That does sound likely overcorrecting. Perhaps halve those factors? Personally, I would also prefer a maybe ~10% slowdown in tech across the board. But this also has to do with difficulty level: at higher levels AI gets a boost, and since tech costs depend on how many has researched it already, so do you in keeping up. In my current game (immortal, epic, normal size map with 6 civs), Washington just entered renaissance in 120AD, and I'm about one "column" behind in the tech tree.
Research
- Thread starter Thalassicus
- Start date
That does sound likely overcorrecting. Perhaps halve those factors? Personally, I would also prefer a maybe ~10% slowdown in tech across the board. But this also has to do with difficulty level: at higher levels AI gets a boost, and since tech costs depend on how many has researched it already, so do you in keeping up. In my current game (immortal, epic, normal size map with 6 civs), Washington just entered renaissance in 120AD, and I'm about one "column" behind in the tech tree.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
From Seek's suggestion, in v115.1 beta we have three tech forks for a science victory, and 6 viable path combinations (ABC, ACB, BAC, BCA, CAB, CBA) where there was previously only one good path (CB→victory).
- Research Lab: 43 techs, speeds research of B and C.
Ideal if we have no immediate military threats.
. - Space Factory: 46 techs, tree unlocks Military Bases and Airborne.
Vital if we're threatened by nukes, since military bases defend from nukes.
. - Apollo Program: 52 techs, tree unlocks Aircraft and Rocket Artillery.
Provides the best defense from conventional non-nuke warfare.
- Science Victory: 62 techs. All paths meet for Particle Physics.
Txurce
Deity
I'll have to look at it (and play it), but it looks like a huge improvement in terms of choice.
Txurce
Deity
I'm in my second game on Immortal level, playing for Conquest. As such, my bpt are going to be lower than normal for a good part of the game. That said, I was at the gates of Egypt's capital, down by about a dozen techs but beating the Great Wall-enhanced points leader with an army of CKN's and cannon, closing in on rifles. Since I neglected the upper part of the tree, let's call it mid-late Renaissance. Then on T193, Siam entered the Modern era, 15 techs ahead of me. That was a shocker.
I saw no sign of the science buff on King, and seem to be seeing a whole lot of it on Immortal. If the sweet spot is once again on Emperor, then the present science settings look good.
I saw no sign of the science buff on King, and seem to be seeing a whole lot of it on Immortal. If the sweet spot is once again on Emperor, then the present science settings look good.
Txurce
Deity
Continuing from the previous post:
I left Egypt with one city, then declared war on my friend and neighbor Siam. He was the runaway leader with an army more than twice as big. By then I I had rifles and cannon vs his cannon and light infantry. I was surprised to take two of his cities - after which I got Dynamite and, later, Replacement Parts. After taking his capital, I expected generous peace terms - but Ram wouldn't accept any deal I offered. I kept going, taking three more cities, increasingly nervous that I wouldn't be able to go back and take Egypt, who by now had 5 of 6 policy trees completed, and a modern army. Then Siam built the UN. It didn't matter that by now I had high score. Ram had 10 votes, and because I was at war with him, couldn't peel any of them away. He agreed to peace in exchange for all his lost cities, but I didn't bother, and lost to a diplomatic victory in T253.
Observations (that go beyond research):
I left Egypt with one city, then declared war on my friend and neighbor Siam. He was the runaway leader with an army more than twice as big. By then I I had rifles and cannon vs his cannon and light infantry. I was surprised to take two of his cities - after which I got Dynamite and, later, Replacement Parts. After taking his capital, I expected generous peace terms - but Ram wouldn't accept any deal I offered. I kept going, taking three more cities, increasingly nervous that I wouldn't be able to go back and take Egypt, who by now had 5 of 6 policy trees completed, and a modern army. Then Siam built the UN. It didn't matter that by now I had high score. Ram had 10 votes, and because I was at war with him, couldn't peel any of them away. He agreed to peace in exchange for all his lost cities, but I didn't bother, and lost to a diplomatic victory in T253.
Observations (that go beyond research):
- Tech pace at Immortal is super-fast - I finished 14 techs behind.
- AI units are often behind tech pace - which helps explain why I was winning anyway.
- I had two Piety happiness policies, didn't avoid growth, built no theaters - and had 40 happiness with 12 cities. It's too easy to stay happy in conquest.
I have noticed consistently in almost every game I play that the AI rarely upgrades when it can; even though they are well into the renaissance with excess strategic resources and plenty of gold reserves, they are still fielding warriors in some cases.
unless it's built as a unique unit, i don't see a lot of upgrading, an obvious hindrance to already poor AI vs human combat.
lastly, piety seems to be beating commerce as a warmongers best friend.
(i should post this to the Armies thread as well)
Ahriman
Tyrant
I wonder if it is worth pushing the Piety happiness bonus deeper into the tree, to make it require 3 picks. That is probably a good rule of thumb for happiness policies in general, to prevent it from being too easy to cherry-pick the happiness policies, which are usually more powerful than the other policies, in part because almost all other policies give you something that you can usually duplicate with production or gold, but the happiness policies give you something that you can't easily duplicate with production or gold.
Txurce
Deity
I think that's a good idea. I wonder if the same principle should apply to everything I happen to cherry-pick: the GM in Commerce, or the Settler in Liberty. To some degree the argument holds up less well with the opening policies, since they are meant to jump-start you. Now would that be an argument to leave Piety the way it is... or just push the second bonus back farther?
