Hello Everyone,
Long time Civ/Alpha Centauri player, was ready to give up on the series after the launch of BE & Civ6 a few years ago but eventually found out about VP from the Civ Subreddit and it had completely rekindled my interest in the game.
My friend and I have been playing this at night in large 2 player + AI games using the following MOD pack we found that seemed to work for both of our computers:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/dlc-modpack-repository.609278/page-38#post-15467843
Since we have only gotten back into things from around mid-April or so, we are very out of touch with all the developments over the past few years and are slowly picking up some of the intricacies of the game mechanics. I was wondering if people could help clarify a few things that we have noticed in our games so far as it applies to VoxPopuli's mechanics and the specific mods that came in the pack I linked. These are probably very noobish questions but if you point me down the right path, I will be glad to read up.
(Note: So far all of our games are on King with both of us playing at Standard speed on a large Map)
1. AI Naval Attacks on ungarrisoned cities extremely powerful
We've noticed this in several games, but I can't help but feel that when the AI conducts melee naval attacks on undefended cities, it does significantly more damage than human players are capable of. I am aware of the many bonuses that the AI receives with difficulty level, but I am not worried about fairness, just wanted to know what I should prepare for. My friend and I have often been surprised when a trireme or longboat suddenly appears next to a city and hits it for 130 or so damage. Sometimes we are taking a calculated risk, leaving a city undefended for a turn only to see a naval melee unit capture it from around 50% health. I am just having a hard time wrapping my head around this as I have never been able to achieve the same thing when attacking an AI city. I do notice my own damage going up when I attack ungarrisoned cities with units but never anywhere close to this level of damage. Any thoughts or explanations on why this is?
2. Carthage glitched?
I have been playing a fun solo game as Korea recently, building up my 4 city empire of science and culture next to a rabidly expansionist Carthage. When reading the updated Civopedia on Carthage, I noticed that all mention of their original Civ5 ability (mountainwalk, but take 50% damage if ending turn in mountain tiles) had been erased, so I assumed that they no longer had this UA, just the free lighthouses. So I was extremely surprised when I watched wave after wave of Carthaginian Heavy Skirmishers and Canons climbing the mountains I had strategically planned to protect myself with after they decided to go to war with me. Not only were they climbing them, they were ending their turns there, surrounding my city while taking absolutely no damage! You could say that this made my defense many times harder than it should have been. Did I miss something (UA? Does a special event restore their mountain walk? A special wonder that allows mountainwalk?) or is this just a mod compatibility issue?
3. "Build to" Road Command never works when going towards CS
Now I often had a version of this issue in base Civ5, where my workers building roads to a CS would have issues finishing the last few tiles because of units blocking them or various issues. Not a problem. However in VP I have noticed that this command often fails immediately when I give it to my workers, meaning they wont even try to build the road toward the city state unless I force them to build it tile by tile. Same error occurs even when I target a tile right outside the CS borders, trying to get as close as I can before I do tile by tile commands. Any tips for avoiding this issue?
4. Advice for better understanding movement penalties for all units & line of sight for ranged units?
I am familiar with the basics of these concepts from original Civ 5 and I know that they haven't changed much from the base game. However I will admit that since base Civ5 combat was never much of a challenge on King/Emperor, I didn't spend much time mastering these techniques. Screwing up a move or 3 never hurt you too badly. But now, wading through the veritable "sheets" of enemy combatants in VP, sometimes a missed move can deprive you of the ability to direct canonfire at a key unit or suddenly expose you to ranged attacks from 4 skirmishers that you didn't think could reach the unit but somehow pop in to kill it. (Love how many "move after firing" types of units have been added to the game, greatly increases strategic depth) Sometimes I notice things that seem "unfair", like a Spanish knight somehow crossing a river, killing my cannon tucked between 2 knights and having movement left to return to the other side, when my knights lose all movement crossing a river to chase it next turn) but I am pretty sure I am just misunderstanding something. Surely not every AI cavalry has Parthian tactics and mobility +2, right!? Reading the rules for Mvmt/LOS and mousing over the individual map tiles helps, but getting the info on a specific tile often requires holding the mouse on it for 3 or 4 seconds and is a painfully tedious process. Are there any mods/settings/tips you can offer to help to get this information more quickly or in a "visible" manner so that I can work on improving my strategy or gameplay?
Thank you all for your help!