New video on the late game

[NombreyApellido]

zhou are a strong proposition even without mountains since the school allows you to exploit terrain science features during Ancient like the babylonian astronomy house. this is particularly powerful when you have say black soil, terra rossa and copper that can all be "connected" with the placement of a school for a +6 research in the very early game

if disband units to the city is still available, combined with population buyout is a great way to get

-important builds instantly (first holy site, first wonder)
-use the runoff to complete emblematic districts and key infrastructure such as barns, forges, fisheries
-have the city maxed at population to take advantage of your legacy trait if one was chosen
-recycle your scouts into far more powerful units such as spears and chariots

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"specialist" citizens are only fine tuning IMO: it doesn't make sense to have workers when your're Egypt but temporarily setting some up may allow you to cut a turn from a build

the bulk of your generated FIMS comes from the footprint. then, well placed districts. these should be built in the least numbers that makes economic sense to prevent falling into stability issues

specialist can be buffed quite a bunch by luxury resources such as marble, lead and oysters


it's a good strategy to try to reach the population cap without having farmers by Classical and to place commons quarters on top of older districts to take advantage of higher adjacency bonuses

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Just to add, building Infrastructure doesn't get you any Expansionist Stars the way building Districts does, but the cumulative effect of Infrastructure is very powerful over time: it can increase the Points per District/Quarter dramatically, and later in the game, using the 'jump start' systems for building Cities (Colony Plan, Colony Blueprint, etc) you can start a city with some really impressive gains/District 'automatically' installed.

 

[Siptah]

"specialist" citizens are only fine tuning IMO: it doesn't make sense to have workers when your're Egypt but temporarily setting some up may allow you to cut a turn from a build

When you can assign a worker or even workers to science, it starts to make a huge difference though - especially when you are not Babylon or Zhou, and/or don't have access to the science luxuries that speed up early science so nicely. And the flexibility that comes with the system is very fun to play around with.

the bulk of your generated FIMS comes from the footprint. then, well placed districts. these should be built in the least numbers that makes economic sense to prevent falling into stability issues

Stability is rarely a real issue tough, after you got used to it (2-3 games). And, as @Boris Gudenuf said, districts bring fame - and they just get better and better throughout the game. I don't see what you mean with footprint - city centers and administrative centers? Those can only produce food and industry though, and while the amount you get from that is crucial in the beginning, it gets less and less important with more districts and population.

 

[NombreyApellido]

footprint in the sense all area covered with your city including tiles for extractors and harbors

check the main plaza tile. does it provide only food and industry? or does it bring influence, money and science too? in this last bit it true, then all of which can be buffed though civics points that you unlock being stable (settled) enough

 

[NombreyApellido]

also, shouldn't "builder" stars be the ones unlocked with districts? expansionist were those related to attached territories

bulding districts for the sake of building can lead to an instability spiral hard to recover if procession isn't available or was nerfed even more

 

[Siptah]

footprint in the sense all area covered with your city including tiles for extractors and harbors

check the main plaza tile. does it provide only food and industry? or does it bring influence, money and science too? in this last bit it true, then all of which can be buffed though civics that you unlock being stable (settled) enough

The main plaza brings a base income of these other yields, but it can't extract them from territory, that's what I've meant. But I see what you mean: all things that can be "built" placed with influence are your "footprint." I don't agree though that's that the main FIMS generator for very long though. At latest in the medieval era, this footprint (comprised of several tiles) can easily be surpassed by a few districts (30- 50+ yields per district is not uncommon at that time of the game, and in the late game 100-200+ per district is not rare). So I think its not wise to recommend deprioritizing districts or population.

bulding districts for the sake of building can lead to an instability spiral hard to recover if procesion (?) isn't available or was nerfed even more

Never used procession in the last months. Stability isn't that hard to manage. Trade, and later manufactures, help a lot. But I usually only have 3-4 territories per city. I'd rather go over the city cap, which is currently not heavily punished.

