The OpenDev/Preview Thread

[dart_nimus]

Watching streams now.
Am I only one who think that Ancient legacy traits changed in a bad way? They became plain and boring. No more Harappan river industry, no experience boost for Mycs, no Nubian industry on strategic deposits, no cheap wanders for Egypt etc. I can only assume that is for balance reasons? Because so many potential tactics just vanished...

 

[Atlas627]

It is a bit of a bummer, but I think you can look more to the emblematic quarter to determine the "legacy" of the older cultures. Those will last all game too.

Still trying to figure out how the nomadic traits work. I've unlocked one and...it doesn't show up in the empire screen?

 

[8housesofelixir]

I do like the change for Harmonious Thought of Zhou. That is how this particular Zhou political principle (called 和) works: a increase in stability in political centers, since they should be at peace with each other. (Although the phrase "Harmonious Thought" may sound like a modern propaganda lol.)

Moreover, the Zhou Zhanche have the Mandate of Heaven trait - which gives bonus strength when political stability is high - and this new Zhou bonus synergizes very well with their EU.

Still strongly hoping for a name change of "Confucian School" though, because besides this anachronic name, the Zhou design is nearly perfect. (As someone whose research field is early China I would say very few game devs can get the early China designs right (if there is any), however Amplitude is really beyond my expectation.)

 

[Narcisse]

Oh yes I really enjoy playing Zhou right now. A versatile Legaty Trait, which like you said, synergizes well with the unit.

Still trying to figure out how the nomadic traits work. I've unlocked one and...it doesn't show up in the empire screen?

If you mean playing Huns and Mongols, they can't attach or build a city on their outposts. It's specified in the tooltip of their emblematic quarter which is an outpost.
And their Emblematic Unit have the Nomad trait, really unique, and strong.

Watching streams now.
Am I only one who think that Ancient legacy traits changed in a bad way? They became plain and boring. No more Harappan river industry, no experience boost for Mycs, no Nubian industry on strategic deposits, no cheap wanders for Egypt etc. I can only assume that is for balance reasons? Because so many potential tactics just vanished...

I mean, they said from the beginning than all the things like Legaty Trait maybe gonna change, because work in progress. It's why it was not revealed yet. Most of LTs were shared on discord, because we eagerly asked to have an idea how it could work, but I think we need to accept than all can change until the release, for a lot of reasons : balance for exemple.

To answer to your question, I don't think than all these traits changed in a bad way. Some looks way better to me, other ones lost in singularity.
the Assyrians one, for exemple, really fun on paper, I like a lot the idea of the free siege engines, but sadly it looked really situational and almost useless (because work only for late ancient to medieval era). The new trait is versatile, it help them to be expansionist.

At the end, most of these traits are stats. Some of the "lost" concepts, could happen later, for new cultures (?) in a new form.

 

[Sostratus]

but I think we need to accept than all can change until the release, for a lot of reasons : balance for exemple.

Having seen Barays, the original harrapan trait stacked with the prior version of canal would be way too much gas.

 

[Atlas627]

If you mean playing Huns and Mongols, they can't attach or build a city on their outposts. It's specified in the tooltip of their emblematic quarter which is an outpost.
And their Emblematic Unit have the Nomad trait, really unique, and strong.

No, I mean the Neolithic traits. If you get 10 knowledge you get to pick one, but even after I pick one from the event it triggers, nothing shows up in the Empire screen.

 

[Atlas627]

Confirmed that they aren't supposed to show up on that screen yet, though they are working gameplay-wise. Not that I have any idea what they do, because the event tooltip doesn't tell you either!

 

[FinalDoomsday]

I love how reactive the culture change mechanic is. Switching to Romans because I'm at war and that extra army slot gives me a numbers edge in battle. Angry neighbour becomes Mongols so I switch to Ghana as I think Anti-cav camels might come in handy!

 

[CivLuvah]

Has anyone have any problems with their own OpenDev copy lately like crashes? Admittedly last night I was trying the game for a bit once I downloaded and installed it, but then on the second turn, it suddenly crashed. I tried opening the game again but when I tried, it wasn't able to run. When I was trying to open there was the icon in the taskbar and a black screen flashed and then disappeared. I figured reinstalling the OpenDev would fix it, but the problem is still there.

