One of the complaints seemingly everyone has about Civ 5 is how little there is to do in the early turns. Making workers cheap would address this better than just about any other fix. If the only downside is faster terrain improvements, how unbalancing would this be, and could it be adjusted elsewhere?

One of the complaints seemingly everyone has about Civ 5 is how little there is to do in the early turns. Making workers cheap would address this better than just about any other fix
Well, I disagree that there's a problem, after the very early game. There's always more to do if you're at war than if you're at peace, but even at peace you can MM and tweak your empire every time something new happens (like a city grows, or whatever) and you can spend gold every turn.

But I don't see why we should have workers cheaper just so there is "something to do". That wouldn't even make more to do at all, it would just mean that your worker tasks got finished sooner, and then once the midgame they would be even more useless and boring than they are now, and you'd have to either have them sitting around doing nothing waiting for railroads, or just disband them.

Well, I disagree that there's a problem, after the very early game. There's always more to do if you're at war than if you're at peace, but even at peace you can MM and tweak your empire every time something new happens (like a city grows, or whatever) and you can spend gold every turn.

But I don't see why we should have workers cheaper just so there is "something to do". That wouldn't even make more to do at all, it would just mean that your worker tasks got finished sooner, and then once the midgame they would be even more useless and boring than they are now, and you'd have to either have them sitting around doing nothing waiting for railroads, or just disband them.

I'm talking about the very early game, where just about everyone agrees that there's a problem with just exploring and hitting "end turn." Making them cheaper by definition gives you something to do early on, and by the time they're finished, you can shift attention to the parts of the game that have by then developed. That they become useless earlier is a problem I would gladly trade for. That they become relatively useless, period, is a different issue altogether.

I'm talking about the very early game, where just about everyone agrees that there's a problem with just exploring and hitting "end turn."
This has been the same in every Civ game.
If you lower worker cost enough to matter, then you throw a lot of city development out of whack in general.

The very early game only has nothing to do if you don't build any units, or lose them all. Otherwise, you can explore and go barb hunting.
This is more interesting in Civ5 than in previous civs, because of natural wonders, city state discovery rewards, and barbarian camp gold.

This has been the same in every Civ game.
If you lower worker cost enough to matter, then you throw a lot of city development out of whack in general.

The very early game only has nothing to do if you don't build any units, or lose them all. Otherwise, you can explore and go barb hunting.
This is more interesting in Civ5 than in previous civs, because of natural wonders, city state discovery rewards, and barbarian camp gold.

Throwing city development out of whack may well be too much of a downside, which is why I asked about it in my OP... although I don't know that it is.

That there is more explore/hit "end turn" in Civ 5 than in previous Civ versions is pretty well documented - just read the many complaint threads about the long early-game build times. Workers took less time to build in earlier Civ versions, so there was consequently more to do in the early stages.

I do feel the gold buffs [to resources] are small enough they shouldn't have much impact on overall income.

So the buff for trading post gold and coast gold and building gold from special resources and cheaper buildings and buffed merchant specialists, combined, is non-trivial.

The conversation at that point was only about the resource bonuses. I do feel those are scattered enough, the bonuses late enough in the tech tree, and small enough they should not have a significant impact on income. :)

Trading posts are another story, and are something I've been thinking about.



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I don't remember exactly where I saw this, but I think there was a concern expressed somewhere about complimentary balance changes (which I think Polycrates might be getting at).

To put it simply, I don't think "reduced gold here, so we need to come up with another way to increase it." This would be a poor way to approach changes. Basically, I avoid using solutions to create new problems... instead I use similar problems to create balanced solutions.


For example, if there's similar problems like...

The community has found problem A, caused by X costing too little.
The community also identified problem B where Y costs too much.

Independent problems acting as opposites on some shared subject, if solved, are the 'hit two birds with one stone' cliche. It provides a way to produce solutions without affecting overall game balance. For example, I've seen people in the community talk about:

Problems:


Farms are too good (especially on river-plains and river-hills)
Upgrading is too cheap / easy.
AIs offer too much gold for resources and open borders.
Too easy to buy citystates.
Little incentive to construct buildings like the Forge and Arsenal.

Possible solutions I know of:


Improve TP yields like Farms do.
Increase upgrade costs.
Reduce AI gold offers in trades.
Require more gold for citystate influence.
Increase unit purchase costs, improve Forge/Arsenal production.


These aren't the only solutions to the problems, but these solutions happen to interact on gold income in opposite directions, so it seems logical to implement them side-by-side in such a manner overall income is ideally unchanged. Getting that balance right is tricky, but possible, and a goal worth working towards.

The conversation at that point was only about the resource bonuses. I do feel those are scattered enough, the bonuses late enough in the tech tree, and small enough they should not have a significant impact on income. :)

Trading posts are another story, and are something I've been thinking about.



---------------

I don't remember exactly where I saw this, but I think there was a concern expressed somewhere about complimentary balance changes (which I think Polycrates might be getting at).

To put it simply, I don't think "reduced gold here, so we need to come up with another way to increase it." This would be a poor way to approach changes. Basically, I avoid using solutions to create new problems... instead I use similar problems to create balanced solutions.


For example, if there's similar problems like...

The community has found problem A, caused by X costing too little.
The community also identified problem B where Y costs too much.

Independent problems acting as opposites on some shared subject, if solved, are the 'hit two birds with one stone' cliche. It provides a way to produce solutions without affecting overall game balance. For example, I've seen people in the community talk about:

Problems:


Farms are too good (especially on river-plains and river-hills)
Upgrading is too cheap / easy.
AIs offer too much gold for resources and open borders.
Too easy to buy citystates.
Little incentive to construct buildings like the Forge and Arsenal.

