Small Observations General Thread (things not worth separate threads)

[Bobolove]

Isnt the second option just useless? Why even have it there.

 

[moysturfurmer]

Isnt the second option just useless? Why even have it there.

Because celebrations (you get +50 points towards your next one) give you 10 turns of some yield/production benefit and let’s you progress further down your government event path and get a new policy slot

 

[AriochIV]

- Commanders unpacking and attacking on the same turn, while not allowing the enemy to unpack looks messed up. I understand it requires a promotion, but I can already feel it will be so overpowered it will break the game.
- Hoplites are Infantry, so it looks like Anti-Cavalry unit class is now gone?
- I don't understand why building districts lead to culture bombing. What's the point of gaining new tiles if you can't work those tiles? A settlement might as well start with a single tile and expand to just the ones the player selects.
- What happens when you build an urban district where a rural district is? Do you get to get the population that went to the rural district back? In other words, do you get to build another rural district immediately?

I'm also a little concerned about how the Commander's movement impacts tactics, but so far I haven't seen anything egregious. If we view the collected Army as some kind of marching column, it makes sense that this is something you only want to use for movement and not to sit in the field with.

There does appear to be a Spearman unit, so I think it's likely that there are units with anti-cavalry bonuses even if they aren't a separate unit class.

Gaining new unworkable tiles presumably has the same purpose as in previous iterations: to claim territory before your neighbors do.

I believe they said that when you convert a rural district into an urban district, you keep the previous yields from that tile and get the population back to place somewhere else.

 

[Giskler]

Looking at the minimaps from Antiquity and Exploration, it seems that in the Exploration age, all the minor civs have disappeared. The climate has also changed in the lower half of the map, there's no longer any snow showing.

 

[greenOak]

Not going to lie, I don't like how the map only shows city centers rather than borders. Hopefully the minimap is just wip.

 

[AriochIV]

View attachment 703181View attachment 703182
Looking at the minimaps from Antiquity and Exploration, it seems that in the Exploration age, all the minor civs have disappeared. The climate has also changed in the lower half of the map, there's no longer any snow showing.

It might be that Minor Powers are an Antiquity only thing, and they're depending on the AI empires in the New World to play that role in the Exploration Age. Unique constraints on New World empires might explain why they are limiting play the way they are instead of just letting it happen naturally as in previous iterations.

Or it could just be a quirk of this playthrough, or the shenanigans involved in setting up these savegames.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The Dev Diary said that Independent Peoples change from Age to Age. I'd assume that means both camps and City-States

 

[Nikolai II]

What happens when you build an urban district where a rural district is? Do you get to get the population that went to the rural district back? In other words, do you get to build another rural district immediately?

They confirmed this during the stream.

 

[Zaarin]

Specifically, what happens if you choose the "Hostile Greeting" option? Do you just lock yourself out of potential diplomatic actions you can perform with that opponent? If that's the case, I think you should gain influence rather than lose it. Similarly, what will be the motivation for rejecting an opponent's collaboration initiative?

It hurts your relationship, and it's easier to declare war (and receive fewer penalties when doing so) when you have a negative relationship.

 

[ggmoyang]

Age progression numbers

In this case it's turn 8 and the age progression is at 6%*. Devs said it's 200 turns per age but if so, shouldn't be the progress at 4%?
If they were playing with fast speed, 8/133 is about 0.06 so the numbers do match.
And we have...

55% progression at turn 65. 133 * 0.55 = 73.15 so I guess the age progression count is at 73, which means there was +8 additional progression after the turn increments.
We could see 4 legacy path milestones were reached (either by player or AI), so that means each milestone gives +2 progression on fast speed, rather than +5 in standard. But why not 3, since 5 * 0.67 = 3.35?

 

[Atlas627]

Observations/thoughts on today's stuff:

- Commanders unpacking and attacking on the same turn, while not allowing the enemy to unpack looks messed up. I understand it requires a promotion, but I can already feel it will be so overpowered it will break the game.

If you were expecting to be on the defense, you probably want to stay unpacked. The reason to pack up is that you can move more easily, at the cost of potentially getting caught out.

