[NFP] Why make soothsayers so crappy?

I really wish that there ways to disable some of the more crippling game play aspects of the patches. The Occupied Capitol penalty is overkill on war. It doesn't go away, and you get it no matter what. Loyalty flip a capitol? Hope you aren't trying to go for a diplomatic victory. Capture a capitol in the Classical Era? That -5 diplomatic favor sticks to you like white on rice.Doesn't matter if it was captured 1 turn ago or 500 turns ago, it's still with you.
The soothsayer nerf is the sole reason to never play the (what was really fun) Apocalypse Mode again. Hope you enjoyed flooding the world in the Classical Age. Can't do anything about it now. Flood Barriers went from being really helpful to "something that I wish I could get 200 turns ago."

 

I haven’t tried an apocalypse mode game with the patch because the new carbon penalty from the soothsayers seem like it could ruin the game after the second appease the gods competition. If 16 units are sacrificed in the first competition, which usually occurs mid-classical, that will already be 480 CO2 in the atmosphere. For the second competition, my experience has been that the AI typically sacrifices about 4-5 units, which would make the cumulative carbon penalty nearly 2000. Plus, if you actually wanted to use the soothsayers to improve your land (the most fun part of the mode), the carbon emissions are going to be astronomical. It seems to me, you’d reach the comets phase of the game way before anyone will have a chance to win.

I really hope this isn’t accurate and my fears are overblown, but I’m not a fan of this change.

 

I'm kind of a fan of the game being able to end with everyone dying to comets before electricity is invented

 

Well I've used apocalypse mode every game since available but still haven't triggered the comet phase. As a player I often avoid causing a lot of emissions, and even if you let them go for ages the AI doesn't seems to be able to trigger the end of the world without player help. So I'll keep trying the mode and maybe now it will live up to its name.

 

Currently I'm in the Renaissance Era (just hit it about 10 turns or so ago), and it's currently Phase ******* FIVE (when before this, you would be hitting phase 2 or 3 in the Atomic Era or so). 80% of the emmisions are from me, and aside from 3 coal units, all of the CO2 has been my soothsayers constantly flooding a river where I build the Great Dam. IF my math is right (and I'm not sure it is...) I used 800 charges on my soothsayer. That doesn't sound quite right, though. 4155 is the current level of CO2 I put out. Just a couple of turns of coal and oil (2 or 3, maybe 4 tops). Plus 2 competitions that I used about 3 or 4 on each one. That's almost 4000 units of CO2 I put out just causing natural disasters. And what's really irritating is it's floods. How does flooding cause CO2 to go up. I would understand causing fires or making volcanoes erupt (lots of smoke- lots of CO2). But flooding that doesn't even DO anything?

Oh, and it does actually ruin the game. As I said in my first post, this nerf to soothsayers makes Apocalypse mode unplayable. And no, your fears aren't overblown. In fact you might be underestimating how bad this nerf actually is.

 

Rotting/decaying organic matter releases CO2 back into the atmosphere. Flood can cause premature death to vast masses of plant life esp trees causing a spike (over the ensuing years) in CO2. I have no idea how this compares to the more dramatic sources like eruptions, but it is a thing in RL its factored (by some) into impact assessments of hydro dams that will permanently flood forested valleys.

But really I think in Apocalypse mode we're talking actions that appease/anger the gods. CO2 is just a stand in. It's a measure of the power of the gods as people start to deliberately invoke them. Once they have enough power the comets come....

 

I don't understand why the Soothsayer has been nerfed, barring a niche strategy for faith by constantly flooding a river with the great bath, they have little benefit. You could always use them to kill off your own army, save the Ai some time. It just seems odd to release an interesting game mode, then make it less interesting. If people don't like the way it plays they don't have to play it, at least you have the choice. I wish they would put rock bands as a game mode so I could turn those off, they are nothing more than annoying.

 

I liked the change and it encourages me to give Apocalypse mode a second try. Wasn't a fan of the original design.

 

Um...

Soothsayers also give you a massive diplomatic favour penalty when used.

 

I've not used them, but is just seems that soothsayers have been nerfed so hard that they are just a negative. I have to dedicate a significant amount of prod to build.a district I'll only use to recruit soothsayers, which causes massive global warming, and now it causes diplo penalty? Makes sense, but just to cause.a bit of flooding, that's way too much downside...

 

They are also useful for creating forest/jungle fires that increased the production of your limber mills.

 

Does Liang's reinfored materials protect against comet strikes? If so, you could just pump soothsayers and wait for the comets to obliterate the rest of the world.

 

Whilst I really could not care less about Soothsayers (the Apocalypse mode is fun but after a couple of runs it just gets annoying instead) the penalties I get for taking capitals is excessive, and this has long been a bone of contention for me as in the following scenario I end up screwed whatever I do:
Scenario: - Deity mode, with one or more of the 'angry boys' too close for comfort. This inevitably results in early war being declared on me, and no matter what I do and how often I stop them and accept their peace out, they will inevitably attack again and again and again. The only solution is to flat out murder them, and even if they started the war I get all the penalties.
Possible fix:
Add a 'surrender' option to the peace talks, with options for conditional surrender (which could be what we have now), punitive surrender (such as forcing the defeated civ to become a vassal state of mine) or even unconditional surrender (meaning I dictate terms). Naturally, forcing unconditional surrender could have consequences but that could be detailed after thought.
But the current situation whereby I get smegged up for diplo favour just for defending myself against an aggressive warmongering civ is ridiculous.

 

Wait, sacraficing units cause carbon emissions? That explains where the mysterious carbon emissions came from. I turned them into "coal" xD

 

I tried out a meme game with building the Great Bath on apocalypse mode and then flooding the world to see how quickly I could get comets to start raining down (settings were deity, continents, standard map, standard CSs). I managed to trigger Level 7 disaster level by T140. Much to my surprise, the comets didn't ruin the game and actually made it quite hilarious. Obviously, you're never going to have flood barriers up by T140, which is fine as long as you pay attention on settling with respect to city centers and districts. The diplomatic penalty also wasn't as bad as I thought because you just take one time hits to your diplomatic favor when you sacrifice a unit/flood a river rather than having ongoing DF penalties, like when you capture a capital or burn coal. I can see this mode can be frustrating for some, but I didn't find it too bad.

 

Comets delete terrain entirely. I would be stunned if luang could mitigate it.

 

Liang can't protect against comet strikes.

 

Weak. Superman can.

 

Causing CO2 by doing stuff like abusing the great bath flooding is a good change imho. But causing emissions by yeeting units into a volcano sucks. In my current game the AI and me managed to pernamently flood a bunch of tiles just by doing that.

 

I second this. I was playing a larger map with 30 civs and had coastal flooding in the medieval era.