Rising Tide - First Impressions

[tesb]

My impressions:

pros:
-early game and exploration is better than ever. i really like how many dubious virtues became better because of it.
-the artefact system is very good, although the rewards for 3 artefacts can be too good.
-the marvels are also very well done, however there are again extreme inbalances, e.g. in my current i finished the quest for the large skeleton marble very early, which gives all military units the leash ability. so i crushed my nearest opponent with a siege worm when he had marines ...
-aquatic gameplay is surprisingly different from land gamplay

cons:
-the ai is terrible. just floats it's cities around.
-balance it totally out of whack, i got something like 5 free affinity levels from exploration, needless to say i am way ahead of all opponents
-i played arc and got the 3 artefact reward for faster spies, which results in 4 turn science stealing. i flipped 5 cities at around turn 150 ...
-many many bugs, e.g. buildings are build able although they are tied to a strat. resource
-the warscore system seems useless as the ai seems to ignore it.
-diplomatic capital seems a bit lack lustre once you have maxed out your traits
-trade route spam is worse than ever. this system needs to be cut down (trade routes are way too strong compared to other options like buildings and improvements, trade units clutter the map, trade routes adds tons of micromanagement for boring passive economy buffs).



overall verdict:
it seems like a typical firaxis release, similar to civ5 and civ:be:
-buggy, unpolished, some very good features mixed with some pointless ones and an utterly incapable ai.

 

[LORD ORION]

My impressions:
which gives all military units the leash ability. so i crushed my nearest opponent with a siege worm when he had marines ...

Were you Al Falah and screaming at all the sleepers?

 

[tesb]

no, i was arc sadly. next time it is al falah on a desert planet
i got the shai hulud achievement though

 

[Galgus]

@SupremacyKing2

The AI making meaningful attacks should be characteristic of the middle-of-the-road difficulty, not only the highest ones.

 

[ptoss1]

As an aquatic city, the krakens offer more difficulty than the rest of the AI Civs combined.

 

[albie_123]

Not for me. Hutama rushed me with 5 melee ships, a cruiser and a sub. So my experience has been quite different.

I don't believe you. Would be nice if you could share a screenshot or save file.

 

[Alkaid]

I don't believe you. Would be nice if you could share a screenshot or save file.

I haven't been rushed early yet but the AI has been very patrol boat-happy in my games. After Ryika's first post about the AI making land units instead of sea units I was worried, but so far it's the land units the AI's been neglecting for me. They really love their boats and subs. I've had the AI come over and aggressively stake out my water cities sometimes with squads of 5-7 boats early on, but I think keeping decent relations has been keeping them from actually DOW'ing me.

What I don't see much is gunboats. They seem to make very few of those now. It feels like how they made artillery before. They mostly make a couple and station them in cities, rather than attack with many of them. Planes are a bit less common too, I find. I think they're prioritizing patrol boats above other units if their city can make them.

 

[Selereth]

I too can attest to the AI building massive navies. In my game as Al Falah I was at war with ARC and there was a peninsula of sorts with my capital on the land in the middle and a second city on the water on the right of the peninsula. ARC's territory was on the left. To get around the peninsula is quite a chore, takes a few turns.

Anyway, she declares war on me and for a while all she does is throw a few screamers at my capital. I'm having a relatively easy time fending them off with a few Supremacy arbiters and subs but I'm so busy with the defense of my capital I don't notice the lone screamer she sends to my water city on the other side of the peninsula. I think, "one little screamer ain't gonna do much pal", but out of nowhere, she attacks with three Harmony subs that are all carefully positioned around my city (two tiles away). Plus since they're Harmony subs they get the 40% upgrade to attacking cities. Needless to say that city was gone, I was completely unaware that she had sent so many subs to that city.

It was brilliantly executed, took me by surprise. Kudos to ARC for pulling off that maneuver. The AI CAN execute good moves on occasion.

 

[Galgus]

As an aquatic city, the krakens offer more difficulty than the rest of the AI Civs combined.

Oddly enough two were lurking near my capital at the start of the game when I couldn't deal with them, but I haven't seen one since.

