Patch Update by Greg @ 2K

[CivFanaticMan]

As I wrote earlier in another thread, diplo victory should be called "gold victory"

Well since the AI plays to win, it makes sense that you make friends by helping them out and giving money. But I would like to see the AI not just like you because you give them your money. And giving gold to city states shouldn't influence them as much. More city state missions would be nice to see in future patches.

Civ5 is looking to have a bright future ahead. Looks like Fraxis is listening to the community and taking our word, after all we are the ones who play the game.

 

[Slowpoke]

I have been a huge Civ V critic, and I gave it a 6/10 in my review (I work at the gaming press), but this patch... this patch is really something else. It tackles and address the very core problems that the game has. I never thought that I would see something as ballsy as this. Now, let's address tile yields and we might be into something!

Well if you just want Civ4-like tile yields check out alpaca's PlayWithMe mod, it's got much higher yields. If all you want are the extra yields you can just rip out the stuff you don't like.

 

[Guardian_PL]

Hmph. It seems that someone is actually working out there. Perhaps this rotten carcass of a game can be reanimated yet? I won't be waiting with baited breath, but keep it coming

 

[neptune2000]

Hmph. It seems that someone is actually working out there. Perhaps this rotten carcass of a game can be reanimated yet? I won't be waiting with baited breath, but keep it coming

It's a trap!

There actually seems to be a lot of good in this patch, like they're actually listening and trying to fix the game.

One thing I don't really like is making the policy cost never go down to prevent selling off of cities. If I accept that larger civilizations should produce fewer cultural policies, then I would point out that a Civ's size could ebb and flow over the course of the game. Having the policy cost be one way is not a good thing. If for example I have a large empire but then midway through the game lose a lot of it, or just decide that I want to go in a cultural direction and sell off a bunch of cities, I am stuck with a high cost for policies. Basically I can't change course once I start building cities. I don't like this. Forcing the player to purchase a policy when it's "earned" alleviates the sell-off tactic somewhat, at least making it less effective than it was before since you'll have to sell of your cities right before a policy is earned and only get the points for that single policy (which granted could be a lot). As it looks with the toggle, we'll either be forced to buy or things will be just as they are today. I would prefer it if a policy was earned (you gain a policy choice and the points until next reset to 0) but you didn't have to pick right now.

Either way, I think the fact that the cost/per multiplier can only grow is limiting and unnecessary, at least until they see how the "must buy now" change affects the sell-off tactic.

 

[Arsenic Steel]

The 12/3 updates look amazing.

* Multiple Tech Tree tweaks to address “slingshot” tech exploits. (Added 12/3)

I can't wait to see how they changed that. I am not too keen on how quick 2k is at labeling player behavior as exploitative.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Ideally, they would have it so culture produced from specific cities would disappear if that city is sold. I wonder if the mandatory Social Policy picking would have been sufficient by itself.

 

[Seek]

More city state missions would be nice to see in future patches.

Agreed, although I think a lot of it has to do with the "kill city-state x" missions. From various modder's observations, the missions' weighting is heavily toward the kill missions and results in them showing up much more frequently than others. Moreover, fulfilling these missions is usually not optimal - it's generally more beneficial to ally with the CS than conquer it. If those missions simply had a turn limit, it would open up a *lot* of room for others to appear.

On another topic, why has there been no mention of the city focus bug where the mayor starves the city? If that doesn't get fixed I'll be really irked.

 

[pi-r8]

Very interesting patch changes. It's good to know that they're listening and trying, even though I don't really agree with a lot of the changes they're making.

 

[bryanw1995]

Agreed, although I think a lot of it has to do with the "kill city-state x" missions. From various modder's observations, the missions' weighting is heavily toward the kill missions and results in them showing up much more frequently than others. Moreover, fulfilling these missions is usually not optimal - it's generally more beneficial to ally with the CS than conquer it. If those missions simply had a turn limit, it would open up a *lot* of room for others to appear.

On another topic, why has there been no mention of the city focus bug where the mayor starves the city? If that doesn't get fixed I'll be really irked.

just finished tsg 4, was highly irked when capital lost 1 pop b/c I wasn't paying enough attention...


edit: btw, the patch looks interesting. almost like a good mod, really. I still think that they should add hp to cities and str to walls/castle/mb instead of increasing city heal rate and city str per era, but that combined with weaker archers and horses vs cities should have a positive change.

speaking of cities, does anybody know the formula to calculate city strength right now?

 

[Left Foot]

One of the best patch improvements IMO is the rebellion in case of too much unhappiness. Now, all they need to do is re-introduce espionage in the next expansion (can't see it happening in a patch). I can already see myself sending out a few spies to forment unhappiness in the enemy civ, have a few rebels appear, and then attack while his army is busy elsewhere.

In any case, this patch is really improving the game.

 

[Pojman]

LOL - This is still trash compared to Civ IV.. Until Civ V, is more impressive than Civ IV, I am not convinced... This is the baseline I am looking for considering that a sequel should naturally be considered better than the original.

 

[Arksa]

LOL - This is still trash compared to Civ IV.. Until Civ V, is more impressive than Civ IV, I am not convinced... This is the baseline I am looking for considering that a sequel should naturally be considered better than the original.

Good for you, but building new mechanics and game engine from scratch takes time. They pretty much start over again to make something different and new.

Your "naturally better" is really only valid when they build on the same engine and very same mechanics.

