Contrai
4281
It looks like all those map packs were the ones that were previously part of the pre-order bonus depending on which store you had purchased from.
So, it doesn’t look like they are releasing new content, just allowing people who wanted all the pre-order stuff to buy it now if they wanted.
Here’s the most authoritative answeron the D2D bonus that I can find:
Yeah, I figured the answer was going to be “Hold on for more info!” Bleh.
Back to the topic, these “map packs” are pretty ridiculous, but at least now the Steam forum people can complain about something other than the Trainz DLC.
Today, 2K Greg added a lot of additional items to the patch notes for the upcoming patch:
AI
[ul]
[li]AI will be more aggressive about pursuing Diplo victory if they are wealthy. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]AI more effective with building, moving, and using aircraft and anti-aircraft more effectively. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]AI more likely to effectively use siege units in a city attack. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Better nuke targeting by AI. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Tactical AI Tuning: Reduce chance of AI civs making “suicide” attacks. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Multiple tweaks and bug fixes. (Added 12/3)
[/li][/ul]
GAMEPLAY
[ul]
[li]Increased city strength ramp-up based on technology. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Catapults and Trebuchets now weaker against units but stronger VS cities, and reduced effectiveness of Archers & Crossbowmen (and their UUs) VS cities. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Have culture cost for policies never go down (trading away cities to reduce culture cost exploit). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Reduced effects of Forbidden Palace and Meritocracy (Happiness per city). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Reduced points from Wonders & Cities, increased points for population. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Reduced culture needed for first plot acquisition. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]New Building: Circus Maximus (National Wonder for happiness track). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]New Building: National Treasury (National Wonder for economic track). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Unhappiness beyond a certain point breeds rebels within your empire, based on the number of cities a player has. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Reduced amount of food needed for cities to grow at larger sizes. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Tradition branch balance (Landed Elite and Monarchy improvements). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Liberty branch balance (Settler training bonus now only applies to capital). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city (wonders are excluded from this). (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]3 new additional Natural Wonders added to gameplay, with accompanying “rarity” code. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Multiple Tech Tree tweaks to address “slingshot” tech exploits. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Killing a barb inside a city-state’s territory now gives a 5-turn buffer where there is no Influence intrusion penalty. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Reduced and balanced combat bonuses. (Added 12/3)
[/li][/ul]
UI
[ul]
[li]Additional updates to the Global Politics screen. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Added game option to disable turn-blocking promotions and policy choices. (Added 12/3)
[/li][/ul]
DIPLO
[ul]
[li]Additional AI attitude tool-tips for cases that were not already covered. (Added 12/3)
[/li][/ul]
MODDING
[ul]
[li]Support for mods that perform major restructuring of the tech tree including adding, deleting, and updating techs, buildings, and units. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Added GameEvents system for overriding Gameplay DLL specific functionality. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Fixed “Reload Landmark System” mod flag to now refresh landmarks defined in “ArtDefine_Landmarks”. (Added 12/3)
[/li][li]Multiple SDK Updates (details to come with full patch notes). (Added 12/3)
[/li][/ul]
jpinard
4285
Looks good. If they could just sneak in end-game replays they’d have some really happy Civ fans whenever this finally comes out.
Well, that should kill the ICS good and dead.
Thanks Mysterio!
Played my first game of Civ 5 today, via the free-form tutorial option. Pretty enjoyable just to mess around and turn the landscape from wilderness into a patchwork of farms and mines. And it was really cool to see a world war break out over a city-state! On the other hand, the AI didn’t seem to take good care of its ranged units…
I guess this means the AI will now finally attempt to ally with city states, rather than just conquer them all…
AI more effective with building, moving, and using aircraft and anti-aircraft more effectively. (Added 12/3)
And maybe the AI will even build aircraft!!
Unhappiness beyond a certain point breeds rebels within your empire, based on the number of cities a player has. (Added 12/3)
I suppose this means rebel units similar to barbarians? Sounds cool.
