Predicting Post-Patch Strategies

[biohazard72]

It might be too early to comment due to not knowing the nature of some nerfs, but using general info (no storing policies, Maritime nerf, Horseman nerf) here are some strategies (and Civs) that I think will be significantly stronger post-patch compared to now.

Rome:
- standard ICS style
- Liberty as first policy
- use bottom of tree beyond Writing/Lux techs
- leverage advantage of Legions and Ballistae in warfare (now stronger in comparison to Horsemen). Synergistic with early Warrior rush (see Martin Alvito's excellent thread).
- Legions allow Workers to improve tiles rather than roads (a common problem with ICS is not being able to improve tiles fast enough - Legions should help a little)
- throw up cheap Monuments at Renaissance (Gunpowder?) for Freedom/Rationalism. Grabbing base Order in Industrial would be good synergy with the UA.

Siam:
- less aggressive/continuous ICS style - see Martin Alvito Space thread.
- Liberty as first policy
- beeline Education for Wats (timed perfectly for maximum use of its added culture). Build Monuments around this time.
- time entry to Renaissance (Acoustics or Astronomy) with first non-Liberty policy. Go for Freedom/Rationalism.
- Make strong use of Maritime CSs and post-Renaissance, Cultural CSs to leverage UA
- warfare?

Rome now seems extremely good for ICS, since its units (already naturally synergistic for warfare) are now more useful than Horsemen and its UA naturally serves that end. And Siam seems excellent for science, because its culture comes from a building you'd build anyway at a time when you need culture. I could see them both joining a top tier including Babylon and China (Greece, Mongolia, and France may be badly damaged by Horseman nerfs and no SP storing).

 

[pi-r8]

My guess is that maritime states and horsemen will still be overpowered after the patch, so most strategies won't really change much.

 

[biohazard72]

My guess is that maritime states and horsemen will still be overpowered after the patch, so most strategies won't really change much.

I agree on Maritimes, but if the city attack penalty is significant, Horsemen will be relegated to a secondary spot in armies. Remember they're getting nerfed for their combat value as well.

 

[G Viceroy]

It's definitely going to take Greece down a peg. They're arguably a top 3 Civ right now. They could fall a long way with both nerfs, which counter both their strengths.

Kind of a bummer because I've really been enjoying SP Greece

 

[stormerne]

but if the city attack penalty is significant, Horsemen will be relegated to a secondary spot in armies.

We don't really know yet. It depends. Unless it's so significant that it knocks them out of balance with other units, all it will do is delay any rushing a few turns while extra horsemen are trained. It's quite normal to have a four and two horse tile nearby, and six will probably be enough. Perhaps Russia becomes the favorite rusher! It'll make no difference except on the highest difficulty levels where the AI gets extra time.

 

[Martin Alvito]

Just reviewing the changes in principle (assuming optimal solutions implemented by devs):

- You'd think that the Babs take a hit, but they don't in relative terms. They will be the only way to execute deep slingshots, which just exacerbates their current advantage.
- Siam will be very good. The Horsemen hit isn't so hot for them, but everything else you mentioned is a big plus.
- India won't feel the nerfs much.
- France may be better than we think for pure ICS. If you take the obvious three Liberty policies, the extras should land in the Renaissance. Having Meritocracy and Freedom early will probably be a very significant advantage under the new rules.
- Hadn't thought about using Legions for roads. Cheap extra Workers are cheap. Rome will probably want to throw up Workshops and then building spam at Renaissance. You should be able to pre-build Temples, switch to Monuments and bang them both out on consecutive turns.
- Songhai benefits from the changes quite a bit, since they can time when to start earning their +2 Culture/city advantage and pay no upkeep for it. That UB is gold.
- CCs and Khans will remain insane, so Greece and Mongolia don't have much to worry about.

I concur with the suspicion that Maritime will remain OP.

 

[KingMorgan]

I really can't see that this patch will impact heavily on current strats, it seems to me more of minor annoyances than core game changes - which is very disapointing.

Sadly this game will be no where near my expectations until an expansion pack is delivered, judging on the current dev process and implanation i hold little hope that an expansion pack will make any positive contribution - but i'm hopeful.

 

[wurstburst]

I hopeful that horsemen will remain a viable strategy - a little better or a little worse than the swordsman route. Hopefully more of a situational choice rather than horse rush for the win.

I don't think ICS will be affected by this patch much, so that strategy will probably rise up relative to other choices.

For non-ICS games, you are going to see more beelining to military techs rather than beelining to new eras. That is, rather than saving up 2 GS and the rationalism policies to grab 4 techs at once, you might only be able to get maybe 2 techs by that same time (guessing at the level of nerf on this). That means a push to gunpowder to get muskets to build a resource-free army, rather than a push to rifleman. Yes, muskets could become important post-patch (for 30 turns or so anyway, which is 30 turns more than they last now).

 

[alpaca]

Wait, let me get my magical crystal ball.

*search, rummage*
hmm... I'm sure it was here somewhere
*rummage, BONK!"
Ow! My head! Damn fool thing
*search, grab*
Ah, found it. Oh, wait, it's damn slippery
*crash*
Gah! Not my crystal ball! Nooooooooooo

 

[stormerne]

The crystal ball starts to clear... I predict...

• you'll meet a tall dark stranger who'll invite you to be her running mate...
• people will finally learn how to pronounce Ramkhamhaeng...
• you'll need as much coffee trying to stay awake playing as now...
• there'll be a 'new' strategy called ZICS (zero culture ICS)...
• you'll either cross water or pass water...

 

[ICanHasName?]