Possible solutions I know of:


Improve TP yields like Farms do.
Increase upgrade costs.
Reduce AI gold offers in trades.
Require more gold for citystate influence.
Increase unit purchase costs, improve Forge/Arsenal production.


These aren't the only solutions to the problems, but these solutions happen to interact on gold income in opposite directions, so it seems logical to implement them side-by-side in such a manner overall income is ideally unchanged. Getting that balance right is tricky, but possible, and a goal worth working towards.

Agreed in total.. except for #5.

I would say that making the Forge and Arsenal relevant isn't a good enough reason to increase unit purchase costs. That the costs are too low in and of themselves should be the first reason. Balancing warmongering vs building could be another. (And as you know I think the current dev mod's unit purchase costs are too high, hurting the builder more than the warmonger.)

You're right and I agree, it's the reason I explored that approach though. Since there's basically only two ways to get units (buying and building), altering one changes importance of the other in the opposite direction. :)

@Thal
I understand what you're saying, but I think every time you make a change you should think about "how does this solution affect the game, and what other/worse problems might it cause?".

I wonder if it might be useful (especially with major changes like the puppet nerf) to get a single stable "set" version and leave it for a week or two in a shakedown period without further changes or proposals, and let people get a feeling for the game as it plays with all the updates.

Then we can see what kind of problems people think are present in the new version, and go through an iterative balance cycle again.

I was planning on something like that, though for personal reasons (spending more time leveling with a friend through new content in Cata). :beer:

I've been thinking things over after playing a few games with the changes to luxury resource yields. While realistic, I feel the spots I picked at first for luxury bonuses overly complicated things, without adding as much to early-game strategic depth as the Smokehouse accomplished (especially with so many bonuses on late-game stuff like the Opera House or Museum).

I've consolidated the resources on fewer buildings, and primarily include the bonuses on buildings earlier in the game. I also converted the culture to gold bonuses, since the culture mechanic is rather confusing (does not affect tile yields, only receives bonus from first copy of the resource). From a perspective of realism, it could be considered tribute or offerings made to especially elaborate temples.

So as a second iteration of the idea:


Incense, Wine
2:c5culture: Monastery
Gold, Silver, Gems
3:c5gold: Mint
Fish, Pearls, Whales
2:c5production: Seaport
Cow, Deer, Sheep, Fish
1:c5food: Smokehouse
Wheat
1:c5food: with Civil Service or Fertilizer (improvement)
Bananas
2:c5food: when improved (was 1)
Horses
2:c5production: Stable
Iron, Coal, Aluminum, Uranium
1:c5production: with Machinery (improvement)



Spices, Sugar
1:c5gold: Watermill
1:c5gold: Windmill
(Split in two because these are situational)
Pearls, Whales, Fish, Furs
2:c5gold: Harbor
1:c5food:1:c5gold: from fishing boat on fish (down from 1, 2)
Silk, Cotton, Dye
2:c5gold: Temple
Previous buff to Temple in BCD mod removed.
Horses, Ivory
2:c5gold: Circus
Circus increased to 3:c5gold: maintenance (was 0).
Oil
4:c5gold: Combustion (improvement)
Market bonuses removed
Museum bonuses removed
Opera House bonuses removed


This puts more resources on the newly-added stuff, similar to the Smokehouse, so there's enough opportunities to efficiently gain effects from multiple sources.

I think luxury balance in particular needs to be considered with the combination of:

Tech requirement.
Basic yield.
Special abilities (marble).
Terrain type, clustering factor.
Building synergies.
Technology requirement for improvement (mining > calendar)

Some things to make sure get considered are:
Gems give a high yield just with a mine.
Incense tends to appear on desert tiles, which have no yield, so its a weaker resource.
Wonder boost from marble is very powerful.
Mint building has no purpose except the terrain yield boosts. I think that's a decent precedent, balance-wise. I think its better to create separate buildings (eg "weaver" that boosts silk, cotton, dye) rather than boosting existing buildings even more. If a temple gives +4 culture *and* boosts your economy by 2-6 gold in many cities, that's way too strong.
Think of how powerful everyone agrees the paper maker is.

I'd also move yields to medieval era or later buildings, not classical era, I think they're just too powerful in the early game. In the early game, higher yield alone is sufficient.

I agree Marble's existing bonus is already quite good. I'd been including it simply out of consistency, but leaving it out does have precedent since I left Bananas off any buildings (due to the later jungle science bonus). I've removed it off the Temple.

Speaking of which... now that the jungle bonus is delayed and farm yields nerfed it's worth revisiting bananas... hmm...

Here's my reasons behind the other points:


The Gem point could equally be applied to Gold and Silver. From a gameplay perspective I feel it's best to not leave one of them out. From a realism view, precious stones have been used as currency in several societies.
I try to avoid adding new buildings until I've eliminated all other buildings that could be viable options for achieving a goal. In this case there's several places we can put stuff.
Buildings like the Mint that can only be built with resources, but are better than most alternatives when those resources are available, which creates somewhat of a non-choice for city build queues. This is one reason why the Smokehouse has been a rather popular addition: its value varies but it's always an option, so it leaves more choice in the hands of the player as to just how much it's wanted for a particular city.
The Harbor's in the medieval era, and Windmill is in renaissance. The Watermill bonus is earliest of the new additions, but smaller than the others (even the Smokehouse), not available everywhere, and has a relatively high cost.
I agree the Temple's somewhat early, but the Opera House was too late. Since the Temple is a tier 2 building it does require a decent investment.
I buffed the temple when reworking the culture buildings, and after placing the luxuries here I reduced the temple's base power back down again. This in particular shifts the temple to favor efficient city placement over ICS, which I'm always looking for ways to do.
I like adding the bonus on the Temple because it diversifies it with more options/flexibility. I know it's more of a personal feeling, but something I do want to stick with. Orangecape helped a lot with spicing up buildings back in version 10 when I added the 1:c5happy: to the Opera House for the same reason.

