Official Civilization "Fall Patch" patch notes! (Now live)

[2K Greg]

Here's a fun surprise for you guys to read over the weekend: Patch notes for the upcoming "Fall Patch!"

There's no ETA for this patch at the moment other than "fall"

There are some popular requests in here that I bet will make some of you very happy.

And so without further ado:

UPDATE 11/1/2012
Hey Civ community,

This is Drcane here to update you on the release of the Fall patch which is now live. If this was Halloween I might have pretended to be the ghost of 2K Greg, but alas.

There are a few additions to the notes below which I'll have in orange. Biggest addition is the WIN8 AND ULTRABOOK notes at the bottom. I'll sticky this thread and that's about it. Enjoy!

BUG FIXES
General

• Mod Browser - The "Get Mods" button is now hidden if the user has disabled the steam overlay.

Civilizations and Traits

• Ottoman naval upkeep is now fixed. Save games that were started before the fix will not be corrected.
• German UA and Oligarchy social policy now work together correctly.

City States

• Mercantile CS now only get a unique luxury for their first city (and not the cities they conquer). Unique luxury is removed upon capture (players can no longer get it by taking over a CS). Unique luxury is given back upon liberation.
• Prevent double counting of resources when an improvement is gifted to a minor civ, then the minor civ techs up to activate the improvement.

Diplomacy

• Research Agreement code was previously giving double-credit to research "overflows" (i.e. when you finished a tech and the extra research was being applied to the following tech). Now the credit toward a RA will be based on Science earned that turn.
• Corrected an issue that caused the AI to attempt coups too often, when chances of success were too low. Also implemented a new factor: Attempting a coup in a location where there is no defending spy (the current ally does not have a spy there) is >=2x as likely to work as it would if there was a spy there.
• Resurrecting a player will have both sides forget any denouncing that happened before resurrected.
• Don't treat player as a deal breaker just for going to war with a player again.

Exploits

• Do not let a player earn the 2 free techs from the Rationalism Finisher twice. Also removed the +1 Science from Libraries from that finisher.
• If you intentionally starve your city by reassigning all your citizens to be unemployed, you won't end up with more citizens than you have population.

Religion

• Fix Found Religion screen so you can't find out about civs you haven't met by mousing over the religion icons.
• Correct "Peace Loving" belief so it doesn't negate other happiness benefits from religion.
• Rebuild religious pressure in case it was corrupted in older save games.
• Clarify Interfaith Dialog so it mentions that Prophets earn you science too (not just missionaries).

Scenarios

• Removed notifications that appear at the beginning of the Fall of Rome and Mongol scenarios about lacking the proper strategic resources.

AI

• Dutch now will build farms before polders are available.
• Do not allow Carthaginian units to spawn on mountains.
• Do not allow Carthaginian Workers to end turns on mountains.
• AI will now build more workboats and will improve oil plots in the water.
• Automated workers that don't have anything to do will not consume all their movement.
• Allow rush built units to trigger the operation they were built for to proceed into Gather Units phase.
• Fixed an issue where automated workers evaluated danger incorrectly and consequently behaved incorrectly.
• Fixed an issue where citizen management focus on Production (and possibly others) could lead to starvation.
• Clicking on an unemployed citizen to set them back to work does not "unlock" locked citizen assignment.
• The logic to recommend Artist improvement placement now does not count plots where improvements can't be placed, e.g. oases.
• Add additional sanity checks for deceptive attacks. Previously, if an AI was choosing to deceptively attack, they would not check to determine if it was a good idea or not the moment before launching, which could result in “dumb” attacks.

