Porcelain Tower.

[Muderers_Muse]

I agree this might be one of possible scenarios.

And then there are those more realistic scenarios in which 2 civs get wiped out, 2 are hostile/guarded with impossible demands, and 3 remain friendly... for some time.

If you're playing any game type other than domination he's quoting the most likely scenario. In general so long as you don't do anything to upset anyone on deity level you won't be perceived a threat and left mostly alone. Except of course by those going for domination victories which may be 1/4 of your opponents. Although if you're playing to keep up RAs you'll most likely be selling resources, so it's not too hard to keep everyone on your side.

So yes the construction of the Porcelian Tower in invaluable to any game type other than Domination. This will severely limit the varying strategies for early play, for those people that have been working on and perfecting early play strategies on deity this is a serious blow. You've now got two options, rush to the Porcelian Tower or try to rush the military tree... Doesn't sound like an awful lot of fun to me.

 

[ColinTH]

A new coach takes over my football team, I am a creative central midfielder, the team as a whole are creative. The coach takes us into his office individually and tells us the new tactics.


Coach - I have purchased a Giant centre forward and I want you to pass the ball to the right sided midfielder every time you get it.

Me - But boss what about the creativity and speed of thought our team is known for?

Coach - Never mind the creativity and options, we have a giant centre forward. You will pass the ball to the right sided midfielder, he will run down the wing and cross the ball for the giant centre forward who will no problems scoring goals with his head.

Me - But boss, won't we be a bit predictable?

Coach - I've made my mind up and I've told the other central midfielder the same plans, but he passes to the left sided midfielder who does the same. Now I would like you to come outside and meet the new centre forward.

The whole team is outside waiting, and the big guy arrives.

Coach - OK team, you all know the new tactics and this is your new playing partner, his name is Porcelain Tower!

Edit -
Coach - I' m sorry to tell you this but your friend, the right sided midfielder has been dismissed. I have signed a new guy, he is a Bulgarian International. You must come and meet him.
We go outside and the rest of the team are waiting.

Coach - "this is your new team mate, he is Bulgarian, his name is Georgi Hagia and he was born in SOFIA, I would like to think we have the pefect combination for future games!

 

[ColinTH]

So yes the construction of the Porcelian Tower in invaluable to any game type other than Domination.

I disagree, the power of the Longsword has been diminished, and unless playing a tiny pangea map with three or less opponents, you will definately have to keep up with techs.

 

[Babri]

Chichen Itza is still #1. It already may be the best wonder, and now it gets +4 added to it.

Keep in mind that occurence of GAs has been reduced due to fewer happiness so extra happiness from this wonder would make it just as strong as it was before.

 

[Rex_Mundi]

With the new diplomatic positive modifiers, you will have more firends, when playing non-domination.
However some will still be killed off. So 24 completed RA after the tower is build may be optimistic.

 

[spfun]

Guarded civs still agree to RAs for cheap, its just hostile that won't sign RA's. In most of my Pangaea games i'll have about 4 friends, 2-3 friendlies/without friendship pacts & 1 guarded & 1 at war permanently (usually my neighbor)

It means i can spam RAs with everyone but my neighbor. Sometimes throughout the game one may be killed off. But for most of it i can spam RAs.

Now i'll rush to porcelain tower. Not much has changed with RAs once you've got the tower & rationalism opener, let the RA spam commence. Industrial modern techs are the most costly & most worth it. Every 30 turns basically a free tech industrial/modern tech per AI left. RAs will still be OP unless you don't have the porcelain tower or Rationalism which they will be still not bad considering how costly modern techs are. 350+0/100/200 gold for a free modern tech worth like 3000 science, yes please thank you.

 

[CYZ]

Although not mentioned in the notes I hope they make the AI more hesitant with RA's. They should only do it with their closest friends and should also be wary when a RA is more beneficial to the other party than to themselves.

 

[spfun]

They should cost more especially in industrial/modern. Firaxis keep increasing the science costs for endgame in every patch & people are just bypassing the high science costs with RA spam or bulbing the expensive free techs.

 

[Bibor]

I find it really confusing that after a year of patches Firaxis would make such an OP wonder as you guys describe it.

 

[Gali]

Well Bibor did you see the new Hagia Sophia. Here's a free more expensive wonder and a nice bonus. Firaxis hasn't done a good job avoiding OP elements, just look at the National College. Also look at scholasticism. With old policy saving you can outtech Deity easily. This is what happens when you release a game with fundamentally bad balance. Its gotten better but its also changed so much that they can't predict everything. I really don't trust their QA to find the big issues. They just change too much too quickly.

Trading posts were the greatest tile improvement ever and now they're pretty useless. Do non-puppets ever get that many of them at all.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The change to Hagia Sophia is sheer idiocy. There's no sugarcoating it. It was well worth building already. Making it produce another Wonder isn't smart, especially since this means you can effectively build the Porcelain Tower at half price if you get your capital to size 10.

