A few random observations

[Catt]

I bought Conquests today and have read the manual and installed the game. I'm now just about to play a first game to try out some of the new features, but spent some time roaming through the editor and the civilopedia first. Came across a few interesting tidbits about which I haven't seen any comments.

Disclaimer: as stated above, the following are based upon editor and civilopedia tours, not actual gameplay nor experience as a beta tester.

1. Pottery is everywhere. I am late to the (fairly widely adopted) view that pottery, and granaries, are immensely powerful. Over the past 4 - 6 months I have routinely started games with max research on pottery so I can build a granary in my capitol city. Six of the seven new civs have pottery as a starting tech. This is mostly due to the introduction of the new agricultural trait (several new civs have it) but also means that everyone whom has grown accustomed to researching pottery early won't be doing so with most of the new civs - freeing up early research for other opportunities.

2. The "Facism" government is powerful in supressing resistance in newly-conquered cities, but is weak at assimilating foreign citizens. The end result, given Facism's "xenophobic" flag, would seem to help reduce resistance more quickly and to encourage (slightly more than 'normal') starvation thereafter. [Since the xenophobic flag eliminates cultural expansion before majority control of a city by native citizens, a popular defense against culture flipping is to reduce the population and expand cultural borders.]

3. Shakespeare's Theater now operates as a hospital in addition to the 8 content citizens (widely publicized) but also cannot be built in a city of less than 7 population. Probably limited impact, but I've used the occassional extra leader to rush Shake's with nothing better available, sometimes in a small town (less than 7 pop) with great potential once the war ends and the palace relocation has a chance to take effect. This impact is further limited by the change to the power of military GLs.

4. Collateral damage. "Collateral damage" is now an editor-accessible unit capability flag, but no unit in the standard game is so enabled. The "collateral damage" civilopedia entry is: "An attack by a unit with the "Collateral Damage" capability can potentially damage improvements in the attacked square during the attack, representing damage to improvements, local structures, or residents due to combat (but not necessarily due to bombardment). " Presumably the "collatral damage" ability is enabled in one of the Conquest scenarios.

5. Tourist Attraction. The commerce advantage enabled by older wonders is not a simple one- or two-step function -- there is a scale from +2 commerce to +14 commerce that steps up at +2 intervals which means 7 different levels of "tourist commerce," beginning with +2 after 1000 years and maxing out at +14 commerce at 2501 years.

6. Volcanoes. They may or may not offer warning of eruption (smoldering effects for 2 turns prior). In other words, they can erupt without warning.

7. Chopping forests. The worker investment to clear forest has changed dramatically (cut in half). It now takes a worker longer to build a mine on grasslands than to chop a forest tile.

Okay - enough from the manual, civilopedia, and editor, now to start a game with all the new civs and test out both the Ag trait and the enslavement ability of the Mayan Jav thrower . . .

Catt

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Catt
1. Pottery is everywhere.

Here's hoping the AI builds more Granaries because of it...

3. Shakespeare's Theater now operates as a hospital in addition to the 8 content citizens (widely publicized) but also cannot be built in a city of less than 7 population. Probably limited impact, but I've used the occassional extra leader to rush Shake's with nothing better available, sometimes in a small town (less than 7 pop) with great potential once the war ends and the palace relocation has a chance to take effect. This impact is further limited by the change to the power of military GLs.

The idea here is to cater to all those "Super City" lovers, which is definitely a better strategy now (building one big city, not catering to those who like to...). I'm still doubtful this is worth the detour to Free Artistry.

5. Tourist Attraction. The commerce advantage enabled by older wonders is not a simple one- or two-step function -- there is a scale from +2 commerce to +14 commerce that steps up at +2 intervals which means 7 different levels of "tourist commerce," beginning with +2 after 1000 years and maxing out at +14 commerce at 2501 years.

As pointed out elsewhere, 1000 years is a long time to wait for a few Commerce. Still, it's free, so why complain?

Does this ability scale well with difficulty level? On the one hand, games last longer at lower difficulties. On the other, Wonders get completed sooner at the higher difficulties.

6. Volcanoes. They may or may not offer warning of eruption (smoldering effects for 2 turns prior). In other words, they can erupt without warning.

