My Long Review for the Upcoming Patch

[Floating Pants]

My Long Review:

Civ5 is becoming a different game every other month now.

I'm going to quote the biggest ups and downs in this patch, along with the most extreme changes. I'll progress down the list, noting what really caught my eye.




General Changes:

Civilopedia now available in the Main Menu (under “Other”)

Great. The simplest update people have been wanting from day one, added 9 months later. I don't mean to be critical, but... really? The littlest things come last, but at least we'll have it now. Bravo.

Replay is now available at the end of the game, and through the main menu. You can choose Map, Graphs, and turn-by-turn. Only games played post-patch will apply.

Ahh... I can't criticize this. Replay was one of the best things about previous civ games, and it will finally allow me to reminisce over my games. The graphs will be especially interesting, even though I guess they won't be able to be viewed in game, right? Although, I'm actually very interested of how this replay turns out. We've got three possibilities:

• An ugly layout of strategic view, which will give as much visual pleasure as worldbuilder.
• A broad, enlarged view of the mini-map in the bottom right corner.
• A new, and innovative view of the map. With the terrain detail included, but not as great as the actual game.

I'm hoping it turns out to be the third.

Made backstab routine more transparent (the dialog will clearly state that they are backstabbing you).

Haha... I'd just love the see the dialogue when you get backstabbed. It'll either state in parenthesis that (they are backstabbing you!),
or Montezuma will have something to say like "Yunno, calling you a friend was all part of my master plan! Prepare to die, you gullible bafoon! I was a backstabber the entire time!!"

AI remembers if you fought against a common foe (positive modifier, decays over time, based on damage done to the common foe).

Track trades between players and allow that to positively influence relationships (the better the deal for the AI, the stronger the modifier). Particularly useful for bribing a hostile AI.

As for the bonus for fighting a common foe, I've been wanting that for a while. I just hate getting denounced right after helping the guy in a war, it's dumb. Hopefully this will create better long-term diplomacy, and military alliances.

Policy “Finishers” added to all 10 policy trees. Taking all policies in a tree will grant an additional bonus effect.

Awesome. A great bonus to culture wins, and a nice surprise to all others.

Production cost adjustments for units/buildings/wonders (mostly a little cheaper, much cheaper late game).

Heh-hey... Production costs always seem to be excessive in the early game, but I do seem to have them under control near the late game... so what was the big idea going for a major late-game reduction?
The main reduction I'm looking forward to is cheaper classical era units, and cheaper happiness bonus buildings. For the circ/coll/thea/stad now because they're less effective.

Research agreements now give a tech boost instead of a free tech. Tech boosts start at 50% of the median value of all techs you can research. Can be boosted to 100% if you both start Rationalism and build the Porcelain Tower.

I've been wanting a re-do to the Research Agreements. Now they're actually what they say they are, a research agreement. Although, this isn't much different than how it was before, just a bit worse, and be improved even more after The Porcelain Tower and adopting Rationalism

New bonus resource: Stone (+1 production, improved with a Quarry). See the Stone Works building note below for additional details.

Cool. Can't go wrong with a new resource. But... I was expecting stone to be more of a wonder bonus deal, like marble more than a minor production to all buildings.

Boosted Chariot Archer to strength 4 and ranged 7 (Egypt War Chariot as well).

Been waiting for a boost to the Chariot Archer for a long time. Hopefully now it'll be worth building.



Wonder Changes:

Pyramids worker speed increase reduced to 25% from 50% but now give a free Worker when built

Uhh... I don't think I'll ever build the Pyramids now. You can still get that free worker from Liberty, right? And 25% is nothing. It's more efficient to build 2 workers now instead of the Pyramids. Whoop-dee-doo.

Big Ben hurry modifier reduced to 15% from 25% but now gives a flat 4 gold.

Uh... IIRC, didn't Big Ben start with -50% purchase cost on Day of Release? How'd we get all the way down to -15% from that...? Geez... It was bad enough as is, no need to make it worse.

Eiffel Tower now give 5 Happiness plus 1 for every 2 Policies adopted.
Chichen Itza now grants an additional 4 Happiness.
Notre Dame now gives 10 Happiness, up from 5, and 3 Culture.

All big happiness mods. This will definitely help balance what happiness was lost in increased per city, and reduced per resource, but it'll give a huge advantage for the builders of these wonders. Eiffel Tower now seems like the ultimate finisher for ICS now.




