@ Tachywaxon: I think you are doing it too complicated: It is for example o.k. that the japanese theater wonder only give a culture boost. I don't think that a puppet theater tradition would need prime timber and cattle to thrive. Also, there is nothing wrong with the some of great works giving some cultural boosts to libraries, temples etc. in every city, as designed in the Realism Invictus.
I think that the majority of these great works should be purely about culture. Some of them might give other bonuses, like science, commerce, happiness, experience, free specialist, or giving boosts to specialists or improvements etc. as they influence and inspire the people in their era. However, these effects should become obsolete in the future. Speaking of inspiration by the way: Why shouldn't those Great Works give GP-points (Great Artist)?
Also, there is no need that all those great works must give a culture boost of 10
. The value may vary for example between 6 and 10.
I don't think there is anything complicated in what I said. It's not more complicated than how RI economic mechanics work. All those small modifiers like 2% (fur) 2% (silk) for the weaver shop. I see people keeping repeating how RI made the economy logistics hard. In the end, my suggestions aren't far at all from how other buildings work.
The idea behind those special non culture bonuses is to break the non ending cycle hatred towards GArtists. In vanilla BTS, I constantly see the famous phrase: "Let's hope I won't get the <10% GArtist because of the National Epic (100%
)". And the same disappointment is there in RI for same very reasons: culture is not what makes a thriving civilization. It's not what make special beeline bulbing strategies, doesn't help economy, etc. Already, in all honesty, Great Works in the way they are now is a big step back in flexibility we had with culture bombs, but that's another discussion with no longer place here. My propositions (which are ignored aguuuuuun
) are for making GArtists less disappointing as a result. How many times I laugh at the AI using their hard worked GArtists in useless Great Works while I had used mine in Golden Ages and correct Great Works. It helps none to them.
If the Great Work obsoletes, then this is a huge step back. While the academy from a GScientist never obsoletes and brings a
solid 50% (and I repeat a really really solid 50%
), the mediocre GArtist special buildings will even obsolete at some point.
A value between 6 to 10
. Simply no! This is a step back of what was recently changed. I have made a huge argumentation with strong assets why less than 12
Great Works aren't competitive to settled GArtists. The new implemented +10
aren't correctly competitive to settled GArtists (unless the earliest Great Works, which become twice the value after 1000 years), but it's more balanced than it was. I am just working at the final touch that would make Great Works really slightly better than settled GArtists. Because let's be honest, Great Works are Great Wonders and a one time built buidings while settled GArtists are non limited, meaning the Great Work should logically brings something greater than a settled GArtist. Otherwise, we are missing something. It's like something easily accesible is greater in value than something rare and unique.
1. The guild monopoly civic is far inferior compared to merchant princes. With its special building and great wonder, it is about as good as the merchant princes. Therefore I think the guild hall should give +1 to workshops, which will make the guild monopoly an early version of the protectionism. Also the guild monopoly civic might give bonus for the industrial plantations, just as the merchant princes giving a bonus to normal plantations.
Finally! I'm no longer alone in what I thought of Guild Monolopy great weakness. And glad you point it out. Since when I point out something, all I get is discredit and opposition.
The greatest weakness of Guild Monopoly was the nonsense +5%
when the resulting civic maintenance makes me lose more than gain. And yes, both Agrianism, Pastoralism and Merchant Princes are better choices than Guild Monopoly.
2. In most of my games, the religion spread seems to be too quick. Almost all cities cities have 3-5 religions by the time they reach the renaissance. This means, monasticism and free religion are the only real choices. Therefore, let's decrease the missionary success rate and also implement the religion decay (unpopular religions disappearing with the time), as in some other mods.
Weird, it never happened to me to get 3-5 religions. I guess Renaissance period as in 1600AD I suppose. Even by 1400 AD (the latest date of my games), I never saw the AI so prone to spread their religions. Personally, I wouldn't let any religion decays because how RI as other implemented religions, it helped newer religions to spread in a faster rate than older. Now, you are proposing unpopular religions, already working hard to be popular, to lose grounds in a increasing rate.
3. With 3 eaten per citizen, the effect of unhealthiness became even less important. The effect of the unhealthiness might be strenghtened in the following way: 1 = -1 , 2 = -3 , 3 = -6 , 4 =-10 etc.
Interesting. That's true it's not balanced, but epidemics do a great job in killing off too much population when having too much unhealthiness.
6. I don't like the idea, that the city center provides 4 . In contrary it should provide much less, and here is the explanation: The very first civilizations thrived in the Mesopotamia and along the Nile, where they could grow crops. In the Realism Invictus however, your ancient civilization will thrive only if you have gold, fur or elephants in its radius. In Immortal difficulty, your capital will reach size 3, the other cities only to 2. So you don't really need crops (well, unless you want to train a lot of weak shortswordsmen). By decreasing the given by city tile to 1, your early civilization would have to research irrigation and start building farms much quicker in order to allow the cities to grow further and afford further citizens to work in mines etc. If you think 1 on city tile is way too low, then we may give the granary +1 . Together with the hunting lodge, the city will produce 3 initially, so the city will become self sustaining at least.
True about how high levels make production and commerce tiles so valuable compared to crops, which should be the power of ancient era. The culprits are simply the ridiculously low happy cap and new high maintenance.
I think there's a problem with how AI evaluates resources, one which has been brought up before, and I think there might not be an easy solution for it. It seems to just count all the uses you have for the resource, and as there's more uses for bronze than pure copper, that's how you get situations like that. It also explains why it considers incense insanely valuable (it counts all the temples, even if only one can give you a bonus at any given time).
