The OpenDev/Preview Thread

[8housesofelixir]

What are the start and end points of the trade routes when i buy resources? (Is there much ability to create a real trade hub, in other words.)

After buying resources, when zoom out on the trade screen, you can see some (very ugly, the devs probably just used a place holder) lines indicating the trade routes on the strategic map in the background of the screen. One end of the lines/trade routes will be the exact resource deposit you brought from, and the other end will be the nearest city of yours.

In other words, it is possible to create a trade hub like IRL, but it requires very early planning, especially early settling in a strategic location (also similar to IRL, for example, Singapore and Hong Kong).

For instance, below is the map of the 2 major continents of the Lucy Opendev, and the territories I marked in a red box are the territories of the starting continent that are the closest to the second continent in the east. If you settled one of these territories, or the island between two continents, and trade with AIs on the second continent, your trade routes should be centered in that territory, since it is the nearest one.

Spoiler :

......Or, you can absorb all your cities into one megapolis. Since you only have one city, all the trade routes will go to that one city, thus creates a trading hub.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Here are some examples of trade routes:

Spoiler :

For un known reasons some trade routes are trying to approach my territory from the other side of the continent. These AIs must have some underdeveloped road network.

And here is what happened in my trading hub:

Spoiler :

I literally covered the coastlines with Harbors to create adjacencies for VOC Warehouses. And as a result this particular city is particularly covered in gold.

 

[KnightModern]

is list of events (so far) has been made?

 

[8housesofelixir]

is list of events (so far) has been made?

I don't see anyone done this, whether on Reddit or on G2G (I'm not in Discord so don't know the situation in that). Although I can remember a lot of them from the top of my head, currently there are not many of them:

The Neolithic one, using a herb on wounded or pray for them, triggered after your first battle;
The end of Neolithic, choose a legacy trait for your empire;
Around turn 30, choose calendar;
Found a city on a river, flooding event;
Conquered a foreign city/Found a city on the foreign continent, accept their source of staple food or not;
Conquered a foreign city and play a couple of turns, the descendant of the original ruler event;
Found more than one city, in new cities there will be a local ruler introduced castration/eunuch system event;
Found many cities, official language event, choose between a universal standard language for bureaucratic system or respect regional languages;
After able to go into deep ocean, explore a sunken ship event (similar to Stadia Opendev's explore a cave event);
Political artist event, choose to ban their works or patron them;
Political scandal event, choose to cover the matter or to tell the truth;
Play a strong religion game, how to treat religious fanatics event;
Play a strong religion game, whether to accept an exiled scholar who doesn't believe your religion or not;
Play a strong religion game with a high science output, choose between respect religion more or let science free from religious pressure;
Local human sacrifice event;
Cockfighting event;
Lyra music event;
Prophecy tabletop game event;
Debt relief for new immigrants event;
etc.

 

[KnightModern]

I don't see anyone done this, whether on Reddit or on G2G (I'm not in Discord so don't know the situation in that). Although I can remember a lot of them from the top of my head, currently there are not many of them:

The Neolithic one, using a herb on wounded or pray for them, triggered after your first battle;
The end of Neolithic, choose a legacy trait for your empire;
Around turn 30, choose calendar;
Found a city on a river, flooding event;
Conquered a foreign city/Found a city on the foreign continent, accept their source of staple food or not;
Conquered a foreign city and play a couple of turns, the descendant of the original ruler event;
Found more than one city, in new cities there will be a local ruler introduced castration/eunuch system event;
Found many cities, official language event, choose between a universal standard language for bureaucratic system or respect regional languages;
After able to go into deep ocean, explore a sunken ship event (similar to Stadia Opendev's explore a cave event);
Political artist event, choose to ban their works or patron them;
Political scandal event, choose to cover the matter or to tell the truth;
Play a strong religion game, how to treat religious fanatics event;
Play a strong religion game, whether to accept an exiled scholar who doesn't believe your religion or not;
Play a strong religion game with a high science output, choose between respect religion more or let science free from religious pressure;
Local human sacrifice event;
Cockfighting event;
Lyra music event;
Prophecy tabletop game event;
Debt relief for new immigrants event;
etc.

I got the cave event (the one with sending champion, sending scout/explorer or something, or do nothing), and event after killing mammoth(s?) (bonus to calendar or animal husbandry(?))
and also from one of youtuber I've subscribed, something about training dogs (and here's the result of the event)

 

[8housesofelixir]

and event after killing mammoth(s?) (bonus to calendar or animal husbandry(?))

Yep, I got the one too.

and also from one of youtuber I've subscribed, something about training dogs (and here's the result of the event)

Interesting find. I haven't encounter this event in all of my playthroughs.

 

[KnightModern]

Interesting find. I haven't encounter this event in all of my playthroughs

me too, dunno what triggered it

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Yep, I got the one too.



