[GS] What aspects of the game do you feel are the most "overpowered?"

[Tuvok694]

Most overpowered?
I think that's still the rock bands!!
(especially: flipping any foreign city in one turn with the "indie" promotion...)

 

[King of Prussia]

CS in the early game are very very strong. Having one game where you are practically surrounded by them makes it easy thanks to all of the flat buffs before being suzerain. Play another game where none are around you and its a complete uphill battle. Its not so much the gold and production, but the science, culture and faith.

as for the upgrading vs building debate. I agree building early is better than late. cost of units is still a little too high for my liking.

on another note, once you eliminate a civs units, they are done. even massive empires. They don't focus on them enough, and they take too long to build in the mid to late game. not to mention they come out piecemeal. maybe there needs to be some minor boost to troop production the worse a war is going. it would make conquering a bit more challenging.

 

[Sostratus]

on another note, once you eliminate a civs units, they are done. even massive empires. They don't focus on them enough, and they take too long to build in the mid to late game. not to mention they come out piecemeal. maybe there needs to be some minor boost to troop production the worse a war is going. it would make conquering a bit more challenging.

The Ai has a scaling production bonus up to +80% on deity, iirc. I don't think production is the issue - they just need to put their resources to work on the total war front!
(A okay sized city late game with some mines and such, can easily hit 60. +50% toward units cards +80% deity bonus = 138. That's like, 4-5 turns to crank out info era units. Times several cities and it should be no problem.)

 

[MonkeyPaw]

I like the idea of the CS bonuses, it rewards you for exploring and finding them first, but yeah, it can be overpowered sometimes.

Maybe the bonus should come if you have two envoys with them? But still get the free one for first contact, so there's still an advantage.

 

[S1AL]

I like the idea of the CS bonuses, it rewards you for exploring and finding them first, but yeah, it can be overpowered sometimes.

Maybe the bonus should come if you have two envoys with them? But still get the free one for first contact, so there's still an advantage.

The initial bonus is a smaller part of it compared to 3- and 6-envoy bonus stacking. I recently played a game where my libraries were giving 12 science each... without Rationalism (not that another +1 or +2 really matters at that point).

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Chopping, pillaging, trading.

And world conference, which always tries to add 100% multiplier and break the game.

 

[Sostratus]

And world conference, which always tries to add 100% multiplier and break the game.

It's very obnoxious that they always band together to vote for +100% to city center buildings. Not only does that mean you can't use the resolution for anything else, but you also just vote one point for it to get your free diplo victory point.

 

[acluewithout]

The Ai has a scaling production bonus up to +80% on deity, iirc. I don't think production is the issue - they just need to put their resources to work on the total war front!
(A okay sized city late game with some mines and such, can easily hit 60. +50% toward units cards +80% deity bonus = 138. That's like, 4-5 turns to crank out info era units. Times several cities and it should be no problem.)

The problem is nit that the AI Military collapses, it’s that the Cities you then absorb (mostly) just slide right into your empire. The whole grievance / loyalty / captured city has improved that a bit, but not much. If you actually had to spend time suppressing rebellion and forcing captured cities into your empire, and running the risk of wider instability, this would all be more interesting and more impactful/ balanced.

As it is, conquest has got a little harder with the changes to walls, but it’s still just way way way too profitable (and boring).

It's very obnoxious that they always band together to vote for +100% to city center buildings. Not only does that mean you can't use the resolution for anything else, but you also just vote one point for it to get your free diplo victory point.

I’ve said it before I know, but all the resolutions are just too narrow and many are very bland. It’s the biggest weak point of the whole WC Mechanic.

Every time it comes up, all I do is either vote in favour of me (or some unit or district I have etc) for some trivial buff, or maybe vote against someone I hate.

And then every now and again you get some massive Skyfall buff and go “huh?”.

 

[RealHuhn]

Most overpowered?
I think that's still the rock bands!!
(especially: flipping any foreign city in one turn with the "indie" promotion...)

It's so broken. I had a level 3 rock band with indie, wonder and theatre promotions and could flip every city with two wonders and a theatre square in 3 turns. The Inca lost 4 size 15-20 cities including their capital to this one unit in a couple of turns.

