AND SVN Build Thread

I would like to see some nice new info for manufactured resources so I know what they actually do before I build the structure... the buildings need more info besides what resource it is, it needs to tell me what that resources does. So if someone can kindly go though all the manufacture resource buildings and put in detail what could happen if I build this particular building?
 
darkedone02 said:
I would like to see some nice new info for manufactured resources so I know what they actually do before I build the structure... the buildings need more info besides what resource it is, it needs to tell me what that resources does. So if someone can kindly go though all the manufacture resource buildings and put in detail what could happen if I build this particular building?
Click to expand...

F12: Civilopedia
...just a few extra clicks :)
 
Afforess said:
Ok. I just want to make something clear. We can not use the tech research cost multiplier in eras or handicaps to solve this. It doesn't fix the problem, just hides it.

<rant>

Before I started rebalancing things with trade routes, I was amazed that no one was bothered by the fact that the tech research costs were increased as much as 1000% percent and that tiny civilizations were given literally hundreds or thousands of free beakers a turn to keep up.

No such imbalance exists in vanilla BTS. The reason for the fast research is the super-inflated growth of cities, which allows for tons of extra commerce and beakers for the biggest civilizations. Not helped any by buildings which gave massive sums of commerce or food or science. These need to be brought into line. While the early eras are improving, the later ones are still terribly unbalanced.

Scaling up tech costs and tech diffusion is just a way to hide the real problem under the rug.

From what I have seen, another large part of the problem is happiness. Happiness is the natural limiter of growth in BTS, but in RAND it serves no such purpose. I have yet to play a game in recent memory where happiness was even a mild concern. From my analysis, it is the dozens of new resources added in RAND that give +1 happy that have caused the imbalance. BTS has a total of 12 resources that provide happiness, but RAND has 22!

I, for instance, can not fathom why rubber gives +1 happy. Or Semiconductors! Surely, Glass should not give +1 happy!? (On that note, why is glass even a resource? It's manufactured and only gives production speed improvement, it's not even required for any building or unit!!)

I shouldn't even have to mention that this mod preaches against the negative health effects of alcohol by giving them it a -1 health. Lovely. (But at the same time, it gives wine a +1 health and +1 happiness!?!)

Ok, I am far afield. This long-winded post is meant to express that technology research speed, while a good indicator of whether the game is balanced or not, does not mean that imbalance should be fixed by tweaking tech costs. That is like solving a shortage of money by printing more money instead of cutting back on spending.

</rant>
Click to expand...

I think I approve your changes, although I haven't tested the latest revision yet.
As for your "rant", I totally agree. I balanced the game using research speed, tech cost and maintenance cost a long time ago (plus a iGoldModifier to tweak gold when needed, imported from C2C) because tweaking everything else is a huge task. So I was assuming that expansion was working (more or less) ok, and I just had 1-2 parameters to adjust. If you want to go down the road of tweaking everything, that's fine with me but it's probably longer and/or more complicated. But we have other parameters to tweak, if you wish to do so. For example there would be no need to remove food from some improvement if we just increase the food needed for a city to grow, don't you think? That's an easier change... Or we could just scale up unhappiness/unhealthiness or make them era-dependent. What do you think?
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;13364600 said:
I hope so, but first we have some more changes to apply to the mod. :)
Click to expand...

A while ago (Actually a long while ago!) I had suggested implementing a system similar to RI where every era past Ancient had a global modifier to Unhealth and Unhappiness in cities ("We have higher standards than our forefathers") but it was, at the time, not needed. We could try something like that perhaps. I'm not sure what else other than trimming back on the health and happiness bonuses around from buildings/civics/resources.

It's just one possible idea out of many - whether it'd work for AND or not is a problem of it's own really. It might work fine, it might not. It might even introduce more problems. Simply increasing the amount of food a city needs to grow might be a simpler option.
Is there a way to make a city need more food to grow after a certain City Size, or is it always linear?
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;13364598 said:
I think I approve your changes, although I haven't tested the latest revision yet.
As for your "rant", I totally agree. I balanced the game using research speed, tech cost and maintenance cost a long time ago (plus a iGoldModifier to tweak gold when needed, imported from C2C) because tweaking everything else is a huge task. So I was assuming that expansion was working (more or less) ok
Click to expand...

It doesn't really work, and the tech diffusion problems and the need to gift thousands of beakers a turn is the sign that it doesn't work.

