Balance is an important topic for many of you, as it informs your strategies and your choice of cultures, which in turn affects how different your games will feel. Since replayability is important for a 4X game, with the Battuta Update, we focused on improving many of the less popular or less picked cultures to make them more appealing. Some of you may have already tried these changes in the beta, and we’ve seen some excitement for the options the reworked cultures offer. For those of you who did not play the beta or haven’t heard about the Battuta Patch before, here’s a quick recap of the main features (click on the names in bold or see below for more details):

 

• Culture Balancing (see below): Rebalanced numerous cultures, including various new effects and abilities
• Improved Militarist Action (see below): Added an option to upgrade militia into proper combat units, and fixed various bugs with the ability
• Rebalanced Influence costs(See below): Cost of enacting civics, attaching territories, and merging cities grows far less over the course of the game
• Improved Religious Districts: Various Tenets now provide economic bonuses on religious districts and religious districts are clearly marked in their tooltip
• Better Civics Tooltips: Civics tooltips now show the effects of both options, even before you unlock them
• Immersive Player Names: Diplomatic notifications now focus on the persona and give them a title appropriate for their government
• Line of Sight Rework: Improved Line of Sight rules to generate more intuitive results and allow easier use of direct fire units
• City visuals: Improved variety of Commons Quarters and facing of quarters to reduce repetitive patterns in large cities

 
We hope you’ll have fun exploring new strategies in the Battuta Update! 

Balance Changes

If you have been around for the beta you will be familiar with these changes, BUT we have tweaked a couple of things (underlined), these tweaks can be "real" changes or changes that weren't on the previous blog but that they were on the beta.

Influence Balancing

You probably know how many players bring up the rapidly growing influence costs for various actions in the game. To be honest, some of those costs did spiral a bit out of control in the mid to late game. So we are adjusting some factors to the following:

• Civics: Reduced the cost impact of Number of Enacted Civics
• Attaching Outposts: Reduced the impact of already attached territories by 40%
• Merging Cities: Reduced the impact of Infrastructure Buyout Cost by over 50%

Vassalization

Forcefully Vassalizing an opponent after a war will now be cheaper if you have more Fame than them. Roughly every 200 Fame should provide a 10 point reduction in War Score Cost. We also fixed the bug where (re-)vassalizing an empire after they tried to break free wasn't free as intended.

Militarist Affinity

While the Iron Reserves ability is incredibly powerful when exploited by an experienced player, we found that most more casual players find it extremely weak and almost never use it. So, we are making some tweaks to it to make it feel better to use for casual players, while fixing some bugs and unintended uses:

• Militia units in Eras 5 and 6 now cost 2 pop each to raise (sieges unaffected)
• Militia units can be upgraded into professional units in the Anti Cavalry branch (starting from Spearmen up to Rifles in the 6th era)
• Fixed Militia units being free to heal
• Fixed an exploit that created population when upgrading and disbanding units
• Adjusted Ability Cooldown to scale with gamespeed and army size

Harbor Construction

To give you additional options when building your cities, Harbors will now serve as a "construction anchor" the same way Hamlets do, letting you build new districts next to them. We think this will particularly benefit naval cultures with "counts as" effects on their Emblematic Harbors, or otherwise maritime cultures. (Looking at you, Dutch V.O.C. Warehouse…)

Cultures

Now we're getting into the meat of the balancing

ERA 1

Phoenicians

• Phoenician LT loses early naval tech cost reductions, gains +1 CS and +1 Movement Speed on naval units
• EU becomes Naval Transport, unlocked with Fishing. 13CS, 2 Movement Speed (14CS and 3 Move Speed with LT)
• Phoenicians gain access to Pentekonter
• EQ gains a +1 Food worker slot

Hittites

• LT: tech cost reduction to wheel replaced with "+20 to FIMS per Occupied City on each of their Own Cities" (Note: This effect ends with the war.)
• Emblematic Quarter provides +3 Money and +20 Health Regen to friendly units in territory

Assyria

• Dunnu counts as Commons Quarter
• EQ gets Influence yield raised to +3 (was +2)

Myceneans

• EQ loses additional industry bonus
• EQ Stability bonus is now +5 (instead of +15)

Olmec

• LT now gives +3 Influence per territory (was +1)

Egyptians

• EU loses “Indirect Fire” 

ERA 2

Romans

• EQ now permanently gives +5 Influence, +5 Stability for each adjacent district
• EQ now counts as Commons Quarter
• EQ gives +50 Fame if completed while city is Victorious
• LT –30% upkeep reduction replaced with +50% experience gain on unit
• LT lost -30% Research Cost for Imperial Power
• Praetorian Guard lose 1CS (now 29)

Goths

• LT: Removed Ransack Combat Strength Bonus
• LT: Added "+5% of Ransack Gains earned as Science per Army Unit (bonus scales with amount of units in ransacking army) 
• EQ Base Yields unchanged, but no Stability penalty
• EQ also increases overall ransack bounty by +5%
• EQ now counts as Commons Quarter

Era 2+ nomads (Huns, Mongols)

• No longer gain food as combat spoils
• Now can collect special “Pasture” curiosities that spawn on Prairie and Dry Grass which give food

