(Rising Tide) Sponsor Bonus Discussion

[Kaigen]

ARC could be a lot of fun IF they remove/nerf surveillance webs and add some more interesting 3- and 4- intrigue ops. Otherwise still good but boring, just stealing energy and science over and over.

The Intrigue discount does bring the various affinity ops into reach against the AI, even with a surveillance web. I have no idea if those are even worthwhile, though, since right now they're basically unusable. It also means that ARC actually has a shot at the later end of the espionage mission change, but I'd rather they just revamp that instead of only one sponsor having a chance at it.

 

[MasterEcabob]

We saw in an earlier video that they did nerf surveillance webs to -1 intrigue level. This means that ARC's bonus now completely bypasses webs. No city is safe from her coups!

 

[SupremacyKing2]

This means that ARC's bonus now completely bypasses webs. No city is safe from her coups!

As it should have been from the beginning.

 

[Red Menace]

I'm pretty there will be a BERT livestream this Thursday at the usual time of 2PM EST on the Firaxis Twitch channel. But considering that Firaxis is doing a big panel for BERT at PAX this weekend, I doubt the live stream will "spoil" any info that they are planning to release at the panel.

thanks for the info, i hope they atleast reveal one thing on Thursday.

We saw in an earlier video that they did nerf surveillance webs to -1 intrigue level. This means that ARC's bonus now completely bypasses webs. No city is safe from her coups!

how do coups work? i never get that much intrigue.
its a good thing they are weakening surveillance webs, i remember the BE videos talking about the cool affinity missions, my brother and I played 120 hours of BE and still haven't done any.

 

[Veras]

Pete Murray just tweeted:

'On Thurs' stream, watch @acfrederiksen monger his wars whilst I nik peace and we show off Brasilia/FI traits. Elodie sez stream is Canonical'

So I guess they'll just explore the new UAs and traits of the old leaders

 

[The Naug]

Also, has Al Falah been nerfed? It used to be 150% increase in city process.

Also you forgot to mention that Franco-Iberia gains a free virtue for every 10 virtues acquired with culture (so excluding other free virtues including this one).

I fixed the Al Falah one and added the Franco-Iberia one.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Pete Murray just tweeted:

'On Thurs' stream, watch @acfrederiksen monger his wars whilst I nik peace and we show off Brasilia/FI traits. Elodie sez stream is Canonical'

So I guess they'll just explore the new UAs and traits of the old leaders

Well, seeing Brasilia's new trait in action will be very cool. We should get some more insight into how the war score mechanic works. So, definitely a worthwhile live stream to watch.

 

[Veras]

I implied him if they'll go multiplayer, and he said it will be two separate saves. So we'll probably see a war previosly set and some mid or late game. Great opportunity to show some hybrid units.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Pete Murray just tweeted:

'On Thurs' stream, watch @acfrederiksen monger his wars whilst I nik peace and we show off Brasilia/FI traits. Elodie sez stream is Canonical'

So I guess they'll just explore the new UAs and traits of the old leaders

Seems odd to show off one civ with a totally new trait and another civ with the same trait as base BE. Makes me wonder if FI got a surprise new trait?

 

[Alkaid]

We saw in an earlier video that they did nerf surveillance webs to -1 intrigue level. This means that ARC's bonus now completely bypasses webs. No city is safe from her coups!

That's a surprisingly cool boost for them then.

Side tracking a bit, but do we know if there's been any change to spy actions or their requirements overall? It'll be a shame if the affinity-related actions are still 5 intrigue. They're both out of reach thanks to surveillance webs(even factoring in a -1 nerf) and a worthless option when for 4 intrigue you could just use coup instead. They really need to lower the requirements if they haven't.

 

[Veras]

Seems odd to show off one civ with a totally new trait and another civ with the same trait as base BE. Makes me wonder if FI got a surprise new trait?

It's possible, or maybe they'll show how good FI trait can be when upgraded since there's a lot of people complaining.

But then they would need to do another for KP.

 

[MasterEcabob]

The affinity operations were lowered to 4 levels in the most recent patch. In BERT, it looks like recruit defectors is being lowered to 2 levels, and I think steal tech was upped to 3.

There is a mod out there that nerfs webs in a similar manner, and it really is cool getting to use those affinity operations. It was really cool to sabotage a Purity player's magrail network around their Exodus Gate, for example.

 

[Red Menace]

maybe they'll show how good FI trait can be when upgraded since there's a lot of people complaining.

i hope they do something, since every UA has three levels in BERT, maybe they get increased culture production? or more simply they get a free virtue every 10/8/7? or something unexpected based on virtues/culture.

 

[Veras]

i hope they do something, since every UA has three levels in BERT, maybe they get increased culture production? or more simply they get a free virtue every 10/8/7? or something unexpected based on virtues/culture.

I guess the safest bet is a fair number of virtues needed for the free virtue once upgraded. Maybe Franco Iberia only starts with a weak bonus to not unbalance the early game, then they take off after the upgrades.

 

[Zenstrive]

Al-Falah's mid-to-end game: produce nothing, buy everything!

 

[Galgus]

It's possible, or maybe they'll show how good FI trait can be when upgraded since there's a lot of people complaining.

But then they would need to do another for KP.

It's current goalpost setup doesn't work well with that unless it can be maxed extremely quickly or works retroactively.

And generally requiring 7/6/5 virtues, not only ones unlocked with culture, for a freebie would be more sane and balanced than requiring 10 with the culture unlock only requirement.

Since some Virtues are mostly crummy filler and others are must-haves, Culture gives diminishing returns after the best Virtues are taken.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

This screenshot confirms that FI's upgraded traits are:
level 1: 1 free virtue for 10 virtues gained with culture
level 2: 1 free virtue for 9 virtues gained with culture
level 3: 1 free virtue for 8 virtues gained with culture

 

[Acken]

I'll assume it's not retroactive so it is kind of weak.

 

[Cassadore]

Every Category contains 15 virtues, in an average game you usually dedicate your culture towards 2 virtue trees. Which means you will get about 3-4 virtues on average per playthrough. That is really underwhelming, I expected something that would be 10-7-5 or 10-8-6 but 10-9-8??? seriously?! you better dedicate yourself too cultural traits, aggrements, trade routes and resources if you want to make the most of this.

 

[Galgus]

10 / 9 / 8?!

Even with retroactive rewards that is a joke.

Looking at this and the old replacement of Applied Aesthetics* with the useless Applied Metasocialogy**, Firaxis seems really off-base in judging how to reward a Culture focus.

For something that must be invested in that is a trivially small bonus - alongside general buffs for other Sponsors.

Also, if Traits cost 100 Diplomatic Capital, Bolivar's 1 Diplomatic Capital per unit killed is next to useless.

*(Old Knowledge policy that granted Energy equal to 50% of one's Culture output. Helped make high culture focus kind of somewhat decent if you weren't just spamming Academies to win ASAP.)

**(Makes spies root out spies a bit faster. Blech.)