Patch Update by Greg @ 2K

[atteSmythe]

Gameplayability. (or replayability)
Why give a player 36 hexes per city to work if the optimum game play is to ignore that and pile city on top of city?

I don't mind the occassional ICS spacing or severe overlap if needed, but when it becomes the obvious best way to play (generates more gold, more happiness, more science) that's where spacing become the problem.

Edit:

I agree with you about the infinite part.

Well, the fun part, for me, is once cities are able to get quickly happiness positive. This actually removes the main drawback to vertical expansion, the happiness buffer. Once that's removed, there's no reason not to have a sprawling sea of size 4-10 cities interspersed regularly with size 30 monstrosities.

Reducing the happiness will probably have the effect of delaying this point. It also means that for each large city you want to make, you actually need more small cities than you did before.

 

[aball]

I think the only thing this patch is going to really affect is puppeting cities. If you keep your own cities at happiness neutral via colosseums + something else (Meritocracy, etc) then you'll have wonders and extra luxuries creating a "happiness surplus". Well, when you go on a conquering spree, the puppeted cities will start eating into the happiness surplus, so until they start building their own colosseums you're going to have to slow down your rate of conquering after a certain point.

I suppose in this regard annexing may be a more useful option post-patch, as you'll want to start bringing the newly annexed city to happiness neutral as fast as possible...

Either way I don't particularly like the approach I'm seeing to fixing ICS thus far, I would rather see some of the suggestions earlier in the thread utilized to boost smaller empires and bigger cities than take down ICS.

 

[pazmacats]

AI

* Worker AI improvements.
* Update to tactical AI pillaging code. Additionally, always check to make sure it’s not trying to pillage in an enemy dominance zone.
* AI victory emphasis improvements (more efficient end-game when focusing on Science and Diplo victories).
* AI should colonize other continents regularly.
* AI will emphasize production of an Ocean going explorer unit when the time comes.
* Adjust Napoleon to make him more likely to go for culture.
* More aggressive second wave expansion (mostly off shore) after initial empire building and consolidation has occurred.
* Optimization when finding routes (pathfinder improvement).
* Multiple tweaks and bug fixes.
* AI will now build ranged and mobile units more in line with the flavor settings.
* Multiple defensive AI tweaks.
* Never use ranged units to provide flanking bonuses. (Added 11/18)
* Improve AI use of protected bombard attacks (melee in front, ranged in the rear). (Added 11/18)
* Worker priority adjustments (prioritize pillaged tiles, etc.). (Added 11/18)
* Further pathfinder optimization. (Added 11/18)
* AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory if they are wealthy. (Added 12/3)
* AI more effective with building, moving, and using aircraft and anti-aircraft more effectively. (Added 12/3)
* AI more likely to effectively use siege units in a city attack. (Added 12/3)
* Better nuke targeting by AI. (Added 12/3)
* Tactical AI Tuning: Reduce chance of AI civs making "suicide" attacks. (Added 12/3)
* Multiple tweaks and bug fixes. (Added 12/3)


GAMEPLAY

* Cities heal more quickly.
* Only allow one upgrade per unit from a goody hut.
* Science building track adjustments (cost, specialist slots, GP Points, etc). (Added 11/18)
* Amount of damage caused during naval combat increased. (Added 11/18)
* Melee horse units combat value lowered, and now receive a penalty when attacking cities. (Added 11/18)
* Lowered bonuses received from Maritime city-states. (Added 11/18)
* Removed maintenance from defensive buildings. (Added 11/18)
* Multiple unit upgrade track adjustments. Most (but not all) units now have a full upgrade path from start to finish. (Added 11/18)
* Open terrain penalty lowered. (Added 11/18)
* Policies must be selected the turn they are earned. (Added 11/18)
* Promotions must be selected the turn they are earned. If it’s as a result of combat, then the beginning of the next turn. (Added 11/18)
* Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology. (Added 12/3)
* Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities, and reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities. (Added 12/3)
* Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). (Added 12/3)
* Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city). (Added 12/3)
* Reduced points from Wonders & Cities, increased points for population. (Added 12/3)
* Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition. (Added 12/3)
* New Building: Circus Maximus (National Wonder for happiness track). (Added 12/3)
* New Building: National Treasury (National Wonder for economic track). (Added 12/3)
* Unhappiness beyond a certain point breeds rebels within your empire, based on the number of cities a player has. (Added 12/3)
* Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes. (Added 12/3)
* Tradition branch balance (Landed Elite and Monarchy improvements). (Added 12/3)
* Liberty branch balance (Settler training bonus now only applies to capital). (Added 12/3)
* Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)
* 3 new additional Natural Wonders added to gameplay, with accompanying “rarity” code. (Added 12/3)
* Multiple Tech Tree tweaks to address “slingshot” tech exploits. (Added 12/3)
* Killing a barb inside a city-state's territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty. (Added 12/3)
* Reduced and balanced combat bonuses. (Added 12/3)


