Waiting for a patch...

[lordqarlyn]

That was just an update for the soundtrack. No game changes that we know of.

Ah, okay. Makes sense since afterwards I didn't see any game changes lol. Thanks!

 

[steveg700]

I agree. The "religious spam" is the AI pursuing a strategy that really might make a difference.

I think that, as a group, we can be a little schizo. If the AI does something effective enough that it really throws us, a whole lot of people get upset. And without realizing that that contradicts the view (of many of the same people) that the AI is ineffective.

As I see it, Firaxis has the right idea. Make AI opposition that provokes you, annoys you enough that you want to get back at them. (Civ V I found too often opposing civs just sat there.) Give those AI civs some tools to allow them to poke the bear and seriously inconvenience you.

Sure, I'd like it better if they could get the AI to do better in tactical warfare. But I also know that that is an extraordinarily difficult undertaking in any game of this type, so for the time being, they've made a pretty good call. Next step, in my view, is to get the AI to prioritize production better, and then upgrade better. I'm thinking that that should be doable.

The next step is to realize that if achieving religious victory is pretty much just a matter of spamming units, then religious victory bears redesign. I'm not schizo because I don't like the AI is bad *and* because I think that the way to win the religion game is poorly conceived. I'm just sane.

I'm in a game right now where it's constantly two steps forward, one step back. Or perhaps, one step forward, one step back. I send an apostle to flip an Aztec city, and then Arabia sends one over to flip it back to them. And if I were pursuing a religious victory, I'm supposed to keep doing this over and over until I've flipped the majority of cities in every civ's empire? That's the big strategy? There's no critical move where one of us does something to gain a lasting foothold? No diplomatic arena for me to get Monty to welcome my followers and repel Saladin's?

I thought religious pressure might provide some kind of critical foothold, but it seems to not actually be having a noticeable effect. I have the tithe belief, so all I want is to do is create followers here and there, no majority required. but I've had four or five cities flipped at a go in a concentrated area and still not seen even one of my followers has sprung up in the nearby cities. It's weird. In Civ V, the first follower came quickly, and then they accrued progressively slower and slower. I think I might have had thirty turns pass without seeing anything shift. Worse still, some of the cities I've flipped have grown in population, and it doesn't look pressure is causing my followers to keep up there either.

 

[steveg700]

If a fan is a person who likes something, then disliking it would mean that you aren't a fan. And having a negative opinion would reflect an attitude of dislike. Therefore, if you fail to like it, you should question your status as a fan.

That reasoning seems extremely reductive.

To be a fan of something does not require one to commit themselves to unilaterally liking every aspect of it. Indeed, being passionate about something means one can be quite upset when something feels flawed, mishandled, or out-of-place.

 

[dexters]

I assume crunch is over at Firaxis so any major issues uncovered at launch probably didn't get a look until just this past Monday. I would expect a hot fix patch late this week or early next week with a larger overall patch in November or December.

 

[steveg700]

I adamantly hope they *don't* rush to patch anything but critical bugs right now. They need to keep mining data, not just reacting to initial outcries.

 

[Plus Ultra]

The next step is to realize that if achieving religious victory is pretty much just a matter of spamming units, then religious victory bears redesign. I'm not schizo because I don't like the AI is bad *and* because I think that the way to win the religion game is poorly conceived. I'm just sane.

I see your point steveg700. A couple of things that you might be overlooking:

-Missionaries and charges on apostles are fine, but in order to gain a lasting foothold you need to... well, you need to put some feet in the area. A couple of apostles defending a city does wonders due to religious victories adding followers to your true religion.
-Having trouble with certain civ? (Arabia, in your example) Convert the cities in which he has built a Holy Site and his Holy City. No Holy Sites/Holy city = no more religious units. It will take him quite a while to come back from that.
-Set up an army of apostles at his door, close him down forever.

The religious victory requires a combination of three units (missionary, inquisitor, apostle), some wonder building, guerrilla tactics and strategic thinking. Add religious pressure, Kongo, India, Spain and Jerusalem to the mix too. Far from poorly conceived in my opinion.

 

[gunnerxtr]

I adamantly hope they *don't* rush to patch anything but critical bugs right now. They need to keep mining data, not just reacting to initial outcries.

They did have a lot of time to 'mine' data prior to launch, no? Unless the data is our outcries, not sure that will be effective given the weaknesses we have found in the last 6 days.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

They did have a lot of time to 'mine' data prior to launch, no? Unless the data is our outcries, not sure that will be effective given the weaknesses we have found in the last 6 days.