 

[Victoria]

the bulk of your generated FIMS comes from the footprint. then, well placed districts. these should be built in the least numbers that makes economic sense to prevent falling into stability issues

I played an Egypt game with a build from last week. I was one-turning districts but also lots of infrastructure buildings. It worked really well, at times I could see stability issues coming so swapped and pushed stability builds. It worked just fine. Lots of districts, but the key is lots of complementary unique districts. The value of the specialists is high at the beginning but low at the end but you have 40+ pops and there is quite a few pop modifiers also. So while the slots themselves at 6 are not superb, it’s a lot more complicated including your legacy traits, religion, and civics and culture bars.
So rather that building lots of districts you want to build your UD in each zone of a city, as well as everything else you are wanting to do, too many districts and not enough infrastructure. There is too much infra to build so it feels like at the infra level you want some uniqueness in each city.
Other things feel bad in the game but this area I liked.

 

[NombreyApellido]

emblematic districts were high priority to me

i may have build 2 farms at most during a most of my runs, one on Capital then one on 2nd city during ancient times. the rest of the food comes from barns and their piling bonus for each horse, well placed harbors, hamlets and wonders. later techs make food numbers so high and the cap is so low there's no benefit of having astronomical surplus unless something changed back to say the Lucy stability bonus plus

markets only in high yield tiles, in betwen two or more luxuries or right next to harbor/cothons combos; otherwise money comes from religion and trade for me. i don't go for vassals. they have the nasty habit of taking exploration deeds away from you if not patched already

i take most of science from terrain features, usually a couple of research quarters with an emblematic for adjacency/synergy. craters, caves, hot springs... i build around those and try to connect them, sometimes moving the outpost after detaching/reattaching. this may look rather weak, but they escalate well with infrastructure and i get to beeline to helpful techs

also, civics and ideology for science bonuses are a must IMO. i aim to keep my society settled most of the time activating civics in pairs to neutralize the instability they may bring

 

[Siptah]

Be prepared to be surprised and change your strategies @NombreyApellido as a lot of things have changed even since the last open dev

 

[NombreyApellido]

stability no longer being a challenge intrigues me. but not in a good way. i enjoyed a lot the puzzle of efficiency the last beta put forward

 

[Siptah]

stability no longer being a challenge intrigues me. but not in a good way.

I've wondered if it was made easier for launch and will get harder with a patch in a few weeks, after people have adapted to the game a bit. Just speculation on my parts though, I don't have any information in that regard.

 

[Anno]

I think it’s just a very tricky thing to get into the goldilocks zone. The thread for stability on the official forums for the closed beta had a bunch of people saying they had to pay a lot of attention to it but also that they felt overly constricted. Ideally you’d probably want the first part and not the second.

 

[NombreyApellido]

perhaps the stability values for difficulty level changed a bit.... humankind level in poe closed beta felt like a good compromise between challeging and punishing in that regard. but i saw lots of people try to brute force their way out of instability through spawning garrisons, something that is a hard no for me

victor procession masked everything making lucy feel harder in comparisson

anyway, even if stable i don't feel building generic bunched up quarters makes for an insteresting proposition. that's how the very basic AI does it and aside from some impressive numbers it feels like a waste to me

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Stability, at least in the last Builds before Launch (last month or so), is a problem in the early game and can be a problem later if you don't pay attention.

Like, every Luxury Resource gives you Stability. But if you are getting most of your Luxuries through Trade Routes, and then your main trading partner gets mad at you and rescinds on your Trade Treaty, you can suddenly find all your Cities with Stability labeled "100 going to 24" and you have to scramble to keep the Stability up. On the other hand, by Medieval Age and later there are lots of Stability infrastructures and Quarters that can give you Stability, whereas they are few and far between early in the game, so if you like to explode early, you have to rely on Luxuries to keep your cities growing. Just remember to start building some Commons Quarters or Aqueducts/Fountains and other "Stability Structures" before, say, you decide to declare war on a Faction who has been trading with you - Instant Luxury and Stability cut off!

 

[NombreyApellido]

Stability, at least in the last Builds before Launch (last month or so), is a problem in the early game and can be a problem later if you don't pay attention.

