v92 Portugal

[TheYojick]

Alright, finally got my hands on v.92! Woohoo! Played around a few different civs before I decided to start tracking stuff that happened ingame for the forums, so I chose Portugal to see how things go.

To note a few things here,
- it was really solid that Spain, a geographically small region is done in such a way that 6 cities can fit into it. Very good work on the map in general. For my third city, I had to settle for the small island off the coast of Africa, however looking back, I should have settled in the Morocco region. Bummer.
- I also noticed that tech wise, I started out in like 8th or 7th place, which right away puts me in a disadvantage overall, is this intentional? Because in prior games, more later civs that spawn start with tech higher than average.

- Me and the Portuguese boys found Djenne (which was prior to this controlled by the Arabs before it became a rebel city). This will be the start of my African colonial project.

- at this point in the game I noticed it takes a VERY long time to build settlers, like a ridiculous amount. I assumed they would cost like 1050 gold but NOPE! over 3000! Is this by design? Does the cost go down?
- at this point I doubted that I could ever pull off actual colonies in the new world and stuff, until the next pic here...

- LOVE the scripted events and spawns! I didn't know this was gonna happened until it did! At the point of meeting the Maya minor civ, I got an event that gave me just enough soldiers to begin my New World colonies!
- speaking of scripted stuff, I understand that there is a per-unit limit in the game, but I cannot gauge what that limit is. Is it 5 per type? And does it scale for larger civs? I couldn't find it in the readme file....

- this point of the game my African project is going well. However, this was clearly only possible due to me being at peace with Spain. If a war were to ever break out, I would be screwed. I should probably prep a home guard in the mainland.
- At this point also, the price of settlers made some sense to me. To keep civs from expanding to quickly early game having a whopping 3000 gold pricetag is justifiable as I was forced to save to purchase settlers.

THATS A WRAP FOR DAY 1! MORE TO COME!

 

[TheYojick]

So some more developments in my Portugal game with some thoughts on the mechanics:

- 1600's saw a consolidations of the new world colonies around Panama and Venezuela. The French and English begin crazy colonial expansion, and nobody goes for Africa at all, which I found funny. France also defeats the Germans and becomes the hegemon of Europe.

A Few notes on the AI:
- at this point in the game i've started to notice that the AI NEVER seems to annex puppeted cities. As you can see above, France, the hegemon of Europe only built Paris, and everything else was conquered. They never bothered to annex ANY of the cities, even Bordeaux, which I would assume would fit culturally for them and not cause any instability. I'm not sure how bad of an impact this has on their competitiveness, but given that puppeted cities cannot really produce units and stuff, this probably nerfs the AI terribly, even if they do get free units from difficulty levels and stuff.
- On that note, I also noticed that nations like Arabia (seen in the mini-map) grow complacent. At a certain point they just never build new cities in historically viable areas like norther Africa or Persia. To resolve this, I actually went ahead and purchased settlers, gifted it to them one at a time and eventually they built a few cities on the north African coast. So I assume the AI just isn't building settlers. This goes the same with nations like Russia and China, they just stop trying to build cities, even if their historically held territory is empty.

- as the game progressed, India and Japan collapsed as civilizations and I was able to sweep in and take the coastal cities with my navy. During this time, I began colonizing Brazil (purchasing settlers, since it takes too long to build them). My economy became crazy good.
- eventually the unthinkable happened; Spain and England both declared war and I was forced to spend my hard saved 20,000 gold to buy units and fight for survival. The coast off Portugal and the New world colonies became the battleground for most of the war, with mainland Spain being a stalemate. Fighting them off and taking a few New world colonies, I was able to force them to pay me reparations of about ~160 gold per turn each.
- 1822, Brazil declares independence and the colonies there also get annexed by Brazil. My stability at this point however, says "collapsing" so I decided to let them go free and focus on internal stability.

A note for Rhye:
- shouldn't nations that are going "independent" from other civs be at war with them right away? It would make a lot more sense, instead of being at peace them a new nation that just stole 2-3 cities from your empire? Or was this a design choice to make those starts easier?

- 1700's and 1800's pass by peacefully with Portugal simply enjoying its consolidation of Japan and India (who are just a bunch of city-states).
- The Netherlands is reborn, as well as Korea rises from Chinese occupation. The Arabians and Americans seize cities in Australia during the 1800's when the English empire collapses. The USA settles both coasts of North America, but never bothers to attack the French, who have multiple cities at the very center.
- Eventually France becomes too cocky and decides they wanna piece of Portugal, which I happily denies, thus war. From 1915-1930's there is a HUGE slugfest in North America as I try several times to take Fort Detroit (pictures above). Eventually, thanks to the invention of bombers, I was able to take the city, at considerable loss of life. Just to have some fun with history, I sold the cities to the USA for a whopping 150 gold per turn.

Notes about AI:
- I'm curious why the USA doesn't bother at this point to try and unite the coasts, like its super easy for them to do so. Is the AI not incentivized to try and take their historical lands?

- 1939, was supposed to be a great year for the Empire... until India decided they were done with my generous management and declared independence. (Again, they just got all my cities there without a declaration of war, which I had to do). Unlucky for them, I quickly took a city I had previously built a airport in, and soon enough, airlifted troops to put down the Indian rebellion.

A few additional comments/questions for Rhye:
- how exactly is the stability mechanic determined, could there be a future breakdown of the score, of what contributes to them directly?
- Does the edicts work? I have used them several times throughout the game and am not sure if they actually work or not.
- Why do the modern units have an even stricter limit for numbers? I was able to have like 5-6 frigates, but only am allowed 3 battleships before I get the military stability issues.

END of Day 2! See you in the next one!

 

[Rhye]

great report. Thank you.

I will check into the issues you mentioned.

About your questions:
- I don't think i can afford making a further breakdown of score for the time being. But the panel does not work yet, so it will become easier to manage it.
- Unit caps grow stricter because first of all, modern units give more building options (more types), and also to contain the uncontrolled complexity of late game, when the boom of number of units will make the game (and the loading times) unplayable