Txurce
Deity
This makes sense to me. Because what Thal is trying to do is relatively hard to measure, I think the jury is still out on it. My GotVEM 2 game (on King) is providing interesting feedback, though.
Another thread about capturing cities..
- Thread starter EsoEs
- Start date
This makes sense to me. Because what Thal is trying to do is relatively hard to measure, I think the jury is still out on it. My GotVEM 2 game (on King) is providing interesting feedback, though.
quoted from this thread: http://http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=441884
So after 10 pages of discussion, where are we? It would seem that my campaign to help the Domination Victory has instead seen buffed AI expansion, buffed AI science, and by consequence, the increased need to go to war with the AI to win any victory at all. (not to mention a change to the Domination Vic which now requires no AI to be in possession of their cap AND 33% of total land).
We've recently been making a large number of very influential changes to AI behavior, and we've had so little time to play with the changes before the next major change is released. Its funny that I find myself complaining about how much effort and work Thal is putting into the MOD but lol I kind of have to.. There was less than a week to digest the change to AI population, which was generally recieved as a nerf. People were complaining all over the forums about this "nerf" and so Thal implements this buff to AI science to compensate, and then the next day replies to this thread with the comment that the AI population "nerf" was in fact a buff which allows the AI to better expand. Im probably repeating myself but WTH???
Edit: I guess my main issue is that I believe almost every player here was in agreement that we didn't want to see general conquest "over buffed". Many many different ideas were floated, debated, etc, but the main idea (in my mind) was that the Domination Victory needed a little help, but we wanted to find a way to do it without making general conquest overly profitable. Unfortunately, the end result of all of the recent AI changes have achieved, what seems to me, the exact opposite of all of this. Domination is harder (more AI cities to conquer, additional requirements to meet the victory condition), and conquest is both more profitable (less AI pop ->less unhappiness/resistance) and more necessary (higher bonus to leading AIs).
Txurce
Deity
Where are we? I'd say headed in the right direction. Conquest received the consensus buff it needed: reduced resistance times. All the other changes have nothing directly to do with your OP.
I believe Thal intended to install the incremental science buff regardless. Link this with his explanation that the pop "nerf" is a buff in his opinion, and it seems to me that Thal is continuing our ongoing, cumulative efforts to improve AI performance without unbalancing it.
This is obviously a very long thread but I could have sworn the consensus was to NOT buff conquest, I distinctly recall a large number of people (yourself included) who thought conquest was too strong, for the very reason that it would also make science and other more peaceful victories too easy.
My last game was on the 108.6 beta, which introduced the pop change, but not the science buff. I specifically tried for a Domination Victory (Immortal) because I wanted to see how the AI pop change affected gameplay. I expanded aggressively (7 settled cities + cap) and quickly set about taking out my neighbor and controlling the entire western seaboard of the continent. Ghandi, on the other side, was busy expanding AND making friends (gotta love the AIs that can pull that off), and by the time the majority of players were entering the Industrial, Ghandi had already built SoL and Christo Rendentor, and had 2x the score of the next player (me). I buckled myself in for a looong campaign, and set about the task of conquering the civ in the middle, in order to create an avenue of attack against GHandi. Domination Vic no longer seemed possible, as I would have to divert too much attention to stopping Ghandi, and I wouldnt have the forces necessary to destroy the remaining 3 civs in possesion of their caps.
By the time the AI started getting smart to the fact that Ghandi was a threat (he controlled almost the entire eastern half of the map AND every possible island expansion location), he was able to just steamroll everyone one of the AIs that opposed him. I rushed nukes with the idea of killing off enough of his pop to deter his impending science victory. I pressed the attack on his western boarder, making small gains but at an extremely slow pace (how many f***ing airbornes does this guy have anyway??). I got my tech on as well, and grabbed a much needed Sydney Opera House, helping me complete Freedom and make progress down Order. As of my last save, confidence in my science victory was rising as I was pressing Ghandis inner circle of cities, threatening his capital with nukes from my puppets. However, Ghandi threw a changeup at me, completing the United Nations. I am now fairly confident in my ability to win Diplomatically, I don't have enough time to finish science, and an incredibly stretched army (huge front with Ghandi, an additional front with my onetime enemy Catherine to the south who I was never able to finish off) puts a Domination Victory far from my grasp.
So bottomline, I absolutely HAD to kill Ghandi, or suffer an early defeat at his hands. I still, despite excellent tactical play (very different from my LP haha) and a huge base empire with amazing production, was unable to achieve Domination. I do not lay fault with the MOD, rather I need to continue to adapt and learn new ways to approach conquest.
