New Game Speeds

[JosEPh_II]

Always looking for more data and reports. Thank you.

Since you used Flex Difficulty what level of Diff are you at now? And I have no clue how well Flex Diff works with Nightmare. Actually Nightmare needs adjusted from the GS adjustments I recently put on the SVN.

Would be curious to hear from someone playing a Non Flex diff but with at least an Immortal Diff level or Deity.

JosEPh

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

Note that I use Increasing Difficulty, not Flexible. I've never kept track of how many turns it takes to increase, but I'm at Deity by now. I'd probably just do Immortal/Deity + Nightmare if it weren't for the extra starting settler that the AI gets on those difficulties. Something else to bear in mind for my reports, I never build Research for a variety of reasons.

Would you prefer an Immortal/Deity with or without Nightmare? I can certainly oblige next time I start a game.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Sure, any GS and Diff level are all good to hear about for data collection.

Thanks
JosEPh

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

Crossposting from another thread, because it's relevant. This is still the Large/Snail/No TD game mentioned in my previous post.

I'm not sure if it's just because of Nightmare alone, or if it's the combination of Nightmare and Joseph's latest changes, but I'm finding it far more difficult to keep my economy afloat in my latest game (SVN9318) as well. Not to the point of unplayability, but I've had much less of a snowballing/steamroller effect. For most of the late Prehistoric up until Metals (Mining tech), subdued animals were draining my treasury considerably; from Metals to Caste System I was unable to maintain 100% without spending the occasional turn building Wealth in my capital, and even now, having recently hit the Literature/Road Building/etc column my massive 16-city empire can barely manage to maintain 100% unless I build Wealth in at least one of my major cities. I've noticed that education and crime are harder to keep in check compared to previous versions, so the increased cost of Police and Entertainers is a major contributing factor.

Also, tech rate is notably slowed. I think I hit Classical Lifestyle around 13-1200 BC, though again with detours down most branches rather than beelined. I technically hit the Classical Era much earlier due to grabbing Cryptography using one of the free-Tech wonders. As mentioned, I've only just hit the Literature column in the tech tree, though I've progressed fairly evenly rather than beelining anything, at around 1100BC, despite being by far the strongest power on my continent. There's only two remaining AIs on my continent, Qin Shi Huang/China penned up on a 5 or 6 city peninsula, and Charles V/Holy Rome along the northern coast with around a dozen cities, though mostly recently settled or in poor locations. I recently finished knocking out the Dutch in order to acquire Tin Ore (only to discover a new source of it well within my pre-war borders 10 turns later) and extend my borders to seal the Chinese off in their corner of the continent, and I plan to prune back the Holy Roman presence in a few turns once I train a few brigades of Mounted Infantry. With the exception of my capital, all of my cities were mired in significantly negative education levels for a long time; I simply couldn't afford to build and maintain enough entertainers. That's only recently started to turn around with Literature and the Stories buildings.

 

[tmv]

Bad education could also come from the new autobuilds for each era (education base or something) where you lose 1 education per pop and era.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

Bad education could also come from the new autobuilds for each era (education base or something) where you lose 1 education per pop and era.

This is almost certainly the main cause, I just neglected to mention it because lazy.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Good report Tripped.

From my own testing I've had to drop the diff level on my own test games. I'm not the largest empire by any means and I'm fighting to keep the current largest on our continent from completely cutting me off from the rest of the land mass. I had to Declare War just to get a spot back that had horses. Luckily I got Bison Riders and had an Elephant resources. Otherwise his Obsidian units (I don't have Obsidian and just got copper and metal working, but have no copper in my empire) and Horsemen would have over ran me.

It's a tougher game now for the diff levels above Monarchy.

Isn't that what everyone wanted?

JosEPh

 

[Thunderbrd]

Sounds like the education adjustment is right on target.

I may change it from an autobuild to just an effect in all cities based on tech alone. Is it more visibly noticeable as an autobuild or would it stand out more as part of the tech itself?

 

[tmv]

What about an autobuild at Sedentary Lifestyle that gets progressively worse (in the way Mining Camp gets better, although that's not an autobuild). That way, you could access this deficit as a single number.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

I think having an autobuild is preferable, as it makes it clear where the education drain is coming from when you go through the city screen.

