July patch wishlist

[Pouakai]

Saw something like this in another topic, thought it deserved it's own one.

This is just for things that you think need to be fixed, not problems you have with the game (i.e. No 'Bring back SoD' or 'Free DLCs')

Stuff like 'Nerfs'


The List

• Diplomacy needs work (vague)
• Functioning MP AI
• MP Stability
• "Supercharge" Honor (as done with Liberty and Tradition)
• Fix AI building city adjacent to your empire
• Fix Naval AI
• Wats/Public Schools not count for legalism
• Option to turn off El Dorado and Fountain of Youth
• Tactical AI Improvements
• Diplomatic AI Improvements
• Buff mounted units
• RA cost double in era 3/4, triple in era 5/6/7
• MP Animations
• Post Game Info Screen (PGIS) and History map
• Positive Diplomacy modifiers
• Buff tanks
• Ironclads upgradable to battleships
• Less Unit Maintenence for Ottoman and Germany (To combat large early-game barb armies)
• Conversion of Promotions (EG. Accuracy becomes shock when Xbowmen becomes rifleman)
• Theocracy SP unhappiness reduced by 15% (Not 25%)
• Golden Age boosts production by 25% instead of 20%
• Fix team game rules (?)
• Ability to play MODs in MP
• No more immediate friendships and research agreements after a war. Civs will stay guarded or hostile towards another civ for at least 30 turns, if not getting gifts or other positive gains.
• Better diplomacy (in all areas)
• Better AI in all areas (naval, combat, city placement/building, worker use, resource handling etc.)
• Civs will target units in forts
• Make research cost more. All technologies more expensive.
• Research agreements: make them cost more! Dozens of AI's RA's usually ruin the game for me. They advance way too fast. Something need to be done for this. Perhaps Classical Era RA cost should be 500 gold, Mediaval Era 750 gold, Renaissance Era 1000 gold, Industrial Era 1250 gold, Modern Era 1500 gold and Future Era 2000 gold.
• Option to turn RA's off in advanced menu.
• "Supercharge" Freedom
• "Supercharge" Commerce
• America UA buff; perhaps unit maintenance bonus or, more GG points earned or units gain experience faster.
• Germany UA buff; perhaps improvement maintenance or faster workers.
• Ottoman UA buff; as Turks/Ottomans were famous of using gunpower and cannons/mortars some promotion for all siege weapons.
• Trading Post buff.
• Forts can be upgraded to Canals (one land tile).
• Forts produce +1 culture after dicovery of Flight.
• New Bunker improvement. Stronger than fort. Hard to detect ie; ”not visible to enemy units afar”. Air units can detect them. Forts can be upgraded to bunker after discovery of Dynamite.
• New Mortar (similar to the Grenadier unit in Civ4) ranged unit. Becomes available after the discovery of Chemistry. Crossbowman can be upgraded to them-
• Defensive Pact gives also a small % unit maintenance or unit production bonus (similar to research agreement, but military agreement). Add a cost to DP.
• Great Artist can be used to gain culture towards Social Policies.
• Regenerate Map option.
• Stronger Tanks.
• Ironclads buff.
• Vassals (See linked post for details
• Allow non-repeating techs to dead-end
• Mod dependencies/load order control. Failing that, just a simple load order control like defining n stages, and allowing the mod to specify which it is in.
• A civilization reference in Unit_UniqueNames, so you can have civ-specific great person names (for example)
• Make Action Icons and Specialist Icons actually feed properly from the database, rather than a hardcoded list in the UI lua
• GameEvents: CityCanTrain (like CityCanConstruct but for units), PlayerCanTakePolicy and PlayerCanResearchTech (similarly), CityCaptureBegins (like CityCaptureComplete), and ones for gain/loss of buildings and construction/destruction of buildings - lots more wanted, but those would be good.
• Buff Great Merchants
• Killing Barbarians near a CS with a ranged unit should count.
• AI escorts embarked armies with naval units
• Camel archers shouldn't require horses
• Turtle Ship UU for Korea :P
• Cavalry get open terrain bonus
• Ability to pillage Improvements with Bombers and siege
  

[pbericcc]

diplomacy needs some work please

[istry555]

MP

Not just Hotseat, but standard functioning AI in MP games and stability and connection issues. I'd say animations but if that was on the horizon for the next patch we would have heard something by now.

[Pouakai]

Isn't this one supposed to be a graphics / mp fix?