Units

• Fix unit de-selection so the mini-map indicator clears.
• Better “Next Unit” selection. Previously, the camera would jump great distances to select the next unit that needs orders, when a closer unit was available.
• Unit cycling improvement: when a unit is promoted, do NOT cycle immediately off that unit.
• Change minimum area size for all naval units to 10 (from 20). That allows them to be built in the same cities as harbors, seaports (and great admirals) -- i.e. on any body of water not considered to be a "lake"
• Fix advanced promotions for melee naval ships.
• Restore missing Cover 2 promotion entries so it is available to units again.
• Fix a hang if a (melee) unit advanced across the world wrap seam after a combat.
• Correct Great Admiral AI placement bug that prevented it from selecting a valid coastal city of yours.
• Unit list now re-sorts itself correctly when a unit is promoted.
• Subs are no longer visible (all the time) in Hot Seat mode.
• Don't give GG points from Barbarian ranged attacks.
• Helicopters now take damage when ending their turn over mountains.
• Interception promotions now help the right unit (had previously been reversed).
• Evasion promotion helps the right unit (had previously been reversed).
• Two top-of-screen messages added to explain what is going on with intercepts (one for if the attacking air unit is eliminated, and another if he is just damaged).
• Fixed a unit movement issue that broke melee attacking from more than one hex away.
• Janissary heals 50 instead of 100 when killing enemy units.
• Supply promotion now heals 15 HP outside friendly territory; matching text (was 25 HP).
• Added a check to make sure that after a city is disbanded (ex. razed), the units remaining on the plot are allowed to be there. If not (ex. naval units), then they are moved to the nearest valid plot.
• Fix for barbarians that would not move the turn after they spawned.
• Have Great Engineer pick both the wonder and the city it needs to be built in (the bug was that the AI could repeatedly try to build a wonder in a city that it couldn't).
• Make sure Caravels and Destroyers always have the Withdraw before Melee promotion, even if you don't own DLC02.
• Barbarians should now spawn in their camp if it is empty of combat units instead of beside it.

Optimization

• Many performance improvements, particularly in the renderer.
• Pathfinder fixes and optimization.

Text Bugs

• Fixed several text bugs.

Misc

• Fixed rare crashes that could occur depending on hardware.
• Only the “alive” civilization capitals are tested for majority religion in "We are family" achievement.
• Added missing Polish Dawn of Man audio.
• Advisors: Messages concerning your people being unhappy/livid now display correctly (a bug was causing this to fire at the wrong time).
• Economic Overview: Don't list diplomacy values as an expense and an income at the same time.
• Fix auto-scrolling between turns. If a user was scrolling when a turn ended, or when combat ended, it would occasionally get “stuck” and continue scrolling.
• Fix unit de-selection so the mini-map indicator clears.

BALANCE CHANGES
General

• Reduced Happiness a bit from Mercantile City States. You no longer get +1 bonus happiness going from Friends to Allies (since you already get the luxuries then). And eliminated the +1 Happiness entering Industrial era.
• Ballistics now requires Railroads. This will force the AI to get railroads before getting too deep in the tree.
• Pillaging tiles now awards +25 hit points to the pillaging unit.
• Tweaks to culture border growth:
  
  • Should get coastal resource tiles a bit sooner.
  • Should mildly steer towards tiles that are near unclaimed resources.
  • Should get resource tiles in rings 4 and 5 a bit sooner.
• Austrian UA balance changes:
  
  • Increase the cost of a City-State by at least the amount of gold you will get from scrapping their units.
  • Must be ally for 5 turns before you can undergo a diplomatic marriage with a City-State.
  • "Yoink!" achievement is now: "As Austria, acquire a City-State with 15 or more units through Diplomatic Marriage."

Religion

• Pilgrimage belief now gives +2 Faith per foreign city following this religion.
• Follower and Pantheon beliefs provide Local Happiness; Founder beliefs provide Global Happiness
• Faith output per city is now listed in the economic overview - general information panel. Note: Faith output per city is hidden if religion is disabled.
• AI: Buy Missionaries in city with Great Mosque as TOP priority (even over Holy City if different).
• Tall/Wide Religion Balance Change: Add Grand Temple (National Wonder).