Nearly Everyone agrees that Fallout: New Vegas > Fallout 3
Not many agree with Oblivion > Morrowind
Most people on Total War forums agree that Rome: Total War > Medieval II > Empire TW

Pattern here is, whenever there is a new engine and completely new game, while it's true that it can be totally amazing masterpiece, usually fails to be as optimized/bug free/full of features as the old game that had 2 expansion packs added to improve it. So much work goes to making the new mechanics work adequetly, same with the graphics engine.

Either they work on the same game and actually improve it pretty much quaranteed because you know how the game works and there is nothing else to do, or make something completely new, release it in a reasonable timeframe, and expect people to be upset about it at start ---> fix problems with the engine and mechanics you're not so familar with yet ---> add features, improvements and other cool stuff on the core.

 

[pete1061]

New features are nice and all, but how many technical issues will be addressed in this new patch?
There are a whole multitude of them over in the tech support section. Myself, i have had game stopping issues with graphic glitches and the game freezing on me when my empire grows large on a huge map. Who cares about new features if the game locks up, or becomes unplayable due to graphic issues.

I guess it's a wait and see situation.

IMO, Civ 5 has a lot more technical issues than Civ 4 did.
And talking to customer service at 2K is like talking to a brick wall.

 

[Arsenic Steel]

Nearly Everyone agrees that Fallout: New Vegas > Fallout 3

What nearly everyone? It is a game by Obsidian which is just a sidestep from the original with improved graphics but carbon copy map layouts.

Back to CivV. It is not a game that benefits greatly from feeling different and new from its predecessors.

 

[Baleur]

LOL - This is still trash compared to Civ IV.. Until Civ V, is more impressive than Civ IV, I am not convinced... This is the baseline I am looking for considering that a sequel should naturally be considered better than the original.

I agree. Its a new game, several years later, work should have gone into everything beyond the new game engine (graphics engine, buildings units and techs still use similar text files and formats, could easily be "converted" so to speak).

Point is, the new game should be better in not just graphics or technology, but in EVERY way. Yes, even including civ4+all expansions.

When we start to expect that a new game is worse than the previous game, the devs dnot have to try as hard.
Even if it is a fools errand, we must continue to expect greater things than the previous title provided.
If we dont, things will just go downhill. (or, even more so.. if people didnt expect more from Civ5, these patches wouldnt be bothered with by the devs.)

Expectations and high ambitions is the only thing that drive progress, dont forget that.
This is why i always cringe whenever i see someone make a reply or topic on how people should expect less or how it is somehow not "fair" to compare a 10 year old game to a new game in our current future of 2010.
Is it also not fair to the modern example to compare a car from 1980 to a car from 2010? Is it not fair to compare a modern computer from 2010 to a computer from 1999?
Hell yeah it is fair, they are all supposed to be better, thats the point of progress, thats the point of making something new in the first place.

 

[Samuil]

Good new, nice changes, cant wait for the patch

 

[Tomice]

When I read the additions, I just thought "WOW!!!"

Really, they are doing a lot to improve the game. Sure, it won't still be as polished as BtS 3.19, but these additions make me hope that they have some budget and will to improve the game. I'm looking forward to it (although I play mods that certainly make the game very playworthy as is).

And yes, if there wasn't a market for DLC and expansions, noone would bother investing so much effort to polish the game. Sure, they have an image to defend, but without immediate benefit it would not be cost-worthy to deliver multiple serious patches.


EDIT @ Baleur: The way you put it makes sense, too, and I agree to your general statement. But you should not forget two things:

- Certain balancing problems are only found when huge numbers of players try things out. Unlogical exploits, that are only found by one of 10000 players can sometimes become THE standard, overpowered strategy when shared. This does NOT apply to everything, it was quite obvious for community members before that CS is a slingshot tech. But I am willing to give the dev's a few weeks to fix balancing. Not everyone can afford a SC2 style public beta.

- In a new iteration of a game, where several key concepts are changed, it is understandable that some features are held back for expansions. Not only to make profit, but because it would make the game unbalanceable. Civ5 now consists of basic, regularily used features. Other stuff might be added when the core gameplay works well. They might also add some additional mechanics when they feel they have some sort of "gap", where they can't achieve their balancing goals with the current mechanics/units/buildings/wonders.

 

[Arksa]

What nearly everyone?

Most people? Like everyone on Bethesda's official forum for example. I can always tell the tale of where do I find these facts , which forums and polls, but I rather use a term nealry everyone because it seems to be the general opinion pretty much all around.

As for Civ V, the patch notes look very promisin indeed, altough many of them seem to be gameplay changes that are already done in mods.

 

[Arsenic Steel]

Most people? Like everyone on Bethesda's official forum for example. I can always tell the tale of where do I find these facts , which forums and polls, but I rather use a term nealry everyone because it seems to be the general opinion pretty much all around.

As for Civ V, the patch notes look very promisin indeed, altough many of them seem to be gameplay changes that are already done in mods.

Must be some disconnect then because I don't visit publisher forums often. I stick with fan sites or general gaming sites. The "nearly everyone" there like NV but state it has telltale Obsidian issues and calling NV > FO3 is laughable.

 

[Helmling]

this sounds like the game they wouldve released if they hadnt rushed it...

Yes, I think this makes it clear that 2K rushed Firaxis, but that the team is dedicated to making the game work for the community.

I wonder if this will satisfy people?

I think diplomacy will be richer now that we see how actions affect rulers. I wish they could make city-state diplomacy better, some way to nerf the buy-some-friends dynamic. If the AI gets better at using its money, then this could be a real problem.

I really applaud the addition of rebels. This is gold. I would suggest that they tweak it so that rebels are twice as likely to appear outside puppet cities and three times as likely to appear outside occupied cities.