Spring Patch Info

[Eagle Pursuit]

So, any minute now?

I doubt it's today. Maybe next Tuesday or Thursday.

 

[WillowBrook]

So, any minute now?

If it drops today. But they rarely release things on Friday. More likely sometime so week.

Edit: ninja'd by eagle, of course.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yeah after past issues I really doubt they'll do the Friday thing again

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Hmm...
Stopped playing a few weeks ago and thought about starting a new game over the weekend, but now that a Joint War fix seems to be in the works I'll wait.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Just waffle. Having tried to play this strategy over 20 times is is just ridiculously pointless.
Sometimes you do not stat on the coast and when you do there is rarely more than 1 good location if that.
good Harbor adjacency is not that common
It forces era point chasing as you need double golden age
When you come out of the double golden age your science drops way off.
It forces a leaf node and additional slot usage for an already weak strategy

It’s a super conditional, luck reliant half game strategy I have desperately been trying to get consistency or longevity from. It just is a weak start that slows you down. Of course you can still win, so what.

Well, I think the problem is that any civ given the scenario would do well anyways with a good map that has tons of high harbor adjacency. All England adds to that is cheaper harbors. Ultimately, it's more of a win harder kind of thing that is good for posting screenshots of, but little else. And ironically there's a whole host of civs that would do it far better anyways like Aztec, Germany, Norway, Greece, Rome, Japan, and so forth....

Aztec can just build harbor with builders.
Norway could overflow chop harbors easy (maybe they'll fix and send them back to bad)
Greece and Rome will get Naval Tradition faster.
Japan can get more adjacency even if sea resources or lacking.
Germany can hold an extra district to better accommodate the harbor and could put a commercial hub next to it too.
You could also just be Korea and have science every game.

 

[Casualty of war]

Just waffle. Having tried to play this strategy over 20 times is is just ridiculously pointless.
Sometimes you do not stat on the coast and when you do there is rarely more than 1 good location if that.
good Harbor adjacency is not that common
It forces era point chasing as you need double golden age
When you come out of the double golden age your science drops way off.
It forces a leaf node and additional slot usage for an already weak strategy

It’s a super conditional, luck reliant half game strategy I have desperately been trying to get consistency or longevity from. It just is a weak start that slows you down. Of course you can still win, so what.

Fair enough. Like I said, it does force a non-conventional path through the game. I consider that a feature, not a flaw, as I like having the civ you are playing heavily influence your decisions. England is not optimal anymore, honestly never was, for the Pangaea turbo-win game.

Oh yeah, Joint Wars. The AI will often pay you to put together a Joint War, although they won't volunteer to pay. Sometimes, if they feel really threatened by the target, they will pay a ton. I wonder if the Patch will affect that.

 

[Aristos]

And then there's England. I'm trying to picture the team brainstorming session that came up with this solution.

Dev 1: "People are mad about England. Anybody have any ideas?"
Dev 2: "How about giving them a melee unit when they build their unique harbour?"
Intern in back: "Umm, why would building a harbour give them a melee unit?"
Dev 1: "Right. That makes sense."
Janitor passing by in the hallway: "Wasn't England in Victoria's time renowned for having the world's biggest navy and a tiny land army?"
Dev 1: "Free melee units from harbours it is."

Me, first reaction:

Seconds later, after some thinking:

... because it's probably to close to the truth to be funny anymore... I wonder what the smilie for Vicky's reaction would be...

 

[historix69]

Me, first reaction:

Seconds later, after some thinking:

... because it's probably to close to the truth to be funny anymore... I wonder what the smilie for Vicky's reaction would be...

I don't like this senseless bashing of Firaxis developers / game designers ...

Obviously it was not a good idea to not tell players in detail what the idea behind the free melee unit for England is. The most plausible reason is that free units refer to local colonial troops like the British Indian Army which counted up to 2.5 million soldiers during WW2 or to volunteers from european settled colonies. If you look at 19th and first half of 20th century British Imperial wars, often indian troops or volunteer troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa were involved, e.g. ca. half of the 15 million British troops in WW2 were from the Commonwealth, Empire, dominions, etc. and only half were british.