Diplomacy & Espionage

• New peace deals. Now 9 AI levels instead of the previous 5 (so one new level added between each of the earlier ones). Peace levels are now:
  
  • 0: White Peace (give up nothing)
  • 1: Armistice (1/2 gold, 1/2 of max GPT)
  • 2: Settlement (all gold, max GPT)
  • 3: Back-down (all luxuries, all gold, max GPT, open borders)
  • 4: Submission (all resources, all gold, max GPT, open borders)
  • 5: Surrender (one city)
  • 6: Cession (1/4 city value, 1/2 gold)
  • 7: Capitulation (1/3 city value, all gold)
  • 8: Unconditional Surrender (all but capital, all gold)
• Peace deal code now prioritizes both cities that are close to winner's capital AND cities that were originally built by winning player (previously it was distance only).
• Reduced espionage notification spam. Will only be notified of election and coup activities if you have met them and (have a spy in the city or are friends with them or have a relationship with them that is above the resting point.)
• Added ability to liberate cities that are not owned by their founders or originally owned by the player. The player will receive a diplomacy bonus with the liberated player for liberating up to three cities. This liberation is not part of the "recalled to life" resurrection of a once annihilated civ. This functionality only runs if the city liberated is owned by a player that is alive. There are two ways to lose the diplomatic liberation bonus are:
  
  1. Declare war on someone you have liberated cities for. You have to be the first player declaring war. This does not count defensive pacts or someone you liberated declaring war on you.
  2. Capturing a city from someone you liberated. This case comes into play if A liberated a city of C's, then A & B have a defensive pact, C declares war on A & B, then A captures a city of C's. C will forget that A liberated any of their cities.
• The AI will now liberate cities and resurrect players. There are notifications when the AI resurrects players and cities. An AI will resurrect another (non-human) player when they are trying to win a diplomatic victory. An AI will return a city if the original owner of the city has a defensive pact with the player and they are both at war with the previous owner of the city, or, the AI and the original owner have a declaration of friendship and the AI is going for a diplomatic victory.
• Diplomacy: Peace treaty duration scales with game speed.
  
  • Quick: 10 turns
  • Normal: 10 turns
  • Epic: 15 turns
  • Marathon: 30 turns
• Diplomacy: Declaration of Friendships/Denouncements now scale with game speed.
  
  • Quick: 50
  • Normal: 50
  • Epic: 75
  • Marathon: 150
• Changed diplomatic globals:
  
  • The opinion thresholds (unforgivable/enemy/competitor/favorable/friend/ally) have been pushed farther apart. They were initally 50/30/10, now 80/40/15.
  • Diplomatic intrigue bonuses have been lowered by 1/2, from 20 to 10.
  • "Asked Stop Spying" penalty dropped from 20 to 10.
  • There are a number of changes to the duration of city-state interaction penalties, greatly reducing their duration.
• Diplomacy overview improvements. Now displays "your open borders/embassy", "their open borders/embassy", "shared open borders/embassy"
• With making deals, AIs will notify you when they're not willing to give enough on their side to make the deal work. This addresses some issues where you ask an AI to propose a deal and they say "we can't make a deal" and then you propose a lop-sided deal and they accept it. They will say "we aren't willing to give you enough to make this a fair trade."
• Other civs won't warn about expansion unless the player has founded a city in the last 10 turns.
• "We attacked your protected City-State" statements are now triggered by damage done (ex. killing a unit) rather than simply being at war. As a result, the statement should no longer be triggered by a quick succession of DoWs (such as those done automatically by a CS changing allies).
• The AI will no longer ask other players to join in a war when they are already involved in at least one.

Units

• Unit Balance Changes:
  
  • Drop Ironclad to 45 combat strength (from 50).
  • Remove +33% vs. Cities from Battleships.
  • Drop Gatling Guns to 30 Combat and Ranged Strength.
  • Make sure Air Ambush 2 and Air Targeting 2 work for fighters and bombers.
  • Carriers now get naval melee promotions instead of naval ranged.
  • Prize Ships Balance Change: 50% chance of converting ships with equal intrinsic combat strengths. Scales up and down (between 28% and 80%) based on relative intrinsic combat strengths of the two ships. Conversion chance if you do sink the opponent is shown in blue text on combat preview window.
  • AI attackers will now pillage.
• Promotion balance change: make the +200% vs. Cities promotion go away on upgrade.
• Promotions: Push back Air Logistics promotion for Fighters and Bombers so it requires Bombardment 3 (not 2) or Air Siege 3 (not 2).