However, I am VERY frightened by what Ghandi would have been able to do if he had had access to this new science buff. An AI civ of his size with an additional 35% tech in the modern era would have most likely crushed my invasion with superior units/numbers, and then proceeded to an easy sci win.
I do not think the AI needs a buff, it provided an excellent challenge, I was pressed to the very last turn.
I get that the majority of people play on mid range difficulties, but (and without sounding like an elitist I hope) if these same people desire a greater challenge, I see no need to buff AI play, when there are still a number of difficulties above said players that they have not bested.
Why are we buffing the AI rather than attempting to play harder difficulties. I see no one here complaining about how bad the Immortal/Deity AI is when it hits renaissance, and from my own experience, you WILL be challenged by the AI, it will not fall behind technologically, and it WILL try to win the game.
Txurce
Deity
You cut the second half of my sentence, which cited the buff some people were in favor of: shorter resistance times. Some people (me included) were against the pop nerf as a means of making conquest easier. Thal later said this was not the intent of the pop change.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
It's pointed out in the patch notes and worth emphasizing again the science buff was counteracted with nerfs to production, gold, and starting bonuses. 
Production and gold are basically the same thing - they build stuff. Research gets us new things to build. The AI had large build-bonuses and no research-bonus, so it ran out of stuff to build and racked up gold. With equal build=research bonuses this problem should be lessened, and give a more effective AI overall.
I feel the problems originally brought up in the OP are taken care of. Captured cities have:
Production and gold are basically the same thing - they build stuff. Research gets us new things to build. The AI had large build-bonuses and no research-bonus, so it ran out of stuff to build and racked up gold. With equal build=research bonuses this problem should be lessened, and give a more effective AI overall.
I feel the problems originally brought up in the OP are taken care of. Captured cities have:
- Lower resistance times.
- Lower unhappiness.
- More than 1 citizen dies in large cities.
Ok now it makes more sense, I completely missed the part about reduced gold and production, so my apologies It was just a wierd series of events where changes are made to the game, but the explanation for those changes takes a day or 2 to come out and we're all kind of left scratching our heads trying to discern the implications. I think its safe to say most people thought the AI food nerf was, in fact, a nerf, rather than an indirect buff to expansion as its turning out to be. When the science buff was released, it appeared to me to be a carrot to the people upset over the food "nerf", and when it was revealed that the food nerf wasn't a nerf it just seemed like a lot of unnecessary buffing to the AI. Anyway, I really like the food changes, haven't got a chance to play with the science stuff (Im afraid to start another Immortal game, 35% is a lot of science!!!><) but Im open to the change and hopefully the GoTM gives us a good chance to really examine all these changes and see how well the AI is doing.
It was just a wierd series of events where changes are made to the game, but the explanation for those changes takes a day or 2 to come out and we're all kind of left scratching our heads trying to discern the implications. I think its safe to say most people thought the AI food nerf was, in fact, a nerf, rather than an indirect buff to expansion as its turning out to be. When the science buff was released, it appeared to me to be a carrot to the people upset over the food "nerf", and when it was revealed that the food nerf wasn't a nerf it just seemed like a lot of unnecessary buffing to the AI. Anyway, I really like the food changes, haven't got a chance to play with the science stuff (Im afraid to start another Immortal game, 35% is a lot of science!!!><) but Im open to the change and hopefully the GoTM gives us a good chance to really examine all these changes and see how well the AI is doing.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
Since only 1 out of 10 changes in the project needs detailed explanation, it saves time to just answer questions afterward. Explaining everything in advance would mean I give explanations for lots of things that don't need it. I do try to detail changes I suspect might need further explanation, but don't always predict accurately which reasons are obvious and which are more obscure.
Txurce
Deity
I just played most of Continents-Plus game on Immortal with Germany using v114. After 130 turns I had conquered 2 of the 3 other civs on my continent, while even in military techs (and down overall).
I then had to fight a large Russia with the Great Wall. I spent 100 turns - from trebs to artillery - making zero headway, as Russian knights kept killing my siege cover units. (There was a great theater where Russia effectively attacked across an inland sea over and over again. I would have lost a city had it not been for 2 crossbows with blitz, range, indirect fire and march.) With artillery I took the 2 cities en route to Moscow, then was overwhelmed by waves of Cossack, and was lucky to make peace. It wasn't until T260 that I blitzed Russia with artillery and Panzers and took most of her empire.
