'Rising Tide' expansion announced!

[TPangolin]

 

[Ryika]

I only I had ever bothered to take a closer look at the smileys that are available. This one is just full of win and really says everything that needs to be said.

 

[iki]

I'm essentially expecting all the new factions to fit within the "Rising Tide" theme. S Scandinavian Faction with naval, exploration theme sthat harkens back to Norse exploration and Rebel Faction that's an inverse to the ARC and focuses on espionage (a rising political tide if you will) is quite likely in my eyes.

Also, hopefully better Polystralian traits that fit with the new theme.

They seem like a trading nation so maybe you are onto something.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

There won't be a Japan-Korea joint sponser if they harbour any hopes of selling a single copy in Korea.

 

[Westwall]

They can have all my money if they would just fix automated workers.

I realize automating workers is heretical, but at least in SMAC all the way up to Civ 5 the feature worked well enough that workers could be left alone to their own devices most of the time.

Now if you automate them, there's a very real chance of them just bugging out and not building anything. Ever.

 

[iki]

Given that Firaxis says there will be 2 water-themed factions, I'm looking forward to that. A faction that starts on the sea would obviously start with planetary survey too. Expansion will be so fun and you will be virtually untouchable from land-locked civs.

However, this might also warrant the addition of a new infantry unit from civ 5, that being the marines with the negated amphibious penalty when embarked in water. Maybe one of the sea themed factions will be a mixture of Songhai's UA and Viking UA concerning (dis)embarkation and if they do implement a marine unit, for that faction only, it would have an additional combat bonus attacking from the sea.

They did? I must have missed that.
Why would it start with planetary survey? Surely the initial city would be similar to the starting city.

If you have a worker as a cargo it again gives you a two fold boon over land based ones, not including the sponsor/ civ/ faction one.

As that's a huge advantage over other Civs. Maybe as a cargo option. But it's far more than a boon for the two Sponsors / civs / factions that might be water based.

 

[Ryika]

Well, Planetary Survey is needed to water units, I guess that's his logic. But I'm sure there will be a lot of tech-changes and I wouldn't be surprised if embarking as well as basic sea improvements won't have a tech prereq anymore. The same may even be true for the new base sea unit.

 

[iki]

Well, Planetary Survey is needed to water units, I guess that's his logic. But I'm sure there will be a lot of tech-changes and I wouldn't be surprised if embarking as well as basic sea improvements won't have a tech prereq anymore. The same may even be true for the new base sea unit.

But then I think a prerequisite tech should be for Worker units as then it kinda balances it out. Getting a free one would be a boon and it would even out the Tech imbalance in my opinion.

 

[Gorbles]

They can have all my money if they would just fix automated workers.

I realize automating workers is heretical, but at least in SMAC all the way up to Civ 5 the feature worked well enough that workers could be left alone to their own devices most of the time.

Now if you automate them, there's a very real chance of them just bugging out and not building anything. Ever.

What kind of bugging out do you mean? They won't build on top of each other, sure. This means they won't start automated tasks that path them over another Worker's current path (I think that's how they work).

Haven't experienced any bugs though, myself.

 

[durfal]

I get the feeling that even the water themed sponsors start on land but can build on sea faster than the non water themed sponsors.
Maybe I'm wrong and they fix some stuff, but there are so many problems now if they start at sea immediately.

 

[Mecatronico]

They can have all my money if they would just fix automated workers.

I realize automating workers is heretical, but at least in SMAC all the way up to Civ 5 the feature worked well enough that workers could be left alone to their own devices most of the time.

Now if you automate them, there's a very real chance of them just bugging out and not building anything. Ever.

I always automated my workers, is it a good way to play? No! But I am very casual and play in lower difficults so there is no problem, I just build a good number of the guys and let they alone, when I need something specific I grab the closest worker and give it an order. This way to play served me very well UNTIL I found The Terrascape, when I discover it, this is all my workers want to build and it gets... interesting... well, after that no more automated workers for me, I have not played for some time, so I do not know if it was changed but it surely was my biggest problem with the workers.

 

[Quineloe]

The only thing to excite me at this point is a complete overhaul of the diplomacy system.

My major disappointment in BE is that they carried over the complete lackluster system we had in 5 without doing anything about it except the worthless favors.