AI

• If the AI is able to build the UN, but would not win based on the current vote breakdown, have the AI refrain from constructing it unless conditions change.
• AI adjustments to Wonder build priorities.
• Tactical AI Improvement: Spend more gold on defense. AI will now spend gold at their cities where tactical dominance is EVEN (before it had to be enemy-dominated). AI will now also spend money on naval and air units for defense in such cites (before it was only land units and defensive buildings).
• Changes to AI settling:
  
  • Expand the ring search.
  • Flatten the value of rings a bit so that tiles in the further rings are worth a bit more.
  • Make the default preferred spacing further for players not going for extreme expansion.
  • Lower the value of tiles a bit so that the AI is a bit pickier about settlements.
  • AI will try to reclaim lost settlers and builders.
  • AI will no longer wait forever for a settler escort.
  • Minor tweak to settlement location.
  • More aggressive offshore expansion.
• Do not give priority to bonus resources in rings 4 and 5 when deciding next tile to grow towards.
• Tweak to AI settle to reduce bonus of tiles in rings 4 and 5 if already owned.
• Small change to make Haile Selassie less keen to expand wide.
• AI will now consider annexing cities it has conquered.
• The AI will not consider annexing if it is trying to win a culture victory or their empire is currently unhappy.
• Increased happiness flavor for circus to match Colosseum.
• Tactical/Homeland AI Improvement: Do not heal if under enemy ranged fire (that is making you lose more HP per turn than you can heal).
• Allow AI to capture civilians more than 4 hexes from their cities.
• Have AI build its units for sneak attack at a slightly higher priority if at high difficulty levels.
• Have AI weight Biology a bit stronger especially if liking tanks and airplanes (unlocks oil).
• AI tweaks to help coastal based civs:
  
  • Change to settlement (cities beyond the first also prefer coast).
  • Buildings that help coastal Civs have flavors adjusted (they didn't take some rules changes into account).
  • Do not force high Naval civs to build a large navy (15+ ships) in the first 100 turns.
  • Make Dido deceptive (as historical).
• Tweaks to allow cities to make better use of extra tiles from previous change:
  
  • On average on extra worker or two will be built.
  • Slightly less prioritization of connecting up luxuries (still the highest priority).
  • Allow one tile islands to be settled (if they have a resource on them).
  • Slightly more prioritization of production tiles.
  • Builders will emphasize the capital so that it will always be a nicely developed city.
• City Governor AI:
  
  • Prevent focused city AIs from starving as much.
  • Make a wonder that has already been started in this city a higher priority.
  • Lower the value of food for the governor when you have a large surplus.

POLISH
UI

• Add in a UI overlay that shows which AI is processing its turn.
• In the detailed view of a mod in the mods browser, additional required mods will display their title if it has been provided instead of the ID of the mod.
• Add an “Exit to Main Menu” button to the player change screen in Hotseat.
• Added "Restart Game" option to game menu. This option lets you restart the game and generate a new map using your current pregame settings. It's only available at Turn 0.
• Advanced settings are now persisted across multiple single player games.
  
  • NOTE: This feature can be disabled by setting "PersistAdvancedSettings = 0" in Config.ini
• The top panel now displays the month of the year if the game speed is so slow that it actually matters.
• Messages about a player losing their capital and regaining it are now included in the replay log.
• Messages about a player being resurrected are now included in the replay log.
• Fixed an issue causing the replay graphs to be corrupted when a player was resurrected.
• Display currently active mods in the single player screen.
• Add a separate graphics option for enabling/disabling the GPU texture decode.
• Fractal added to the map short list and random map types.
• Garrison ring properly disappears when unit moves out of city.
• Resource icon stacking. At lower resolutions, the resource icons clip into the date display along the top. We now hide the part of the list that clips if it’s too long, and instead, the player can mouse-over the list to see all the resources.
• Better timing for pop-ups (finding ruins, etc.).
• Auto unit selection improvements:
  
  • On load, only cycle to the next unit if the currently selected unit is not ready for selection.
  • Swap the direction that the CycleRight and CycleLeft buttons move the selection in the cycle list.
  • When closing the city screen. Re-select the last unit that was selected.
  • If the player has auto-unit-cycling off, don't auto-select the unit that is blocking the end turn.
• Further refinement to pop-up reordering. Pop-ups should now "feel" correct each turn (in the right order, at the right time).
• Don't prompt the player when removing fallout. Just do it. The prompt incorrectly referred to the action as removing an “improvement”.