[tejon]

Tradition and Liberty got supercharged a little while back, and Honor was left in the dust. This needs fixing.

[Machturbo]

Fix MP, make diplo better, revamp honor tree (I say keep the free GG and 1.5x xp though), fix bugs, fix AIs city building because all the games I've played so far where I met the civ, they barely ever build more than three cities. Had Montezuma almost right next to my capitol, and he only built a second city almost next to his capitol.

[sectoid]

Fix Naval AI.

[istry555]

Isn't this one supposed to be a graphics / mp fix?

All they've said so far about MP for the patch is hotseat, nothing on fixing the AI or stability or unit animations.

[Hamhawk]

Multiplayer, as a whole, needs a large free patch. The issues range from net code to unit animations, from localized game lobbies to flawed dlc implementation. Firaxis really needs to fix these problems by last year.

[Artifex]

Nerf meritocracy's great person, & make wats/public schools not count for legalism.

Option to turn off fantasy natural wonders

Tactical AI improvements & diplomatic AI improvements

Multiplayer overhaul!

Buff mounted units

Double cost of RAs in medieval/Renaissance. Triple in modern/future. (and they would still be too good)

[Pouakai]

How would you nerf the Meritocracy GP, without changing it's function alltogether?

[Artifex]

That's a function that NEEDs changing! Remove the GP, it screws up the early game, rework the policy.

Really destructive to have a free great engineer so early in the game, any wonder of your choice gone. If five or so civs go liberty, and right now they should because its OP, then all the early wonders are insta-built. So anyone foolish enough to make one with hammers just loses.

Alternatively you can skip the classical era entirely! Grab that GS and you can go from ancient to medieval in one turn.

I like it because its powerful, you like it because its powerful. But its not balanced, and it really throws the game out of whack.

[Pouakai]

Also, fix Blitz so it obeys the ZoC laws.

[Buller]

• Naval AI.
• Hotseat.
• MP Animations.
• Post-Game Info Screens and history map.

If all these are checked for July I'll be a very happy Bull.

[Black Gate of Mordor]

This patch is mainly hotseat (MP) and adding things to the game. The last patch was balance. I think Greg said that they would continue with the balance/additions thing for a short while.

[Artifex]

Er, no. Unless you know something designers don't. They said this:

The second part we have begun working on will be released in the coming months, and will include our next balance pass (for those areas of the game that were not included in the March 1 update), as well as continued work on AI, diplomacy, and a much-requested addition to the game that we’ll be discussing in more detail very soon.

[sectoid]

People are casually referring to this upcoming patch as "July patch".
Is that official ?

[Valkrionn]

Yes and no. 2kGreg said they were aiming for a July release.

Also, I think Artifex is correct; The patch will be more balance, not new additions, going by what has been stated.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

That's a function that NEEDs changing! Remove the GP, it screws up the early game, rework the policy.

Really destructive to have a free great engineer so early in the game, any wonder of your choice gone. If five or so civs go liberty, and right now they should because its OP, then all the early wonders are insta-built. So anyone foolish enough to make one with hammers just loses.

Alternatively you can skip the classical era entirely! Grab that GS and you can go from ancient to medieval in one turn.

I like it because its powerful, you like it because its powerful. But its not balanced, and it really throws the game out of whack.

I completely disagree with what your suggesting regarding social policies... I don't think that social policy branches should be nerfed, because this would then motivate a player to just completely neglect, or pay very little attention to, social policies. Instead; Honor, Commerce, and Autocracy should be made better, more viable choices in certain circumstances, as right now, they are very weak in contrast to the others.

I also don't think that Liberty is stronger than Tradition, even with the free GP, and this is because small civs are very viable now for the first 100 or 150 turns of a game... sometimes even until you would reach industrial in the early to mid 200s, if you want to go for a late-domination boom kind of strategy (or the whole way if you want to go for culture). This is in large part thanks to policies like the one that gives +2 food and 15% growth, and buildings like the National College (a free GP in effect and far more), and the marker with its +2 gold for putting you in a economic state healthy enough to have like 3 maritime (or cultural if you want to go for culture) city-states under your influence in these early and mid stages even with a maximum of 4 or 5 cities.

They should also do something about balancing because early rushes (or even wars in the first 200 turns) are hardly ever sensible unless you are playing against highly-aggressive players (or with/against Greece or Rome or Persia) forcing you to build up an early army anyway. They aren't worth it in contrast to late boom domination strategies anyway, where you can take over the whole board in the course of 40 or so turns. I would suggest they make it so that cities are in resistance longer, rendering them useless and only draining your funds for longer, thus preventing very huge booms in expansion in very short amounts of time.

