[NFP] September Update Video Discussion

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I was just thinking: how Dramatic Ages would work for Dido? If she only has coastal cities on her capital's continent, and they're supposed to always be at 100 loyalty, does that mean she'll be sort of immune towards Dark Ages?

 

[Sostratus]

So another IZ replacement UD. I hope this doesn't introduce bugs when Germany and Gauls conquer each other. (It's buggy when Phoenicia and England conquer each other - the Harbor UD just blows up instead of converting. Not sure about Maya and Korea's Campus UD.)

In general I prefer this. It is very likely that the "Gallic Forge", the Hansa, and the standard IZ will all have quite different adjacency/placement optimization, so at least if I conquer a Gallic city early, i don't have to raze it to move the IZ to a better spot.
For Hansa activity it's usually a total rip and replace of the entire city anyways.

Interesting thing about the Dromon, we saw it perform a ranged attack, but it had two boat models like galleys. So is it a seagoing Immortal?

In civ5, Dromons were absolute murder machines on the water (+50% vs naval! As strong as a galleass in the ancient!!) so I wouldn't be shocked if they were giving us a potent sea unit.
I have played around with giving a custom melee ship UU a ranged attack, and in general they shred other ships. Maybe it's a unique quadrireme, though, and they just modelled it differently.

 

[acluewithout]

It is very likely that the "Gallic Forge", the Hansa, and the standard IZ will all have quite different adjacency/placement optimization

Gaul’s IZ seemed to be placed near Quarries and Iron in the video, so I’m guessing it has the same adjacencies as a normal IZ, but then has some other abilities etc layered on top (hopefully more than just City Defence).

Finally, the new Dramatic Ages mode is somewhat of a mixed bag for me. I don't really like the elimination of Normal Ages past the first era, nor the moving of Dedications to Social Policy cards. However, I'm definitely interested in porting the Era Score surplus as extra loyalty pressure, the Dark Age city flips to Free Cities, and the Free Cities exerting loyalty pressure to the base game.

This is pretty much where I come out. Half the changes are good; half ruin what was already good.

Losing normal ages just seems wrong headed to me.

I’m more ambivalent about making the Dedication Abilities Cards. Seems like it’s just a matter of taste to me. But even if they made them cards, I wished they had still kept the dedications themselves as a way to map out additional ways to earn Era score and to theme your age. Instead, it looks like researching techs and earning promotions will be the only extra ways to earn era score (like we all needed another reason to maximise science and war).

I’m curious about other balance changes. Seems crazy to me they wouldn’t also buff Georgia in the base game. Or add the era score overflow mechanic to the base game. I thought with statue of Zeus the might buff Anti Cav but doesn’t seem so from the screen shots.

 

[bite]

I would agree that adding the score overflow mechanic to the base game would be a good idea

 

[Hakan-i Cihan]

Losing normal ages just seems wrong headed to me.

Could there be something similar of the overflow era score mechanic, but for the reverse case? Lacking too much era score for reaching a golden era has harsher loyalty drops than when you just missed it with just 1 or 2 points...
If that is the case I wouldn't mind the removal of normal ages.

 

[CoconutTank]

It does kind of suck that dedications won't be available for generating era score during dramatic ages, though I think I'm generally picking Free Inquiry and Monumentality for generating era score most of the time. Did the video ever mention how the game chooses which cities flip to free cities upon a Dark Age? If it's based on which cities have the lowest loyalty, that could penalize war pretty heavily (or greatly encourage razing cities). Also, I was kind of on board with dedications becoming policies and taking up a wildcard slot as a trade-off, but that actually just offers much greater benefits to civs that can get more wildcard slots. It also makes gov'ts with fewer wildcard slots even worse; this mainly makes Merchant Republic even better over Theocracy and Monarchy, and weakens Communism relative to Democracy and Fascism.

I'm wondering if the Statue of Zeus was meant to show up earlier in civ 6's life. Anticavs haven't enjoyed a great reputation in civ 6, mainly due to their production costs being inefficient relative to their strength, but the SoZ seems to directly address that. Besides that, I'm also wondering how the free units will be awarded. Will it be like civ 5's Terracotta Army?

 

[Pietato]

The Classical era is going to be seriously messed up with Dramatic Ages. I hope the game does not basically end here...

This mode will most likely seriously favour the early uniques civs.

 

[Myomoto]

The main thing that actually disappointed me in this video is that, whilst they are now giving us Golden Age Wildcard Policies, they are still not giving us Dark Age dedications. Would have been cool if you had to pick an unavoidable, Dark Age specific dedication, one which gives you both a penalty & a bonus to your civilization.

