Patch update on the Firaxis livestream

[Alkaid]

That's an awkwardly generalized statement given the fact that in the last 6 Posts people have given very different impressions. ^^

I'm obviously saying that in regards to my games, not everyone else. It's not a matter of trying to be contrarian. She just legitimately often does well in my games.

At least 75% of the time she's among the top AIs when I play, and I agree it doesn't make sense, yet it happens. Reginaldo has had similar results, despite being another terrible ability sponsor.

In the same way I'm surprised how Hutama doesn't consistently be at or near the top for me. In base BE he'd almost always do really well, but even though RT made him so much better, I usually see him do not nearly as well as in the past. I can't explain it either, but it's what I've been seeing.

The point is just that from my observations through many games, the sponsors that should be crappy or really good tend to not turn out doing as I'd expect. Of course I'm not saying that should be true for everyone, just that it has been in my experience.

One thing that is consistent though has been Chungsu and NSA. I have yet to see either of them do really well, and they usually get stomped by another AI even if I leave them alone myself. NSA holds the current record for most times wiped out by neighboring AI in my games. Chungsu tends to hang in there for longer but still becomes pretty irrelevant. I wonder if the water starts are actually a bad thing for them, since the land-starting AIs tend to kick their ass, even at sea, if they get into wars.

 

[Olodune]

It is hard to make generalizations with only our own experience, but this is the score from my current game. Apollo/Standard @ t100. The four AIs mentioned as weak above are all clustered at the bottom. I think I might win this one

Spoiler :

Elodie has a size 5 capital. She isn't usually that bad

 

[Skulbow]

I disagree about cities with Al Falah. I lost a close game with her last night on Apollo and I can tell you she had well over 10 cities. She conquered at least four cities that I could see and built herself another 10 or so. She went Supremacy and was at war constantly with other AI players but never me as I was her nearest rival in points and I kept a very large army (navy).

And on another point. I have never ever got close to winning on Apollo or highest difficulty before in Civ V or Vanilla BE but this new version everyone has so much space to expand that it is so much easier to avoid conflict and annoying your neighbours by being too close. I feel that is why the game is definitely easier. Now I win comfortably on Soyaz and lower where as before the expansion Normal difficulty or one above was my norm.

LOL third edit but looking at other comments in this thread I do believe water cities are too weak and very easily taken. I have learnt through frustration and losses that water cities need plenty of units around them to stop the AI just seizing them in a single move without even seeing the enemy near them. In a war you can lose two cities in a single turn. Look at their strength compared to land cities. In my first few games I just spammed water cities and then just lost so many to surprise attacks. This version of the game is the best I have ever seen a Civ game play on water. That is refreshing but after awhile you learn what their tactics are and so like a good boy scout...Be prepared!!!

 

[stanfiem]

OH !!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU SID MEIRS.......wait......

 

[Eji1700]

Thoughts as I go on the notes:

Diplomacy:
Spoils of war and bug fixes are good. System is still shallow as hell but i'm glad to see progress being made as it didn't even work before.

Quests:
Fixes, good.

Covert ops:
Black market has HUGE potential if done right (best feature of endless legend by far, even though it's implemented terribly), but at least should make things interesting. I am worried that it sorta makes strat resources too easy to get? Have to see how it plays.

AI-
I'm sad there's not more here. I get it, but still sad.

Art/UI:
All good.

Balance:

Trade being one unit makes sense (stupid false choices before). Earlier rudder should help aquatic cities.

Better fence is whatever. It's gotten for the quest.

The rest is...acceptable, but frankly I see nothing here that's going to solve the games current issues (too easy). Trade routes are still the way to go, and they didn't even rebalance the obvious faction issues (PAC no point in upgrading, poly too strong, etc).

I'm happy to see them working on it. I'm happy to see them taking it seriously (real screens, more features). I'm sad to see balance ignored.

 

[hevans900]

Diplomacy:
Spoils of war and bug fixes are good. System is still shallow as hell but i'm glad to see progress being made as it didn't even work before.

I just love how they dub it a "new feature" when it is fixing something that was COMPLETELY broken. It should have been in the BERT release candidate.

Also very sad to see balance completely ignored. Trade routes are completely broken atm.

 

[Gorbles]

It is a new feature. What "should" have been in the released product isn't up to the consumer to decide. It's reliant on internal deadlines and shipping estimates.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I just love how they dub it a "new feature" when it is fixing something that was COMPLETELY broken. It should have been in the BERT release candidate.

Also very sad to see balance completely ignored. Trade routes are completely broken atm.

It is a new feature... they just took out the old feature before the new one was finished.