 

[Victoria]

With the late civic allowing you to choose a rock bands promotion you can save all your faith and convert any civ on the board in a turn or 2.Just silly. Indie has to go really, and its not like indie bands are so awe inspiring with any regularity anyway

 

[King of Prussia]

The Ai has a scaling production bonus up to +80% on deity, iirc. I don't think production is the issue - they just need to put their resources to work on the total war front!
(A okay sized city late game with some mines and such, can easily hit 60. +50% toward units cards +80% deity bonus = 138. That's like, 4-5 turns to crank out info era units. Times several cities and it should be no problem.)

Assuming the AI both builds those improvements and repairs them damaged. Both are very hit and miss sadly. But i will agree that is probably more of an issue of AI changing production to the right things and policies(does the AI actually slot the right cards when building units?) rather raw production issue.

I play on King/Emperor as that is about the breaking point of where things stop becoming fun and more annoying. I don't find diety that fun, and i don't like doing what i would personally consider cheesy exploits to catch up or in general make the game super easy.(not directed at you. just something i see a lot of on these forums. people say the game is easy, but then they reroll until perfect start and find every abuse possible) Meaning i don't get to enjoy facing AI with 80% production boost.

 

[Karmah]

About unit upgrades: First off, I think the -50 % gold cost card is utterly imbalanced, but I think the problem with this goes much beyond the card alone. Of course one could remove the card, which would probably be good (or reduce the bonus and split and merge it into the cards for each unit class, which would also probably be good, thus making it less universal and more difficult to just play the swap-in-swap-out game). One can also argue that upgrading a unit should cost the same as buying a new unit of the same type, which may be true, but imo. the heart of the question boils down to: Why can't we upgrade a unit through production?

I mean, we can acquire new units either through production or through gold, but we can only upgrade old units through gold. Why is that? It seems illogical both from a realism and gameplay point of view. It creates an unhealthy balance where either unit upgrade will be extremely gold demanding - imo. current gold costs once you hit medieval are already high, the 250 gold to upgrade a Crossbowman take a pretty heavy duty on my gold reserves in most games, and buying new units is normally a luxury I can only afford in urgent situations - or alternatively we end up in a situation like now, where producing new units become extremely unfavorable, not only because of relatively low upgrade gold cost, but also because producing new units inherently means you lose the advantage of earned promotions.

So what I'm asking for is a complete rework on how units upgrade works. In order to upgrade a unit, you need to:

• Take it to a an Encampment or Harbor with a proper building (Baracks for melee units, Stables for mounted units, I'd like to see dedicated buildings for ranged units (Shooting Range) and siege units (Siege Workshop) as well.
• Pay the upgrade cost either in gold or in production.
• Wait a number of turns which could be a minimum of 3 turns or the number of turns it takes to provide the needed production.

I disagree upgrading in types in through gold , then upgrading into corps and armies is through production and it's fine. Plus I don't feel upgrades are cheap even with cards.

 

[Sostratus]

Plus I don't feel upgrades are cheap even with cards.

The purchase ratio is 4 gold : 1 production.
The upgrade ratio is 2 gold : 1 production.
With the card it's 1 gold : 1 production.

That's pretty cheap. This would be like being able to buy units at a 75% discount.
In fairness to your observation, gold is generated at a 2:1 ratio with production in most cases. But the difference is probably the luxury of being able to use gold anywhere anytime.

 

[Thibaulthc]

Campus spamming: I liked the civ6 system where tech and culture costs would increase with the number of cities. Please bring it back!

I also really would like to see tier1 buildings giving flat yields, tier2 giving yields/pop, and tier3 giving a %boost.

Indie rock bands seem obviously OP. Remove them and/or make them attackable by religious units. Or - 50% loyalty instead of - 50 points!

Free envoy for first meeting a CS is ok imo, but yes it could be replaced by another bonus (flat related yield ie)

As for units upgrading, it's indeed a bit too easy imo. I like some ideas I read here, like upgrades costing production, using old units to "chop" for that production, making upgrades lasting a few turns in a specific building,... But the easiest and fastest one atm might be to just double the price of the upgrades.