The problem with the at temple gold boost is that it makes it too much of a no-brainer if you have even one of the resources around (pays the entire maintenance cost).

Increasing temple maintenance costs isn't a good rebalance though, because it weakens the temple when not near those buildings.

So I don't really see a good solution using it with the temple.

The solution I prefer is: have cotton, silk, dye, spices, furs and sugar have a higher base yield by 1 gold.
Then remove the watermill, windmill, temple building effects.

I think this makes sense, and makes them interestingly different from the gold/silver/gems resources. Those ones have low tech requirement and a good improvement (that also got boosted by mine yield boosts!), but need an extra structure to give the boost.

Then these other resources have a higher base yield right away, but don't get a further boost with an (otherwise useless) building.

I think its very, very weird for furs to tie to a harbor. Biggest fur trading in history was in Russia and Canada, a very long way from the coast.

Tying resource boosts to buildings that are already well-balanced is a poor solution IMO.
Better to have no building boost, or tie them to a building whose boosting value is its primary purpose, like the mint.

The thing is adding to base yields improves the value of the resources, but does not achieve the two primary goals: rewarding well-placed efficient cities, and extra rewards for long-term investment.

Better base or improvement yields works well for ICS because two cities can be placed adjacent to two resources and immediately gain both, while placing the effect on the building encourages dropping down a single city between the two resources. The second option will typically be further than either resource (likely out of the initial city circle) and therefore is a poor option in normal circumstances.

Basically it all ties back to Plolycrates's post on page 11 here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10104628#post10104628). This is a philosophy I do feel strongly about and intend to stick with, as a matter of personal 'fun factor.' :)

That's why I really like what you've done with the smokehouse; it gives you a bit of a bonus at the outset for a good site, but really rewards you when you start actually investing in it. Likewise buildings like the Monastery, Mint and Forge - and for me it just really feels like a rewarding mechanic when you get these special bonuses from buildings. They promote picking a "perfect" site to maximise the number of those resources you can get in a particular city's radius, since the one copy of the building pays off more. And I think it helps empower special resources while still promoting well-developed cities.

The thing is adding to base yields improves the value of the resources, but does not achieve the two primary goals: rewarding well-placed efficient cities
I don't think I understand this; how is city placement not rewarded by yield raises?

Do you mean because: you want to place a city so it gets all 3 sugars, rather than having those 3 sugars split between 2 different cities, so you only have to build 1 booster building?
That only works if the booster building is something like a mint, which you weren't otherwise going to build. If you were probably going to build it anyway, like a temple or harbor, then I don't see any efficiency gain.

Similarly on the second point; if you were going to build a temple or harbor anyway, then there is no incentive extra reward for long-term investment, its just a buff to buildings that you were already going to build. And I don't think the Temple needs a further buff.

This is why I would favor a Weaver building, which acted like a mint but for cotton, silk, dyes, and fur. You could still leave it at 2 gold, to compensate for the fact that it affects more resources, and that these resources are usually slightly more common and more concentrated than gold/silver/gems.
You could put it at Machinery tech (loom).

if you were going to build a temple or harbor anyway, then there is no incentive extra reward for long-term investment, its just a buff to buildings that you were already going to build.

To put it simply it's not just what to build but when, priorities in the build queue. There's very few buildings I'd never build at all. In my games, unless I just really need the border expansion I prioritize libraries, markets, colosseums, most other things before a temple. A monument's usually enough to keep up with early population growth for new tiles. This shifts priorities around, encourages more consideration of different build queues for specific cities, and it's this added variety I find a lot of fun. :)

Take the smokehouse for example: if there's only 1 bonus resource nearby I often build other things before the smokehouse, but sometimes before, it depends. Two resources usually makes it an early priority, no resources makes it very late. The Shinto Shrine was also designed in this manner.

On the topic of the furs, I'm not as familiar with Siberian history but I do know the trapping industry in North America long relied on waterways. Most of the fur trade was around the Great Lakes area, and the Hudson Bay Company was set up because that organization was able to secure a monopoly on rivers leading into the bay. From a perspective of history and flavor (in North American fur trading at least), it fits to have a naval trade building improve this industry. Speaking from a gameplay angle, furs tend to be in tundra regions in CiV, which are often close to the northern and southern coastlines of continents on the pangaea and continents map scripts and likely to be in range of a harbor.

Ivory are actually the resource I'm least sure about in this regard. Logically the Stable should give a bonus, since elephants are often used as 1) beasts of burden and 2) in war, both like horses. The only thing that held me back was the production modifier for mounted units... which makes sense in general (war animals) but I'm less certain about due to the fact most ingame mounted units use horses.

I also tried Ivory on the Circus a while, though that building's already so good it's a first-priority everywhere. Now that I think about it... I'll move it back to the Circus and improve build-order flexibility with other changes to it.

That's really what it all boils down to for me. I find it very fun to have a hard time picking a build order between options that all feel powerful. If it's easy to say X is always better than Y in every city, there's not really any option and I find things more boring. In vanilla, the circus/mint (obvious first priority) and stable/forge (obviously bad) fail at this and are not particularly thrilling for me.

