V65 to V66 is like Normal to Hard+new features

[AldouzTek]

After hundreds of hours playing V65 then try V66 for weeks, I no longer enjoy the game.
There's a lot of features in V66 I like especially the diplomacy, but the overall game feels kinda for hardcore masochist player not casual player like me, I think I'll stick with V65 until 1.0 release, thanks

[Judaspriester]

Huh?
I've did a 4k city in V65 and with my 3rd try on V66 I'm at stable 2k pop and mainly "limited" in growth by the reproduction rate for tilapis. So yeah, Jake has changed some stuff with V66, but once you've adapted for it, I don't think the game has become much harder. Especially since some stuff is in again that I've missed in V65, like a research to reduce deflation.

Besides that, you say you've spend hundreds of hours in V65 and still call yourelf a casual? I would say with that hour count, you should be fairly deep into the game and therefore able to adapt to the changes.

[Malorn]

Honestly, I think the game got easier. Food production is much less of a horror-show with the new cheap tech boosts. Diplomacy AI is much more sane and has a couple nice boosts for the player built in. Overall, unless you were relying on mercenary crutches, v66 is actually easier.

[Catsander]

I find the early game much harder too. But I think I like it. Not sure yet =)

[Chaotic Woofer]

TLDR: Capital Construction is about the same in v66 as it was in v65. War is harder and that's probably for the better.

In regards to "I'm going to build a city." v66 is about the same. Food is easier to produce due to the tech being cheaper but adding more services results in more overhead regarding keeping people happy. It more or less balances out. **Military** is a different matter. For one just having a bandit event that goes "So you're giving me 10% of everything you have." randomly while ignoring the entire statistic devoted to determining whether or not you'll be raided is, odd. Nerfing mercs was the right move to prevent absurd steamrolling but without access to them you're more or less at the mercy of your own industrial and resource output. It's a damn good thing alcohol isn't a requirement to muster troops now because that entire industry is a nightmare until you have regular regional taxes. v65 to v66 is a massive jump in complexity in regards to military logistics and battles (Hell I've had to actually move troops around instead of just lining up and pressing the run button). It's actually been a thorn in my side for a bit now while trying for the Ruler of the Sedge and Bee achievement, but a game being able to actually piss me off because I'm having issues maintaining both domestics and military is typically a positive. Only thing I'd like to see specifically changed in v66 or the game as a whole rather is just a flat out Armory. Having to ♥♥♥♥ about between storehouse and army depots when your garrison only looks at storehouse and your army only looks at depots is kinda needless resource juggling (especially when early on your garrison IS your army) when you could just simply have Storehouse and Military Storehouse. If you're just funneling supplies from the storehouse to the depot *anyway* should probably just nix this and have a dedicated Military Storehouse that both the garrison and army are supplied from

[annie]

if you're having issues with bandits, try equipping your garrison divisions with the bare minimum basic equipment. your garrison level is more influenced by gear than it is numbers, a single 50 unit division with 1/8 hammers 1/8 leather armor deters more bandits than 200 naked draftees

i struggled a lot with these guys until i realized this

[Chaotic Woofer]

By bandits I mean the event pop up "Pay us Protection Money". I've had two fully equipped and mostly trained divisions, one hammers in leather armor and one archers in leather armor. Still will have an odd group of 25 punks that'll make demands. The calculation for Raid Security will be well above 100% but that doesn't matter. Never saw this in v65 and it's specific to v66. Either it's a bug or v66 has some odd things going on with it's event triggers. Early game it's particularly annoying because I've had it trigger before I've even unlocked the training ground. Once I actually have a garrison it's kind of w/e because bandits quickly just become an event you farm for resources.

[annie]

Originally posted by Chaotic Woofer:

By bandits I mean the event pop up "Pay us Protection Money". I've had two fully equipped and mostly trained divisions, one hammers in leather armor and one archers in leather armor. Still will have an odd group of 25 punks that'll make demands. The calculation for Raid Security will be well above 100% but that doesn't matter. Never saw this in v65 and it's specific to v66. Either it's a bug or v66 has some odd things going on with it's event triggers. Early game it's particularly annoying because I've had it trigger before I've even unlocked the training ground. Once I actually have a garrison it's kind of w/e because bandits quickly just become an event you farm for resources.

