Various Thoughts From Game on Most Recent Patch

[CrazyG]

Hello all. This is just a collection of random observations from a game played on the 2.7.2 patch.

I played as Poland on a wine monopoly. Deity, Pangea, standard size/speed and no ancient ruins or events. Tradition-Artistry-Industry-Freedom for a cultural victory.

1. The increased science costs make late game military a lot more sensible but I think the balance for other things is funky.
   • Winning by tourism is very easy compared to winning by science. You need 2 tier 3 ideological tenets which can be achieved much faster than researching all techs (this would be true even if I wasn't Poland).
   • Similar logic hurts diplomatic victory vs cultural, the tourism will overwhelm you before you even unlock the UN.
   • Its much easier to build everything in every city because you have a lot more time before new things unlock. This also benefits cultural victories because it means hotels and extra wonders like Uffizi and less of a burden.
   • I'm not arguing that the science changes were bad, just that other things need adjustment in response.
2. Great Engineers with Industry's +25% and 2 manufactories can finish a wonder alone even in the late game. That's without investing in gold, which I did anyways because I had excess gold and wanted bonus science from banks.
3. The city-state quest for coup another city state is extremely strong. I got a quest to coup a CS I was allied with, so pissed them off intentionally just to get credit for couping them back to my side lol. This resulted in 450+ points in every great person category.
4. The quest to send a specific unit to a city state refreshes extremely quickly. If you can gold buy the units, this should be completable with a new CS every 3-4 turns. This may be an issue with gold availability, not the quest itself.
5. City states coups are the best choice for spies because their probability is very high and they occur very quickly compared to other spy actions. I was given a quest for 2 actions against Egypt, put my Renaissance spy there immediately, but needed 50+ turns to complete each action. In addition to establishing surveillance and the chance of failure it would have taken more than 130 turns to complete in a city with low security.
6. Given the slow down of late game techs, I had a lot of spare production and gold to just spend on random crap. I briefly allied all 16 city states because I had nothing to spend gold on except units to gift. When paper ran out I just bought random military units to gift them for like 8 influence.
7. Poland is still super OP

 

[Stalker0]

Do you remember what turn you managed influential with all civs? Checking to see how the new tourism changes have affected that (if at all)

 

[CrazyG]

Do you remember what turn you managed influential with all civs? Checking to see how the new tourism changes have affected that (if at all)

Early 200's. Even as Poland the constraint was waiting for the ideological tenets, not the actual tourism.

 

[Stalker0]

Early 200's. Even as Poland the constraint was waiting for the ideological tenets, not the actual tourism.

What beliefs? did you do like a SS play or maybe Way of Noble Truths? I'm trying to think what tourism sources you even have access to at that point in the game.

 

[cidk2000]

Chieftian player.. dont play with espionage as i dont fully understand it, but can relate to your observations Science is weird im usually winning around 350 Culture was done in industrial all on a standard map/standard speed currently tier 2 information age, im already filling another policy wiith my culture and i have 5900 tourism just got The Internet gone 4 cities tall (now have puppets ai was extremly poor) traditon/artistry/rationalism/freedom/ and now imperialism im bored wating for the science!

 

[youngsteve]

Do people think that science victory needs to be made easier, as the latest patch makes it more expensive to gain techs & longer to win, whereas it was bad enough in my opinion previously. I have noted that the vast majority of wins people have had come from Culture even if it has been made more harder to do so. Diplomatic or Domination, depending how you play, are most of the rest, with winning by launching your space ships way back. Whenever I try to play it is usually either Domination or Culture for peace, with sometimes Diplomatic.

 

[cidk2000]

I lost to the AI on diplomatic a few times on previous patches Culture is very easy to win my losses have come to trying to win science!

 

[CrazyG]

What beliefs? did you do like a SS play or maybe Way of Noble Truths? I'm trying to think what tourism sources you even have access to at that point in the game.

Wonders, great works, trade routes and historic events. I already had some tourism from ideology too (because Poland)

Religion was God of All Creation
Holy Law, Mastery
The one that buys archeologists with faith
Synagogues
Symbolism
(also free mosque from Sankore)

Just a side note, I only had 3 cities as tradition and it seems to me that the per city penalty on tourism means most new cities will be net negatives.

 

[Stalker0]

Just a side note, I only had 3 cities as tradition and it seems to me that the per city penalty on tourism means most new cities will be net negatives.

Man I've got to watch your game sometime, I don't know to survive with just 4 cities on Immortal, let alone 3 on diety. Your second cities must be like absolute fort knox, since you have so little supply to work with

But yeah your notes are telling, because what its suggesting is that we can't just work on base tourism bonuses (because the numbers your quoting are just not that large at that point in the game). We may have to consider something more fundamental. I mean your not even dealing with the big tourism stuff like hotels by the early 200s and your still blowing away on CV.

 

[CrazyG]

Man I've got to watch your game sometime, I don't know to survive with just 4 cities on Immortal, let alone 3 on diety. Your second cities must be like absolute fort knox, since you have so little supply to work with

But yeah your notes are telling, because what its suggesting is that we can't just work on base tourism bonuses (because the numbers your quoting are just not that large at that point in the game). We may have to consider something more fundamental. I mean your not even dealing with the big tourism stuff like hotels by the early 200s and your still blowing away on CV.

By early 200s I meant before turn 250 (like 210 something or 220 something).

I already have hotels by that point. My neighbors were friendly (shared religion) and spent a lot of time fighting other civs. I had only 1 brief war.

 

[Rekk]

Great Engineers with Industry's +25% and 2 manufactories can finish a wonder alone even in the late game. That's without investing in gold, which I did anyways because I had excess gold and wanted bonus science from Banks.