Like, every Luxury Resource gives you Stability. But if you are getting most of your Luxuries through Trade Routes, and then your main trading partner gets mad at you and rescinds on your Trade Treaty, you can suddenly find all your Cities with Stability labeled "100 going to 24" and you have to scramble to keep the Stability up. On the other hand, by Medieval Age and later there are lots of Stability infrastructures and Quarters that can give you Stability, whereas they are few and far between early in the game, so if you like to explode early, you have to rely on Luxuries to keep your cities growing. Just remember to start building some Commons Quarters or Aqueducts/Fountains and other "Stability Structures" before, say, you decide to declare war on a Faction who has been trading with you - Instant Luxury and Stability cut off!

i just finished my first run in max difficulty level and i have to agree, soon after the beginning STAB was a non issue

i don't appreciate the dumbing down of gameplay mechanics, i guess the whinge was strong after closed beta

still, i kept building but the least amount of generic quaters and had no trouble in getting all 3 builder stars in every era. so no strategic change in that regard for me, @Siptah

 

[Taefin]

Just finished my first game on highest difficulty. I got second place and the ending score was 12k to 15k. Played Babylon > Greece > Khmer > Dutch > France > Japan.

Game ended due to “pollution” at T218 while the leading AI player was still running around with line infantry. Apparently if pollution hits a certain level you get a notice “oh by the way, this game you’ve been playing for the last 36 hours? Well it’s going to end after the current turn”. Needless to say, that was unsatisfying.

What I don’t understand, and I cannot imagine this stays a part of the game for more than a month, is why the game is built around a threshold of “now the world is uninhabitable, game over”, let alone how low that threshold is. If it is so important to include pollution at release, why not make it lead to gradual and escalating effects? For instance, it could reduce food yields or turn tiles to arid/desert. Even putting credibility aside, it just isn’t even a functional game mechanic that one player running away from the pack forces the game to an early end (and wins because there is no fame penalty for killing us all).

At least I got to explore some industrial/early contemporary combat, even if it all took place inside of cities (my rival’s empire was largely just wall to wall cities). Most of the time we were behind the walls of our respective cities (which coincided with each other so the mutual wall gave us equal protection) while my artillery chipped in allowing me to deal damage faster. It is fun and functional enough, but I want to see it outside of cities.

Overall, I’d say Ancient thru Early Modern feel good, like a mostly improved version of beta (though forced labor is absurd now). I picked up all techs an era early playing Babylon then Greece (skipped Greek EQ since I was busy with a brutal war of religion, there went my influence!), then dove fully into production as Khmer since I only had a few medieval techs left. It’s nice that builders can turn science into production in this circumstance, though I’m not sure what other archetypes do if they run out of things to research. Dutch EQ helped me finally produce enough gold to pay unit maintenance. After this, France let me catch back up on tech and I began nearing technical parity with the lead AI.

Wars this game were mostly Classical/Medieval and the AI tactics seemed pretty good, not marching into death traps, fielding enough units to actually create a challenge (I had ~12 to their ~20), pressing forward when I was weaker, pulling back when they were, fielding an army in front of their city (which is a bit broken since it lets the defender leverage their city walls even though a defeat doesn’t lose the city). And despite any flaws, fighting the AI felt lively and competitive. One AI (the winner I assume) even conquered another AI early on.

At this point the game would have been awesome if the AI kept pressing forward, but for whatever reason they stopped getting more advanced units. I took Japan for contemporary, since the massive science and production boost looked so good, and I wanted an early EU (the mono wing fighter). However, the huge boost in science, ending >12k/turn absolutely broke the end game, with techs flying by way too fast. Admittedly with only 2k gold/turn it was difficulty to keep my units upgraded, but I still manage to field the game’s only tank and infantry. Most of the AI had coal long before I did, but seem to not grabbed concurrent military techs, or not built units.

Also, I saw in the endgame report that the winning AI had ~70 units, compared to my ~45, but I only saw three 8-unit armies on land, and two 8-unit navies (ironclads and paddleboats, one on each side of the map). This let me quickly pick off each wave they sent at me, and quickly conquer three cities with minimal resistance, ending the war. At this point in the game, I’d think the winning AI should be fielding an army at least twice that’s size, and they should have the rail system to instantly defend anywhere on their continent. Also, once the map is covered in cities, it is a bit absurd that 2-3 occupied cities forces the war to an end so quickly. There needs to be some time for the defender to collect their forces and push the aggressor back, especially since the aggressor can target their entire force, while a defending force will necessarily be more diffuse. Naval warfare is also pretty broken, since the player who triggers the battle gets to unleash their entire barrage before the defender can counterattack. In early game on land, when most units are melee, this is less of an issue, but the simultaneous turns really break down on the open ocean.

Both of these issues mean I probably won’t play again until at least the pollution issue is fixed. Is this not something that others are running into?

