How 1.17 will alter the civ's

[Worthingtons]

Right , well, certainly seems the new patch is going to have radical effects on Each Civ

The UU upgrade path,The Mounted Withdraw and of course, the despot pop-rush!

For my Civ, the Romans , it has several effects :-

UU upgrade path is very good, as when the game starts I can only build Warriors, I build a stack of these in a typical game, which , instead of being useless I can upgrade to Mighty Legions!

Because the Mounted Withdraw is less likely, Horsemen are less powerful, further lending power to my Legions, and taking power away from other civs with a Mounted UU

Despot pop rush has an absolutly massive negative effect , Legionares were the pop-rushers dream, perfect amount of shields meaning cities cranking them out every other turn. Oh well.

[Dinner]

I honestly didn't like the pop rush model any way. It had a way of unbalacing a game especially since humans could use it but the AI couldn't. Making UU upgradable makes perfect sense but it is going to make life a little more difficult for my Greek cities since a lot more legionaries and immortals will be heading my way...

[Aeson]

Well, how great a chance the Horse units have to withdraw will affect things tremendously. (edit: great and greatly in the same sentence? ick..) If it is a 50% chance for elites that is a huge difference than 90%. Pop rushing isn't completely gone judging from a post over at CivFanatics, but constant rushing would seem to be out. This weakens every Civ, but thats ok, the AI needed a boost.

Religious Civs - More powerful as switching governments earlier will be key. No more staying in Despotism until the end of time.

Military Civs - The chance of retreating is based on unit experience. Militaristic Civs will have more survivable moblile units. Also, cheaper Barracks will be more important as they can no longer be pop rushed for the same price by non-Militaristic civs.

Persians and Romans - Both a boost in power, early Warrior upgrades (10 sheilds, 20 gold) allow for circumventing the need to pop rush anyways.

Iroquois - Mounted Warrior actually becomes more powerful in relation to Horsemen. Religious makes them pretty strong even if the withdraw %'s are low.

Egyptians - War Chariots are still produced quite fast without pop rushing, but the withdraw roll may make them much less useful.

Japanese - Most powerful? Probably in the Middle Ages, barring really bad withdraw %'s. There wont be as many Horsemen left alive to upgrade though. Get upgrades to Samurai and both civ attributes boosts.

Chinese - Just like the Japanese, but without the Religious boost.

Russians - Same as Chinese, without the Military boost.

Germans - They were late game powers, and that shouldn't change at all. Their Panzers will be even better in comparison to non-militaristic Civs tanks.

Indians - They finally get Knights to upgrade to, War Elephants are no longer a negative at least.

Zulu - Take a big hit. No longer are Impi the only units that horses can't run from. Still should be the early "terrorist" kings, though the Greeks might compete.

Greeks - Hoplites will be more powerful as they can actually kill Horsemen now. Builder Civs in general should be more viable. They don't get any of the civ attribute help though.

Babylonians - Bowmen still aren't very good, but their strengths shouldn't be reduced much by new pop-rushing or withdraw rules.

Aztecs - Religious/Militaristic boosts offset the Jag Warriors decrease in power. Probably not a good idea to use Jag Warriors offensively in most situations.

Americans and English - Their UU's still suck, neither gets a boost from a civ attribute standpoint either. The poor just get poorer.

Overall, I would say the Persians and Iroquois stay at or near the top, being joined by the Japanese and Chinese. Most of this depends on withdrawl %'s though.

[Worthingtons]

Jap's look formidable now , depending on the withdraw, but I'm still sticking with my Legions

[Arrian]

Like you say, a lot of it depends on what the precentage chance of retreat is. But 1-move units did just get a relative power boost. Legions and Immortals were strong units, but I had little trouble whittling away at them with horsemen. Now that might be much more problematic.

As for the poprush unhappiness penalty, I wonder how much this would effect someone like me, who only uses poprush for the intial round of temples and libraries (as the Babs, it's 1 pop point once the city has contributed 1 shield for each of those improvements). Will the newly built temple still nullify the unhappiness effect of the rush, or is that the change?

The upgrade path changes will definitely help the Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Persians, and Romans. Warriors to Immortals... wow. I can see a real benifit to deliberately not connecting your iron, building a bunch of warriors (as many as you can afford the upgrade for) and then hooking it up. "Shift U"

These things help the human more than the AI, because the AI doesn't upgrade properly. Then again, it didn't poprush like some players, either.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Its hard to tell from what Firaxis has said, but it sounds like pop rushing will increase unhappiness incrimentally. 1 pop rush with a garrison will still be ok. 2 pop rushes would make the 1 citizen happy with 1 garrison. Shouldn't affect the builders at all, as the temple will still help itself. I could be wrong though. It might turn out that indefinite rushing is still possible, just needing 2 happy faces for each population point the rushing is occuring at. In that case it wouldn't change things much at all. Could also be that 1 citizen will be unhappy no matter what for 20 turns after each rush.

[Arrian]

Well, if one citizen is unhappy no matter what for 20 turns after a rush, that would even effect builders. My normal build orders for new cities: warrior, temple. The temple is rushed as soon as the city hits size 2 (unless it's nice and close to my capitol, and has little corruption). If that results in 20 turns of unhappiness for my one surviving citizen, OUCH.

We'll find out on Friday.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

Arrian, a temple costs 6 and can't be generally rushed so soon, unless you are playing only religious civs. As to the warrior, do you send your settlers unescorted? Just curious, because it seemed we both have a pretty close playstyle, but here we differ. I try to avoid this and thus mostly don't need to build a military unit first.

[Arrian]

Ralph - Yeah, I play religious civs just about every time. The Babylonians and Egyptains are my favorites.

Settlers do get escorted often - I don't like losing settlers to barbs. Sometimes I do send them alone, though, when I have patrolling "explorer" warriors near the intended city site and can thus protect my brave colonists anyway. In that case, the temple is often the first build. But I've found that building a warrior first allows me to keep patrolling for barbs with my "explorer" guys, add one more unit to deter the AI, and not really slow down the temple, as in most cases the city has hit size 2 just as it completes the warrior. One turn after that, *crack* the temple is rushed. Then it's usually a worker or two (cities close to the capitol, which haven't rushed their temples, build settlers) and then I usually have literature, so a library next.

I think getting your borders to influence 2 is really important... the sooner, the better. Thus, early temples are key. I really, really miss that when I play a non-religious civ.

-Arrian

[furbster]

dont laugh but could someone explain the despotism pop rush to me. and i love the romans

[Worthingtons]

Right, the pop rush is using forced labour (the button next to production queue) in despotism. If your city is producing 3+ food and has a granery, you used to be able to infinatly produce troops from these every other turn.

Stick with the Romans my friend!! , My Legionaires never let me down

[Thrawn05]

This patch shouldn't effect me when playing the germans. I want each and every civ that hurt me in one way or another to think about what they did to me before I raze all their cities in five turns.

[Worthingtons]

I thought you were a Fellow Roman Thrawn??

[Zachriel]

Expansionist Civs

Now that goody huts give more and better treasure, including settlers, expansionist civs have a new and powerful advantage.

[Worthingtons]

Yep , seems so.. especially if one gets Armies