A Volcano produces 3 Shields without improvement. That's actually pretty strong in the early-game. Just avoid renaming your Volcano-adjacent city to Pompeii and everything should be fine...

7. Chopping forests. The worker investment to clear forest has changed dramatically (cut in half). It now takes a worker longer to build a mine on grasslands than to chop a forest tile.

Probably the most "in your face" change to the standard game, along with Curraghs and (of course) the new traits. The new Forest Chop throws off a lot of hard-learned early-game math.

Okay - enough from the manual, civilopedia, and editor, now to start a game with all the new civs and test out both the Ag trait and the enslavement ability of the Mayan Jav thrower . . .

Enjoy!


Dominae

[alexman]

Originally posted by Dominae

Here's hoping the AI builds more Granaries because of it...

If the AI builds more Granaries, it will be because they tweaked the AI in C3C, not because it gets Pottery earlier. In PTW, the AI built Granaries only when a city had a serious food shortage (which is actually when you get the least food leverage from a Granary, but that's a whole other can of worms with the AI's terrible happiness management of large cities...)

A Volcano produces 3 Shields without improvement. That's actually pretty strong in the early-game.

Does that take into account the Despotism penalty?

[Catt]

Originally posted by Dominae

[. . . re: Shakespeare's Theater] I'm still doubtful this is worth the detour to Free Artistry.

I don't imagine it would be, but I find the tweak (if it exists in gameplay) to require a city rather thn a town to build the wonder curious.

As pointed out elsewhere, 1000 years is a long time to wait for a few Commerce. Still, it's free, so why complain?

Does this ability scale well with difficulty level? On the one hand, games last longer at lower difficulties. On the other, Wonders get completed sooner at the higher difficulties.

I agree that it appears to be a "freebie." No extra incentive to build any specific wonder, but a welcome little bonus. Do captured wonders provide tourist commerce?

A Volcano produces 3 Shields without improvement. That's actually pretty strong in the early-game. Just avoid renaming your Volcano-adjacent city to Pompeii and everything should be fine...

3 shields but no food. I haven't found one yet, but I have been generally hard-pressed to utilize 0-food tiles early in a game. Maybe the Ag trait and helpful terrain makes this more powerful.

Catt

[Thoth]

Originally posted by Catt

3. Shakespeare's Theater now operates as a hospital in addition to the 8 content citizens (widely publicized) but also cannot be built in a city of less than 7 population. Probably limited impact, but I've used the occassional extra leader to rush Shake's with nothing better available, sometimes in a small town (less than 7 pop) with great potential once the war ends and the palace relocation has a chance to take effect. This impact is further limited by the change to the power of military GLs.

The city limitation isn't much of a limit. By the late Middle Ages I've got more than enough workers to pump up a town to size 7 in one turn. Practically speaking this may take several turns in order to get all of the workers to your chosen site, but if you've got a Scientific GL hanging about and you really need Shakespeare's in that size 1 border town, you can do it.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by alexman
If the AI builds more Granaries, it will be because they tweaked the AI in C3C, not because it gets Pottery earlier.

Yeah, I was just sort of kidding with my comment. More Pottery just means better starts for human players.

Does that take into account the Despotism penalty?

As far as I recall, yes (I still do not own the retail copy).


Dominae

[The Rusty Gamer]

A population minimum for some buildings?

Does this now mean there is a population minumum prerrequisite for buildings in the editor? If this is the case, then that Colonization emulation mod gets one step closer to reality...

[dexters]

Ah, Catt, Alexman and the crew is back. Will any of you be starting an AI observations thread over at the Strategy forum just as you guys did with PTW?

[alva]

I'm afraid so....

[Stuie]

Originally posted by Dominae
A Volcano produces 3 Shields without improvement. That's actually pretty strong in the early-game. Just avoid renaming your Volcano-adjacent city to Pompeii and everything should be fine...

I renamed mine "Herculaneum".

[Faboba]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Catt [QUOTE]

The end result, given Facism's "xenophobic" flag, would seem to help reduce resistance more quickly and to encourage (slightly more than 'normal') starvation thereafter.

Guess this means we'll be using our fascists purely for self-defense.

3. Shakespeare's Theater now operates as a hospital in addition to the 8 content citizens (widely publicized) but also cannot be built in a city of less than 7 population.