 

[poom3619]

Maybe someone could make "Agressive and Expansive AI mod for Elodie and less expansive factions" mod, at least before Firaxis rebalance their AI.

 

[Acken]

I do not know if the AI expands a lot because the minimap is so ugly I cannot look at it

 

[Natura]

Oddly enough the sponsors that overall have been the biggest on my games are

- PAC
- African Union
- KP

Al Falah went big one game on a conquering spree, but then a resurgent AU just steamrolled her. KP and PAC are currently locked in a gigantic war on my most recent game, with neither side at an advantage.

AU surprises me because their bonus doesn't seem that great for an AI; I can sort of see a strategy based around specialists but I doubt the AI is programmed to exploit it that well.

One consistency has been that Elodie, NSA and Chungsu have been utterly obliterated in every game I've had, and not by me.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Something 10.2 MB just downloaded. Hot fix?

 

[Gorbles]

Crash hotfix - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=14040437#post14040437

 

[durfal]

First two games after the patch were fine and "normal". Other sponsors build 3, 4 cities and always the last sponsor who lands, basically lands on top of me, after which we always go to war very quickly and I take his/her 1 or 2 cities.

But in the game I'm playing now, as Kavitha (Vostok) on a normal map size, Elodie had the same steroids as she had in hevans900's game as she suddenly in a 10 turn frame around turn 75 to 85 settled 8 cities at once and 4 more later. Unfortunately she had landed close to me to the left of me but I was giving more attention to Barre at my right side who was crawling to me with his cities like he always seems to do when landing close to me. So I was trying to build an outpost to close the gap there when I suddenly saw 3 Franco outpost popping up on the left of me. Had to buy 3 settlers to block her way into my territory (and delve deeply in the unhealth) after which she lost almost all her respect for me, as if building 3 outpost (at first) close to my territory was fine to do, lol. Luckely we were both purity and she had bought 2 diplomatic traits from me so we didn't go to war yet but I decided to build an big army to be sure she wouldn't try to backstab me. We were fighting who had the most points for a while untill I build a few wonders and now I'm in the lead again. I have 10 cities and starting to have trouble to find space to build more (and keeping room for the Earthlings who need there space for there cities for my victory) while she has 13 right now and has more room to build them. I never seen a AI build that many cities and so quickly in this game before.
So far in RT only Hatuma seems to start pumping out cities in the second half of the game when his trading routes start to make a profit. That is if he hadn't pissed off somebody else before that and was at war the whole time .

 

[Gort]

Sounds like Hiawatha from Civ 5. Terrible faction bonuses, but the AI just goes nuts and craps cities everywhere, which is actually a good strategy due to their massive difficulty-level bonuses.

 

[poom3619]

Sounds like Hiawatha from Civ 5. Terrible faction bonuses, but the AI just goes nuts and craps cities everywhere, which is actually a good strategy due to their massive difficulty-level bonuses.

Terrible UA and tree-hugger civ with AI that biased toward the strategy of expert human player, with AI bonus that used to offset human's advantage, and you will got him.

It is some value in XML that make expert AI personality and newbie AI personality. Change those value and they will put up a fight. I will try to write how, probably here.

 

[Karmah]

Great job, guys, our ideas have been implemented!

Spoiler :

Also, new covert options which (I think) you spend diplomatic capital on to gain strategic resources. It's called Black Market. (Will be a pretty neat feature once strategic resource totals are balanced on the map and within gameplay features which create more.)

Also, trade units are all amphibious now and are that way from the start, no tech required. I think they mentioned something about the Thermohaline Rudder being placed in that tech now.

EDIT: Note: they mentioned the numbers displayed in the image above are still being balanced. Also, I could be wrong, but it looks like energy and DC will be subtracted from the enemy's total, not just generated out of thin air. In the image above, each energy costs 2 remainder war points and DC costs 3 for each 1. The tech costs roughly equate to 1 science for every 1 war point you have over the enemy's total -- a much better "purchase".

Perhaps it'll be switched before release, so that you get more with your points if you buy energy or DC, but if you want techs it'll cost you a lot more. Comparing yields, I would value energy at no more than half of science -- actually, even less. Though, it should also be taken into consideration that with this energy and DC, you're not only gaining it, you're taking it away and hurting your enemy even further. With tech, you're just gaining it (which you'll use to hurt them later, haha... but the same could be said for yields generated out of thin air.)

EDIT 2: Also, I bet you're buying the science to put towards the tech, not just the tech as a whole. In the image, the two more expensive techs will cost all 740 war points. It probably has to be this way too since later on, it'll allow skirmishes to still gain portions of tech when the costs are really high. The list will probably be limited to techs they've completed which you have not.

Is this promising update live by now Is there any documented changelog somewhere ?