My current game, I hit Feudalism (Medieval Era) roughly around 1AD, turn 960ish or so. Currently 20 cities, of which around 10 are "fully mature" cities in that they've got populations of 20+ and have nearly all desired buildings constructed. My plan to invade the Holy Roman Empire was temporarily shelved in favor of crushing China because they had the temerity to capture one of my workers with an Ambusher. Also, they apparently have over 150 Composite Archers that will make fine slaves, whereas Holy Rome's military is apparently made up of 50% Breeding Pairs of wolves. I've also finally fully explored the coastlines of my continent, without managing to spot or make contact with any of the overseas civs, but I'm almost to Optics for proper voyages of exploration.

Overall, the current pacing feels fairly good to me, as do the handicap settings. That said, some input from lower-difficulty players would probably be good, and I think I'll have to do an actual Deity start next game rather than lower with Increasing Difficulty to see how it feels to be at max difficulty from the beginning. Oh also, I should probably note that I tend to take a peek at overall geography in WB and regenerate my maps if my starting continent isn't at least middle-of-the-pack in size, so my reports are likely biased due to more favorable starting position.

 

[Thunderbrd]

What about an autobuild at Sedentary Lifestyle that gets progressively worse (in the way Mining Camp gets better, although that's not an autobuild). That way, you could access this deficit as a single number.

That's not really possible with a property.

Well... it might be but it's beyond my knowledge of how to set it up.

With this effect, it's pretty simple, -1 edu/pop per era past the first is going to be applied now.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

New game, still Large PerfectMongoose 310 map, 12 civs, Snail, Deity/Nightmare difficulty. No TD, Teleport Hunting Awards, no Peace Among NPCs this time.

Starting location has a Volcano and Caves nearby, but otherwise is somewhat poor in terms of resources and plot yields. WB tells me I'm on one of, if not the, largest continents, in the Northwest portion of the overall map. I've managed to build 4 of the early Prehistoric cave wonders, making up for the mediocre location. For the first time in quite a while, an AI civ has beaten me to Sedentary Lifestyle, with a significant margin to boot. It's currently turn 399 (16484BC), and I'm currently 2.5 techs away from SL myself (halfway researching Earth Oven, then Celebration, then SL itself). My economy has been very badly tanked by my early rush on and capture of an AI secondary city far to the south of my capital, because it's on a one-tile isthmus that allows me to cut off land access to my region by at least two AIs, leaving only one (contacted) neighbor in my area. I'm honestly not sure if it was worth it, because that city is costing me 20+ per turn in maintenance costs, and my capital has been spending effectively every other turn building Lesser Wealth to prop up my economy. That said, I've managed to put together a small force of Obsidian Swordsmen that should bring in some much-needed cash by raiding the other AI's various newer settlements. I'm at three cities, my capital at 7 pop, the aforementioned captured city at 3 pop, and a new settlement at 1 pop.

Leaving Peace Among NPCs off has had a pretty significant negative effect on my hunting yields. However, I think something's not working right. Not only am I seeing far fewer animals to begin with, I'm seeing a much higher proportion of predators to prey animals. I'm not certain if this is the result of predation or misconfigured spawn rates, though, since even in large swathes of predator-free land, I'm seeing almost no prey animals spawn. I'm really wondering if the increase to the prey/predator spawn ratio that's supposed to happen when Peace Among NPCs is off is instead being activated only when PAN is on? Particularly, in my last game, with PAN on, I was buried in Pigeons, Lizards, Eagles, and Hawks. It got to where I wasn't even bothering to kill them anymore unless they were in my units' way. This game, I'm barely seeing any animals, and I highly doubt the AI is managing to hunt down all the animals quite that efficiently.

 

[Taxman66]

Leaving Peace Among NPCs off has had a pretty significant negative effect on my hunting yields. However, I think something's not working right. Not only am I seeing far fewer animals to begin with, I'm seeing a much higher proportion of predators to prey animals. I'm not certain if this is the result of predation or misconfigured spawn rates, though, since even in large swathes of predator-free land, I'm seeing almost no prey animals spawn. I'm really wondering if the increase to the prey/predator spawn ratio that's supposed to happen when Peace Among NPCs is off is instead being activated only when PAN is on? Particularly, in my last game, with PAN on, I was buried in Pigeons, Lizards, Eagles, and Hawks. It got to where I wasn't even bothering to kill them anymore unless they were in my units' way. This game, I'm barely seeing any animals, and I highly doubt the AI is managing to hunt down all the animals quite that efficiently.