Or a better option I feel would be is if there was some very viable reward for capturing cities (like less unhappiness per population point when the city is puppeted/has a courthouse, or even just strengthening and putting the -50% unhappiness in annexed cities into honor and making the whole branch better overall) as this may encourage early aggression more.

Oh, and I almost forgot: POST-GAME INFO SCREENS.

[Artifex]

You make fair points.
I don't want social policies to be weaker for normal play, I just want the exploitative and game damaging elements tweaked.
Legalism giving 4 wats is very troublesome. Yes?

Liberty is not 'better' than tradition in the long run. It's OPness is that its benefits are overly front loaded, and rapidly accelerate a civ. The free worker alone can be extremely transformative. In fact, in the first 50 turns or so liberty can be better for a one city civ than tradition! After all, you sure don't wanna pop legalism until you have four cities. And nothing stops you from diving towards meritocracy while maintaining one city and constructing the national college in your capital.

If that GP was in a Renaissance policy tract it would work very well. At that point in the game civs are well established and great people are strong, yet par for the course. But giving the first pick of wonders to the person who finds the most culture ruins just does not sit right with me.

But you are right, I dont want liberty to be weak, you could put a nice strong effect in it's place, just one that doesnt not hurt other areas of the game.

Perhaps something like one or two specialist slots of your choice in your capital. (fits the meritocracy title) In the long run that would mean many hammers or beakers, and eventually GPs. It might even be stronger in the long run but it isn't so heavy handed and front loaded.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

@Artifex

I agree with Legalism needing to be fixed, though I would imagine this is a bug rather than a desired effect. As for Liberty vs. Tradition, I think that the short-term vs. long-term decision when siding with one over the other is a very interesting one, in terms of formulating a strategy, as Liberty's short term effects can become very good long term effects when handled properly--in circumstances even stronger than the permanent ones of Tradition. But only in some circumstances however, and there are others when they are simply not worth it; I feel that both Liberty and Tradition can be viable options to take depending on the certain situation, and for an actual choice simply being existent between the two, I feel that they are balanced in comparison to one another.

Further, I don't think that it can be said of either policy that they make a certain strategy simply better than any other strategy out there regardless of circumstance, only that in certain situations they offer much better strategic options than the other, and I don't think that this is a problem in its self. I feel the problem lies in them being so much better than Honor, and some other social policies later also being quite weak in contrast to other options.

As for the GP problem in specific, I actually think that this is one of the best changes they made to the policy tree so far because of the number of strategic options it unlocks. One of my favorites is a super-science oriented strategy, and especially with Babylon (a good +25 science over normal by the time when you get the second GS or complete the National College, whichever comes later), though with other civs too, very viable. On the other hand, this strategy is very situational, in many circumstances the early concentration on science over expansion becoming very damaging in the long run. Further, this makes Babylon a lot less OP, while still not weak in contrast to other civs.

Another great one is an expansion-boom strategy by getting the settler bonus, then beelining for a GE and getting the Hanging Gardens having maybe even 6 cities. The problem with this is that it could easily lead to over-expansion and stalling, happiness becoming such a major factor that unless you have at least 5 luxuries in your cities and city-states by the time you get the Hanging Gardens, you shouldn't really try. Not to mention that you run the risk of someone completing it before you, especially on Deity and Immortal, though I guess another wonder or a GS would still in such a case be quite nice.

Overall, I think that this policy balances its self out, because while it could be very strong, in lots of cases it simply isn't. However, it does open the game up quite significantly in terms of strategic options, so I think that it should be kept as is. Maybe the technicalities of the branches could get eventual focus so that not even in certain situations do they have options that could be exploited like in the case of this one, but a far greater issue even within the Social Policies is the extreme weakness of some of the branches and that they are not viable options in any situation. Aside from the social policies there are also many issues, mainly with mp and long-term strategies, that need to be addressed first.

A patch or two after this next one I could see them going into technicalities like the one with this; I just feel that this isn't a pressing issue by any means, but, and maybe because of this, it might still take a lot of thinking to make it any better... something like this would be like the cherry imported from Europe on top; it shouldn't be of too much concern until the whipping cream is on--and certainly not before the cake is all cooked and ready.

