Nocturnal
Chieftain
is there any indication of the patch beign released before the holidays?
Patch Update by Greg @ 2K
- Thread starter MadRat
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bonafide11
Worker
Nobody really has any idea at this point. Everyone is just guessing when they think it will be. Until they announce a date, I wouldn't put too much hope in it being released by a certain date.
Zechnophobe
Strategy Lich
I see a lot of good, and a lot of bad. I'm pleased that a lot of work is being done, but I'm worried that good decisions in re-balancing are NOT being made.
For example, restricting happiness bonus' to the size of the city... So, I understand the main thought here, that we want to lower ICS strategies, but this is pretty much ruining every other concept that made 'global happiness' good.
I didn't like global happiness, but this gives something even worse... "Sorta Global Happiness." If I am trying to offset the unhappiness of a newly annexed city, but am restricted by the size of the city I built that theater in, it becomes very very twisted. What are we even representing there?
And considering such a huge impact this may have, I'm not sure it is a good solution at all.
Lastly, look how many balance tweaks they are doing at once. Horsemen, archers, city regen, policies (both that you cannot accrue them and the effects of them). Did you really test all of these things together for balance? I mean, if you did that's awesome, but these are pretty vast and sweeping changes to be done all at once.
I guess I am cautiously pessimistic. I don't think we are barking up the right tree yet. But then again, maybe you'll prove me wrong, and this will help a whole lot! But I'm not expecting it.
For example, restricting happiness bonus' to the size of the city... So, I understand the main thought here, that we want to lower ICS strategies, but this is pretty much ruining every other concept that made 'global happiness' good.
I didn't like global happiness, but this gives something even worse... "Sorta Global Happiness." If I am trying to offset the unhappiness of a newly annexed city, but am restricted by the size of the city I built that theater in, it becomes very very twisted. What are we even representing there?
And considering such a huge impact this may have, I'm not sure it is a good solution at all.
Lastly, look how many balance tweaks they are doing at once. Horsemen, archers, city regen, policies (both that you cannot accrue them and the effects of them). Did you really test all of these things together for balance? I mean, if you did that's awesome, but these are pretty vast and sweeping changes to be done all at once.
I guess I am cautiously pessimistic. I don't think we are barking up the right tree yet. But then again, maybe you'll prove me wrong, and this will help a whole lot! But I'm not expecting it.
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
Don't forget the new happiness small wonder and three natural wonders. I can't guarantee they balance things out, but we'll have to wait and see.
DarkSchneider
King
With all these fixes, I can't imagine starting a new game before the patch comes out. And I haven't played Civ 5 seriously since October.
Dragonlord
Fantasy Warlord
What I don't understand is why the heck they don't release what they have as a patch NOW and continue working toward a next one. I thought the whole Steam thing was supposed to facilitate smaller, continuous patching - so, here we are now, 5 weeks after Greg's patch announcement, waiting on the ONE HUGE PERFECT PATCH, just like in previous versions of Civ... and meanwhile, knowing that better things are to come, forced to continue playing with the imperfections that we know are already fixed. What gives????
They're testing/fixing bugs in the patch of course. It's only been 6 days since the good 12/3 changes were made.
Civsassin
Immortal
Razing is a viable strategy for a cultural victory especially with Songhai. That's what it was designed to do. I would expect that if you elect to raze a city following conquest, it wouldn't add any culture points to your policy requirements unless you elect the "stop razing" option and decide to keep the city.
The other thing that is interesting about the patch is the new feature that melee horse type units will get a penalty when attacking cities. The Sonhai unique unit's advantage is in city attack. I will be interested in seeing how they deal with that.
I have received a hint from someone I know that the patch may be out shortly. Or, at least a major step in the patch has been finished based on something I heard.
I know someone involved with Civ5. I don't ever ask for inside information, but my interactions with said person are impacted by how often they are in a "crunch time" mentality.
And it sounds like there may soon be a short bit of respite.
So, I am looking for a new post/update within the next couple of days, or right after the weekend.
Anyways, I am keeping my fingers crossed.
I know someone involved with Civ5. I don't ever ask for inside information, but my interactions with said person are impacted by how often they are in a "crunch time" mentality.
And it sounds like there may soon be a short bit of respite.
So, I am looking for a new post/update within the next couple of days, or right after the weekend.
Anyways, I am keeping my fingers crossed.
wapamingo
Prince
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2006
- Messages
- 399
Interesting. So what is the vibe from the inside from the big backlash the community here has for the game in its current state?
Yesterday, 2K Greg wrote on 2K Forum that he "should have an ETA for you guys very soon". The ETA for previous patch was announced a few days before release, so I hope that patch comes out before Christmas (or even next week).
JLoZeppeli
Prince
- Joined
- May 11, 2009
- Messages
- 598
The ETA of the ETA... it's becoming funny...
Louis XXIV
Le Roi Soleil
This is good news people 
Steam was as much meant to make patch distribution easier as it was meant to enable better multiplayer options.
It's a tool to disallow reselling the game (an option, which otherwise a lot of people would have used, as I guess) and to check how many people are still playing.
And first and foremost, you can bring the DLC to the people.
The decision for Steam was purely and exclusively made for improving sales figures.
These are really good points. I have this fear that the Dev team that put the game together has the same mentality in patching as they did in designing - to eliminate exploits or overpowered strategies by playing whack-a-mole with certain features or mechanics. A lot of features in Civ5 feel like band-aid solutions to perceived "exploits" from Civ4, rather than fresh, original ideas that form a coherent design approach. It looks like the patches may be following the same path.
I like that, "cautiously pessimistic."
I'm basically in the same camp.
Civsassin
Immortal
I have to say that this patch will definitely kill the ICS strategy. I've also noticed from my own games that once you begin expanding via both settlers and conquest, my empires have grown absolutely tremendous, and I run away from the AI easily. I've never even gotten to the point where an AI is in a position to win a space race or diplomatic victory because I am so far ahead. I play on emperor and immortal BTW.
This patch will not only eliminate the ability to use the ICS exploit, it will also slow down human players' abilities to expand endlessly because of happiness issues. It sounds like some players didn't mind getting their empires "livid" as the advisor puts it because they were still head and shoulders ahead of the AI. With the revolting being added, it sounds like they are trying to penalize a player severly for letting his/her empire remain angry. I think this is a good thing. If you are going to have these varying degrees of unhappiness, there must be severe penalties for ignoring them.
I think that we may even get a challenging game from the AI at the emperor level.
Overall, I think all of the fixes in this patch are going to improve the game significantly. I am cautiously optimistic however.
@Civsassin:
I am very sceptical whether the features you mentioned will be scaling with map sizes.
On smaller maps it is still easy to get access to almost all luxuries, so happiness shouldn't be that big a deal.
On bigger maps though I fear that they will not only kill ICS (which would be ok for me) but bigger empires in general.
And the way to deal with your opponents now will be razing, razing, razing. It will become a game about genocide.
I am very sceptical whether the features you mentioned will be scaling with map sizes.
On smaller maps it is still easy to get access to almost all luxuries, so happiness shouldn't be that big a deal.
On bigger maps though I fear that they will not only kill ICS (which would be ok for me) but bigger empires in general.
And the way to deal with your opponents now will be razing, razing, razing. It will become a game about genocide.
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