Scholasticism becoming OP was an unintended consequence of strengthening the city-states, IMO. It's hard to fault them on that one, although they should have dealt with the problem sooner and more decisively than they are.

I'm not sure why Firaxis is still making major balance blunders. The .217 patch was a major step in the right direction, with the exception of a couple of glaring errors (Landed Elite, Meritocracy). Why they feel the need to buff Wonders that don't really need a buff is beyond me.

 

[elprofesor]

Porcelain tower was weak pre-patch, if you ask me. Sure, a GS and 2 GS points, but there are better things to do with your production, a buff was welcome. Pre-patch, RAs were broken; the devs probably though that a wonder getting you halfway to Pre-patch levels couldn't be that bad.

The problem with "free GP" is that two of them have amazing one-shot abilities. GS shake the scientific research costs balance; but GE are worse, since there are far less Wonders that there are technologies, and since only one civ can build each wonder. Should there be an average of one wonder per tech, or if the production given by each GE was tweaked, they would be on par. Plus, all wonders should be as useful as each other (and if you ask me, they should all border the OPness; they are called World Wonders after all). The issue of both GS and GE being always useful, while still usually stronger than the other GPs, remains though.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Yes, I was thinking much the same thing about free GP. It's just not a mechanic that should be available early on. If the GS is so OP that the first building with Scientist slots is the University, it shouldn't be possible to get one through other means prior to then.

Porcelain Tower was a mid-game build for all win conditions except Domination. The cost pushed it well down the priority chain, but it was not prohibitive. The fact that the AI didn't prioritize it meant that you could safely put it off for some time.

I agree that Wonders should be things that you always would like to build if you had an infinite amount of time, and that this isn't the case in CiV currently. The problem is finding ways to buff them that don't break the mechanics entirely. No Wonder should grant you a free Wonder; no Wonder should be worth a half-dozen techs.

 

[elprofesor]

But a nuance, though: as Oledave pointed out, PT isn't OP in MP: you get a free GS, but the bonus from RA isn't a given thing, other players know you've built it, so they will rather sign RAs with other players. It doesn't mean you won't sign any, just that you aren't going to be able to sign 4 waves of 6 RAs each after building it. You will probably just end up saving 2000-2500 gold.

Hagia Sophia, though...

 

[Martin Alvito]

Yes, PT is pretty worthless in MP. Most Wonders are, since MP is the Hobbesian state of nature: nasty, brutish and short. I can't see how the HS would repay the investment fast enough.

 

[elprofesor]

Well, repaying a part of the investment is better than repaying nothing? At least you can get another more useful wonder with the free GE

I've never played MP so far, so I can't really talk about it, can I? I guess it depends on the settings (number of AIs, scale of the map, speed...).

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

The Hagia Sophia pre-patch would actually be capable of producing more free wonders than the new one, to be fair. Yes it didn't produce it instantly... but that +33% could be turned into many extra GEs than just 1. Also it could be used before to grab many extra techs via extra GSs.

I know that an extra +33% GPP generation != +33% extra GP... but it comes close if you have enough cities dedicated to it. So I don't think it is out of line to suggest that over the game that extra +33% could generate you 4 or 5 extra GPs. So now it actually generates less but gives you a free GP. So I think its kind of a wash. It's not better or worse (on an entire game scale). Now because you can time and select that first GP... well that might boost it up a bit. But I'd argue you could get a GE about the same time by aiming for metal casting and building a workshop about the same time. If the HS didn't give a GP then it would barely better than building a garden in cities that you want GPP.

Depending on how RAs ultimately work, it will take at least 24 landings to get that 6 extra free techs from the PT. And if they are targetting expensive techs (or random techs) it may take even more to get a free tech from it. GSs can be used to target very expensive techs anytime they are available. So generating 4 or 5 extra GSes may actually be much more powerful than boosting RAs.

These numbers are rough and may not refelct your actual playstyle. So boosts from HS and PT may vary . However it may have been a very wise idea on the part of the devs to limit the production of GPP via +%s as they may very well be the new power teching option.

 

[Gali]

well yeah arcane except that the new Hagia still gets 25% GPP bonus. I'll take a free GP for a 8% reduction in GPP. And since the nerf and shift of democracy thats now tied for stongest bonus for GPP in the game.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

well yeah arcane except that the new Hagia still gets 25% GPP bonus. I'll take a free GP for a 8% reduction in GPP. And since the nerf and shift of democracy thats now tied for stongest bonus for GPP in the game.

I agree completely. I wasn't saying it isn't powerful. It is. It probably might very well be the most powerful wonder in the game now, considering where it pops up. In fact I was more trying to say that it may be more powerful than the new PT.

 

[ColinTH]

Trading posts were the greatest tile improvement ever and now they're pretty useless..

I say one word - Cottages!