"In 1939 the British Commonwealth was a global superpower, with direct or de facto political and economic control of 25% of the world's population, and 30% of its land mass."
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

Spoiler :

Now with the Loyalty System, Decolonisation and Commonwealth maybe should find their way into Civ 6 game mechanics, too.

Spoiler :

Members of the Commonwealth shaded according to their political status. Commonwealth realms are shown in blue, republics in pink, and members with their own monarchy are displayed in green.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

The most plausible reason is that free units refer to local colonial troops like the British Indian Army which counted up to 2.5 million soldiers during WW2 or to volunteers from european settled colonies. If you look at 19th and first half of 20th century British Imperial wars, often indian troops or volunteer troops from Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa were involved, e.g. ca. half of the 15 million British troops in WW2 were from the Commonwealth, Empire, dominions, etc. and only half were british.

That would be a good reason to give England a free melee unit when conquering a city on a foreign continent. Incorporating the local populace into the military and all that.

Sure, let's hear their explanation.

I try to give the developers credit where due, and you'll note the majority of my post was about the positives and I started by pointing out that I'm looking forward to the patch and that most of the changes appear a step in the right direction.

The continual changes to England, though, are lame, and I think we're allowed to have a bit of fun with that. If I'm wrong and there's a well thought through reason for this change that ties to the flavour of Victoria's England as a civ, I'll admit that I overlooked it. More importantly, if this change helps make England a fun and unique civ to play, I'll be happy to admit I didn't give them proper credit for coming up with a great improvement.

Anyhoo, if I was being really mean, I would have pointed out the Scots-loving Dev muttering under his breath as he left the room after the brain-storming session: "Bah, we shoulda dinged them -4 Loyalty every time a Scots Highlander comes near their cities."

 

[Aristos]

@Trav'ling Canuck : hey fellow K-nuck, stop making me laugh!

 

[acluewithout]

I don't like this senseless bashing of Firaxis developers / game designers ...

I agree with not bashing either the company or its people. I have been very careful not to do that, notwithstanding that I am very disappointed about the game since R&F.

But here’s the thing. While I think Firaxis are trying hard, are thoughtful in developing the game, and do listen to the community, something is really wrong here.

Firaxis clearly listened to comments about England - but yet the changes they’ve made aren’t actually responsive to those comments. I get they can’t, and really shouldn’t, bring back trade route stacking, but there are things they could do for England around trade routes which would work and are balanced; the RND loyalty bonus doesn’t work in terms of gameplay or role play and yet nothing has been done about that; and the changes to Pax B actually double down on what’s wrong rather than fix it. Firaxis need to scrap Vicky’s LA and just start again with it.

I’m really at a loss. I’ve seen some really great development from Firaxis - France in particular has been made a much better and more interesting Civ. But then there’s other stuff which I don’t understand why it’s still a mess.

For example: why are spears and pikes still so expensive? It’s great Firaxis fixed agoge, but that very minor and quite obvious change took over a year... And why has nothing been done to make Military Tactics more worthwhile? Fine, leave it as a leaf, but at the moment it just gives so little benefit people are actively avoiding it, which means Pikes just aren’t part of the game.

I get improving the AI or things like that take a lot of time to do. But there’s balance stuff that seems easy to fix and or you’d think would be more of a priority.

If Firaxis said the recent changes to England are a temporary fix, and they’ve working on something better, I’d be less cross. I’d be okay if they even said England wouldn’t be updated until the next expansion (presumably a year away). But instead I get this cheeky, tin eared, video with Victoria apparently upset she was ‘nerfed a little to hard’, and the suggestion everything is now fine. It’s not fine. Not at all.