This is more important than at first it sounds - if you can set a minimum pop to build Shakespeare's theatre then you should be able to do likewise for other wonders ( even if the option isn't in the editor, it is coded in so a patch could easily fix that ). This means if you feel that certain wonders should only be reserved for important cities rather than places the AI simply wasn't doing anything with for thirty turns or so you can limit the tendancy for tiny no-name cities building wonders by setting a fairly high minimum pop to build. I'd imagine.

5. Tourist Attraction. The commerce advantage enabled by older wonders is not a simple one- or two-step function -- there is a scale from +2 commerce to +14 commerce that steps up at +2 intervals which means 7 different levels of "tourist commerce," beginning with +2 after 1000 years and maxing out at +14 commerce at 2501 years.

That's not particularly useful but I assume it can always be edited. Damn designers and their wish to preserve game balance .

6. Volcanoes. They may or may not offer warning of eruption (smoldering effects for 2 turns prior). In other words, they can erupt without warning.

I assume you can place them using the editor, yes?

7. Chopping forests. The worker investment to clear forest has changed dramatically (cut in half). It now takes a worker longer to build a mine on grasslands than to chop a forest tile.

Thank. God.

[MrWhereItsAt]

Originally posted by Catt
I bought Conquests today and have read the manual and installed the game. I'm now just about to play a first game to try out some of the new features

Lucky sod.

4. Collateral damage. "Collateral damage" is now an editor-accessible unit capability flag, but no unit in the standard game is so enabled. The "collateral damage" civilopedia entry is: "An attack by a unit with the "Collateral Damage" capability can potentially damage improvements in the attacked square during the attack, representing damage to improvements, local structures, or residents due to combat (but not necessarily due to bombardment). " Presumably the "collatral damage" ability is enabled in one of the Conquest scenarios.

I wonder if this will include other units in the same square or not?

5. Tourist Attraction. The commerce advantage enabled by older wonders is not a simple one- or two-step function -- there is a scale from +2 commerce to +14 commerce that steps up at +2 intervals which means 7 different levels of "tourist commerce," beginning with +2 after 1000 years and maxing out at +14 commerce at 2501 years.

Nothing spectacular, but the earlier you build the wonder the better. It is a shame that this isn't more turn-based though, as in RL Wonders that still exist and have done so for considerably less than 1000 years are fantastic tourist attractions (Statue of Liberty, Sistine Chapel). Perhaps this can be changed in the editor, but I doubt it.

6. Volcanoes. They may or may not offer warning of eruption (smoldering effects for 2 turns prior). In other words, they can erupt without warning.

So you just have to keep watch on the map? I hope you get a pop-up when one starts smoking, else you could be surprised by a sudden eruption without warning...

7. Chopping forests. The worker investment to clear forest has changed dramatically (cut in half). It now takes a worker longer to build a mine on grasslands than to chop a forest tile.

So although the chop gives you an even quicker boost to builds, it is a harder choice because getting good shield terrain back with mining grass takes longer... interesting. I wonder if mining plains takes longer too? I sometimes clear forest and mine the resultant plains if I am hard up for shields.

[Arrian]

So 5 turns for a standard worker to chop a forest (down from 10) and therefore... 4 turns for an industrious worker?

4-5 turns of worker action for 10 shields (assuming they haven't changed that bonus) is a damn good deal.

Volcanoes scare me. The thought of having a core city wiped out by one...

"Pottery is everywhere" is fine by me, I usually researched that at 100% right away if I wasn't Expansionist. Hey, have the starting techs for the civs been shuffled at all? For instance, I got the impression that Seafaring civs will start with the Alphabet (correct me if I'm wrong). If that's the case, have commercial civs been switched to something else, or do they still start with Alphabet?

-Arrian

[FrustratedPoet]

Don't you have the game yet then, Arrian? (are you waiting for the postman to arrive with it, or waiting to read reviews from posters here before buying? )

[FrustratedPoet]

I'm also frightened by Volcanoes, but they sound like fun too. The change to chopping speed will certainly make all those micro-management rules I never learnt obsolete.

[Arrian]

I'm waiting for that postman. Or rather for Amazon to get off its collective ass and SHIP MY ****ING ORDER!!!

