October 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[DizzKneeLand33]

Speaking of friendships and friendliness "locking" -- I am currently in a Deity game on turn 86. I have met 4 of the other 12 civs (besides myself). All 4 are currently friendly with me. I don't even send a delegation the turn I meet them (this is an exploit in the game coding imho) -- I have a rule that says I can only send those after receiving one. Well, received one in 3 out of 4.

This is Deity. Not a single war. Will there ever be one? Knowing prior experience, my answer is no. How freaking boring, still today. I'm going to play a little Civ 3 again and see if the AI actually has brains.

EDIT: I did have one that denounced, but after that expired, yep, friendly.

 

[Qwan]

I'm also not a fan of how Friendships and Alliances basically "lock" you into them as well.

The point of contracts with a duration is that you can trust that certain conditions will last that long. IRL if you get a free phone for signing up with a phone service, you agree to stay with them long enough that they make back the cost of the phone. In Civ, being Friends means you can trust that they won't attack you right away when you settle near them. Being allies means you can trust that you will get those trade route bonuses for a significant duration. How would you like it, if you made an Alliance, set up a trade route with bonuses, and they disavowed the alliance the next turn? Or if you became Friends, moved an unescorted settler towards where you wanted it, and they captured it next turn? It's a trade-off between the flexibility to do whatever you want, and the safety and benefits of cooperation.

 

[GenyaArikado]

I am part of the "Let Catherine spy on allies" crew

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Does anyone else have a problem where after improving a luxury that the symbol for the luxury disappears? The only Mod I'm using that could conflict would be Concise UI. (Still no wars as of Turn 140, other than the settler I stole -- Friends with one. Epic speed 13/22 Large Deity shuffle)

 

[Pietato]

Catherine is horrible now. Eleanor got hit by the capital grievance change. France is the worst baseline civ in the game.

Someone at FX really hates France.

 

[bbbt]

Really happy that one of the UI changes included having a one-line list of cities that can be ordered in order of production and science etc., since such a change would take 10 minutes to fix.

Oh wait never mind.

Get the Better Report Screen mod if you don't have it. Which I think Firaxis should just straight up include in the main game.

 

[Pietato]

The alliance spy change heavily favours the player, especially on smaller maps. You can max out your allies easily, while the AI virtually never does. You will be immune to spies, while they will destroy each other with them.

 

[Victoria]

I feel the spy change may be pre-emptive for something coming like corporations.

 

[Galvatron]

...I don't even send a delegation the turn I meet them (this is an exploit in the game coding imho) --

It's porpoiseful.

I feel the spy change may be pre-emptive for something coming like corporations.

Don't get my humps up.

Yeah they monitor each other - they don't blow up NASA, or steal the Elgin Marbles, fund dissident groups or destroy the Hoover Dam ...

You're saying that ironically, right?

 

[Starwars]

The point of contracts with a duration is that you can trust that certain conditions will last that long. IRL if you get a free phone for signing up with a phone service, you agree to stay with them long enough that they make back the cost of the phone. In Civ, being Friends means you can trust that they won't attack you right away when you settle near them. Being allies means you can trust that you will get those trade route bonuses for a significant duration. How would you like it, if you made an Alliance, set up a trade route with bonuses, and they disavowed the alliance the next turn? Or if you became Friends, moved an unescorted settler towards where you wanted it, and they captured it next turn? It's a trade-off between the flexibility to do whatever you want, and the safety and benefits of cooperation.

I don't really see a problem with any those things.
Considering that having an alliance *should* lessen the chance of being backstabbed of course. It should deepen the diplomatic relationship. And if someone breaks that, there should be repercussions for it. Just like if I sign up for a free phone and then refuse to pay. I make the choice, I pay the consequences.
Civ IV had "permanent alliances" which you could enable if you wished (was off by default if I remember it right) but other than that, it didn't have any of this weird "your hands are now tied because you got close diplomatically with another nation". I can't recall exactly how Civ V diplomacy worked atm it but you were free to at least break declarations of friendship.

And now they put even more contraints by not allowing spies (spies of all things!) again Alliance members. It's completely backwards design if you ask me.

 

[Disgustipated]

Do people really think allies dont spy on each other in real life?

Of course. But I seem to forget the time that England destroyed the Hoover Dam or blew up the Kennedy Space Center. Or took all our gold from Fort Knox.

 

[Galvatron]

Of course. But I seem to forget the time that England destroyed the Hoover Dam or blew up the Kennedy Space Center. Or took all our gold from Fort Knox.

We're not supposed to discuss modern events... but uh: just a reminder that those missions weren't invented by the Civ team, they're real things that real countries did... and James Bond is inspired by real life operations that occured, and those things you listed are not exactly the most malevolent thing that spy agencies have been known to do. I know it's hard to fathom, but people with no moral compass are willing to do some hideously evil and ethically ambiguous things.

