The OpenDev/Preview Thread

[8housesofelixir]

I just jumped a ton of gold to a IP settlement to reach radiant level. Still no option to assimilate them. But the cultural dominance condition seems to work now, as I don't get red flavour text anymore.
Tried a bit more to buy resources from IP. Still didn't figure it out, even at max. patronage level.

To simply put: The whole Independent People mechanics are not finished in this build and will not work properly. It is a OpenDev afterall, not the full game.

You can click individual IP units once they were settled (they will have a Zenith tag) and use money to hire them as mercenaries, but that's it. They cannot be assimilated currently.

As for the resources, I think Cat or someone else explained that if it is working properly then the Patron will receive their resources directly, no need to buy or trade.

 

[CivLuvah]

I just jumped a ton of gold to a IP settlement to reach radiant level. Still no option to assimilate them. But the cultural dominance condition seems to work now, as I don't get red flavour text anymore.

It's weird; one time I was able to assimilate an IP, but at that instance the Greeks were already a patron of the city besides me. It never happened in any of my playthroughs again since.

 

[8housesofelixir]

It's weird; one time I was able to assimilate an IP, but at that instance the Greeks were already a patron of the city besides me. It never happened in any of my playthroughs again since.

Interesting; I suppose in one of my games the Hittites assimilate an IP that is next to Hattusa as well, since that city now belong to the Hittites, and currently AI will not attack/conquer IPs. But it only happened once, and I cannot do any assimilation myself; most of the reports from Reddit seem to confirm the no-assimilation situation as well.

 

[Elhoim]

Interesting; I suppose in one of my games the Hittites assimilate an IP that is next to Hattusa as well, since that city now belong to the Hittites, and currently AI will not attack/conquer IPs. But it only happened once, and I cannot do any assimilation myself; most of the reports from Reddit seem to confirm the no-assimilation situation as well.

Did you pick the civic that allows assimilation?

 

[CivLuvah]

I played several Huns game today and summarized some War mechanics in the Stadia OpenDev:

One can declare a war at any time, but that will be a Surprise War. Therefore you will not have any morale high grounds and the negotiations will not showing up properly.

Each players has a Morale Bar towards each other, begins with Morale at 50. To be precise, it is actually a War Readiness/Demand bar. When you have grievances, and is able to demand something from AI, you can try to demand it, then withdraw the demand, and the Morale Bar will go up. This means your people are becoming discontent because their demands are not met.

Repeat the process, your people will become more discontent, and the Bar will eventually reach 100. If you refuse AI's demands, AI's Morale Bar will go up as well.

When BOTH your and AI's Morale Bar reached 100, you can "properly" declare war, and not receive any Badges.

Let's say you the player has more military strength. You keep destroying AI's army and take its city, the AI's Morale Bar eventually drop to 0 - which means the AI doesn't have any more readiness to continue the fight, or the AI doesn't want any demands from the war anymore (one will not demand anything when they are losing). Therefore you can force the AI to Surrender.

Now you have 200 Morale over AI (you have +100, and AI has -100). During the Surrender Negotiation, you can use these 200 Morale to demand things from AI. The game will present you a list of negotiation choices, each costs some Morale, and when all the 200 Morale are spent - which means all your people's demands generated before and during the war are met - then it is possible to finish the Negotiation. (That's why I said this Morale Bar is more of a Demand Bar)

The Negotiation Screen - note that it is still a Work In Progress:

Spoiler :

View attachment 573091

There are 2 outcomes of Negotiate a Surrender:

1. You demand yourself to become the defeated's Liege, and the defeated become your Vassal. To quote u/RNGZero from Reddit (I have been discussing war mechanics with him/her for a while):
"The war loser will get their taken over cities back but not all territories. All Lux/strategic resources both sides have (winner and loser) become shared for free and trade between either cannot happen (resources are already shared). Some agreements will happen between the cultures like mutual non-aggression pack and both cultures will be on the same "team." The vassal can become free through force or if their liege allows it."
Note that the Vassal is not being eliminated and will continue the game.

2. You demand ALL of the defeated's cities. The Vassal option will not be available when you do that.
After that, the AI will be literarily eliminated from the map. However, it still exists in the Diplomacy window, you can even sign treaties with it. I don't know if this working as intended or a bug, but currently it is like that.


Overall I would say this is a sophisticated and clever system for war and diplomacy. It is like the representation of "war is an extension of politics (demands)".

So as I would describe it, it's like EU4's diplomacy system, but instead of war score to get demands from your enemies, you have the morale of your people. Also in a way you have to work towards declaring war on someone via grievances. It's an interesting system.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Did you pick the civic that allows assimilation?

Do you mean the "Independent People" civic? I think it just modifies the assimilation cost, but not for assimilation itself. I picked it up in several playthroughs and the assimilation button was still grey. Or are there other civics for assimilation?

 

[mitsho]

But I did assimilate the city of Nok? It worked for me, it just cost a whole lot of money first to get it to the point where assimilation isn‘t greyed out anymore.