The Rest of Happiness Changes:

Unhappiness per city increased to 3 from 2.
Luxury resources now give 4 Happiness, down from 5.

This saddens me. And it causes major change in game plan. But is it really necessary to nerf happiness even more? You've hurt the buildings, gave boosts to the wonders, boosted policies, but isn't that enough? It's hard enough to rapidly expand as is.

Colosseum maintenance reduced by 1 gold, Happiness reduced by 1.
Theatre maintenance reduced by 1 gold, Happiness reduced by 1.
Stadium maintenance reduced by 1 gold, Happiness reduced by 1.

Major change. I'm just hoping when you spoke of cheaper building costs, you meant these, because now they're extremely low.
Anyone else remember at Day of Release, colosseum gave +5 happiness? What's it at now? +2?



Every policy now has a happiness modifier!!

• Landed Elite now provides 1 Happiness at every 10 Citizens in each City.
• Meritocracy: +1 Happiness for each city connected to your capital, and -5% Unhappiness from citizens in non-occupied cities.
• Military Caste now provides +1 Happiness and +2 Culture for each city with a garrison.
• Professional Army now reduces cost of upgrading units by 33% and provides +1 Happiness per defensive building (Walls, Castle, Arsenal, Military base).
• Organized Religion now gives 1 Happiness per Monument, Temple and Monastery.
• Democracy now provides -50% Unhappiness per Specialist.
• Police State now provides 3 Happiness per Courthouse, and reduces the time it take to build Courthouses by 50%.
• Order Opener now provides +1 Happiness per City.

• Patronage remains with the 50% happiness increase from recieving resources from CS.
• Commerce remains with +1 happiness from each luxury.
• Rationalism remains with +1 happiness per university

I like this. Now, policies come into an eye when maintaining happiness. I'm going to briefly analyze the most effective.

-

You have a single city empire: Most effective policy for maintaining is freedom for reduced specialist

You have 6 city empire: Assuming you have a monument in all cities, and temples and monastaries in a few, Piety would be most effective.

Sprawling, wide empires should adopt liberty and order now.

Warlike empires even more now should adopt autocracy.

EDIT: Looked over this before, but honor is the only tree with 2 separate policies that modify happiness.

...
...


Overall Rating:
8/10

You satisfied us with hotseat, replay, graphs, wonder changes, and additions to policies.

Although you gave us a few changes to diplomacy, there is nothing stated for general AI improvement and sanity when it comes to diplomacy.
Nothing about adding an option to animations in multiplayer, or other common ways of MP other than hotseat, nothing about reducing MP crashes.
I think the happiness changes are too extreme, and will alter gameplay too much. That's just my opinion, though.
Nothing about the long time requests of the community here, like unit "escorts" or canal building.


Like I said, overall, this is a good patch. 8/10 means it really improves the game, although it isn't a drastic change for the better, I'll probably enjoy the game more now... hopefully.


End Review.

[Floating Pants]

Because the OP is lengthy, I'll post an additional idea here. Modders, I think we have a request:

Just like you, I'm reading through the changes and thinking
how happiness is vanishing before my eyes. You see, I don't really want to crawl into a corner of the map and try to win on Culture. I want to build an empire

I feel the same. If this patch turns out to entirely nerf the happiness system to a point of large empires being nigh impossible, I'll probably adopt a mod to alleviate the extreme new rules. For me, 80% of my games are through domination. Sure, Culture wins are fun every once in a while, but that's not all what the game is about! Civ5 has the best combat system the series has ever seen, and should we have to throw that aside for these extreme rules? Gah! It's clear that the game was designed to have a massive appeal to war in it, so why should it be neglected??

/rant off. Despite this, the rating is at 8. I was nearly on the verge of rating it 7.5/10, but I'll hold off that because of all the good and new stuff that we got. I just hope it turns out good.

[Pouakai]

I'm definately going to be reverting several of the happiness / wonder / Mandekalu cavalry nerfs in my (And Moriboe's) Building Made Fun mod

[Floating Pants]

I'm definately going to be reverting several of the happiness / wonder / Mandekalu cavalry nerfs in my (And Moriboe's) Building Made Fun mod

Moriboe's Building Made Fun mod? Tell me about that.

[Pouakai]

Essentially a mod which adds lots of Buildings and wonders to the game, and tweaks existing ones. Here is the link to the topic at CivFanatics.

[Floating Pants]

Essentially a mod which adds lots of Buildings and wonders to the game, and tweaks existing ones. Here is the link to the topic at CivFanatics.