-Arrian

[jkelly]

Arrian,

Me too. No shipping notice yet.

...Except for the Bonus CD. Any day now I'll be able to listen to C3C's theme music.

[GhengisFarb™]

Mine just passed through Memphis so it should be here tomorrow.

[Arrian]

Yesterday Amazon's web site listed my order as "not yet shipped."

Today it lists as an "item to be shipped soon."



-Arrian

[Stuie]

Just noticed - Plagues are "off" by default in the epic game. Haven't noticed any volcanoes yet either.

To the editor!!!

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Dominae
A Volcano produces 3 Shields without improvement. That's actually pretty strong in the early-game.

I was misinformed; a Volcano produces 2 Shields in Despotism, and 3 Shields in any other government. It is not possible to improve this Shield output, or the Food/Commerce ouput either.

4-Shield Volcanos is something to keep in mind for the AU mod.


Dominae

[Jon Miller]

I haver seen volcanoes

in fact, I have seen a game with dozens

JM

[Catt]

A Few More Random Observations

I finished one epic game as Mayans on emperor – one game certainly makes me qualified to make judgments about the game . Despite only one game under the belt, I thought I’d share a few things that haven’t been talked about much on the forum and invite feedback.

Luxury Scarcity. See this thread for details. I think this will have significant effect over the long-term. Unless numerous civs are eliminated very early, it will be difficult to secure 6-8 unique sources of luxuries through REXing and trade. Careful trade micromanagement (looking for tradeable luxuries each turn), increased, and dispersed, warfare to seize foreign luxury sources, or learning to live with fewer luxuries may be the order of the day.

Corruption. [Edit: Now that alexman has weighed in and highlighted the problems (see this thread), my observations are moot.]

Bombardment Issues. There are several threads on different bombardment issues, the most-talked about being the change in targeting on cities. But there are a few other changes to bombardment worth mentioning.

Naval Bombardment: AI naval units seem to bombard only cities if targeting land (versus other naval units) – gone seem to be the days of AI navies relentlessly destroying terrain improvements. And the damage taken is a bit quirky – I repeatedly had air units (and some naval units) lose hit points to AI naval bombardment attacks, even though land defenders went unscathed by numerous bombardments. I don’t know if this change is by design or as a result of the “increased damage to units at port” feature implemented for the WWII scenario.

Air Bombardment: AI air units also target cities. With the increased range of air units, I expected that strategic and luxury resources would be favored targets of AI bombers. Instead, AI planes repeatedly flew sorties against well-defended cities instead of exposed, single-source luxuries. In PTW, resource bombing would have been far more common. Interestingly, a few undefended artillery units, though not subject to lethal air attacks, would draw the bombers in. End a turn with several spent artilleries on a mediocre irrigated desert tile, and AI bombers will make runs until the tile is cratered; once cratered, AI bombers will attack the nearby city, entirely bypassing any higher value tiles, including undefended resource tiles.

Tile Damage: Once all improvements are destroyed by bombardment, the tile suffers “damage” which shows up as craters. You can road a cratered tile, but need to expend worker turns to clear the damage before irrigating or mining.

Specialists. Specialists are much more useful and worthwhile, especially in mid- to high-corrupt cities, but even in core cities as well. I really enjoy the increased utility of most of the specialists. There is a downside, however. Precisely because of their utility, specialists demand more micromanagement than they did before, if you want to get the most out of them. In the later game, each time population grows or shrinks, or tile improvements change, it is worthwhile (and time-consuming) to cycle through the various specialist options. The city’s growth may make a policeman more worthwhile than the taxman you were using last turn. I’ve found the policeman to be especially useful though that may in part be due to the corruption bugs in C3C. I am not convinced that civil engineers work as advertised (see C3C bugs thread for report). You can make something significant from careful use of specialists – but if you hate micromanagement, you still have the option to ignore specialists and let the city governor control populations. Also, and worth a big , is the fact that specialist’s display their impact in the city view screen – so you can cycle through entertainers, taxmen, scientists, policemen, and civil engineers and see the effect straightaway.

Ruins. City ruins no longer preserve the road (or railroad) tile improvement that comes from a city. Ruins are now unroaded, unimproved tiles.