I really like your free specialist idea though, and I feel it could certainly be implemented, just not in the place of the GP one, because I think the policy is fine as is. Also, I feel that so early, a free specialist would be even more OP. I was thinking maybe something like 2 free science specialists upon adopting Rationalism (or putting the +1 science per trading post for adopting the branch, and putting 2 free specialists in the place of this) would be a more fitting place for this, because I really don't think that as of the way things are right now Rationalism as the complete branch is worth the single policy in Patronage which gives 33% of the science generated by your allied city-states, provided you have 3 or 4 allies.

Oh, and if you read this far, sorry about the length, haha, I just have no idea how to say what I wanted to say any shorter, so apologies.

[SamBC]

2KGreg said the aim was late June, maybe July;

Logically, I suspect they will be making it easier to make AI civs like you - no more waiting for them to denounce another AI and then you hop on, or hoping they offer the initial friendship and then get a mutual one so it solidifies. Well, I guess you could do those, but hopefully there will be other ways to actively make them like you.

[Montov]

A couple of things are 'confirmed/promised':
- Positive diplo modifiers
- Hotseat
- *Balance*
- Indication: End june / begin july

For balance, I'm hoping for the following issues, as I've posted in another thread:
* Stronger Tanks, or remove a movement point from Mech Infantry.
* Ironclads upgradable to Battleships.
* Less unit maintenance for Germany and Ottoman.
* Crossbowman upgradable with conversion of promotions, or upgradable to Cannons or add a new Mortar-unit.
* Social Policy Theocracy: reduce unhappinees 15% instead of 25%
* Golden Age: 25% production bonus instead of 20%

[Nefliqus]

-turn base MP
-team games rules fixing

[Karantaner]

for me MP is the main issue and especially to play MODs also in MP!!!
So please: activate the possibility to play MODs not only in SP but also in MP!!!

[Balthazaar]

My wise for the July patch is that its out in June

But seriously, multiplayer, multiplayer, multiplayer, multiplayer. It cant be said enough times.

[MARDUK]

AI:
- No more immediate friendships and research agreements after a war. Civs will stay guarded or hostile towards another civ for at least 30 turns, if not getting gifts or other positive gains.
- Better diplomacy (in all areas)
- Better AI in all areas (naval, combat, city placement/building, worker use, resource handling etc.)
- AI doesn't target forts. I build them quite often and never seen ai enemy target them. Likely a bug.

”If defensive combat were harder, I could definitely see a use for them. It also hurts that fortified units don't exert a zone of control, so there's little incentive to attack a fort unless it's at a chokepoint”.

”According the 275 patch release notes enemies will target units defending in a citadel. Has anybody noticed if they also target forts now?”

Research:
- Make research cost more. All technologies more expensive.
- Research agreements: make them cost more! Dozens of AI's RA's usually ruin the game for me. They advance way too fast. Something need to be done for this. Perhaps Classical Era RA cost should be 500 gold, Mediaval Era 750 gold, Renaissance Era 1000 gold, Industrial Era 1250 gold, Modern Era 1500 gold and Future Era 2000 gold.
- Option to turn RA's off in advanced menu.

Social Policy:
- Honor buff
- Freedom buff
- Meritocracy gives a random GP instead of letting choose. Different civs have a higher % change to get a specific GP (for example France=Great Artist, Mongol=Great General, Egypt=Great Engineer etc.)

Civilizations:
- America UA buff; perhaps unit maintenance bonus or, more GG points earned or units gain experience faster.
- Germany UA buff; perhaps improvement maintenance or faster workers.
- Ottoman UA buff; as Turks/Ottomans were famous of using gunpower and cannons/mortars some promotion for all siege weapons.

Worker Improvements/New stuff:
- Trading Post buff.
- Forts can be upgraded to Canals (one land tile).
- Forts produce +1 culture after dicovery of Flight.
- New Bunker improvement. Stronger than fort. Hard to detect ie; ”not visible to enemy units afar”. Air units can detect them. Forts can be upgraded to bunker after discovery of Dynamite.
- New Mortar (similar to the Grenadier unit in Civ4) ranged unit. Becomes available after the discovery of Chemistry. Crossbowman can be upgraded to them-
- Defensive Pact gives also a small % unit maintenance or unit production bonus (similar to research agreement, but military agreement). Add a cost to DP.
- Great Artist can be used to gain culture towards Social Policies.
- Regenerate Map option.
- Stronger Tanks.
- Ironclads buff.