What I think is the most OP atm is warmongering. Taking and razing cities is plain too easy and too powerful.
I think grievances are cool, but they should be "buffed" : fix the Zero grievance for capturing cities under certain conditions, and make them more penalizing: more loyalty loss per grievance, slower decay, more flavor loss, trading penalties, blockades, ... There's a whole world to explore in that domain.

Air power is making conquest too easy as well. I'd like the urban defenses to include some automatic air defense. They should also create some buildings that provide air defense. On high difficulties, the AI might receive free anti air units upon certain conditions.

Talking about urban defenses : the way its implemented is pretty bad. Instant walls, instant walls after conquest, too early,... I hate it atm.

Choping is fine by me. Maybe because I play on epic speed? But losing some yields on the long term isn't always worth the chop.

Trading is awful, especially with the new strategic resources. The fact that you can buy 5 times one resource for 5 gold but that 5 resources cost 9867 gold for example...
Open borders, friendship and alliances is way too easy to get as well.

Pillaging is still a bit OP. Devastating the enemies' improvements and buildings should be the only reward from pillage. Earning so much faith/culture/science from it is a nonsense IMHO. Just a few coins maybe, but that's it.

 

[Sostratus]

Pillaging is still a bit OP. Devastating the enemies' improvements and buildings should be the only reward from pillage. Earning so much faith/culture/science from it is a nonsense IMHO. Just a few coins maybe, but that's it.

I am very happy they got rid of the system they had at GS release. Holy cow. But I really miss the Civ5's version where you got a ton of cash for taking the city itself. I realize cities are unpacked but it would still be nice to shift a lot of that value to the cities.
Right now do you even get anything for taking the city? I would prefer taking the city just has the pillaged buildings (Not the districts themselves though) destroyed - it's way too easy to bring a burned out rubble town back online.

 

[AsH2]

..
In general I think eras (Science/Culture) tend to move too fast, and not a product of game speed but as a product of systems that favor specific strategies to maximize those outputs. I think the game would benefit from turning boosts/inspirations into requirements rather than bonuses.
..

Could be requirements at first acquire and then (if not first) boost.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Pillaging can still be abused badly. While more complicated it's still easy to turn all that gold and faith into science. At least there are no more year 1500BC science victories.

 

[kaspergm]

Campus spamming: I liked the civ6 system where tech and culture costs would increase with the number of cities. Please bring it back!

I trust you mean Civ5 system?

I always hated that myself, but I do agree campus spam is too powerful. For once, Universities have too high flat yield, and campus adjacency is also too easy to rack up.

On a more broad perspective, it would be interesting if Campus had an AOE similar to Industrial Zone and Entertainment Complex. In fact, I think that holds true for most districts. But of course, that would require a major balance fix, because giving then AOE with current numbers would only make things worse, not better. Just a random thought here, but a fun way it could have been done would be to give Libraries and Universities a per citizen science bonus, but let them hold only a limited number of citizens. So perhaps a Library can serve a maximum of 10 citizens, a University can serve a maximum of 20 citizens, etc. So once your cities start to grow big, you will still want to and need to build more Campuses in overlapping areas to serve all citizens.

Indie rock bands seem obviously OP. Remove them and/or make them attackable by religious units. Or - 50% loyalty instead of - 50 points!

Or maybe let them give a negative happiness (emo thing, you know) or let them negate loyalty bonus from amenities for a certain number of turns.

Free envoy for first meeting a CS is ok imo, but yes it could be replaced by another bonus (flat related yield ie)

I can really recommend the "City States Introductions Reworked" mod: I makes it so that you get a flat bonus if you meet a city state that no-one has envoys with (production bonus, science bonus, gold bonus, culture bonus, faith bonus, etc. - or a free spearman when meeting a military city state), and then you have 1 free envoy from start. I think it's fairly balanced.

Talking about urban defenses : the way its implemented is pretty bad. Instant walls, instant walls after conquest, too early,... I hate it atm

Good point about the instant urban defenses after conquest, even when still at war. Very stupid, urban defenses should only come after peace was made, possible even after some turns to assimilate citizens.

 

[Troy Bruckner]

Pillaging is still abusive: