v131.15 Beta

Thalassicus · Mar 12, 2012

A starting worker's usefulness depends if it replaces or adds to the starting warrior. So we can limit it there, or make other changes to compensate for the buff. I removed the Great Improvement bonus as an initial guess.

SgtCiv · Mar 12, 2012

Thal - I played a game as America yesterday and noticed that they do not receive the Eng slot from building a wall. I usually beeline the Liberty Tree in order to get the free wall in every city, plus that is the first Eng slot available in game and I select that as early as possible to speed-up getting an GE as soon as possible.

So, my question is, was this intended for the American Civ.?

Thalassicus · Mar 12, 2012

Thanks for pointing that out, it's a bug.

pthmix · Mar 12, 2012

(Hope it's ok to post here already, I'm new

)

I'm using a tree growth mod which makes Hiawatha a lot more fun imo and feels good with other civs, too. (Hey, a forest just popped up! I should keep it because I have almost no production here. Although... I really want that Great Library. Hmm...) Could be a nice addition to VEM.

How about making the specialist boosting policies more unique? I.e. +x Golden Age Points from Artists after Free Religion (nice synergy with Darius(cultural win with a wide empire?)), + x% Science from RAs with Scientists, +x% Gold from Open Borders with Merchants? Not quite sure though whether this would benefit wide empires with specialists more than tall ones.

(hope I didn't make to many mistakes, Englisch is not my native language

)

Thalassicus · Mar 12, 2012

Welcome to CivFanatics, pthmix! :goodjob:

Adding or removing forests/jungles/marshes would be a great opportunity for economic development. I plan to continue expanding the opportunities system with ideas like that once I have access to the game again.

You've got good ideas for ways to make the specialist policies more interesting. Each of those ideas should be easy to accomplish. Even if it doesn't go directly on a specialist policy, it could be an effect of some other policy.

Txurce · Mar 12, 2012

Thalassicus said:
You've got good ideas for ways to make the specialist policies more interesting.

Second that.

Txurce · Mar 13, 2012

Do you realize the eyes of all VEM-dom are on you? How's the alpha testing going? Care to share any early editorial comment on all the work Thal did?

This is our version of the G&K release drumbeat!

Seek · Mar 13, 2012

Thalassicus said:
Welcome to CivFanatics, pthmix!

Adding or removing forests/jungles/marshes would be a great opportunity for economic development. I plan to continue expanding the opportunities system with ideas like that once I have access to the game again.

You've got good ideas for ways to make the specialist policies more interesting. Each of those ideas should be easy to accomplish. Even if it doesn't go directly on a specialist policy, it could be an effect of some other policy.

I agree, Pthmix's ideas are excellent and I could see using them in Freedom (and potentially make the tree more exciting)! There seems to be some consensus that the proposed Freedom tree - specifically the opener, Constitution and Green Revolution - is somewhat underwhelming. Some other ideas:

A Great Wall-type effect in place of the city strength modifier (would probably need to be later in the tree than the opener)
Bring the +50% from Trade Routes back in (I liked it and was sad to see it go)
-10% (or more!) in cities over 10 (like the effect in the vanilla Tradition tree)
+1% per population
Move the Artist/Landmark buff here from Piety - it's more flavorful and since the bonus to Artists will be doubled it will mitigate any potential skewing of culture balance.
Shift Green Revolution to +1 and +1 on farms.

The finisher is fantastic, but perhaps we should alter the Heroic Epic in some way to allow it's effect to be doubled by the SP (and make it more worth building early/overall)? Some ideas:

Grant +1 happiness for each city conquered (I like this one the best )
Give a production bonus when producing units
Grant some other yield bonus to Barracks (+1 or 2 gold comes to mind first, to help alleviate the burden of building barracks in most cities, but culture or something else could work too)

Of course we can remove or lower the Morale bonus if necessary.
_______________

I like the Forest Growth mod as well, and wish it was still supported.

Txurce said:
This is our version of the G&K release drumbeat!

Well, almost! :mischief:

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I'm still testing the new GS formula, and should have something soon.

Txurce · Mar 13, 2012

Seek said:
The finisher is fantastic, but perhaps we should alter the Heroic Epic in some way to allow it's effect to be doubled by the SP (and make it more worth building early/overall)? Some ideas:

Grant +1 happiness for each city conquered (I like this one the best )

Give a production bonus when producing units

Grant some other yield bonus to Barracks (+1 or 2 gold comes to mind first, to help alleviate the burden of building barracks in most cities, but culture or something else could work too)

Of course we can remove or lower the Morale bonus if necessary.

I like your first list. Are you saying the list I'm quoting are potential changes to the HE, to work in conjunction with the Freedom finisher? If so, I like the first two the best.

Zaldron · Mar 13, 2012

With regards to the +50% from trade routes it's interesting in principle, but note that after the nerfs, I believe in a recent game about 40 of my ~700-800 gold income came from trade routes, making that a ridiculously weak policy. I hope I remember the numbers wrong.

Seek · Mar 13, 2012

Txurce said:
Are you saying the list I'm quoting are potential changes to the HE, to work in conjunction with the Freedom finisher? If so, I like the first two the best.

Yep. The production bonus is kind of boring, so I hope that the first is possible.

Zaldron said:
With regards to the +50% from trade routes it's interesting in principle, but note that after the nerfs, I believe in a recent game about 40 of my ~700-800 gold income came from trade routes, making that a ridiculously weak policy. I hope I remember the numbers wrong.

Indeed, in my most recent game I didn't even break even with road/harbor maintenance until the Industrial era! The numbers can be tweaked (100%, etc.), it's more the principal of it that I like - if you're planning a tall empire with limited cities it could make settling a little farther from your capital more enticing. I could see this effect working well in Commerce as well.