[Fruitn]

I would like an option to play a map as it was designed. It makes no sense to place start points for the civilizations and states if the game simply ignores it and places the start points randomly. Though it would be nice enough to have that option as standard, just make a switch so you can easily switch between random start points and specified start points.

It would be nice to be able to make a preset option for when creating a new game, complete with victory conditions, chosen civ(s if singleplayer) and whatever the options beneath it is called. Something that is also missing in Civilization 4. It is an inconvenience for me when creating games in rapid succession.

I would like the possibility to gain vassals in the game, both the major civilizations and the city states. Though it should be changed radically from Civilization 4. Civs offering to become vassals just because you are among the strongest military powers is not what I'm looking for. If you beat them soundly in a war, not just destroying all of their military (in Civilization 4 you can actually make the strongest civ capitulate just by spawning his warriors and killing them, leaving his actual army intact) and maybe something about limiting their recovery so you don't get small superpowers focusing on expanding their military strength, unless for them to try and rebel against the occupation. Taking into account the city states in such an arrangement might be impossible to balance though.
Another idea would be to beat a rival civilization, maybe with 1-3 cities left, and then turn them into a permanent ally city state with the possibility to expand slowly. Could be done by giving a reduction in production and science by 33-80 percent. Leaving growth on the normal levels.

I think that most of the suggestions listed here is worth implementing in the game, or at least in the first upcoming expansion.

[SamBC]

To play a map with starting locations and so forth, you haver to select, set all your other advanced options, then go back to the basic setup (where all you can change are a few options to a small range of values) and a button will have appeared saying something like 'play scenario' - that starts the game with the starting locations, units, cities etc that were placed in World Builder.

Yes, it should be simpler than that. A checkbox appearing under the map selection box, for instance.

[Artifex]

Meritocracy gives a random GP instead of letting choose.

Neat idea. But I don't like things that reward luck instead of careful planning.

Regardless this would need to be coupled with a balance pass on the great people. Right now its scientist or engineer. The others are trash!

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Neat idea. But I don't like things that reward luck instead of careful planning.

Regardless this would need to be coupled with a balance pass on the great people. Right now its scientist or engineer. The others are trash!

The Great Artists also certainly have their use with some strategies... and because of the importance of social policies, the extra 6 culture is almost always welcomed. Of course, especially when going for liberty very early, Great Artists usually aren't the best choice, but I still think they are balanced in contrast to the other two. The same thing more or less goes for Great Generals.

Great Merchants are my biggest problem, while the improvement they give is reasonably good, it is made a whole lot worse when considering that there are improvements anyway that give +2 gold, and, so, generally speaking, they make a lot less noticeable impact than the other GP. The trade mission is also pretty weak, especially after the first 150 turns or so (when you usually start getting lots of GP), because, at worst, you make the amount of money that a trade mission gives you in 5 or so turns, and the influence you gain with city states is often also of no significance, because it is just so easy to maintain a high level of influence with every single (or most) city-state in the game anyway.

This could be improved by strengthening the output of their improvement alongside introducing an economic victory with which it would be vital to have these improvements, another way to do it would be by making it a lot harder to gain influence with city-states.

[SamBC]

Well, some of the suggestions here and here would be most welcome, particularly:

• Allow non-repeating techs to dead-end
• Mod dependencies/load order control. Failing that, just a simple load order control like defining n stages, and allowing the mod to specify which it is in.
• A civilization reference in Unit_UniqueNames, so you can have civ-specific great person names (for example)
• Make Action Icons and Specialist Icons actually feed properly from the database, rather than a hardcoded list in the UI lua
• GameEvents: CityCanTrain (like CityCanConstruct but for units), PlayerCanTakePolicy and PlayerCanResearchTech (similarly), CityCaptureBegins (like CityCaptureComplete), and ones for gain/loss of buildings and construction/destruction of buildings - lots more wanted, but those would be good. Details are in the linked thread.

I selected ones that I think are (relatively) easy additions, rather than asking for the major things that would make modding vastly more powerful - though some of those would make life a lot easier and increase the power of modding considerably.

[Artifex]

Generals spawn so quickly, you nearly always get one. If you war at all, unless you are getting them killed, you will be popping them for golden ages left and right. It would be a strange game indeed where I wanted a general from meritocracy!