It's definitely a subjective matter because what's fun varies from person to person. I don't remember which game designer said it, "Make games you enjoy!" :)

That's really what it all boils down to for me. I find it very fun to have a hard time picking a build order between options that all feel powerful. If it's easy to say X is always better than Y in every city, there's not really any option and I find things more boring. In vanilla, both the circus (obvious first priority) and stable (obviously bad) fail at this and are not particularly thrilling for me.

It's definitely a subjective matter because what's fun varies from person to person. I don't remember which game designer said it, "Make games you enjoy!" :)

This is pretty much what I enjoy as well, which is why I gravitated toward these mods.

With regard to the relative value of gems, I think the game designers valued it higher than all the other luxuries.

I wonder if you realize with the +1 hammer to mines/lumber with engineering you've destroyed the terraced farms of Inca.

Could you tell me how i can implement a +1 food or hammer to terrace farms as well post-engineering?

Its a shame cuz i can't disable this mod as it would reverse a lot of other things that i very much like.

I didn't buy that DLC so I can't look at the code of how the terrace works, but is it basically this?


+1:c5food: base yield
+1:c5food: at Civil Service (freshwater) or Fertilizer (non-freshwater)
+1:c5food: for each adjacent mountain tile
Does not require freshwater
Can be built only on hills?

If this is the case, the maximum yield of a terraced hill is 7:c5food:2:c5production:, quite powerful. Even with only one adjacent mountain it's +3:c5food: vs the +2:c5production: of a mine, and the value of one over the other would depend on the food situation in the nearby city.

One point to make is the mine bonus is split in the next version: +1 on riverside mines at Machinery, and +1 on non-riverside mines at Dynamite. Since non-river mines will only be 1:c5production: for the first half of the game, the value will be reduced.

Thal - I hate to say it but I'm not thrilled about the general change of importance from production to gold. Production is now essentially back at vanilla values for much of the game, and if you don't get a river start you're at a severe disadvantage. Because of a combination of increased costs (which I admit my mod has a part in) and more yielded from terrain, gold has seemingly taken a much more important role. Is this intentional? I saw your "Double Down?" thread and I can appreciate that it's extremely difficult to balance these things, however at this point I'm not convinced that the river bonuses to production are really necessary. It could be that I need to play a few more games with the changes to get used to them, but I felt I should speak my mind before they become set in stone here. The balance felt great until the .20 version, I think.

On a positive note, seaside cities are awesome now! With all three ocean buildings and the Research Lab, they've become very desirable. Btw, the Harbor's tooltip doesn't mention that all water tiles get 1G again.

The intent is to shift from improvement-based to building-based production buffs (not lessen production overall). This is why I did things like doubling the modifier for workshops, forges, and the arsenal, and the gigantic buff to nuclear power plants. Those buildings are nearly worthless in vanilla, but I can't buff them while also buffing improvements without overdoing it and ending up with out-of-control production. :crazyeye:

In particular, I'm going to focus on balancing the workshop and forge. These are available at the same tech level as the previous production buff on engineering, so overall it should result in similar gains while also improving building balance.

I've been thinking about removing rivers' base +1:c5gold:, but holding off on that for a while until I can learn more about how start locations are valued and resource placement occurs. The file that handles that stuff is over 10,000 lines of code. :badcomp:

The gold boost to water tiles is now on the terrain itself instead of the Harbor. :)

Nuclear power plants also got a gigantic buff.

Yes, they did, and I loved it. All of a sudden I had something to do with my uranium that was worth going out of my way for. Between them and the SS factory, I built the parts in about 5 turns in size 12 or so cities.

The intent is to shift from improvement-based to building-based production buffs (not lessen production overall). This is why I did things like doubling the modifier for workshops, forges, and the arsenal, and the gigantic buff to nuclear power plants. Those buildings are nearly worthless in vanilla, but I can't buff them while also buffing improvements without overdoing it and ending up with out-of-control production. :crazyeye:

In particular, I'm going to focus on balancing the workshop and forge. These are available at the same tech level as the previous production buff on engineering, so overall it should result in similar gains while also improving building balance.

I've been thinking about removing rivers' base +1:c5gold:, but holding off on that for a while until I can learn more about how start locations are valued and resource placement occurs. The file that handles that stuff is over 10,000 lines of code. :badcomp:

Yes, I understand that's where you're heading with this; I just found that the differences were remarkable, especially because I rolled Caesar. Note, I didn't build a forge because I only had one iron deposit and I settled my last city there which was playing catch-up the rest of the game. Also didn't get to nuclear plants because I'm going for a space win and am still teching the parts. I am sure this stuff will come out fine, I just found it a little frustrating and too river-focused. Sorry if I sounded harsh.:)

The gold boost to water tiles is now on the terrain itself instead of the Harbor. :)

I just checked the xml and there is indeed a +1G for all water tiles with the harbor (v.28) - must have been left in by mistake? I was actually happy to see it back in, with the 4G maintenance (!) the harbor is only viable if you have 3+ sea resources, assuming you don't need it for a trade route.

Yeah, it really all ties back into the issue of too-low base yield values, there's just limited flexibility in what to put where. One thing to point out is the trading post bonuses to rivers and non-rivers are very close to one another in era, so that particular aspect isn't too disjointed.