hm, that's strange, i stopped getting them altogether at a certain point. it may be a static breakpoint, or maybe the security research does more than what it says it does, but they are gone for good. well, unless my army dies suddenly and my security plummets

[Trackstar]

Originally posted by annie:

Originally posted by Chaotic Woofer:

By bandits I mean the event pop up "Pay us Protection Money". I've had two fully equipped and mostly trained divisions, one hammers in leather armor and one archers in leather armor. Still will have an odd group of 25 punks that'll make demands. The calculation for Raid Security will be well above 100% but that doesn't matter. Never saw this in v65 and it's specific to v66. Either it's a bug or v66 has some odd things going on with it's event triggers. Early game it's particularly annoying because I've had it trigger before I've even unlocked the training ground. Once I actually have a garrison it's kind of w/e because bandits quickly just become an event you farm for resources.

hm, that's strange, i stopped getting them altogether at a certain point. it may be a static breakpoint, or maybe the security research does more than what it says it does, but they are gone for good. well, unless my army dies suddenly and my security plummets

I'm getting one of those raid/bandit popups at 250 population. So theyre probably not random. I know because I've turned off accepting immigrants and am sitting at 249 while my army trains. If I save, accept 1 immigrant to have 250 pop, the raid popup happens immediately afterwards. But I can train all I want now without a popup so long as I stay at 249 people. So theyre probably not random at all, but at certain pop thresholds.
edit: raid event also occurs at 500 pop. so def a pop threshold trigger. not random.

[Chaotic Woofer]

Originally posted by Trackstar:

Originally posted by annie:

hm, that's strange, i stopped getting them altogether at a certain point. it may be a static breakpoint, or maybe the security research does more than what it says it does, but they are gone for good. well, unless my army dies suddenly and my security plummets

I'm getting one of those raid/bandit popups at 250 population. So theyre probably not random. I know because I've turned off accepting immigrants and am sitting at 249 while my army trains. If I save, accept 1 immigrant to have 250 pop, the raid popup happens immediately afterwards. But I can train all I want now without a popup so long as I stay at 249 people. So theyre probably not random at all, but at certain pop thresholds.
edit: raid event also occurs at 500 pop. so def a pop threshold trigger. not random.

Ya ok, I thought something funny was going on with those I just never paid attention to the population at the time. So it is a specific event trigger that completely ignores raid security. Ya I don't like that. Just adds another "Do you have X to deal with Y?" variable in a game where each play through should be varied and not a static checklist

[Judaspriester]

You guys really tempt me to check this, since I can't really believe, that there's a hardcoded first raid once you hit 250 pop.
What sounts more plausable for me is, that 250 pop is the threshold for raiders to appear and the game has already decided you get a raid, which then gets delayed until the requirement is fulfilled.

If it's really hardcoded, my guess would be, that it's only the first raid, as "reminder" for the players like "hey, you should have an garrison ready by now".

For the later raids I can assure you that they are random, since I was already able to dodge 2 by reloading.

[Dampfnudel]

I really dislike the logistics in v66

[Malorn]

Originally posted by Dampfnudel:

I really dislike the logistics in v66

With the warehouse range slider. Logistics in v66 is basically just an improvement. What parts are giving you trouble?

[Chaotic Woofer]

Originally posted by Judaspriester:

You guys really tempt me to check this, since I can't really believe, that there's a hardcoded first raid once you hit 250 pop.
What sounts more plausable for me is, that 250 pop is the threshold for raiders to appear and the game has already decided you get a raid, which then gets delayed until the requirement is fulfilled.

If it's really hardcoded, my guess would be, that it's only the first raid, as "reminder" for the players like "hey, you should have an garrison ready by now".

For the later raids I can assure you that they are random, since I was already able to dodge 2 by reloading.

Paid attention to population when they popped. Seemed to be 100, 250, 500, 750? then finally 1000. Afterwards I was never bothered up to 5k pop. I usually go out of my way to focus on maintaining my garrison and equipment. Despite the suggested security rating from the garrison I'd still see the event. Raid determent tech helps but at those population numbers I'd still see the event. Could be a delayed trigger as suggested but still seems wonky to me, I could be *completely* mistaken but it feels like it's rigged lol
Edit: Decided to just test it via developer mode. Yep 101 procs a raid ignoring the raid security. I slapped the raid determent tech to max resulting in a positive 26 (260% security I believe? Could be wrong on that) 99 fine, 100 fine, 101 boom raid event.