I agree artists have their uses. They can make a big difference in select situations. But they are very lackluster compared to a sci/engy. Could you ever see yourself picking one from meritocracy?

As you say, the real problem is the merchants. Trade missions are a joke. If you have a well established economy popping the Golden Age can be worth more gold and you get oodles of production along with it. I don't think I have ever been glad to see a merchant pop up.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Generals spawn so quickly, you nearly always get one. If you war at all, unless you are getting them killed, you will be popping them for golden ages left and right. It would be a strange game indeed where I wanted a general from meritocracy!

I agree artists have their uses. They can make a big difference in select situations. But they are very lackluster compared to a sci/engy. Could you ever see yourself picking one from meritocracy?

As you say, the real problem is the merchants. Trade missions are a joke. If you have a well established economy popping the Golden Age can be worth more gold and you get oodles of production along with it. I don't think I have ever been glad to see a merchant pop up.

I agree with Great Generals being thrown at you far too frequently, so getting them from meritocracy is pretty pointless, unless for an early rush, which aren't very profitable anyway, but the Honor one would generally be better for this purpose, so I agree, you wouldn't really want to get it from Liberty. Also, for the same reason, the Brandenburg Gate isn't a very good wonder either, as you just simply never need it.

However Great Artists, I do actually sometimes get them from Meritocracy, as due to the cultural bonuses of the branch, its usually my fourth branch I go into, and in such a case, depending on the circumstances, I either take a Great Artist or a Great Engineer. The problem here is that going into both tradition and liberty in the same game seems kind of odd, so maybe this should be changed... on the other hand, you go into both Tradition and Freedom anyway, so why not Liberty too?

[Floating Pants]

However Great Artists, I do actually sometimes get them from Meritocracy, as due to the cultural bonuses of the branch, its usually my fourth branch I go into, and in such a case, depending on the circumstances, I either take a Great Artist or a Great Engineer.

I've hardly found any use for Great Artists. In rare cases, I'll find a valuable strategic and a single luxury under another empire's borders I can scoop up, but any thing less than that I usually go for GE. Although, only when I'm building wonders or have a good one in sight, that is. Landmarks can nearly always be useful. But, any day I'd go for Great Engineer. I'll analyze all of them.

And it also really depends how we weigh our GP. Now, there is not a perfect ratio between the cost of purchasing items and the cost in hammers, but I know that if we could purchase a wonder it would be upwards of 1000 to 2000 gold. Great engineers finish that almost instantly, so how much are they really worth?

Then we see the scientist, whom can give a free tech. Research agreements really don't go for more than 600 gold, right? And in the early eras, as low as 250 gold. Cheap, cheap worthless GP.

Then there's the Great Artist which give the culture bomb, only useful in certain situations. A landmark is like 5 culture, right? (correct me if I'm wrong) So an opera house, which give the 5 culture as well costs how much? I dunno the exact value, but its somewhere between 800 and 1200 I think.

And, oh Great Merchants. I hardly ever get or use these things. I don't even have a clue how much they give you for that city state mission. But, I'm guessing like 1500 or so.

Then there's the GG's. Utterly useless unless in war, and the citadel is not profitable at all.

So then, we're left as (measurements in gold value):

GE - From 1,000 - 2,500 or more
GM - Like 1,500 maybe?
GA - A guess of between 800 - 1200
GS - 250 - 600
GG - Worthless

Yeah, these need some rebalancing.
I think GA's should be changed around a bit more to give partial policies or whole ones.
The GG's should do something to boost military production.
The scientists... I dunno, doesn't 2 or 3 free techs seem a bit excessive? Maybe research agreement costs should be raised.
And the GE's probably should give a bit less, maybe 2 free small buildings instead of a wonder build. Or less hammers to the wonder.

[Artifex]

While yes, RAs should be significantly more expensive. Your analysis is so crazy I'm still not certain if you are trolling.
If so I apologize, egg on my face, but...

Getting a tech at the precise moment of your choosing, and without providing one to an opponent, is significantly more valuable than just another RA. And even that is assuming you have friendlyish civs sitting around you are not already science buddies with.

[General Masters]

While yes, RAs should be significantly more expensive. Your analysis is so crazy I'm still not certain if you are trolling.
If so I apologize, egg on my face, but...

Getting a tech at the precise moment of your choosing, and without providing one to an opponent, is significantly more valuable than just another RA. And even that is assuming you have friendlyish civs sitting around you are not already science buddies with.

