Warlords patch

[Dis]

what are the improvements that Blake did? I believe I read one thread about the city placement. I can't remember the exact improvements.

[ColdPhoenix]

Excellent!! Was just wondering about the patch yesterday.

A lot of the changes I like have been mentioned already. Another couple I like are the thresholds for Great Generals being fixed. No longer will I spend an almost entire epic game in one war or another and only get two great generals!!

Also, stopping the cities overstarving themselves. That was a silly change for Warlords and I'm glad it's removed!

[Nugog]

Blake



BTW are you getting % commision or a fixed sum cheque?





But with the AI that good - I am definetly going to have to go back to Settler!

Cheiftain will be too hard

[Addled Platypus]

good thing I DL Blakes tweaks early on, might go for one higher than settler

Dan Quayle

[Nugog]

Originally posted by Platypus Rex
good thing I DL Blakes tweaks early on, might go for one higher than settler

Dan Quayle

[Saurus]

Originally posted by Blake



Creative gets cheap Libraries
This is a pretty cool change. It means even earlier academies and even stronger border pushes.

This is going to make all the difference when playing on a crowded pangea map.
Creative will be very, very powerful now.

[Solver]

Something Alex forgot to mention is that not only the Worker AI is improved, there have also been great improvement to the Worker automation AI, courtesy of Blake. That is, the AI uses its Workers significantly better now, but any Workers you automate also finally do not suck .

[Diadem]

The power of Organized is first and foremost in that it has the best cheap buildings. The courthouse is a good cost to be cheap - buildings like the granary, barracks and theatre are cheap enough normally that being cheap isn't a huge saving - like they can be whipped from a size 4 city (a typical happy cap at higher difficulties). An organized courthouse, can be whipped form a size 4 city, versus a size 8 city for non-org - that's huge! Absoutely huge!

Okay, I agree here. That's a rather nice bonus. Courthouses are important buildings, after all. But is that enough to make organized comparable with other traits?

And still, the problem remains: Courthouses are important when you already have quite a few cities. With just 3-4 cities they are still rather insignificant and I'd take a market or grocer over a courthouse any time. With 10 cities courthouses are suddenly very important. But if you expanded to 10 cities, without overexpanding yourself, then you've already won anyway, and you don't need that organized trait anymore. Unless you built those cities are bad locations, which you shouldn't do

Same for building lighthouses in abysnal cities. If you don't build abysmal cities you won't have that problem in the first place

If you overexpand in the early game, or you build lots of abysmal cities, then organized is a useful trait. But for good players who place their cities well, and treat them well, organized is just not that useful. It's bonus only starts getting significant when you're already so strong that you are winning anyway.

[Metaliturtle]

some of us like to go for the conquest victory

[JackRudd]

Sometimes you need to build a fishing village, and there's nowhere better than that city site in the middle of nowhere that has no production squares to speak of but clam and crabs in its fat cross. Might as well rush a lighthouse in one of those so that, even if it gives you sod-all production, you pick up some commerce from it.

[MasterDave]

Originally posted by Diadem


Okay, I agree here. That's a rather nice bonus. Courthouses are important buildings, after all. But is that enough to make organized comparable with other traits?

And still, the problem remains: Courthouses are important when you already have quite a few cities. With just 3-4 cities they are still rather insignificant and I'd take a market or grocer over a courthouse any time. With 10 cities courthouses are suddenly very important. But if you expanded to 10 cities, without overexpanding yourself, then you've already won anyway, and you don't need that organized trait anymore. Unless you built those cities are bad locations, which you shouldn't do

Same for building lighthouses in abysnal cities. If you don't build abysmal cities you won't have that problem in the first place

If you overexpand in the early game, or you build lots of abysmal cities, then organized is a useful trait. But for good players who place their cities well, and treat them well, organized is just not that useful. It's bonus only starts getting significant when you're already so strong that you are winning anyway.

I disagree that expanding to 10 cities is automatic victory. I have played many games both multi and against the AI where I expanded and conquered too much too soon and limped along with a science rate as low as 30-40% for long periods of time until some courthouses got built. The other players used this time to build a tech lead and power superiority (I was forced to make courthouses and marketplaces rather than troops), and later on were able to take me on in dogpiles.

Had I been organized in those games, my economy would have been far stronger and the courthouses I needed would not have taken nearly as long to build. Organized is simply one of the best traits for would be domination or conquest victories.

[LordShiva]

Augustus

[Tau Ceti]

Originally posted by Diadem

And still, the problem remains: Courthouses are important when you already have quite a few cities. With just 3-4 cities they are still rather insignificant and I'd take a market or grocer over a courthouse any time.

I disagree. By the time you have built 4 cities on Emperor, your economy is bleeding. It even takes quite long to research Code of Laws in this situation. Currency is even further away and there is no way you have Guilds at 4 cities.

At the same time, you really need to expand quickly if you are to get any territory at all, because the AIs spread like weeds. Organized really shines here, both because it reduces the cost and because it allows you to build courthouses in your rather puny cities at a decent pace.

Anyway, you are the first person I have seen to claim that Organized is underpowered, which is why I was even more puzzled that Firaxis felt it needed a boost. In most posts here, Organized has been considered among the stronger traits.

[LordShiva]

Organised is the best trait. Now it's slightly better

(but only just - Factories don't come into play until the late game)

[zeace]

Organized has always been great early, an it's the only way if you rush an opponent or two before you really get your own economy up. But once you have a few villages and marketplaces running, it became far less useful. It still let you run Vassalage and Theocracy and Police State, but usually it was just a very weak Financial. Factories will make it a more useful trait later in the game.

The new expansive will be a lot more fun to play on non-insane difficulty levels. Even at Prince, you seldom run into the health cap, so expansive was really just about fast granaries (not that there's anything wrong with that). This was a lot less powerful than most traits. Now, with the worker bonus, at least it does something for the whole game.