Well, I'd expect some fixes soon. But deeper changes or additions would have to take a bit if time, eh? I'd expect by Christmas or so which isn't really that long when you think about it.

 

[WiseGreen]

They did have a lot of time to 'mine' data prior to launch, no? Unless the data is our outcries, not sure that will be effective given the weaknesses we have found in the last 6 days.

Lol no. Even one week of world-wide play gives several orders of magnitude more data than even a couple hundred beta testers, which I think would be a lot for Firaxis/2k standards. No game, not even AAA Blizzard/Rockstar/EA ones, are going to have even a tenth of the data they get from week one players from months-long betas.

 

[dexters]

They did have a lot of time to 'mine' data prior to launch, no? Unless the data is our outcries, not sure that will be effective given the weaknesses we have found in the last 6 days.

Say 100 beta testers playing 5 hours a day for 2 months. That's 30,000 hours of playtime. That will be immediately dwarfed by playtime from your average launch day crowd even if the game only sold 10k copies. And it certainly sold way way more than that.

Civ6 is in many ways the most polished initial released of the game in recent memory. Kudos to them for that. They obviously have tested it a lot . But nothing beats putting a 4x game out on the market for millions of hours of playthroughs to find the more complex bugs.

You also have to remember some obvious bugs may be known and reported by the testers but they didn't patch it in before launch.

 

[Falk]

I agree. The "religious spam" is the AI pursuing a strategy that really might make a difference.

I think that, as a group, we can be a little schizo. If the AI does something effective enough that it really throws us, a whole lot of people get upset. And without realizing that that contradicts the view (of many of the same people) that the AI is ineffective.

As I see it, Firaxis has the right idea. Make AI opposition that provokes you, annoys you enough that you want to get back at them. (Civ V I found too often opposing civs just sat there.) Give those AI civs some tools to allow them to poke the bear and seriously inconvenience you.

Actually what you describe here is what Civ5's AI was initially like. It was eventually changed because people didn't like it. It will happen with Civ6, too, I'll bet. And i hope it does.

There's another problem with your line of argument: Often the AI will build gazillion missionaries but not use them. Just had a game like that where England was moving a dozen missionaries across my lands for no apparent reason. They just moved back and forth.

 

[gunnerxtr]

Lol no. Even one week of world-wide play gives several orders of magnitude more data than even a couple hundred beta testers, which I think would be a lot for Firaxis/2k standards. No game, not even AAA Blizzard/Rockstar/EA ones, are going to have even a tenth of the data they get from week one players from months-long betas.

Say 100 beta testers playing 5 hours a day for 2 months. That's 30,000 hours of playtime. That will be immediately dwarfed by playtime from your average launch day crowd even if the game only sold 10k copies. And it certainly sold way way more than that.

Civ6 is in many ways the most polished initial released of the game in recent memory. Kudos to them for that. They obviously have tested it a lot . But nothing beats putting a 4x game out on the market for millions of hours of playthroughs to find the more complex bugs.

You also have to remember some obvious bugs may be known and reported by the testers but they didn't patch it in before launch.

You guys are totally right.

I guess I was speaking more to the AI performance in the sense that there is no data mining needed to see that it is underperforming, even the lead AI programmer acknowledged weaknesses during the AI Battle Royale. It's bad, they knew it was bad, we have confirmed that it is bad. Data mining complete lol.

I am having a blast playing - just hopeful that it only gets better

 

[bbbt]

I'm sure the AI team has done their best and will continue to improve the game thanks to those that are posting their experiences, problems and feedback.

Was there a team? I thought it was basically one developer (which is barely enough resources to do like a skeleton in a game like this).

 

[SammyKhalifa]

You guys are totally right.

I guess I was speaking more to the AI performance in the sense that there is no data mining needed to see that it is underperforming, even the lead AI programmer acknowledged weaknesses during the AI Battle Royale. It's bad, they knew it was bad, we have confirmed that it is bad. Data mining complete lol.

I am having a blast playing - just hopeful that it only gets better

Actually if they fix the UI and give me an idea of what's actually happening when I try to do things, I'll live with the AI for a bit. I know other people think differently but as long as the game's fun I'll deal.

 

[ComradeDavo]

I assume crunch is over at Firaxis so any major issues uncovered at launch probably didn't get a look until just this past Monday. I would expect a hot fix patch late this week or early next week with a larger overall patch in November or December.

I hope so...like i've mentioned I feel the unit upgrade is an important one they need to get out asap It's an issue of the ai not getting resources then maybe they should consider giving the AI a set number of free upgrades on King and above, scaling upwards depending on difficulty and map size.