There's also difficulty level to consider; GMs in particular gain a great deal of value at King or less since the AIs have no money to steal with which to buy off CSes, thus the influence boost can be fairly significant for quite some time.

As for RAs, perhaps have a variable factor applied such that they inherently cost more at higher difficulty levels in order to reign in some of the abuses. Lux/cash selling won't go nearly as far when that 600 gold won't even sign one agreement instead of three at once.

All that aside, the ability to get a tech or wonder of your choice whenever you want it makes GSs and GEs far more valuable than the others. Letting a GA do something similar for SPs would be an interesting idea, since someone going for a culture win is not likely to be using them for land-grabs and landmarks are a bit lacking. One way to 'fix' GMs would be to remove the ability to constantly feed cash to CSes in bulk lots; if you cannot continuously pump up your influence levels, then the gain from trade missions becomes much more significant since they are rather infrequent unless you're going all-out on economic specialists.

GGs are a separate issue, since their quantity is directly proportional to one's aggression level, so what to do with them is a bit harder to address. One possibility would be to allow them to be expended to grant a large chunk of XP to a single unit; this would be somewhat more important below Immortal since the AIs cannot churn out hundreds of units at once to farm for promotions, but even at higher levels that added promotion or two could be a lifesaver depending on who got it when. Another would be to remove the insta-heal promotion and allow GGs to be expended to heal all units in their radius by a set amount, say 3-5HP; you'd save on heal promotions but lose the AoE combat bonus, which would make for an interesting tradeoff. Since the AoE heal would not be full, if you just finished a brutal fight and more are coming you'd have the choice of risking all your units directly or possibly losing a couple anyway.

[SimUmp]

All I would like for them to do is to re-enable the achievements_debug.log file to update again. That was so helpful with the big achievements (Model of a Modern Major General, for example).

[Floating Pants]

While yes, RAs should be significantly more expensive. Your analysis is so crazy I'm still not certain if you are trolling.
If so I apologize, egg on my face, but...

Getting a tech at the precise moment of your choosing, and without providing one to an opponent, is significantly more valuable than just another RA. And even that is assuming you have friendlyish civs sitting around you are not already science buddies with.

Sorry sometimes I troll so often it just comes off like that when I'm posting normally
But yeah, my analysis is pretty crazy, mostly because I made nearly all of those numbers up. It can be fixed if I get those numbers though... but that wasn't a troll attempt

As for RAs, perhaps have a variable factor applied such that they inherently cost more at higher difficulty levels in order to reign in some of the abuses. Lux/cash selling won't go nearly as far when that 600 gold won't even sign one agreement instead of three at once.

That sounds like a good way to fix a lot of things. Raising the price of RA's on higher difficulties alone, and only on your behalf (not the AI).

GGs are a separate issue, since their quantity is directly proportional to one's aggression level, so what to do with them is a bit harder to address. One possibility would be to allow them to be expended to grant a large chunk of XP to a single unit; this would be somewhat more important below Immortal since the AIs cannot churn out hundreds of units at once to farm for promotions, but even at higher levels that added promotion or two could be a lifesaver depending on who got it when. Another would be to remove the insta-heal promotion and allow GGs to be expended to heal all units in their radius by a set amount, say 3-5HP; you'd save on heal promotions but lose the AoE combat bonus, which would make for an interesting tradeoff. Since the AoE heal would not be full, if you just finished a brutal fight and more are coming you'd have the choice of risking all your units directly or possibly losing a couple anyway.

I disliked GG's on BTS, who were used just that way to give XP. The GG's on Civ5 may be a bit weak compared to the other GP's, but the way they are currently being used is far better than how they did on previous builds. They're unique.

I like the insta-heal promotion, though. I wouldn't be happy if they canned that for some GG effect. The only downside to it when you're ranged attacking an AI who gains XP from defending and uses insta-heal when it's at really low HP. I wouldn't like to see them as some healer type unit.

Well, at least you might be getting somewhere with your thinking. Maybe we can come up with something real good later.

[bronzeager]

seems like a lot of Social Policy changes are in the works, so it's fun to speculate about that... as others stated above, Honor, Commerce, and Autocracy need buffs, and I think Order as well. Freedom certainly doesn't need a buff...one of the best late game paths, especially if you're going for a culture win.

Theocracy and Meritocracy also need slight nerds. HATE the idea of a random GP...can you imagine the grief that could cause? Maybe have it be a happinees boost OR a GP...but not both.