Then I read that they recently applied an update to the OpenDev that's supposed to fix this. So I tried it today after my exam, and it still happens.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I love how reactive the culture change mechanic is. Switching to Romans because I'm at war and that extra army slot gives me a numbers edge in battle. Angry neighbour becomes Mongols so I switch to Ghana as I think Anti-cav camels might come in handy!

IMHO that's probably the exact design logic behind the "culture" change mechanism: more versatile, more flexible, more "adopting the environment". That's also how communities and nations work IRL, gradually evolve themselves over time. Really appreciate the design.

 

[Atlas627]

I've been getting a crash each game I play, so I keep restarting. Fortunately that's fun enough on its own, but it is rather irritating.

It also doesn't help that I don't know the game well enough yet to be sure what causes any particular bug, so it is difficult to bug report.

 

[8housesofelixir]

I don't see any pinned posts on Reddit for Lucy Opendev feedback, so I will just post my thoughts and feedbacks here, and hope the devs will have a look at them.

One thing I noticed from both Stadia and Lucy Opendevs is that the costal waters surrounding the continents are not continuous. The landmasses/islands are not entirely surrounded by shallow costal waters, there are patches of deep seas next to shores.

I am personally against this particular design, and would suggest making the costal waters should be surrounding continents and major islands entirely. This is for two reasons:

From a gameplay perspective, deep waters next to shores not only blocked possible placements of Harbors, but also effectively denied the early era naval vessels the ability of large scale costal movements. Early era ships and embarked units will die/sink in the deep water, and patches of deep water blocking the continuality of shallow waters means that early ships cannot explore the coastlines of a continent entirely. Early naval cultures such as Phoenicians and Carthaginians are taking a direct hit here, since they can't project their naval power effectively in a situation like this,

From a realistic perspective, "deep waters next to shorelines" is not how actual geography works. All the major landmasses and archipelagos on the planet earth are being entirely surrounded by littoral zones and continental shelfs - which is the "shallow water" compared to very middle of the ocean. There isn't any IRL landmasses that directly borders with a sea basin or a sea trench, the transition between land and ocean floor is usually a large, gentle slope with an average grade of 3%.

 

[Atlas627]

The ships can cross deep water. I think they need to both start and end their turn in deep water to sink? So having deep water adjacent to the coast does not prevent naval force and exploration.

Also don't think of it as deep water, thematically. It is "open ocean" in the sense that it is not necessarily safe to sail, and can be unpredictable to traverse. So it is not good for a harbor, is not good for fishing (early), and is an early obstacle to sea travel.

 

[8housesofelixir]

Also don't think of it as deep water, thematically. It is "open ocean" in the sense that it is not necessarily safe to sail, and can be unpredictable to traverse. So it is not good for a harbor, is not good for fishing (early), and is an early obstacle to sea travel.

However, those tiles are directly named "ocean", its visuals is simply a body of water much deeper and bluer than costal waters.

Also, you can clearly see a huge underwater cliff between the transition of "ocean" tiles and the "coastal water" tiles, indicating that the ocean tiles are much more deeper.

With the name and the visual I personally cannot think of anything else other than a chunk of deep blue ocean.

 

[Tiger Genocide]

I love how reactive the culture change mechanic is. Switching to Romans because I'm at war and that extra army slot gives me a numbers edge in battle. Angry neighbour becomes Mongols so I switch to Ghana as I think Anti-cav camels might come in handy!

I'm loving this so much. It really makes the game unique each play through. If nobody is attacking you, sure maybe you could plan it out perfectly, but like in my current game, I have no Iron or copper, but my idiot neighbor who built cities on both sides of me splitting his power, has both..... I think next era, his stuff is mine....and then I will go back to my original play, unless the others wanna fight too. There are 2 vassals already on the map!

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I don't see any pinned posts on Reddit for Lucy Opendev feedback, so I will just post my thoughts and feedbacks here, and hope the devs will have a look at them.

One thing I noticed from both Stadia and Lucy Opendevs is that the costal waters surrounding the continents are not continuous. The landmasses/islands are not entirely surrounded by shallow costal waters, there are patches of deep seas next to shores.