Interesting find. I haven't encounter this event in all of my playthroughs.

After starting and playing to at least the 2nd Era in half a dozen games, just got the Doggy Event today for the first time. I don't know if that means it is relatively rare or simply rare given my normal Early Game play style - today was the first time I got into a war in the Ancient Era, but that's the only major event that was different from all the other early games.

 

[8housesofelixir]

me too, dunno what triggered it

After starting and playing to at least the 2nd Era in half a dozen games, just got the Doggy Event today for the first time. I don't know if that means it is relatively rare or simply rare given my normal Early Game play style - today was the first time I got into a war in the Ancient Era, but that's the only major event that was different from all the other early games.

Lucy Opendev definitely has some strange triggers compared to the previous Stadia Opendev.

Take Civic events as another example: In Stadia Opendev I basically trigged the Independent People (hiring or assimilate), Slavery (POW slavery or debt slavery), and Land Ownership (private or public lands) civics almost every time in the Classical Era. In Lucy Opendev, on the other hand, I am only able to trigger Independent People Civic at/after Medieval despite already met many IPs on my continent, only triggered Land Ownership once or twice, and not able to trigger Slavery Civic in any of my playthroughs.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Lucy Opendev definitely has some strange triggers compared to the previous Stadia Opendev.

Take Civic events as another example: In Stadia Opendev I basically trigged the Independent People (hiring or assimilate), Slavery (POW slavery or debt slavery), and Land Ownership (private or public lands) civics almost every time in the Classical Era. In Lucy Opendev, on the other hand, I am only able to trigger Independent People Civic at/after Medieval despite already met many IPs on my continent, only triggered Land Ownership once or twice, and not able to trigger Slavery Civic in any of my playthroughs.

They appear to have extensively reworked the Civics for Lucy, and I'm not sure for the better. Assimilation of Independent Peoples was frequent in the late Ancient (3000 - 1000 BCE) and Classical Eras, and slavery in some form dates back to at least the Law Codes of Lagash and Hammurabi (1750 BCE or so). They, at least, should be triggered almost every game in the Classical Era if not before.

 

[8housesofelixir]

They appear to have extensively reworked the Civics for Lucy, and I'm not sure for the better. Assimilation of Independent Peoples was frequent in the late Ancient (3000 - 1000 BCE) and Classical Eras, and slavery in some form dates back to at least the Law Codes of Lagash and Hammurabi (1750 BCE or so). They, at least, should be triggered almost every game in the Classical Era if not before.

Very much agreed. The same goes for land ownership as well, as long as any civilization developed a little bit sense of private property this should be an active issue - i.e. it would better be triggered by the first/second Farmers Quarter you build. (Although I find I'm building less Farmers Quarters in Lucy compared to Stadia, not entirely sure why.)

Personally, I feel like "no stability penalty for overpopulation" and "reworked Civics" are two major things I don't like in Lucy but very enjoyed in Stadia Opendev.

 

[KnightModern]

Slavery

speaking of slavery, I forgot to mention I got them once, I choose criminal slavery over "conquered slavery"

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Very much agreed. The same goes for land ownership as well, as long as any civilization developed a little bit sense of private property this should be an active issue - i.e. it would better be triggered by the first/second Farmers Quarter you build. (Although I find I'm building less Farmers Quarters in Lucy compared to Stadia, not entirely sure why.)

Personally, I feel like "no stability penalty for overpopulation" and "reworked Civics" are two major things I don't like in Lucy but very enjoyed in Stadia Opendev.

I think the "No Stability Penalty for Overpopulation" contributes to the runaway Megalopolises we're are seeing all over the Lucy map, which is IMHO Not A Good Thing.

One peculiarity about population/food though: Population in cities requires Food, and if you don't maintain it (which, admittedly, is not that hard) 'Starvation' imposes major penalties on the city. On the other hand, Units do not require Food at all, so if you don't want to deal with Overpopulation, one 'solution' is to build Units, which reduces the Food/Population pressure on the city.
This, to me at least, is completely Counter Intuitive, but imposing another restriction on building units early in the game also seems like a non-starter.

 

[8housesofelixir]

So, judging from many reports on Reddit and G2G as well as my playing experiences (again I'm not on the Discord so I don't know if people there had figured it out or not), there seem to be a bug in the difficulty selection panel in the Lucy Opendev.

Basically, in the Neolithic, if you find that the AIs refuse to advance into the next Era as long as you the player are not advance into the Ancient Era - which is fairly common, I have seen players finished a full Neolithic run with all the other AIs on the 2nd continent stayed in the Neolithic as well - then it is very likely that you are playing the Easy difficulty, not the difficulty you selected.

One redditor provided a solution: If you clicked through all the difficulties on the selection panel and then landed on the difficulties you want, then it will be the proper difficulty.

