Patch Update by Greg @ 2K

[Slowpoke]

In terms of the game design, they wanted something to control growth of your empire. In previous civs it was partly economic (city maintanance and corruption sapped your income). No clue why they changed, but the patch changes announced make it clear they are stubbornly sticking to happiness to try to limit empire size, instead of gold.

Alpaca's and soon my mod will be using maintenance just like civ 4. But city unhappiness is still useful to make early game expansion slowed before you hit theatres, so we're using both of course.

Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)

I am a little concerned about this. What happened to global happiness?

Less of a big deal than you think. It only prevents mass size 2 cities building colosseums, which actually wasn't very efficient in the first place. It does hit cities with theatres pretty hard, though.

 

[PawelS]

Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)

I am a little concerned about this. What happened to global happiness?

Happiness as a whole is still global, but the max amount of happiness that buildings in a city can provide is local (equal to the population of the city).

 

[player1 fanatic]

Well, I just looked bunch of my old late game saves, and in neither of them was population number higher then total amount of happiness earned from buildings.

So, for normally developer empire, I doubt that building happiness cap would be a problem.

 

[PawelS]

Well, I just looked bunch of my old late game saves, and in neither of them was population number higher then total amount of happiness earned from buildings.

So, for normally developer empire, I doubt that building happiness cap would be a problem.

You're right, it will be a problem only for ICS empires.

 

[moyang]

Update to tactical AI pillaging code. Additionally, always check to make sure it’s not trying to pillage in an enemy dominance zone.

What does this mean?

I thought 'AI won't try to pillage if the emeny have advantage in the zone.' , but others say it means 'AI will pillage if its army is in enemy's land.'

Who's right? or both of us wrong?

 

[PawelS]

It's unclear to me too, maybe it means that it won't go pillaging when it should defend against the enemy units instead?

 

[Slowpoke]

enemy dominance zone I'm guessing refers to when the unit is heavily outnumbered in the immediate area

 

[Celevin]

You're right, it will be a problem only for ICS empires.

Even in my ICS empires, my population in most of my cities is above my happiness from buildings. If in the rare case it isn't, I usually have *some* city that has population 4 that I can buy a colosseum in.

With the change to Maritimes (which I argue fruitlessly is the wrong way to nerf them), I might not have size 4+ everywhere though.

 

[alaric1112]

I love this game already and i think the patches will only make it better,but does anybody know if the patch will optimize this game to run better and smoother?

 

[eric_]

Has anyone determined what this means exactly:

* AI will now build ranged and mobile units more in line with the flavor settings.

"flavor settings"???

 

[JP1]

Presumably, they're talking about the per-leader tendencies to build certain types of units, which is defined in the XML for each leader. So for example, Elizabeth likes building a lot of ships, Ghengis Khan likes building mounted units, and so on. I believe the change they've announced is that AI will be even more likely to build their flavor units than they already are.

 

[krunsh]

I've heard a lot of people saying ''ICS''. Now I understand it's about empire with a lot of cities... but what does each letter actualy stand for?

 

[Zydor]

Infinite City Sprawl

Civ made its name on "Build an Empire" yaddie yadda. But there is a dilema. If they stay true to Build an Empire, and lots of Cities spring up, its inevitable as night follows day that a warmonger will not only win, but decimate the AI, the latter has no chance because the various bonuses, production etc makes the win invitable when the player has large numbers of Cities..... hence a warmonger will claim ICS is "too easy" and needs nerfing.

The player who is a "Builder" however (I'm a Builder), is not impressed when ICS gets too heavily nerfed, its appears to go against the original Civ premis.

So, if a person's interpretation of "Build an Empire" is wholesale destruction as fast as possible, ICS is hated. But a Builder loves it as they were attracted by the original "Build an Empire" Civ notion, and they interpret that as litterally building and spreading.

Its a dilema that will reign for as long as Civ keeps shoving out Versions

Regards
Zy

 

[atteSmythe]

Infinite City Sprawl

Some say 'Incremental' - I'm not sure which, if either, is more accurate or historical.

 

[MeowTau]

I'm hard pressed to see why anyone should like ICS being a valid strategy.

I'm probably a builder who learned to war anytime it will gain me advantage to survive high level difficulties. But my favorite part of Civ IV was planning where to build my cities to maximise the potential of the land I had.

Unfortunately with Civ V, I quickly came to realize that the most return was gained from cramming cities as close together as possible. In Civ IV, badly placed cities were mediocre, and often a financial liability. ICS is no fun as it requires no thinking, but provides the greatest rewards.

 

[Celevin]

I'm hard pressed to see why anyone should like ICS being a valid strategy.

I'm probably a builder who learned to war anytime it will gain me advantage to survive high level difficulties. But my favorite part of Civ IV was planning where to build my cities to maximise the potential of the land I had.

Unfortunately with Civ V, I quickly came to realize that the most return was gained from cramming cities as close together as possible. In Civ IV, badly placed cities were mediocre, and often a financial liability. ICS is no fun as it requires no thinking, but provides the greatest rewards.

ICS isn't about just cramming cities. It means building a new city has more benefit than penalty (including opportunity cost) in pretty much every situation. In other words the best strategy is to spam them. The limited space thing just arises from that, in Civ5, cities rarely grow beyond size 12 anyways, so why not cram them saving on land and road expense?

ICS is hard to stop because it SHOULD be a good thing to have a lot of cities. Big empires should still be stronger. But it should be done in a way that it's harder to keep together, requires infrastructure to get started, and smaller empires can still make a comeback. Civ5 just hasn't implemented the penalties for a massive number of cities well enough.

 

[lschnarch]

As I said elsewhere, maybe it would be better if the happiness was called "stability". It's harder to manage larger empires and keep them stable.

I was going to suggest "Order", but "Stability" works too.

Yeah. Stability and order always have been improved due to access to dye and whales...

Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)

I am a little concerned about this. What happened to global happiness?

It's quite easy.
"Global happiness" isn't anymore. It is "global unhappiness" now, just to ensure that what ever you may do locally has no big effect on the global level.

Thou shalt not play the game in a not inteded way.
Because I am Shafer, thy Developer, and thou shalt not commit ICS.



And as socalled fans dared to not limit themselves to the three cities which have to be sufficient, we are getting punished.
I mean, what are *you* doing with disobidient children?

 

[Zydor]

....And as so called fans dared to not limit themselves to the three cities which have to be sufficient, we are getting punished......

Not for long I wont be. I am patiently awaiting the "Patch" (hell of a euphamism for the huge lump of code thats about to be thrown at us), whilst getting into Victoria 2. If I am still expected to go for a so called 3-6 City ideal post-patch as a concept, either implicitly or explicitly, thats me gone permanently after 15+ years. It will change the whole Civilisation Premis upon which the Franchise was built, and its not a change I could be comfortable with.

I hope and pray they dont go down the 3-6 City route, because we will end up with yet another shoot-em-up, enough of those around the market place already - but on the evidence provided so far by that release abomination, I'm not holding my breath.

Regards
Zy

 

[PawelS]

Yeah. Stability and order always have been improved due to access to dye and whales...

Why not, when people have what they want, they are less likely to cause "disorder".

 

[Horizons]

The threat of unhappiness in a large empire breeding rebels is a good thing as you will have to spend a lot of resources simply trying to stamp your authority over your massive, sprawling empire - historically accurate and good gameplay. And less massive Civs will be able to take advantage of your weakness when your resources (units, money, etc) are committed to keeping your enormous (but unhappy and rebellious) empire in line.