Zaldron · Mar 13, 2012

Seek said:
Indeed, in my most recent game I didn't even break even with road/harbor maintenance until the Industrial era! The numbers can be tweaked (100%, etc.), it's more the principal of it that I like - if you're planning a tall empire with limited cities it could make settling a little farther from your capital more enticing. I could see this effect working well in Commerce as well.

Distance has nothing to do with trade route income though, only the capital and destination city populations. Or did that change?

Txurce · Mar 13, 2012

Seek said:
Indeed, in my most recent game I didn't even break even with road/harbor maintenance until the Industrial era!

In this scenario, the only point to having roads would be to have a more mobile military; if you have addressed defense some other way (or choose to ignore it altogether), why build roads at all until late?

Doesn't this seem to fall well outside the range of "harder but still fun"?

Wouldn't it make sense to nerf the later, greater sources of gold, but not basic empire-building ones like trade routes?

Seek · Mar 13, 2012

Zaldron said:
Distance has nothing to do with trade route income though, only the capital and destination city populations. Or did that change?

It didn't change, distance is a factor because of maintenance costs and defense, as Txurce pointed out. So I guess the maintenance cost reduction in Commerce already exists playing at the same outcome through a different method.

Txurce said:
In this scenario, the only point to having roads would be to have a more mobile military; if you have addressed defense some other way (or choose to ignore it altogether), why build roads at all until late?

Roads played an important role in that game for both offense and defense because my unit production city was right next to my cap and I settled some fairly distant cities near Napoleon (so I absolutely *had* to maintain a military presence there

) as well as waged an offensive war against the Aztecs. I was also flanked by Persia and the Iroquois, but luckily I was on friendly terms with them for much of the game. Right now I'm recovering from their "sneak attack" dogpile and will start pushing on them - they are the tech leaders and the only obstacle in my path to Alpha Centauri!

Doesn't this seem to fall well outside the range of "harder but still fun"?

Wouldn't it make sense to nerf the later, greater sources of gold, but not basic empire-building ones like trade routes?

I agree, but am not too strongly opposed to the Trade Route nerf because gold balance is much better now in the current beta! If I had been able to grow my capital in the earlier eras I would have been better off wrt TR income, but with limited happiness and employing my capital's pop as Scientists or on production tiles I wasn't able to in this instance.

Thalassicus · Mar 13, 2012

Txurce said:
In this scenario, the only point to having roads would be to have a more mobile military; if you have addressed defense some other way (or choose to ignore it altogether), why build roads at all until late?

If we connect our 10 :c5citizen:

capital to a new 5 :c5citizen:

city using 5 tiles of roads, we have the following effects:

-5/turn cost (-50% with the Guilds commerce policy).
+5/turn income.
+1 with Representation liberty policy.
+25% with Railroads tech.
Double weight for citystate yield distribution.
Units can move much faster, especially through rough terrain.

I often want to focus citystate food or culture into a newly-founded city to get it up and running quickly. Connecting the city for the double CS yield weight is very helpful in that situation. This is the basic :c5gold:

from connecting a trade route:

(2 + 0.15*capital + 0.25*target)

Another way to read this is what # of roads we can connect a city without losing gold. Harbors cost 3 :c5gold:

/turn so the income always pays for the maintenance.

Here's the old values. If you look at the left columns, you can see the benefit of connecting a new low-pop city is actually better than before.

Txurce · Mar 13, 2012

Thalassicus said:
If we connect our 15 capital to a new 5 city using 5 tiles of roads, we have the following effects:

-5/turn cost (-50% with the Guilds commerce policy).

+5/turn income.

+1 with Representation liberty policy.

+25% with Railroads tech.

Double weight for citystate yield distribution.

Units can move much faster, especially through rough terrain.

Since I often want to channel citystate food or culture into a newly-founded city, connecting the city for the higher yield weight is very helpful. This is the basic income from connecting a trade route:

Another way to read this table is what #roads we can connect a city without losing gold. Harbors cost 3/turn so if our capital is at least size 8, the maintenance cost is always paid for by the trade income.

That's a very helpful explanation, and chart.

Assuming I'm going the Tradition/Patronage/Enlightenment route, pre-RR I'm getting a CS yield benefit and a more mobile military. There is definitely value there, although it's still disconcerting when I think of a four-city civ spread along a peninsula, with each city intended to cover a lot of tiles (as they tend to in tall empires).

Out of curiosity, what is the % reduction in income from the trade gold nerf?

Thalassicus · Mar 13, 2012

I've added a second table to answer your question.

Txurce · Mar 13, 2012

Thalassicus said:
I've added a second table to answer your question.

Thanks, Thal - I was too polite to ask. The difference where it counts is small enough that any needed adjustment in gold income wouldn't necessarily have to come from here.

Thalassicus · Mar 13, 2012

It takes just a few minutes to create tables like these, because I have a lot of experience with spreadsheets.

Seek, I've replied to your post in the Universal Policy Trees thread since our discussion is basically a continuation of that one.

Jaybe · Mar 13, 2012

Re Trade Routes, color me :confused:

.
From the v131.14 Trade Route tool tip: 1g base, .05g per capital pop, 0.25g per city pop.

From that, a city of pop 4 and capital of 20 would result in TR of 1+1+1=3, not 5 as per the table.
OTOH, a 20 pop city with 31 pop capital is getting 10.65 TR per the F2, as opposed to the tool tip calculation of 7.55.

Did I miss a change in the v131.15 changes, or is the F2 or tool tip not to be trusted?

v131.15 Beta

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Deity

Deity

Deity

Deity

King

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Deity

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