By now the other continent had been almost completely conquered by Persia. I was the clear runner-up, bigger and stronger than everyone else, and finally even in tech. Persia had an 11-tech lead, 24 Wonders, and a military over twice as big. My plan was to nuke my way into a foothold near the Persian capital, then take it before that mob could stop me. But by T274 Persia had built one SS part, and I was 12 turns from Nuclear Fission. I don't want to spend the time assembling my invasion force given that Persia will probably launch its SS first, but feel that if I hadn't run into the wrong country at the wrong time with the Great Wall, or that there hadn't been a runaway civ on the other continent, that a Conquest win on Immortal is definitely achievable.
I then had to fight a large Russia with the Great Wall. I spent 100 turns - from trebs to artillery - making zero headway, as Russian knights kept killing my siege cover units. (There was a great theater where Russia effectively attacked across an inland sea over and over again. I would have lost a city had it not been for 2 crossbows with blitz, range, indirect fire and march.) With artillery I took the 2 cities en route to Moscow, then was overwhelmed by waves of Cossack, and was lucky to make peace. It wasn't until T260 that I blitzed Russia with artillery and Panzers and took most of her empire.
By now the other continent had been almost completely conquered by Persia. I was the clear runner-up, bigger and stronger than everyone else, and finally even in tech. Persia had an 11-tech lead, 24 Wonders, and a military over twice as big. My plan was to nuke my way into a foothold near the Persian capital, then take it before that mob could stop me. But by T274 Persia had built one SS part, and I was 12 turns from Nuclear Fission. I don't want to spend the time assembling my invasion force given that Persia will probably launch its SS first, but feel that if I hadn't run into the wrong country at the wrong time with the Great Wall, or that there hadn't been a runaway civ on the other continent, that a Conquest win on Immortal is definitely achievable.
Seek
Deity
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Since the GotVEM 2 was a conquest game, this thread seems like the most appropriate place to voice my thoughts (and doing so in the spoiler thread doesn't generate as much discussion, as I found out after the first GotVEM).
Puppets:
I'm not crazy about the changes to puppets (-25% unhappiness and all yields but science): It makes conquest too easy, and isn't rewarding - in combination, the fun from conquering is almost removed. The recent AI rebalancing hasn't helped either, but I'll get to that later.
Conquest becomes easier because puppets generate less unhappiness and grow very slowly due to the food malus, thus do not eat into the happiness bucket. This allows one to plow ahead unmitigated, never needing to stop and regenerate happiness. The puppets themselves meanwhile produce almost nothing because they're gold-focused and have a production nerf - so unless the city is situated with a lot of minable luxuries nearby, the citizens are going to be working riverside grass/plains. "Well that's great", you might say, "they will grow onto the production tiles and start producing stuff!" Alas, that won't happen because there's a -25% food nerf there too.
So annexing becomes the best choice for the worst cities, ironically, because they will be practically useless mediocre gold-farms for the rest of the game if you don't and the biggest, most productive cities (the ones you'd formerly annex) are better left as puppets because of the reduced unhappiness and there are enough citizens to work the better tiles.
I didn't really feel the puppet gold nerf since there's more gold available in VEM anyway and with a couple Commerce policies gold ceases to be an issue whatsoever: I was making upwards of 1000 gpt by t200, had every CS allied, had essentially ran out of (useful) things to buy, and could afford paying thousands to convince my enemies to sign RAs.
Is the culture nerf working properly? I didn't see any negative modifiers in the cities' culture popup.
In conclusion, I think if we want to move from where we are now wrt puppets, we should remove the -25% unhappiness and production and/or food on puppets and possibly increase the gold nerf (perhaps to around 35-40%), but overall I think that puppets worked before and don't now and should simply be reverted to v108 mechanics.
AI Rebalancing:
I'm also convinced that the rebalancing of AI food/prod/gold (lowered) and science (raised) makes the game significantly easier. AI science overall seemed significantly slower than the v108 games I've played - evidently the buff wasn't enough to cover for the science lost from lower populations. Although the GotM was only on King, it was far easier than the first GotVEM and in fact one of the easiest games I've ever played (the Wonder production bug didn't help). Reading the posts in the spoiler thread seems to corroborate this view.