I tried this earlier today, found that the Brown and Black AIs will advance into Ancient Era around turn 11-15 under the "real" Normal difficulty, and under the "real" Serious difficulty they will advance within 10 turns. Before that in my "Serious" playthrough they refused to do so until turn 30.

TL;DR: It is possible that the AIs are actually more challenging.

 

[timmychompchomp]

So, judging from many reports on Reddit and G2G as well as my playing experiences (again I'm not on the Discord so I don't know if people there had figured it out or not), there seem to be a bug in the difficulty selection panel in the Lucy Opendev.

Basically, in the Neolithic, if you find that the AIs refuse to advance into the next Era as long as you the player are not advance into the Ancient Era - which is fairly common, I have seen players finished a full Neolithic run with all the other AIs on the 2nd continent stayed in the Neolithic as well - then it is very likely that you are playing the Easy difficulty, not the difficulty you selected.

One redditor provided a solution: If you clicked through all the difficulties on the selection panel and then landed on the difficulties you want, then it will be the proper difficulty.

I tried this earlier today, found that the Brown and Black AIs will advance into Ancient Era around turn 11-15 under the "real" Normal difficulty, and under the "real" Serious difficulty they will advance within 10 turns. Before that in my "Serious" play through they refused to do so until turn 30.

TL;DR: It is possible that the AIs are actually more challenging.

Oh. I submitted a fair but brutally honest review after completing my only full run through on Normal difficulty. The AI was a complete non factor. They did progress in eras, but very slowly. I equated it to playing a single player game of monopoly. My yields were insane, never lost a unit, steam rolled anyone I wanted, seemed to have access to my pick of Wonders and multiple Wonders in the last two eras, was stuck in a War in which I wiped an AI down to a few units and 1 territory. I wanted to peace out or make them my vassal and keep most of what I had taken, but I was locked into options which reduced my War Desire to a point that I could choose no other options and the finalizing buttons were grayed out. I completely wiped them out which required me to start another war to get to that single territory. I could go on with the lack of feedback to the player and hidden rule sets, but to sum up, I was fairly disappointed.

Good thing I have a few more days to try the game after seeing this post. Thank you for sharing. Hopefully I was playing a bugged Normal difficulty. I so wanted to love this game and was having a great time during the Neolithic Era.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

From comments out of several Forums, the game does still seem to have a problem with 'run-away' city size and yields in the mid to late game (assuming they've added nothing in the last 2 Eras not covered by the Lucy build to change either of those problems). Basically, any half-competent Human player can steam roll the game by the 4th Era on Normal Difficulty, which makes the last half of the game basically a snooze fest - the same basic problem that Civ VI still has: after years of adding Bells and Whistles to their late game, most games are still decided irrevocably before you can build your first flying machine or tank.

Despite a lot more Information Boxes popping up throughout the game, it also still has a major problem with information: in my first runs with Lucy, there were numerous occasions when I had no idea what was going on, or what I could do to change/modify the events, or what the consequences of my decisions were going to be. Having to Save/Reload the game several times to try out various options - learning the game by Trial and Error - is a great example of really lousy information access in a game.

Aside from possible balance issues with Unit Factors, which are always going to crop up in a game like Civ or Humankind with the numbers of units and Unique/Emblematic Units and combat modifiers they have, I think these are the basic issues still to be addressed to get a game out in April that will be playable and enjoyable from start to finish.

 

[CivLuvah]

So I just finished my first run of the OpenDev scenario. In normal circumstances, by this time I would have already been in my 3rd or 4th, but because the pain from my wisdom tooth extraction from Saturday (at the time of writing) lasted the entire week of Christmas I wasn't able to have enough strength up until now. Even now I'm still recovering, thus the short feedback. I already gave my survey feedback, but one of my major negative comments out of this is that whenever I ask to resolve a war either by white peace or unconditional surrender, there's nothing indicating what the response of the other side was going to be, or how many turns until I get a response from them. I might have to play another (proper) game before the OpenDev officially ends.

 

[Atlas627]

You always get a response immediately, and you always must respond immediately.

They always must accept your conditions if you get them to 0 war desire, afaik.

 

[CivLuvah]

You always get a response immediately, and you always must respond immediately.

They always must accept your conditions if you get them to 0 war desire, afaik.

I started my second game, and yeah, I did get a response from the other empire, but somehow it takes time - a five second-ish delay, so it's not exactly immediately.

 

[Atlas627]

I started my second game, and yeah, I did get a response from the other empire, but somehow it takes time - a five second-ish delay, so it's not exactly immediately.

I think that's just for the animation and sound to play from the other leader. The actual acceptance/declination is immediate.

Also huge shoutout to that guy on Reddit who pointed out the difficulty glitch. Having infinitely more fun with active opponents. Was pretty bored after playing the same map 4 times without challenge!