At this point I'm confident I could destroy an army of them, but despite random AI wars I've seen a grand total of one AI unit actually near my territory.

 

[ptoss1]

Oddly enough two were lurking near my capital at the start of the game when I couldn't deal with them, but I haven't seen one since.

At this point I'm confident I could destroy an army of them, but despite random AI wars I've seen a grand total of one AI unit actually near my territory.

I had an island start and the kraken just circled my city destroying every improvement. Should have taken a pic. Was ridiculous.

 

[Alkaid]

I just want to say my impression of the health system now. I find it a hilarious shift from the base game.

Before, you would almost certainly be negative until you could get down to health finisher virtue of choice if you were expanding well. And if you were warmongering and keeping cities you'd likely be in the red during the mid game to a degree unless you maybe had a ton of biowells.

Now? Lets look at the most of the NEW available bonuses you can get. Most of these are pretty easy and you don't even need to go out of your way to get them. (sorry if I missed any)

Affinity:
-8 Purity: +1 health and 2 energy from Terrascapes.
-5/5 Supremacy/Purity: 25% less unhealth from global size of population.
-8/8 Supremacy/Purity: +1 health and +10% energy for cities with a garrisoned military unit.
-5/5 Harmony/Supremacy: +5 Health
-10/10 Harmony Supremacy: +0.4 Health for every military unit.
-5/5Purity/harmony: Unhealth from number of cities reduced 25%

Traits:
-Political-Pogressive: 2/3/4 health for every agreement initiated by you.
-Domestic-Developer: +3/5/8 global health.
-All the 5/5 hybrid health bonuses. (very easy to get)
-
Agreements:
-Public Health: Cities may develop production to health at 20/25/30% rate.
-Civil Infrastructure: +1/2/3 health from strategic resources.
-Central Health Authority: +3/4/5 health in capital.
-Self-reliance: -10/20/25% Unhealth from global population.

Wonders:
-The Akkorokamui: Unhealth from population in this city reduced 50% (water city only)

Artifacts:
-Dimension Folding Complex: -50% Unhealth from city population.


As I write this is I have 35 cities in my current apollo domination game as Daoming. Most cities are in the range of 7-11 pop, with about 10 from 15-20. It's turn 217 and I have 274 health. 274.

Picture:

Spoiler :

Health stuff I have:
-The health virtues from Industry and Might.
-The Akorokamui wonder in a 20-ish pop water city.
-The Political-Progressive trait and 5 agreements with Elodie. (giving 20 health)
-Civil Infrastructure as an agreement from Elodie (at allied level for +3)
-All the 5/5 Hybrid affinity health bonuses.
-Very few biowells.

So there's a lot more stuff I could potentially have and I'm still crazy healthy.

..Also yes I should I could have won this game very easily by now, but both remaining capitals are far inland (it's a pangea map, but only 2 sponsors started not on the coast of the landmass) and I can't be bothered to manually walk a ton of redeemers through the map to kill both of them. I've been waiting for Phasal transporters out of laziness, since I can land right on top of Elodie's cap with one.

 

[Galgus]

I too can attest to the AI building massive navies. In my game as Al Falah I was at war with ARC and there was a peninsula of sorts with my capital on the land in the middle and a second city on the water on the right of the peninsula. ARC's territory was on the left. To get around the peninsula is quite a chore, takes a few turns.

Anyway, she declares war on me and for a while all she does is throw a few screamers at my capital. I'm having a relatively easy time fending them off with a few Supremacy arbiters and subs but I'm so busy with the defense of my capital I don't notice the lone screamer she sends to my water city on the other side of the peninsula. I think, "one little screamer ain't gonna do much pal", but out of nowhere, she attacks with three Harmony subs that are all carefully positioned around my city (two tiles away). Plus since they're Harmony subs they get the 40% upgrade to attacking cities. Needless to say that city was gone, I was completely unaware that she had sent so many subs to that city.

It was brilliantly executed, took me by surprise. Kudos to ARC for pulling off that maneuver. The AI CAN execute good moves on occasion.

