workswithdragons wrote:

Elhoim wrote:

workswithdragons wrote:
I can't even use it to get rid of my extra population who will die in two turns anyways :(

I don't know if to laugh or cry at the idea of working people to death because "they are going to die anyway" jajajaja

Joking aside, I do exactly the same thing. I still think that buyout with population is way too "sanitized". It shouldn't require so many pops, but it should have a big stability penalty, especially if you do it over and over.

haha yeah I'm definitely going to need to give my avatar the "Cruel" archetype

And that's a great idea about using less pop, but giving a stability penalty! I also think the ability to sacrifice pop might be better as a civic instead of being a tech, then the decision to learn that ability could play into ideological proximity for diplomacy :)

Just to point out, a fair number of players including myself did suggest making penalty for this mechanic with negative stability based on Victor build.

Instead, Devs have gone with increasing the number of pops needed for rush build. While it does indeed stop players from willy nilly killing their pops, but I also think this is overdone or way too much too, IMHO.

Just quadroupled my gold imcome by vassalizing an AI. This is out of control.

Regarding Religion:

to me, it has a similar problem as the civics/ideologies in the sense that it doesn't feel like it contributes enough to the "flavour" of the story we're creating for our cultures and it is also a system that is not very easy to understand.

It's not bad, by any means, but right now it feels like it just adds bonuses to the holy site and that's it (I know it does more than that but it feels less important).

It also feels like it is lacking some levers to actually control it (or more information about what those levers are). In Victor open Dev and here, it felt mostly like it was on autopilot and ended up being one of the dominant religion of the game ...

The tenets and civics that concerns religions are not super clear as well, to the point where it's hard to decide if they are worth it or not. I think we're missing some clearer information and maybe some data like how many followers we have in our empire and in other empires, etc. terms like "coreligionist" (or something like that) could also be replaced by something easier to understand.

This lack of clarity could also make faith related buildings and civilization slightly less interesting?

The tenets in themselves are interesting from a strategic perspective but I feel like they don't really tell a story of the kind of religion we're creating and they end up being the "food" tenet or the "industry" or "science" tenets.

I don't usually like to compare Humankind and Civilization 6 but the terminology used in civ6 is pretty good at creating a story. Titles like "Choral Music", "Feed the poor", or "Warrior Monks", immediately help you visualize the religion you're creating.  

The last thing that could be a nice to have could be to have the choice between various models of holy sites... but I understand that creating more assets is not necessarily a priority at this point.

The pacing was weird. The eras are going way too fast compared to science.

I felt like science was at the right pacing and that it's the eras that are in the wrong.

Influence is way too important in the first era and become quickly useless.

Production and Food are at the good place. Especially food. It was really bad in the last open devs, but now it always felt rewarding to gain more food.

Science is at a good pace but it can't compete with the speed of the eras.

Money is at a weird place in my opinion.I always have enough money to buy all luxury resources from all the players and upgrade my units without building a single money district but buyouts feel completely out of reach even when I focus everything on gaining more money. I think buyout prices are so high that it makes focusing on money (and by extension all the money focused cultures) a no go.

Religion is very bad. I would completely remake the feature or remove it. It's not really clear how it works and the impact of +1 faith is not apparent. Also the reward for having high religion is... more other resources... so why do I not simply focus on gaining those resources directly instead of taking the long road? Also the random grievance every turn are really annoying.

I'm only on my first round of testing, but the pacing seems off for me as well. I'm currently playing normal difficulty (;I'm a strategy game veteran I'de say, but I wanted to just stop and read every tutorial and have a no pressure game).

-Normal difficulty

-I've focused science all game, never focusing on gaining Era Stars

-I'm in the Medieval Era as the Franks, and I already have enough Stars to upgrade to an Early Modern empire.

-On the tech tree I am 3 techs (30 turns) away from earning the Franks special heavy cavalry unit.

The pacing here seems off.

workswithdragons wrote:

• How does your progress through the eras feel? Is it too fast or too slow?

I only reached the Industrial era at turn 190, which felt a tad bit slow but I also take responsibility for hanging back a few turns each time to grab a star I was close to getting. Generally, I felt like I had enough time in each era to get good use of my unique units and to build all my unique districts, without feeling like I was trapped. I plan to play again (and again and again lol) to see if I can get to the Industrial with enough time to play around with planes.