Your username describes the mod on page 9. Did you make most of if yourself? or how much did you make?

Well, it doesn't look bad. That'll be one I'll be sure to get if this patch doesn't work out for me.
Because as for right now, I'm not gonna play the game until the new patch, due to what will be changed or lost in a current game in the current patch.

[Pouakai]

I have just taken it over from Moriboe (The orignal creator) I haven't done anything as of yet, but he wanted me to have control of the 'OP' so-to-speak, and so that is the new front page. The first changes I will be making are being slated for Post-patch, the rectify some of the crucial issues

[Valkrionn]

IMO: The game is designed for the player to control a small core of cities, with the rest being puppets.

Now, "small" is debatable, but still: Use puppets. That is what they were implemented for.

[Snoochems]

You forgot to mention the biggest nerf to happiness. Theocracy.

This was essential to any empire of more than 5 cities. Now it is gawwwnnnn...

[Ukerric]

I'm still a bit confused on what you mean by 50% of the median value of all techs... Does this mean all techs are half value...? That can't be right.
Anyone fully understand this?

The RA, instead of giving you techs, gives you beakers. Let's assume you have a RA coming up. You currently have 4 researchable techs, one that cost 100, two that cost 150, one that cost 200, which is the one you're currently researching, and it's half done.

The median of these is 150 (100+150+150+200 divided by 4).

So you get 75 beakers, added to your current research (150 with the extra boosts of Rationalism and Porcelain Tower). If it completes, the beakers overflow into your next.

[Valkrionn]

The RA, instead of giving you techs, gives you beakers. Let's assume you have a RA coming up. You currently have 4 researchable techs, one that cost 100, two that cost 150, one that cost 200, which is the one you're currently researching, and it's half done.

The median of these is 150 (100+150+150+200 divided by 4).

So you get 75 beakers, added to your current research (150 with the extra boosts of Rationalism and Porcelain Tower). If it completes, the beakers overflow into your next.

150 is correct, but only due to luck; You described a mean, not a median.

Median - Arithmetic, Statistics . the middle number in a given sequence of numbers, taken as the average of the two middle numbers when the sequence has an even number of numbers: 4 is the median of 1, 3, 4, 8, 9.

[Ukerric]

I stand corrected

[SlickSlicer]

That wasn't too long.

I like your review. I actually agree with everything you stated. I'm a bit nervous about the happiness nerfs for luxury resources as well as increased unhappiness for new cities. I don't think the happiness bonus from building wonders rectifies that. The happiness bonus from policies might help balance it though, I guess.

Otherwise I mostly like all the other changes. Somehow in the patch notes I didn't even notice that stone had been added as a bonus resource. If I have to be really finicky, I think "stone" is a pretty mediocre choice for a bonus resource, and the bonus it gives isn't really overly exciting. On the other hand, from a gameplay perspective a new bonus resource is a pretty good addition. I guess I can't complain. It's a lot better than nothing.

I think even the detractors will have to recognize that this patch is bringing Civ V a long way. I am really holding out hope that at some point Civ V will surpass Civ IV both in depth and fun-factor. I think this patch brings the game closer to this goal. Slowly but surely they're really sorting out the kinks. That's very satisfying. From a personal standpoint, I'm glad I haven't invested too much time in Civ V, but rather have just been playing "here and there" (which roughly translates to any time a patch is completed).

[Floating Pants]

You forgot to mention the biggest nerf to happiness. Theocracy.

This was essential to any empire of more than 5 cities. Now it is gawwwnnnn...

Piety still remains the second best tree for maintaining happiness. It's one of 4 policy trees that can provide more than 1 per city. I'll analyze a bit more.

In Piety, you can get a maximum of 3 happiness per city, that's assuming you have all three of the culture buildings there. But, not all cities can build a monastery, so that leaves -2 in most possible cities.

In honor, you can get a maximum of 5 happiness per city, in ALL cities. That's probably by far the best.

In Freedom, you get -50% unhappiness per specialist citizen. I don't know the physics or the value of each specialist, but I know this is quite a bit for big cities.

In Autocracy, you can give 3 happiness per city with a courthouse. Like the monasteries (in a way), courthouses can't be build in every city. So, this policy really depends on the amount of cities you capture.

The RA, instead of giving you techs, gives you beakers. Let's assume you have a RA coming up. You currently have 4 researchable techs, one that cost 100, two that cost 150, one that cost 200, which is the one you're currently researching, and it's half done.

