1.17f strategy

[DrSpike]

A little premature perhaps

However, I find myself wondering how strategies will change. I guess dominators will miss early rushing, I'm guessing civs like the Egyptians/Aztecs with cheap early UUs are going to be popular. No rushing will alter spacing decisions for dominators as well, no more pseudo ICS with packed cities with access to one 2-food square. It depends how severe the change is, but I don't think 2 move attackers will be any less popular.

Strategy for early landers isn't going to change too much, the early game will just be a little slower. No matter what your persuasion despotism will suck, so the Monarchy/Rep debates can start again in earnest. Probs still best to beeline for the representative govts.

[Blaupanzer]

The civs with later UUs are the beneficiaries of that change, as they now don't have a "skipped" generation. Early UUs already do upgrade to the next gen, but knight substitutes interrupt the progress from horseman to knight (read UU) to cav. Now the horsemen can upgrade to Samurai, War Elephant, etc.

[DrSpike]

Good point, but whether the change favours say the Egyptians over say the japanese depends on how soon you want to conquer..........

Also my post was a little unclear. The bit about 2 move attackers refers to the lower propensity for them to disengage in 1.17f

[Aeson]

Where was the announcement of what is in the patch released? Or is this just speculation about what will be in the patch?

If UU's are allowed to be upgraded to, that would make the Japanese, Chinese, Russians, and Indians much more viable civs.

[Worthingtons]

And Romans, means Warriors (which we all produce to start with) can be upgraded to Legions

[Ironikinit]

Aeson, the readme is in a sticky thread in general over at CivFanatics.

[Aeson]

Ah I found it. A lot of good changes. I hope the "Fixed bug with the cleanup pollution order." means that more than 2 workers will auto-stack per pollution tile.

A few impressions:

Flood plains are next to worthless now.
The pace of the end game quickened.
Despotism almost worthless as it should be.
Horse units are no longer immortal, real combined arms finally.

[Dinner]

One thing is for sure; the pre-v1.17f strategies will have to be totally reworked post-v1.17f.

[DrSpike]

Hence this thread!

[Aeson]

I don't think it will make that much difference in any overall strategies, just make them harder to implement. Pop rushing never was a strategy, just a means of production useful in implementing warlike ones. For warmongers, the military buildup will just take longer, and maybe require more bombardment support even for mobile unit rushes. Military tactics will still be much the same though, and warfare will still be the most effective way to catch up to the AI on higher difficulty levels. The same basic principles of building up your military quickly, and using conquest to gain tech equality will remain the same.

Builders shouldn't be affected much at all. Usually the only things a pure builder pop-rushes would be a temple and/or library anyways.

[DrSpike]

Well my original post was about the things that _will_ definitely change, such as choice of civ and early govt.

[Aeson]

One thing is for sure; the pre-v1.17f strategies will have to be totally reworked post-v1.17f.

I was commenting on Oerdin's post, sorry if that was unclear. I agree that staying in Despotism for very long is a bad idea now. The relative power between many of the Civs and attributes has changed too. Namely, Religious and Militaristic Civs get a boost, as do those with new upgrade paths to their UU's. The Japanese would seem to have been helped the most, as they take advantage of all 3 of those.

[DrSpike]

When I started the thread I thought more points would get made. But you're right, the points made early on in the thread are probably the only big changes.

Not quite a strat change, but I think deity will be harder. I haven't played a deity game for a couple of weeks; I have instead been following the tourney games. Might be worth another look at deity post patch.

[solo]

I can't see anything but improvements to the game with this newest patch. A few major exploits that distorted the game have been removed and many player complaints have been addressed by several of the changes. Best are several fixes relieving players of some tedium characteristic of previous versions.

[Worthingtons]

hmm, for some of us pop-rushing was a way of life

Anyway, my new stratagy will be to get a city to pump out warriors for fun (a good city can do this at Least once every 2 turns if not once every turn) and make SURE i get the Great Library, so I can afford to upgrade my zillion warriors to Legionaries