Slave Units. Enslaved units cost no upkeep. Big deal, right? Well, those artillery units that you capture are now identified as “enslaved” units and come free of maintenance.

AIs Rush Wonders. There was some skepticism that in PTW the AI didn’t use great leaders to rush great wonders. My game replay showed 3 scientific leaders generated (not by me ) – in two cases a great wonder was completed by the Ai civ that got a SGL on the very next turn; in the third case, no wonders were available for rushing. Though not conclusive, it struck me as pretty strong evidence that the AI will use SGLs for wonder-rushing.

Continental Rally Point. What a simple yet welcome improvement! In the age of railroads, a CRP, available with only a click or two, is a godsend (particularly since city-specific rally points were erased if an improvement was built in the city; when newly available improvements were built in multiple cities, multiple rally points had to be reactivated; no more!).

The above is worth precisely what you paid for it (nothing!) – especially considering it comes from the depth of experience one can only acquire by playing a single game of C3C ( ) – but since I hadn’t seen some of this mentioned elsewhere, I thought I’d post.

Catt

[Jaybe]

CLEAR Continental Rally Point not only clears any continental rally point, but also clears ALL rally points on the continent.

Civil Engineers do not change the shield display. OTOH, the number of shields they add are displayed on the Civil Engineer. It also is applied to the build time. Note that Civil Engineers can only be applied to improvements/wonders, not to units (when building a unit, zero shields will be displayed on the CE).

Bombardments hitting vulnerable units in port or on airfields in a city are really cool (barring AI ineptitude)!

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Catt
[ Ruins. City ruins no longer preserve the road (or railroad) tile improvement that comes from a city. Ruins are now unroaded, unimproved tiles.

This one caught me by surprised. I abandon a camp and paid no atention to the tile. Late I sent a worker over to see what could be done and found no road!

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by Jaybe
[b]
Civil Engineers do not change the shield display. OTOH, the number of shields they add are displayed on the Civil Engineer. It also is applied to the build time. Note that Civil Engineers can only be applied to improvements/wonders, not to units (when building a unit, zero shields will be displayed on the CE).

That point about the not to units is one to watch, thanks.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Jaybe
Civil Engineers do not change the shield display. OTOH, the number of shields they add are displayed on the Civil Engineer. It also is applied to the build time. Note that Civil Engineers can only be applied to improvements/wonders, not to units (when building a unit, zero shields will be displayed on the CE).

Weird that the tax and science shows up both on the city output display and the specilist itself but that the CE shields show only on the specialist -- but you're absolutely right, they do affect build times (don't know how I missed that).

Catt

[pikesfan]

Originally posted by Dominae
I was misinformed; a Volcano produces 2 Shields in Despotism, and 3 Shields in any other government. It is not possible to improve this Shield output, or the Food/Commerce ouput either.

But how many people mine volcanoes in real life? I could see that in the modern age, people (such as the Icelanders) tap the geothermal resources. Maybe a fourth shield could be added in the post-Industrial age to represent this geothermal energy.

[Arrian]

Some other random observations:

Harbor cost is now down to 60 (30 for seafaring civs).

Republic, IMO, may be a stronger late-game goverment than it used to me, because of the support rules: 1/3/4, IIRC. So once you get a bunch of cities over size 6, you're in business. I have a game in which I've got ~175 military units, but my civ gets ~150 of them for free, so I'm paying ~50gpt in upkeep. If I were a Democracy, it would be 175 gpt, unless Demo got unit support and I missed that somehow.

Resource/Luxury distribution sure is different. In my current game, my 5-civ continent had 4 luxuries, and the American island (8 cities) has 2. Can you say TARGET? Iron and Horses appear to be less common. Haven't really looked too closely at the others, but are resources just scarcer in general?

I love the new specialists. They help make up for the current corruption issues. Oh, and thanks for pointing out the "not when building units" rule. I was wondering why in some cities they didn't seem to work.

The Dromon animation is cool.

-Arrian

[Thoth]

I'm not sure resources are any rarer, but the distribution seems to have changed. It seems more common to either have multiples or none at all.

I think Demo will need to have some unit support added to make it competetive with Republic in the late game. 1/2/3 free units (town/city/metro)?