Oh OK. Thanks, now I understand. So, basically they've been made a bit worse. I don't like RA's to begin with, so reducing their effectiveness is a good point for me.

Otherwise I mostly like all the other changes. Somehow in the patch notes I didn't even notice that stone had been added as a bonus resource. If I have to be really finicky, I think "stone" is a pretty mediocre choice for a bonus resource, and the bonus it gives isn't really overly exciting. On the other hand, from a gameplay perspective a new bonus resource is a pretty good addition. I guess I can't complain. It's a lot better than nothing.

Although stone was on previous Civ games, it's still a very unique resource. Like I stated in the OP, I expected it to be a wonder bonus like marble. From a historical perspective, the vast majority of ancient architecture was made out of stone. Much of this stone was taken from large quarries. Although, I don't know where "stoneworks" come in at...

[Sombrus]

Building a single worker better than building a pyramid?

What if you have an empire with eight workers? Now you have the equivalent of two free workers.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Here are the expansion-relevant happiness changes (the ones with a question mark are the ones which aren't, in my opinion, generally expansion-oriented wonders/policies, but may become so after the patch):

Happiness Boosts:

• New building: Stone Works: +1 Happiness and +1 production, and +1 production for each source of Marble and Stone worked. Requires Marble or Stone.
• Eiffel Tower now give 5 Happiness plus 1 for every 2 Policies adopted.
• Chichen Itza now grants an additional 4 Happiness.[?]
• Notre Dame now gives 10 Happiness, up from 5, and 3 Culture.
• Meritocracy: +1 Happiness for each city connected to your capital, and -5% Unhappiness from citizens in non-occupied cities. [From 0.5 happiness per city]
• Military Caste now provides +1 Happiness and +2 Culture for each city with a garrison.
• Professional Army now reduces cost of upgrading units by 33% and provides +1 Happiness per defensive building (Walls, Castle, Arsenal, Military base).
• Organized Religion now gives 1 Happiness per Monument, Temple and Monastery.[?]
• Humanism now also affects Public Schools and Observatories. [+1 happiness per, I believe]
• Police State now provides 3 Happiness per Courthouse, and reduces the time it take to build Courthouses by 50%.
• Order Opener now provides +1 Happiness per City.

Happiness Nerfs:

• Unhappiness per city increased to 3 from 2.
• Luxury resources now give 4 Happiness, down from 5.
• Colosseum maintenance reduced by 1 gold, Happiness reduced by 1.
• Theatre maintenance reduced by 1 gold, Happiness reduced by 1.
• Stadium maintenance reduced by 1 gold, Happiness reduced by 1.
• Hanging Gardens now give 10 Food instead of 1 population per city and Happiness.
• Theocracy now increase gold yield by 10% in cities with a Temple. [Changed from -50% unhappiness in non-occupied cities][?]

For an expansion-oriented science victory with ten cities, this gives about a net change of +2 to -4, so it is roughly around zero. The more curious thing about this, however, is that most of the bonuses come mid to late game--and in the form of policies and wonders, while most of the nerfs are early to mid game, and in common, accessible forms.

This suggests two things: that (a) empire expansion will take place even more gradually, limited by happiness, and (b) that certain wonders will become even more fundamental for expansionistic strategies, especially in the medieval and early renaissance eras (Notre Dame, Forbidden Palace, Hagia Sophia(GE)(?), Taj Mahal(increased production of further wonders)(?), Porcelain Tower(?), Chinchen Itza(?)) and you might need to arrive here fast and allot a large portion of your production to wonders for a good 30 or 40 turns, if not more.

I'm not too sure how happy I am with the first indication, because generally speaking, one is in trouble with happiness early on, and as the game progresses, you start to gain more and more excess happiness, whatever you do. However, this shouldn't be too much of a big deal, given it keeps the AI, too, in check, because the changes to the Honor tree certainly suggest that early rushes have become a bit more ideal, in turn then actually encouraging early expansion.

The second indication, nevertheless, I'm fully excited about because, firstly, it suggests that a big trade off of an earlier science/cultural/military boost which may prove in the long-run to be decisive to an earlier happiness boost that you will not later be able to acquire could be crucial one that may have to change from game to game. Further, along with the boost to the chariot archer and burial tomb, this throws Egypt right back into contention with the other civs in terms of their unique attributes, making them a very, very good civ to have for an expansive strategy, now requiring many wonders.