- I don't understand why building districts lead to culture bombing. What's the point of gaining new tiles if you can't work those tiles? A settlement might as well start with a single tile and expand to just the ones the player selects.

All tiles are "worked", afaik. Improved tiles both add yields and give you more tiles, and allow you to improve those tiles later (which gives you more tiles). Building districts also gives you new tiles.

- Number of Exploration Age civs to choose from went from 15 during the initial announcement to 11 today.

Where did they say 15? I don't remember anyone saying that. That was just speculation, no?

- I hope to learn more about diplomacy soon. Specifically, what happens if you choose the "Hostile Greeting" option? Do you just lock yourself out of potential diplomatic actions you can perform with that opponent? If that's the case, I think you should gain influence rather than lose it. Similarly, what will be the motivation for rejecting an opponent's collaboration initiative?

Good relations allow mutually beneficial diplomacy. Bad relations make unilateral diplomacy cheaper/possible. There are Sanctions you need bad relations to use, and Declaring War initiates a War Support tug-of-war, where bad relations help your initial position on that tug-of-war.

 

[greenOak]

Population is massive by the end of antiquity. In the playthrough shown to us, Rome was over 30 and a couple of the other settlements were over 20.

 

[foggyautumn]

During the age transition, they showed off the "Change capital city" as one of the actions you can make. The description said: "Upgrade [x city] to a City, set it as your capital, and rename it Rouen" (Norman capital). I wonder a couple things:
- I believe age transitions downgrade all cities back into towns except your Capital
- The very first livestream showed that one of the higher-tier Economic age transition legacies was something like: All your cities remain cities during the age transition
If those two points are true, then:
- I wonder if "Change capital city" would downgrade your original capital into a Town? That seems kind of crazy, but I guess otherwise the "Change capital city" would basically let you have two Cities starting the new age for free?

 

[rocksinmypath]

Where did they say 15? I don't remember anyone saying that. That was just speculation, no?

I'm talking about the screen where you choose your civ for Exploration Age. Before, there were 15 dots, implying 15 options. In today's livestream, in an equivalent screen, there were 11 dots.

not to sit in the field with

This is what I'm concerned about. From the gameplay demo, it looked like that's exactly what Amina might've been doing, although I guess it's also possible that she was on her way to declare war on Rome herself.

 

[Zaarin]

During the age transition, they showed off the "Change capital city" as one of the actions you can make. The description said: "Upgrade [x city] to a City, set it as your capital, and rename it Rouen" (Norman capital). I wonder a couple things:
- I believe age transitions downgrade all cities back into towns except your Capital
- The very first livestream showed that one of the higher-tier Economic age transition legacies was something like: All your cities remain cities during the age transition
If those two points are true, then:
- I wonder if "Change capital city" would downgrade your original capital into a Town? That seems kind of crazy, but I guess otherwise the "Change capital city" would basically let you have two Cities starting the new age for free?

We didn't get to see because of the Silk Road golden age, but it does seem likely that your capital would be downgraded to a town if you change your capital city--but it should be large enough that you could make it a city again as soon as you can afford it.

 

[Atlas627]

I'm talking about the screen where you choose your civ for Exploration Age. Before, there were 15 dots, implying 15 options. In today's livestream, in an equivalent screen, there were 11 dots.

Well that could easily be just a UI change. They clearly had some UI issues today, anyway.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The climate has also changed in the lower half of the map, there's no longer any snow showing.

Is this part of the climate change mechanic, I wonder? Have they modelled the Medieval Warm Period as occurring at the beginning of the Exploration Age?

 

[AriochIV]

Is this part of the climate change mechanic, I wonder? Have they modelled the Medieval Warm Period as occurring at the beginning of the Exploration Age?

Except that in general, the medieval through the start of the industrial age were much colder than antiquity.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Except that in general, the medieval through the start of the industrial age were much colder than antiquity.

That was the Little Ice Age that followed the Medieval Warm Period. The planet got a little whiplash there.

 

[AriochIV]

That was the Little Ice Age that followed the Medieval Warm Period. The planet got a little whiplash there.

Temperatures declined pretty steadily from the end of antiquity until the start of the industrial age.