The AI:
To me, this all looks like the massive general nerf to the AI that I feared it would be. If gold was less prevalent perhaps it would've been somewhat less of a breeze (it was Arabia after all, so my experience is surely slightly skewed) so leaving a gold nerf would probably be fine (the more money the AI has = the more the player has), but going back to 108 levels for the other AI bonuses is something we should seriously consider.
Puppets:
I'm not crazy about the changes to puppets (-25% unhappiness and all yields but science): It makes conquest too easy, and isn't rewarding - in combination, the fun from conquering is almost removed. The recent AI rebalancing hasn't helped either, but I'll get to that later.
Conquest becomes easier because puppets generate less unhappiness and grow very slowly due to the food malus, thus do not eat into the happiness bucket. This allows one to plow ahead unmitigated, never needing to stop and regenerate happiness. The puppets themselves meanwhile produce almost nothing because they're gold-focused and have a production nerf - so unless the city is situated with a lot of minable luxuries nearby, the citizens are going to be working riverside grass/plains. "Well that's great", you might say, "they will grow onto the production tiles and start producing stuff!" Alas, that won't happen because there's a -25% food nerf there too.
So annexing becomes the best choice for the worst cities, ironically, because they will be practically useless mediocre gold-farms for the rest of the game if you don't and the biggest, most productive cities (the ones you'd formerly annex) are better left as puppets because of the reduced unhappiness and there are enough citizens to work the better tiles.
I didn't really feel the puppet gold nerf since there's more gold available in VEM anyway and with a couple Commerce policies gold ceases to be an issue whatsoever: I was making upwards of 1000 gpt by t200, had every CS allied, had essentially ran out of (useful) things to buy, and could afford paying thousands to convince my enemies to sign RAs.
Is the culture nerf working properly? I didn't see any negative modifiers in the cities' culture popup.
In conclusion, I think if we want to move from where we are now wrt puppets, we should remove the -25% unhappiness and production and/or food on puppets and possibly increase the gold nerf (perhaps to around 35-40%), but overall I think that puppets worked before and don't now and should simply be reverted to v108 mechanics.
AI Rebalancing:
I'm also convinced that the rebalancing of AI food/prod/gold (lowered) and science (raised) makes the game significantly easier. AI science overall seemed significantly slower than the v108 games I've played - evidently the buff wasn't enough to cover for the science lost from lower populations. Although the GotM was only on King, it was far easier than the first GotVEM and in fact one of the easiest games I've ever played (the Wonder production bug didn't help). Reading the posts in the spoiler thread seems to corroborate this view.
The AI:
- Expanded no differently than previous (in fact less than I would have expected with earlier versions of VEM)
- Teched extremely poorly
- Didn't compete for wonders, I assume because of the lower production
- Didn't grow any cities past 15 or so (iirc. I certainly didn't see any 20+ cities.) The small cities were too easy to take, partially due to the lack of defensive buildings, but I think that has been addressed already.
Spoiler :
To me, this all looks like the massive general nerf to the AI that I feared it would be. If gold was less prevalent perhaps it would've been somewhat less of a breeze (it was Arabia after all, so my experience is surely slightly skewed) so leaving a gold nerf would probably be fine (the more money the AI has = the more the player has), but going back to 108 levels for the other AI bonuses is something we should seriously consider.
Txurce
Deity
I thought the changes to puppets were awfully big given the lack of a groundswell, and I already said in my own wrap-up that conquest was too easy, in part because of the reduced penalties for puppeting. I would add that occupying in all forms - resistance, puppeteering, and annexation - seem to create less problems in terms of happiness.
I disagree with some of this, given its application beyond one game. The AI was not behind in tech in my King game, and was further ahead than I have ever seen it in my three recent Immortal games. In a recent Immortal game, I encountered a size 41 city before T250, as well as a few 30+ ones.
The GotVEM was easier for other reasons - conquest (city defenses, walls and happiness) and SP's. In my opinion the latter is the real culprit, which is why it is always coming up. SP's are too powerful and too easy to get. As a result civs in particular are awash in gold - particularly when warmongering.
Playing Immortal on v117, I find myself seriously challenged playing either for Conquest or Science by a very balanced AI: one that expanded aggressively, grew large cities, teched like crazy, built Wonders, and of course had big armies. (It lagged only in upgrading.) At the same time it was a lot of fun, in that I felt either approach had a basically equal chance of victory. This tells me that scaling all that down on lower levels should result in similarly balanced (but less overwhelming) AI efforts.