• Do you feel your research progress roughly matches your progress through the eras? Does it match what you would expect for a game meant to last about 300 turns?

I think the research progress still felt a bit slow. I was still working on techs one or two eras before the one I was in. I didn't choose any tech cultures or build any research districts, but I had built what science infrastructure I had, had focused my tech on getting said tech infrastructure, and had an agrarian-based playstyle that let me fill all my scientist slots quite quickly. I don't expect to be great at science when I don't focus on it, but it felt weird to be so greatly behind in tech compared to my era.

I played again on Metropolis and didn't even reach the Industrial era by turn 200, though one AI did and I realize this is probably just because I'm bad at the game and not playing to my usual style lol. Plus, I liked the speed of era progression, so I'm not sure this is a complaint with the game so much as it is a hope for a setting to give us more than 300 turns to play.

But I still had trouble with the tech progress matching the era progress. Even though I went with the Umayyads in the medieval era and, I thought, had a decent amount of territory to use their trait and district well, I was still working on medieval tech when the game ended.

A few radical ideas for pace and snowballing issues (probably for someone who can mod the game after release):

1. Set each era at fixed turns. e.g. if 300 turns need to cover 6 eras, then every 45 turns (allowing around 10 for nomadic), all players will get to chose the next era culture at the same time. 
2. Players with the highest fame get to pick first (or last - similar to NBA draft, depending on whether the goal is to balance the fight or let it snowball). That way players are not stuck with 7 era stars etc, they just aim to get as many era stars (and thus fame score) as possible within 45 turns to get the first pick on the next era's culture.
3. Science from the past era is now discounted by 50%. That allows losing players to catch up in tech.

• How does your progress through the eras feel? Is it too fast or too slow?
  
  The Ancient era feels about right, but past that I never really feel like I have time to build the infrastructure of my current era before I unlock the next. I mostly just end up getting incidential stars that are not even the focus of my culture, and before I know it I am prompted to promote. I tend to stick around to finish a star or two for fame, and my gut tells me that an era would feel more "complete" if progression was at 8 stars instead of 7.
  
  The Medieval era and onwards finish far to quickly. This is likely due to the snowball really getting going at that point in the game, thus making my civilization increadibly strong in two areas which lets me finish fast.
• Do you feel your research progress roughly matches your progress through the eras? Does it match what you would expect for a game meant to last about 300 turns
  
  The research tree in general encourages belining key techs. I find for example that irrigation is a must have to get a decent pop growth. This leads to a "lunge" up the tech tree meaning I don't really feel like I hit most of the interesting techs from each era.
  
  Of note, the early techs are a bit too expensive in my opinion. You are pretty much forced to run a scientist with your early population to get them done, unless your Culture gives you some bonus there. This may lead to an interesting decision on how to prioritize, but at the difficulties I play at it feels mandatory to stand a chance against the AI.
  
  Assuming I had another 100 turns, I could definitively have finished the tech tree in my last run, at least the techs available in the beta
• How do you feel about the speed of population growth?
  
  Pop growth is at a good place now. Once you get a farming infratstucture in place it grows at a manageble, but not insane pace. The hardcap on one pop a turn is a bit annoying when it comes to pop-building strategies, but I suppose it helps keep that strategy balanced.
  
  
• How do you feel about the value and the growth of the different resources (Including Influence)
  
  Production is a bit off, and everything feels a turn or two too expensive for my liking, exclusing the very early game. Science needs to be more accesible early game - perhaps city centers should exploit it? Food explodes with the two "+2 from rivers" infrastructures, making it a nonissue at that point. Gold feels like it needs natural yields to exploit somewhere, but I can see that feeling a bit unimersive. Influence is at a level where I must spend it wisely until the mid game, where it becomes far to plentiful. The only real influence sink after the medieval era is absorbing cities, and that is far too expensive again.
• Are religions still to powerful, or are the bonuses at a more appropriate level now?
  