 

[steveg700]

I see your point steveg700. A couple of things that you might be overlooking:

-Missionaries and charges on apostles are fine, but in order to gain a lasting foothold you need to... well, you need to put some feet in the area. A couple of apostles defending a city does wonders due to religious victories adding followers to your true religion.
-Having trouble with certain civ? (Arabia, in your example) Convert the cities in which he has built a Holy Site and his Holy City. No Holy Sites/Holy city = no more religious units. It will take him quite a while to come back from that.
-Set up an army of apostles at his door, close him down forever.

The religious victory requires a combination of three units (missionary, inquisitor, apostle), some wonder building, guerrilla tactics and strategic thinking. Add religious pressure, Kongo, India, Spain and Jerusalem to the mix too. Far from poorly conceived in my opinion.

Well, I'm not going for a religious victory, mind you, just trying to milk my tithe by seeding some cities with religious pressure that will spring a follower or two here and there in the surrounding cities. That doesn't seem to be working. Need to go back and look at what beliefs Arabia has. Might be the reason pressure is working for them and not for me.

I think the whole business of being able to wipe out a holy city with minimal effort needs a revisit as well. There needs to be the equivalent of city walls, i.e. some kind of innate passive defense that isn't contingent on having units around to defend them. I have a strong antipathy towards that part which would be euphemistically described as "guerilla tactics". If you have a head start on religion, why not just keep some missionaries or apostles around so that if a neighbor founds a religion, you can just march over and casually snuff it out? That civ isn't going to have his retinue of apostles standing around to stop you.

It was a mistake for the devs to take design cues from the domination victory condition. Unilateral elimination is a poor thing in games. The emphasis should be less on elimination, and more on winning key battlegrounds. Better to convert a certain number of cities or global population than have to flip every civ over. Why is this better? Because it allows for there to be actual fronts racing against each to the end, rather than A) a steamroll process where you know you're going to win or lose long before the finish line because the opposition has been crushed below a threshold they can come back from, or B) an abrupt, cheap-shot, anticlimactic blitzkrieg victory.

 

[Dark_Jedi06]

They did have a lot of time to 'mine' data prior to launch, no? Unless the data is our outcries, not sure that will be effective given the weaknesses we have found in the last 6 days.

I'm sure the player base logged more hours in the first weekend of release then they were able to log at any point prior to release, especially on the finished release build, not to mention the sheer diversity that the player base represents that simply can't be replicated during a beta.

 

[rpgalon]

Well, I'm not going for a religious victory, mind you, just trying to milk my tithe by seeding some cities with religious pressure that will spring a follower or two here and there in the surrounding cities. That doesn't seem to be working. Need to go back and look at what beliefs Arabia has. Might be the reason pressure is working for them and not for me.

I think the whole business of being able to wipe out a holy city with minimal effort needs a revisit as well. There needs to be the equivalent of city walls, i.e. some kind of innate passive defense that isn't contingent on having units around to defend them. I have a strong antipathy towards that part which would be euphemistically described as "guerilla tactics". If you have a head start on religion, why not just keep some missionaries or apostles around so that if a neighbor founds a religion, you can just march over and casually snuff it out? That civ isn't going to have his retinue of apostles standing around to stop you.

It was a mistake for the devs to take design cues from the domination victory condition. Unilateral elimination is a poor thing in games. The emphasis should be less on elimination, and more on winning key battlegrounds. Better to convert a certain number of cities or global population than have to flip every civ over. Why is this better? Because it allows for there to be actual fronts racing against each to the end, rather than A) a steamroll process where you know you're going to win or lose long before the finish line because the opposition has been crushed below a threshold they can come back from, or B) an abrupt, cheap-shot, anticlimactic blitzkrieg victory.

You can kill religious units by just walking over them with military. you also remove 150 of that religion from every city nearby.

Also, once you use your Great Prophet it turns every city with a holy site into your religion, so you might want to have more than one city with a holy site before using the prophet.

 

[Zhahz]

I'm hardly in waiting for a patch mode since the game is fun even with issues, but I will be damn happy when a patch hits.

Sadly, historically Firaxis/2K move insanely slow with patches so I'd imagine it will be weeks. I hope they buck their own trend.

I'm used to indie and even other devs patching quickly but a lot of corporate shops are still in the stone age for this.

I get tired of the "modders will fix it" thing - the only people intimately familiar with the overall game are the people who created it over several years and I'd rather see them fix it well than see some random armchair hack inflict their opinion on it after a few moments of thought.