ESOC Patch 7.0.0.0 released!

[deleted_user]

Looks fun watching it. China I think is the largest question.

One grievance, the new "cease fire" makes the game look diseased. All the units move so slowly, it just looks off. incredibly aesthetically displeasing.

I support the export boost.

[n0el]

EP 8 EleGiggle

[Garja]

So one change that will in the long term drastically improve balance but in the short term might have a slight negative effect (and to be honest, fixing crates is just to remove the outrageously strong or outrageously weak options that I believe aren't really taken into account properly, it should not be huge) is not okay, but a patch with a 1000 changes that combined will have a large effect, completely alienate the community and new players especially and that doesn't actually have such a huge benefit as fixed crates have, is okay? Talk about some double standards.

In the end, random crates are holding the balancing progress back. If you really want good balance, you should fix the crate starts. If you want to endlessly iterate on some state, including tons of random changes and thus alienating some people each iterations (in other words, eventually alienating almost everyone), then be my guest. But it's a pretty stupid idea.

What is even fixed crate change? Are you seriously going to make it so that"civ A will have a wood crate, civ B an extra food crate, etc." ? Because that's just not possible nor beneficial to balance.

[Cometk]

uh oh

[n0el]

Wait, all this time Garja doesn’t know what fixed crates are? Makes total sense.

[Garja]

??? It was a rhetorical question.
I assume what you mean by fixed crates is giving each civ a set of extra crates on top of their default ones. Clearly any extra crate you're going to give is arbitrary and thus unbalanced by definition.
If instead you intend straight up removing any extra crate then I guess it's balanced but rather crap nonetheless.
Also please note that regardless China has an extra wood crate so it's either gonna be 200f 200w or 200f 200w + random crate (like in EP7).

[RefluxSemantic]

Why is an arbitrary thing unbalanced per definition?

[Garja]

Because it's based on people opinion (in turn based on variable meta) rather than on objective criteria.

[n0el]

Lmao this explains so much

[Garja]

What should explain

[fightinfrenchman]

This thread has made me very happy

[RefluxSemantic]

Because it's based on people opinion (in turn based on variable meta) rather than on objective criteria.

So any change ever is basically arbitrary and thus bad for balance?

[dansil92]

I think fixed crate would be awful for balance because someone has to arbitrarily decide the only, exclusive, and decisive crate start a civ gets. Will spain get 200 wood or 100 wood 100 coin? It could mean the end of the piroshiki 12/10! Will germany get 200 wood? Or do we kick them to the curb and say nah you get 100 coin. What would happen to the popularity of japan if 300 wood was guaranteed? What about Iroquois? Do they even get a wood crate at all?

See why this would be divisive? I think randomization of chinas crates is a good step forward and I'd love to see potential coin crate builds, like market, buy 100 wood, get a hunting tech... this is good for the meta, especially when you consider the small but significant buffs to china's colonial potential

[gibson]

I think fixed crate would be awful for balance because someone has to arbitrarily decide the only, exclusive, and decisive crate start a civ gets. Will spain get 200 wood or 100 wood 100 coin? It could mean the end of the piroshiki 12/10! Will germany get 200 wood? Or do we kick them to the curb and say nah you get 100 coin. What would happen to the popularity of japan if 300 wood was guaranteed? What about Iroquois? Do they even get a wood crate at all?

See why this would be divisive? I think randomization of chinas crates is a good step forward and I'd love to see potential coin crate builds, like market, buy 100 wood, get a hunting tech... this is good for the meta, especially when you consider the small but significant buffs to china's colonial potential

I got triggered reading this than realized it had to be satire.

[dansil92]

I think fixed crate would be awful for balance because someone has to arbitrarily decide the only, exclusive, and decisive crate start a civ gets. Will spain get 200 wood or 100 wood 100 coin? It could mean the end of the piroshiki 12/10! Will germany get 200 wood? Or do we kick them to the curb and say nah you get 100 coin. What would happen to the popularity of japan if 300 wood was guaranteed? What about Iroquois? Do they even get a wood crate at all?

See why this would be divisive? I think randomization of chinas crates is a good step forward and I'd love to see potential coin crate builds, like market, buy 100 wood, get a hunting tech... this is good for the meta, especially when you consider the small but significant buffs to china's colonial potential

I got triggered reading this than realized it had to be satire.

No need to be rude. You wanna be the one to pick if germany gets 200 wood or not? And deal with each side's flaming on your decision?

[RefluxSemantic]

If choosing fixed crates for civs makes balance worse, that actually means that crate starts are already making balance worse situationally right now.