Look, I get it. It’s just a game. And Firaxis aren’t being deliberately mean to England - the changes either track their own plan for the civ or game generally, or this just isn’t on the right person’s radar, or there is some technical or commercial constraint. This also isn’t an issue everyone is worked up about, and plenty of people even agree with the changes. I know in particular plenty of people didn’t like England’s extra trade routes and don’t want any return to that.

I haven’t attacked Firaxis and don’t plan to. But I am still very cross. People like me have been posting about England for months, Firaxis clearly know people aren’t happy, and yet things have just gone from bad to worse. I’ve basically stopped playing Civ, won’t be buying R&F, and will probably stop following this forum too at some point given I’m no longer playing the game. In that context, I certainly wouldn’t criticise people using slightly more direct language about Firaxis or making some jokes at their expense.

(And, before anyone says it: yes, I know England didn’t originally start with a unique ability to stack trade routes in Vanilla - but I still think extra trade routes works for them; no, I don’t won’t to mod England myself; and no, I don’t want to build holy sites (?) and faith build settlers. Also: Sea Dogs are lame. Firaxis shouldn’t bother changing them - it’s not worth the effort. But they are totally, totally lame. I might even add that to my signature.)

 

[Pietato]

I expressed my surprise that they actually do QA, seeing as bugs which a single playthough would notice make it in, and I got modded.

Moderator Action: If you have an issue with moderation, please contact the moderator that performed the action. Discussing it in public is against the forum rules. leif
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

I also agree that they are not doing anywhere near enough to actually balance the different Civs, or even the units. Knights obviously need a nerf, spears and pikes a buff, and most unique units are useless, yet they do nothing. It is extremely irritating.

 

[Craig_Sutter]

Pax Britannia and Redcoats come with a Leader Ability (Victoria) while Royal Dock Yards is a Civ Ability... how will they generate Red Coat with RDY work if an alternate leader were to be created?

Yet another reason this change doesn't make sense... will RDY generate another melee unit in such cases?

 

[XplosiveLun]

Both Pax Britannia, Redcoats, and free Redcoats are Vicky's uniques. If say, Elizabeth is the alternative leader of England and she have made a RDY, she gets nothing or something from her unique. Nothing contradicting.

 

[Leyrann]

Would you not prefer the fortified units wake when something comes near them? Alert does fortify, no?

And on the joint war topic, the vid did say they will now require a denouncement by one of the parties.

What I meant with my post was that, if I'm at peace, I don't need alert, because, well, I'm at peace, so there's no need for me to control units because other units get close. And when I'm at war, I want to micro my units by turn anyways, so again no need for a "sleep until something happens".

 

[Scaramanga]

I don't think they want England to be a massive land power. The second free unit must be tied to the naval district.

 

[WillowBrook]

Pax Britannia and Redcoats come with a Leader Ability (Victoria) while Royal Dock Yards is a Civ Ability... how will they generate Red Coat with RDY work if an alternate leader were to be created?

Yet another reason this change doesn't make sense... will RDY generate another melee unit in such cases?

Pretty sure the current ability is to generate the best melee unit available when settling on another continent - you don't get a redcoat in the ancient era. So I imagine the free unit with the RNDY will be the same - you get the best melee unit available at the time of completion, doesn't matter if you're Vicky and have redcoats or not.

 

[ChocolateShake]

I haven't played England much, but reading their current civ abilities just makes me feel they're way too weak. There's really no real strong or even mild flavor reason to pick them at present. This is an issue with some other civs too, but I think England is at the top of the list now. Not really a good decision for both gameplay and financial reasons..

Not all civs should have strong flavors to them, but they're just too weak at present.

 

[Disgustipated]

Not getting into the England argument too much, just want to say Georgia needs more love than England.

 

[OmegaDestroyer]

Not getting into the England argument too much, just want to say Georgia needs more love than England.

Agreed. Georgia is a mess. The only things the civ has going for it are the Golden Age and City-State bonuses. The rest is garbage.