Update incoming

[Gedemon]

Ho yes, the sound bug...

And I hope they've also fixed the DLC load order bug, I feel like I've spent the last 3 weeks explaining that those were not caused by mods and helping people to simply start the game instead of actually modding...

 

[PhilBowles]

https://twitter.com/CivGame/status/970720860670713857

Link to youtube video in tweet.

From Ed's mouth to our ears:
- UI updates

Nothing very significant from what I can gather. It's the basic functionality that's awkward, not the amount of information shown in the loyalty lens or tech tree, two of the areas with fairly good functionality. If they want to better-impart information they're better off looking at the cultural victory tracker.

- Balance changes: polders can be placed next to hills

This is a peril of paying too much attention to the community. The Netherlands is strong and polders were fine - yes, people want to be able to use the UI if they're playing the civ, especially if it's a powerful UI, but this would be better-addressed by adjusting map generation to produce appropriate polder sites with greater frequency, not by making polders too easy to place without any attendant reduction to their yield.

- Production bonus to city-states to build walls + higher starting defense

This is promising, but I wonder why they didn't also adjust AI behaviour to make AIs less prone to going on a killing spree. Seems this is yet another issue that arises from Civ VI AIs lacking discrete personalities - in Civ V you'd have certain aggressive civs that would go out and conquer the city-states, but it was behaviour that was held in check by the fact that only a few civs were inclined to do so. When every one of 30+ civs is led by Attila to all intents and purposes it's not much surprise that this is the result.

I wasn't expecting a patch this soon - any prospect there will be an accompanying DLC as usual?

 

[Kruos]

Changes incoming look good, but I still do not understand why they do not adress the CS agression issue by simply linking diplomatic status between the CS and their suzerain. It would make sense and contribute a lot to better solve the problem (more 'organic' solution IMO).

Moreover, the solution they propose will not solve the problem when your ally decide to crush one of your CS..

 

[acluewithout]

Huzzah! Glad Firaxis are being so responsive!

Some random (possibly incoherent) thoughts:

- I do think Firaxis are pretty responsive. No, they're not always in the forums, but that's okay. The point is stuff does get listened to, and does get fixed.

- Very excited about Entertainment districts. I was thinking recently how I wish there were more districts like the Harbour - ie situational districts, which don't just boil down to boosting one yield. The Sea Entertainment District is a bit like that already. If Firaxis change up the ED, I think that district could be quite cool as well.

- I really do think R&F is very beta. I don't mean in terms of overall quality, but in the sense that it's meant to be iterative between the vanilla game and whatever next expansion is planned. There are clearly some areas where Firaxis are still thinking about stuff: e.g., I can't believe 'ideologies' just boils down to having a new Casus Belli - there's clearly an intention to expand that later on. Same with loyalty, free cities etc. I think this must sometimes constrain what balances changes and fixes Firaxis are willing to make, because why tweak some system you're going to change more radically later on? I suspect City States fall into this category, and so it's easier for Firaxis to just give City States better walls than radically changing how the AI work, because they don't want to be messing with the AI when they're still messing with other systems.

- I have no views about Polders.

- Oh, the sweet, sweet pain of being a Mac user. I haven't played since the last update came out on PC (Fall 2017). Given the timing of that update coming to Mac, I thought I'd wait for R&F to come out on Mac before playing again, so I could play with both that and the last patch. Now I'm going to be tempted to wait until this new patch comes out before playing...

 

[WillowBrook]

I wasn't expecting a patch this soon - any prospect there will be an accompanying DLC as usual?

There was a 30 day patch with the base game as well.

I don't recall when the first DLC came out, but I understand that there is currently no sign of a DLC being tested, and they've not said anything about the existence of future DLC, so I'd say it's highly unlikely a DLC will drop with this patch.

 

[God of Kings]

The patch will be very interesting.

Now, where's the Curling Rink for Scotland to replace Golf Courses on Snow and Tundra tiles?

