Reading the patch notes properly

[Civsassin]

The devs have shown in several patches that they don't want exploits (ICS) and they want the game balanced (as Bibor said, tall, wide, conqueror). They've nerfed and buffed areas of the game to achieve these objectives in all major patches. This patch is no different.

They nerfed the ability to exploit RAs, which has been the hallmark of Diety play (I play successfully on Immortal and have never employed the RA expoit strategy).

They are taking away the puppet exploit strategy. This is the current ICS strategy (build 3-4 cities and puppet everything else). By increasing unhappiness if you want to ICS, you will need the Police State policy (Courthouses +3 happiness, 50% cheaper to build), and it will be desireable and probably necessary to annex more and puppet less balancing out the empire.

I am a believer in the law of unintended consequences, so I will be interested in seeing how this very talented and creative user community finds new exploits to take the place of the nerfed ones. I also believe as 2K Gregg's post stated that many of us will have to drop a level. I believe the game gets harder with this patch.

Policies choices cannot be willie nillie any more. You will need to determine your grand strategy early and choose your policies to provide a sustainable advantage well into the late game when policies will be fewer and further between. The same applies for wonders and great people. I belive that strategy becomes much more important; again at the higher levels, you won't be able to thrive without having put in place a grand strategy early.

 

[thadian]

in the end is it a harder game, as in "This game requires more skill and percision" or hard as in "The AI didn't get nerfed". i still say good overall don't get me wrong but i like the anology of playin a game of chess against a bad, inept player who gets 3 moves a turn. most of the time you will lose.

 

[spfun]

Well i have quite a few games pre planned out in my head with the new changes, so i can't wait for the patch.

 

[wcbarney]

Well i have quite a few games pre planned out in my head with the new changes, so i can't wait for the patch.

Wow, you must be one hell of a chess player! I'm lucky if my next planned move goes the way I want.

I, also, am looking forward to the patch. Regardless of what a few others have posted here, it will be a brand new game (sort of like playing one of the mods, right?)

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

I'm looking forward to the new patch as well. Most of the changes should be exciting. I don't mind the happiness and I'd like to try out new policy combos since I can seemingly have more of them. However...

They nerfed the ability to exploit RAs, which has been the hallmark of Diety play (I play successfully on Immortal and have never employed the RA expoit strategy).

This isn't true, IMO. It's actually easier now to exploit RAs than before. Remember you get to choose what tech you want basically and in fact by opening up certain key techs you will be able to get more than 1 free tech per RA for a long time.

 

[Furycrab]

Due to the production "nerfs" of Workshop, Factory and Windmill, production will again need to be supplemented by rush-buys when dealing with large-scale warfare or when building late-game buildings.

They did mention wanting to nerf hammer cost of later game units. We will have to compare, but it might make it more important to have multiple cities churning out units during heavy war, instead of just having one or two cities doing all the production.

The flip side to this is that if the drop in hammer cost is even remotely significant, annexing good cities might be something you should do with "Conqueror" or even "Wide" playstyles.

 

[eric_]

Excellent overview, Bibor! My impressions weren't as specific as yours, but I was instantly struck by how much more interwoven all aspects of the game will be (buildings + policies + wonders + resources to maintain happiness, unit balance for more successful warring, etc).

Very good post. I am still confused about factories though. They use up coal & provide so little production boost, isn't that bad for balancing ? In ciV, strategic resources are much limited so I think a building requiring coal should be powerful.

Yeah, but coal is typically available in considerable abundance (like, 8 per instance), no? And, how many units require it, anyway?

edit: yeah, just factories and iron clad. One I build a lot, one almost never.

 

[BobDole]

Nice overview Bibor, good posts as always. I do think a number of people are a little too worried, although it's understandable with the number of changes being made. There's going to be a lot of changes, but they should be for the better. I figure that they've been testing these changes for months (last patch didn't have any balance changes) so I can't see things being a total trainwreck; they know that it should work out (I hope). Either way, only way to see how they play out for certain is to play when the new patch comes out.

 

[Tabarnak]

Well i have quite a few games pre planned out in my head with the new changes, so i can't wait for the patch.

Haha me too!

 

[tommynt]

Bibor, this was a most intelligent way to put the new patch changes into perspective. I am interested to see how this all pans out. It seems every new change firaxis made has intention behind it. The plan has always been to balance the game, so different styles of play can be successful. I believe after much review that the developers are surely taking the game in the right direction.