Your feedback's given me added motivation to figure out how start locations are valued around rivers, maybe I can hardcode in an additional value-weight for fresh water (if it doesn't have one already). This would let me remove rivers' base gold yield without messing up the map balance algorithms. :)

Thank you for pointing out the Harbor inconsistency. The reason I shifted the bonus from water tiles to resources is so the Harbor is a more challenging decision, while it used to be a no-brainer for every coastal city. The Harbor pays its maintenance in any of the following conditions:


Sea resource and market+bank.
Two sea resources and no market+bank.
Specialist economy policies acquired.
4+ tiles to next city and no military need for a road.
Railroad tech researched... instant +50%:c5production: from all harbors! Railroads are very expensive at 2:c5gold:/tile.

Since fish are rather common, meeting a combination of #1 and #4 can be done rather easily (1 resource and no road). Fish turn into superpowered 5:c5food:2:c5production:4:c5gold:2:c5science: tiles when fully improved. Each investment might not seem great individually, but I think the total effect is worth it, especially if there's a cluster of sea resources a city can improve all at once.

The thing is adding to base yields improves the value of the resources, but does not achieve the two primary goals: rewarding well-placed efficient cities, and extra rewards for long-term investment.

Better base or improvement yields works well for ICS because two cities can be placed adjacent to two resources and immediately gain both, while placing the effect on the building encourages dropping down a single city between the two resources. The second option will typically be further than either resource (likely out of the initial city circle) and therefore is a poor option in normal circumstances.

Basically it all ties back to Plolycrates's post on page 11 here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10104628#post10104628). This is a philosophy I do feel strongly about and intend to stick with, as a matter of personal 'fun factor.' :)
I disagree, really. Bonuses from buildings have their place but so have improved base yields. Improved base yields can be made more worthwhile for a highly developed city compared to an ICS borg outpost by improving multiplier buildings. ICS outposts usually don't have enough hammers to get all their infrastructure done with, for example, workshops. So if workshops are better, the large city does get a more significant benefit from better resource tiles. This is how it worked in Civ4, by the way.

I disagree, really. Bonuses from buildings have their place but so have improved base yields. Improved base yields can be made more worthwhile for a highly developed city compared to an ICS borg outpost by improving multiplier buildings. ICS outposts usually don't have enough hammers to get all their infrastructure done with, for example, workshops. So if workshops are better, the large city does get a more significant benefit from better resource tiles. This is how it worked in Civ4, by the way.

I think there's probably room for both. I think the building boosts work really well in the early/mid game. But given that cities are working so many tiles in the late game (especially since this mod boosts pop growth), even with the building boosts the specials tend to get a bit lost in the noise later on. By the mid/late game, everywhere has pretty much been settled (and most cities have already grown big), so ICS is much less of an issue - but you still want to keep certain city sites particularly tempting for conquest, or just specialised development into your super-cities.
I think a later-game boost to resources via tech could go hand-in-hand with the earlier boosts given by buildings. Something like: Rifling for camps, Fertiliser or something for plantations, Biology for pastures, Steel or Metallurgy for Iron etc.

It'd make sense to do a combination of both like Polycrates suggests... and the start of the Industrial Revolution would make sense as a spot to put the bonuses since other improvements get boosts there too.

Thal - I hate to say it but I'm not thrilled about the general change of importance from production to gold. Production is now essentially back at vanilla values for much of the game
I disagree, I think the current system is pretty good, and makes fresh water tiles avoid a "no-brainer" system of which tile to build, because every improvement gets a bonus.

Tile yields are also higher than vanilla for most of the game; for fresh water tiles from compass/machinery, and for all tiles from economics/steam power.

I take the point that coastal cities are production poor, but maybe that's ok, they're gold rich.

Every game start is either on a river or the coast, so that's the only tradeoff to be considered.

The intent is to shift from improvement-based to building-based production buffs (not lessen production overall). This is why I did things like doubling the modifier for workshops, forges, and the arsenal, and the gigantic buff to nuclear power plants.
Right, I support this.
But I wonder;
a) Haven't checked the current version, but many previous versions didn't have the forge boost.
b) What's the gameplay reason for the forge needing local iron? Its frustrating and not much fun. I would rather leave the forge without a requirement, but have it give +1 hammer to a local iron resource.


Improved base yields can be made more worthwhile for a highly developed city compared to an ICS borg outpost by improving multiplier buildings. ICS outposts usually don't have enough hammers to get all their infrastructure done with, for example, workshops. So if workshops are better, the large city does get a more significant benefit from better resource tiles.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here.
Yield improvements favor ICS, because its easier to get lots of population working lots of tiles, and the yield is high from the base alone.
Building boosts favor tall cities, because they're percentage boosts; my size 10 city with a workshop can now compete for total production with your 3 size 4 cities that don't have a workshop.

Changing tile yields has a bigger impact than anything else we're doing, particularly due to discreteness issues. I advise severe caution before making further changes.
And I disagree that industrial revolution makes sense for large *tile yield* bonuses; the production boost is already adequately handled by the factory and railroad (and the steam power boost for non-fresh-water).

Forge was boosted from 15% to 25% in v12 (December 26). You and I are thinking along the same lines regarding an iron boost. For a while I've been considering a boost on it for iron/aluminum/uranium, and changing the local-resource requirement. :)

The Industrial Revolution changed much more than production of goods alone. As you know, modern economics was basically born with the introduction of market theories in the same era. Even disregarding the changes to economic theory, there were huge changes to transport, communication, and innovation brought about during this time period. From a historical perspective it make sense for the economy to get a boost at the Economics tech. In vanilla this is only marginally represented by the Big Ben wonder.

In addition, the threshing machine was invented around the same time, and allowed farms to change from thousands of workers to dozens, dramatically improving food productivity. The concept of crop rotation became more widespread, and the study of plant nutrition was mostly nonexistent before the Industrial Revolution.