 

[Elhoim]

Yeah, I think you have to fill the bar first as well.

 

[Atlas627]

You need to fill the bar AND your culture needs to be dominant in their region, but it works. It just isn't very clear.

 

[CivLuvah]

Seems like the Highlighted zone is the threshold or tier which determines the bonus, while the purple box is your actual current value.

I'd want to bring the issue up again of how the ideology slider works because I was still wrapping my head around it. I realized how it wasn't clear to me what the highlighted zone and the box is until I asked in on Reddit. I hope they'll fix the UI tooltips so people could get it the first time around.

 

[8housesofelixir]

You need to fill the bar AND your culture needs to be dominant in their region, but it works. It just isn't very clear.

Thanks, I would try it again later. It is a fun mechanism.

Edit: Just gave it another try and succeed. I didn't noticed that my culture needs to be dominant before.

 

[Mathias Rex]

I read what you wrote about assimilation of IP cities. Could someone explain me how influence work? Is there a way to peacefully get/flip foreign cities via culture pressure? (No stadia in my country, so cant learn myself) Thank you!

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

Outposts / Administrative centres should get names of their own.

I'll second that recommendation. When you establish an Outpost, it should be given a name from your culture's city list. If it eventually becomes a full City of it's own, it keeps that name. If it gets absorbed into another territory, that tile should still keep that name, designating it as a smaller offshoot city/destrict of the larger metropolitan area.

 

[Atlas627]

I read what you wrote about assimilation of IP cities. Could someone explain me how influence work? Is there a way to peacefully get/flip foreign cities via culture pressure? (No stadia in my country, so cant learn myself) Thank you!

Not entirely sure how it spreads, but I assume cities/territories generate Influence resource and that determines how strong their representation is, similar to how Religion spreads in Civ. But I don't really know because the UI isn't really there yet.

 

[Mathias Rex]

Not entirely sure how it spreads, but I assume cities/territories generate Influence resource and that determines how strong their representation is, similar to how Religion spreads in Civ. But I don't really know because the UI isn't really there yet.

Thank you!

 

[aguaacrobata2]

I'll second that recommendation. When you establish an Outpost, it should be given a name from your culture's city list. If it eventually becomes a full City of it's own, it keeps that name. If it gets absorbed into another territory, that tile should still keep that name, designating it as a smaller offshoot city/destrict of the larger metropolitan area.

I totally agree on that. I could not play this OpenDev (no Stadia in Argentina), but I believe that having unnamed outposts is strange, and having them named with the culture that created them would add a lot to seeing the history of your civilization in the map (immersion).

What about when you create a outpost with one culture but you turn it into a city after changing to another culture? Should the city keep the original outpost name?

I don't know how the naming of city works after meging cities. If it just keeps the name of the biggest city or if it merges also the city name (like in Buda-Pest)... But maybe that could also work for attaching outposts to cities if we could have named outposts.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I'll second that recommendation. When you establish an Outpost, it should be given a name from your culture's city list. If it eventually becomes a full City of it's own, it keeps that name. If it gets absorbed into another territory, that tile should still keep that name, designating it as a smaller offshoot city/destrict of the larger metropolitan area.

Also, there is a Medieval tech that allow you to merge two cities together, and the city being merged will lost its name.

I think that the city names should be kept as well, at least as a small note on the map.

Someone on Reddit successfully merged all the cities on the continent together into ONE city, and as a result the whole continent only has one name on it.

 

[Shadowhal]

Thanks 8housesofelixir for your insightful post. I hadn't got to the surrender screen yet, but managed to when I continued my earlier finished game. I really like this way of concluding a war. How it focuses the surrender terms on what started the war and what happened during it. That you need to demand cities/outposts to get them after the war. That you can choose which aspects of the terms you impose.

That being said, I wonder whether a lesser form of force surrender with a lower threshold might be interesting. Say, at opponents +20 morale score, you can impose a surrender at 50% discount, such that 100 + 80 = 90, instead of 180. Maybe it's too hard to balance, given that you can get for cities for just 40 or so, so that might not work out quite right.

On a specific point:

One can declare a war at any time, but that will be a Surprise War. Therefore you will not have any morale high grounds and the negotiations will not showing up properly.

...

When BOTH your and AI's Morale Bar reached 100, you can "properly" declare war, and not receive any Badges.

That's not what I observed. I could start a normal war as soon as I had turned a grievance into a demand and that demand was rejected. Neither mine nor my opponent's morale bar needed to be at 100.

The difference is that if you let the unanswered demand sit there, it will slowly gather morale and you will have a better starting position going into the war.


@ The other discussion: thanks, I did manage to assimilate an IP. I think the confusion was a) yes you need to max out the patronage meter, which isn't explained as such in the tool tip and b) I confused being the most influential contributor to a territory with having already converted it to my influence. Not the same.


