The new patch, out three days now, how is it?

[Acidrain]

So how is the patch? Has the game improved dramatically?

I haven't played with the new patch yet, but I'm so eager to know what's going on.
What's the feedback.

 

[BobDole]

It's a good patch (except for the saved game thing for Deluxe which hopefully is fixed today.....). The AI seems better when fighting wars, as they don't just blindly march ranged units to the front lines it seems. Units actually stay organized and move in together now. The AI went from being too generous in trades to too stingy, so hopefully that gets fixed. Performance is a lot better. There's some nice UI/game improvements as well.

 

[Gyromancer]

I played a few games over the weekend. The AI seems a little less crazy, but i did get teamed up on by Hiawatha and Bismarck with a joint DoW. One cool thing that seems like a good sign- the AI actually fell back to the hills outside my borders when I brought in a sizeable force to defend my border cities. Pre patch, he would have stuck around to get slaughtered.
The change in tactics made it much tougher to go on the offensive.

 

[Jharii]

I played a few games over the weekend. The AI seems a little less crazy, but i did get teamed up on by Hiawatha and Bismarck with a joint DoW. One cool thing that seems like a good sign- the AI actually fell back to the hills outside my borders when I brought in a sizeable force to defend my border cities. Pre patch, he would have stuck around to get slaughtered.
The change in tactics made it much tougher to go on the offensive.

Agreed. The AI is definitely smarter than it was before. It still has a considerable ways to go, but it's much improved.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Long way left to go, but this one helps a lot.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

It's a step in the right direction.

Many major bugs have been addressed (permanent treaties) and they've taken a good direction in fixing some balance issues (puppet cities no longer drive your economy into the ground).

Most importantly, I've noticed a significant decrease in the time between turns.

 

[fliddermang]

it fixes a lot of niggling little issues and makes some basic defensive ai improvements.

 

[zonk]

I guess I'm in the minority, but I'll say thumbs down...

The bug fixes are good, of course --- I haven't had any of the unending peace or unending deal bugs.

However, I don't like the diplomacy changes at all and I'm just not seeing much tactical improvement from the AI (still embarks right into waiting ships, still doesn't properly screen ranged units). The only tactical improvement I've seen is a greater willingness to withdraw armies -- but then, I'm hesitant to thank the patch for this because some of the play through's were showing this same behavior on occasion pre-patch.

On one hand, I do appreciate not being able to swindle the AI on every trade -- but I could avoid this via house rules. I think the AI has just flat out gotten unreasonable now. I have, however, only been playing immortal/deity -- and others have said it's not as bad at lower levels. On upper levels, though -- it seems like they've just added a 'valuation' modifier to trade and agreements.... which was never the AI's problem (well, wasn't the ONLY AI problem). From my POV - the problem with the AI isn't something that can be fixed via valuation modifiers... they need to fundamentally address the psychopathy of the AI.