Added game option to disable turn-blocking promotions and policy choices. (Added 12/3)
Boo, they caved! At least the game should call everyone who checks this option a cheating cheapskate. :)
I assume you’re referring to this point:
Buildings can now no longer provide more Happiness than there is population in a city
Since I’m not using ICS myself, let’s see if I understand this correctly: every new city incurs a happiness penalty both for itself and for its population, and now only the latter part can be compensated by non-wonders, so ICS would leave you with a huge happiness penalty due to the number of cities… is that it?
Sounds like happiness will generally go down quite significantly even if you’re building only a few cities, though. Probably not a bad idea since I have routinely absurd levels of happiness (40-50 or more) during late game on 4-player maps.
I believe the limitation is the following:
If you have a city that has a population of 2 and a building that can provide a happiness boost of 3, you can only get 2 happiness out of that particular building. This limits the effectiveness of just creating “happiness factories” to offset penalties elsewhere in your empire.
Hellcat
4292
Not to mention the reduced effects of forbidden palace and meritocracy. I play without ICS and love growing cities big, so this is good, but Im worried there wont be enough happiness around to pull it off without heavily investing on happiness buildings which will take a billion years to build.
Im mostly indifferent at this point, just put out a patch already, more info on the future patch means nothing if its not out.
But that was never the point of ICS, was it? The more important limitation seems to be that you can no longer reduce unhappiness from the number (as opposed to size) of cities at all, except with wonders and luxury goods.
Um … no. That’s not how I read it at all. I think it’s because you’re focused on ICS, while I’m focused on the patch notes. (as an aside, I had to google ICS to even know what it meant in the first place, so I’m not to familiar with the strategy). That patch notes read that you have to own a bigger city to get the full benefits from happiness buildings. I don’t see how that inhibits you from reducing happiness from the number of cities.
Correct.
The defining thing about ICS was that even without meritocracy, the Forbidden Palace, or Planned Economy, a size-2 city was happiness neutral with a Colosseum. +4 happiness, -2 for population, -2 for number of cities. You could have an infinite number of such cities, and they generated a lot of science if they ran Scientists instead of working the land. It wasn’t about spillover, it was that these cities had no happiness cost.
Under the new rule, cities cannot be happiness neutral unless you completely offset the 2 unhappiness per city with wonders and social policies. Since both Meritocracy and the Forbidden Palace are nerfed, I’m guessing they don’t remove the penalty entirely as they used to. Possibly Meritocracy, Forbidden Palace, and Planned Economy together might, just as they currently give a net +1 happiness per city.
I’m OK with the change, though I think the whole global-unhappiness mechanic is far inferior as a curb to runaway growth to the Civ IV city upkeep approach.
Your “Correct” was in answer to me, not Dan, if I read your post correctly?
And you could build another happiness structure in each city, correct? I think the goal is to make such sprawl more expensive to manage and therefore slow the strategy down as opposed to making it completely untenable (just speculation until we get our hands on the patch, of course). I’m still not getting the issue.
Every city has a -2 happiness penalty (normally) before you add population.
A size 2 city has -2 happiness from its mere existence and another -2 from its population. Build a colosseum for +4 happiness, and you have zero happiness penalty from that city. Generally speaking, you can entirely eliminate a city’s happiness penalty by building happiness buildings that produce n+2 happiness where n is the city’s population.
Now that buildings can maximally provide +n happiness, there is no way at all to eliminate a city’s base -2 penalty via buildings.
Colosseaum = +4
Theater = +4
Circus = +3
Stadium = +4
+15 happiness, all of which can be acheived in a size 4 city.
I really think I’m missing something in the translation, here.
But not after the upcoming patch! The patch notes say that happiness added by buildings in a city cannot exceed the population of that city, so you get only +4 happiness from all your buildings in a size 4 city, ever.
