October 2020 Update - Patch Notes Discussion

[pokiehl]

What misinformation? There is no dll released, and most of the problems with game play are inside that dll. You should know this if you are a modder. For example, trying to make the AI declare more wars in the later eras. No matter what values are put into the xml, it affects very little.

The dll has everything to do with the lens of balance in the long term. Everything else is a temporary fix.

You said "they won't let the modders have their tools." That's wrong. We have a robust sdk and graphical asset viewer (as well as access to most assets).

You also said it was preventing modders from rebalancing civs. That's wrong. Myself and others have put out comprehensive rebalance mods.

Now you're talking about adjusting the AI and other things that don't have to do with the balance of older civs. Rebalancing civs is what we were talking about and that's what your reply to Genya above was about. Not AI.

 

[Stilgar08]

Overall a decent patch I'd say. The hate for spy ban for allies means nothing to me. If you want to spy don't ally anymore. Simple. Friendship prevents from attacking, too. And it's another decision you have to make: Is it more important to you to be allied or do you want to interfere or sabotage your strong AI friends.

Someone said Alliances got a nerf here and are no good anymore. Ridiculous IMO. Benefits of alliances are still pretty good and helpful so you will miss your old friend if you decide to rather wreck his spaceports than keeping the level 3 alliance.
I'm all in for immersion but in this case I understand the intention. The human player is much better in using spies efficiently and this will help AI to keep up. So if your Ally is close to win space race you better stop being an ally!
Same goes for the "less Spaceports being build". thing. Will improve AI competetiveness... As might some other changes.
So I guess we might can expect the next round of complaining about deity being too hard again...

P.S.: I hope they'll take a look into the SS issues in the next patch.

 

[DizzKneeLand33]

Yes, I have those same tools. But again, if you don't know exactly how the numbers are being used (in AI evaluation situations) then those numbers can't be tweaked as well as if you have the dll. That's all I'm saying. The graphical asset viewer isn't going to help you with this.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Actually makes me more likely to want alliances tbh

 

[UWHabs]

Actually makes me more likely to want alliances tbh

I think it will encourage alliances if you are ahead, and discourage alliances if you are behind. Like, if I'm worried that Korea might win the space race, I will not ally with them if I think my spies can disrupt their space race. But if I'm ahead overall, then yes please more alliances so I don't have to worry about those annoyances.

 

[tedhebert]

In that scenario, it may just be an incentive to stop allying with that civ.

yeah I think I can live with that... If you see a civ that really makes a run at SV, you have to NOT renew alliance...

Alliances provide bonuses not related to trade routes, especially when they level up, and certainly they can be more motivating. I will happily strike religious or military alliances with distant civ's, for instance.

honestly, I do also for military alliance, but only in games in which I'm being aggresive from mid-game on, which is less than 50% of the times. If not going military, useless. Religious ? Not sure I remember any bonuses except extra faith on trade routes ?

Can't say with authority here, but the reason that AI civ's attack CS's is that they seem programmed to regard any CS they can't suzerain to be an expansion opportunity. And the AI seems to have a problem with branching away from its logic branches when they aren't panning out. That's why sometimes they just stop expanding. They can't pull of what their logic is telling them to do, so they're just stuck.

So until they can address that appetite for consuming CS's, they can't apply an ally-specific fix.

My take is that if they've found time and energy to invest into making spy not available to allies, they could have found the time and energy for that too

 

[acluewithout]

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 just an AWFUL change.

I thought the idea was to create more interesting decisions. This creates less interesting decisions.

Honestly. Whoever approved this change, just doesn’t get how the game and existing mechanics work.

I mean, leaving aside that there are many many circumstances where you actively want to (secretly) hurt your Allies, you may also want to place Spies in an Ally to improve Diplomatic Visibility - so you can see your Allie’s secret agendas, see what they’re building, and just get visibility of the map.

I mean, what’s next? You can’t spread your Religion to an Allie (even if you don’t have a Faith Alliance)? Can’t try to build the same Wonders? Can’t use Rockbands in their Cities or win tourists from them? Can loyalty flip their Cities (even if you don’t have a Culture Alliance)? Can’t vote against them in the World Congress?

If Spies and Allies were a real problem, then double Grievances for Spies if you’re Allies. And or make “No spies in Allies” a game option in the option menu. Or limit the “no spies” restriction to Military Alliances.

Seriously. This change is so bone headed, it’s almost the nail in The Coffin for me playing this freaking game.