  Religion changed from being my entire economy in Victor, to a minor stability boost in this version. The strength bonus tenet was a nice bonus at the end, but I didn't really need it.
  
  Religion still feels pretty passive, and the faith districts of some cultures seem uneeded. Being the first to a religion more or less means you win your continent unless someone goes in really hard to fight you for it, which the AI does not seem to do.

• How does the neolithic era feel now? Can you still grow your population too quickly?
  
  I like the current neolithic era. My priorities is getting at least the growth and the hunter star to get me a head start into the ancient era. something I usually achieve in 7-10 turns. I find that getting a mammoth is a nice bonus, since it equates to about +1 outpost, but is not something I would delay more than a turn for.
  
  Pop growth comes at a decent pace, but I usually ascend with 7 or so people. Sanctuaries are a guaranteed pop, and only take a turn to destroy even with a single nomad unit. Also, the event that spawns a free unit is very common and helps me finish the era faster.

Era progression still seems to be to fast for me. It almost feels like playing a civ game on quick setting, which tended to negatively impact balance in those games too. The era stars are easy to acquire, and let you jump quickly through the first couple eras. I have also found that the rate of technological development is still disconnected from that progression, as I found myself in the contemporary era (on the very last turn!) and am fairly sure I was still working through medieval era techs. However, so long as your era is not related to your technology, I do not think much can be done about this. It will always be disconnected and your eta will have little to do with your technology.

Population growth I had no trouble with. I quickly found putting all cities into growth settings was ideal, as it would more quickly fill out everything else anyways before long. With the exception of the early game, when I did not want to hinder research and production for more than a turn or two yet. The pace was much faster in the early game which would cause that to be a problem. As it was, I created very few military units as I generally was always busy trying to build improvements or wonders instead and did not want to delay those. I eventually discovered that outposts could create military separate from cities (though do not remember this being a thing earlier in the same game... perhaps a technology unlocked it and I did not notice?) which helped solve part of my lacking military strength, but I feel like training military is usually something a city does separately from building it's infrastructure, and typically at the same time. Since every military unit costs population, which makes sense, there is enough negative impact from building an army without it also blocking the production of infrastructure. Being able to deal with both needs together seems like it would make more sense.

Influence was a much needed resource in the early game, and rapidly exploded in availability in the late game with few things I needed it for, even with the added things to spend it on. I used some of it on units from outposts, but did not need THAT many units. However, I think this may be an inevitability unless you somehow add a sink for 19k influence for a wide empire that doesn't also hurt players and ai that did not manage to expand as far. I had significantly more cities than any of the other cultures at the time, and thus produced far more influence than I needed. GOLD meanwhile I needed all of the time. I was constantly spending it on rushing buildings along with sacrificing some population as it was the only way for me to keep up on the needed infrastructure construction across my cities, while unlocking more infrastructure options with each technology.

I did not get to experience how powerful religion was in the previous incarnation, due to a civic I took at the time and promptly lost access to all religious perks... but as I progressed through this game I got to make much greater use of religious perks. But when you control as much territory as I expanded to, it seems to be easy to break. The religious pressure I exerted allowed me to influence almost every territory and resulted in the boosts when I picked tenants being very substantial. It is part of the reason I gained such a large amount of influence. If I had put it into gold, I'd have been filthy rich, I debated it but influence was still, ultimately, the more important resource since I dabbled in war this time, and influence pressure on enemy territory caused war exhaustion. That said, I also made it all the way to the last age with multiple agrarian stars and did not actually unlock more than 2 tiers of religious perks, so the third tier feels like it may be insurmountably far.

The neolithic era was slower this time, though I managed to expand the population fairly quickly still. However, I actually progressed to the next era with research curiosities I located, rather than population like last time. Since I did that, it actually made sense to me to grab a research centric culture for the next era. It also made me consider whether or not the method you use to progress to the next era should perhaps impact your next culture, or provide some small bonus to shape your culture based on how you have played, so that your actions in each era are reflected in how your culture and history develops.

