed things for all the Civs involved given the new patch. For example, how would Songhai fare given the same map and Civs if they had significantly less culture but more production? Would Spain have been a bigger religious power-house if it could get its religion founded slightly earlier and could purchase ships with faith to defend/re-take its cities from me? Would Russia have been less of a pushover if its increased border expansion and science generation had allowed it to get walls and other defenses researched faster?

Needless to say, I'm really excited to try the new patch and see how these balance changes work out. Every single one looks to be reasonable, and I agree that Harbors, Seaports, and Minefields buffing city health is a great boost to help 1-3 tile island cities from just getting plastered over by naval units in the mid-late game.

EDIT: I should mention I was playing on a Large Communitas map with 12 Civs/24 CSs, so myself and Spain had most of our cities located on the coast. Having a better navy at the time significantly contributed to my ability to take and hold the Spanish Holy City of Barcelona, but with Spain's immense faith output (they had Cooperation and Earth Mother with a Salt monopoly, a potential wombo-combo for explosive faith and population growth) they could have totally utilized their new UA ability to faith-buy ships and defend themselves.

 

[Moi Magnus]

But unless you are Inca, you cannot work on those mountain tiles. This might not be a problem in 1300, but it is in 1850.

If the zone has a lot of mountain, since most map script try to homogenize ressources, you will still have the same amount of ressources tiles nearby. You usually only lose 'useless' tiles. You are right that it is quite complex if you are around hills and other non-food tiles, but mountain chains near the coast (with ~2 tiles between sea and mountain) are quite common on map script that try to copy the earth geography.

I personnaly don't have a problem with the current version, since I rarely play on those maps. But I think that a "+2 Faith/Culture" (maybe +2 Culture +3 Faith ?) if have at least 2 mountain within 3 cases would be more balanced, and mostly the same on standard map scripts.

The current pop limit just doesn't do much though. Maybe at 1 per 3 it would function alright

That was the old value. But it was pretty bas outside of some map script where it was still too good. I don't think it would resolve the problem

 

[Gazebo]

Per city culture + science increase is definitely too high. Annexing over puppeting is very rarely a good idea. I'll only annex 1 in 10 or so cities for supply cap, sometimes less. Whenever I experiment and just annex everything that's in a good position (something I could see myself settling) the game falls apart as I can't produce nearly enough culture/science to make up for the massively increased costs.

If the AI is/was snowballing too hard with lower science/culture penalties per city then maybe a different solution is needed, but it makes the annex vs puppet decision and settling choices stupidly easy as a player and leads to more boring games. It never seems to make sense to settle with Pioneers for example, or even Conquistadors.

EDIT:
Also have you considered adding +1 per city to authority when Barbarians are disabled?

We'll keep an eye on expansion costs. Keep in mind that the trade off for puppets v. annexed cities is that you get to control building construction (and construct units), both of which allow you to compensate for the governor AI. The fact that expansion hurts culture and science (possibly making them science/culture negative in the end) is not necessarily a problem. Science civs should lean towards being smaller, and culture civs similarly. Diplo and conquest are more naturally oriented towards expansion.

G

 

[Deadstarre]

4 city meta for science and culture victories, got it.

hmm.. why does that sound so familiar though...? oh yeah, thats what vanilla was.

 

[Gazebo]

4 city meta for science and culture victories, got it.

hmm.. why does that sound so familiar though...? oh yeah, thats what vanilla was.

Good contribution.

G

 

[Moi Magnus]

4 city meta for science and culture victories, got it.

hmm.. why does that sound so familiar though...? oh yeah, thats what vanilla was.

Having more cities already gives you a major advantage toward science and culture victory : the possibility of preventing the other civs to win by militaritic action.
Moreover, when expanding, you are hurting other, so if it was interesting for science and culture, it would be OP.

 

[neo_arcadia]

The old Inca bug where you cannot send caravan to any owned city popped up again. Anyone else tried Inca yet?

 

[Ziad]

It's not as simple as you make it or to be.

Larger empires have better gold and faith outputs, both of which could be used to fuel science and culture victories.

 

[Y.O.]

A bit sad to see Songhai nerfed, but it was for the best. Tabaya gave you an overdrive of culture when going authority, and helped mitigate culture issues when going Progress. Productions from river is a nice consolation prize though and should help you counter any infrastructure problems cities may face while going warmonger. Wonder the price of naval units vs units bought via zealotry.

Also, this is more of a suggestion, but would it be possible for the honor policy to spawn the unique authority units, rather than regular ones?

 

[Enrico Swagolo]

Is something wrong with CS trade values? I'm sending a caravan to an ally CS (cultural, but that has no impact), and it provides me 16 (!!!) Culture and like 8 Science. Is everything all right on that front?
Besides that nice changes. I feel Sweden might've gotten too much and one of the CS bonuses should go back to their previous form, but it's a first glance impression. By the way, am I the only one who always goes Industry in renaissance?

We'll keep an eye on expansion costs. Keep in mind that the trade off for puppets v. annexed cities is that you get to control building construction (and construct units), both of which allow you to compensate for the governor AI. The fact that expansion hurts culture and science (possibly making them science/culture negative in the end) is not necessarily a problem. Science civs should lean towards being smaller, and culture civs similarly. Diplo and conquest are more naturally oriented towards expansion.

G

If diplomacy is naturally oriented towards expansion (which it is, I agree), why is it's medieval tree the most tall focused of them all? I still don't get it. I'd understand Artistry being a be-this-tall-to-ride rollercoaster, but why Statecraft?