Besides this, especially gold, going by my general feeling reading the notes, has decisively been boosted, and this, of course, has a thousand positive implications, among them balancing out a potential happiness drop if carefully managed.

Without a doubt, this all seems to coincide with the very first note, stating

Pacing has received a large amount of work. Expect to have more of a challenge managing your empire at higher difficulty levels than you did before. Consider dropping a difficulty level if you have problems.

and this of course makes me very happy, as the changes really do suggest to make the game more challenging, and thus much more fun to play--given all of them affect the AI, too, in the same way as the players.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Also, Floating Pants, I disagree with what you said about the wonders. As someone else has stated, the pyramids are still certainly worth having as it gives you quality over quantity, saving you maintenance costs--and besides, two workers cost 140 hammers while the pyramids cost 175 hammers, and hopefully this would be reduced a little, making it, in my opinion far better as an early wonder paired with aristocracy, than two workers. In fact, this would actually work to make the construction of the pyramids a very viable early-game strategy.

As for the Big Ben, I feel that the 15% discount and an extra 4 gold is far better than a 25% discount, and this is because the purchasing of items in cities isn't an awfully common thing to do anyway, and generally speaking, this would lead to more money than just the 25% discount... especially with all the other gold bonuses, making those 4 gold more like 8 gold per turn. This said, I hardly ever found that the Big Ben was worth constructing anyway, and despite this in my opinion improving it a little, I still don't feel that it will generally be worth the production.

Other wonders which caught my eye were the Great Wall, Porcelain Tower, and the Colossus; wonders which only now seem to me worth building.

Otherwise, however, I do generally agree with you, and your conclusion of giving it 8/10 seems to me about right, though maybe I would even say 8.5 or 9, especially single player, though I might be a little bit of an optimist. However, it may be a little premature to give it any rating at all, as we just don't know how it will play out.

[Artifex]

he purchasing of items in cities isn't an awfully common thing to do anyway

0.o
Even early game, I usually purchase at least one settler, or worker/warrior, basically something along those lines in the first 50ish turns. After that purchases only become bigger and more common. Think late game where a large empire can pretty much buy a Colosseum or courthouse every other turn. Big Ben was one of the most impactful wonders at that point, and it still will be after this nerf. But a nerf it is, no doubt about it!

And my my my, the porcelain tower I already made in many games. It was a great way to convert a GE into a GS+benefits.

[Beckmachi]

As for the Big Ben, I feel that the 15% discount and an extra 4 gold is far better than a 25% discount, and this is because the purchasing of items in cities isn't an awfully common thing to do anyway, and generally speaking, this would lead to more money than just the 25% discount... especially with all the other gold bonuses, making those 4 gold more like 8 gold per turn. This said, I hardly ever found that the Big Ben was worth constructing anyway, and despite this in my opinion improving it a little, I still don't feel that it will generally be worth the production.

You're on crack. Purchasing things is uncommon? Exactly the reverse, it's probably the *most* common thing done, and it happens more and more as the game goes on, as Artifex mentioned. Big Ben was and probably will remain one of the must have wonders. Frankly I don't see how you could be playing and winning if you rarely if ever buy buildings and/or units. What level are you playing? What size/speed?

[Jacsó Benjámin]

0.o
Even early game, I usually purchase at least one settler, or worker/warrior, basically something along those lines in the first 50ish turns. After that purchases only become bigger and more common. Think late game where a large empire can pretty much buy a Colosseum or courthouse every other turn. Big Ben was one of the most impactful wonders at that point, and it still will be after this nerf. But a nerf it is, no doubt about it!

And my my my, the porcelain tower I already made in many games. It was a great way to convert a GE into a GS+benefits.

Well they certainly had their uses, it's just that generally speaking, the Big Ben and Porcelain tower weren't the most useful wonders, in my opinion--for my playing style anyway. I always felt that, in the long-run, spending money on buildings units just wasn't worth as much as spending it on research agreements and city-states, and nor was a strategy where you had so much income per turn that you had excess money for buildings.

Of course, looking back at some of the games I've payed in the past, the Big Ben was a crucial wonder in some of them--especially in late-game rushes, where I occupied the whole world in a good 35, 40 turns while buying happiness buildings in all of my newly conquered territory. Then again, I never did say that the Big Ben was always useless or never worth constructing. Also, maybe it was just because of its huge impact in some games that the Big Ben got nerfed, no? I mean now that I think about it, there were games where it saved me gold in the thousands easily, and even with the -15% it will do so, besides giving me gold in the hundreds at least. Whatever the case, I agree with the nerf to the Big Ben, as I don't really see it as being overly detrimental to it, and I believe we agree on this.