I'm still only around turn 95 on my first attempt but wanted to note what I've seen so far that stands out:

• How does your progress through the eras feel? Is it too fast or too slow?  It seems on par for Eras (playing Nation difficulty).  Ancient Era seemed to linger a bit, but I moved more quickly through Classical.  Given I'm on Medieval during late 80/early 90's turns seems about right to me...but there is certainly a gap with how far along my cities, armies, districts, religion, and technology are.  
• Do you feel your research progress roughly matches your progress through the eras? Does it match what you would expect for a game meant to last about 300 turns?  Tech is ridiculously far behind...way more in my opinion than Victor was.  I am not using a science culture (Zhou,Carthaginians, and now Franks), but I have 4 Classical techs unlocked and am in the early part of the Medieval Era.  At this pace, I can't even unlock any Medieval tech for another 23 turns.  In fact, I just finally unlocked my Zhou Ancient Era culture specific unit a handful of turns ago...while I was just about to advance to the Medieval Era...and still haven't unlocked my Classical Era culture specific Elephants.  As an overall example...if I were to unlock all the remaining Classical techs...at the current amount of science points it would take me another 88 turns...which means I'd be almost done with the 200 turns and just started Medieval techs.  That doesn't bode well for late game Eras when I've already struggled to keep up on other things.
• How do you feel about the speed of population growth?  It feels a little slow to me, but I understand that was part of the point.  The issue I'm having is the lower population is making it harder to develop cities, which in turn slows everything else down.
• How do you feel about the value and the growth of the different resources (Including Influence) I'm going to pick a bone here on the changes to influence use.  While I will admit that now understanding how big a deal Influence is in early game...maybe a 2nd run would change how I do things, but for this first pass...I have not been able to properly expand, attach outposts, and buy civics.  There's way too little Influence to go around.  This did create a little bit of an ability to use gold to buyout buildings/units...but it seems to be too expensive given the essential need to ensure you have high influence production, so the result has been slow growth.  It does feel the pace has picked up a little bit, but I have only unlocked 6 Civics on turn 95 (with the next costing 264 Influence), have 4 cities (one was an independent nation overthrown...one was 'given' to me by an AI through a demand) 6 attached Administrative Centers, one wonder built, 2 holy sites, and 5 military units.  Again - maybe it will pick up here now...but it will have to in order for me to have any hope of keeping up.  Note: I did unlock the Inherited Land Civic so I can use gold instead of Influence for attaching outposts and building cities.  I surely hope this will help.
• Are religions still to powerful, or are the bonuses at a more appropriate level now?  I haven't paid a lot of attention to religion.  It certainly seems a little tamer and I think that's ok.  As noted above, I feel like progressing in 'faith' is taking a lot longer (hence only 1 Tenet and 2 holy sites so far).
• How does the neolithic era feel now? Can you still grow your population too quickly?  I didn't really try to test this much.  I decided to advance with 4 units and only one outpost.
• Other notes:  I do like how trade and some of the diplomacy has worked.  Carthaginians ability to encourage trade seemed to work well.  I also have managed to form one alliance pretty early on and have managed to avoid going to war (although I have had to knock back a few Egyptians/Mayans for trespassing regularly).  One final note - while I've struggled to advance/build at the rate I'd like, I've gone from last in Fame to 2nd...and am one of four Cultures to hit the Medieval Era so far (with another two very close).  In that regard, it would seem the AI Era/Fame progression is good (well aside from Black...who is WAY ahead).  Players ranked 2-6 are within 500 fame of one another at this point...while Black is twice what I have (4000 to 2000) and the player in last place is half of my total.  It will be interesting to see how these move along over the next 95 turns.

Era pacing still felt way to fast. With most empires reaching the Early Modern Era at around 0 CE

Era pacing outpaces science pacing by a large margin

I was unable to ever build a holy site (didn't even get to see the option to build one) after another Empire had taken over my religion

The buyout price is too high now, even with the 50% discount from Carthage it still felt like maybe 10% to high

• How does your progress through the eras feel? Is it too fast or too slow?
  Personally, the pace of Era star gain felt reasonable for standard speed, although the max turns on this beta felt a bit too short to get a full taste of the later eras.
  