General

• Switch a number of Great Merchants to Great Admirals. Add Great General: Hannibal and Great Merchant: Jakob Fugger.
• Optimized overlay system (culture borders, etc.). This system is now making half the draw calls that it did before.
• Flavored all the civs for anti-air and air-carrier.
• Add a combat weapon parameter that allows for a projectile that is not going to do any damage to have a "miss" radius. The helps spread out projectiles when there are a lot of attackers, but only one or two targets.
• Modding: Fix the hard-coded length of the promotions boolean array.
• Modding: Provide a way for Lua to query if the UI is in "Touch Screen" mode UI.IsTouchScreenEnabled().

WIN8 AND ULTRABOOK

• Many performance optimizations specifically targeted to Ultrabooks with Intel Core processors with HD Graphics. NOTE: You will want to update your Intel video driver if you are running Intel HD Graphics.
• New launcher button for Windows 8 Intel touch-enabled version.
• Touch/Gesture Support:
  
  • New “gesture” menu button on main menu, and when you bring up the main menu in-game.
  • New “gesture” menu button on main menu, and when you bring up the main menu in-game.
  • New sliders to control zoom and momentum speed in Options menu.
  • Single finger tap for all UI buttons.
  • Single finger drag for scroll bars or two fingers together swiping to scroll menus by gesture.
  • Single-finger touch and drag to see tool-tips (terrain, UI, etc.).
  • Pinch and expand finger for camera zoom.
  • Two fingers dragging together moves map.
  • Three finger tap is “escape” (from other menus, or to bring up Main Menu).
  • Unit Control:
    
    • Single-finger tap to select unit, and then drag to issue a movement order, or...
    • Double-tap to enter “movement mode”.
    • Once in movement mode, single-tap on destination to issue an order, or touch and drag to preview movement path.

[stethnorun]

Restart Game! WOOOOO!

[Mega-Dolphin]

Lots of people will be happy with this. Restart map, diplomacy improvements, better AI, improved performance, UI revisions... I'm really looking forward to this. Thanks Greg!

[stethnorun]

Um: "Follower and Pantheon beliefs provide Local Happiness; Founder beliefs provide Global Happiness"

What the hell is "local happiness"?

[MadDjinn]

Restart Game! WOOOOO!

that's it, really?

[MadDjinn]

Um: "Follower and Pantheon beliefs provide Local Happiness; Founder beliefs provide Global Happiness"

What the hell is "local happiness"?

It's a concept that has always existed in the game, but was never really used until G&K.

'local happiness' is the happiness generated from buildings (not wonders) and is used to negate the population unhappiness in the specific city (Ie, circus/theatre, etc). Basically - no matter the source, if it comes from a building, it's 'local' and only helps with being able to put more population into a city.

[Mega-Dolphin]

I think it's city-produced happiness. Luxuries (and policies?) add happiness to the civ-wide happiness count while local happiness is limited by city population. I know many happiness buildings cannot produce more happiness than the unhappiness that the city produces, so a city cannot net an increase in civ happiness. I suppose local happiness is related to this.

Edit: MadDjinn has a better explanation.

[stethnorun]

Ah. So bonus happiness must always come from social policies, wonders and luxuries. I get it.

[stethnorun]

that's it, really?

Hey, it's just the thing that got me most excited at a glance. I'm also really psyched for the Diplo changes as well, now that I've read through it a bit more.

[Taciturn Scot]

<Whew!> That's a really amazing looking list of changes and improvements. I'll look forward to getting that later this year. Fall ends in November, right?

[MadDjinn]

<Whew!> That's a really amazing looking list of changes and improvements. I'll look forward to getting that later this year. Fall ends in November, right?

technically December.

[Joketa]

Grand Temple National Wonder is a good addition to us tall folks.

[CanuckSoldier]

Not one fix for MP greg? Very disappointing.....