Now I am interested to see what new DLC they intend to introduce.

For some1 having a clue of the game all changes apart the RA one seem totaly random.
In fact the sp changes make the game totaly boring - having ultimates in the tress bins u on some tree - so after 10 turn u decide and in the next 200 turns there arent choises anymore - u just wait for the next sp in "your" tree.

Also it if pretty fun that people talk still about ICS, when they talk about 5 city empires - 5 isnt infinate ....
whats so wrong about wanting to expand?
This patch just makes expanding impossible - the game is atm allready boring - 1-3 cities - decide your way to win and just do it - cult for example is so easy and cheap.

And domination is still way to easy.

The one important change have to be a more clever ai and i dont read about this in the notes - so they are just sad

 

[Dizzy75]

It's actually easier now to exploit RAs than before. Remember you get to choose what tech you want basically and in fact by opening up certain key techs you will be able to get more than 1 free tech per RA for a long time.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean - can you explain this?

[Edit] What I mean is that RAs are currently used for slingshotting via tech-locking, i.e. to open up a single, very expensive tech and bulb it. If RAs are now a beaker bonus based on your median available tech, it's mathematically impossible to use them to bulb your most expensive tech.

 

[ohioastronomy]

The most compelling criticism that I saw of Civ 5 was that the design revolved around punishing players. Make buildings slow to create and add maintenance. Make your entire empire shut down unless you manage global happiness. Penalties for annexing; many ways to alienate computer AIs. few ways to please them.

The changes here make it substantially harder to build a large empire; this is (yet again) the designers trying to induce playstyles that they like by inducing penalties.

Sorry, not impressed. At all.

 

[elprofesor]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean - can you explain this?

[Edit] What I mean is that RAs are currently used for slingshotting via tech-locking, i.e. to open up a single, very expensive tech and bulb it. If RAs are now a beaker bonus based on your median available tech, it's mathematically impossible to use them to bulb your most expensive tech.

Plus, you only get 50% of the beakers now. Sure, you have "more" control (if you weren't tech blocking, I mean), but that makes it hardly more exploitable.

 

[eric_]

The changes here make it substantially harder to build a large empire; this is (yet again) the designers trying to induce playstyles that they like by inducing penalties.

That's what people were saying after the last patch, but I regularly have huge empires up through King and I almost never puppet, except during post-capture resistance. Once resistance is over, I annex and build a courthouse (which gets a boost in the coming patch).

Also, a punishment is a downside with no solution; in addition to new downsides (e.g., less happiness from buildings and lux) there are also new solutions (wonder buffs and policy changes addressing happiness).

Large empire happiness will have to be managed differently (generally, global management will be more important), but it will still be manageable.

 

[Dizzy75]

[*]Trading for luxury resources is made beneficial to players again. This will indirectly sap players' ability to invest heavily into city-states.
[/list]

Can you elaborate on this a little? I understand that luxuries in general received a nerf, but isn't the usual technique:

- Improve your own luxury
- Sell it to AI
- Use gold to acquire a different luxury from CS
- Repeat

...which, if your own luxuries are redundant and CS luxuries are more diverse, can be an actual net gain in happiness, compared to holding on to your own luxuries, right?

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Plus, you only get 50% of the beakers now. Sure, you have "more" control (if you weren't tech blocking, I mean), but that makes it hardly more exploitable.

No offence but you are saying that because you now have control over where the research from RAs go you can exploit is less? For me I can certainly exploit things I directly control much easier. I was ignoring the tech blocking which was an exploit to be sure that really should never have been used or included at all. So yes I suppose if you were tech blocking the new system is harder to exploit.. but wasn't the whole point / exploit of tech blocking that you got to choose what tech you got? Under the new system you get to choose it without tech blocking. So you don't really need to drastically alter your research to grab percetages of techs you don't want anymore at all to block them but just barrel through largely as normal.

RAs were largely exploitable to grab very expensive techs... not early cheaps ones. By that point it will be quite easy to get up to 100% bonus from RAs. I mean you can do it as soon as you get rationalism (you can have the tower up by then too - just use your GE from liberty or build it yourself... the tower isn't hard to get on harder difficulties). So how will you exploit it then?

As soon as you can arrange to have at least 1 more high cost tech open than low cost techs open, you're ready. You just sign the RAs and merily either choose to research on the high cost techs or the middle / median techs themselves. So lets say you staggered the RAs by 1 turn and signed 4.