Six months in, and the game modes basically have added no playability for me, most of the balance changes have done little to improve the game because how cack handed they are (seriously, the Amenities changes are just stupid), there’s still core balance and gameplay issues that are unfixed (seriously, anti-Cav. Just incorporate @Sostratus balance mod and be done with it) and now this absolutely stupid STUPID STUPID change.

I love this game, and really like the Firaxis guys. But this is just crap. Absolutely crap.

Allies just don't really sabotage each other...

They certainly do. Rainbow Warrior is a good example of that. Plenty of examples of one “Ally” interfering with another Allies elections etc.

The most distressing thing here is really that no real changes were made to Secret Societies.

This. Secret Societies is so unbalanced it’s essentially unplayable outside of just Roleplaying.

Honestly. Secret Societies would be so easy to fix.

• Reduce free Governor Titles to just first to discover the Society.
  
  
• Create a Spy Mission, World Congress Resolution and Casus Belli that target other Secret Societies.
  
  
• Make Civs more vulnerable to loyalty pressure v Civs with a different Secret Society.

Done. Secret Societies would still be powerful, but not over powered. And you’d have organic “trade offs” for having a Secret Society.

Firaxis seem to have no intention of rebalancing the Game Modes. Seems like Firaxis will leave most of them basically pointless.

 

[Morgawr]

Any in game observations on AI improvements?

 

[acluewithout]

What’s really annoying is that we already have the option to turn off / on “shared visibility with Allies”.

Firaxis could have easily just added a second option in the option menu “no spies in Allie Cities”.

They could even have combined that with “Can’t declare war on Ally’s Suzerains”.

Then everyone would have been happy.

Honestly. This patch feels like Amateur Hour.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

No bugs have been fixed, the game is still full of them.

Maybe we shall view the game in another way--It is basically a collection of bugs, and we're exploring for game features inside it?

 

[steveg700]

It’s just an AWFUL change.

I thought the idea was to create more interesting decisions. This creates less interesting decisions.

The decision now is whether or not to maintain an alliance. Using an alliance as a vehicle to abuse the oblivious AI is not adding decisions to the game. The way people keep railing against this change only further reinforces it as a good idea.

IIf Spies and Allies were a real problem, then double Grievances for Spies if you’re Allies.

Grievances can't be accrued at all against an ally, who you can't denounce or declare war against anyway. All of which is the heart of the problem.

Players took alliances for granted, treating them in such an entitled fashion that the idea of simply not having the alliance on the civ you wish to use spies against seems unthinkable. They'll do so less so now, I reckon.

They certainly do. Rainbow Warrior is a good example of that. Plenty of examples of one “Ally” interfering with another Allies elections etc.

Only if you assume an alliance existed, which is debatable. Having friendly relationships and even lots of trade isn't tantamount to an alliance.

This. Secret Societies is so unbalanced it’s essentially unplayable outside of just Roleplaying.

Honestly. Secret Societies would be so easy to fix.

• Reduce free Governor Titles to just first to discover the Society.
  
  
• Create a Spy Mission, World Congress Resolution and Casus Belli that target other Secret Societies.
  
  
• Make Civs more vulnerable to loyalty pressure v Civs with a different Secret Society.

Done. Secret Societies would still be powerful, but not over powered. And you’d have organic “trade offs” for having a Secret Society.

There are good ideas there, but the cultists would still be broken. I imagine the next time I play a Secrete Societies game, the AI cultists will still shillyshally about taking up space and nothing more. They need some conditionality or countermeasure to keep them from being abused (which is right now just something the player gets to do unilaterally, so there are fewer objections).

 

[acluewithout]

snip

I get that some people will see this as a good change, which is fair enough. But I really think this is a wrong headed chance.

Yes, there is now a decision between having an Ally or being able to place a Spy. But this is a much less interesting that the decisions we had previously -

• do I form an Alliance, given that it will only protect me from war but not spies, loyalty (except culture alliance), religious pressure (except faith alliance) etc? i.e. forming an Alliance won’t solve all my problems from a threatening Civ.

• do I form an Alliance, given I can’t war / retaliate with that Allies while the Alliance is in place, even if they do things like send spies? i.e. the Alliance could make me more vulnerable.
  
  
• do I use my spies with Allies or non-Allies? I’ll want to target Allies as that’s the only way to attack them more or less, but I’ll also want to target non-Allies because the Diplomatic Visibility gives me a combat bonus.

• do I place Spies in an Ally given the risk I could harm my relationship and so screw up the Alliance?