CS

[jpbar81]

I just finished reading these nicely organized patch notes and I'm blown away. So many awesome things; I can't wait! Pillaging (and actually being pillaged) is going to be more fun. I'm also glad the AI's will know how to expand a bit better and will space their cities a tad bit further when needed. Also, it looks like my old rants on the acquisition of sea tiles via culture "may" have caught some ears, lol. I'm also happy I'll be able to properly disable unit cycling once again. Again, lots of great stuff...

Now I'll just hope for the Zulu to be the DLC (or one of) that becomes available alongside the release of the patch!

[istry555]

Not to sound ungrateful, and I do love the changes, but once again not a single fix to the many many problems that have been plaguing MP...

[Pouakai]

It seems to me that those who play MP are always wanting improvements to their game, how about we get something for SP as well?

[Tahitian Moon]

AI: More aggressive offshore expansion

Cool

[istry555]

It seems to me that those who play MP are always wanting improvements to their game, how about we get something for SP as well?

I didn't say that the patch should be 100% focused on MP, but really how is your response even valid when this patch is 100% SP with not one MP improvement? (Not to mention almost every patch has always been almost completely SP with barely any MP). Where is the as well you mentioned?

Let me revise your statement, "It seems to me that those who play SP are always getting improvements to their game, how about we get something for MP as well?"

MP players are always wanting improvements because, unlike you SP players, we've never actually gotten any real attention to core MP issues and problems.

[sectoid]

Great news, TY Greg!

Lots of stuff there I didn't even know existed. It's nice to know Firaxis is still working on the game, now I'm just anxious to hear about the next DLC/expansion

[lietkynes]

• Better “Next Unit” selection. Previously, the camera would jump great distances to select the next unit that needs orders, when a closer unit was available.
• Two top-of-screen messages added to explain what is going on with intercepts (one for if the attacking air unit is eliminated, and another if he is just damaged).
• Advanced settings are now persisted across multiple single player games.

Thanks god, finally !

[tfordp]

Some great changes there, thanks for the list.

It's a pity it's only for NA though. Could we Europeans have an Autumn Patch, please? And maybe those in the south could get a Spring Patch? Great, thanks.

[lavenders2]

This list looks amazing and I definitely love the fact that they are still working on this game. But I have a few questions about some of the changes.

Firstly, with diplomacy. So they added more peace deals, but the problem is the AI never wants to go any higher than white peace for some reason. I had China down to its last city, and had it surrounded, and China was only willing to white peace. Am I doing something wrong? What are the conditions that trigger better peace deals?

Secondly with more aggressive offshore expansion. So if I have read this correctly, does this mean that the AI will try to colonize overseas now? I just want to be sure.

But otherwise this patch looks really cool. Wouldn't mind if the AI were just a bit more peaceful though...

[SamBC]

Local happiness is capped at population, not population unhappiness, which are different.

Though I believe India is now a special case, so they aren't the ultimate ICS civ any more.

[anandus]

A great list, very happy with this patch!

Some great changes there, thanks for the list.

It's a pity it's only for NA though. Could we Europeans have an Autumn Patch, please? And maybe those in the south could get a Spring Patch? Great, thanks.

Only North America? Oh, that's a shame

[alcibiades]

Also implemented a new factor: Attempting a coup in a location where there is no defending spy (the current ally does not have a spy there) is >=2x as likely to work as it would if there was a spy there.

Many good things here, but this will probably make me turn of Espionage permanently, or at least until a complete Espionage rework is done. I'm already fed up with constant AI coups in city-states, and having chances for succes doubled seems likely to make this unberable.

[JohnBigOz]

I'm very happy with this patch, it adresses plenty of issues, but be prepared, there will always be some moans xD.

Now, the only thing I'm waiting to hear is the addition of Denoucements/proper DoFs, notification fixes for dead players (they don't show up anymore), War Music playing (tends to loop around one music), and proper notifications for Hotseat (like city state allegience changes between EACH player, era changes for each player etc). And I'll be super-duper happy

[sectoid]

It's a pity it's only for NA though. Could we Europeans have an Autumn Patch, please?

Where exactly did you read that this patch is for NA only? I didn't see anything suggesting such thing. Or am I blind?

If it is, I'm really dissapointed.

[KayTeEm]

It's a pity it's only for NA though.

Just skimmed the notes again.
Where does it say "NA only" ?