I have been playing a while with something like the horseman nerf (11 STR). It really only matters when fighting spears and even then it just means your horses need to spend more time healing after destroying their 'counter'. Horse rushes will still be awesome because you can attack before the enemy has enough spears to do anything about it but more delayed horse attacks will be somewhat harder. The city attack penalty won't matter unless its huge because destroying the enemy army, getting promotions and pilliaging the countryside means you win the war anyway. Swords are still underpowered because you still have to commit to the BW --> IW line, find the less common iron resource (more then 2 iron, preferably), and then go drop a city on it. For all that you get a unit with 2 less move and some terrain defense bonuses. Spending an extra turn in range of city and archer bombard is basically the same as a city attack penalty because the swords hit the city at less then full health.

Maritime nerf isn't really a big deal for ICS, but I bet they will become much less useful for more balanced strategies. 1-2 food isn't going to make any difference in a few big cities but its one free population in all of your small cities.

Less science slots and more expensive libraries means less early bulbing and a big reason to get education and universities. My guess is rifle/artillery slingshots take longer but will still be basically a win condition.

Really all the changes in gameplay are going to come down to the AI. If it learns how to hold defensive locations, put archers in the back and focus fire to destroy injured units then everything changes, if not then nothing really changes.

 

[MykC]

This is kinda off topic but the patch is taking forever to come and second let the modders take care of balance and gameplay fixes and focus on the game breaking bugs that pretty much prevent me from finishing 1 in 3 games.

Back on topic, I agree with what someone above said, the changes will make the current strategies less effective but, it will not be enough to make another strategy better.

 

[bryanw1995]

horseman nerfed to 11 and -40% vs city makes a difference at higher levels. you'll still be able to execute an effective horse rush, but honor will probably get more priority now and it will be much harder to horse rush an entire continent at least. maritime nerf, say they just take -1 food at all levels, that puts you down at 3/1 until renaissance, making granaries actually an option in some cases.

 

[stormerne]

horseman nerfed to 11 and -40% vs city makes a difference at higher levels. you'll still be able to execute an effective horse rush, but honor will probably get more priority now and it will be much harder to horse rush an entire continent at least.

So we get the early horses some XP and promotions on barbs while we're waiting for the later ones to be trained. Which I know we do now, of course, but this time we just do it systematically. And then we set off as before. I wonder if we'll notice that much difference.

 

[gaiko]

#1 Strategic change: "Saving" SPs by not building culture. I've already started playing this way with an ICS based approach, and it works quite well with ~15 cities, burning only 1 SP on Liberty, and not another until Freedom/Rationalism are unlocked. Then prioritize culture buildings in sync with unlocking the industrial era.

France will definitely have to be pure ICS to avoid excessive dumping into early SPs.

Same with Aztecs if they want to use their UA.

 

[bryanw1995]

@stormerne: do you mean that you want to wait until chivalry to do your initial horse rush? you might not make it that far on immortal/deity, while on the other levels any strategy at all will work. the horse nerf just makes a pure horse rush more situational rather than an "I will army of the apocalypse 100% of the time if I have lots of horses" strategy. why pay all the maintenance to level up lots of horsemen for all those turns, by the time you're at chivalry it's time to switch to longswords/muskets most of the time anyway. I've actually found myself going straight iron-based melee/seige more often now, especially since balance-combined shows iron at BW.

@gaiko: it definitely makes sense to require you to use sp's when you get them. clearly the later ones (other than autocracy) are generally better than the early sp's, so it makes sense to keep it interesting by making you choose as you get them. I've started using every one as a I get it now, it's made for some very interesting games.

 

[stormerne]

@stormerne: do you mean that you want to wait until chivalry to do your initial horse rush? you might not make it that far on immortal/deity, while on the other levels any strategy at all will work. the horse nerf just makes a pure horse rush more situational rather than an "I will army of the apocalypse 100% of the time if I have lots of horses" strategy. why pay all the maintenance to level up lots of horsemen for all those turns, by the time you're at chivalry it's time to switch to longswords/muskets most of the time anyway. I've actually found myself going straight iron-based melee/seige more often now, especially since balance-combined shows iron at BW.

No. I was never suggesting waiting that long! I never wait till chivalry. (I prefer horsemen to knights anyway; I prefer the extra mobility and early availability to the +50% strength.) I can't see me waiting after the patch either. So we both agree: on the higher levels it would be silly to wait that long.

However, you may need an extra horseman or two to take out your cities. Where once 3 or 4 would do, you might now need 5 or 6. Who knows? We'll have to see. They don't materialize instantly, hence the wait, though it's not much longer. Meanwhile, a few more barbs will only make us stronger.

 

[wurstburst]

@gaiko: it definitely makes sense to require you to use sp's when you get them. clearly the later ones (other than autocracy) are generally better than the early sp's, so it makes sense to keep it interesting by making you choose as you get them. I've started using every one as a I get it now, it's made for some very interesting games.

Actually, this is exactly the reason for not requiring people to take SP as they are earned. With the rules as they exist now, people can make a strategic choice to take early good SP (such as honor, for example), or give up those early benefits and save up for later, possibly better benefits. For example, taking SP in the honor track gives you a better army, to conquer earlier and faster, growing your empire faster. If you don't take honor, you may have a smaller empire by the time you eventually do use your SP in renaissance or industrial era. It's a classic strategic choice of short term or long term benefits. The new patch will enforce short-term only thinking with the SP, which reduces strategic complexity.

Moot point however since that's the way it's going to be.

 

[LordTC]

The maritime nerfs will split the economies into two distinct economies:

1. The Trading Post economy
2. The Specialist economy

Of course they probably won't be and we'll still have our cake and eat it too!

 

[LordTC]

If they nerf maritimes properly then India is no longer a top 3 civ for ICS, they'll probably drop to about the 5th best. 4 unhappiness per city and half pop unhappiness only breaks even at size 4, and it will be slower going to get there.