Patch update on the Firaxis livestream

[drsmoku]

Also they introduced new cover op: Black Market which will allow purchasing strategic resources for diplo

 

[SupremacyKing2]

That is a pretty huge rework in just 3 weeks. All in all, really excited for this. Would love to hear about specific balance changes in the future though.

Pure speculation on my part but I wonder if maybe they didn't have something like this already in the works and just ran out of time to put it in before release. The war score mechanic did seem rather bare bones to be a finished product. This new war spoils mechanic is definitely how the war score should work!

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

I missed it. Did they say when the next patch is going up?

 

[WiseGreen]

Pure speculation on my part but I wonder if maybe they didn't have something like this already in the works and just ran out of time to put it in before release. The war score mechanic did seem rather bare bones to be a finished product. This new war spoils mechanic is definitely how the war score should work!

My thoughts exactly

 

[Alkaid]

Wow War Spoils looks like a VAST improvement. Not sure if it's still an ideal system, but at least it certainly looks like a good change over the original BE war/peace dealings, where the initial war score system has not been.

 

[Lucius_]

I missed it. Did they say when the next patch is going up?

No, no eta.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Wow War Spoils looks like a VAST improvement. Not sure if it's still an ideal system, but at least it certainly looks like a good change over the original BE war/peace dealings, where the initial war score system has not been.

The new war spoils system will make Brasilia's new sponsor trait worth it. The bonus to war score will mean getting additional goodies compared to another sponsor. So waging war as Brasilia will be worth it.

 

[Olodune]

An improvement? Yes. But giving the player free resources is just going to speed up the game. I guess this might add war incentives for affinity victories. I still think warscore doesn't scale well to higher difficulty levels -> it will make Apollo even easier than it currently is.

 

[Veras]

Excellent! No comments about when it will be launched? I need to finish my current game asap then because I guess it won't support older saves

 

[leandrombraz]

That is a pretty huge rework in just 3 weeks. All in all, really excited for this. Would love to hear about specific balance changes in the future though.

Pure speculation on my part but I wonder if maybe they didn't have something like this already in the works and just ran out of time to put it in before release. The war score mechanic did seem rather bare bones to be a finished product. This new war spoils mechanic is definitely how the war score should work!

They are getting feedback on war score since Quill18's LP, so they actually had 5 weeks to do this rework. Also, it probably won't come out next week, so they probably still have at least two weeks to finish it. I think it's enough time to do something like that.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

An improvement? Yes. But giving the player free resources is just going to speed up the game. I guess this might add war incentives for affinity victories. I still think warscore doesn't scale well to higher difficulty levels -> it will make Apollo even easier than it currently is.

Firaxis could give the AI a bonus to its war score based on difficulty level to help the war score scale with difficulty as you say. For example, the AI could earn double war score points for unit kills and captured cities on Apollo. This would make it harder on Apollo for the human player to take advantage of a weak tactical AI and run away with the war score and thus get huge spoils.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

They are getting feedback on war score since Quill18's LP, so they actually had 5 weeks to do this rework. Also, it probably won't come out next week, so they probably still have at least two weeks to finish it. I think it's enough time to do something like that.

You'll also note that the war spoils screen has its own unique background art. So they are definitely taking the time to make the screen look right. So, yeah, I am sure they have had several weeks to work on this.

 

[Olodune]

Firaxis could give the AI a bonus to its war score based on difficulty level to help the war score scale with difficulty as you say. For example, the AI could earn double war score points for unit kills and captured cities on Apollo. This would make it harder on Apollo for the human player to take advantage of a weak tactical AI and run away with the war score and thus get huge spoils.

Solid ideas.

 

[Gokudo01]

Wow War Spoils looks like a VAST improvement. Not sure if it's still an ideal system, but at least it certainly looks like a good change over the original BE war/peace dealings, where the initial war score system has not been.

OMFG, good job firaxis

 

[Barathor]

Yeah, that's a neat handicap idea. Though, sadly, with the current AI, I think it would be more effective to impose a penalty on the points gained by the human, rather than a bonus to the points gained by the AI.

EDIT: Though, perhaps it would be best to not distort the points, it could affect peace negotiations. The human would need to punish an AI even further to get a peace deal or the AI would think there's hope for them and they're doing better than expected if they get a bonus to their points earned and actually pass the human's total (or other thresholds in the code which affect how soon they'll peace out). Sure, you can keep the war score points the same and only modify the spendable points once you get to the Spoils of War screen, but that just isn't as clean and is less intuitive.

Actually, I think a better approach would be to modify the costs in the Spoils of War screen instead of modifying points, if a handicap is ever created.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I think it would be more effective to impose a penalty on the points gained by the human, rather than a bonus to the points gained by the AI.

That'd work too.

 

[Lucius_]

Yeah, that's a neat handicap idea. Though, sadly, with the current AI, I think it would be more effective to impose a penalty on the points gained by the human, rather than a bonus to the points gained by the AI.

Yep. 0 x modifier is still 0.

 

[Ryika]

Given the fact that the AI spams more units the higher the difficulty but still kills just as many (usually none ), yes, decreasing the points a human player can gain is the better method, as it does more to actually normalize the points between difficulties.

Ideally that would be restricted to units only though, taking a city is still the same thing.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

People are howevr forgetting two things

1. Pretty sure the AI will be able to say "No" so you can't necessairly over-expolit it too much.

2. Regarding weaker AIs, there won't be too much spoils to gain anyway, since say a weaker AI will be behind in tech for example so you won't have much to gain yourself with it.

 

[Lord Tirian]

That's a much bigger rework than expected but exactly what a lot of people (including me) were hoping for! It even got a little splash art banner at the top of it!

Stuff like this is why I like Firaxis. Yes, they mess up releases (Civ5, Civ:BE) but they they genuinely support their games and, even if they don't post on forums/reddit, they ultimately listen.

Wonder when we'll see the patch go live.