Literally blowing up the kennedy centre is unlikely. But abducting a key scientist, murdering them, corrupting them, 'disappearing' valuable documents is laundry list spy stuff.

As to stealing gold, several problems there:
1. It's not your gold... which has two meanings.
a. Gold is infamously fraudulently 'owned' by multiple people
b. There's a reason why we're not on the gold standard.
(Bonus: apparently one of the James Bond films was about this)
2. This isn't 1836, people don't steal gold bars and rustle yer cattle. They launder your money, leverage your countries assets, devalue their currency, covertly acquire corporations, smuggle contraband, and bribe officials.
3. That's the direct way to steal from another country.

I could give you examples of all of this stuff, but again: we're not supposed to talk about recent events.

TL;DR: adjust your cynicism up a few notches. As I mentioned earlier: this isn't the worst stuff they do.

 

[criZp]

I think the spy/ally change is honestly the worst change they've ever put in the patch notes. Completely out of left field, and basically demolishes either the usefulness of alliances or spies late game...

It's still possible to spy on others than your allies.

 

[bengalryan9]

It's so unrealistic that you can't spy on your allies! Now please excuse me while I send my vampire hordes off to fight Gilgamesh's giant death robots before he's able to chop a bunch of forests down to finish his offworld spaceship he's building in the atomic age without electrical power.

 

[Gedemon]

It's so unrealistic that you can't spy on your allies! Now please excuse me while I send my vampire hordes off to fight Gilgamesh's giant death robots before he's able to chop a bunch of forests down to finish his offworld spaceship he's building in the atomic age without electrical power.

I don't see your point, those other immersion breaking elements are already discussed in multiple other threads.

 

[Disgustipated]

There's a reason why we're not on the gold standard.

Mine was just an example, I wasn't talking about literal gold. It would be more along the lines of dollars or pounds. Perhaps I am being naive, but I don't see this happening other than at the corporate level. Considering both countries in my example do not have state owned companies, I cannot see that operation being valid. The best example is North Korea stealing from us using hacked accounts, but of course they are no where near our ally. Our governments do not have actual control of what corporations do.

And of course that opens up the possibility of corporations which I don't see happening in Civ6. Certainly not as a dlc, we wouldn't want a half-*** mechanic, it would be better to do it right. Even Civ4's version of corporations was a bit silly. It's unlikely we would ever see any form of realistic economics in civ games.

And another thing I didn't address since most of civ6 takes place before the modern era, and at least in the case of Western democracies, we are much more civil towards each other now than alliances of old.

adjust your cynicism up a few notches.

Perhaps, but I prefer not to be that cynical.

 

[masda_gib]

Mine was just an example, I wasn't talking about literal gold. It would be more along the lines of dollars or pounds. Perhaps I am being naive, but I don't see this happening other than at the corporate level. Considering both countries in my example do not have state owned companies, I cannot see that operation being valid. The best example is North Korea stealing from us using hacked accounts, but of course they are no where near our ally. Our governments do not have actual control of what corporations do.

I don't think you can compare all stuff you do in Civ to "government controlled". You are the player in Civ and you control basically everything.
You set up trade routes even when your civ is a capitalistic democracy which wouldn't have government controlled trade. You control where to build banks and factories even when those decisions would actually be made by the entities building them.
So if you as the player start spy missions it might also not be government controlled but just "your people" doing it.

 

[Galvatron]

Mine was just an example, I wasn't talking about literal gold.
cynical.

I wasn't aware that they stored things besides gold at fort Knox.

Perhaps I am being naive, but I don't see this happening other than at the corporate level.

Mercantilism, corporatism, fascism, imperialism, and state capitalism all integrate this at a national and supranational level. I'm sure you've heard of nations that go to war to steal the natural resources of an entire country under false pretenses at the behest of the nation's corporate lobby... not in modern times of course I'm sure it doesn't happen.

Our governments do not have actual control of what corporations do.

You mean the corporations don't have actual control over what governments do, right?

Well maybe not technically but practically they do.

 

[AsH2]

I feel the spy change may be pre-emptive for something coming like corporations.

Indeed;
or to put in some more opportunity costs to form alliances;
or an intended simple feature allowing players to in-game disable the "spy game".

 

[RealHuhn]

Indeed;
or to put in some more opportunity costs to form alliances;
or an intended simple feature allowing players to in-game disable the "spy game".

Yep, it's just an additional opportunity cost and whether you like it or not, it does make the choice of picking allies more interesting. I'm surprised how emotional some people get over this topic. I understand the reasons but I just don't care honestly. I'm all for more meaningful choices. Looking at the gossip tab, I get "top secret" information about my allies anyway, even without spies. That's good enough for me.