 

[Westwall]

I always automated my workers, is it a good way to play? No! But I am very casual and play in lower difficults so there is no problem, I just build a good number of the guys and let they alone, when I need something specific I grab the closest worker and give it an order. This way to play served me very well UNTIL I found The Terrascape, when I discover it, this is all my workers want to build and it gets... interesting... well, after that no more automated workers for me, I have not played for some time, so I do not know if it was changed but it surely was my biggest problem with the workers.

What kind of bugging out do you mean? They won't build on top of each other, sure. This means they won't start automated tasks that path them over another Worker's current path (I think that's how they work).

Haven't experienced any bugs though, myself.

I once had about 10 automated workers sitting around doing absolutely nothing even though they were sitting between 3 cities without any improvements - no roads or farms or generators, NOTHING. I thought maybe I had too many workers... but then I tried a new game and it happened again, this time with just 2 workers between 2 cities. Really frustrating.

 

[Endar]

Hopefully they will make specialists useful.

 

[iki]

Hopefully they will make specialists useful.

Certain ones already are. Though yeah I kinda miss Doctors from SMAC.

 

[Ryika]

In mainstream strategies all specialists are useless right now. Food and Production both are utterly useless and even outclassed by normal tiles, additional culture is not really needed in the mid- and endgame (when slots are available) - if the palace came with 1-2 culture slots, that would actually open up some options.

Scientists could actually have a place if the buildings you need to get them wouldn't come so late and if academies wouldn't just outclass them by also granting the base tile yield at the cost of a few ept (and being limitless spamable). Then there's also the production cost of buildings with scientist slots - and of course there's still the "issue" that you can't actually build institutes directly when you research that tech without giving up 1.5-2k science from not being able to use its building quest for a really advanced tech.

 

[Westwall]

Yeah culture doesn't seem to serve much purpose beyond expanding borders and gaining virtues.

Seems like a step back from the more prominent role it had in Civ 5.

 

[iki]

Yeah culture doesn't seem to serve much purpose beyond expanding borders and gaining virtues.

Seems like a step back from the more prominent role it had in Civ 5.

Yeah a cultural Victory or something like it would be nice. Maybe it could be used as a diplomatic currency for something??

 

[Ryika]

Could also be redesigned to become a bigger part in affinity victories. ^^ Would even make sense, the "ideology" of your people has so much more to do with their culture than just their scientific advances. I'd actually say pushing Harmony further towards culture, Purity towards production and supremacy towards science would make a lot of sense when it comes to "flavor". But of course, a lot of mechanics would need to be redesigned around that.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

They talk about gaining traits through your actions in diplomacy. Makes me wonder if one day we'll be calling it the warmonger bonus.
They spoke of buffs and special abilities, which makes me think of the traits of civ 4 but getting applied as the game goes on through diplomacy rather than at start. They also said something about solving problems by exchanging power and said if you have a deficit in your civ you can solve it through diplomacy. At first I heard deficit and thought financial deficit which didn't make sense because you can already exchange money but I think he meant deficit in a more general sense of a weak point. So I'm thinking maybe these traits are exchangeable. Like I've gained a financial trait and someone else has gained the much beloved warmonger bonus, but now I need to go to war so we exchange traits. Maybe not specifically exchanging traits but offering aid of a type and it not being a zero sum game where we both give up something to the other, but instead both gain something.

Perhaps the generic cooperation agreement will be replaced with more specific things like military or scientific cooperation. Right now you can be friends with a rich or powerful civ but that doesn't help make you rich or powerful. You could make deals to get their money or invite them to war but they might have their own use for their money and units and they don't want to lose them for what your offering. However if they could buff you without giving up something then being friends has value.

Assuming this is how it work, this would mean you'd have a reason to defend a friend. Currently if a friend is threatened with conquest you likely wouldn't do anything or would jump in against them so someone else doesn't get all the spoils. However if they've racked up several traits you don't have, something that can't just be stolen, then they might be more valuable to you alive. More so than what a few puppet cities of theirs would be worth.

Yeah a cultural Victory or something like it would be nice. Maybe it could be used as a diplomatic currency for something??

Promised Land should be a culture victory