UI

* Tweaked the single-player score list to hide the civs of unmet ai players.
* Added game option to disable automated workers from removing features. (Added 11/18)
* Additional updates to the Global Politics screen. (Added 12/3)
* Added game option to disable turn-blocking promotions and policy choices. (Added 12/3)


DIPLO

* AI's attitude towards you is now visible in the diplo screen and diplo drop-down.
* Added info tooltip for an AI leader's mood. Lists things that are making an AI player happy/upset.
* New diplo system: Declaration of Friendship (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
* New diplo system: Denounce (public declaration with diplomatic repercussions).
* New custom leader responses (Serious Expansion Warning, Aggressive Military, Luxury Exchange, Borders Exchange, Gift Request).
* Additional AI attitude tool-tips for cases that were not already covered. (Added 12/3)


MODDING

* Parent category counts now include counts of child categories.
* Selecting/deselecting a category now automatically selects/deselects it's children and its parent.
* Tweaked category name truncation to better fit names.
* Hide categories w/ no children and a count of 0.
* Added support for fallback languages (if mod is not translated, fall-back to English so text keys are not showing).
* Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units. (Added 12/3)
* Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality. (Added 12/3)
* Fixed "Reload Landmark System" mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in "ArtDefine_Landmarks". (Added 12/3)
* Multiple SDK Updates (details to come with full patch notes). (Added 12/3)


MISC

* Fixed save format which causes saves to increase the memory footprint of the game drastically when loading frequently over the course of the game.

Last edited by 2K Greg; 1 Hour Ago at 02:08 PM.

tl;dr

You can't patch my opinion of your company.

 

[marekb]

There is ETA for the patch:

Finally, the speculation can end! Today I have the patch release ETA. As you may have heard, we just announced that new DLC will be available to purchase on December 16. I can now confirm to you that the patch will be released before the DLC. The exact release date is still a tad flexible; it could be a couple days before the DLC, it could be an hour before the DLC. But hey, that's why they call it an Estimated Time of Arrival!

 

[CreepyD]

This patch is looking very good and seems to address a lot of the main issues. It will certainly get me playing it again.

 

[Left Foot]

So less than a week away. Glad to hear that. Am looking forward to it very much. I wonder if they'll have time for any other last minute additions to the patch.

Let's see.

 

[mattcrwi]

So less than a week away. Glad to hear that. Am looking forward to it very much. I wonder if they'll have time for any other last minute additions to the patch.

Let's see.

I doubt it. It is already a large patch and most likely has been in testing for weeks already. I can't see them making more changes and testing them in the next 4 business days unless they are insignificant changes.

 

[Left Foot]

I doubt it. It is already a large patch and most likely has been in testing for weeks already. I can't see them making more changes and testing them in the next 4 business days unless they are insignificant changes.

I'm pretty sure you're right. Basically, I hoping that maybe - just maybe - beaker overflow will sneak into those patch notes.

 

[Drawmeus]

There will probably be a handful of last minute changes, there were the last couple times I think - but it probably won't be anything to get too excited about.

That said, if this patch delivers, Civ V may finally have reached launch-day levels of polish.

 

[spfun]

you guys are forgetting about the small patch after this patch... which fixes this patch!

 

[Rohili]

you guys are forgetting about the small patch after this patch... which fixes this patch!

Indeed. With the amount of drastic changes in this patch, I will be very surprised we don't need a patch for the patch. Something is bound to go wrong, some unforeseen exploit or bug caused by the new changes.

 

[Snerk]

you guys are forgetting about the small patch after this patch... which fixes this patch!

Yo dawg I heard you like patches. So we put a patch in your patch so you can patch while you patch.

 

[Louis XXIV]

 

[Slowpoke]

 

[Sgt. Captain]

I found this posted by 2k Greg on the 9th a little over 2 hours ago in the 2K games patch update thread.

Teaser: Keep your eye on this thread tomorrow

 

[MadRat]

Update 12/9/2010: Finally, the speculation can end! Today I have the patch release ETA. As you may have heard, we just announced that new DLC will be available to purchase on December 16. I can now confirm to you that the patch will be released before the DLC. The exact release date is still a tad flexible; it could be a couple days before the DLC, it could be an hour before the DLC. But hey, that's why they call it an Estimated Time of Arrival!

Rat

 

[HedBanger]

Eeeeekkkkk!!!! I just peed a little....

 

[Zyxpsilon]

Spain certainly blew up the entire South-American (as in Aztecs or Mayans) potential (be it cultural only or not, btw) out of existence at the time.

Sooooo strange... i think the above was a clear premonition of the newly announced DLC.

 

[lschnarch]

It might be a good idea to stay offline and disengage the auto-update feature of Steam for some time, until the first experiences with the patch have been made.

I for my person aren't sure that the overall game experience will be much better, as I am quite sceptical about a lot of the announced changes.
And big announcements we've had enough in the past.

Remember, if they would manage to mess things up, there won't be a way back.

 

[PawelS]

I think the patch must come before the DLC because they're adding XML tags for the Spanish and Incan UAs (and possibly UUs and UBs).