I'm experiencing the same thing (not playing with SM). I'm getting some arctic foxes and eagles, some cats but very rarely any non predator animals. They show up for a one turn and are quickly wiped out by a prey animal or a hunter. IMO, there are 2 issues, 1) The spawn ratio might be off; and 2) No matter the ratio, once enough predators are established on the map (even if they have a slow spawn rate) they wipe out every prey animal).

I took a peek at the WB, and can confirm this is happening on non inhabited continents as well. The only 'prey' animal I see in numbers are Caribou and Musk Ox in the far north. Everywhere else is just a handful of various predators.

 

[tmv]

Perhaps the predators need to die if they don't "eat" regularly. [obvious]That's biology's solution to this problem.[/obvious]

 

[Thunderbrd]

Leaving Peace Among NPCs off has had a pretty significant negative effect on my hunting yields. However, I think something's not working right. Not only am I seeing far fewer animals to begin with, I'm seeing a much higher proportion of predators to prey animals. I'm not certain if this is the result of predation or misconfigured spawn rates, though, since even in large swathes of predator-free land, I'm seeing almost no prey animals spawn. I'm really wondering if the increase to the prey/predator spawn ratio that's supposed to happen when Peace Among NPCs is off is instead being activated only when PAN is on? Particularly, in my last game, with PAN on, I was buried in Pigeons, Lizards, Eagles, and Hawks. It got to where I wasn't even bothering to kill them anymore unless they were in my units' way. This game, I'm barely seeing any animals, and I highly doubt the AI is managing to hunt down all the animals quite that efficiently.

I'll have to check to ensure that the modifiers aren't being applied in the opposite manner to what they are supposed to be doing.

I'm experiencing the same thing (not playing with SM). I'm getting some arctic foxes and eagles, some cats but very rarely any non predator animals. They show up for a one turn and are quickly wiped out by a prey animal or a hunter. IMO, there are 2 issues, 1) The spawn ratio might be off; and 2) No matter the ratio, once enough predators are established on the map (even if they have a slow spawn rate) they wipe out every prey animal).

I took a peek at the WB, and can confirm this is happening on non inhabited continents as well. The only 'prey' animal I see in numbers are Caribou and Musk Ox in the far north. Everywhere else is just a handful of various predators.

I just enhanced the ratio on non-peace among NPCs so #1 is a concern. #2 is a concern as well of course. Some of that may get into the stats of the animals but...

Perhaps the predators need to die if they don't "eat" regularly. [obvious]That's biology's solution to this problem.[/obvious]

This is completely intended. Predator spawns should become very very infrequent and the rest should be handled by growing population due to successful feeding and dying off if unable to feed. The intention was to use animals to setup this mechanism and to then use it as a basis for the earliest nomadic portion of the game where the tribe operates the same way, growing due to success or starving out. If it grows enough it splits off involuntarily, creating a new player. Should only need about 4 players to begin the game like this and the rest would be organic emergence.

 

[tmv]

Could Terrain Damage be used for this? Perhaps predators could work like this:

• A (small) Terrain Damage on all terrains
• Always heal on combat victory

 

[Thunderbrd]

Could Terrain Damage be used for this? Perhaps predators could work like this:

• A (small) Terrain Damage on all terrains
• Always heal on combat victory

I suppose. It would be just as easy for me to setup a food inventory system for units to consume food gradually and then once the food is exhausted then the unit begins to suffer damage every round until dead or until it gets food at which point it can begin to heal. If food inventory goes over a certain point then the unit either spawns another or grows sizes and possibly splits thereafter as a result - depends on SM in use or not. This would make it quite possible for animals to overhunt their regions as prey animals that collect food every round from the terrain itself (as gatherers will eventually) will gradually grow population but if they get hunted out and have to be reliant on spawns, eventually the hunters that hunted them out will start to starve off too.

 

[Taxman66]

Seems a bit of an overkill solution. A KISS solution might be to modify the system to run 10 turns of peace among NPCs, then 5 turns with it off; then continue to repeat the cycle.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Seems a bit of an overkill solution. A KISS solution might be to modify the system to run 10 turns of peace among NPCs, then 5 turns with it off; then continue to repeat the cycle.

I would normally agree except that the system is intended to setup the basis for Nomadic Start rules so wouldn't be a waste of time to develop out.

 

[TrippedOnACloud]

Another thing such a system would allow is a way to implement logistical support of military units.