Basically, this time began the first period in human history of of rapid, sustained improvement in material well-being of average people around the world since the introduction of agriculture.

Forge was boosted from 15% to 25% in v12 (December 26).
Ok, then it isn't documented.
Look in the buildings spoiler tag in the first post in the city development thread:

Details - Buildings
Stable
-25% cost.
+1 +1 on each Horse worked by this city.

The break-even point is now 7 chariot archers, 5 horsemen, or 3 knights (down from 9, 6, 4 respectively). If you mass-produce more horse units than this, the stable will provide you benefit. However, to pay for the increase mass-produce capability you delay initial production, no benefit if you rush-buy, and requires improved horses in the city radius.
Workshop
30% building production (was 20%)
Windmill
-45% cost and 20% production (was 15%) (same cost as Workshop, 33% less effective, but applies to units and wonders).
Opera House
+1
Culture
+1 for Temple and Museum, -2 for Opera House
Broadcast Tower
-20% cost.
Granary
2, and +1 on each Cow, Deer, Sheep, and Fish worked by the city. Renamed to Smokehouse.
Aqueduct
40% storage. (Growth multiplied by 1.6x)
Hospital
60% storage. (Growth multiplied by 1.6x, cumulative with Aqueduct for a total 2.5x)
-50% cost.
Medical Lab
75% storage. (Growth multiplied by 1.6x, cumulative with Hospital for a total 4x)-40%
Market, Bank
-25% cost.
Stock Exchange
-50% cost.
Harbor
+1 on water tiles worked by this city (was 0) (trade and tourism).
4/turn maintenance (was 3)
Research Lab
+1 on water tiles worked by this city (was 0) (deep-sea exploration).
Arsenal
50% land and air unit production (was 20%, 0%)
Armory
20xp (was 15)
Military Academy
25xp (was 15)
No forge mention.

As you know, the whole field of economics had a transition from mercantile theories to markets in the same era.
But very few countries actually adopted free trade, Britain was really alone in its 19th century free trade policies. In general economic policy remained much unchanged until the 20th century and the foundation of central banks.

but from a historical perspective it does make sense for the economy to get a boost at the Economics tech
Already in the mod I thought, with +1 gold for non-fresh-water trading posts.

In addition, the threshing machine was invented around the same time as other economic transformations, and allowed farms to change from thousands of workers to dozens, dramatically improving food yields.
Already represented by the fertilizer tech boost.

My point isn't that there weren't big increases in lots of fields, my point is that you've already modeled these well with the combination of existing boosts.

Ah, just a mistake on the forum post. The forge change is listed in the readmes and on the website, sometimes new information is missed when I transfer it to the forums.

And I disagree that industrial revolution makes sense for large *tile yield* bonuses; the production boost is already adequately handled by the factory and railroad (and the steam power boost for non-fresh-water). Already in the mod I thought, with +1 gold for non-fresh-water trading posts.

Already represented by the fertilizer tech boost.

My point isn't that there weren't big increases in lots of fields, my point is that you've already modeled these well with the combination of existing boosts.

Oh, sorry! I just misunderstood the use of the word "large" and thought you were saying the +50%:c5gold: on TPs was too large, which is why I went into a long post about economic advancements of the era. :)

I guess I distinguish between the industrial revolution and other changes that happened over a similar period of time, but weren't necessarily industrial in nature.

No its simply +1:c5food: on hills
with +1 :c5food: per mountaint.

No other bonuses.

This means its simply the same as a farm on a hill, and with 1 mountain would be a farm-on-river on a hill.

With +1:c5production: from engineering, this makes even a hill near a mountain (quite rare) the same as any normal mine. And without, it would simply be terrible.

I would hope that the buff to mines (the hill improvement) can buff the terrace farm as well, either by +1 food or hammer.

I didn't buy that DLC so I can't look at the code of how the terrace works, but is it basically this?


+1:c5food: base yield
+1:c5food: at Civil Service (freshwater) or Fertilizer (non-freshwater)
+1:c5food: for each adjacent mountain tile
Does not require freshwater
Can be built only on hills?

If this is the case, the maximum yield of a terraced hill is 7:c5food:2:c5production:, quite powerful. Even with only one adjacent mountain it's +3:c5food: vs the +2:c5production: of a mine, and the value of one over the other would depend on the food situation in the nearby city.

One point to make is the mine bonus is split in the next version: +1 on riverside mines at Machinery, and +1 on non-riverside mines at Dynamite. Since non-river mines will only be 1:c5production: for the first half of the game, the value will be reduced.

No its simply +1:c5food: on hills
with +1 :c5food: per mountaint.

No other bonuses.

This means its simply the same as a farm on a hill, and with 1 mountain would be a farm-on-river on a hill.

With +1:c5production: from engineering, this makes even a hill near a mountain (quite rare) the same as any normal mine. And without, it would simply be terrible.

I would hope that the buff to mines (the hill improvement) can buff the terrace farm as well, either by +1 food or hammer.

If anything, I'd just give them the food buff at Fertiliser, the same as other waterless farms. I'd be hesitant to give them any buff at all since the Inca are already one of the most powerful civs in the game; except that the terrace farm is already very situational as it is, and it's a fun element that would be a shame to marginalise even more.

I don't agree with giving them a boost with fertilizer and the reason is simple: they'll be competing with mines on hills when a player decides whether to build them or not.

If they were to get their bonus with fertilizer then terrace farms won't be built until such tech (unless the production bonuses get moved to railroad or something as well - which may not be such a bad idea).