If the mode had simply been this: Remove dark age cards, replaced with dark age dedication. Keep the city revolt on dark age. Keep normal and heroic age, keep the overfill mechanic for era score for 'super' golden ages.

Like that, I would play with it on all the time.

 

[Kupe Navigator]

I'll reserve my judgement on the mode until I can get my hands on it and play it for myself.

 

[tiamats4esgares]

Seems incredibly underwhelming overall, though I'm not surprised. I probably won't buy it.

I'm interested to hear more about the Gaul but that's about it. Doubt I'll actually find them interesting and want to play them.

 

[Datian]

What happens when you enter a dark age with only two cities, can you lose them both and just.. lose ?

 

[Cerilis]

I doubt you will be able to lose your capital like this. Though I'm curious how it will apply to different numbers of cities, with different sizes and loyality.

 

[Nerevatar]

I hope it is percentage based, so it scales with both small and large empires. Could be like 20% of cities rebel, rounded down, on deity. So classical dark age would only be bad for rapid expansionists with 5+ cities. Percentages would also be best for modding tweaks imo, since it gives more fine grained control.

Edit: now that I think about it, I actually hope it is more then 20% on deity. 25% to 34% should affect game play more, which I consider a good thing.

 

[Cerilis]

I hope it is percentage based, so it scales with both small and large empires. Could be like 20% of cities rebel, rounded down, on deity. So classical dark age would only be bad for rapid expansionists with 5+ cities. Percentages would also be best for modding tweaks imo, since it gives more fine grained control.

Edit: now that I think about it, I actually hope it is more then 20% on deity. 25% to 34% should affect game play more, which I consider a good thing.

I could imagine that it's always at least 1 city as long as you have more than 1 (or maybe 2).

On that note, what actually happens to military units in or around cities that break free. Do they join the rebels or do you keep them (kicked out of the city's tiles)? Might want to set up your Units in strategic positions before a new age dawns, to quickly consolidate your power (and/or maybe gain a few new cities in the chaos).

Heh, imagine you wouldn't be notified of the timing of the new era.

 

[UWHabs]

I hope it is percentage based, so it scales with both small and large empires. Could be like 20% of cities rebel, rounded down, on deity. So classical dark age would only be bad for rapid expansionists with 5+ cities. Percentages would also be best for modding tweaks imo, since it gives more fine grained control.

Edit: now that I think about it, I actually hope it is more then 20% on deity. 25% to 34% should affect game play more, which I consider a good thing.

I'd rather they be based on how much loyalty you actually would have towards them. So if I have a small and compact empire, then I won't lose any cities. But certainly I'd lose any "colonial" cities to the mechanism. But I'm guessing it might end up as a simpler check - as you say, like a fixed % of cities probably based on distance from the capital or something.

 

[AntSou]

I think it makes sense for the loss of cities to be a bit arbitrary. I'm thinking large civil wars.

Making it dependent on foreign pressure might make it too predictable.

 

[Onii-chan]

Byzantines was definitely expected in one of these updates but I can't say I ever figured Gaul would be added when we already have France, but I guess why not. Still no Portugal which is slightly odd but there are still more packs coming so there's still time

Dramatic Ages seems... idk, I'm not like super stoked for in the same way that the tech/civic tree redesign made me but I'll give it a shot at least. Feels like something which is very likely going to have some balance issues though even if it sounds fun in theory

 

[Cyon]

Do you think will get a first look today in 57 minutes or do we have to wait for next week? Dramatik ages sounds fun.

 

[Kwami]

The Classical era is going to be seriously messed up with Dramatic Ages. I hope the game does not basically end here...

This mode will most likely seriously favour the early uniques civs.

Anton's description of the prototype from the R&F days mentioned that you'd lose cities when you got two dark ages in a row. So, if this mode works similarly, then you'll be fine in the Classical.

 

[Republic of San Montuoso]

I could imagine that it's always at least 1 city as long as you have more than 1 (or maybe 2).

On that note, what actually happens to military units in or around cities that break free. Do they join the rebels or do you keep them (kicked out of the city's tiles)? Might want to set up your Units in strategic positions before a new age dawns, to quickly consolidate your power (and/or maybe gain a few new cities in the chaos).

Heh, imagine you wouldn't be notified of the timing of the new era.

"Okay, guys, the era ends in five turns and we're gonna definitely be in a dark age. So bring back all units in the Capital's territory so that we loose none of them."

Wonder if it can become a strategy.

Also, something that would had again more stakes (but might be a little too harsh) would be that you're not warned 10 turns before a new era begins. Just when it happens. So that you can't have min-maxing strategies, it will hit you like a train.