Huns

• LT: Added +5 science per Unit on hostile territory

Garamantes

• EQ removed +1Food per adjacent Rocky Field and Stone Field
• EQ gains +1 food on exploitation on territory (there is a bug on the UI that doesn't mention "on territory")
• EQ now must be build next to Sterile, Stony Field, or Rocky Field
• EU losses “Indirect Fire” 

ERA 3

Aztecs

• EQ now counts as Commons Quarter
• EQ now gives +10 Stability (was +5)
• Sacrifice Action now causes each EQ to get +100% to their stability output
• Additional Sacrifice effect gives +1 CS to Heavily Damaged (<33%) Units per Sacrificing settlements

Mongols 

• LT: Added -25% Vassalization cost reduction

Khmer

• EU loses “Move and Fire” 
• EU gain Elephant Platform (no penalty from melee attacks).
• EU loses “Indirect Fire” 

ERA 4

Ming

• LT: Replaced "+1 Influence on Territory" with "+10 Influence per enacted Civic"
• EQ: No longer provides Stability, but counts as Commons Quarter instead
• EQ: +1 influence per district in same territory as emblematic quarter

Poles

• EQ now counts as Commons Quarter

Venetians

• LT: +1 influence per trade route, +1 money per trade route, +2 money per naval route   
• EQ: +2 Money base yield (was +1)
• EQ: +2 Influence per adjacent District (was +1 per market before)

Spain

• EQ now gives +5 stability (was -10)
• EQ now counts as Commons Quarter

ERA 5

Ethiopia

• LT effect boosted to +10 Science on Garrisons (was +5)
• LT gains "CS of hostile units within borders gained as Science"
• EQ now counts as Commons Quarter
• EQ now properly counts as Garrison

Zulu

• EQ now counts as Farmers Quarter
• EQ now serves as construction anchor like Hamlet
• EQ now gives +25XP on new units (was +10)

French

• EQ loses "Collective Minds" effect
• EQ gains +2 Science per trade route

Russians

• LT loses old effects
• LT gains "-25% outpost creation cost"
• LT gains +10 Fortification on settlements

ERA 6

USSR

• Resource now only applies CS bonus only if unit is Supplied

Americans

• EQ loses "strength on adjacent units"
• EQ no longer reduces Stability
• EQ gains gold synergy with Garrisons
• EQ counts as Market Quarter
• EQ counts as Commons Quarter
• EQ gives +3 Bombardment Strength (Yes, this is global)

Japan

• EQ loses inherent synergy effect with Makers and Research quarters (infrastructures that give synergy to Makers and Research quarters still work)
• EQ: Restricted +2 Science and +2 Industry effects to local territory

Turks

• LT buffed to +3 Food per pop (was +1)

Brazil

• EQ: gains "+3 Science per adjacent Farmers Quarter"
• EQ: gains +1 Researcher slot
• EQ now counts as research quarter

India

• EQ: count as Common Quarter and Religious District
• EQ: exploits industry and food of tiles (as Hamlets)
• EQ: does not need to be placed next to another district
• EQ: loses +2 Faith per population
• EQ: provide +1 Science, +1 Influence on Religious District
• LT: +5 influence (instead of +3), +2% money per territory under influence 

Cuba

• EQ: count as Science Quarter
• EQ: removed +1 Food per population per Pharmaceuticals on all Cities
• EQ: +1 Food per Food Worker per Pharmaceuticals on Overpopulated cities 
• EQ on Settled cities  (>90% Stability) 
• +1 Industry per Pharmaceutical access per Industry worker
• +1 Money per Pharmaceutical access per money worker
• +1 Science per Pharmaceutical access per Science worker

Religious Districts and Tenets

We've added an explicit line in the "counts as" section for religious districts. Currently, the list of Religious Districts includes all Holy Sites ("normal" and cultural wonders, but this may not be displayed yet), and the the following Emblematic Quarters

• Aztec
• Maya
• Edo Japanese
• Spanish
• Russian
• Umayyads
• Maurya
• Celts
• Goths
• Aksumites
• Teutons
• Ottomans
• Nazca
• Mississippians

In addition to that, we have added an additional effect to the following Tenets

• Tier 1
• Respect the seas’ bounties : +2 Food on Religious District
• Abstain from Intoxicants: +2 Industry on Religious District
• Seek Wisdom: +2 Science on Religious District
• Shelter the True Oracles: +2 Influence on Religious District
• Be virtuous as Water: +2 Stability on Religious District
• Reject Luxury: +2 Money on Religious District 
• Tier 2 
• Undertake Pilgrimage: +2 Influence on Religious District
• Bear not False Witness: +2 Science on Religious District
• Give Alms: +2 Money on Religious District
• Observe Fasts : +2 Food on Religious District
• Protect the Weak: +2 Stability on Religious District 
• Tier 3 
• Develop the Intellect: +2 Science on Religious District
• Purge Idleness: +2 Industry on Religious District
• Mandate Patronage: +2 Money on Religious District
• Proselytize Daily: +2 Influence on Religious District 
• Tier 4 
• Raise Monuments: +2 Science on Religious District
• Donate Generously: +2 Money on Religious District
• Sustain the Faithful: +2 Stability on Religious District