I'd give them the boost with civil service and fertilizer.

That way:
Early game: Mine = +1 hammer, Terrace farm = +1 food, +1 food per adjacent mountain.
Midgame: Mine = +1 hammer, +1 hammer with fresh water, Terrace farm = +1 food, +1 food per adjacent mountain, +1 food with fresh water.
Lategame: Mine = + 2hammer, Terrace farm = +2 food, +1 food per adjacent mountain.

That makes it a powerful UB that is worth building over a mine, but still highly situational.

I'd be hesitant to give them any buff at all since the Inca are already one of the most powerful civs in the game
Really? How so? The maintenance cost reduction is ok, but road costs are pretty small with the larger economy in the balance mod. 1 movement cost in hills is good, but not enough by itself to make them a top tier civ.
Slingers are a weak UU.

I'd give them the boost with civil service and fertilizer.

That way:
Early game: Mine = +1 hammer, Terrace farm = +1 food, +1 food per adjacent mountain.
Midgame: Mine = +1 hammer, +1 hammer with fresh water, Terrace farm = +1 food, +1 food per adjacent mountain, +1 food with fresh water.
Lategame: Mine = + 2hammer, Terrace farm = +2 food, +1 food per adjacent mountain.

That makes it a powerful UB that is worth building over a mine, but still highly situational.
The reason I didn't suggest Civil Service is that part of their flavour is that they don't require fresh water, so they're designed to let you settle places away from water that otherwise don't have the food to support a city. Stick them next to a mountain range, and you're getting a whole string of 3f2h tiles and even a couple of 4f2h tiles, and you can get there earlier than CS. The corollary being they don't get a boost from freshwater either - and I think this would make them too powerful and lose some of the flavour to boot. A boost at fertiliser comes at about the same time as the mine boost on non-freshwater, which is when they become weak by comparison.

Really? How so? The maintenance cost reduction is ok, but road costs are pretty small with the larger economy in the balance mod. 1 movement cost in hills is good, but not enough by itself to make them a top tier civ.
Slingers are a weak UU.

Yeah true, I'm going off vanilla values with that assessment, but in vanilla (or an environment with similar amounts of gold) an effective ~3/4 reduction in road/rail maintenance can make you a huge amount of gold right throughout the game if you build yourself a decent-sized empire. And the hill movement is a really strong combat boost (and worker help), that I do think just about makes them top-tier by itself because it gives so much extra mobility and flexibility. Slinger is a bit ordinary, I agree, though it's kind of nice as a guerrilla with the hill movement.

The reason I didn't suggest Civil Service is that part of their flavour is that they don't require fresh water, so they're designed to let you settle places away from water that otherwise don't have the food to support a city. Stick them next to a mountain range, and you're getting a whole string of 3f2h tiles and even a couple of 4f2h tiles, and you can get there earlier than CS. The corollary being they don't get a boost from freshwater either - and I think this would make them too powerful and lose some of the flavour to boot. A boost at fertiliser comes at about the same time as the mine boost on non-freshwater, which is when they become weak by comparison.
The reason I suggest keeping the civil service boost is because otherwise you're better off building a mine on a river-hill in the midgame, even if its next to a mountain.
+2 food is less valuable than +2 hammers.
And no better off building a terrace farm than a normal farm. If you have a hill next to a mountain, then the terrace farm needs to be superior.

an effective ~3/4 reduction in road/rail maintenance can make you a huge amount of gold right throughout the game if you build yourself a decent-sized empire
I find road maintenance is normally a very small proportion of my expenses, particularly in this mod which rebalances in favor of much more building construction.
So the economy gain is small.

The reason I suggest keeping the civil service boost is because otherwise you're better off building a mine on a river-hill in the midgame, even if its next to a mountain.
+2 food is less valuable than +2 hammers.
And no better off building a terrace farm than a normal farm. If you have a hill next to a mountain, then the terrace farm needs to be superior.
I think we're talking a bit at cross-purposes here :D
I think you should be equal/better off building a mine on a river hill. I don't think that's the point of terrace farms at all.

For me, the point of terrace farms is that they're (with one mountain) a farmed riverside hill that doesn't have to be next to a river. 2f2h is still a very powerful tile yield - particularly in hilly non-river areas where the competition remains 0f3h and 1f2h until the late game, and where getting enough food for these is very difficult. With the terrace farm, you can make an area of all hills in the middle of nowhere into an incredibly productive city. They're about making great cities in suboptimal areas and maybe helping out your other cities a bit as well (2f2h still beats a lumbermill and arguably a mine on non-river until the lategame without fertiliser). They're an extra option, not necessarily always a better option (though in many cases they're much better)
You can also get to them quicker than to Civil Service.

I find road maintenance is normally a very small proportion of my expenses, particularly in this mod which rebalances in favor of much more building construction.
So the economy gain is small.
Perhaps. But the inca promote building a large empire, and in my last game with them (vanilla) it was saving me approximately 90 gold PER TURN post-railroad (and I guess up to half that pre-railroad), which pretty much doubled my net income. Even before that, it comes out to perhaps 2-3 gold per city per turn of savings and made my trade routes very profitable much earlier. And it's perhaps the lesser half of the UA.

Mines by river can already be irrigated so I think there's not much point talking about it.

Where the problem is, is that without the balance-patch both terrace and mine give +1 resource.

With this patch, mines begin to outweigh the terrace making it completely useless. The mountain nearby bonus is supposed to be just that, a bonus... the same way each persian city gets +2 hapiness or most aztec cities get +15% food.

I would also imagine that historically engineering would have been a more appropriate boost to terraced farms than civil service.