45°38'N-13°47'E;13364598 said:
For example there would be no need to remove food from some improvement if we just increase the food needed for a city to grow, don't you think?
Click to expand...

That hurts inland tundra cities and doesn't really solve the growth problem, but kicks it down the road until the late game (where it re-appears again).

45°38'N-13°47'E;13364598 said:
That's an easier change... Or we could just scale up unhappiness/unhealthiness or make them era-dependent. What do you think?
Click to expand...

I would be very against this also, as it encourages silly strategies like avoiding techs that change the era.
 
Afforess said:
That hurts inland tundra cities and doesn't really solve the growth problem, but kicks it down the road until the late game (where it re-appears again).
Click to expand...
That's why I suggested a rather constant city growth mechanism in a new thread.
But looks like it is such a stupid idea, that no one answered anything :sad:

Afforess said:
I would be very against this also, as it encourages silly strategies like avoiding techs that change the era.
Click to expand...

For this I suggest to add a new feature: pollution. Though maybe not the one in C2C, but a more simple an less memory consuming one.
 
Sogroon said:
That's why I suggested a rather constant city growth mechanism in a new thread.
But looks like it is such a stupid idea, that no one answered anything :sad:
Click to expand...

Or more likely, us busy people just read it and plain forgot. :p

Shoot me a PM next time if you want to be sure I notice.

Sogroon said:
For this I suggest to add a new feature: pollution. Though maybe not the one in C2C, but a more simple an less memory consuming one.
Click to expand...

I have a crazier idea. We just fix the balance with the existing features. ;)
 
Afforess said:
It doesn't really work, and the tech diffusion problems and the need to gift thousands of beakers a turn is the sign that it doesn't work.
[cut]
That hurts inland tundra cities and doesn't really solve the growth problem, but kicks it down the road until the late game (where it re-appears again).
[cut]
I would be very against this also, as it encourages silly strategies like avoiding techs that change the era.
Click to expand...


I see; I also prefer the option of fixing broken features; I hope we're able to. :)
Anyway, back on balancing, from what I can see from more testing, Medieval and Renaissance are still far too quick. So if we don't want to increase tech costs for those eras, we need to tune down everything else I suppose. At least I don't see a great imbalance between Monarchy and Republic now.

Here's how techs are distributed by era

38 ancient
30 classical
29 medieval
37 reinassance
60 industrial
56 modern
58 transhuman

I suppose the best idea would be to have eras lasting the same number of turns, maybe eras from industrial onward should have some more turns.
My idea for balancing the game would be:

1. testing with some standard settings, possibly on blitz speed to make a rough balancing faster. I would do that with multiple starting savegames and help from other forum users, autoplaying the game until the last turn and posting saves every 60 turns so that we can collect data faster and we don't apply changes based on just a single test. I know it can be boring looking at the game autoplay, but it's the fastest way.
2. roughly balancing other eras by just multiplying values in gamespeedinfo by appropriate factor (it worked in the past, so I don't think it will be different now)
3. some more fine tuning starting from different saves, this time without autoplay, just some real game if people are willing to help.
4. testing with different mapsizes & balancing mapsizes
5. testing with different handicap levels & balancing difficulty levels
6. testing different options which can severely impact the game (for example with/without revolutions, with/without tech diffusion, with/without barb civs, ecc).
I think this is the best and the fastest way to properly balance the game.
Opinions?
 
Sounds like a plan. Starting off, we should probably keep the balancing focus narrow to make it simpler, and expand it once we thing we have it balanced at a narrow level.

By narrow, I mean target Blitz speed, standard map, noble difficulty, with no revolutions, tech diffusion enabled, and no barbarian civs.

Blitz is 600 turns, so we should be able to "sample" progress with 7 era checkpoints:

turn 85 - ancient/classical
turn 170 - classical/medieval
turn 255 - medieval/renaissance
turn 340 - renaissance/industrial
turn 425 - industrial/modern
turn 510 - modern/transhuman
turn 595 - future

Assuming we want eras equally divided. I think with Blitz any era changes +/- 10 turns off from those numbers means it is imbalanced.
 
Afforess said:
Sounds like a plan. Starting off, we should probably keep the balancing focus narrow to make it simpler, and expand it once we thing we have it balanced at a narrow level.

By narrow, I mean target Blitz speed, standard map, noble difficulty, with no revolutions, tech diffusion enabled, and no barbarian civs.

