Lily_Lancer
Deity
After watching the newly posted update video, I have a feeling that the developers still don't understand what is needed to improve the game.
The developers seem to listen to players' advice and make adjustments accordingly. However, I'm afraid that they're actually not to the point, like they always were.
1:Trade
The developers propose to undervalue the value of diplo favors. Sure, this is a good step. The diplo favors are clearly overestimated in early game and underestimated in late game. However, the main issue on trade is trade bugs-- some combination of actions that allow you to use sth. not valuable at all, a luxury, diplo favor, joint war or Great Work, to exchange for everything an AI has.
A diplo favor worthing 5 or 10 gold may cause a moderate change on strategy, as long as the value being consistent. However, if you can buy it at 5 and sell it at 10 this is another story.
So as books, luxury, or joint war. As long as the price of sth. being a little inconsistent, there's a space to bug out the whole system.
What the developers really should do is to test thoroughly the system before releasing any updates, to ensure no such bugs exist.
2:Gran Columbia
Gran Columbia is overpowered, yes. The developers decide to nerf it.
Before celebrating the nerf of Gran Columbia, let's recall what makes Gran Columbia imba.
The General Stacking Mechanism. In fact all strength stacking mechanisms are somehow overpowered,as in Civ6 units grow exponentially stronger with power stacking. 5 strength means +20% in attack and defense, but 10 means +50% and 20 means +125%. If you suffer 125% less damage while giving 125% more damage you're actually 5 times stronger.
Units grow exponentially stronger as power stacks. Sure GC is overpowered, how about Mongolian Apostle, Byzantium Horde, Gaul UA? Why are people so diverse upon Conquistador? Some people that can stack up other bonuses consider the extra +10 a game-changer-- they already have Crusade, War of Religion, Spanish UA, Oligarchy inherent, Military Alliance and GG to make their muskets 10 times more powerful than usual, and the +10 adjusts the 10 to 22.
While people who have difficulty stacking up other bonuses call the UU useless since 2-times-stronger-than-musket still have difficulty combating.
It is the exponential stronger thing that makes strength stacking very imbalanced, every stack becomes stronger if combined with other stacks, and that leads to the imbalance of GC(also Mongolia and Byzantium). Now the nerf is only on Gran Columbia.
3:AI strategy
The developers decide to tweak the AI strategy to let them more focused on some particular wonders and districts.
This also suggests that the developer don't know the reason why AIs being so bad.
To conclude, there are 2 reasons.
1: The AI receives too little bonus. In Civ6, apart from the extra settlers, AIs only produce and research at a bonus of 80%/32% on Deity level, which is close to the bonus of Emperor level in C4 or C5. Given C4/C5 players can still counter the C4/C5 Deity there's no reason not to give C6 Deity same amount of bonus.
2: The AI research route is badly coded. They seem to always straightly beeline sth., and ignore useful small techs of previous eras.
I always find AIs leaving stones/plantation resources undeveloped until very late even on Deity.
Masonry/Irrigation are useful, however AI usually seems to ignore these techs and beeline others. This definitely leads to drawbacks. Especially when an AI is beelining the lower branch and ignore Writing. You'll see its cities have a lot of farms, no plantations, only encampments, no campus/commercial hubs, without walls(as Masonry is not on the path). Sometimes even farm on horses.
Sometimes they even don't wall up themselves until T110. The strategy definitely needs changing, at least in ancient era. Ancient era techs are cheap and vital, ancient improvements are very useful for developments. Saving the 50 science of irrigation won't help you to be much quicker to beeline Military Science.
Will focusing on particular wonders and districts helpful? Maybe. Focusing on Pyramids definitely leads to the research of Masonry as a side effect, making AIs more likely to build walls. But there'll still be no plantations on plantation resources. This is just a "happen fix". Given they have no idea about the internal reason other bugs will still be there.
4: Conclusion
In fact all of these leads to a simple conclusion-- When an imbalance occurs, the developers won't look into deeper reasons of the systematic problems and will only do small visible tweaks to the imbalance.