The first one lands, you get the cost of your median tech that you get to direct whereever you want it. As long as you direct it at a median or high tech, the next one will be worth more. Now do I need to reblock techs before the next one lands? Under the current system yes sometimes you do. Now? no. Next turn when the next one lands I can again select whatever tech I want and it'll be worth more than the one before. Rinse and repeat. As long as you time it right and get your research to choke points (just like before) you can have your pick of whatever techs you want. No blocking required.

 

[MkLh]

No offence but you are saying that because you now have control over where the research from RAs go you can exploit is less? For me I can certainly exploit things I directly control much easier. I was ignoring the tech blocking which was an exploit to be sure that really should never have been used or included at all. So yes I suppose if you were tech blocking the new system is harder to exploit.. but wasn't the whole point / exploit of tech blocking that you got to choose what tech you got? Under the new system you get to choose it without tech blocking. So you don't really need to drastically alter your research to grab percetages of techs you don't want anymore at all to block them but just barrel through largely as normal.

RAs were largely exploitable to grab very expensive techs... not early cheaps ones. By that point it will be quite easy to get up to 100% bonus from RAs. I mean you can do it as soon as you get rationalism (you can have the tower up by then too - just use your GE from liberty or build it yourself... the tower isn't hard to get on harder difficulties). So how will you exploit it then?

As soon as you can arrange to have at least 1 more high cost tech open than low cost techs open, you're ready. You just sign the RAs and merily either choose to research on the high cost techs or the middle / median techs themselves. So lets say you staggered the RAs by 1 turn and signed 4.

The first one lands, you get the cost of your median tech that you get to direct whereever you want it. As long as you direct it at a median or high tech, the next one will be worth more. Now do I need to reblock techs before the next one lands? Under the current system yes sometimes you do. Now? no. Next turn when the next one lands I can again select whatever tech I want and it'll be worth more than the one before. Rinse and repeat. As long as you time it right and get your research to choke points (just like before) you can have your pick of whatever techs you want. No blocking required.

Information in patch notes is too unclear to make conclusions. We don't even know if we can choose anything, or if those beakers will still go to a random tech like before. And we don't know what is the point that beaker count is calculated from: is it when you start an agreement or when it's finished. I guess what we know quite surely is that an agreement will still last 30 turns like before (they would probably have told if they had changed this).

But if it works like you described, it actually may be just as exploitable as it was, if not more...

 

[eric_]

Next turn when the next one lands I can again select whatever tech I want and it'll be worth more than the one before.

Wouldn't median only go up once you've fully unlocked a tech? And, since you only get 50% of the median tech's beaker value, there's no way you'd ever come close to unlocking median or higher via one RA. So, you can stack them and ultimately reach one target tech, but that's a lot different than when you could line up three RAs and unlock three techs in a row.

 

[ArcaneSeraph]

Wouldn't median only go up once you've fully unlocked a tech? And, since you only get 50% of the median tech's beaker value, there's no way you'd ever come close to unlocking median or higher via one RA. So, you can stack them and ultimately reach one target tech, but that's a lot different than when you could line up three RAs and unlock three techs in a row.

If you haven't boosted above 50%, yes you are right the amount of beakers won't go up if you don't actually complete a tech with it. And then there's the issue of where the overflow goes as well. But if you open rationalism and build the tower, then the value is 100% again.

MkLh is right though. There are a few unanswered questions that we won't know until the patch lands . I'm assuming the beakers just suddenly get added lump sum to your research on the turn the RA lands.

In some ways it would be less exploitable if you got instead a certain number of beakers per turn.... like say you get median / 30 beakers each turn. Median would change of course so it would either be locked at time of signing or change over time. I still think the best system would be to boost your current research by a percentage instead of all this lump sum based on what techs are available nonsense... That way RAs can't replace your own research, which in many ways they can ATM.

 

[eric_]

Ah, right, forgot about the potential for 100% median value. Even then, if you line up 3 RAs, you can never use that to instantly propel yourself three techs further down the tech tree beyond your most advanced tech. Even if you can target techs for RA beaker dumps, you can either unlock 3 median techs in a row or chip away at something further down the line. But, I can't see how you could ever slingshot three techs ahead of your furthest techs in three turns. IMO that's what currently makes RAs + blocking truly an exploit.

edit: will be interesting to see if you can batch-open techs (opening 2 or 3 at once) that precede your median tech.