 

[Siptah]

@Taefin I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about the testing before release but I guess it is save to disclose that pollution got changed a few times. I agree that it is not quite there yet.

I also agree on the problem of the starter in naval battles. I think it's worse in the earlier game when there are boarding vessels compared to the late game tbh. Later on, stealth ships and supporting your ships from land/with air can diminish the attacker's advantage.

 

[mitsho]

What I don’t understand, and I cannot imagine this stays a part of the game for more than a month, is why the game is built around a threshold of “now the world is uninhabitable, game over”, let alone how low that threshold is. If it is so important to include pollution at release, why not make it lead to gradual and escalating effects? For instance, it could reduce food yields or turn tiles to arid/desert. Even putting credibility aside, it just isn’t even a functional game mechanic that one player running away from the pack forces the game to an early end (and wins because there is no fame penalty for killing us all).

The same thing happened to me too, though for me it was the Japanese that polluted the whole world. Yeah, I'd be fine with it ending that way (you can play on, right?) if it disqualifies a player that is responsible for 2/3 of the pollution.

What that showed me though is that the game mostly needs better messages. The pollution kinda vanished in the sea of messages, and since I was behind in tech and military might, there was nothing I could really do against it.

So yeah, the promise made in that video, failed for me so far. There needs to be a better catch-up mechanic. But they have time yet.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Pollution is a B***h. The concept was, apparently, always in the game design, but was not implemented until after the last Open Dev, in literally in the last months before Release. The first Builds with it given to the Beta Testers were absolutely Ghastly: you could barely build anything in the Modern/Contemporary Age without blanketing the map in a wretched gray fog that ruined all those gorgeous graphics - the game cutting off it's own face to make a point.

So as bad as it is, it's not as bad, but still, IMHO, has a long way to go. It is manageable now, if you are the front running Major Polluter, because there are Renewable Energy, Hydroelectric Infrastructures that reduce Pollution, planting Trees (which is dirt cheap) reduces Pollution, so you can offset a lot of it - IF you know what you are doing, which unfortunately in their early games most folks won't - it's not well-presented or documented anywhere.

And, at the moment, if there are a bunch of Factions running neck-and-neck Technologically, and therefore all contributing major Pollution (a bunch of Train Stations and Airports all by themselves are enough to push the World to Ruin) there is not much you can do to slow it down enough to finish the game any other way. You can bet that's being investigated already, because of the comments here and in other Forums.

The only positive note in the current Pollution Problem is that if you are the front-runner, Pollution is the quickest way to end the game early while you are ahead: build or buy all the Train Stations and Airports you can, add Factories, Coal Plants, and every other Infrastructure with a + for Pollution, and your game will be over long before 300 Turns roll around - but it will end ugly.

 

[Taefin]

I wonder if there is a pollution multiplier based on difficulty. It sounds like other folks actually got much later than my game. Or maybe it’s just that an AI developed a large industrial empire early.

Also, you do not have the option to play on, since your world is “uninhabitable”.

I mean, I expected the late-game to be nigh unplayable until modding became possible, mostly to create a geometric rather than linear scaling of tech costs so that late game doesn’t turn into 1-turning everything (Japan also might just be a win-mode culture, since already having strong science and production in a larger city makes their EQ explode, otherwise it would be easy to lack the production to make use of a late game science rush). But pollution was certainly a surprising oversight.

Regarding naval warfare, I guess I was in the late early-game since I had battleships (and carriers and monowing fighters) but none of the stealth ships. Also funny that missile cruisers need line of sight to shoot an arcing missile, but battleships (reasonably) do not. Also, possibly just the 5-10 point strength difference was enough to turn the battle so one sided. If much of the balancing of attacking/defending is that the defender starts with all of their units on defense stance (and hopefully dug in on land) and that the defender can pick the terrain to ensure the attacker is attacking from even further disadvantage. A slight strength advantage in naval warfare to overcome the defensive stance, and lacking terrain, would make it pretty heavily favor the attacker (though I’m excited to see what these streak the ships do it, someday, when the late game exists).

And as I’ve seen mentioned earlier. Having the AI all move immediately, while the player is rushing to close pop up notifications, really interferes with play here. If the AI just waited until pop ups were closed before they moved, that would resolve part of the issue.