Blitz is 600 turns, so we should be able to "sample" progress with 7 era checkpoints:

turn 85 - ancient/classical
turn 170 - classical/medieval
turn 235 - medieval/renaissance
turn 310 - renaissance/industrial
turn 395 - industrial/modern
turn 480 - modern/transhuman
turn 565 - future

Assuming we want eras equally divided. I think with Blitz any era changes +/- 10 turns off from those numbers means it is imbalanced.
Click to expand...

Better start with Normal speed. Because like Standard mapsize, the numbers are "default" at Normal speed. Then after balancing Standard mapsize and Normal speed, I think other sizes and speeds should take care with a little tweaking of other XMLs.
What do you think?
 
os79 said:
Better start with Normal speed. Because like Standard mapsize, the numbers are "default" at Normal speed. Then after balancing Standard mapsize and Normal speed, I think other sizes and speeds should take care with a little tweaking of other XMLs.
What do you think?
Click to expand...

I think it will make balancing slower. "Normal" is just a name. It's xml values that counts.
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;13365830 said:
I think it will make balancing slower. "Normal" is just a name. It's xml values that counts.
Click to expand...

Ok. I just thought Normal speed is similar to Standard mapsize in that everything is 100 in value. I never checked RAND XML files in-depth so I'll take both of your word for it :). Have fun balancing because I know I will when it's done!
 
Revision 770

  • Bakery gives 2 food (previously was 3)
  • Bakery gives 2 commerce with Apple, Banana, Lemon (previously was 3)
  • Irrigation Canals give +3 food (previously gave +1 food on all river tiles)
  • Fish farm no longer gives + 1 food on all river tiles (still provides +1 food on all sea tiles)
  • Victuallers Guild hall gives + 3 food, +5 commerce (previously +25% food)
  • Crafts Guild Hall gives +5 hammers, +5 commerce (previously was +25% hammers)
  • Servants Guild Hall gives +10 commerce (previously was +15% commerce)
  • Temple of Artemis gives +1 commerce per connected domestic city (max 5), +1 commerce per 3 connected foreign cities (max 15). Was previously +2 commerce per connected domestic city (max 30).
  • Artist specialist no longer gives +1 science
  • Merchant specialist no longer gives +2 commerce
  • Spy specialist no longer gives +1 science
  • BASE_CITY_GROWTH_THRESHOLD increased from 25 -> 30 (BTS value is 20, RAND requires 33% more food, so 30 makes sense)
  • CITY_GROWTH_MULTIPLIER increased from 3 -> 4
  • Corn, Rice, Wheat, Potato only gives +1 extra food with farm (previously was +2 extra food)
  • Cow, Pig only gives +2 extra food with pasture (previously was +3 extra food)

A note about the Corn, Rice, Wheat, Potato downgrade. It looks worse than it is. Farms give +1 food with irrigation, and Corn provides a +1 food without any improvement. So a farmed corn tile gives +5 food total.

Maths:
([Grassland = 2 food] + [Corn = 1 food] + [Farm = 1 Food] + [Farmed Corn = 1 Food] ->5 food total)
 
45°38'N-13°47'E;13365787 said:
I see; I also prefer the option of fixing broken features; I hope we're able to. :)
Anyway, back on balancing, from what I can see from more testing, Medieval and Renaissance are still far too quick. So if we don't want to increase tech costs for those eras, we need to tune down everything else I suppose. At least I don't see a great imbalance between Monarchy and Republic now.

Here's how techs are distributed by era

38 ancient
30 classical
29 medieval
37 reinassance
60 industrial
56 modern
58 transhuman

I suppose the best idea would be to have eras lasting the same number of turns, maybe eras from industrial onward should have some more turns.
My idea for balancing the game would be:

1. testing with some standard settings, possibly on blitz speed to make a rough balancing faster. I would do that with multiple starting savegames and help from other forum users, autoplaying the game until the last turn and posting saves every 60 turns so that we can collect data faster and we don't apply changes based on just a single test. I know it can be boring looking at the game autoplay, but it's the fastest way.
2. roughly balancing other eras by just multiplying values in gamespeedinfo by appropriate factor (it worked in the past, so I don't think it will be different now)
3. some more fine tuning starting from different saves, this time without autoplay, just some real game if people are willing to help.
4. testing with different mapsizes & balancing mapsizes
5. testing with different handicap levels & balancing difficulty levels
6. testing different options which can severely impact the game (for example with/without revolutions, with/without tech diffusion, with/without barb civs, ecc).
I think this is the best and the fastest way to properly balance the game.
Opinions?
Click to expand...