However, a great engineer I have just about always found better uses for than rushing the Porcelain Tower... at worst saving it up for a couple of turns until a better wonder came around, or simply building a manufactory, if no better option was within a 30-or-so turn radius. On the rare occasion however, the GE conversion to a GS was worth it. Another good one was taking the free GE and converting it into the GS with slight bonuses. The boost to this wonder will only do it good however, and I don't feel it would make it OP in any way, especially as it would have been much too overshadowed by the Notre Dame in just about any circumstance otherwise.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

You're on crack. Purchasing things is uncommon? Exactly the reverse, it's probably the *most* common thing done, and it happens more and more as the game goes on, as Artifex mentioned. Big Ben was and probably will remain one of the must have wonders. Frankly I don't see how you could be playing and winning if you rarely if ever buy buildings and/or units. What level are you playing? What size/speed?

Look, simply because you always purchase buildings all the time doesn't mean everybody does, and certainly, there are just as effective strategies for every victory type that don't involve purchasing a lot of buildings. I was starting out from my own playing-style, and really, is this not what you are doing just now?

And just so you know, I play and win on immortal in some good 280 turns usually, 263 diplo being my best, and have beaten deity in 342. Normal speed, normal map, so my strategies can't be complete sh*t, can they? What difficulty do you play on, what is your fastest victory?

[Beckmachi]

Look, simply because you always purchase buildings all the time doesn't mean everybody does, and certainly, there are just as effective strategies for every victory type that don't involve purchasing a lot of buildings. I was starting out from my own playing-style, and really, is this not what you are doing just now?

Actually, you did. You wrote " the purchasing of items in cities isn't an awfully common thing to do anyway", and I responded accordingly.

[Rinnero]

As for the Big Ben, I feel that the 15% discount and an extra 4 gold is far better than a 25% discount, and this is because the purchasing of items in cities isn't an awfully common thing to do anyway, and generally speaking, this would lead to more money than just the 25% discount... especially with all the other gold bonuses, making those 4 gold more like 8 gold per turn. This said, I hardly ever found that the Big Ben was worth constructing anyway, and despite this in my opinion improving it a little, I still don't feel that it will generally be worth the production.

The best thing about Big Ben was that by adopting Mercantilism and Militarism you could make purchasing units at 1p=1g rate! That significantly changes the role of purchasing from "occasional in emergency" (war declared) to "the usual thing", that is almost as good as building units for hammers. Basically that makes gold "accumulated hammers" that you can easily convert into something.

Buying mech infanty for 360 gold is samely good as building it for 360 hammers. But I doubt its common thing to buy mech infantry for 1000g, because its cheaper to build it.

[Artifex]

I agree with the nerf to the Big Ben, ............ and I believe we agree on this.

Very true. Sorry if I came off a bit vehement. Never the intention.
As any experienced gamer can tell you, stacking percentile reductions can be "mathmagical" At least they had the foresight to apply them multiplicatively instead of additively. With Big Ben, Mercantilism, and Militarism the gold cost of Mech Infantry dips down to 480. I am not at all surprised they took this step.

Edit: Rinnero are you certain you get 360 costs? I have only seen them down to 480, perhaps there is something else going on here. Please confirm your numbers for me.

From what you say it seems we play games about the same skill level. I am surprised you would pass on the porcelain tower, I tend to try and stack wonders with +GS points whenever possible, it accounts for a lot of my mid-late game teching. But to each their own, I'm certain that likewise there are strategies you employ that I don't.

[Rinnero]

Edit: Rinnero are you certain you get 360 costs? I have only seen them down to 480, perhaps there is something else going on here. Please confirm your numbers for me.

I always play quick speed, so its quick speed numbers. Look, I said "for 360 hammers" and "buy for 1000g".
I usually dont spend money at all till I have all these bonuses. Than spend my 3000-5000g I saved during the whole game for mechinf spam.

Approximately
1000*0.75=750
750*0.75=562
562*0.67=376

[Artifex]

Quick speed makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Actually, you did. You wrote " the purchasing of items in cities isn't an awfully common thing to do anyway", and I responded accordingly.

