The Firaxis team has also added ‘Observer’ mode to watch multiplayer games unfold. There are a number of UI tweaks and some adjustments to military AI behaviours.
The Steam Workshop should be handled correctly now as they addressed a bug or two. Terrain art and some audio fixes were included in the latest update.
MULTIPLAYER
• New Mode - Sequential - Similar to the way Single Player works, each player takes turns making their moves.
• New Mode - Hybrid - turns are simultaneous as they’ve worked in the past, but when wars are declared, any players involved in the wars switch to sequential until the war is resolved. All other uninvolved players still play simultaneous.
• New Mode - Pitboss - Your game can now run in a server mode, which allows players to connect, take their turn, disconnect, and come back later. Email notifications and steam notifications are built into the system. Once the system has received a healthy amount of feedback from the community, we will also include a stand-alone Pitboss server that does not require a steam account to run.
• Added an “Observer” mode to watch a multiplayer game.
• Added ability to play custom maps in multiplayer. Host and all players must place custom maps in the main games “maps” directory to be usable.
• Added ability to kick a player in-game.
• Added ability to save a game configuration from the Staging room, so players can keep various “favorite” game settings ready to go.
• Reworked hot-join code to make hot-join much more reliable.
• Reworked host migration to be more reliable.
• Reworked lobby, added multiple improvements to the way games are setup, and added flexibility when loading a save, and all players are no longer available to play. Also added slot-type pull-downs so host can define the slot-type (like Open, Human Required, AI, and Closed).
• Game will now auto-start when all humans have readied up.
• Added hours/seconds label to turn timer edit box.
• Tracked down and squashed many more causes of out-of-syncs and connection issues, as well as other general bugs.
• Additional polish, notifications for kicks, disconnects, reconnects, host changes, multiple UI and tooltip additions and improvements, etc.
GAMEPLAY
• Fixed an issue that caused workers building improvements to constantly “wake up” when hostile units were not close by.
• Hun Battering Ram promotions which allows only city attacks are now lost upon upgrade.
• Fix an issue where the plot under a city would not be worked after trading/gifting it.
• Crabs should no longer spawn in lakes.
• Many additional subtle updates to tool-tips, and information exposed to players.
IN-GAME ART/SOUNDS
• New Forest and Jungle art for all terrain types.
• New Road and Railroad art.
• Touched up color on various terrain pieces, as well as some of the texture transitions.
• Fix Rock of Gibralter national wonder so that it’s surrounding terrain displays properly (there may still be rare cases where this can still occur).
• Reduced texture sized on many models in-game (buildings, improvements, some leaders, etc.).
• Added missing “Selection” sound entries for some base game units.
AI
• Military: More aggressive AI city attacks.
• Military: Refine larger unit formations, and adjust the AI to use these against City-States if appropriate.
• Military: Make Great Generals more aware of danger nearby.
• Military: The AI will now prioritize capturing original capitals and cities that were originally theirs.
UI
• UI will now change based on the DLL that is active (base game, Gods and Kings, or Brave New World).
• New Declare War Pop-up that includes an overview of all connected events (like trades that will be cancelled, City-State allies, etc.)
• New Single-Player leaderboards for main game, scenarios, DLC, and mods. To add leaderboards to a mod, add the “SupportsLeaderboards” property to its mod properties.
• Added a pop-up that tells the user that the game data is changing when DLC/Scenarios are activated/deactivated.
• Maintenance-free units are now properly tracked in the Economic Overview.
• Planes and Nukes are now considered Military Units in the Unit overview.
• Fixed issues with the city Garrison ring not displaying correctly.
• Natural Wonders that create Happiness will now display the yield properly in the plot tool-tip.
• Fix some issues that would cause the terrain yield icons to be incorrect, or sometimes missing.
• Religion: Fixed a bug where unknown civs would be revealed (via Icon) in the Religion Overview.
• Add in a player option called “Quick Selection Advance” which will have the auto-unit-selection advance to the next unit without waiting for the animation to complete.
• When the active player’s turn starts, make sure all their city range strike icons are correct.
• Multiple general fixes and improvements to touch-screen functionality.
• Replay graphs are now much more accurate.
• Planes and Nukes are now considered military units in the overview.
• Fixed a bug in which units were not properly sorted by name in the military overview.
• Correct some issues that would cause unit icons to disappear.
• Multiple subtle UI improvements throughout the game.
MODS AND STEAM WORKSHOP
• Fixed an issue that would cause some mods to download over and over from Steam Workshop.
• Changed the way the mod database is built so that the mod library is managed correctly.
• Fixed an issue with World Builder which could cause it not to launch properly on some users computers.