What difficulty were you on?

I'm playing on Gemini and I haven't seen anything like that.

I thought the main difference in higher difficulties was how much the AI cheats, but perhaps they also made them pansies at anything under Soyez for some reason.

 

[ptoss1]

What difficulty were you on?

I'm playing on Gemini and I haven't seen anything like that.

I thought the main difference in higher difficulties was how much the AI cheats, but perhaps they also made them pansies at anything under Soyez for some reason.

The AI cheats on Appolo are pretty massive. Something like 50% build time, starting colonist, 3 military units, 2 workers, 45% faster growth rate, and a whole bunch of other things that means they can actually be a challenge. On Gemini they're just strong enough to remind you once in a while there are other factions in the game.

 

[CelJaded]

Has anyone managed to try out the diplomatic trait called Suspicious? It's supposed to level up your spies faster, but I haven't noticed it having any effect myself.

I'm overwhelmingly disappointed to see that the Geothermal is now wholly useless outside of its tile yield. You can't trade it for other resources any more so it's only function is for building an assortment of totally lacklustre wonders.

There should be an element of mystique to a resource that comes deep from within the planet's crust and unlocks the potential behind such "massive construction projects", but it's even more useless now than ever!

And don't get me started on that marvel quest for the frigid biome...

 

[ptoss1]

Frigid Biome marvel and hydrachoral marvel special effects are pretty much useless.

 

[Alkyon]

Frigid Biome marvel and hydrachoral marvel special effects are pretty much useless.

Eh, having free sight all over the place isn't bad. 110% agree on you with the Frigid Biome effect being the weakest by far. It's like the map having extra geothermal vents that you can see without the tech, but you can't improve to actually tap for energy.

I mean, Primordial beats it out and does so handily and it's a temporary bonus. Though personally my favorite is the Fungal marvel quest. Especially when you get a start like this:

Spoiler :

(spoiled for huge)

 

[Lucius_]

I haven't gotten the frigid yet. The hydracorral is ok. The primordial is awesome.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Frigid Biome marvel and hydrachoral marvel special effects are pretty much useless.

Well, on the flip side I really enjoy the tranquil feel of the frigid worlds. It's hard to tell the terrain apart, but the overall feel is really cool (no pun intended).

 

[Selereth]

What difficulty were you on?

I'm playing on Gemini and I haven't seen anything like that.

I thought the main difference in higher difficulties was how much the AI cheats, but perhaps they also made them pansies at anything under Soyez for some reason.

I was playing on Soyuz, although I was under the impression higher AI levels simply increased the bonuses they received, not their ability to actually play the game.

 

[CelJaded]

A few first impressions on the multiplayer side of things (for those who don't visit that sub-forum):

I can confirm after playing a full cooperative team game today that AIs do indeed make contact to offer agreements etc. just as they would in a single player game.

Observations:

• Diplomacy in multiplayer actually works now because of agreements. Compared to BE multiplayer you can now actually satisfy AI demands and cooperate/ally with them just as you would in a single player game and thus reap all the benefits of the new system. In short: it's much better, except...
• If playing a cooperative game with human players you can break the game pretty badly by signing permanent ally-level agreements with your team mates... ARC and Chungsu working together anyone?... And don't even mention Hutama! It's pretty busted. -Noticing a theme with this expansion yet?...
• You still need to spend diplomatic capital to reach allied status with your human teammates- you don't start the game officially "allied" as it were.
• The diplomacy dialog looks the same as it does for the single player game only without a fear/respect meter. Didn't try sanctioning each other- I assume you can't do that though...
• Possible bug: If your teammate makes peace (even if it's a white peace) with one of your current AI opponents, it appears to gift the surrendering AI's cities/reparations to you as if you'd settled for the full amount. I assume this only happens if you were active in the war and thus have a high war score over the loser, but it clearly shouldn't just give you their cities out of the blue.
• The ability to share energy and strategic resources etc. with your teammates has been removed completely as part of the new diplomacy system.
• Sending a trade route to a fellow player's city counts as an internal trade route- no strategic resource sharing there either.