I think that for consistency's sake, it makes sense for Terrace Farms to get boosts from the same techs as regular Farms. :)

The discussion is all moot without some way for me to know what to edit though. I don't even know what the terrace farm's real name is or what its data is in the files. Could someone with the DLC zip its \Gameplay\XML folder and attach it for me, please?

Can do when I get home tonight, if no-one beats me to it.

I think that for consistency's sake, it makes sense for Terrace Farms to get boosts from the same techs as regular Farms. :)

The discussion is all moot without some way for me to know what to edit though. I don't even know what the terrace farm's real name is or what its data is in the files. Could someone with the DLC zip its \Gameplay\XML folder and attach it for me, please?

Where do I find that folder, starting from the top?

C:\Games\Steam\steamapps\common\sid meier's civilization v\Assets\DLC\<whatever the DLC is called>

I strongly suggest you follow my advice and make it in engineering. I only say this because the choice is between a terrace farm and a mine on a hill so both getting upgraded at the same time does make more sense.

However if you're going to go the other route, please make sure its CS and NOT fertilizer, otherwise you may just find that no one will use terrace farms for the first few thousand years of the game.

I've attached the xml, and here is the exact path i got it from:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\sid meier's civilization v\Assets\DLC\DLC_02\Gameplay\XML

Good luck, and thanks for everything in advance. :)

Unless it's been changed since 2.0beta, only riverside mines get a boost at machinery now - non-river mines get their boost at dynamite

And riverside terrace farms are useless in vanilla anyway. Sure, nobody will use them riverside, but nobody uses them riverside in vanilla either. A riverside terrace farm (with 1 mountain) is equal to a riverside regular farm (except in the brief period between construction and CS) - boosting them at CS or machinery would be a straight-up buff.

The only situation where riverside terraces and riverside mines are comparable is for the extremely rare 2-mountain-plus-riverside hill, which are vastly outnumbered by 1-mountain-riverside-hills. You'd be causing a much larger imbalance to correct an extremely minor imbalance.

I fully support a boost at Fertiliser/dynamite, but frankly I think even that is a slight overall buff compared to vanilla - because it makes them even more useful in their primary role of providing food to areas where there isn't enough food to make full use of the available hammers.

Thank you for the file! :goodjob:

I strongly suggest you follow my advice and make it in engineering. I only say this because the choice is between a terrace farm and a mine on a hill so both getting upgraded at the same time does make more sense.

However if you're going to go the other route, please make sure its CS and NOT fertilizer, otherwise you may just find that no one will use terrace farms for the first few thousand years of the game.
It might have been easy to miss, I highlighted the important parts:
One point to make is the mine bonus is split in the next version: +1 on riverside mines at Machinery, and +1 on non-riverside mines at Dynamite. Since non-river mines will only be 1:c5production: for the first half of the game, the value will be reduced.I think that for consistency's sake, it makes sense for Terrace Farms to get boosts from the same techs as regular Farms. :)

From what I've seen, it sounds like the improvement and UU are the weak parts of the Inca civ and the trait is the strongest. If they are in fact too powerful I'd prefer equalizing the three instead of leaving two of them weak. I feel it makes a civ more interesting overall to have 3 good things instead of 1 fantastic and 2 useless things. :)

Along these lines, could someone zip the two XML folders for Inca and Spain and attach it? It'd be helpful to know how everything is set up, beyond just this improvement.

I've been pondering about this for some time, and some (luxury) resources are just better than others.

The following grant a building which convert in additional bonusses.
Incense / Wine - Monastery
Ivory - Circus
Marble - Wonder building
Gold / Silver - Mint
Pearls / Whales - Seaport

Then there are some left who do not add more than their basic luxury benefit, thus being weaker.
Cotton
Dyes
Furs
Gems
Silk
Spices
Sugar


I do have some suggestions;
Cotton / Dyes - Cottonworks (@ Chivalry) ---error--- lost my idea about this one.

Furs / Silk - Fashion Showhall (@Globalization) adds 6 :c5culture: and +4 :c5culture: for either (similar to the Monastery but double -due to late game)

Gems - Juweler (@ Economics) adds 1 :c5happy: and 2 :c5gold: to the tile.

Spices / Sugar - Confectionery (@ Theology) adds 3 :c5happy: (similar to the circus)

I've been pondering about this for some time, and some (luxury) resources are just better than others.

The following grant a building which convert in additional bonusses.
Incense / Wine - Monastery
Ivory - Circus
Marble - Wonder building
Gold / Silver - Mint
Pearls / Whales - Seaport

Then there are some left who do not add more than their basic luxury benefit, thus being weaker.
Cotton
Dyes
Furs
Gems
Silk
Spices
Sugar


I do have some suggestions;
Cotton / Dyes - Cottonworks (@ Chivalry) ---error--- lost my idea about this one.

Furs / Silk - Fashion Showhall (@Globalization) adds 6 :c5culture: and +4 :c5culture: for either (similar to the Monastery but double -due to late game)

Gems - Juweler (@ Economics) adds 1 :c5happy: and 2 :c5gold: to the tile.

Spices / Sugar - Confectionery (@ Theology) adds 3 :c5happy: (similar to the circus)

I could be wrong but im pretty sure thal already added buildings so that all resources are improved by one building. It should be in the next public release.

Then there are some left who do not add more than their basic luxury benefit

In the latest (beta) version this is not the case.

Ah okay!

I'm still running with civ 1.0.0.17 due to no mac updates and a broken wi-fi.
And most mods haven't been updated in a while.

Will check it out later :)