Having said that, I have no problem with more slider-fiddling, so to speak. VEM may work even better with slightly different settings for the different AI bonuses. Again, my preferred approach is a timed-release, era-by-era increase in these bonuses, so that the AI doesn't begin with such a jolting lead, and doesn't fade out at the end.
I disagree with some of this, given its application beyond one game. The AI was not behind in tech in my King game, and was further ahead than I have ever seen it in my three recent Immortal games. In a recent Immortal game, I encountered a size 41 city before T250, as well as a few 30+ ones.
The GotVEM was easier for other reasons - conquest (city defenses, walls and happiness) and SP's. In my opinion the latter is the real culprit, which is why it is always coming up. SP's are too powerful and too easy to get. As a result civs in particular are awash in gold - particularly when warmongering.
Playing Immortal on v117, I find myself seriously challenged playing either for Conquest or Science by a very balanced AI: one that expanded aggressively, grew large cities, teched like crazy, built Wonders, and of course had big armies. (It lagged only in upgrading.) At the same time it was a lot of fun, in that I felt either approach had a basically equal chance of victory. This tells me that scaling all that down on lower levels should result in similarly balanced (but less overwhelming) AI efforts.
Having said that, I have no problem with more slider-fiddling, so to speak. VEM may work even better with slightly different settings for the different AI bonuses. Again, my preferred approach is a timed-release, era-by-era increase in these bonuses, so that the AI doesn't begin with such a jolting lead, and doesn't fade out at the end.
Gamewizard
Emperor
- Joined
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- 1,234
Reply to Seek:
My experience was similar in that game except for the science part. Germany had a tech lead the whole game, atleast 6-8 techs, but I didn't really bother to maximize my science. However, the AI refused to arm themselves with up-to-date units, and that is where they really lost the game (that and zero defensive buildings).
Playing an emperor game with the current beta as Japan. The AI was expanding pretty fast, especially Arabia. His science rate was also furious, he is about 15-20 techs ahead of me at turn 160. We teamed up and took out Persia. A couple cities had walls, but not all of them. You would think he would prioritize defense when at war with the 2 other civs sharing a continent with him. He was pumping out up-to-date levies to defend with, and did a decent job at slowing down my Samurai invasion, until they hit blitz and march. I was in the red in terms of GPT when I initially attacked and didn't get back into the black until I had 4 or 5 puppets connected for trade route income.
Based on this game, I would have to disagree with you about puppets being too strong and the AI's science rate worse than before. Their cities are overall smaller, between 10-15 pop, but they have about 12 cities a piece and would prolly build more given more room. As long as they keep up-to-date units I think VEM is at a great spot.
Also, I think the ease of GotVEM #2 comes from the fact that Arabia is a powerhouse with all those excess luxuries.
Edit: Agreeing with Txurce that SPs may be too strong, particularly Honor.
My experience was similar in that game except for the science part. Germany had a tech lead the whole game, atleast 6-8 techs, but I didn't really bother to maximize my science. However, the AI refused to arm themselves with up-to-date units, and that is where they really lost the game (that and zero defensive buildings).
Playing an emperor game with the current beta as Japan. The AI was expanding pretty fast, especially Arabia. His science rate was also furious, he is about 15-20 techs ahead of me at turn 160. We teamed up and took out Persia. A couple cities had walls, but not all of them. You would think he would prioritize defense when at war with the 2 other civs sharing a continent with him. He was pumping out up-to-date levies to defend with, and did a decent job at slowing down my Samurai invasion, until they hit blitz and march. I was in the red in terms of GPT when I initially attacked and didn't get back into the black until I had 4 or 5 puppets connected for trade route income.
Based on this game, I would have to disagree with you about puppets being too strong and the AI's science rate worse than before. Their cities are overall smaller, between 10-15 pop, but they have about 12 cities a piece and would prolly build more given more room. As long as they keep up-to-date units I think VEM is at a great spot.
Also, I think the ease of GotVEM #2 comes from the fact that Arabia is a powerhouse with all those excess luxuries.
Edit: Agreeing with Txurce that SPs may be too strong, particularly Honor.
Seek
Deity
- Joined
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Regarding the low AI science, which both of you did not seem to experience, there was one AI in the game poised to runaway, but I attacked him second (I've posted my game recap in the spoiler so you can look there to find out who) and brought him to his knees, leaving him with one city. The rest of the AI's seemed to just give up at a certain point around t150 - looking at InfoAddict, not a single AI was doing very well in techs, SPs and gold, and most were doing remarkably poorly in all three areas. Aside from an early push, no AIs expanded much at all - by the point in the game when I won I normally would expect the map to be almost full, but at least a quarter of it was still empty with no AI having more than 7 cities or so.