[tfordp]

Only North America? Oh, that's a shame

Where exactly did you read that this patch is for NA only? I didn't see anything suggesting such thing. Or am I blind?

If it is, I'm really dissapointed.

Just skimmed the notes again.
Where does it say "NA only" ?

It doesn't say it anywhere. It's a 'Fall' patch. We don't have 'Fall' in Europe, we have Autumn. And in the southern hemisphere it's Spring.

You guys forgot to turn on the irony meters?

[anandus]

Owwww.. Damn those Brits with their British humor! (Or should I say humour? )

[sectoid]

It doesn't say it anywhere. It's a 'Fall' patch. We don't have 'Fall' in Europe, we have Autumn. And in the southern hemisphere it's Spring.

You guys forgot to turn on the irony meters?

Maybe you should be more careful with your jokes on a matter this important & serious.

[SamBC]

I spy an implication that there is to be touchscreen support... but not a statement that there will be.

[Martin_K]

...

Firstly, with diplomacy. So they added more peace deals, but the problem is the AI never wants to go any higher than white peace for some reason. I had China down to its last city, and had it surrounded, and China was only willing to white peace. Am I doing something wrong? What are the conditions that trigger better peace deals?
...

as far as i know, the AI will never offer more than a white peace if you were at war with them before, accepted gold/gpt/resources etc. to agree to peace and then attacked them "soon" after the peace deal ended. i guess this was implemented to prevent excessive exploiting of weakling civs - you can DOW them once and get their money, but if you DOW them again you'll have to take their stuff the hard way (or accept "white peace")

on topic: sounds great - lots of exciting little improvements. looking forward to the patch.

i laughed when i read the "battleships lost the 33% vs. cities" - i guess some of the devs also follow MadDjinn's let's play series i think it was the Carthage game where he repeatedly pointed out that Battleshpis really don't need that bonus.

[the_only_normal_1]

Wow. Thanks Firaxis/Greg. This looks fantastic.

Some little voice inside says that there will be a couple of civs released at or around the same time as this patch -- call me crazy

[MadDjinn]

as far as i know, the AI will never offer more than a white peace if you were at war with them before, accepted gold/gpt/resources etc. to agree to peace and then attacked them "soon" after the peace deal ended. i guess this was implemented to prevent excessive exploiting of weakling civs - you can DOW them once and get their money, but if you DOW them again you'll have to take their stuff the hard way (or accept "white peace")

It's also fixed with the 'deal breaker' bug fix listed above. Ie, if you DoWd the same civ twice, the AIs thought you weren't worth anything other than a white peace even if you didn't break a deal in the process.

i laughed when i read the "battleships lost the 33% vs. cities" - i guess some of the devs also follow MadDjinn's let's play series i think it was the Carthage game where he repeatedly pointed out that Battleshpis really don't need that bonus.

They didn't need to watch my LPs to get that bit of information

[alcibiades]

About the Peace Offer modifications - I did think more levels were needed, but I'm kind of dissappointed that only one level was made between "White Flag" and the "Settlement" that gives ALL Gold and ALL GPT. Conversely to what was stated above, I think it is VERY easy to make the AI offer a settlement, and I think there's far more need for subdivisions of these finer levels than there is for subdivisions of the higher levels which will basically mean the AI has lost anyway.

[MadDjinn]

I spy an implication that there is to be touchscreen support... but not a statement that there will be.

This would be a statement that Win 8 touchscreen support is added:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=475900

[jpbar81]

• Better “Next Unit” selection. Previously, the camera would jump great distances to select the next unit that needs orders, when a closer unit was available.
• Two top-of-screen messages added to explain what is going on with intercepts (one for if the attacking air unit is eliminated, and another if he is just damaged).
• Advanced settings are now persisted across multiple single player games.

Thanks god, finally !

Whoa... I missed that one! That's also great news!

[Snerk]

Look great! Looking forward to it.

[SamBC]

This would be a statement that Win 8 touchscreen support is added:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=475900

I saw that, but it's not the same as a formal announcement from 2K. This patch notes are formally from 2K, and imply the touchscreen support (that we know from that interview is a Win8 thing).