I have a number of beefs with this patch which has mostly generated the response of "Give me my old game back!". I play local area network multiplayer by the way, with G&K and DLCs, and simultaneous turns (co-operative play with my wife vs the AIs):
1. The sounds have been mucked about. No longer get a unique sound for goodie huts, natural wonders, wonder construction, Golden age start, etc, but MOST annoying of all is the incredibly irritating BOING after every turn. Please - someone tell me how to turn it off!!
2. The first move of every turn is delayed by 5 seconds as you have to wait for the barbarians to move during the start of the turn. The new HUGE box at the bottom of the screen makes it obvious its the Barbs as their symbols flashes until their turn is over which happens for the first 5 seconds or so of the human players turn.
3. Starting or loading a game, I have to pointlessly wait 10 seconds for a countdown. The is a button that highlights when you hover over it like you could click it and skip the countdown, but you cannot. This screen generally seems a lot "clunkier" than pre patch, having to scroll to see more than about 4 other players where previously you could see 10+ or something.
4. None of my defaults selections are saved for world selection (I like Pangaea, Huge, Marathon, 5 billion, low sea, abundant). These used to be in the ini file (which still shows my selections) but seems to be ignored now. Its annoying to have to set all these every time.
5. The in game UI is messier with the new HUGE box at the bottom which serves little to no purpose other than block out a lot of the screen. The top right score list is also something like 30% wider for things that have no interest to me playing on a local network with my wife (seriously, I don't need to kick my wife from the game...).
6. When you add new stuff, please expose it to the ini files so we can chose to have it or not.
7. Test the bloody thing before releasing it!
8. My impression of multiplayer games is that the vast majority are families (often playing co-operatively) but this seems to never be catered for.
9. Give me AI interactions in multiplayer please! You never hear a peep out of the AI in multiplayer. I don't see why you cannot give us the normal single player experience in multiplayer (if you do it for performance, at least expose the option to an ini file setting so people with good kit have a choice!)
Other than that, I like it