I also agree that Honor is too powerful at this point. I suggest the following changes: have garrisons to provide 1 (maybe 2) production instead of happiness and switch the positions of Professional Army and the finisher.
I'm sure you guys are right that I was jumping to conclusions based on a game with a very powerful leader on King, but the game was so disappointingly easy that I had to vent!
I still stand by my opinion that we'd be better off with v108 puppets and AI bonuses, but will play more with current versions on higher difficulties and report back.
I also agree that Honor is too powerful at this point. I suggest the following changes: have garrisons to provide 1 (maybe 2) production instead of happiness and switch the positions of Professional Army and the finisher.
I'm sure you guys are right that I was jumping to conclusions based on a game with a very powerful leader on King, but the game was so disappointingly easy that I had to vent!
I still stand by my opinion that we'd be better off with v108 puppets and AI bonuses, but will play more with current versions on higher difficulties and report back.
Txurce
Deity
Switching the order on Honor is a start, but lowering the amount of spoils may be what's needed.
Again, I agree with regard to puppets.
In terms of bonuses, I'm away for the weekend but will try a game on Emperor, my normal level, although I haven't played it for over a month now. That's where most of us play, and it's easiest there for me to determine balance (although Immortal was, again, surprisingly balanced in its challenge).
Again, I agree with regard to puppets.
In terms of bonuses, I'm away for the weekend but will try a game on Emperor, my normal level, although I haven't played it for over a month now. That's where most of us play, and it's easiest there for me to determine balance (although Immortal was, again, surprisingly balanced in its challenge).
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
There's two distinct things to consider:
AIs tend to have large gold reserves and do get a 50% reduction in upgrade costs, so if they refuse to upgrade their units, it's a hangup somewhere in their decision-making. Some of these variables are accessible so I'll search for anything regarding upgrade priorities. Some things I've done for the next beta are:
- Are the Tradition, Liberty, and Honor trees approximately equal in usefulness?
- Do players have an appropriate level of gold/happiness during conquest?
AIs tend to have large gold reserves and do get a 50% reduction in upgrade costs, so if they refuse to upgrade their units, it's a hangup somewhere in their decision-making. Some of these variables are accessible so I'll search for anything regarding upgrade priorities. Some things I've done for the next beta are:
- Honor finisher no longer improves defense buildings. This will reduce surplus happiness during conquest.
- Reduced the puppet state happiness bonus to 1
per city (was 1 + 0.25 * pop).
Txurce
Deity
I would answer Yes and No. Your adjustments to happiness seem appropriate to me. Let's see how they play out. Gold could still use a nerf, in my opinion, and what you suggest seems to hurt peaceful states as well. That's why I proposed nerfing Spoils of War.
Seek
Deity
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Thal, any thoughts on removing the food (and maybe production) penalty or increasing the gold penalty on puppets? Either way, the happiness changes look good.
Agree on all points, but I'm not sure how the changes could affect peaceful civs, could you elaborate?
Agree on all points, but I'm not sure how the changes could affect peaceful civs, could you elaborate?
Txurce
Deity
I interpreted "A more direct solution to excess gold/happiness during conquest would be to increase unit purchase & maintenance costs, and nerf puppet states" as meaning a tall, peaceful civ would also suffer from these nerfs. If Thal intends to solely reduce Honor/Autocracy bonuses to do this, then Im okay with it.
Thalassicus
Bytes and Nibblers
The reason I like a strong Professional Army is puppets are passive, while the policy is active. We have to defeat enemies to loot equipment for cash. This rewards skillful play from a person executing good strategy and tactics. Puppets just sit there giving us resources without requiring much interaction or effort. I try to reward active gameplay whenever possible.
If puppet gold output is reduced should they still have a gold focus? This is a question I've internally debated for several weeks without a definitive answer. Simply changing focus would reduce gold output, since the AI would assign citizens to different tiles. The reason I have not done so already is the realism angle. It's realistic for puppets to produce gold, but I think it'd work better for gameplay if puppets do not prioritize gold.
If puppet gold output is reduced should they still have a gold focus? This is a question I've internally debated for several weeks without a definitive answer. Simply changing focus would reduce gold output, since the AI would assign citizens to different tiles. The reason I have not done so already is the realism angle. It's realistic for puppets to produce gold, but I think it'd work better for gameplay if puppets do not prioritize gold.
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