As systematic problems not being solved and still there, as new things proposed new imbalances will always occur one after another.
The developers seem to listen to players' advice and make adjustments accordingly. However, I'm afraid that they're actually not to the point, like they always were.
1:Trade
The developers propose to undervalue the value of diplo favors. Sure, this is a good step. The diplo favors are clearly overestimated in early game and underestimated in late game. However, the main issue on trade is trade bugs-- some combination of actions that allow you to use sth. not valuable at all, a luxury, diplo favor, joint war or Great Work, to exchange for everything an AI has.
A diplo favor worthing 5 or 10 gold may cause a moderate change on strategy, as long as the value being consistent. However, if you can buy it at 5 and sell it at 10 this is another story.
So as books, luxury, or joint war. As long as the price of sth. being a little inconsistent, there's a space to bug out the whole system.
What the developers really should do is to test thoroughly the system before releasing any updates, to ensure no such bugs exist.
2:Gran Columbia
Gran Columbia is overpowered, yes. The developers decide to nerf it.
Before celebrating the nerf of Gran Columbia, let's recall what makes Gran Columbia imba.
The General Stacking Mechanism. In fact all strength stacking mechanisms are somehow overpowered,as in Civ6 units grow exponentially stronger with power stacking. 5 strength means +20% in attack and defense, but 10 means +50% and 20 means +125%. If you suffer 125% less damage while giving 125% more damage you're actually 5 times stronger.
Units grow exponentially stronger as power stacks. Sure GC is overpowered, how about Mongolian Apostle, Byzantium Horde, Gaul UA? Why are people so diverse upon Conquistador? Some people that can stack up other bonuses consider the extra +10 a game-changer-- they already have Crusade, War of Religion, Spanish UA, Oligarchy inherent, Military Alliance and GG to make their muskets 10 times more powerful than usual, and the +10 adjusts the 10 to 22.
While people who have difficulty stacking up other bonuses call the UU useless since 2-times-stronger-than-musket still have difficulty combating.
It is the exponential stronger thing that makes strength stacking very imbalanced, every stack becomes stronger if combined with other stacks, and that leads to the imbalance of GC(also Mongolia and Byzantium). Now the nerf is only on Gran Columbia.
3:AI strategy
The developers decide to tweak the AI strategy to let them more focused on some particular wonders and districts.
This also suggests that the developer don't know the reason why AIs being so bad.
To conclude, there are 2 reasons.
1: The AI receives too little bonus. In Civ6, apart from the extra settlers, AIs only produce and research at a bonus of 80%/32% on Deity level, which is close to the bonus of Emperor level in C4 or C5. Given C4/C5 players can still counter the C4/C5 Deity there's no reason not to give C6 Deity same amount of bonus.
2: The AI research route is badly coded. They seem to always straightly beeline sth., and ignore useful small techs of previous eras.
I always find AIs leaving stones/plantation resources undeveloped until very late even on Deity.
Masonry/Irrigation are useful, however AI usually seems to ignore these techs and beeline others. This definitely leads to drawbacks. Especially when an AI is beelining the lower branch and ignore Writing. You'll see its cities have a lot of farms, no plantations, only encampments, no campus/commercial hubs, without walls(as Masonry is not on the path). Sometimes even farm on horses.
Sometimes they even don't wall up themselves until T110. The strategy definitely needs changing, at least in ancient era. Ancient era techs are cheap and vital, ancient improvements are very useful for developments. Saving the 50 science of irrigation won't help you to be much quicker to beeline Military Science.
Will focusing on particular wonders and districts helpful? Maybe. Focusing on Pyramids definitely leads to the research of Masonry as a side effect, making AIs more likely to build walls. But there'll still be no plantations on plantation resources. This is just a "happen fix". Given they have no idea about the internal reason other bugs will still be there.
4: Conclusion
In fact all of these leads to a simple conclusion-- When an imbalance occurs, the developers won't look into deeper reasons of the systematic problems and will only do small visible tweaks to the imbalance.
As systematic problems not being solved and still there, as new things proposed new imbalances will always occur one after another.
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