I am personally against this particular design, and would suggest making the costal waters should be surrounding continents and major islands entirely. This is for two reasons:

From a gameplay perspective, deep waters next to shores not only blocked possible placements of Harbors, but also effectively denied the early era naval vessels the ability of large scale costal movements. Early era ships and embarked units will die/sink in the deep water, and patches of deep water blocking the continuality of shallow waters means that early ships cannot explore the coastlines of a continent entirely. Early naval cultures such as Phoenicians and Carthaginians are taking a direct hit here, since they can't project their naval power effectively in a situation like this,

From a realistic perspective, "deep waters next to shorelines" is not how actual geography works. All the major landmasses and archipelagos on the planet earth are being entirely surrounded by littoral zones and continental shelfs - which is the "shallow water" compared to very middle of the ocean. There isn't any IRL landmasses that directly borders with a sea basin or a sea trench, the transition between land and ocean floor is usually a large, gentle slope with an average grade of 3%.

Great observation. A couple of other factors in favour of your recommendation. There are only two distinguishing factors between "coastal" and "deep water" in HK:
1) Coastal waters generate food from fishing, but the most lucrative fishing grounds often lie in deeper waters. There's no need to distinguish between coastal and deep water for this reason.
2) Early ships will be lost if they end more than one turn on deep water. But early ships can float on any depth of water. The distinguishing factor for sailors was knowing where they were, and being able to deal with storms, both of which are easier close to shore.

So for both reasons, "coastal waters" should be based on how close the tiles are to visible land, and "deep water" should be tiles that are outside of the range of visible land..

 

[ost]

2) Early ships will be lost if they end more than one turn on deep water. But early ships can float on any depth of water. The distinguishing factor for sailors was knowing where they were, and being able to deal with storms, both of which are easier close to shore.

I have not tested this myself, but are you guaranteed to lose your ship if it spends more than one turn "lost at sea"? I would certainly prefer for there to be a chance that the ship flounders, but it would be nice if there was a possibility that you could make it to distant lands, provided you are persistent enough/willing to invest in multiple "expeditions"

 

[Atlas627]

Lucrative fishing grounds are in deeper waters, but that's for modern fishing. We have mechanisms that allow us to fish much deeper now, plus equipment that help us avoid open ocean storms, along with a reduced reliance upon winds that would be needed to bring the ship to and from the shore.

 

[Trav'ling Canuck]

I have not tested this myself, but are you guaranteed to lose your ship if it spends more than one turn "lost at sea"? I would certainly prefer for there to be a chance that the ship flounders, but it would be nice if there was a possibility that you could make it to distant lands, provided you are persistent enough/willing to invest in multiple "expeditions"

Under limited observations, it's been 100% of the time. Description of the early sailing vessels indicates that this is the expected result. Can't say for certain it's 100%, obviously.

Lucrative fishing grounds are in deeper waters, but that's for modern fishing. We have mechanisms that allow us to fish much deeper now, plus equipment that help us avoid open ocean storms, along with a reduced reliance upon winds that would be needed to bring the ship to and from the shore.

Agreed, but my main point (perhaps not clearly expressed) was that what limited the ability of early fisherfolk to harvest fish from the ocean was the same thing that affected navigating the oceans. It wasn't the depth of the waters, but whether they could keep track of where they were and more easily avoid storms. In other words, you can make all tiles within sight of land "coastal" tiles for gameplay purposes, if all you're trying to do is define where people can fish and where early ships can travel without risk of being lost. Later technologies like dragnetting could be represented by increasing the harvest of fish from any given harbour.

 

[Atlas627]

Agreed, but my main point (perhaps not clearly expressed) was that what limited the ability of early fisherfolk to harvest fish from the ocean was the same thing that affected navigating the oceans. It wasn't the depth of the waters, but whether they could keep track of where they were and more easily avoid storms. In other words, you can make all tiles within sight of land "coastal" tiles for gameplay purposes, if all you're trying to do is define where people can fish and where early ships can travel without risk of being lost. Later technologies like dragnetting could be represented by increasing the harvest of fish from any given harbour.

I agree that what limited fishing is what limited navigating, and that it isn't water depth. But those factors that affected both could and did appear near the coast. Treacherous rocks, storm-prone areas, powerful currents, and so on, could all appear near the coast even if they were somewhat predictable. I think allowing ocean spaces to appear next to the land is a clean way of abstracting these navigational issues.