Shuikakken has the right hypothesis.
I discussed about how it works
here in this post.
1. I agree with you on Guild Monopoly: it is far weaker than other competing civics. I've found the same with Civil Service and Caste System -- has anyone found a use for them? If so, I'd love to hear it so I don't feel stuck playing the same way every time.
I have found use for them and Civil is STRONG. Stronger than I initially thought. But it needs several conditions that don't happen all the time.
First, regarding Caste System, usually, I use that civic when I'm in a pinch between two AI's constantly attacking me and all my troops are used for offensive defenses (again, I repeat, K-mod AI stack must be destroyed before it pillages everything). Indeed, the 10% on units, buildings aren't famous. Yes, serfdom or slavery are much better overall, but at the prize of enduring slaves, occupying a part of your army for city defenses. People may not understand, because I see most are playing small as a builder, but when playing as an imperialist as I often do, having 25-30% of your army stuck at home against potential slave/paysant revolts is making invasions in foreign lands harder. Caste system allows to use all your army (hoping your are safe from one side being near a sea for example) for war without the fear of a popping slave or paysant than you can't take out easy because whipping units are at a forbidding price.
Regarding Civil Service, I have found a new abuse about it when combined to other conditions. Originally, just like you, I liked the default civic and Nobility for ancient period and medieval period was the great liking of Plutocracy for its strong assets in the capital and a minor 10%
in all cities. And interestingly, in later stages of the game, I often swapped between pluto and representation when having the Christo Redentor to abuse max of binary research (as one gives 10%
and the other 10%
). Civil service is one way to abuse extremely of low cost cities in maintenance combined with the best religion being Sol Invictus (Cult of Sol). But Civil service has often its weakness spotted in losing happy bonuses of other civics. The way to equalize is to build (hoping with either marble or stone or both) the Colosseum wonder as it gives +1
to every slave market, meaning Civil Service is best along Slavery. And we already both know slavery and serfdom are strong civics. And the slave markets are solid buildings being cheap (easy to build fast in new cities overwhelmed by unhappiness) and giving many bonuses (+1
for all mine improvements, +10%
and now +1
). Now, what cost the most in Realism Invictus are the city maintenance. How to relieve the nation from the highest cost: combine the strongest combo the game being courthourses (-40%), mayor's office (-20%), the special building along civil service costing few in hammers (-10%) and the Cult of Sol Temple (-10%). There you have a huge discount of 80%!. For the first time, I saw the hyper power of civil service by helping me to have low cost in city maintenance, meaning more turns for research before my treasury of
is gone. Right now, on Titan difficulty, I have -250 gold per turn with 18 cities. That would be impossible without the special combo of Cult of Sol, Civil Service and Slavery. Finally, I would add the special Great Temple of Cult of Sol, giving another -10% city maintenance for an extreme -90% (!!!!!!) city maintenance, but that one is touchy. Because the great temple already cost -1
(weird building cost btw, that reminds me of CivIII building maintenance) and that cost is weirdly multiplied by gold multiplying buildings, meaning it offsets the greatness of another -10% on city maintenance. But, if built in a far far located cities or in an empire of over 30 cities, then the Great Temple -10% city maintenance effects are visible.
8. Personally, I've found the revolting units to be more of a headache than anything else, though they do provide helpful experience. The most ridiculous thing I've seen is slaves spawning with better weapons than my own armies! How can slaves have muskets when my nation hasn't even researched the requisite technology? That's plain silly.
Haha. yeah, myself, I'm always in fear of changing eras when under slavery or serfdom. Not only the transitions are radical because of mainly unhappiness, but the transition periods can be quite adventurous and headache inducing because you are stuck with the previous period units against slave suddenly stronger than your best units. Giving either low odds of win or you must endure some improvements pillage and hope the mutinied suicide themselves on some of your units in good defensive tiles. Of course, the renaissance transition is the worst. IIRC, the slaves or paysants are litterally stronger than your murketmen of 8
by being 9
, meaning you are in the weaker side. Yeah, the state is weaker than its population. It's radically nonsense, but what makes the transition even more impacting is those powder units have inherent bonuses against your medieval units being mounted or melee. I agree, those stronger units should be enabled at critical techs, giving a little breeze time for the human player to prepare some decent military police. Maybe the AI doesn't have the innate problem because they have strong bonuses against barbs, but the human doesn't have those as strong.
@cfeyyaz Why shouldn't those Great Works give GP-points (Great Artist)? Can you say feedback loops?
That's what I thought too. Already, the Great Artists are often the disappointing result and bringing more of them through
will certainly accentuate the problem. And it also makes little sense to generate GArtists to build Great Works that bring more GArtists, replacing the one you just spent in the Great Work.
outcome of the city tile as 4. But I think the game being somewhat imbalanced is ok, but it should at least be inbalanced in a realistic way, having wheat or not should have a greater impact on a very early settlement than having gold or not. 
for gold, 2 for gems, 1 for silver (or maybe even 2,1,0 at the start!). This commerce bonus should become higher as new technologies are invented or by adapting civics like slavery. Or even maybe building a jeweler should increase the 
Nonono. 
I was just asking, not totally sure you were referring to World Map. I never played it, so. But I suspected it because, lemme guess, without even having seen where exactly the Austronesians are, it's an island accepting one city. Is that it? Because if it is, that might explain the problem. Of course, I find it weird, with the arrival of K-mod AI, that the AI is still as clueless as stock BTS AI, but originally, it wasn't very surprising the AI was horrible when it came to island type expansion. 