A few other observations from playing aspects of that game a bit further:

1. The symbol for civic point gained is the same as for era star earned. Probably a placeholder, but it should be different in the final version, as these are different concepts.
2. I now better understand what growth and super growth means. I think the description "every 2/5 turns" should be incorporated into the overall food tool tip. At least that's where I'd most look for it. I like it more, now that I understand it better. Still quite one-dimensional - either I care about increasing food or I don't. At all.
3. When placing a quarter, the arrows indicating contributions from neighbouring yields were shown inconsistently. Sometimes/in some instances yes, but not always. They are pretty useful, so I'd want to keep them throughout.
4. What does "Victorious/cheerful" mean? I get it after having won a war but the effects are unclear.
5. It would be nice to be able to place quarters based off quarters in construction. Like, I place a resource extractor and before it's fully built, I place the build order for a quarter. It can always cancel, if something happens to the extractor in the meantime. Sins of a solar empire was a nice model of placing orders in advance of having fulfilled all formal pre-conditions for them, like research, building slot capacity.
6. Religious tenets seemed way too easy to get, but I guess the thresholds were intentionally low for this demo to allow people access.
7. I don't think the current tool tips explain well enough how religion works. What does faith do? What my total faith is and its composition/origin. What are the total followers of that religion? From which cities? What do they do? I pieced enough together from the dev blog, but the average player won't have that level of knowledege.
8. I don't see any water resource for the game, like crabs, fish, earls, whales etc. That seems odd and may make coastal territories less attractive.
9. I continue to like the combat system. Even if it may get a little lengthy later on, I think it's the best system for a game of this kind. Moving military on the strategic map is easy because they are grouped into armies (also probably an AI benefit). The battles don't take forever, but allow tactical decisions around a few logical core concepts and without a ton of unit special abilities.
10. When I used the auto-resolve, I got totally smashed for a battle that leaned in my favour and that I could have won decisively in manual control. Ofc, manual control should generally yield better results, that was just too stark.

Overall, I really enjoyed what I saw. With that much time left, I am optimistic that HK will be a great product upon release.

 

[Jkchart]

I got in on the Nubia demo a bit late but I was still able to play one game and got in a full 83 turns before I ended, which is a lot. That means I still managed to play about 1/3 of the full game and I have a lot that I like about it and a lot to say so far.

-First of all, I turned into the Aksumites, because I figured I liked playing the merchant factions and thought it meshed well with what I had built as Nubia so far. I noticed that while I lose the ability to build my Emblematic Quarter, I can still build my Emblematic Unit. So that was good, because I had this really cool set of armies with Ta-Seti Archers and Shotelai, and it also makes a lot of sense that you can still use the military tactics you evolved from.

-I had WAY too much money. I could buy entire cities and quarters easily within one turn. You can kind of do this in Civ VI too, but it felt very pronounced here. I stopped purchasing stuff at one point so my cities would have things to do.

-The diplomacy options are incredibly detailed and I like that they are not binary and that there are multiple options based on how you are treating the faction. Although I'm sure it is going to be refined, there was a lot to consider with diplomacy even in the first two eras.

-You can really make massive cities. Kerma, my capital, had four territories attached to it and I had so many quarters. I totally forgot about stability for awhile and was glad I got the commons quarter when I noticed it was as low as it was. The limits on how many quarters I can build and how I get that limit is unclear though. Setting up the "production hubs"/"satellite cities" as suggested by Elhoim (I think it was Elhoim??) is really the way to go.

-Getting religious tenets was unclear for the longest time until I figured out it is based on the number of followers. It also seems like my religion just too easily dominated? I'm really unsure of how religion works as a whole, but I do like the choices it gave me with regard to building it.

-The cities are beautiful on the map, and the battles are still fun. I really enjoy the art style in the game.

-Independent people seemed incredibly aggressive. The only other faction that felt as aggressive as that on the map was bears.

-I also stayed allied to both Zhou/Celts and Hittites/Greeks for the rest of the game which made diplomacy relatively static, but it was interesting seeing all of the cultural tensions/events generated by factions simultaneously influencing one another.

-Troops cost population, which i really like because it is another interesting limit on armies.

-I also like the "lost at sea" mechanic for coastal ships, which lets them attempt to brave high seas and maybe find an interesting set of islands or another continent, but if you don't return to coast the next turn they die. I feel like this is much better than a static "no ocean for you without telescopes" mechanic.

I think I will have more to say when I can gather my thoughts, but I am impressed even though I think there's still a lot that needs refining and balancing.

 

[CivLuvah]

-I also like the "lost at sea" mechanic for coastal ships, which lets them attempt to brave high seas and maybe find an interesting set of islands or another continent, but if you don't return to coast the next turn they die. I feel like this is much better than a static "no ocean for you without telescopes" mechanic.

I feel this is the same with EU4's attrition mechanic for ships trying to sail from the coast, especially when you try to circumnavigate the globe. I'm interested to see how this would play out into the later eras.