  
• Do you feel your research progress roughly matches your progress through the eras? Does it match what you would expect for a game meant to last about 300 turns?
  The first 2-3 eras, research pacing feels fairly good. After that it does not because neather me or the AI on my difficulty manage to keep up with era progression. This is probably my biggest issue with the entire game, because emblematic units start to be locked behind alot of technologies, resulting in battles to be always fought out with the same, mostly medieval, units. I bet there are some more cheesy culture combinations that boost science significantly, but for non science civilizations to research heavy infantry knights halfway through the industrial era feels both unbalanced and immersion breaking.
  
  
• How do you feel about the speed of population growth?
  I payed less attention to it in the later eras but it never posed problems and was fun to play around in the early-mid game.
  
  
• How do you feel about the value and the growth of the different resources (Including Influence)
  Stability: Impactful, never felt unfair (Im mostly playing cultures that stabalize alot via quarters tho). Maybe a bit too opressive and limiting... Early on I often felt that my options to stabalize are pretty limited to spamming processions and/or an unreasonable amount of Garrisons. Maybe offer more ways to upgrade/invest into a small amount of Garrisons.
  Gold: Maybe a bit too slow without playing around harbours. Due to their affinity, switching from a builder culture to a non builder one felt really punishing.
  Science: Apart from late technologies costing too much, I feel like science district have a high opportunity cost due to Stability. Furthermore the Joseons Trait feels really powerful and maybe a bit unfair when one happens to have a good city spot.
  Influence...: I really like the fantasy of asthete cultures and thing the removal of civic points was a great change. In the early game it results in interesting decisions between unlocking a civic, exploiting a resource, building/attaching an outpost or constructing a city. Then, as soon as this infrastructure is there and the map is conquered by civilization its active useage vanishes. I even stopped a game once because I picked Edo japanese, due to them being cool and me living in perfect terrain for the Tera... only to notice that all of that sweet influence is worth almost nothing and I essentially had a useless era. I never had not enough Influence to claim a wonder, higher prices would seem excessive tho. There need to be other ways to actively spend or convert it into other resources.
  
  
• Are religions still to powerful, or are the bonuses at a more appropriate level now?
  Religion feels like it can easely be left on autopilot and even when one focuses on it there are few ways to actively interact with it apart from min/maxing faith output. The buffs seem pretty well balanced, the whole system just feels a little bit underwhealming.
  
  
• How does the neolithic era feel now? Can you still grow your population too quickly?
  The era length feels perfect in my experience. However, regarding population growth, the event that gives you another population can be very strong when triggered early, and since animals dont count for militarist stars in later eras there is no reason to not ransack all sanctuaries I find given that their food output is so high.

• How does your progress through the eras feel? Is it too fast or too slow?

• Do you feel your research progress roughly matches your progress through the eras? Does it match what you would expect for a game meant to last about 300 turns?

• How do you feel about the speed of population growth?

• How do you feel about the value and the growth of the different resources (Including Influence)

• Are religions still to powerful, or are the bonuses at a more appropriate level now?

• How does the neolithic era feel now? Can you still grow your population too quickly?

This beta religion is a bit underpowered, however may be this is because this time AI tried to counter it. So I am not 100% sure.

The biggest issue is era progress vs tech speed, I did not play science nations but I did put a lot of effort into science still I just had knights when I ended the game, AI did not fare much better.

So for a 300 turns game research pace could be actually good, the problem is you get to the last era at 180 turn.

Influence is a big block initially but by the end game I had huge influence and did not have much outlet to spend it, essentially using it as a soft buffer for going over city cap limit.

Another issue with colonies as it stands now, colonists does not make much sense its easier to just create an outpost and then spend a bit of influence to start colony, instead of using colonist, not only its way cheaper but you get 3 pop for free. Essentially outposts building things with influence instantly is nonsensical. As a matter of fact it always easier to build everything with influence in the second part of the game than build it in any other way. 

• How does your progress through the eras feel? Is it too fast or too slow?

• Do you feel your research progress roughly matches your progress through the eras? Does it match what you would expect for a game meant to last about 300 turns?

• How do you feel about the speed of population growth?

• How do you feel about the value and the growth of the different resources (Including Influence)

• Are religions still to powerful, or are the bonuses at a more appropriate level now?

• How does the neolithic era feel now? Can you still grow your population too quickly?