I find it funny there is more tech on modern era to future then there is to ancient to renaissance... surely as a guy who likes to advance on technology, I wish that ancient era to renaissance get more techs.
 
darkedone02 said:
I find it funny there is more tech on modern era to future then there is to ancient to renaissance... surely as a guy who likes to advance on technology, I wish that ancient era to renaissance get more techs.
Click to expand...

You might want to research base BtS and compare its technology quantity per era. Obviously ignore Transhumance because base BtS doesn't have it. See if the proportion is roughly similar or lopsided?
 
I'm not a huge fan of playing on Blitz speed (Normal's pretty much as "fast" as I generally go, and I don't usually play on anything slower than Epic/Marathon) since units tend to obsolete the moment you've finished making an army of them. I can't count the number of times on Blitz I'd march a big stack of units over to my rival - who was more or less neighboring my territory - only to find out he was already a generation ahead in terms of military :crazyeye:

Didn't always happen, but it was safe to assume that if it took more than ten turns to reach someone, it was risky attempting it.

For balancing game values however, Blitz is probably best because it doesn't take as long to play through ^^
I'm fine with anything really, just means I have to fiddle around with my usual playing style (I have one? xD) to accommodate the faster speed.
 
Rezca said:
I'm not a huge fan of playing on Blitz speed (Normal's pretty much as "fast" as I generally go, and I don't usually play on anything slower than Epic/Marathon) since units tend to obsolete the moment you've finished making an army of them. I can't count the number of times on Blitz I'd march a big stack of units over to my rival - who was more or less neighboring my territory - only to find out he was already a generation ahead in terms of military :crazyeye:

Didn't always happen, but it was safe to assume that if it took more than ten turns to reach someone, it was risky attempting it.

For balancing game values however, Blitz is probably best because it doesn't take as long to play through ^^
I'm fine with anything really, just means I have to fiddle around with my usual playing style (I have one? xD) to accommodate the faster speed.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. Actually *playing* a blitz game sucks for the reasons you enumerated.
 
Revision 771 - Balancing continues, AI & CTD fixes.

  • Fix potential CTD bug due to uninitialized pointers when reading empty XML lists (particularly occurred with replaced buildings)
  • Pipeline thread count is dynamic, dependent on number of cities and cores available
  • Pipeline threading is disabled in multiplayer automatically
  • Fix bug in civic attitude calculations with player values leaking out to other players
  • Add dedicated AI logic to scrub fallout for workers
  • Artist Guild, Opera House no longer gives +1 happy with dye
  • Academy gives +25% science, +10 science beakers (previously just +50% science)
  • School of Scribes gives +3 science beakers (previously +10% science)
  • Observatory gives +8 science beakers (previously +25% science beakers)
  • Agora gives +3 science beakers, +5 culture (previously +10% science, +5% culture)
  • Printer gives +5 science beakers, +3 culture, +3 espionage (previously +15% science, +10% culture, +10% espionage)
  • Laboratory gives +6 science beakers (previously +15% science)
  • Research Laboratory gives +12 science beakers (previously +25% science)
 
Afforess said:
Revision 771 - Balancing continues, AI & CTD fixes.

  • Fix potential CTD bug due to uninitialized pointers when reading empty XML lists (particularly occurred with replaced buildings)
  • Pipeline thread count is dynamic, dependent on number of cities and cores available
  • Pipeline threading is disabled in multiplayer automatically
  • Fix bug in civic attitude calculations with player values leaking out to other players
  • Add dedicated AI logic to scrub fallout for workers
  • Artist Guild, Opera House no longer gives +1 happy with dye
  • Academy gives +25% science, +10 science beakers (previously just +50% science)
  • School of Scribes gives +3 science beakers (previously +10% science)
  • Observatory gives +8 science beakers (previously +25% science beakers)
  • Agora gives +3 science beakers, +5 culture (previously +10% science, +5% culture)
  • Printer gives +5 science beakers, +3 culture, +3 espionage (previously +15% science, +10% culture, +10% espionage)
  • Laboratory gives +6 science beakers (previously +15% science)
  • Research Laboratory gives +12 science beakers (previously +25% science)
Click to expand...

Guess I should have waited a few minutes before updating :lol:

*Goes to update yet again*
 
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