I’m not sure it’s right that you can’t earn grievances with Allies, but ok. But you certainly can earn negative relationship modifiers that make maintaining the Alliances harder.

Either way, I don’t see why FXS couldn’t adjust things so (1) Spies to / from Allies are easier to spot, and (2) the AI gets increased negative relationship modifiers from discovering Spies from Allies.

I also think that this could have all just been done as a game option, either at set up (like shared visibility for alliances) or the options menu. Then everyone would be happy.

Totally fine if you disagree and prefer the change as is, of course.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Wow, you weren't kidding. Reddit is in love with this change.

A small update: On the reddit, the vocal opinion about the spying change now shifted to negative; as of now this is the top post there.

 

[dagriggstar]

I remember the absurdity of playing as the Cree and seeing my AI allies send spies to my cities with counterspies in them.....Then my counterspies failing to stop their spies from carrying out their missions.....Like how bad a counterspy must you be to mess that up ?

I don't like, I'm going to call it, a sledgehammer approach. Where you make a hard rule like "no spying on allies". I'm generally in favour of discouraging things you don't want to happen. Like the more diplomatic visibility a civ has against you, the less likely your spies are to succeed against them. Obviously as alliances increase diplomatic visibility, you are discouraged but not prevented from sending spies against allies. Or allied spies always being captured if they fail their mission, increasing the risk level.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

This post on reddit is spot on

This was a necessary change, because alliances were too open to abuse.

Many people suggest that getting caught could be a reason for breaking an alliance early, but it would be worse than the old situation and the fix. Alliances are supposed to lock you in for 30 turns, and this would provide an easy way out. In addition to abusing alliances with hostile spy operations, you could now deliberately try ending the alliance early to backstab your former ally.

 

[Askia Muhammad]

Am I correct in assuming these ai improvements are likely just changes on priorities as opposed to actual improvements?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

In real-world spying against allies is common.

It seems that the developer tries to provide an imaginary paradise of diplomacy.

 

[John Pope]

even if we are to forget the "realism" and "immersion" of the game, I fail to understand the logic of how this spy-alliance interaction is balanced. I dont honestly remember how good alliances in single player are, but in MP it is usually quite common to make an alliance with somebody and still do your best to slow down his victory condition. In most MP leagues, when one plays FFA games, spies are integral to a multitude of strats one has at their disposal, from "safely" leveling their spies by stealing tech from an ally, to ensuring their ally's SV doesnt go through by pillaging their Industrial Zones, dams, disrupting rocketry, etc, through the use of spies. It could also be sneakily used to prepare for backstab scenarios - you send 1-2 spies to steal ur ally's gold, and once they hit lvl 2, u send one to remove his Victor and one to set up a listening post for the +6 combat strength. With 2 spies u steal enough gold to upgrade a couple of extra units, while reducing ur enemy's and then you even get the extra value of removing governors and diplomatic visibility once things get heated up. The current change completely removes the possibility of "Cold War" scenarios as well...

PLEASE, let's cry enough so they revert this change (at least in multiplayer).

P.S. There seems to b e an issue where ur spies get thrown out of enemy cities for no reason, the game stating that the owner of the city has changed, while it hasn't. Great "feature".

Oh and RIP Catherine Black Queen

 

[Casworon]

The no spying on allies change completely baffles me.

We are now no longer even attempting to simulate any kind of history or reality.

I am surprised so many people are happy about this change. Do people really think allies dont spy on each other in real life?

Are we able to mod this change out or is it stuck in the DLL? I hope we can mod the change out. Can we get a game setup toggle?

It's also moving in the opposite direction than I would have hoped. I would like late game conflict to be more about espionage and less about invasion. So more spies and more powerful

Welp, might be back to Vox populi for me

 

[DemonMaster]

I think it is great. No more exploiting the the bound and gagged AI (i.e. in an alliance) with your spies. No more this locked endgame where you are in alliances left and right but you at the same time can deal good sucker-punches to the AI. Now you have to let an alliance go because that particular AI is your main contender for the win.

FXS could have dealt with this issue in two ways. They could either have re-programmed the AI and how the AI do their spying game so they do what various human player do or they could do what they actually did and just stopping spying on your alliance partners. Since the espionage missions in this game are the of most extreme kind, not "the lets check to see what they are doing over there" kind, it makes sense to stop this (extreme) espionage against those that you are allied to. I mean, how often have allied countries blown up each others space bases or stole money from each other.

With this change you will be forced to have a real cold war, a cold war with risks.