 

[Timothy001]

They did a 30 day patch after vanilla. So I had my eye out for activity. And it's been happening. There were many QA updates last week. The 30th day will be on Saturday, so the patch should be out Thursday or Friday.

@Eagle Pursuit. Thanks for keeping an eye on the QA updates. The information you provide is invaluable.

 

[Karpius]

I hope they've also fixed the DLC load order bug, I feel like I've spent the last 3 weeks explaining that those were not caused by mods and helping people to simply start the game instead of actually modding...

You should get an award for your helpfulness...but you probably wouldn't have time to enjoy it anyway. Especially with the next patch coming.

 

[Jackanape]

The patch will be very interesting.

Now, where's the Curling Rink for Scotland to replace Golf Courses on Snow and Tundra tiles?

That's for the Canada/inuit DLC

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Oh, no. They still haven't realized the bad era timing thing. How comes that everyone is at modern, fighting with planes and tanks, while the "world era" is still medival

 

[Pietato]

Yeah, they definitely seem extremely powerful now. Their river adjacency bonus for districts is insane, but it was made up with a near-useless UI. Now that the UI is good, they should probably tune down the river-district adjacency bonus a tad to compensate.

Um, Netherlands is weak right now.

 

[Pietato]

These patches are never retroactive, correct?

 

[Civ_Gumby]

Does the loophole with warmongering have to do with continually liberating a free city?

Um, Netherlands is weak right now.

Yeah, the buff is nice but I don't really think its going to change much aha.

 

[Stringer1313]

I really wish they would just add a Hall of Fame already... why is that so hard?

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Um, Netherlands is weak right now.

I'm not sure how you figure that. With Grote Rivieren, they rival Germany in sheer production, larger cities due to Polders, and have a better UU on top of it.

 

[bonafide11]

Any guesses on how long it’ll be before the patch is released? I can’t decide if I should start another game or not.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Any guesses on how long it’ll be before the patch is released? I can’t decide if I should start another game or not.

Later this week, based on what I have been seeing on SteamDB.

 

[Barbarian King]

I think I can play offline but I won't get achievements that way, I'm not sure.

I'm pretty sure you can get achievements offline. I've played Civ6 offline several times and can't remember it ever stopping the achievements from rolling in.

These patches are never retroactive, correct?

If by "retroactive" you mean applied to saved games, I think they are - at least for things that are ongoing as opposed to those (like map generation) that only run when you start a game.

 

[Ondolindë]

This is good news and I welcome the idea. Firaxis is reading what our experience has been with R&F and responding to it. Unfortunately this will affect both vanilla and R&F for Modders. For example. CQUI just got updated for Vanilla and they started working on R&F. But It is expected and all of us who use mods need to be patient.

- Oh, the sweet, sweet pain of being a Mac user. I haven't played since the last update came out on PC (Fall 2017). Given the timing of that update coming to Mac, I thought I'd wait for R&F to come out on Mac before playing again, so I could play with both that and the last patch. Now I'm going to be tempted to wait until this new patch comes out before playing...

This will will probably delay the release of R&F. Last week, Aspyr Blair wasn’t very optimistic about the end of March goal he’d stated weeks before. Maybe this was due to privileged information related to this pattch. Regardless, try Nvidia’s Geo Force Now. I’ve been using it since R&F came and I’m loving it.

 

[stealth_nsk]

This is a peril of paying too much attention to the community. The Netherlands is strong and polders were fine - yes, people want to be able to use the UI if they're playing the civ, especially if it's a powerful UI, but this would be better-addressed by adjusting map generation to produce appropriate polder sites with greater frequency, not by making polders too easy to place without any attendant reduction to their yield.

I don't see what's strong with Netherlands other than polders.
Also, changing tile requirement can't be compared with "adjusting map generation". The first is changing a couple of lines in data files, which could be done within a day together with testing and deployment, the second is several man/months of work with testing.

This is promising, but I wonder why they didn't also adjust AI behaviour to make AIs less prone to going on a killing spree.

Answer exactly the same, I believe. The amount of work is on totally different scale.