Ahriman
Tyrant
I think it is ok for "one-shot" policies to be things you consider cherry-picking, I think the problem really only comes from happiness policies which give a long-term effect that is hard to duplicate. I certainly don't feel a free great merchant or settler is too strong, and I think that the option to cherry pick the settler from Liberty is a sometimes good idea but definitely not a no-brainer.
It is also on the opposite side from the happiness policy.
I don't want it to never be worth cherry-picking some policies that fit your strategy, I just don't want it to be too easy to access them, and at the moment I worry that the Piety happiness bonus is too much of a no-brainer.
Almost every other happiness bonus in the game is at least 3 picks in (exceptions are half happiness in capital, which doesn't have the scaling issues of piety, and IIRC one of the order policies, which comes late-game).
So I think I would leave the others but find some way to push the Piety happy bonus to a 3rd pick. I'd have to look at the tree again to be sure what I'd recommend.
It is also on the opposite side from the happiness policy.
I don't want it to never be worth cherry-picking some policies that fit your strategy, I just don't want it to be too easy to access them, and at the moment I worry that the Piety happiness bonus is too much of a no-brainer.
Almost every other happiness bonus in the game is at least 3 picks in (exceptions are half happiness in capital, which doesn't have the scaling issues of piety, and IIRC one of the order policies, which comes late-game).
So I think I would leave the others but find some way to push the Piety happy bonus to a 3rd pick. I'd have to look at the tree again to be sure what I'd recommend.
Txurce
Deity
To be fair, I cherry-pick this one only when going after a Conquest victory. It's a no-brainer in that case... and the overall combination of available happiness makes conquest pretty easy.
To play devil's advocate against myself, it's also fun. I try to compare finish times, and the recent Conquest GotVEM with its top finishes around 200 turns seems much faster than what could be accomplished via the Science route, for example.
BlueberryMuffin
Chieftain
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2009
- Messages
- 7
I've played at least a dozen games half way through now on King and Emperor with standard settings (standard size on continents or pangea).
Medieval is reached between 600-900 BC by most civs and I've seen someone reach renaissance at the turn of the millennium almost every game. I really feel the tech pace is much too fast.
Medieval is reached between 600-900 BC by most civs and I've seen someone reach renaissance at the turn of the millennium almost every game. I really feel the tech pace is much too fast.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Tech costs are actually 5-20% higher in VEM than vanilla, and VEM doesn't make any significant changes to research or population in the first two eras. If you're finding the dates are odd in the early game it's a vanilla problem. However, I think it should be easy to fix in VEM. I'm researching it right now.
Update: I can't seem to find a file that controls the association between current turn and date. I've posted a question about it on the main modding forum.
Update: I can't seem to find a file that controls the association between current turn and date. I've posted a question about it on the main modding forum.
CIV5GameSpeeds.xml.
AFTER the game speed definitions is the GameSpeed_Turns section, with the MonthIncrement & TurnsPerIncrement for each speed.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Aha, thank you! Here's the default rate on normal speed. Click Here to download and experiment with the table.
Turn 0 starts on 4000 BCE and lasts 40 years. Each turn after that incriminates 40 years for a period of 75 turns.
What progression would everyone suggest? I've never watched the date, so I don't know what good values would be. If the early turns need to skip more years, perhaps something like:
This shifts things more towards the 1800s, then slows down a lot once 1900 passes. If I recall, most science victories seem to happen in the turn 300-400 range, so that would place the Alpha Centauri space launch in the 2000-2080 period, rather than 1900-2000.
Turn 0 starts on 4000 BCE and lasts 40 years. Each turn after that incriminates 40 years for a period of 75 turns.
What progression would everyone suggest? I've never watched the date, so I don't know what good values would be. If the early turns need to skip more years, perhaps something like:
This shifts things more towards the 1800s, then slows down a lot once 1900 passes. If I recall, most science victories seem to happen in the turn 300-400 range, so that would place the Alpha Centauri space launch in the 2000-2080 period, rather than 1900-2000.
Attachments
Txurce
Deity
I've been working on my play with Liberty in space-race games, rather than always going with Tradition and four-ish cities. What I have found so far is that Korea and Babylon don't seem to have an edge anymore, with either SP approach. Civs with population and culture advantages like France, Siam, Songhai, the Aztecs, and America (so far) match or outperform them when they use Liberty.
(I'm now playing a Songhai science game where at T150 I may have the biggest overall edge I've ever had, thanks to the Liberty tree, Pyramids, GL, HG, Mosques and Mandekalu (in a game where my three neighbors - Rome, Greece and France! - jointly DOW'd me early on.)
This is mostly a compliment. There are a variety of approaches for a single goal that can all work about as well. But for a civ like Korea in particular that's geared for the SS victory, the results seem off. Maybe I'm missing something, but they get +1 on science slots, bonuses for the GL and PT, and for science buildings in the capital only. This doesn't seem as strong as the Ottomans, for example. I'm wondering whether Korea should have the original +2 reinstated.
(I'm now playing a Songhai science game where at T150 I may have the biggest overall edge I've ever had, thanks to the Liberty tree, Pyramids, GL, HG, Mosques and Mandekalu (in a game where my three neighbors - Rome, Greece and France! - jointly DOW'd me early on.)
This is mostly a compliment. There are a variety of approaches for a single goal that can all work about as well. But for a civ like Korea in particular that's geared for the SS victory, the results seem off. Maybe I'm missing something, but they get +1 on science slots, bonuses for the GL and PT, and for science buildings in the capital only. This doesn't seem as strong as the Ottomans, for example. I'm wondering whether Korea should have the original +2 reinstated.