I don't get what you are trying to say by this... in what you quoted, I said my assumptions were based on my playing style, and that for attacking me in this and saying I was in all circumstances wrong--"on crack" I believe it was--you were basing your assumption upon your own playing style. By this I was implying the question that 'aren't you just as wrong in your statement as I am in mine?' and in this context, your response makes no sense. I never denied that I was wrong in my statement, nor that I never said what you disagreed with.

What I was trying to get across in my response was that I don't in any way see it justified that you attacked me in the manner that you did, especially as in your attack you were just as incorrect as me in my initial statement. I mean, I admit, I was wrong in what I said, but can't you just go about pointing out my mistake in a manner more proper like Artifex did?

[Hawk]

Does anyone know when exactly it's coming out? I'm on the edge of my seat for this Hotseat to be released! I don't think I've felt this impatient since I first heard that Civ5 was being released.. :S

I'm happy with most of it actually, although the wonder tweaks seem to be making them not so worth while building anymore, considering they take so long to build...You would want the abilities of the wonders to be really helpful!
The new resource is cool too, although I can think of a few more.

Still not happy with the diplomacy of the AI civs, but with Hotseat it's not so bad, since the focus for me while be playing with other humans. At least they are doing something though!

[Artifex]

And before anyone asks, the ETA is still the same as before: late June or possibly early July.

1234567890

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Does anyone know when exactly it's coming out? I'm on the edge of my seat for this Hotseat to be released! I don't think I've felt this impatient since I first heard that Civ5 was being released.. :S

I'm happy with most of it actually, although the wonder tweaks seem to be making them not so worth while building anymore, considering they take so long to build...You would want the abilities of the wonders to be really helpful!
The new resource is cool too, although I can think of a few more.

Still not happy with the diplomacy of the AI civs, but with Hotseat it's not so bad, since the focus for me while be playing with other humans. At least they are doing something though!

The ETA is still late June or early July, which for me is one in the same because I will be on vacation at that time and won't have my computer (besides having better things to do anyway), but I figure it would be of more significance to some of you guys. Still, Greg only said what I just said, to the best of my knowledge, so sorry, haha.

As for wonders: which wonders in particular, because my impression was most wonders got boosts, and only ones that were too powerful anyway got nerfed. What I am curious about is how the happiness changes will come to work out, because this could easily make or break the game. Also, what, if any, new DLC they will come out with (I hope it could be Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands, or the Zulu), but this much is quite irrelevant here.

[tfordp]

...

Still not happy with the diplomacy of the AI civs, but with Hotseat it's not so bad, since the focus for me while be playing with other humans. At least they are doing something though!

I'm actually wondering how diplomacy might work at all in Hotseat. As it's a singleplayer game between multiple players, no two will be playing against each other at the same time. I will play it with my son, and we won't just be at war with each other and will be wanting to trade and make deals.

[Nefliqus]

Del .

[Israelite76]

I liked your review and as mentioned above, it wasn't too long and we have all seen openers/ responses in threads that are....

It was a good analysis. I am another one who would love a huge Empire and am disappointed that this has not only not been remidied but is even harder. My beef are the glaring omissions of usefulness of the UN and the economic, er....I mean 'diplomatic' victory.

I will interested to see, with the way I often play, 12 AIs, 18 CS, huge map, normal speed, ancient era,small continents/large continents/Earth, will change my tactics. With this set of options, the easiest ways are diplomatic or culture victories. domination never really comes into it. Some AIs go for big empires although I suprised they can do it with how much happiness is affected by mass conquest or an attempt at a large, sprawling empire. I would love the possibility, as in Civ IV, to destroy and dominate opponents at will.

[Hawk]

The ETA is still late June or early July, which for me is one in the same because I will be on vacation at that time and won't have my computer (besides having better things to do anyway), but I figure it would be of more significance to some of you guys. Still, Greg only said what I just said, to the best of my knowledge, so sorry, haha.

As for wonders: which wonders in particular, because my impression was most wonders got boosts, and only ones that were too powerful anyway got nerfed. What I am curious about is how the happiness changes will come to work out, because this could easily make or break the game. Also, what, if any, new DLC they will come out with (I hope it could be Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands, or the Zulu), but this much is quite irrelevant here.

I've heard that it will be either later June or early July, however since we are getting closer to later June, I was hoping someone would know an exact day for it...but I guess not. Thanx anyway though, I'll just have to wait!

Regarding the wonders, I'm referring to wonders such as the Pyramids, etc., since each wonder that has been changed is changed differently, and I do not know all the stats of each change.