How many wonders did you have at that point?

You had (1+ 2 * 0.25) * (1 + 0.25) = +85% extra production from your 10 turn average at this point, making it roughly worth 18 turns of production. You only have 3 cities, so your capital production is more heavily weighted. I presume you've been spamming wonders all game?

Wonder cost modifiers:
- 25% for each current era wonder owned
- 15% for each previous era wonder owned
- 10% for each two-era-earlier wonder owned
- 0% for all earlier era wonders

Your manufactories + Entrepreneurship let you negate some combination of these wonders and more (I presume).

I'm perfectly happy for players who don't have wonders to be able to instantly get one with a GE, but I guess that if you don't have wonders at this point in the game, you won't have the techs to even try to compete for one.

 

[CrazyG]

How many wonders did you have at that point?

You had (1+ 2 * 0.25) * (1 + 0.25) = +85% extra production from your 10 turn average at this point, making it roughly worth 18 turns of production. You only have 3 cities, so your capital production is more heavily weighted. I presume you've been spamming wonders all game?

Wonder cost modifiers:
- 25% for each current era wonder owned
- 15% for each previous era wonder owned
- 10% for each wonder owned in eras even earlier

Your manufactories + Entrepreneurship let you negate some combination of these wonders and more (I presume).

I'm perfectly happy for players who don't have wonders to be able to instantly get one with a GE, but I guess that if you don't have wonders at this point in the game, you won't have the techs to even try to compete for one.

I checked a couple of times from Renaissance onwards and the engineer was worth about 11-12 turns of my capitals production. So even with the other cities weighing me down its an instant build.

I had Stonehenge, Hanging Gardens, Parthenon and University of Sankore for pre-renaissance. That's a lot but I've had games where I've spammed more.

Renaissance is where I got out of hand (partially because I was just swimming in gold). I think it was Leaning Tower by hand, Chichen Itza by engineer, Taj Mahal by hand, Porcelain tower by engineer. Then I could faith buy great people so I scooped up Uffizi and Louvre back to back. Later on Statue of Liberty by engineer, eiffel by hand, and I had an engineer waiting for my corporation but game ended before I got the tech.

 

[Rekk]

11-12 turns is an average build time for a wonder?

If so, then 10 turns or production is too much, in my opinion. Maybe it should be reduced down to "best city's production" and 5 turns? The initial 4 turn average was meant to reduce the strength of tall compared to wide, but it looks like this just makes tall hurt a lot in the early game, then the 10 turn average

Maybe wonders just take quite a bit less time in general to build in the late game compared to the early game via raw production alone? Then a pure production model for hurry will not work, unless we sharply increase the bonus wonder penalty mechanics.

 

[CrazyG]

If so, then 10 turns or production is too much, in my opinion. Maybe it should be reduced down to "best city's production" and 5 turns? The initial 4 turn average was meant to reduce the strength of tall compared to wide, but it looks like this just makes tall hurt a lot in the early game, then the 10 turn average

5 turns of best city is much more in line with other great people.

You could try adding a bonus for total population or number of cities if you want to benefit wide more.

 

[besset]

What makes poland so op? And why is it good as tradition? Extra production & culture?

Also do you guys think tradition is stronger or weaker on the latest patch? Do you plant ur first couple GE's now?

 

[besset]

Man I've got to watch your game sometime, I don't know to survive with just 4 cities on Immortal, let alone 3 on diety. Your second cities must be like absolute fort knox, since you have so little supply to work with

I second this. We need a CrazyG tradition deity photojournal/video!

 

[CppMaster]

What makes poland so op? And why is it good as tradition? Extra production & culture?

Free policy every other era.

 

[CrazyG]

What makes poland so op? And why is it good as tradition? Extra production & culture?

Also do you guys think tradition is stronger or weaker on the latest patch? Do you plant ur first couple GE's now?

A free policy every other era == very strong culture. I think this alone makes Poland a very strong choice. He doesn't need tradition he's probably the most flexible civ in the game. However tradition + artistry is a good way to get an ideology as quickly as possible.

What really pushes him over the edge IMO is the 2 free policies when you take an ideology. This means when you unlock ideology you get a total of 3 which gives you access to super powerful policies no one else could have (the free building in every city will activate even if you don't have the techs for it). I think its possible for a civ like Polynesia to keep up with Poland until ideologies, but at that point he just crushes it.

 

[Stalker0]

A free policy every other era == very strong culture. I think this alone makes Poland a very strong choice. He doesn't need tradition he's probably the most flexible civ in the game. However tradition + artistry is a good way to get an ideology as quickly as possible.

What really pushes him over the edge IMO is the 2 free policies when you take an ideology. This means when you unlock ideology you get a total of 3 which gives you access to super powerful policies no one else could have (the free building in every city will activate even if you don't have the techs for it). I think its possible for a civ like Polynesia to keep up with Poland until ideologies, but at that point he just crushes it.

Yeah no one in the game beats Poland to ideologies. It also means wonder prereqs are basically a non-factor to them. You can go pure science focus as poland, and still make your prereqs for wonders, giving them access to wonders at timings very few other civs can match.

 

[anastazjasz]

Yeah no one in the game beats Poland to ideologies. It also means wonder prereqs are basically a non-factor to them. You can go pure science focus as poland, and still make your prereqs for wonders, giving them access to wonders at timings very few other civs can match.

Unless they got conquered by France by midgame. First they've conquered Mongolia (gangbang of Ethopia, Poland and France) and then after some time in 3 wars Napoleon and Ethopia took all the Poland, most of the job was done by Napoleon. Granted my game is heavily modded and not balanced at all but it was still fun to watch. So no, not always Poland will get its perks kick on on time.