Which means that instead of imbalances that can be adjusted for with future patch changes, we currently have rng depended imbalances that can never fully be balanced around. No matter how hard you try, some civs are going to be too strong on their good crate starts and too weak on their bad crate starts.

[RefluxSemantic]

Ill pick:

Otto food
Russia food
France coin
Germany coin
Brits coin
Ports coin
Spain food or coin
Dutch all dutch crate starts are equally strong

India food
China wood
Japan wood or food

Dont know the native civs at all sorry.

Most wood starts are over the top, I gave civs the coin starts where it increases options like early market.

[Garja]

Because it's based on people opinion (in turn based on variable meta) rather than on objective criteria.

So any change ever is basically arbitrary and thus bad for balance?

Well, most of changes are just standardization of stuff that is not consistent so they're not arbitrary. Some other changes are fine being arbitrary, because they're not game breaking even tho they in fact exceed the balancing process (e.g Spanish gold which frankly it's even beyond what should be acceptable).

Anyway the so called "fixed crates" you intend causes practical problems (related to the fact that it's an arbitrary change). It's almost impossible to make everyone happy with such arbitrary assignment of crates and it's literally impossible to do it in coherence with any objective game element.
For the most part fixed crate argument is based on the fact that "this crate is too strong for this civ" which is a bullshit argument. It's bullshit because 1) a TP is not necessarily bette than an extra manor or a free consulate or w/e and 2) it's anyway a legit advantage of the civ so you can't neglect it. It's like removing one units because it's op.

[Garja]

If choosing fixed crates for civs makes balance worse, that actually means that crate starts are already making balance worse situationally right now.

Which means that instead of imbalances that can be adjusted for with future patch changes, we currently have rng depended imbalances that can never fully be balanced around. No matter how hard you try, some civs are going to be too strong on their good crate starts and too weak on their bad crate starts.

Each single crate iteration of extra random crates can indeed make the balance situationally worse. This is more true for certain MUs and with the current state of balance it's not even alarming in itself, but the point is that together all the crate iterations grant an ok dynamic balance.
I think it's important to stress that since the extra crate is the same for every civ, there can never be too much of imbalance due to a certain crate start. Wood crate is wood crate of any civ. Doesn't matter if TP is better of manor is better or w/e. What matters is that every civ gets the same amoun of extra resource.

[Kawapasaka]

As long as the fixed crates for a civ is one of the spawns it already got from random crates, I can't see that turning many players off. Now they're just doing an opening they'd normally do 30% of the time or whatever, 100% of the time.

Creating a completely new spawn by randomising previously fixed crates, thus forcing players to forget everything they knew and re-learn a civ's opening, transition and early age 2... yeah, I can see that turning prospective (and existing) EP players off the patch.

[deleted_user]

Yeah, and I'm not convinced sometimes building a market and sometimes building a tp adds needed variety to the game. You'll just build the other one in transition anyways, and little is lost, but a lot of balance is gained. The exceptions: various 12/10 or 10/10 strats on food starts(?)

It might be tricky fixing crate spawns for each civ that everyone likes though, even if it's one of the already set options - not every civ can have the same option.

Of course current crates can create situational imbal - just look at coin start for India vs Dutch.

[gibson]

I think fixed crate would be awful for balance because someone has to arbitrarily decide the only, exclusive, and decisive crate start a civ gets. Will spain get 200 wood or 100 wood 100 coin? It could mean the end of the piroshiki 12/10! Will germany get 200 wood? Or do we kick them to the curb and say nah you get 100 coin. What would happen to the popularity of japan if 300 wood was guaranteed? What about Iroquois? Do they even get a wood crate at all?

See why this would be divisive? I think randomization of chinas crates is a good step forward and I'd love to see potential coin crate builds, like market, buy 100 wood, get a hunting tech... this is good for the meta, especially when you consider the small but significant buffs to china's colonial potential

I got triggered reading this than realized it had to be satire.

No need to be rude. You wanna be the one to pick if germany gets 200 wood or not? And deal with each side's flaming on your decision?

Are you serious? I genuinely thought you were being sarcastic. Think about what you said. You literally said you think RNG would make better balance decisions than a person would. You're acting like balance changes are arbitrary and random, when in face they are the opposite. Its even more flawed when you consider that someone "Arbitrarily decided" what different crate starts civs get. Why not just let just let a random number generator pick a random number between 1 and infinite to determine the amount of crates each civ gets each game? Balance will always be better the less RNG there is.

[deleted_user]

My opinions on fixed crates:

Everyone wood start except:
Russia (food)

[n0el]

give every civ the crate start that gives it the most options to start the game. balance around that.

[fightinfrenchman]

I would pay real money to get to see the reactions of some of the people who originally developed this game finding out that people were having heated conversations about starting crates 15 years later