[Nefliqus]

1) I think that they should decrease fortification bonus. 50% after 2 turns it too big advantage for defenders and "bunker strategy". Currently attacking is too difficult. If army are equal, and your enemy use fortification on hill any attack is just suicide. Of-course it should be difficult but not impossible. The best strategy now is to fornicate, wait for attack and make counterattack. Awareness of this fact makes this game very static. I know that you have reduced "bunker" by reduction castle and walls bonuses etc... but pls reconsider also reduction fortification bonus.

2) i think that improvement repair time was reduced mechanically, without considering games reality. Generally after this patch improvements are less important than before. I dont know if it is good step. Additionally demolishing improvement was not profitable and with connection to repair time nerfing is now just pointless because loosing units in counterattack is too risky and you opponent could repair e.g mine in 1 turn. It make another point for "bunker strategy" and for people how wants to play in more active way makes early improvements destroy mission useless. Rapair time should be increased not reduced.

3) Mohawk without iron req. is too strong unit, this modification was good but pls makes one pont strange reduction because now this unit is unbalanced. You can reduce cost of Mohawk if you want makes Mohawk rush a wining strategy.

4) Removed Mandekalu Cavalry city attack bonus promotion. I dont understand this step. In my opinion Songhaj nation was good balanced.

5) Nottification setup. There is a good mod enabling nottification message level setting. It help very much because you can choose what nottification you want to display. It was so easy to implement it. And it is so obvious that it improve UI and is needed. I dont know why u didt adopt it

6) Infoadict is also a good mod. I don't know why you didnt adopt it. Just analyze which mods are the most popular.

[SamBC]

Also, what, if any, new DLC they will come out with (I hope it could be Austria-Hungary, the Netherlands, or the Zulu), but this much is quite irrelevant here.

I think Austria-Hungary is unlikely (good example why is 'England'), although one of them with some aspects related to the unified period is plausible (again, see England, and Denmark).

I'm hoping for a Netherlands-Zulu double with a southern Africa colonialism scenario, also involving England at least (not sure if any other colonial powers were in southern Africa). If it doesn't come now, I hope it does eventually.

[Davor]

Civ5 is becoming a different game every other month now.

This got me thinknig for a second. If 2K didn't fire the 20 or more people one month before release of Civ V and actually delayed the release a month or two and kept the staff, do you think Civ V would have been more polished, maybe be like it is now or even actually better instead of waiting 9 months or more?

Just a thought. Now back to reading the thread.

[Rinnero]

6) Infoadict is also a good mod. I don't know why you didnt adopt it. Just analyze which mods are the most popular.

Yeah, it is great. But it gives (arguably) too much information. Its like total and complete espionage. In MP that is a bit unfair, but demographics is already implemented, and can give some very important info. So I think that all "replay" info should be available in game, like in infoaddict. At least there should be an option to turn it on/off.

[Floating Pants]

I'm hoping for a Netherlands-Zulu double with a southern Africa colonialism scenario, also involving England at least (not sure if any other colonial powers were in southern Africa). If it doesn't come now, I hope it does eventually.

Ah, I never thought of a Southern African Colonialism alone. I always figured they would do Scramble for Africa all on its own once they add Zulu, Ethiopia, and Netherlands.

For a special double? They could do some Mediterranean thing if they put in Phoenicia. Celts could join on that, though it would be a poor representation. Although, we'd have to see if they do a specific Celt or generic before we can really determine it.

Upon with Austria-Hungary WW1 could be done pretty well. With Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands, WW2 could be done as well (although we'd probably have to cheap out on Italy).

[Jacsó Benjámin]

Regarding the wonders, I'm referring to wonders such as the Pyramids, etc., since each wonder that has been changed is changed differently, and I do not know all the stats of each change.

Yeah I figure maybe the nerf to the pyramids was a little uncalled for, the only logic that I see behind it being that it was hardly any more expensive than two workers anyway, so giving 2 free workers for 4 workers was a little excessive... although I can't say I completely agree with this. Maybe, along with a general production reduction on everything, they reduced the cost of the pyramids significantly, down to the price of two--or maybe even less--workers, to an extent that maybe with marble, aristocracy and Egypt, you could get the free worker plus all the bonuses even cheaper than just a single worker. But again, I don't know; this is just the way that I would make it. Most certainly, this wouldn't make the pyramids any more attractive to build, but it could in certain circumstances make it a smart choice for constructing early.